DA Bragg Charges ‘Hero’ Marine over Homeless Predator’s Death

Luis Cornelio
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DA Bragg Charges ‘Hero’ Marine over Homeless Predator’s Death

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Daniel Penny, the retired Marine, who put Jordan Neely, a mentally ill homeless man with a lengthy criminal record, in a chokehold that allegedly caused his death on the New York City subway on May 1 is being charged with second-degree manslaughter. 

Penny, 24, will turn himself into New York City’s 5th Precinct on Friday, where he will be arrested on the criminal complaint filed by Alvin Bragg, the embattled Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney, the New York Post reported Thursday. 

“We can confirm that Daniel Penny will be arrested on a charge of Manslaughter in the Second Degree,” a Bragg spokesperson announced in a statement. “We cannot provide any additional information until he has been arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court, which we expect to take place tomorrow.” 

At the time of the incident, Neely, an alleged subway performer, had an erratic metal breakdown and held several subway riders hostage, forcing Penny to use a chokehold to restrain the man. Two other individuals assisted in restraining the homeless heckler.  

Footage shared on social media showed Neely resisting the chokehold and passing out. He was later pronounced dead at a New York hospital. New York police took Penny into custody but later released him pending an investigation following the incident. 

The death of Neely, a repeat offender with a staggering criminal record of 42 arrests involving violent assault, fraud and criminal trespass, triggered several protests led by leftist groups.

Infamous leftist leaders, including self-proclaimed Democratic-Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., urged the Manhattan DA to press charges against Penny. 

Ocasio-Cortez’s calls for charges were echoed by activist protestors bankrolled by Democrat billionaire mega-donors George Soros and Mark Zuckerberg. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, also a Democrat, blasted far-left hecklers who stormed the city’s streets to demand Penny be arrested without knowing all the facts around the case. 

The Post reported that it was expected that Bragg would opt to await a grand jury indictment against the former Marine, instead of filing a felony complaint himself. 

Defense attorney and former New York prosecutor Mark Bederow said Bragg is making a “political call” to appease leftist critics. “It is stunning that they would make an arrest before presenting this to a grand jury,” Bederow said, according to the Post. “Bragg made a political call: he now owns this.”

Several conservative personalities torched Bragg’s political decision to charge the former Marine. “This isn’t surprising but it’s still an outrageous atrocity,” said Matt Walsh, film director and podcast host. “Neely was a known violent predator. Penny acted to defend himself and the others on the train. Now he’ll be sacrificed on the altar of ‘racial justice.'”

Echoing Walsh’s remarks, conservative commentator Mike Cernovich called the charges an “anti-christ” moment.

“Jordan Neely terrorized innocent passengers for years,” Cernovich said on Thursday on Twitter. “He tried kidnapping a 7 year old. He beat down a 64 year old man and a 67 year old woman. The hero who stopped him not faces criminal persecution. The Antichrist is rising in New York City.”

Greta Van Susteren Announces Big Break in Natalee Holloway Disappearance

Mark Pellin
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Greta Van Susteren Announces Big Break in Natalee Holloway Disappearance

(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) A case of suspected murder rife with gruesome twists and a mysteriously disappearing teenage girl that captivated the nation’s attention nearly two decades ago and cemented Greta Van Susteren’s reputation, for good or ill, as a tabloid crime news TV star is once again making headlines.

After 18 years, Van Susteren on Wednesday announced that the suspect in the 2005 disappearance and likely murder of Natalee Holloway was being extradited to the U.S. to face trial on extortion and wire fraud charges, each of which carries hefty sentences.

Joran van der Sloot, a Dutch citizen who is currently serving a 28-year stretch in a maximum-security prison in the Andes for the un-related murder of a Peruvian woman, was in 2005 identified as the primary suspect in the disappearance of Holloway, who was 18 at the time. Holloway was on a Caribbean vacation with friends when she vanished. Her body was never found and a judge eventually declared her dead.

Holloway was last seen leaving a nightclub in Aruba with van der Sloot, a Dutch citizen who at the time was a student on the island. No charges were brought in the case, but van der Sloot in 2010 pleaded guilty to murdering a Peruvian woman. Officials in Peru approved his extradition for the Holloway charges.

The federal charges stem from van der Sloot allegedly trying to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Holloway family with promises to lead them to Natalee’s body. An Alabama grand jury indicted him in 2010 on one count each of wire fraud and extortion.

The mysterious disappearance of the 18-year-old Holloway and the case’s tantalizing evil tentacles gripped the nation, in no small part from Van Susteren’s outsized coverage of the case, gaining her the nickname “Greta ‘all Natalee Holloway, all the time” Van Susteren.”

While the case eventually faded from the public eye, it remained a cause for Van Susteren, who continued her fight, along with the Holloway family, to see justice served.

“I don’t know if I have ever been more excited to be on tv to tell breaking news. BREAKING: Suspect in 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway to be extradited,” she tweeted Wednesday.

Natalee Holloway’s mother, Beth, reflected in a statement that her daughter would have been 36 years old now, and that she was blessed to have Natalee in her life for 18 years.

“It has been a very long and painful journey, but the persistence of many is going to pay off,” Beth Holloway said. Together, we are finally getting justice for Natalee.”

Van Susteren originally wanted no part of the case.

“I thought it was the typical American gets drunk, she misses her plane, she meets some guy and then she’ll show up sober in three days,” Van Susteren told OnMilwaukee in a 2010 interview. When she first arrived at the hotel where Natalee had been staying, Beth Holloway answered the door.

“I’m looking around the room. I see a suitcase that’s half-packed that’s Natalee’s. Natalee’s room is exactly how she left it,” Van Susteren recalled.

“And I’m thinking, ‘Am I going to be just sort of the creepy TV person who swoops in and does a couple days of stories and leaves? Or, am I going to make a personal commitment to myself that I’m going to carry this through to the end?'” Van Susteren said. “I decided I wanted to carry this through to the end and do the right thing.”

New Bill Could Force Colleges to Pay Damages for Silencing Free Speech

Contributing Author
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New Bill Could Force Colleges to Pay Damages for Silencing Free Speech

(Headline USA) A new bill introduced by Senate Republicans this week would force colleges to pay damages in court if they are found guilty of suppressing free speech on campus.

The Campus Free Speech Restoration Act, sponsored by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., would allow private citizens or the U.S. attorney general to sue universities if the schools violate the free speech right of students, faculty members and speakers.

The Education Department would also be empowered to investigate violations of free speech, and if a university is found to have violated free speech, its federal funds could be stripped as a result, according to the Washington Examiner.

“Too many of America’s public colleges have attacked the First Amendment rights of their students using so-called free speech zones and unconstitutional speech codes,” Cotton said in a statement. “This bill fights back against campus censors in order to defend open debate and free speech, which lead us to truth.”

Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., introduced a companion bill in the House last month.

“Students learn best when they’re in an environment where they can express their opinions and ask questions,” Murphy said at the time. “Unfortunately, many institutions teach diversity in all things except opinion. That’s why I’m introducing this bill to put a long-overdue check on woke universities and ensure students’ First Amendment rights are duly protected.”

The bill comes amid an uptick in shoutdowns and threats against conservatives on college campuses. Earlier this year, for example, a federal judge — Judge Kyle Duncan — was screamed at by a mob of Stanford Law School students. And last month, former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines was physically hit and barricaded inside a classroom after being chased down by a mob of leftist students.

Biden Regime Made Videos Training Citizens to Monitor Pro-Life Moms, ‘Radicalization Suspects’

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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Biden Regime Made Videos Training Citizens to Monitor Pro-Life Moms, ‘Radicalization Suspects’

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Days after Joe Biden stepped into the Oval Office, the Department of Homeland Security decided to go after suburban pro-life moms and other “radicalization suspects.”

DHS’s Office of Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention outlined training videos that would instruct bystanders on how to report “radicalization suspects” in certain situations that might be encountered, according to the documents obtained by America First Legal Foundation through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The Daily Wire reported that the leftist document characterized a religious, middle-aged suburban mother who is “concerned about the welfare of other children including the unborn” and an anti-government father as potential extremists. A white teenage male who hurls “racial epithets” and flashes a gun at his girlfriend and a young environmental activist are also included in the document as examples of potential threats to democracy.

Reed D. Rubinstein, senior counselor and director of investigations for America First Legal, accused DHS of becoming a “Stasi-like Deep State internal security apparatus.”

“It is a very long way from ‘see something, say something’ regarding an unattended suitcase at the airport, to profiling patriotic and politically conservative Americans as abusive parents and domestic terrorists because they oppose abortion on demand and voted for former President Trump,” Rubinstein said.

“The agency is out of control.”

In his report, Mike Benz, executive director of Foundation For Online Freedom, said that the so-called radicalized suspects targeted in the planning documents are actually normal American citizens.

According to him, DHS wants Americans citizens to police one another’s personal beliefs and report family members spreading so-called disinformation about COVID-19 or expressing skepticism toward the U.S. government on social media.

“In other words, what DHS is doing is the epitome of weaponization of the federal government,” Benz said.

“Teaching everyday American citizens to police the opinions and behavior of their peers via these online training products represents just one segment of a synchronized ‘whole-of-society’ censorship effort composed of private firms, universities and the government that has been spearheaded by DHS to target emerging narratives being popularized among the public.”

College Prof. Placed on Leave, Investigated for Sharing Daily Wire’s Gendered Chocolate Bars

Molly Bruns
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College Prof. Placed on Leave, Investigated for Sharing Daily Wire’s Gendered Chocolate Bars

(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) A tenured history professor at Madera Community College is under investigation for handing out chocolate bars with real gender pronouns on the wrappers.

The candy in question, created and sold by the Daily Wire, comes in two styles: the “He/Him” chocolate bars have nuts; the “She/Her” chocolate bars are “nutless.”

Professor David Richardson purchased a case of the candy bars to protest the Hershey’s Chocolate advertising campaign for International Women’s Day, which predominately featured a man identifying as a woman.

The teacher kept some of the candy for himself, but took the rest into work to share with his coworkers and students.

Richardson received a letter from the human resources department of the college announcing his paid administrative leave pending an investigation. According to Just the News, a “uniformed police officer” delivered the note to his Richardson’s home.

The letter alleged that Richardson created a “hostile work environment” and harassed his coworkers by handing out the candy.

The school banned Richardson from “non-public” areas of the State Center Community College District, even after 33 years of service to the school. He is also prohibited from accessing his Madera email and “any action which could be construed as retaliation against anyone.”

The professor, who described himself as a “gay conservative,” was already in the process of suing the SCCCD for a previous punishment incurred at a “pronoun etiquette” seminar at the school.

The host of the seminar was also a teacher on campus who identified as transgender, and took offense when Richardson used “Do, Re, Mi” as his pronouns during the a Zoom call. The complaint ultimately led to a letter of reprimand placed in Richardson’s file and he was required to complete six hours of diversity, equity and inclusion training, and submit a written response on what he learned and how he can “create a more inclusive environment.”

Richardson sued the school in a First Amendment lawsuit, which has not moved in several months. The professor announced that his lawyer will be filing an amended complaint to include the new investigation in the suit.

RINOs Join w/ Dems to Sabotage MAGA Policies on Immigration

Ezekiel Loseke
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RINOs Join w/ Dems to Sabotage MAGA Policies on Immigration

(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) A new group of Congressional RINOs has been meeting with a group of allegedly moderate Democrats to help facilitate what they consider compromise on policies, including illegal immigration.

The alliance is a mashup of a Democrat cabal that boasts 98 members, is led by New Hampshire Rep. Annie Kuster, accounts for almost half of all party members and calls itself the New Democrat Coalition. The RINO herd, called the Republican Governance Group, has only 42 members, many from swing districts, and is led by Ohio Rep. David Joyce, R-Ohio.

Together, the two bodies account for almost a third of Congressional members, and have been meeting to further the vaunted pathway to citizenship and other methods to sidetrack enforcement of illegal immigration law, among other policy issues.

The two groups hosted a joint meeting over Zoom earlier this week led by Apple CEO Tim Cook and focused on immigration, according to Axios. The meeting took place as the House was preparing a sweeping border security and illegal immigration bill. A GOP majority approved the bill on Thursday, as the Trump-era Title 42 policy was expiring and border states were bracing for chaos.

President Joe Biden has already vowed to veto the legislation if it reaches his desk, which reportedly would suit members of the New Democrat Coalition.

“The approach put forward in H.R. 2, the ‘Secure the Border Act,’ will not improve our immigration system,” the group claimed in a letter.

Kuster, the Democrat group’s chief, said the new new alliance with Republicans is not content with only attacking the issue of illegal immigration and is “starting to have conversations about [energy] permitting reform.”

The two organizations have produced similar policy task forces on fiscal responsibility, health care, border security and the debt ceiling. Axios reported that the similarities indicated the preparation of compromise legislation to pitch to their respective parties. To that end, the two groups have a happy hour mixer in the works.

Headline USA’s Mark Pellin contributed to this report

STL’s Outgoing Soros DA Refuses to Prosecute Killer Caught on Video

Contributing Author
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STL’s Outgoing Soros DA Refuses to Prosecute Killer Caught on Video

(Headline USA) Soros-backed St. Louis attorney Kim Gardner is reportedly refusing to press charges against a woman who was caught on video participating in a shooting over the weekend.

According to police, Amber Booker, 33, was arrested during an investigation into a shooting that occurred toward the end of a Cinco de Mayo festival on Saturday night. Booker is seen in multiple images holding a gun alongside a man, who was also holding a gun.

But Gardner, who recently announced she was stepping down from her role as circuit attorney, is refusing to press charges because of a “lack of evidence” for each count charged, the police department said.

Police had charged Booker with two counts of first-degree assault and two counts of armed criminal action.

In a statement, Gardner’s office denied it had abandoned the case.

“We are working closely with police on this ongoing investigation,” her office said. “We cannot comment further at this time.”

Gardner has been under fire on multiple fronts and is even facing an investigation of criminal contempt from the state attorney general for failing to do her job. She initially declared that she would not leave office voluntarily, but apparently changed her tune last week.

“It is with a heavy heart but steadfast resolve that I am resigning my position as your Circuit Attorney, effective June 1,” she wrote, being sure to inject the race card.

“Unfortunately, since the time I took office, as the first Black, female prosecutor in the State, people outside of the city have targeted me and, to advance their goals, have also targeted the fundamental rights of the city’s voters,” she added.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who has led the state’s efforts to oust Gardner, said in a statement that his office remains “undeterred with our legal quest to forcibly remove her from office” despite her resignation.

“Every day she remains puts the City of St. Louis in more danger. How many victims will there be between now and June 1? How many defendants will have their constitutional rights violated? How many cases will continue to go unprosecuted?” he said in a statement.

Kamala Uses Coconut Trees to Explain Border Crisis as Biden Admits Chaos

Contributing Author
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Kamala Uses Coconut Trees to Explain Border Crisis as Biden Admits Chaos

(Headline USA) Vice President Kamala Harris, who was tasked with getting a handle on the border crisis by President Joe Biden in 2021, brushed off questions about the surge of migrants into the country with a characteristically jumbled answer.

“Everything is in context,” Harris said. “My mother used to – she would give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’”

Harris then started cackling, before adding, “You exist in the context of all in which you live and came before you.”

Harris’s role as the administration’s “border czar” has been a weak spot for her, but the White House has insisted that her efforts to stem the flow of migration in the migrants’ home countries is “working.”

“While Republicans are focusing on these border attacks, we are doing the work of governing,” an administration official told CNN. “Each agency is slowly and steadily making progress on implementing what we laid out we’re trying to do there.”

For his part, Biden hasn’t publicly dealt with the border crisis much better. On Wednesday, a day ahead of the expiration of Title 42, Biden admitted there is chaos at the southern border, but refused to say what his administration planned to do about it.

It’s “going to be chaotic for a while,” Biden told reporters, adding that he is in regular communication with Mexican officials.

Biden’s comments come ahead of an expected surge of migrants across the border. Already, Border Patrol officials have apprehended more than 10,000 migrants over a three-day period.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, however, insisted that the border is “not open.”

“The border is not open,” Mayorkas said last week. “It has not been open, and it will not be open subsequent to May 11. And the smugglers who exploit vulnerable migrants are spreading misinformation. They are spreading false information, lies in a way to lure vulnerable people to the southern border and those individuals will only be returned.”

George Santos Case Proves that FBI Uses Informants to Infiltrate Congress

Ken Silva
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George Santos Case Proves that FBI Uses Informants to Infiltrate Congress

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) On Feb. 2, Headline USA published an article titled, “Does the FBI Have Spies in Congress?”

At that same time, the FBI was actively attempting to infiltrate the office of embattled Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., according to information that has been released in the wake of the DOJ announcing a slew of charges against Santos.

The information comes from former Santos staffer and “journalist” Derek Myers, who left his role with the congressman and filed a sexual-harassment complaint against him in February. Myers told NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo on Tuesday that the FBI had approached him to inform against Santos while he was still working for the congressman.

“When I was working for the congressman as a legislative aide, I was approached by the FBI about infiltrating the congressman,” Myers said. “The FBI was actively looking for someone close to the congressman so they could infiltrate him and try to get information from within his inner circle.”

Myers’s information seemed to take Cuomo by surprised. The news host asked Myers if he considered the FBI’s actions against Santos to be appropriate.

“I think they were looking for a human asset—someone close to the congressman who could feed them information, somebody within his inner circle,” Myers responded. “It’s not inappropriate for them to do that. They do that quite often.”

Indeed, as Headline USA has reported, the FBI has a program devoted to embed informants in the media, congressional offices, churches, defense teams and other “sensitive” institutions.

This program was discovered by Utah attorney Jesse Trentadue in 2011, while prepping for a separate lawsuit. His friend and fellow investigator, Roger Charles, had discovered an FBI memo showing that a journalist at ABC News was also doubling as a federal informant.

While Trentadue and Charles’s discovery moved through the news cycle quickly with little impact, it prompted Trentadue to file records requests with the FBI to see if the bureau had other informants in the media, as well as places such as congressional offices, courts, churches, other government agencies and even the White House.

“I thought they’d come back and say, ‘We would never do that because that would be illegal and unconstitutional,’” he said. “Instead, they came back and said, ‘Yeah, we do that. We have manuals on that, but you can’t have them because of national security.’”

Trentadue filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit over the matter in 2012, seeking unredacted copies of the FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, the FBI Confidential Human Source Validation Standards Manual, the FBI Confidential Human Source Policy Manual and the FBI Confidential Human Source Policy Implementation Guide.

After about two years of litigation, the presiding judge in Trentadue’s lawsuit said the FBI could keep the manuals secret.

The judge noted that government agencies are “entitled to considerable deference” when they exercise national security or law enforcement exemptions—unless there’s evidence of bad faith by government actors. Then, he said, the courts have no power to make government agencies disclose secret information.

The judge ordered the case closed on June 9, 2015.

While some might defend the FBI’s sensitive informant program as necessary for national security or for investigating allegedly corrupt politicians such as Santos, Trentadue said the records he’s uncovered show that the bureau has far overstepped its boundaries.

“This isn’t the case of the FBI investigating corruption,” Trentadue said. “The bureau is recruiting spies in an effort to infiltrate and influence.”

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Republicans Pass Border Security Bill As Title 42 Expires

Wire Editor
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Republicans Pass Border Security Bill As Title 42 Expires

(By Brett Rowland, The Center Square) U.S. House Republicans passed a bill Thursday in response to the surge in illegal immigration at the nation’s southern border during President Joe Biden’s tenure. The measure was voted on just as Title 42 enforcement was set to expire at midnight.

“Mr. President, thank God Republicans are in charge today,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Thursday before Republicans adopted the bill.

Republicans have blamed Biden for the surge in illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border that has led to overcrowded shelters, crossing deaths, human and drug trafficking, increased homelessness, a spike in fentanyl overdoses and poisonings, and other issues.

The measure passed 219-213 just hours before Title 42, the emergency health authority that allowed U.S. officials to turn away migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border to prevent the spread of COVID-19, expires.

Biden has vowed to veto the bill if it reaches his desk.

The bill, H.R. 2, known as the Secure the Border Act of 2023, would restrict the Department of Homeland Security from providing parole to foreign nationals by defining the reasons for which parole may be granted. Parole allows people to temporarily enter the United States. It would also require all employers to use E-Verify, a federal system that allows public- and private-sector employers to confirm work eligibility in the U.S. Use of E-Verify would be phased in over several years.

The bill would also re-start construction of a southwestern border wall. It would require the Department of Homeland Security to build at least 900 miles of wall and physical barriers at an estimated cost of $1 billion from 2024 to 2028 and an additional $1 billion after 2028.

It would also direct U.S. Customs and Border Protection to hire enough border patrol agents to maintain staffing at 22,000. That would mean the U.S. Customs and Border Protection would have to add about 3,000 agents at an estimated cost of $1.3 billion from 2024 to 2028.

The Congressional Budget Office said the bill would increase unified budget deficits by $6.1 billion over the next decade. That deficit consists of a $45.4 billion decrease in on-budget deficits and a $51.5 billion increase in off-budget deficits, according to the CBO report. But that does not account for the potential decrease in costs to local and state governments for providing food, shelter, schooling, health care and other services.

The measure – if approved by the Democratic-controlled Senate and signed by Biden, both of which are unlikely – would likely spur changes in wage reporting and tax withholding once all employers are required to use E-Verify and reduce the use of federal benefits by foreign nationals. The CBO also said it would reduce costs for the Office of Refugee Resettlement after reductions in caseloads. However, the CBO highlighted two areas of significant uncertainty including the “extent to which the government would detain arriving aliens or return them to the contiguous country from which they arrived” and if people “without legal work authorization would continue to work and whether and how they would pay taxes.”

Republicans pushed for the passage of the bill. They said it would secure the border, stem illegal immigration and reduce human and drug trafficking at the border.

Democrats called the measure cruel, punitive, unworkable and dead on arrival in the Senate. They also said it would hurt farms and other agricultural businesses.

“Mandatory E-Verify would decimate the agriculture industry,” U.S. Rep. Jarrold Nadler, D-New York, said on the House floor.

During debate on the bill, Republicans blamed Democrats for the problems at the border and Democrats blamed Republicans.

U.S. Rep. Laurel Lee, R-Fla., said “when we fail to secure our border, cartels will.” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, whose state has the longest border with Mexico, said the cartels already control the Mexican border and has declared them foreign terrorist organizations.

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, said the measure would “make things much worse” at the border. She said it was not a serious bill.

“These are the things that should keep Americans awake at night,” U.S. Rep Barry Moore, R-Ala., said of fentanyl trafficking at the U.S.-Mexico border. “… A closed border is a compassionate border.”

U.S. Rep. Steven McCaul, R-Texas, called the situation at the border “the largest human trafficking crisis I have witnessed in my lifetime.”

Biden has indicated he would veto the bill should it get to him.

“The Biden-Harris Administration’s approach to border management is grounded in this strategy – expanding legal pathways while increasing consequences for illegal pathways, which helps maintain safe, orderly and humane border processing,” Biden’s office said in a statement of administrative policy.

“However, the Administration is limited in what it can achieve by an outdated statutory framework and inadequate resources, particularly in this time of unprecedented global movement. H.R. 2 does nothing to address the root causes of migration, reduces humanitarian protections, and restricts lawful pathways, which are critical alternatives to unlawful entry.”

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