Bulletin From The Borderlands

15 November 2022

Note from Lethal Minds:

Bulletin From The Borderlands is a joint project between Lethal Minds and some of the most talented OSINT analysts and independent journalists working today. Our goal is to provide you with a clear, accurate, and informative view of the world, free from censorship or bias. The Bulletin will bring you the facts, our analysis, and our evidence. We hope you find our work helps you better understand the complicated and increasingly volatile world in which we live.

Be informed, be prepared, be lethal.

In This Issue:

The Americas : Covered in this issue by Analyze Educate

A rightward leaning wave that was supposed to sweep the governments of North and South America seems to have fizzled this week. In the US, Republican hopes to sweep the House and Senate fail. In South America, Bolsonaro’s riotous attempts to retain his position fails.

Europe : Covered in this issue by Croatoan Report and Meridian News

Ukrainian Armed Forces retake the city of Kherson and cross over onto the Eastern bank of the Dnieper River, with Russian forces withdrawing ahead of their advance. The Russian government has publicly televised the decision to withdraw from the city, and has published orders to permit non Russian nationals to serve in the Russian armed forces.

East Asia and Oceania: Covered in this issue by Good Political

The meeting between Chinese Premier Xi Ji Ping and US President Joe Biden takes center stage in Asia as the two leaders meet for G-20. Hanging over that meeting is Chinese posturing toward Taiwan and North Korea’s recent spat of nuclear tests. In Asia’s south, Thailand and Vietnam step up as major manufacturing alternatives to China.

Central Asia and the Mid East: Covered in this issue by S2 Forward

Israel re-elects Benjamin Netanyahu to the office of Prime Minister. Israel conducts airstrikes on Syrian and Iranian bases of operation across Syria. In Iraq, following the murder of a USAID worker, an American airstrike kills 20 Iranian IRGC operatives.

Africa : Covered in this issue by Meridian News

Russian and Chinese interference continues to plague the continent. Ethiopia and Tigray sign a successful ceasefire. In Uganda, Ebola rears its ugly head again.

The Big Points:

The Highlight: Global Disorder

Global instability is a continuing and pressing concern. Rampant food shortage caused by Russian failures across Ukraine, and now fuel and energy shortages across the developed world as we get closer to winter, means that the world is looking towards more instability, not less.

Turkey suffered a terror attack over the weekend, an IED planted in a crowded street. A suspect was arrested, and the Turks have accused the Kurdish insurgent group the PKK of being responsible for the attack. Israel has continued to attack Syrian and Iranian targets within Syria, a very provocative move given current tensions within Iran make that country’s foreign policy deeply unpredictable.

Ukrainian forces break through at Kherson following a Russian withdrawal. As we move towards winter, expect to see some rapid movement of forces as Ukrainian troops attempt to take as much ground as possible before the winter sets in.

The Long Term Concern:

There is still no sign of the international community moving towards stability. We are seeing some alignment, but that alignment is towards the formations of factions. As several countries have made to move to join BRICS, an economic bloc headed up by Russia, China, and Brazil, suggests the beginning of a firm anti Western and anti democratic bloc in global affairs. Refugee crisis caused by rampant food shortage and war remain a concern. Expect these issues to get worse as Haiti continues to deteriorate, and Iran moves towards civil war and revolution.

See Also:

• Iran handed out its first death sentence to a protestor of the recent state brutality against women.  Accusing him of burning a govt building, waging war against god and corruption on earth.

• The value of the Rial continues to plunge as costs for food and other basic necessities continue to rise. 

• Iran conducts additional missile strikes on Kurdish opposition bases in Iraq.  Iran projects blame for popular protests against its domestic policies on foreign interference, ranging from Kurdish, to Israeli, to US interference.

• Turkey's interior minister claims Syrian offshoots of the Kurdish PKK conducted a public bombing in Istanbul this weekend.  The PPK denied the claims and expressed condolences for the lives lost.  Turkey occupies much of the Kurdish regions of Northern Syria.  

• USAID worker killed in attempted kidnapping in Karada neighborhood, Baghdad.  State Dept officials have yet to confirm his citizenship.  His wife and kids were inside the car and unharmed.  The attackers are still unidentified.  

• A massive corruption scandal has rocked Crypto Currency Trading firm FTX. An estimated $2 Billion is missing.

• North Korea continues to shoot missiles across the northern Pacific.

The Americas

The 2022 Midterm Elections 

The long awaited midterm elections in the United States have come and gone. Ballots are still being counted in some states, but the results already released have surprised many.

Expectations

Midterm elections usually do not end well for the party that holds the presidency. Recent examples include the 2014 elections, where Republicans took the Senate and House during President Barack Obama’s tenure, and the 2018 elections, where Democrats took the House with a 17 seat majority during President Donald Trump’s tenure. 

There are also special circumstances to consider: the rough state of the economy, mainly in terms of inflation and interest rates. Inflation year-on-year hit 7.7% in October, which prior to this year has not been seen since 1982. General food costs are up 10.9% and energy costs are up 17.6% from the same month in 2021. To combat inflation, the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates multiple times in recent months. In February 2022, the federal funds benchmark interest rate was 0.25%. This month, the Board of Governors voted to raise the interest rate to 3.9%. The most visible effect of this is the interest rates for a home mortgage. Despite home prices dropping in many areas around the country, the average rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage has risen to 7.08%, a level not seen since January 2001, and even higher than rates at the time of the 2008 Housing Crisis. The American people tend to blame the president and the party which holds the office when the economy is in a downturn. Regardless of whether or not the blame is properly placed, that is the reality.   

Another set of circumstances are foreign policy moves seen by many, in the most polite terms, as less than ideal. The most notable example would be the withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. President Joe Biden also traveled to Saudi Arabia in July. One of the main focuses of that trip was to convince the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to increase oil production in order to lower the price of crude oil. Instead, Saudi Arabia convinced the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to decrease oil production by 2,000,000 barrels a day. Saudi officials reportedly saw the request from Biden as an attempt to stave off a rise in oil prices before the midterm elections.  

In the week prior to the midterms, Republicans led in six generic ballot polls and tied in one out of 12 according to FiveThirtyEight. On election day, November 8th, Joe Biden’s disapproval ratings were anywhere from +9 to+14. 

The Republican party was expected to take the House of Representatives with a comfortable majority; around 15 seats or more. They were expected to take multiple key gubernatorial seats. Lastly, they posed a fairly large threat to the slim Democrat majority in the Senate. This election was supposed to be a major victory for the Republican Party.   

Results

We are still waiting for the full results of the elections. Ballots are still being counted in some states, which has kept the Associated Press from calling races for the Senate, House, and governor of  Alaska. 

The Democrats kept control of the Senate, which they took in the 2020 elections. Officially speaking, there are two Independent Senators, Angus S. King Jr. (ME) and Bernie Sanders (VT). However, both senators would be described as independent Democrats and typically vote with their Democrat colleagues. For that reason, the Democrats have a de facto majority in the chamber. The current balance is 50 seats for the Democrats and 49 for the Republicans. The former gained one seat and the latter lost one seat, Pennsylvania, where John Fetterman (D) beat Mehmet Oz (R) to replace Senator Pat Toomey (R), who is retiring. The AP has yet to call the Alaska race, which will likely go to Kelly Tshibaka (R) or Lisa Murkowski (R). The Georgia Senate race will head to a runoff on December 6th as neither of the candidates, incumbent Raphael Warnock (D) or Hershel Walker (R), received 50% of the vote. If Warnock wins the runoff then the Democrats will have a solid 51-49 majority. If Walker wins, the Democrats will rely on Vice President Kamala Harris to cast the tie-breaking vote on legislation or confirmations if necessary.

The House of Representatives is still up for grabs. At the time of writing, the AP has the balance at 214 seats for the GOP and 204 for the Democrats. 218 seats are needed for a majority and 17 races have still not been called. Republicans are expected to take the House for the first time since 2018, but there is a slim possibility that the Democrats actually keep control instead. If the GOP wins, it looks like their majority will be incredibly small, likely between two and five seats. The state that may have saved Republicans is New York, where their candidates outperformed in the deep-blue state. Four seats turned from blue to red in the Empire State, including that of Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.  

Despite being expected to take some key governorships, Republicans ended up losing the executive spot in two states. In Massachusetts, Geoff Deihl (R) lost to Maur Healey (D) to replace Charlie Baker (R). In Arizona, Kari Lake (R) lost to Katie Hobbs (D) to replace Doug Ducey (R). Other Republicans posed challenges in blue states, including Christine Drazan of Oregon, Lee Zeldin of New York, and Tudor Dixon of Michigan; however, all three lost to their Democrat opponents. Another race that many paid attention to was in Pennsylvania, where Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D) defeated Doug Mastriano (R), a retired Army colonel and State Senator. The only race yet to be called is in Alaska, where Mike Dunleavy (R) is currently leading Les Gara (D).   

It goes without saying that the GOP widely underperformed, except in a few cases, such as the House seats in New York and Governor Ron DeSantis beating former Governor Charlie Crist by more than 19 percentage points in what some consider to be purple Florida. Many Republicans are expectedly angry and blame is being tossed at a few leaders: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and former President Trump. Criticisms usually involve poor candidate quality or poor allocation of funds in races. On his podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz, the Texas senator blamed McConnell for not allocating funds from his super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, towards some senate candidates running in key states. Cruz believes that McConnell chose not to fund these races, and risk losing them to the other party, because some candidates claimed they would not support him as the next Senate Majority Leader. Rep. Kevin McCarthy is being blamed as well and a handful of Republicans Congressmen are actively opposing him as their candidate for Speaker of the House. GOP sources told Fox News that Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona is planning to challenge McCarthy when the Republican caucus convenes on Tuesday to discuss the position. The person that appears to be receiving most of the blame, however, is former President Donald Trump. Elected Republicans and political commentators have heavily criticized the quality of candidates that he endorsed in primary races. On their respective podcasts, Sen. Cruz and conservative commentator Ben Shapiro particularly pointed out Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and retired Brigadier General Don Bolduc, who lost the New Hampshire Senate race to incumbent Maggie Hassan. Both candidates were endorsed by Trump against their opponents in Republican primaries and Bolduc stayed on Trump’s good side by questioning the results of the 2020 Presidential election. Trump also endorsed many other candidates for gubernatorial, Senate, and Congressional races, most of whom have lost. Some conservatives have accused Trump of propping up candidates that believe conspiracies regarding the 2020 election over candidates that show they can properly govern. He has also been blamed for not spending enough money on his favored candidates, despite raising $41 million in Q2 and Q3 of this year alone for his Save America super PAC¹.   

Embattled DHS Official is Out After Losing the Confidence of President Biden

After a loss of confidence in his leadership, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus is out. This comes as the United States is seeing record numbers of migrants crossing the southern border and record amounts of drugs crossing as well.

Who is Magnus?

Chris Magnus is a career law enforcement professional. He began his career as a police officer in Lansing, Michigan and would stay in the city until becoming the Chief of Police for Fargo, North Dakota. He would serve in the same role for Richmond, California and Tucson, Arizona. While in Richmond, the city's homicide rate fluctuated, at some points placing as the ninth most dangerous city in the country. He also created the Office of Professional Accountability, an outside entity to oversee internal affairs in Richmond’s police department. While in Tucson, he was heavily critical of policies put in place by the Trump Administration and at one point in 2017, he refused to assist Border Patrol agents in pursuing a detainee that had escaped and evicted them from the police department’s property.    

In April 2021, he was appointed to his position in CBP and he was confirmed by a 50-47 Senate vote in December. 

Loss of Confidence

His time in office has been surrounded by issues on the border with Mexico. In the past fiscal year, which ended on September 30th, Border Patrol agents encountered 2,380,000 migrants illegally crossing the border. That is a 37% increase from fiscal year 2021. By August, the number had reached 2,000,000, which is twice as high as any number during the Trump Administration. That doesn’t take into account the number of migrants that crossed without being detected by CBP. For the same period of time, 751 gang members were arrested nationwide by Border Patrol, the highest numbers coming from MS-13 (312), Paisas (146), and 18th Street (110). Additionally, thousands of pounds of hard narcotics were seized. 175,000 pounds of methamphetamine and 14,700 pounds of fentanyl were taken from both borders. In 2021, 108,000 Americans died from drug overdoses; of those 71,000 died from fentanyl. 

Colleagues began sounding the alarm about Magnus recently. POLITICO says that five current administration officials described him as unengaged and said he has failed to build relationships within CBP and in other agencies. They also said that he is unfamiliar with some functions of his own agency and is not present at meetings regarding the situation on the southern border. Magnus is accused of spending time focusing on the culture of Border Patrol, instead of issues on the border. Additionally, colleagues have accused him of falling asleep in meetings. He responded to those accusations by saying that he experiences periods of tiredness due to his multiple sclerosis. 

Last week, Magnus was asked to submit a letter of resignation by the Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. Magnus has previously been accused of failing to follow Mayorkas’ orders. Magnus initially refused the request, saying that he intended to return to stay in position and return to work on Monday, November 14th. He made a statement regarding the request, saying “I came to Washington DC – moved my family here – because I care about this agency, its mission and the goals of [the Biden] administration.” However, on Saturday night, he resigned from his post². 

Looking Forward 

The direction of the United States for the next two years still lies in the balance with undecided races. If Republicans are able to take the House, they will certainly attempt to block Joe Biden’s agenda at every move. They were also likely to end the Congressional January 6th Committee and will attempt to investigate the administration and officials that serve in it. Multiple lawmakers, including Sen. Cruz, have already called for an investigation into and possible impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas. However, if Democrats are able to extend their Senate majority they may make an attempt they previously could not follow through on; such as ending the Senate’s filibuster. As far as CBP goes, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have praised the resignation of Chris Magnus and expressed hope that his replacement is someone that is competent, knowledgeable, and engaged. Swearing in a replacement will likely take months, so until that happens the burden falls on deputy CBP Commissioner, Troy Miller.