Whip it. Whip it good.
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Many in the media, including on National Public Radio, have already reported as fact that the Border patrol agents were “whipping” migrants in the now familiar pictures. However, critics and agents have objected that the media is using still pictures and not the video that shows agents using their long reins to control the horses who were jittery near the water’s edge with people around them. The photographer himself says that the still photos are misleading and that he did not see any agent whipping any migrant.
Nevertheless, the call for an investigation was the right move particularly after Democratic leaders and Vice President Kamala Harris objected to the images as reminiscent the abuse of slavery.
Biden however announced both findings as well as the intended punishment before the investigation reached any conclusions:
“To see people treated like they did, horses barely running over, people being strapped – it’s outrageous. I promise you, those people will pay. There will be an investigation underway now and there will be consequences. There will be consequences.”
Presidents long resisted pressure to get them to comment on pending cases or investigations to avoid charges of undue influence or bias in the results. This is one such case. It was wrong for Biden to say what he did in promising punishment for agents before any investigation is complete. It sends a message to investigators about the expected conclusions of their work. It also suggests that a finding of no whipping or wrongdoing would contradict the President and would not be supported by the White House. That could present serious career issues for investigators. It is unfair to the agents. It is unfair to the investigators and it undermines the integrity of the investigation.
You cannot promise agents a fair and unbiased investigation when the President has already declared that they strapped migrants and will be punished. That is why Biden’s comments were clearly inappropriate and he should publicly withdraw them in the interests of preserving a fair process for all involved in this controversy.
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The Resident probably doesn't remember making those comments.
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The Age of Progressive Misinformation
Despite the haze of misinformation, the fact-checkers didn’t descend en masse. No Twitter accounts were suspended. All the people who pride themselves on purportedly defending American democracy from falsehoods and propaganda spreading on social media (and there’s unquestionably a lot of it) stood aside or joined the pile-on.
Press outfits went out of their way to label falsehoods promulgated by President Trump as such. Indeed, they gave every indication that they relished doing it.
In contrast, the New York Times story about Biden castigating the agents didn’t suggest that he might be wrong. In fact, the original version of the article reinforced his smear by referring to “the images of agents on horseback chasing, and in some cases using the reins of their horses to strike at running migrants.” The paper had to run a correction.
It has long been the case on college campuses that woke narratives have the power to trample facts and fairness. This phenomenon has escaped the confines of academe and now plays out at the highest echelons of American political power. Neither hacks on Twitter nor the president of the United States cared what really happened at Del Rio, not when the lie was more seductive and useful.
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According to the newly released emails, Department of Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was aware the popular narrative that Border Patrol agents whipped a group of Haitian migrants was false hours before he declared the incident “horrific” during a White House press conference. One of Mayorkas’s staffers sent him an email less than three hours before the press conference relaying the account of photographer Paul Ratje, who took the viral photos and said the salacious account of what happened was false.
“I’ve never seen them whip anyone,” Ratje said in a quote provided to Mayorkas. “He [Border Patrol agent] was swinging it [reins] but it can be misconstrued when you’re looking at the picture.”
Rather than using the information he was provided to correct the narrative, Mayorkas perpetuated the media’s misleading account of the incident by suggesting that something requiring investigation had occurred.
“I want to assure you that we are addressing this with tremendous speed and tremendous force,” Mayorkas said at the time. “The facts will drive the action we take.”
“The investigation will be all-encompassing; we will not cut a single corner,” he vowed.
Prominent Democrats, including President Biden himself, uncritically regurgitated the media’s account of the incident.
“It was horrible to see what you saw, to see people treated like they did—horses barely running them over and people being strapped,” Biden said at the time. “It’s outrageous. I promise you those people will pay…. There will be consequences. It’s an embarrassment. But beyond an embarrassment it’s dangerous, it’s wrong.” Similar rhetoric was echoed by Vice President Kamala Harris noting it reminded her of the “times of slavery.”
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I'm sure there are good people on both sides.
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Why was Al Sharpton on the list?
After closing its investigation of a false allegation that Border Patrol agents whipped Haitian migrants in Texas in September 2021, Justice Department officials didn’t notify the targets of the probe—and opted to say little to the media about the once-hyped matter.
But department officials did want to notify Al Sharpton.
Emails obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project discovered the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division closed the matter on March 11, 2022. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
The Border Patrol agents who were falsely accused of whipping weren’t notified that day.
A message on March 10, 2022, from Aryele Bradford of the DOJ’s Office of Public Affairs to Justice Department colleagues suggested who Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke should notify about the department’s decision not to prosecute the case.
“Below is a list of stakeholders that AAG Clarke could connect with on this matter,” Bradford wrote. The list included “National Action Network: Al Sharpton.”
The list also included staffers from other liberal activist organizations, such as the Haitian Bridge Alliance, ACLU Texas, the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, and the UnDocuBlack Network.
That same email said, “Attached is a draft press release from [Civil Rights Division] with a signoff from [the U.S. Attorney’s Office]. Please provide your edits. Below is a list of stakeholders that AAG Clarke could connect with on this matter.”
It's almost as though they had an agenda.
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Mayorkas: No apology.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday met privately with the horseback agents who were falsely accused of "whipping" Haitian migrants in 2021 – but sources say there was no apology from Mayorkas for the administration’s handling of the controversy.
Multiple Border Patrol sources told Fox News that Mayorkas met privately with the agents during his visit to the Del Rio Sector. Those agents were involved in an incident in Sept. 2021 when they were dealing with a surge of more than 10,000 migrants predominantly from Haiti.
"I promise you, those people will pay," he said of the agents. "There will be an investigation underway now and there will be consequences. There will be consequences."
A lengthy CBP investigation would ultimately confirm that there were no whips and no whipping, although it would fault the agents for allegedly using "denigrating and offensive" language against migrants regarding national origin and gender, and of having maneuvered a horse around a child in an "unsafe manner." Agents were also said to have used "unnecessary use of force" to drive the migrants back.
The incident proved to be a low point for relations between the administration and the Border Patrol – who were already dealing with a historic migrant crisis still ongoing today. Former Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz had backed his agents and Fox reported how he had fumed over the administration’s failure to come out in support of them.
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Too little.
Zero is less than too little.
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Still no apology from the White House, but...
One of the Border Patrol agents falsely accused of whipping migrants at the border in Texas and chastized by president Biden himself, has now been given an award by the same government.
The agent — whose name has been withheld since the September 2021 incident to protect his identity — received a Border Patrol Achievement award from the agency Thursday morning, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) source told The Post.
The agent was recognized for his intelligence work on human smuggling cases, they added.
The agent was one of the five photographed on horseback during the incident, where they were accused of whipping Haitian migrants at the riverbank in Del Rio, Texas, while trying to control members of a crowd of roughly 14,000 people crossing into the US illegally.
The pictures were widely misinterpreted, with President Biden calling them “outrageous” and saying of the agents, “I promise you those people will pay.”
A DHS source told The Post: “I find it hilarious and ridiculous that almost three years later, a Border Patrol agent who was accused of being racist and so vilified by this Biden administration now wins an achievement award for his efforts in preventing smuggling, before he gets a public apology.”
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) conducted a thorough internal investigation into the incident, which concluded that none of the Haitians were harmed during the altercation and noted the agents did not carry whips or strike anyone with the reins of their horses.
The probe, however, did determine that the agents used “unnecessary” force against the migrants, with one agent using “denigrating and inappropriate language” and maneuvering his horse “unsafely” at the time.
I wonder who determined that the horse was being maneuvered "unsafely." Probably some guy who rides a desk, not a horse.
