Tag: donald trump

PA Police Commissioner Appointed by Democrat Governor Jumps to FBI Despite the Final Butler Report Still Locked Away

The Western District of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Attorney’s Office celebrated what it called a victory for transparency when state prosecutors secured court approval to release a set of grand-jury-subpoenaed records to Congress. The order was made public during the busy holiday season allowing the Department of Justice to share pre-existing business records from the investigation of accused shooter Thomas  Matthew  Crooks in connection with the July  13, 2024  assassination attempt on then former President Donald J. Trump in Butler, PA.

During the Congressional hearings about the assassination attempt Patrick Yoes, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, captured the mood starkly saying “There were critical failures of security at the event in Butler. It is important that we learn from these failures to better provide safety.” Federal attorneys now frame this document release as proof that law enforcement is being transparent.  Really?

Despite this ruling, at the same time, the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) continue to withhold its report on the Butler investigation, quietly leaning on provisions of Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law, especially Section 708(b)(16), which classifies “criminal investigative records” as exempt from public release. That legal shield allows the state to bury internal memos, communications, and even full reports without ever disclosing investigative results.  Meanwhile, nothing has been publicly released to date that proves accused shooter, Thomas  Matthew  Crooks, actually fired the shots at the rally.

The story of the Butler assassination attempt continually returns to one image: an elevated roof, with a clear line of sight, left effectively unguarded. Press accounts of official findings describe “stunning security failures” and “the unguarded roof, easily within shooting distance of the rally” where the gunman positioned himself, failures that congressional and independent reviews admit never should have happened. And, most importantly, no ballistic report has ever been made public.

The roof of the AGR Building, and everything that went wrong beneath it, sits squarely with the responsibility of Commissioner  Christopher  L. Paris, the PSP chief during the Butler attempted assassination.  Appointed by Governor Josh Shapiro in 2023, Paris testified before Congress about “stunning” lapses.  In news, again during the busy holiday season, Paris announced he would retire on  January 2, 2026, to take a position with the Federal Bureau of  Investigation (FBI). The Paris transition to the FBI, with Pennsylvania’s official Butler report still locked away, leaves questions regarding transparency, accountability and motive.

For Ablechild, as a national nonprofit fighting to expose behavioral-health industry links to violence, this is proof that “transparency” is selective. When violent bloodshed occurs, a school shooting, an assassination, a sudden act of mass violence, behavioral health usually is behind it, and the key records always stay sealed.

Ablechild argues that the public deserves answers about the family of accused shooter  Thomas  Matthew  Crooks, whose parents are both licensed behavioral-health professionals in Pennsylvania.  It is impossible to understand the Butler violence without examining that connection. Crooks’ parents should have no problem providing all medical, mental-health, and school records. Asking whether their work within the behavioral-health system influenced how warning signs were handled or ignored is common sense.  Material facts, such as whether Crooks had a treatment or medication history, any contact with state-funded behavioral-health programs, or was involved in any experimental clinical drug or device trials?  All of this critical data remains hidden under seal.

Ablechild calls this secrecy a public betrayal. The Department of Justice can proudly release selected documents to Congress, but the FBI and PSP keep their most revealing material out of public reach. Even basic questions are still unanswered, such as who authorized the body to remain on the AGR roof overnight while the medical examiner was ordered to return the following morning to identify the alleged shooter.

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Trump Says He’ll Support an Israeli Attack on Iran If Tehran ‘Continues’ Its Missile Program

President Trump said on Monday that he would support an Israeli attack on Iran if Tehran “continues” its conventional missile program or if it works to rebuild its civilian nuclear program that was damaged by US airstrikes during the US-Israeli war on the Islamic Republic in June.

The president made the comments at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida before a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when asked if he would back more Israeli attacks on Iran. “If they continue with the missiles, yes. The nuclear, fast,” he said.

“One will be yes, absolutely,” he added, appearing to reference Iran’s missiles. “The other was we’ll do it immediately,” he said, referencing the possibility of Iran rebuilding its nuclear program. The president also threatened to “knock the hell” out of Iran if it “builds up again.”

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Trump Administration SUES Virginia for Giving Illegal Aliens In-State Tuition While American Taxpayers Foot the Bill

The Trump administration has launched a sweeping federal lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Virginia, accusing state leaders of openly defying federal immigration law by granting illegal aliens discounted in-state college tuition while forcing American citizens from other states to pay dramatically higher rates.

In a civil complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the Department of Justice argues that Virginia’s tuition scheme blatantly violates federal law and must be permanently shut down.

The lawsuit seeks declaratory and injunctive relief to block the enforcement of Virginia statutes that classify illegal aliens as state “residents” for tuition and financial aid purposes.

At the center of the case is a law passed in 2021 and effective since 2022, which allows illegal alien students who meet specific residency and high school graduation criteria in Virginia to pay in-state tuition regardless of their immigration status. They can also qualify for state financial aid.

Meanwhile, American citizens from neighboring states—or even military families temporarily stationed elsewhere—are forced to pay out-of-state tuition rates that can be tens of thousands of dollars higher.

The DOJ complaint states plainly that Virginia’s policy gives preferential treatment to illegal aliens over U.S. citizens, calling the practice “squarely prohibited and preempted by federal law.”

“In direct conflict with federal law, Virginia law permits an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States to qualify for reduced in-state rates and state-administered financial assistance based on residence within the state but does not make United States citizens eligible for such benefits without regard to whether the United States citizens are Virginia residents,” the lawsuit reads.

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‘We are the free world now’ — Europe declares war on free speech in the US

“We are the free world now.” Those words from Raphael Glucksmann, a French socialist member of the European Parliament, captured the pearl-clutching outrage of Europeans after the Trump administration did what no prior administration has ever done — stand up to Europe to defend the freedom of speech.

This week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio barred five figures closely associated with European censorship efforts from traveling to the U.S. This includes Thierry Breton, the former European Union commissioner responsible for digital policy.

In a post on X, Rubio declared that the U.S. “will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship” and will target “leading figures of the global censorship-industrial complex from entering the United States.”

Breton achieved infamy as one of the architects of the massive EU censorship system, which is now being globalized. Armed with the notorious Digital Service Act, Breton and others threatened American companies and officials that they would have to yield to European standards of free speech. After Breton learned that Musk was planning to interview Trump before the last presidential election, he even warned the X owner that he would be “monitored” and potentially subject to EU fines.

Socialist Glucksmann is now irate at “this scandalous sanction against Thierry Breton.”

“We are Europeans,” he declared. “We must defend our laws, our principles, our interests.” In other words, this is a war over whether Europe or the U.S. Constitution will dictate the scope of free speech for American companies and citizens.

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Trump Claims Israel Is Complying With Gaza Deal ‘100%’ Despite Constant IDF Ceasefire Violations

During a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Florida on Monday, President Trump claimed Israel was holding up its end of the Gaza ceasefire deal “100%” despite constant IDF attacks on Palestinians in the Strip and other Israeli violations.

Since the deal went into effect on October 10, the Israeli military has killed at least 414 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The IDF has continued demolitions and has expanded the so-called “yellow line,” the vague boundary that separates the IDF-occupied side of Gaza and the Hamas-controlled side. Israel has also maintained restrictions on aid and shelter materials entering Gaza.

When asked by a reporter at Mar-a-Lago if he was concerned that Israel wasn’t moving quickly enough into “phase two” of the plan, Trump said he was “not concerned about anything Israel is doing” and that Israel has “lived up to the plan 100%.”

Trump also appeared to issue an ultimatum to Hamas during the press conference, saying that if the group doesn’t disarm within a certain amount of time, there will be “hell to pay” and that it will be “horrible for them.”

The president said that Hamas has already agreed to disarm, but the group has been consistent in its position that it won’t give up its weapons unless a Palestinian state is established, or if progress is made in that direction. Trump’s 20-point peace plan said that Gaza would be “demilitarized,” but Hamas only agreed to use the plan as a basis for negotiations.

So far, the only deal Israel and Hamas have signed outlined a ceasefire and the exchange of Israeli captives and Palestinians held in Israeli jails. “Our people are defending themselves and will not give up their weapons as long as the occupation remains,” the new spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, said on Monday.

Trump also claimed during the press conference that the US and Israel are helping the “people of Gaza” even though both countries are not allowing reconstruction to take place, as civilians are living in flimsy tents and the rubble of bombed-out buildings amid harsh winter storms. In recent weeks, at least 20 people in Gaza have died due to the weather.

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All child care payments to Minnesota are FROZEN amid daycare ‘fraud’ scandal as Tim Walz is targeted in huge crackdown

The federal government has ceased all child care payments to Minnesota amid the Democratic state’s ongoing daycare fraud scandal. 

Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Jim O’Neill announced on Thursday that funding has been frozen and demanded that Governor Tim Walz audit the centers allegedly involved. 

‘We have turned off the money spigot and we are finding the fraud,’ O’Neill declared in his statement. 

The move from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), the division of the HHS that handles child care, comes after independent journalist Nick Shirley shared footage of an apparently empty Minnesota daycare.

The facility has reportedly received millions in taxpayer funds, leading Shirley to claim that Minnesota has allowed for the ‘largest fraud in US history’ to go unchecked.

‘You have probably read the serious allegations that the state of Minnesota has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to fraudulent daycares across Minnesota over the past decade,’ O’Neill wrote. 

O’Neill said he has activated the ‘spend defend system for all ACF payments,’ meaning that all payments going forward across the country will require proof and reasoning before the money is allocated. 

He added that he and ACF Assistant Secretary Alex Adams have identified the people involved in the scheme that Shirley allegedly unveiled. 

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Judge Blocks White House’s Attempt To Defund Consumer Watchdog Agency

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the White House cannot lapse its funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a watchdog that has long drawn the ire of congressional Republicans.

In a ruling, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote that the CFPB should continue to receive its funding from the Federal Reserve despite the central bank operating at a loss. The Trump administration has argued that the CFPB should be dissolved because how it gets its funds is invalid.

The CFPB has largely been inoperable since President Donald Trump was sworn into office nearly a year ago. Its employees are mostly forbidden from doing any work, and most of the bureau’s operations this year have been to unwind the work it did under President Joe Biden and even under Trump’s first term.

The head of the White House’s budget office, Russell Vought, is currently the acting head of the CFPB. The White House earlier this year issued a “reduction in force” for the CFPB, which would have furloughed or laid off much of the bureau.

In November, the Trump administration’s attorneys said in a court filing that a Department of Justice (DOJ) memo had concluded there were no legally available funds at the Federal Reserve for the CFPB to request.

The memo, which was issued by the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, stated that “if the Federal Reserve has no profits, it cannot transfer money to the CFPB.”

“Because the only lawful source of funding from the Federal Reserve has dried up,” the memo added, “the proper method for obtaining additional funds is to request them from Congress pursuant to the Appropriations Clause, not to draw funds from the Federal Reserve without a congressional appropriation.”

The White House has also said that the CFPB cannot lawfully draw funds to fund its operations from the Fed if the Fed does not have “combined earnings” to allocate to the bureau. Without additional funds, the CFPB is expected to deplete its operating funds completely in January.

But in her order, Jackson wrote that the government “manufactured” arguments to allow for a lapse in funding for the CFPB.

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Did Netanyahu just ask Trump for another war — and get it?

During a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Trump said that he will allow Israel to attack Iran once again to strike its ballistic missiles.

But what exactly does that mean? Will the U.S. be involved in the actual strikes? Will it “limit” its involvement to shooting down Iran’s retaliatory missiles?

If the former, Trump is not just “allowing” Israel to strike; the U.S. will actually be at war with Iran. This would be a betrayal of his promise to his base to keep America out of wars (he has, of course, violated that already).

Moreover, unlike the nuclear program, which incorporates a small number of known facilities, the missile program is spread throughout the country in a large number of hidden facilities, many of them probably unknown to the U.S./Israel.

Thus, Trump will likely not be able to frame this as mere “military action” rather than war. Nor will he likely be able to negotiate with Tehran a limited Iranian response since the missiles are Iran’s last line of defense — the last leg of its deterrence.

Tehran has gone to great lengths to avoid a military confrontation with Washington, but just because it has shown restraint in the past does not mean that it can afford to do so in this scenario. Indeed, given that Iran will be totally exposed without its missiles, it will likely reckon that it has no choice but to strike directly at U.S. targets.

Even if Trump opts to “only” support Israel defensively in yet another Israeli choice of war — which is the position Biden took — it nevertheless incentivizes Israel to restart war, as the U.S. is lessening the cost for Israel to do so.

The cost to the United States is great even in this scenario. Washington depleted 25% of its THAAD interceptors in the course of 12 days this past summer — for Israel’s war of choice, in a region four American Presidents have declared no longer is vital to U.S. national security.

As I wrote last week, every time Trump caves to Netanyahu and agrees to another war, it only prompts Israel to come back to Trump after a few months with another war plan for Americans to give their blood and tax dollars to.

This will go on endlessly until Trump decides to end it.

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‘Policies are totally unclear’: Judge berates Trump admin over its sharing of Medicaid data with ICE, but allows certain information to be given

The Trump administration may soon share certain Medicaid information about suspected undocumented immigrants with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a federal judge ruled.

In a 7-page order issued on Monday, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria found that sharing “citizenship and immigration status, address, phone number, date of birth, and Medicaid ID” is “clearly authorized by law” and that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sufficiently explained to the court why they made the “abrupt departure from their past policies of not sharing or using Medicaid data for immigration enforcement purposes.”

The agency had reasoned that President Donald Trump issued multiple executive orders demanding that agencies, among other things, carry out immigration laws and “secure our borders.”

Chhabria’s opinion is a victory for the administration to that end. Beginning on Jan. 6, DHS and HHS may share the data with ICE about suspected undocumented immigrants who receive public health insurance, opening up another avenue for immigration law enforcement officers to track down those they believe are here illegally. However, what data they can give is limited.

Chhabria, a Barack Obama appointee, was responding to a motion for a preliminary injunction filed by California Attorney General Rob Bonta on behalf of his state and 21 others, which sought to stop the sharing of additional information, which Chhabria granted.

Bonta and the other states filed a lawsuit on July 1, targeting HHS’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) handing over of “a trove of individuals’ protected health data” to other federal agencies, including DHS, “without their consent.” Chhabria proceeded to bar the administration from sharing Medicaid data “obtained from the plaintiff states for immigration enforcement purpose” while the case played out and the agencies explained their actions.

The judge determined the Trump administration may not share information beyond “basic biographical, location, and contact” because the federal government’s “new policies are totally unclear about what that information would be, why it would be needed for immigration enforcement purposes, and what the risks of sharing it with DHS would be.”

Such reasoning would rule out the government acting “arbitrarily” in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, the statute governing federal agencies’ behavior. And so while Chhabria opined in the recent order that DHS and HHS adequately explained their actions, allowing for the sharing of certain data, he also found that significant questions remain.

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US Reaches 30th Strike In Boat Bombing Campaign Ahead Of New Year

As the world gets ready to usher in a new year, the US military campaign against Venezuela has reached another grim milestone. American forces carried out their latest airstrike on a vessel accused of drug trafficking in Latin American waters on Monday.

The operation announced by US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) represents the 30th strike since the campaign began on September 2

The official US announcement indicated the boat was struck in the eastern Pacific Ocean – so the ‘other side’ opposite the Caribbean, which is certainly not the first in this area.

Officials claimed the strike resulted in the deaths of two individuals labeled as “narco-terrorists” – which has been used of the Trump administration to defend lethal actions at sea carried out without judicial proceedings, or so much as a warning.

Analysts have tallied that the number people killed by US military actions at sea connected to the Venezuela campaign has risen to 107 with this latest strike.

Meanwhile the NY Times has begun documenting the “Grim Evidence of Trump’s Airstrikes” which has “Washed Ashore a Colombian Peninsula”:

A thunderous boom rang out through the windless late-afternoon air. Seconds later, smoke began rising out of the sea as if the horizon were on fire.

Watching from the shore on Nov. 6, Erika Palacio Fernández whipped out her phone, she said, unwittingly recording the only verified and independent video known to date of the aftermath of an airstrike in the Trump administration’s campaign against what it calls “narco-terrorists.”

Two days later, on that same shore, a scorched 30-foot-long boat itself would wash up. Then, two mangled bodies. Then charred jerrycans, life jackets and dozens of packets that were observed by The New York Times and were similar to others that have been found after anti-narcotics operations in the region. Most packets were empty, though traces of a substance that looked and smelled like marijuana were found in the lining of a few.

A $30 million Reaper drone launched from a $1 billion navy frigate… all to take out a little wooden boat lined with marijuana packets?

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