Last night I went to the Take Back our Borders convoy rally in Dripping Springs, Texas. The speaker line up was full of sovereign citizens, Christian nationalists, and antisemites. One speaker was Michael Yon, who spent his time screaming antisemitism into the microphone. The rally took place outside, close to a street, surrounded by businesses and homes — people around could definitely hear him. I posted a clip on Twitter, but here is 90 seconds straight of him, in full context, spewing wildly unhinged antisemitic garbage.
While the convoy is part of the reason I decided to come to Texas, my primary interest is the conflict between Gov. Abbott and the Biden Administration, which is coming to a head in Eagle Pass, Texas (if you haven’t been following it, here is a gift link to a great Washington Post article about it). This should be no surprise, given my reporting on Chris Russo of Texans for Strong Borders. People like Russo and organizations like TFSB have long advocated for a conflict between the Biden Administration and the Texas National Guard over the boarder, and I think it’s not great things are going their way.
I was not sent here by an outlet, but with the help of generous readers. The state of journalism is dismal, so it’s impossible to say if anyone would even want to run anything — though I figured latching on to the convoy would be my best bet.
My Substack will always be free, but if you have ever thought about paying to subscribe, I would be so grateful if you did now. If you would rather not use Substack, I also have a Cash App, Paypal, and Buy Me a Coffee. This trip has required hotels, a rental car, and a flight. I’ve already changed my flight once, and might need to extend my rental an extra day, since Abbott is hosting governors at Eagle Pass on Sunday.
Whether you can help support or not, I am grateful for everyone who signs up to see what I write. I look forward to sharing the miserable details of this experience with you all in a few days. Tomorrow at noon the convoy will be holding a rally at a private ranch north of Eagle Pass; assuming I’m allowed in, you can follow my updates on Twitter, Bluesky, or Threads.
Why name this site the turtle diaries?
I've read and watched some of the things you've put together on this page ,but I'm having a hard time seeing anything that actually shows me where you say you went, what events someone took a snippet of for a brief video or voice recording, I don't see any of the people you've mentioned in the articles actually in the recordings you present. We're just supposed to take your word for it and send you money? I feel like you found actors to be in your voice snippets, as well as found a small country town somewhere with people having a gathering to discuss their favorite topics of politics and someone ,maybe you ,maybe not ,took a video. Anyone can steal an Internet video and claim it is theirs . It's not right ,but it's the reality . I've not seen you in any of the videos or voice recorded videos either. You put a lot of ideas together and you do very well at that ,but aside from that I can't believe you've done anything more than write your ideas down digitally from home.
What about that was antisemitic? I know he was talking about HIAS, which was founded to aid Jewish refugees, but now has expanded the scope of who they support. However, none of that was prejudiced against the Jewish people.