BACK HOME FOR GRINER

 

                                              BY BILL JUNEAU

                                                                 Busted in Russia as a "pot head" who hid illegal drugs in her luggage, Brittney Griner is back home in the USA.  The six-foot, nine-inch WNBA super star was released December 8 from a Russian jail  after spending some 294 days there for violating Russia's law against use and possession of happy drugs, many of which are legal in the United States. 

                                           Griner was deplaning in Russia last February 17 with plans to rejoin a team with whom she plays during the WNBA off-season when she was arrested.  A sniffer dog alerted Russian security that illegal drugs were in her suitcase. Search revealed a vape cartridge containing hashish oil. Subsequently, she was tried in a court, found guilty and sentenced to nine years in prison.   

                                          There has been both applause and criticism of the Biden deal by which Russia released the 32-year- old basketball star and two-time Olympic gold medal winner, in an exchange deal. For Griner, the USA sent back to the Kremlin, Viktor Bout, a high level criminal and operative for Vladimir Putin, known as the "Merchant of Death." 

                                           GOP leader in the House,  Kevin McCarthy, who will become speaker next month, criticized the exchange as a "gift" to President Putin.  Sen. Rick Scott of Florida characterized the Biden promoted deal as “weak & disgusting” ....and a "bitter pill to swallow." 

                                           Former President Trump weighed in on the exchange: "What kind of a deal is it to swap Brittney Griner, a basketball player who openly hates our country, for the man known as ‘The Merchant of Death,'" Trump posted.  "The Biden deal will forever be known as a stupid and unpatriotic embarrassment for the United States." 

                                         In prison for nearly 20 years, Bout was serving a 25-year sentence for weapon trafficking and conspiratorial activity aimed at murdering Americans. He has been described by Pentagon officials as one of the "most dangerous men on the planet." 

                                          Russia continues to hold inside its grimy  gulags an ex-Marine, Paul Whelan, who has served four years of a 16 year sentence for "espionage."  President Biden has been under enormous pressure from African American women to make a deal which would bring the gay Griner home to her wife, it was reported.

                                         Illegal drug possession in Russia is a crime enumerated in its criminal code.  While Griner's nine year sentence appears to Americans to be excessive, Russians apparently do not think so.  They regard illegal drug use as serious offenses, much in the same way that the United States once dealt with the sale and use of illegal "get happy" drugs.  The allegations of "espionage" lodged and prosecuted against the 52-year-old Whelan, are deemed by Whelan and American officials to be Russian fiction.  "I  have no idea why I am in prison," says Whelan. "I am not a spy and I  committed no crime in Russia where I had gone for a wedding."    

                                        Whelan was arrested in December, 2018, in a Moscow hotel room.  He was employed as corporate security director at Borg Warner, a Michigan automotive parts supplier. 

                                          A spokesman for President Biden has said that America pressed for a deal by which both the towering basketball star and the ex-marine would be repatriated and brought home in exchange for Viktor Bout.  Russian officials said that both could be returned to the USA, but only so long as the USA arranged for the additional release of Col. Vadim Krasikov from a German prison where he is serving a life sentence for murder. Otherwise, only one American prisoner would be released in exchange for Viktor Bout.  

                                          Germany declined to release Col. Krasikov and President Biden said that he  had no authority over the German prisoner.  In the end, the Biden preference for release of the African American Griner, who in the past has upbraided the USA as an uncaring racist nation, overshadowed the concern to bring home the marine veteran falsely accused of being a spy. Whelan, who had served tours in Iraq,  has been behind bars for four years in a Russian prison.    

                                         Griner has complained of the  social injustices and racism in the USA.  At WNBA games, the super star has declined to appear on the court while the national anthem was being played.  In interviews she has said that the anthem has no meaning since it originated at a time when the country was intense in its disdain for people of color.  Griner  takes her cues from the former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick who called for kneeling at the playing of the national anthem as a demonstration of the mistreatment of blacks by racist America.                                           

                                         Stupid deals are not uncommon when orchestrated by Obama and the confused Joe Biden.  In 2014,  President Obama, and Vice President Joe Biden, now President Biden, inked an exchange deal with the bloodthirsty Taliban regime which brought home army deserter Bowe Bergdahl, who had been held by the Taliban for five years following his surrender to it during war with Afghanistan. Former President Trump had called Bergdahl a traitor.

                                        In exchange for Bergdahl, Obama and Biden approved the release of five Islamic terrorists from their cells in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The five notorious killers of Americans promptly returned to the battlefield in Afghanistan.  Following the inept American pullout from that country last year, the five were placed in high positions in the "new" Taliban government.   

     

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MAYORKAS' DAYS MAY BE NUMBERED

\                                   BY BILL JUNEAU

                      Alejandro Mayorkas, the 63-year-old Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in the United States, maintains a stone face as he asserts that "Yes, the southern border of the United States is secure."  

                      "We are working day-in and day-out to enhance that security," he told Rep. Daniel Bishop during a recent congressional  hearing.  The North Carolina Republican advised Mayorkas that he  is a sure-fire candidate for impeachment in the coming year.  

                       Speaking with noticeable pride and aplomb, the shiny-headed and slow-speaking Cuban- born Mayorkas told a congressional committee that, in addition to providing security at the Tex-Mexican border, we have scrubbed the word "alien" from all Homeland Security and government paperwork.  Immigrants, he said, are now referred to as "non-citizens."   Canceling of the word "alien," he explained, was done in an effort to demonstrate our respect for the new residents.  

                       In the nearly two full years of the Biden and Mayorkas leadership, some 2.4 million aliens or "non citizens" have taken up residence in the United States. In the ranks of the "non-citizens" are criminals and drug pushers who have brought huge amounts of fentanyl, heroin and other illegal narcotics onto American shores.  Fentanyl deaths in the USA have hit a staggering number, as constitutional mandates are being ignored. 

                      After fording the Rio Grande and dodging agents on horseback, or sneaking in through dense bushes and around rocks, and after being driven to the border by Mexican cartels, the interlopers are put up in upscale hotels and army barracks, and subsequently  bused or flown to requested destinations in various states--all at government expense.  

                       Abortions are arranged for pregnant women desiring them.  Others wishing to keep their babies are taken to hospitals for deliveries.  Newborns immediately become American citizens, and are given shelter and all necessary care. Parents and relatives of the new citizen are tethered to the infant, and government assistance is provided to the burgeoning families.  

                        No question but that Mayorkas takes his cues from President Biden who appointed him to head Homeland Security and to be his mastermind over its 340,000 employees, and the nation's borders; and to be on guard in detecting foreign and domestic threats.  

                        President Biden recently visited the border state of Arizona, but told reporters that he saw no reason to take a first hand look at the roaring border waters of the Rio Grande river as thousands pour daily on to American soil.  Asked why he has never visited the busy border to see for himself what is going on there, the stuttering and bumbling President was dismissive of the idea.  "Other things are more important," he responded.  

                         An Arizona sheriff commented that Biden's conduct was a disgrace, noting that recently it has been calculated that  18,000 immigrants are entering the USA on a daily basis.

                        Mayorkas' under-oath testimony before Congress is incredible.  Politics aside, is he operating under a Biden-induced fog, or is he simply obtuse and incompetent? Or

 is he just a complete liar?  Does he meet with the president who appointed him, and do they chat about the Homeland Security department's mission, or do they just lick their ice cream cones and discuss climate change.  

                         In the November midterm elections, Republicans became the majority in the People's House in Congress, while Democrats retained their control of the Senate.  

                         Kevin McCarthy, a California congressman with the GOP, is slated to become the speaker of the 435 member House of Representatives and he has given notice that removing Mayorkas from office via an impeachment is on his to- do list. 

                        "I’m calling on Secretary Mayorkas to resign,” McCarthy said at an appearance in El Paso, Texas, on Nov. 22.   “He cannot and must not remain in that position. If Secretary Mayorkas does not resign, House Republicans will investigate every order, every action, and every failure" for impeachment action. 

                          Mayorkas has been a go-to Democrat for many years, having served as a United States attorney from California under President Clinton; and Director of Citizenship and Immigration Services,  and deputy director of Homeland Security under President Obama.  He came to America with his parents after the Cuban revolution.  He is a graduate of the Loyola law school in Los Angeles.  

                           In September of last year, Mayorkas pushed the idea of creating a "Disinformation Working Group," which would assist the department in banning rhetoric which it judged to be improper and threatening to the United States.  The plan was said to please President Biden. Nevertheless, three weeks after the proposal went public, it was  identified as a "violation of free speech" and quietly scrapped.  

                           In 2021, Mayorkas  promoted the allegation that  border agents on horseback had whipped Haitians crossing the Rio Grande while trying to climb onto the American shore. President Biden promised that the cruel agents "will pay" for their "outrageous" conduct.  Following a  ten month investigation, the agents were cleared of misconduct after it was determined that the horse riders were simply maneuvering in the water using the reins on their horses. 

                           Though cleared of all wrongdoing, Mayorkas had the agents disciplined finding that they had used "harsh rhetoric,"  in deterring entry into the United States. Mayorkas' department found that use of the rhetoric constituted "unnecessary force" and merited punishment. The non-citizens were offended, according to the Homeland report, because a horsemen  told a Haitian that "he should go back to his 'shit' of a country."

                          One observer of  how "non-citizens" are being treated to luxuries which most Americans cannot afford, has noted that it is kind of an incentive to leave the country, sneak back in and take the gifts.  For sure, there would be no worry of ever getting caught.  

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