On Friday, March 11th, Donald Trump will be holding a campaign rally at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago. This is a STUDENT-LED event dedicated to gathering a large group of people regardless of race, gender, religion, sexuality, political affiliation, etc. to unite in solidarity AGAINST the Donald Trump campaign and its presence at Chicago and at UIC. UPDATES:We will be meeting as a collective at 4:30PM at the UIC East Campus Quad to start our protest! We have decided to push our meeting time back half an hour from the original time of 5PM. We will then make our way to the Pavilion in solidarity. Instead, we will aim to be at the Pavilion by 5PM. We apologize for the sudden change, and sincerely hope that it doe...s not alter your plan to support this cause. Update everyone you know who plans to attend about our starting location! Map of the location is in the image below and circled in red.**Buying tickets and then not showing up WILL NOT BE EFFECTIVE. The Pavilion will be filled with overflow crowd if people with tickets do not show up. Make sure to spread this as well.**For those of you able to get tickets to the event, we are not responsible for the actions you take with your ticket. If you would like assistance from us in order to uphold our message and protect your safety, please feel free to message us and we will be making the proper connections as needed in the near future. If you got a ticket and would like to attend the actual Trump Rally, get there early! His website says doors open at 3PM and we're sure others will be there even earlier than that.The safety of everyone either at the rally or part of our efforts is our top priority. Several measures will be taken to ensure this is upheld.Get your tickets for the event here!https://www.eventbrite.com/e/donald-j-trump-in-chicago-il-tickets-22576886074Here's a petition to show our discontent with this rally being held at the UIC Pavilion:http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/cancel-trumps-rally-at?source=c.tw&r_by=14230783Reasons for protesting:-Trump has called for the complete and total shutdown of all Muslims entering the United States. He has claimed that Islam and Muslims are hateful and terrorists and must be barred entrance until he decides otherwise.-Trump has generalized the entire Mexican immigrant community as criminals and rapists. He calls for the mass deportation of 11 million adults and children alike regardless of how long they have lived in the United States. He also calls for the building of a giant wall to separate us from our long-time allies in Mexico.-Trump has advocated FOR war crimes such as but not limited to torture-interrogation, mass murder as a warning, the intentional murder of entire civilian families, and the indiscriminatory bombing of countries in the Middle East.-Trump has consistently refused to disavow and condemn the white supremacist hate groups such as the KKK that support and work for his campaign.-Trump has preyed on the fears of poor and middle class whites while at the same time not offering any policies that would support them in overcoming the very serious and real challenges that they also face in America. -Trump's nativist, nationalist, and fascist stances parallel the most evil leaders this world has seen such as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. -Trump shows a childlike temperament that would jeopardize our national security and potentially start unnecessary conflicts.There are surely many other reasons that one may choose to condemn Trump's campaign. All are valid and acknowledged. The list grows with every passing day...Trump has been known to provoke and encourage violence towards protesters in the past. Past protests have seen individuals be spit on, kicked, hit, shoved, and assaulted in various other ways. With that being said, our strength will lie both in our numbers and our ability to show these Trump supporters a higher class of behavior. We do not condone and will condemn any physical contact with supporters attending the rally; please keep your hands and items to yourself. Our goal must be to show the attendees the empathy, acceptance, and love that we strive to see in the world. Keep any signs and chants aimed at Trump and his campaign, instead of individual supporters.If you are part of an organization either at UIC or in Chicago that would like to connect with us, please message the "Stop Trump 2016 - Chicago" page!Facebook .com/stoptrumpchicago**DISCLAIMER**UIC is is no way connected to Trump campaign nor this event. This page and its admins are in no way responsible for the actions of everyone that attends this Rally either as a Trump supporter or an ally in our efforts. See More

CHICAGO (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump canceled one of his signature rallies on Friday, calling off the event in Chicago due to safety concerns after protesters packed into the arena where it was to take place. The announcement that the billionaire businessman would postpone the rally until another day led a large portion of the crowd inside the University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion to break out into raucous cheers. Meanwhile, supporters of the candidate started chanting "We want Trump! We want Trump!" There were isolated physical confrontations between some members of the crowd after the event was canceled. There was no sign of Trump inside the arena on the college campus, where dozens of UIC faculty and staff had petitioned university administrators to cancel the rally. They cited concerns it would create a "hostile and physically dangerous environment" for students. Before the announcement the event wouldn't take place, a handful of intense verbal clashes took place between Trump supporters and protesters as the crowd waited for his arrival. For the first time during his White House bid, the crowd appeared to be an equal mix of those eager to cheer on the real estate mogul and those overtly opposed to his candidacy. When one African-American protester was escorted out before the event started, the crowd erupted into chants of "Let them stay!" Veronica Kowalkowsky, an 18-year-old Trump supporter, said before the event started that she had no ill will toward the protesters — but didn't think they felt the same way. "I feel a lot of hate," she said. "I haven't said anything bad to anyone." Hours before the event was scheduled to start, hundreds of people lined up outside the arena at the University of Illinois at Chicago — a civil and immigrant rights organizing hub with large minority student populations. Trump backers were separated from an equally large crowd of anti-Trump protesters by a heavy police presence and barricades. Some Trump supporters walking into the area chanted, "USA! USA!" and "Illegal is illegal." One demonstrator shouted back, "Racist!" One protester, 64-year-old Dede Rottman of Chicago, carried a placard that read: "Build a Wall Around Trump. I'll Pay for it." However, 19-year-old Rusty Shackleford of Lombard, in line to attend the Trump rally, said he was there to "support the man who wants to make America great again." Chicago community activist Quo Vadis said hundreds of protesters had positioned themselves in groups around the arena, and that they intend to demonstrate right after Trump takes the stage. Their goal, he said, is "for Donald to take the stage and to completely interrupt him. The plan is to shut Donald Trump all the way down." ___ Follow Jill Colvin on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/colvinj

AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Latest on campaign 2016 (all times Eastern Standard Time): 7:36 p.m. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has cancelled a rally in Chicago, calling off the event due to safety concerns after protesters packed into the arena where it was to take place. The announcement that Trump would postpone the rally for another day led the crowd inside the University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion to break out into raucous cheers. Meanwhile, supporters of the candidate broke out into chants of "We want Trump! We want Trump!" There was no sign of Trump inside the arena on the college campus, where dozens of UIC faculty and staff had petitioned university administrators to cancel the rally. They cited concerns it would create a "hostile and physically dangerous environment" for students. --- 6:55 p.m. Donald Trump supporters and protesters alike have packed into an arena on the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago for an evening rally with the Republican candidate for president. Many of those who were waiting in line to get into the Friday night event identified themselves as protesters. UIC student G.J. Pryor said he wanted to disrupt Trump's speech, adding he would only do so if he felt safe. Some Trump supporters walking toward the arena chanted, "USA! USA!" and "Illegal is illegal." One demonstrator shouted back, "Racist!" There's a heavy police presence outside the rally, with barricades and mounted police keeping most protesters and Trump supporters apart. Trump supporter Veronica Kowalkowsky says she has no ill will toward the protesters. But the 18-year-old says she has felt their ill will, adding: "I feel a lot of hate. I haven't said anything bad to anyone." --- 6:30 p.m. President Barack Obama is laying into Republicans and their front-runner for the presidential nomination, saying they've allowed the race to devolve into "fantasy and schoolyard taunts and selling stuff like it's the Home Shopping Network." At a Democratic fundraiser in Austin, Texas, Obama taunted Donald Trump as "the guy who was sure that I was born in Kenya!" Obama hasn't endorsed a Democratic successor and isn't expected to campaign broadly until the summer. Still, he seemed ready. The president was unscripted and loose in front of the boisterous crowd of young Democratic contributors. He revived a critique of the GOP he offered earlier in the week, only this time with more bite. Obama dismissed the idea that he is to blame for the current political climate: "The notion is, Obama drove us crazy. What they really mean is their reaction to me was crazy and now it has gotten out of hand." --- 4:30 p.m. Hillary Clinton apologized Friday after gay-rights and AIDS activists assailed her for saying Nancy Reagan helped start a "national conversation" about AIDS in the 1980s. At the time, protesters were struggling to get more federal help in fighting the disease. Clinton, one of two contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, made her initial comments in an interview with MSNBC during its coverage of Nancy Reagan's funeral. After the outcry, she apologized on her Twitter account, saying she "misspoke" about the Reagans' record on AIDS. Many activists remain bitter at Ronald Reagan and his administration for what they view as a devastatingly slow response to AIDS. Though initial reports of the disease surfaced in 1981, President Reagan did not make his first public speech about it until 1987. --- 2:42 p.m. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump says he "doesn't quite get" why some people preferred the more mellow performance he delivered in Thursday's debate. The billionaire businessman left his usual barbs and personal insults behind at the debate in Miami. He says he told himself ahead of time he wasn't going to talk about "Lying Ted," his nickname for rival Ted Cruz. But Trump told a rally in St. Louis on Friday that the other Trump is more exciting. He says: "Last night on the debate - I don't quite get this - I got these phenomenal reviews, right? Because I was, like, nice. But isn't the other more like exciting? Don't we like the other better?" Trump's rally was repeatedly interrupted by protesters. --- 2:15 p.m. Protesters are roiling a Donald Trump rally in St. Louis, repeatedly interrupting the Republican candidate for president as he seeks to speak at a rally ahead of Tuesday's elections in Missouri and four other states. Trump says, "these are not the people who made our country great." He's complimenting the police and security officers who are escorting the protesters out of the rally at the city's Peabody Opera House. Trump says the media is focusing too much on the protests that interrupt his rallies, and not enough on "the love that's in these rooms." But he adds, "this is more exciting that having a speech." The billionaire says he'll still deliver his speech, but it will just take a little bit longer. --- 1:15 p.m. A large crowd is turning out for a Donald Trump rally in St. Louis, the first public campaign event for the Republican presidential front-runner since one of the billionaire's supporters was charged with punching a protester at a Wednesday rally. The line waiting to get into Friday's lunchtime rally at the city's Peabody Opera House circled several blocks. Most were turned away - the theater holds just 3,100 people. Dozens of city police officers stood at various points in the line. Others watched from rooftops of neighboring buildings. Several protesters marched outside, mostly in an area confined behind a makeshift fence. Some exchanged shouts with Trump supporters. Trump is seeking support ahead of Missouri's presidential primary on Tuesday. Rival Ted Cruz is speaking at a rally Saturday in the St. Louis County town of Ballwin. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton also is holding a St. Louis rally on Saturday. --- 1:00 p.m. Donald Trump boasts that he can win the Hispanic vote in a general election and next week, he faces his first major test in the winner-take-all primary in Florida, a highly contentious swing state with a large and diverse population of Latino voters. His tough stance on illegal immigration plays well among Florida's more conservative Latinos. Many Cuban-Americans, especially, view illegal immigration through the same lens as many of their white Republican peers who see immigration as an achievement, not as a right, that shouldn't be taken for granted by those who come to America illegally. For that reason, Trump has surged in the polls ahead of this crucial contest, even as two Cuban-Americans - Florida's own Sen. Marco Rubio, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz - look to use their heritage in their favor. For Rubio especially, who has collected only two wins so far - one of them in Puerto Rico - Florida's all-or-nothing contest could be his campaign's swan song if he doesn't win. --- 12:15 p.m. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz hedged on a question about whether former-rival-turned-supporter Carly Fiorina would be on his vice presidential short list if he gets the nomination. Cruz was joined onstage at a forum in Orlando Friday by Fiorina and Fox News television host Sean Hannity. Fiorina endorsed Cruz this week. Cruz praised Fiorina but didn't directly answer a question from Hannity about whether Fiorina would be his pick for a running mate. Meanwhile, Fiorina said front-runner Donald Trump needs to "man up" and not complain about the number of debates in the presidential primary race. Trump said after Thursday's debate that there had been too many debates. --- 12:00 p.m. Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio says he hasn't thought much beyond what happens in Tuesday's crucial Florida primary. He says he's focused on winning the March 15 winner-take-all primary, dismissing several polls in the last week showing him trailing GOP front-runner Donald Trump his home state. Rubio is predicting "a close election" but says he's going to win. Rubio also says he's not had any talks or meetings with rivals Ted Cruz or John Kasich to team up to defeat GOP front-runner Donald Trump. He says he's "not open" to any such talks about joining forces. --- 11:50 a.m. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz says he was happy the latest GOP debate was more civil than previous ones. Cruz said Friday during a forum with Fox News talk show host Sean Hannity in Orlando that the past debates had gotten ugly. Cruz also said he was happy GOP rival Donald Trump's anatomy wasn't a topic of discussion during Thursday night's debate in Miami. Cruz answered questions at an Orlando megachurch filled with almost 1,000 supporters during a forum that will air on Hannity's show. --- 11:45 a.m. Marco Rubio's campaign is urging people in Ohio to vote for his rival, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, to stop rival Donald Trump from clinching the prized contest. Alex Conant told The Associated Press Friday that the only way to stop Trump from sweeping next week's basket of winner-take-all contests is to vote for Kasich in Ohio and Rubio in Florida. Conant said that "If you want to stop Trump in Ohio, Kasich's the only guy who can beat him there." Conant added: "Marco is the only guy who can beat him in Florida." Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols says that his candidate is going to win in Ohio without Rubio's help "just as he's going to lose Florida without our help." --- 10:30 a.m. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has secured the endorsement of Missouri Rep. Ann Wagner. In a statement on Friday, Wagner said that Republicans "must unite to win behind a strong, constitutional conservative like Ted Cruz." The congresswoman has served as co-chair of the Republican National Committee during President George W. Bush's first term and was U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg. Cruz has the backing of some half dozen House members, but only one endorsement from a fellow senator, Mike Lee of Utah. --- 9:50 a.m. Republicans in the Virgin Islands caucused into the night Thursday, and when they finished counting the votes Friday morning, the winner was ... no one. Party chairman John Canegata says all nine delegates from the U.S. territory will go to the Republican National Convention as uncommitted delegates. That makes them free agents, free to support the candidate of their choice. Canegata says more than 300 voters cast ballots. The AP delegate count thus far: - Donald Trump: 459. - Ted Cruz: 360. - Marco Rubio: 152. - John Kasich: 54. Needed to win the nomination: 1,237. --- 9:35 a.m. Donald Trump says he felt the response of his supporters to an episode of violence at one of his rallies this week was "very, very appropriate." Speaking at a Palm Beach press conference on Friday, Trump said the "audience swung back" at a white man who was caught on video hitting a black man as he was escorted out of a Trump rally by deputies. Trump praised the police as "amazing," saying they were "very restrained" in response to the incident. He said that the man - identified as John Franklin McGraw - began hitting people, and the audience hit back. "That's what we need a little bit more of," he said. --- 9:30 a.m. Democrats and Republicans have painted a dark vision of America, a place where jobs are vanishing, leaders are corrupt and threats loom from across the globe. Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders describes a nation in "real crisis," with a "rigged economy." Americans are "a bunch of suckers" who've "lost everything," Republican front-runner Donald Trump says. Washington is "killing jobs," as Iranian leaders conspire to "murder us," warns Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Gloomy assessments of the country's future have emerged as a constant refrain of the 2016 presidential contest, as candidates woo a frustrated and anxious electorate. That insecurity, which pollsters say pervades discussions about economic, domestic and foreign policy issues, is setting the stage for an emotionally-charged general election - no matter who wins the primary contests. --- 9:20 a.m. Republican front-runner Donald Trump says he will defeat the Islamic State group if he is elected president, but he will let the generals "play their own game." Speaking at a press conference in Palm Beach, Florida on Friday, Trump said he is going to "find the right generals" to do the job, but he will allow them to then call the shots on how the military should approach the war. Trump has said he wants to loosen the laws that limit the use of torture if he's elected to the White House, but then appeared to reverse his stance on the use of torture after he was criticized by top Republican national security experts who called his policy views "wildly inconsistent and unmoored in principle." --- 9:10 a.m. Former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson says he and Donald Trump have "buried the hatchet" after months of political wrangling, and he is endorsing the GOP front-runner's White House bid. At a press conference in Palm Beach, Florida on Friday, Carson, who left the race earlier this month, described "two Donald Trumps" - the persona reflected on stage, and a private, "very cerebral" person who "considers things carefully." In his introduction to Carson Friday, Trump described the retired neurosurgeon as a "special, special person - special man," and a "friend" who is respected by everyone. Carson warned that it is "extremely dangerous" when political parties attempt to "thwart the will of the people," and urged politicians to "strengthen the nation," rather than create divisions.

CHICAGO (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump cancels rally in Chicago due to security concerns.

Obama makes case for access to device data...(Top headline, 2nd story, link)Related stories:KEYS PLEASE!

The door has closed forever, said a friend, on a particular part of the past. Or to be more precise, first-person access to the Reagan era through one of its two most important figures has now, with the death of Nancy Reagan, ended. The era itself will never end—it is part of the history of our nation and yielded up its last unambiguously successful president. The spirit of that age: exuberant, expansive. “Where we’re going, we don’t need...

Political strategist Pat Caddell tells Breitbart News Daily host Stephen K. Bannon about what he describes as the “stunning” emergency of “economic nationalism” that’s the driving force behind both the Republican primary race, and the Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) insurgency against Hillary Clinton.

As Caddell puts it, the American people have concluded they’re getting “screwed” by trade deals, immigration policy, and other areas where their interests are not considered a priority by their own political and business leaders. He contended this backlash against the elites was the reason so many highly-touted candidates have flamed out of the GOP primary, which is on the verge of boiling down to a two-man race between the two leading anti-Establishment candidates, Donald Trump and Senator Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

Caddell said the critique of free trade from Trump – and to a lesser extent, his final remaining competitors – was the kind of break from party orthodoxy that could only happen during an election dominated by “outsider forces” and “insurgents.”  

“Trump is the more populist outsider, the insurgent,” said Caddell. “Ted Cruz has been the more ideological insurgent.”  

He attributed Trump’s greater success thus far to the primary electorate leaning toward populism, but saluted Cruz for “drawing his differences quite well” with Trump during Thursday’s encounter – a vitally important task for Cruz, as the once-crowded GOP primary moves into a two-candidate head-to-head finale.

However, he chalked up the win for Trump based on the trade issue, which Caddell described as a “stunner” when he recently polled voters on the issues important to them. He said that poll showed “Republicans, and independents following Republicans, even more than Democrats are anti-free-trade… or, I should say, they have had it with trade deals, just as they’ve had it with the Washington establishment.”

“What’s happening is, the economic anxiety – the tremendous alienation that exists, and the concerns about national security, and particularly China – are all fueling this nexus issue, which is all being expressed in concrete terms over these trade deals,” he explained, noting the issue scored especially strong in Michigan and Mississippi exit polls.  

Caddell further argued this “nexus issue” was the reason so many analysts were taken by surprise when Bernie Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton in the Michigan Democrat primary. He faulted the hasty and superficial nature of many other media polls for failing to detect these powerful shifts of opinion in voters on both sides of the party divide.

“It’s everywhere, in every constituency,” Caddell said of voter alienation from the Beltway establishment. “But remember, just this last August, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and John Boehner, when Barack Obama was on his rear – having had the rug pulled out from under him by Democrats, and on the verge of a major defeat, in advance of the Iran deal – who came riding to his rescue but McConnell and Boehner – as I assume after they got the phone call from the Chamber of Commerce – and managed to finagle whatever way they did it, to resurrect TPA, the authority… and to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, if you’re looking at it politically.”

Caddell said the “overwhelming sentiment” among Republican and Democrat voters alike is running against backroom deals, especially the kind voters fear will be coming their way as Republicans cave to Obama during his final lame-duck year.

He cited one particular question from his poll, which found 72 percent agreement with the proposition that “the same people who have been rigging the rules in politics have been rigging the rules for their own benefit.”

Caddell said Senator Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Governor John Kasich were “panicked” as they realized they’re on the wrong side of the trade issue from this huge contingent of alienated Republican voters.

“You had Rubio, who said his foreign policy had three legs to the stool, and the third one was TPP. You had Kasich, who has been a big supporter of free trade… and I believe, I haven’t gone back and looked, but I think he was in Congress in ’93, and if so, I bet you he voted for NAFTA. How much you wanna bet? Somebody ought to look that one up.  That’s the real point this morning, that could change the election in Ohio,” Caddell asserted. “If he did, as I suspect, voted for NAFTA, he could get killed on this now.”

As a matter of fact, yes, John Kasich was a supporter of the North American Free Trade Agreement. It has come up during the primary campaign in the past, most notably during a July interview between Kasich and Chuck Todd of NBC News, when Kasich weakly admitted, “I think we have, in some ways, been saps.”  

Caddell may take some satisfaction from knowing that Kasich has been trying a little damage control on free trade since the summer, but if he’s right about the Ohio endgame, it won’t be good enough to save Kasich from the forces of economic nationalism.

Caddell said Ted Cruz has been on “both sides” of the recent trade authority dispute, a position Cruz clarified during the Thursday night debate by saying he was in favor of the authority process, but against the trade agreement that emerged. Caddell thought Trump has done a far better job of tacking into the wind of the Republican base voters’ disenchantment with trade agreements, saying he “struck there” first, at a time when the issue was still largely regarded as “ancillary” by Republican strategists.  

He argued that the press has fundamentally misunderstood the Trump phenomenon all along, because they think Trump’s personality and celebrity shifted GOP voters’ positions on issues like free trade and immigration, when in truth Trump was tapping into a “free-floating anxiety” about economics, and sense of “political alienation,” which had been building in those voters for years.

“The ‘independent variable’ is the American people who are driving the election, and Donald Trump is the dependent variable,” Caddell declared. “He has been the vehicle closest, for many, many Republicans – despite all of the other problems – substantively, on the issue, and it is economic nationalism.”

He advised other Republican candidates not to shy away from this “economic nationalism” concept, as fully 75 percent of their voters are behind it, and it’s also a major component of Bernie Sanders’ success on the Democrat side.

“Wall Street will freak out. All of the quote ‘better people’ who’ve been sitting in their ivory towers, economists, saying, ‘oh, free trade is good for you,’ whatever… well, the American people have figured out that they’ve been screwed,” Caddell said, noting high levels of support for supposedly unthinkable measures like tariffs, especially when applied to countries that abuse trade agreements, or treat their workers poorly.

“I am telling you, we’re in a new paradigm. This is a revolutionary moment,” he said, describing it as a “historical moment of evolution in our political process” whose outcome could not yet be predicted… especially by politicians and poll-addicted pundits who have misunderstood the Trump-Sanders moment thus far.

Many of those pundits assumed Trump’s appeal would fizzle, comparing it to themes from earlier failed campaigns, as far back as Pat Buchanan’s run in 1992. If Caddell’s analysis is correct, what these other analysts missed was that many streams of discontent flowed into the river of “economic nationalism,” creating a unified focus for a huge number of Republican voters – and an impressive number of Democrats – who feel the incestuous political and Big Business elite no longer serve their interests. Indeed, a good deal of Washington culture is actively hostile toward them.  

These voters feel like internationalist orthodoxy was given a chance to succeed… and they are profoundly disappointed in the results. They haven’t just lost confidence in the elite. They don’t even think they can command its respect, or even get its attention. In Donald Trump, they see a champion who will not easily be ignored.

You can listen to the full interview with Pat Caddell below:

Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125 weekdays from 6:00AM to 9:00AM EST.

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ANIMAS — Several hundred ranchers gathered at a small-town high school in the Bootheel on Thursday to rally against what they described as a broken border.

Also present were members and representatives of New Mexico’s congressional delegation and officials from public security agencies, including the Border Patrol, Army, National Guard and sheriffs. More than 600 people showed up at a school auditorium in Animas, population 237.

Ranchers here have been steaming over the reported kidnapping of a ranch hand in December, when drug runners allegedly hijacked the man’s vehicle, loaded it with narcotics and drove him to Arizona. He came home “roughed up,” his employer Tricia Elbrock said, but he survived the ordeal.

Concerns about border security have simmered for years for those who live among the region’s sprawling ranches and rugged mountain ranges. Sometimes, fears boil over, such as after the unsolved 2010 murder of southern Arizona rancher Robert Krentz, who was found shot dead on his property, or after the recent reported kidnapping.

“How many here think your border is secure?” Elbrock asked to laughs. “I say to all our representatives, come down here. Stay with us. Work with us.”

Someone in the crowd shouted, “Walk the border!”

“And see what it’s like,” Elbrock said. “It’s not safe. We got problems here. They don’t want it known. They don’t want people to know.”

The Krentz story, too, loomed large Thursday as the meeting opened with a video of old news reports about the crime and his widow, Sue, and son Frank spoke to the crowd.

“Secure the border for your family, our family,” Sue Krentz said in prepared remarks that earned a standing ovation. “We’re demanding the right to live free and safe on our own land and in our own homes.”

Rep. Steve Pearce, a Republican whose southern New Mexico district runs along the Mexican border, met with  Elbrock before the meeting. He attended, as did staffers for U.S. Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., and for U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. New Mexico Agriculture Secretary Jeff Witte also attended.

Representatives of the Border Patrol, National Guard and sheriffs from New Mexico and Arizona said they had come to hear the public’s concerns.

“My takeaway is that the people along the border recognize a grave threat to themselves and their communities, and the National Guard is ready to respond to help secure the border,” Brig. Gen. Andrew Salas said.

Border Patrol has had a hard time keeping its Lordsburg station, tasked with securing the Bootheel, fully staffed. The station is budgeted for 284 agents but has been short about 50 agents for months. A Border Patrol spokesman told the Journal recently that there are candidates in the pipeline to fill those slots.

“We work very hard to secure our borders,” Border Patrol spokesman Ramiro Cordero told the Journal at the meeting. “Numbers have dropped. You don’t see the type of movement that you saw 10, 20 years ago.”

“The increase in the number of people in the area that are smuggling people and drugs seems to be increasing,” said Lawrence Hurt, whose Hurt Cattle Co. ranch runs nearly 30 miles along the Mexican border. “We see a lot less of the people who are looking for a job. We have a need for the Border Patrol in our area.”

But, Hurt added to a round of applause, “We think they need to be on the border. If we stop them at the line we won’t have as many incidences as we have had in the past.”

Elbrock and other ranchers say they want to see more agents on horses in the region — the best way to patrol rough terrain, they say — and more helicopters.

In New Mexico, Border Patrol apprehended 11,000 unauthorized border crossers in fiscal 2015 and seized more than 15,000 pounds of marijuana.

“The border isn’t secure,” said Bill McDonald, co-founder and executive director of the Malpai Borderlands Group, which manages a working cattle ranch and conservation effort on nearly 1 million acres of the Bootheel. “It’s like a balloon. When they tamp down in one area, (drug traffickers) move somewhere else. They’ve got all the technology to move where they see a weakness and right now the weakness is in southwest New Mexico.”

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Why is Ted Cruz hiding his pentecostal past...

By Jacob Engels

While Ted Cruz proudly proclaims he is an Evangelical Christian, his campaign takes pains to hide the truth that Cruz and his pastor father, Rafael Cruz are Pentecostal Christians, a fact further hidden by having Ted and Heidi Cruz’s belong to the congregation of First Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist church in Houston, as their home church.

Both Cruz’s parents, his father Rafael a Cuban-born immigrant, and his mother Eleanor, born in Wilmington, Delaware, grew up in Catholic families. Both were among the millions of that left the Catholic Church since the 1960s to embrace Pentecostalism, a Christian movement estimated to make up 4.4 percent of the U.S. population, accounting for some 13 percent of evangelical churches in the United States.

Holy Spirit’s “Purifying Fire”

The name “Pentecostal” derives from the feast of the Pentecost, typically celebrated fifty days after Easter, and identified in the Acts of the Apostles 2:1-31 as the day when the Holy Spirit descended in “purifying fire” upon the Apostles of Jesus Christ, inspiring them to go forth from hiding in fear to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Pentecostals believe the Apostles of Jesus were aided by the Holy Spirit’s “gift of tongues,” in what Pentecostals consider as “baptism by the Holy Spirit,” deriving from 1 Corinthians 12:14, that gave the Apostles the ability to speak in a “God-enabled prayer language” that Pentecostals believe even today allows the unintelligible human utterances of an Pentecostal evangelist to be understood by foreigners who do not speak the Pentecostal evangelist’s language.

Heidi Nelson Cruz, Ted’s wife, is the daughter of Seventh-day Adventist missionaries, explaining why she spent part of her childhood traveling with her parents to places like Kenya. “Speaking in Tongues” Religion reporter Sarah Pulliam Bailey, writing in the Washington Post on March 25, 2015, was of the first to recognize Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign logo and the purifying tongue-of-fire logo used commonly to identify Pentecostal churches.

Here is Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign logo:

Here is the logo of the Church of Pentecost:

The symbol derives from Acts 2:3, writing about the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, “They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.”

Sarah Palin’s nomination as vice president put Pentecostalism into the spotlight, when the press revealed that from the time she was a teenager until 2002, Palin attended a church affiliated with the Assemblies of God that the Pew Research Center in an analysis published on Sept. 12, 2008, described as “the largest Pentecostal Christian denomination in the U.S.”

The Pew Research Center went on to note that Pentecostalism “emphasizes such practices as speaking in tongues, prophesying, divine healing and other miraculous signs of the Holy Spirit, which it believes are as valid today as they were in the early Christian church.”

“Ted is the anointed one”

Rafael Cruz is a pastor with Purifying Fire International Ministry, although in January 2014, as Ted Cruz was preparing his presidential swing, Rafael Cruz scrapped the group’s website after various blogs began identifying the ministry as rooted in “a radical Christian ideology known as Dominionism or Christian Reconstructionism.”

Dominionism calls on anointed Christian leaders to take over government to make the laws of the nation in accordance with Biblical laws. Rafael Cruz, at the Pastor Larry Huch’s New Beginnings mega-church in Bedford Texas, outside Dallas, on Aug. 26, 2012, in a Dominionist sermon proclaimed his son, Ted Cruz, to be the “anointed one,” a Dominionist Messiah who would bring God’s law to reign.

At a Dominionist pastor’s meeting held at the Marriott Hotel in Des Moines, Iowa, on July 19 and 20, 2013, the following “anointing prayer” was read over. 

So to pull all this logic together, God anoints priests to work in the church directly and kings to go out into the marketplace to conquer, plunder, and bring back the spoils to the church. The reason governmental regulation has to disappear from the marketplace is to make it completely available to the plunder of Christian “kings” who will accomplish the “end time transfer of wealth.”

Then “God’s bankers” will usher in the “coming of the messiah.”

The government is being shut down so that God’s bankers can bring Jesus back. In an editorial published in the Washington Post on Feb. 4, on the heels of Cruz’s victory in the Iowa GOP primary, John Fea of the Religion News Service published an op-ed piece noting the frequent references Ted Cruz makes in stump speeches to his father “the traveling evangelist” Rafael Cruz.

“During a 2012 sermon at the New Beginnings Church in Bedford, Texas, Rafael Cruz described his son’s political campaign as a direct fulfillment of biblical prophecy,” Fea wrote. “The elder Cruz told the congregation God would anoint Christian ‘kings’ to preside over an ‘end-time transfer of wealth’ from the wicked to the righteous. After this sermon, Larry Huch, the pastor of New Beginnings, claimed Cruz’s recent election to the U.S. Senate was a sign he was one of these kings.”

Fea noted that Rafael Cruz and Larry Huch preach a brand of evangelical theology known as Seven Mountains Dominionism. The name comes from Isaiah 2:2, “Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the Lord’s house shall be established on top of the mountains.”

Fea commented that Rafael Cruz believes Christians must take dominion over seven aspects of culture: family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business, and government.

By identifying Ted Cruz as the “anointed one,” Rafael Cruz has designated his son as what he believes is God’s choice to lead an evangelical coup d’etat, such that, as Fea notes, “Cruz’s campaign may be less about the White House and more about the white horses that will usher in the God’s Kingdom in the New Testament book of Revelation, Chapter 19.”

Jacob Engels, is the Founder of East Orlando Post & Seminole County Post. He is a seasoned political operative who has led numerous statewide political groups and has worked on several high-profile local, statewide, and national races. Jacob has been interviewed on national television & radio programs, with his work having been featured in the Orlando Sentinel, New York Times, Washington Post, Miami Herald and other publications nationwide. He can be reached at [email protected]

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