Texas Sheriff: We’re Experiencing ‘Silent Invasion’ of Military-Age Men

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Texas Sheriff: We’re Experiencing ‘Silent Invasion’ of Military-Age Men

(Bethany Blankley, The Center Square) What’s happening at the southern U.S. border with Mexico is in fact an invasion, Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe says.

“We’re experiencing a silent invasion of military-age men,” Coe told The Center Square when describing what his deputies have been increasingly facing over the past two years.

He spoke with The Center Square during an Operation Lone Star task force multi-day operation during which law enforcement officers rescued foreign nationals from a burning vehicle and revived a five-year-old girl being smuggled who’d been stashed inside of a car’s trunk.

The “silent invasion,” Coe said, is being committed primarily by single, military age men between the ages of 17 and 45 who are illegally entering the U.S. They’re wearing camouflage and carrying backpacks, according to video captured by cameras placed throughout the county viewed by The Center Square. Many are armed and dangerous, committing robberies and engaging in shootouts with law enforcement, Coe said.

The men are believed to be working or associated with Mexican cartels. Once they arrive in major U.S. cities, they are embedded with gangs and or cartel affiliates acting like a “Trojan horse,” Coe said. “They set up in our cities, take over through voting and or crime, and scare the local people who move out. It’s happening in Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio,” he said, where crime has also exponentially increased over the last few years.

He said, “You can win a lot of battles without getting violent,” referring to the “silent invasion” as an act of war against the U.S. by Mexican cartels.

Coe last month sent out an SOS asking for help from other counties to apprehend human smugglers in his small border county of roughly 3,000 people. In response, law enforcement officers from 20 agencies participated in a days-long operation during which The Center Square participated in a ridealong.

As soon as the task force got started, officers were engaged in smuggling pursuits. He said, “the more people we have, the more effective we’ll be” at pushing smugglers and gotaways “out of the area.” Gotaways are those who illegally enter the U.S., don’t request asylum or make other immigration claims, and intentionally evade capture.

A retired Border Patrol agent, Coe took office Jan 1, 2017, and says he’s never seen what’s he seeing now in his entire life. Things first started getting bad after President Joe Biden altered border security and immigration policies, and have only gotten worse since, he said.

In 2022, for example, his deputies made 877 arrests, filing 3,057 felony charges. Of all the criminal cases filed that year, 927 were immigration-related involving illegal foreign nationals or smugglers, he said.

While these numbers are unprecedented, the number of people who got away are even greater. Detected on cameras making their way through the county on foot, nearly 21,500 foreign nationals were detected but weren’t apprehended last year. That’s at least seven times the size of the county’s population. Their whereabouts are currently unknown.

“The other unknown,” he said, “is what’s not on camera. You might see two or three are on camera but shadows are also visible indicating there are more people behind them. The camera only shows the 2 to 3 people.”

In 2022, Kinney County Sheriff’s deputies apprehended 3,192 illegal foreign nationals compared to the 1,124 they apprehended in 2021, according to the sheriff’s data.

In 2022, they apprehended 741 smugglers compared to 169 in 2021, Coe said, as he went through the data with The Center Square.

His deputies engaged in 139 pursuits and 136 bailouts in 2022 compared to 61 pursuits and 56 bailouts in 2021.

In 2022, they impounded 580 vehicles compared to 179 in 2021.

In 2022, deputies also seized 89 firearms carried by alleged smugglers, including some that were stolen, up from 29 in 2021.

Despite increased resources and funding through Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star, apprehensions and crime continue to escalate, Coe said.

So far in 2023, their efforts and the stats are already breaking last year’s records across the board, he said. At least 6,600 illegal foreign nationals have been captured on cameras crossing through the county on foot, he said. “That’s an average of 150 a day. These are people who aren’t being caught,” he added.

His deputies already have apprehended 398 illegal foreign nationals and 96 alleged smugglers so far this year. They’ve also engaged in nearly 30 vehicle pursuits, including 27 bailouts, nearly all involving human smugglers, he said.

The majority of the alleged smugglers they’re catching are men from Houston between the ages of 17 and 25. Earlier this month they apprehended a 14-year-old who evaded arrest driving a stolen car, he said.

The overwhelming majority of alleged smugglers they’re arresting are U.S. citizens responding to social media ads hoping to make several thousand dollars per load. Those caught include a licensed security guard, attorneys, couples and teenagers, Coe said.

Americans are coming to Kinney County from all over the U.S. Initially, they were from Oklahoma and Louisiana; now they’re also coming from Georgia, California, New York, and New Jersey, he said.

Their efforts would be severely limited were it not for support from the state, he said. “We couldn’t do what we’re doing without Operation Lone Star. Our county attorney handled 4-5 cases a month. Now it’s 150 every time we have court and we have court four times a week. We used to have district court once a month, now it’s 100 cases every time. The jury pool is busy, and we may end up with two grand juries to convene every other week.”

Activists Say Native Americans Deserve Reparations

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Activists Say Native Americans Deserve Reparations

(Ria Roebuck Joseph, The Center Square) “The American Indian is the one who deserves reparation in this country,” Task Force members heard from one women among several who brought up Native Americans.

The California Reparations Task Force met on Mar. 3 to report and discuss the progress in developing a comprehensive plan and make recommendations to the governor for future legislative action on reparations.

The Task Force formed as a result of AB3121 which was enacted on Sep. 30 2020 and signed by Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom. Its role is to study and develop reparation proposals for African American descendants of enslaved people. It holds periodic meetings open to the public. The California Justice department works with CRTF to facilitate consultation with experts on California’s history and reparations.

At the meeting, members of the public raised concerns about who should get reparations, the groups that should be the first to receive them, and the question of lineage.

During the one hour public comment period which came at the top of the meeting, it became apparent that eligibility for reparations was a concern for some attendees.

Mark Johnson, a remote attendee, spoke about California’s first slaves.

“I would like to mention that slaves were brought to California during the gold rush by Confederate sympathizers,” Johnson said. “California was on the verge of splitting into Confederate and Union camps. The only slaves that were in California were brought here by Confederates.”

California joined the Union in 1850 as a “free state.”

“California never had a state statute saying that slavery is permissible. On this note, I would like to say that I don’t believe a single person deserves restitution in any form unless they are a Native American….nobody gets a dollar until the Indians get one,” he concluded.

Although the state’s constitution outlawed slavery in 1849 declaring “neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of crimes, shall ever be tolerated in this state,” slaves that were brought into the state continued under a slavery system.

Claudia Fitzgerald echoed Johnson’s opinion that the Native Americans should be the first consideration for reparations. She was also concerned about the possibility of fraud.

“Why is the state of California doing this? This should be a Federal thing. Just like they did with the Japanese internment. The American Indian is the one who deserves reparation in this country, the most of anyone of us, but besides that listening to all the stuff that they want to do for reparations, tax rebates or whatever, it’s now terrible, complicated and its typical California, is open to massive fraud right from the get-go,” she said.

“If you’re gonna do it, it should be direct lineage to those slaves that were brought in here and not just someone who moved from another country in 1985. I just think that’s wrong….I don’t know why California is doing this. It should be a Federal issue.”

Defining lineage and whose lineage was important as well.

Rachiel Plunket with commented, “Please know that I support lineage-based plans specific to the descendant community, not universal or race-based plans.”

One of the recommendations given by the Task Force in its interim report was the establishment of The California African American Freedmen Affairs Agency, which among other things would be tasked with forming a genealogical department to conduct genealogical research to confirm eligibility of potential claimants.

“I support federal reparations. I also ask again to get the interim report into California libraries, high schools, college campuses, senior citizens centers etc. There’s a lot of education in that report and it will answer a lot of questions before people even present them,” Plunket said.

Another remote attendee suggested starting with what was already known.

I strongly propose a “first round of reparations to the ancestors of black veterans, many of whom are denied benefits of the GI bill, specifically housing loans and educational stipends. I also urge a round of reparations to the black patriots who aided our cause of the American Revolution by assisting through military service, clothing repair, feeding and financial and medical aid of troops,” she stated.

“We have the databases that identify these Americans. The US government has the data base for the GIs and The Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution has established a significant database of black patriots and their lineage. Let’s start with these clear list of Americans who were denied their rights.”

The California Reparation Task Force is scheduled to give its final recommendations in June. Eligibility remains one of the key questions to be addressed. Will it be lineage based for all enslaved African Americans or only those with a history of being domiciled in California? The work of figuring out who will be eligible continues.

$3.5B in U.S. Funds in Limbo in Switzerland

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$3.5B in U.S. Funds in Limbo in Switzerland

(Adam Andrzejewski, RealClear Wire) When Afghanistan fell in 2021, the U.S. Treasury seized $7 billion from Afghanistan’s central bank in a show of disapproval for the new Taliban government. Half of the funds were immediately sent back to America and given to 9/11 victims’ families. The other $3.5 billion, though, is locked up indefinitely in a Swiss investment fund to benefit the Afghan people.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the money in the fund is intended to benefit the Afghan people without directly funding the Taliban government. The U.S. is partially using the funds as leverage to encourage the Taliban to abandon illiberal policies, with promises of unfreezing the funds when they do. Until then, it will continue to sit in a fund at the Bank of International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland.

Unfreezing the funds, however, is a complicated process. Currently, four individual trustees govern the fund, including two Afghans, one Swiss and one American, and must unanimously agree on a use for the funds for them to be unfrozen.

To gain approval to unfreeze the funds, American officials want the Afghan Central Bank to show independence from the Taliban, and to counter money laundering and terrorism financing. Unfortunately, reforms are unlikely to come anytime soon, as the bank recently appointed an alleged terrorist financier to deputy chief of the bank. This financier is blacklisted by the U.S., European Union, and the United Nations.

There’s plenty of reasonable discourse on how America should balance aiding impoverished Afghan citizens without funding the Taliban. But it shouldn’t be controversial to take back the $3.5 billion, then distribute it as aid at a later date when the government sees fit. Letting it sit in a Swiss bank isn’t helping anyone.

Washington State Registered ‘Many’ Foreign Nationals to Vote

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Washington State Registered ‘Many’ Foreign Nationals to Vote

(TJ Martinell, The Center Square) During recent election cycles, the Washington Department of Licensing, or DOL, received numerous reports of foreign nationals being automatically registered to vote in the state, even in cases where they insisted to DOL they were not legally allowed to vote. Some county election agencies have described it as a “rare” occurrence, but it is currently unknown to what extent this problem occurred.

In 2018, the state Legislature passed House Bill 2595, which automatically registers people to vote when they are issued a driver’s license or renew an existing license. To be automatically registered, the voter must provide a signature image and be offered an opportunity to decline registration. The bill took effect in July 2018.

Emails obtained by The Center Square through a public records request found instances where foreign citizens were registered to vote, in some cases despite them insisting during the licensing process that they were not U.S. citizens. According to the Washington Secretary of State’s Office, or SOS, state law does not allow it to verify citizenship when they receive a voter’s registration.

As early as November 2018, DOL and SOS was receiving complaints of foreign voter registration. A Nov. 7, 2018 email from Vanessa Mathisen, an immigration attorney with World Relief Spokane, stated that “many of our clients are unwittingly getting registered to vote when they get their IDs, apply or receive any state benefits. Sometimes we find out because they get a summons for jury duty. Others we do not discover have been registered until they decide to apply for citizenship.”

The attorney further wrote that “in my discussion with the Spokane Voter Registration office, they said that they were told that it’s not a problem if a non-citizen registers to vote. That is false. It is a problem. I don’t know what’s going on at the DOL counters exactly, but I do know that nearly all of my clients that have been registered to vote do not recall doing so, do not recall whether they were asked if they are a US citizen, and 100% of the time either did not speak English or they did not speak English well enough to understand the questions being posed to them.”

She added: “There is no reason to put anyone in the position of having to defend that they did not make a claim that they potentially cannot prove they didn’t make that imperils their immigration status.”

Making false claims regarding eligibility to vote is a Class C felony and includes a fine of up to $10,000 and up to five years in prison.

In response to her email, DOL Technical Operations Consultant Jace Anderson wrote that the state agency “has policies to provide customers with LEP [limited English proficiency] with options and avenues for communication. Some offices have staff who are certified to provide bilingual services in some languages; the customers can bring family, friends, or assistants to help with interpretation.”

The consultant further wrote that “there is, unfortunately, not much more that can be done about that from the department’s side; if a customer answers the questions confidently and there is no other indication that there is a significant language barrier, it would not be apparent that the customer did not understand the questions they were asked. DOL is continually reviewing and improving its policies and procedures based on compliance with new and existing regulations, business need, and stakeholder consideration. Your concerns are being reviewed to determine if there is anything DOL can do within the bounds of our power to reduce the occurrence of ineligible voter registrations.”

World Relief Spokane did not respond to a request for comment by The Center Square.

That same month, meetings notes for a monthly King County Voter Education Fund, or VEF, check-in with the South Park Information and Resource Center noted that the organization was “concerned that DOL is registering individuals that are not U.S. citizens without explaining to them what the requirements are. How will this be prevented in the future with automatic registration taking effect [?]”

The issue continued into the 2019 election cycle, in which numerous county election agencies raised concerns about foreign voter registration.

Among them was King County Elections Director Julie Wise. In an Oct. 29, 2019 email to VEF recipients, she responded to reports she had heard from them about the problem.

“Let me start by saying that I am also deeply concerned about this,” she wrote. “Every year we hear from a small number of voters who received a ballot because they accidentally got registered while getting a driver’s license or Washington State ID.”

“I have raised this issue with the Department of Licensing in the past and will continue to do so,” she added.

In an email to The Center Square, King County Elections Communications Officer Halei Watkins wrote that “what we’ve seen over the years is a rare occurrence of someone getting accidentally registered through the DOL because of either miscommunication or human error like checking the wrong box. When that happens, the individual who was accidentally registered is typically very concerned as it can impede their ability to move through the residency and citizenship processes and we cancel the registration.”

She added, “We don’t typically make a formal report to the DOL as the action item (cancelling the registration) is on our end. But, we do meet regularly with the DOL and bring it up in discussion when needed, and the DOL regularly shares their training and efforts toward continuously improving service and consistency in the customer experience.”

Also raising the alarm that election cycle was Sue Higginbotham, administrative assistant to the Kittitas County Auditor’s Office. In an Oct. 10, 2019 email to SOS, she wrote that a local resident who was not a U.S. citizen received a voter ballot.

In this instance, he had been registered to vote in 2014, when he renewed his driver’s license.

“His daughter was there with him and she stated that he was not asked about becoming a registered voter, updating his registration or anything else,” Higginbotham wrote in the email. “I know that was a language barrier, but it is very discouraging to know that DOL personnel are assisting in the process of registering NON-Citizens. I can’t not believe that our local Kittitas County office is the only one in the state to have something slip through. There needs to be something in place for those not receiving the enhanced driver’s license to verify Citizenship prior to clicking that little button.”

In an email response, SOS Director of Elections Lori Augino wrote that DOL would be making updates to online licensing process, including translated it “in language they [residents] prefer. This is a huge step in the right direction for our system.”

In an Oct. 11, 2019 email sent to other DOL employees, Interim Deputy Assistant Director Gregory Chaney wrote that they “must ensure that all procedures are followed and customers understand the qualifications to register to vote and be mindful of the need to be clear as possible regarding voter registration when utilizing translation services for our customers.”

Kittitas Auditor Bryan Elliott wrote in an email to The Center Square that since 2019, their office has not experienced similar situations of foreign citizens being automatically registered to vote.

Yet, the problem apparently persisted into the 2020 election. One woman, whose name The Center Square is declining to print because she is a private citizen, wrote in a Sept. 23 2020 email to DOL, SOS, and Pierce County Elections that a Chinese student was registered to vote and received a ballot despite him insisting he was not legally allowed to vote and his host family requesting his name be removed from voter registration. In the same email, she wrote that a similar situation had also occurred with a Ukrainian national.

“The State Auditor’s office said that the Department of Licensing assured them that they carefully follow state regulations about ensuring only Americans receive ballots,” she wrote in the email. “This is not happening. These are two instances when foreign nationals are presenting their foreign passports and automatically receiving election ballots. Both were not asked ‘are you an American citizen?’ They proved, through their passports, that they were foreign nationals. I received answer that if a person is asked the question, ‘Are you an American citizen?’ and do not answer or do not understand English, they will be issued a voter registration card.”

She added that “the Pierce County Auditor’s department has said this issue is outside their audit authority, and referred me to the Secretary of State Elections Division.”

Report: Trump Has 5-Part Plan to Attack DeSantis, Scare Him from Running

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Report: Trump Has 5-Part Plan to Attack DeSantis, Scare Him from Running

(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Sources familiar with the operations of former President Donald Trump believe that he will be stepping up the competition with Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who appears to be preparing to enter the 2024 presidential race.

Some speculate that Trump is hoping to either intimidate DeSantis so much that he does not enter the race, or damage his reputation to the extent to make it impossible for him to win, Axios reported.

Trump already started the process by dubbing the governor “Ron DeSanctimonious,” shortly followed by “Meatball Ron.”

Trump also plans to target DeSantis’s past support for Social Security and Medicare, which the now-governor wanted to raise the eligibility age for when he served as a U.S. Congressman.

The former president also hopes to paint DeSantis as a compatriot of former House Speaker Paul Ryan. Trump continually attacks Ryan via Truth Social, most recently saying he “couldn’t get elected dogcatcher in the Republican Party.”

“Paul Ryan is a loser, Mitt Romney could have won without him,” Trump said in the post. “I won twice, did much better the second time, and was 233 Wins out of 253 Races in the Midterms. Paul Ryan is destroying Fox, and couldn’t get elected dogcatcher in the Republican Party!”

Florida’s COVID response is another target of Trump’s ire, as DeSantis’s initial response to the viral infection was very strict.

In the early days of the pandemic, DeSantis ordered shutdowns of most businesses and beaches in Palm Beach, which were more strict than anywhere else in the state. The governor pushed back on these claims, arguing that there was little information at the time and he exercised caution for the good of his state.

DeSantis’s team also projects lack of assuredness on the funding of the conflict in Ukraine. The governor gave several halfhearted answers to questions concerning military and financial support in a Fox News interview, but did not support the Biden administration’s blank-check strategy.

Trump also hopes to use DeSantis’ disloyalty against him, after the former president’s endorsement helped him win the governorship in 2018.

“There’s a pre-Trump Ron and there’s a post-Trump Ron,” a Trump confidant said of DeSantis. “He used to be a Reagan Republican. That’s where he comes from. He’s now awkwardly trying to square his views up with the populist nationalist feeling of that party.”

DeSantis’s team has ignored the criticisms thus far, dubbing them as “background noise,”  but there is some debate about whether not responding will make DeSantis seem weak and ineffectual.

Dem. Mayor Mentored by Buttigieg Busted for Child Porn

Abdul-Rahman Oladimeji Bello
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Dem. Mayor Mentored by Buttigieg Busted for Child Porn

(Abdul–Rahman Oladimeji Bello, Headline USA) A radical LGBT activist Democrat mayor who was mentored by Biden Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who is gay, was arrested Thursday on multiple counts of possession and distribution of child pornography.

Patrick Wojahn, the Democrat mayor of College Park, Maryland, was charged with 56 counts of child sex offenses; 40 of those counts involved possession of child porn while the remaining 16 involved the distribution of child porn, according to Townhall.

A 2019 article in the Washington Blade detailed the relationship between Wojahn and Buttigieg.

“I actually met Mayor Pete Buttigieg shortly after I was elected mayor in 2015,” Wojahn said, explaining the launch of the gay duo’s mentor/mentee relationship. “I went to the U.S Conference of Mayors’ Winter Meeting in D.C. in January and he was assigned to be my buddy.”

Wojahn considers himself a role model for the youths in the LGBTQ community. He became the first openly gay man to become mayor of College Park. In addition, his ‘popularity’ also earned him frequent visits to the White House.

Earlier in February, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children raised the alarm to the Prince George’s County Police Department that videos and pictures of child sexual abuse were uploaded on social media. This complaint led to an investigation that discovered that Wojahn operated the social media account in question.

The PGPD marched to the mayor’s home with a search warrant to gather evidence. Upon the completion of the search, investigators found a computer, a tablet, a storage device and multiple cell phones in his home. The PGPD subsequently filed criminal charges against Wojahn before they took him into custody this morning.

Wojahn has also resigned from his position as the mayor of College Park City. A statement from the City reads: “Last night, after business hours, Mayor Patrick L. Wojahn submitted his letter of resignation as Mayor of the City of College Park, effective immediately on March 2.”

Jimmy Kimmel Agitated over Aaron Rodgers’s Call to Release Epstein List

Jacob Bruns
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Jimmy Kimmel Agitated over Aaron Rodgers’s Call to Release Epstein List

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) In a recent episode of his show, Late Night Show host and establishment hack Jimmy Kimmel mocked Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers for wanting to see the list of client names of known pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, the Post Millennial reported.

Kimmel began his rant by referring to Rodgers as a conspiracy theorist for wanting to know more details about the infamous island and its clientele.

“Needless to say all this UFO talk has the tin-foil hatters going wild,” Kimmel said, noting that his list of conspiracy theorists includes “Green Bay ‘whack-packer’ Aaron Rodgers.”

Kimmel then cut to a clip of Rodgers’s recent appearance on the Pat McAfee Show, when Rodgers suggested that the recent spy balloon debacle might simply be serving as a distraction to cover over the upcoming release of the Epstein client list.

“Did you hear about the Epstein client list about to be released, too?” Rodgers asked. “There’s some files that have some names on ’em that might be getting released pretty soon.”

The late night host then cut away from Rodgers’s video and suggested that the future Hall of Fame quarterback see a doctor about a concussion.

“Might be time to revisit that concussion protocol, Aaron,” Kimmel concluded.

While Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and company used to pretend to be somewhat non-partisan, since former President Donald Trump was elected to office in 2016 they have openly taken up arms against half of the country.

In one episode, Kimmel even welcomed President Joe Biden and metaphorically held his hand as Biden stumbled his way through the interview.

“But what we haven’t done, is we haven’t been able to communicate it in a way that is…uh, um…let me say it another way…” the president said, trailing off as Kimmel supported him into a commercial break.

Biden’s $250K Line of Credit on Beach House Remains a Mystery

Jacob Bruns
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Biden’s $250K Line of Credit on Beach House Remains a Mystery

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) President Joe Biden and his administration have thus far refused, despite constant and numerous questioning, to explain the $250,000 line of credit against the president’s Delaware beach house.

The president and his family secured the line of credit amidst revelations of Hunter Biden’s tax scandal, as well as revelations of Joe Biden’s illegal removal of classified documents from office after his tenure as vice president, Fox News reported.

The Bidens secured the loan against the home, which they bought for just under $3 million in 2017, on Dec. 5 of last year. But despite the odd timing and routine questioning, no details have been provided as to the purpose of the tax credit line.

Several days ago, a reporter asked White House press secretary Karine Jean Pierre about the tax credit line, but she refused to provide any details.

“Yeah, I saw reports on that,” she said. “I would just refer you to the White House Counsel’s Office.”

Fox News also contacted the White House, which acknowledged the request but provided no explanation.

Joe and Hunter, for whom this is not their first shady financial transaction, have the distinct honor of being the first father and son duo in presidential history to be simultaneously subject to federal investigation.

In fact, online records of President Joe Biden’s tax returns for the years 2016 to 2018—the time frame in which his son Hunter allegedly paid $50,000 per month in rent— mysteriously disappeared from a campaign website.

Hunter Biden has claimed on past tax returns that he spent $50,000 per month to remain at his father’s home in Wilmington, Delaware–the same place where investigators unearthed classified documents from Joe Biden’s time as vice president.

Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Ellsberg Says He Has Terminal Cancer

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Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Ellsberg Says He Has Terminal Cancer

(Headline USA) Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers showing U.S. officials’ lies about the Vietnam War, said Thursday that he has terminal cancer and months to live.

Ellsberg posted on his Facebook page that doctors diagnosed the 91-year-old with inoperable pancreatic cancer on Feb. 17 following medical scans. Doctors have given him between three and six months to live, he said.

Ellsberg said he has opted not to undergo chemotherapy and plans to accept hospice care when needed.

The documents in the Pentagon Papers told a secret history of the Vietnam War that was unbeknownst to the public at the time. They told how U.S. financed and pushed France to maintain Vietnam as a colony in the 1940s and 50s, and how U.S. involvement was built up steadily by political leaders and top military brass.

They also revealed that U.S. officials were lying about the accomplishments against the North Vietnamese in the 1960s, while acknowledging the hopelessness of the situation behind closed doors.

Ellsberg, a former consultant to the Defense Department, provided the Pentagon Papers to Neil Sheehan, a reporter who broke the story for the New York Times in June 1971. Sheehan died in 2021.

Sheehan smuggled the documents out of the Massachusetts apartment where Ellsberg had stashed them, and illicitly copied thousands of pages and took them to the Times.

The administration of President Richard Nixon got a court injunction arguing national security was at stake and publication was stopped. The action started a heated debate about the First Amendment that quickly moved up to the Supreme Court.

On June 30, 1971, the court ruled 6-3 in favor of allowing publication, and the Times and the Washington Post resumed publishing stories. The coverage won the Times the Pulitzer Prize for public service.

The Nixon administration tried to discredit Ellsberg after the documents’ release. Some of Nixon’s aides orchestrated a break-in at the Beverly Hills office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist to find information to discredit him.

Ellsberg was charged with theft, conspiracy and violations of the Espionage Act, but his case ended in a mistrial when evidence surfaced about government-ordered wiretappings and break-ins.

Ellsberg said in his Facebook post that he feels “lucky and grateful” for his life.

“When I copied the Pentagon Papers in 1969, I had every reason to think I would be spending the rest of my life behind bars. It was a fate I would gladly have accepted if it meant hastening the end of the Vietnam War, unlikely as that seemed [and was],” he wrote.

“Yet in the end that action—in ways I could not have foreseen, due to Nixon’s illegal responses—did have an impact on shortening the war,” he wrote.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Biden Willing to Sign Effort to Block D.C.’s New Pro-Crime Laws

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Biden Willing to Sign Effort to Block D.C.’s New Pro-Crime Laws

(Headline USA) President Joe Biden said Thursday he is willing to sign a Republican-sponsored resolution blocking new District of Columbia laws that would overhaul how the nation’s capital prosecutes and punishes crime.

In doing so, the president would be allowing Congress to nullify the city’s laws for the first time in more than three decades.

Biden’s willingness to do so, despite earlier opposition from his White House, is linked to growing concern over rising crime both in the nation’s capital and across the U.S., and comes amid relentless criticism from Republicans.

“One thing the president believes in is making sure that the streets in America and communities across the country are safe,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “That includes D.C.”

As originally outlined by the U.S. Constitution, which felt it necessary to cordon off the nation’s capitol to prevent favortism of one state over the others, the district lacks the same rights that states have to make and amend laws.

While Congress has allowed the city’s residents some powers of “home rule,” it has retained veto powers over district government actions. District residents also do not have voting members of Congress.

The Biden administration’s about-face over the crime bill follows just a day after Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot lost her re-election bid—the first sitting mayor of the Windy City to do so in decades—on the basis of that city’s failure to address its crime issue.

Many of the leftists who campaigned on soft-on-crime reforms led by George Soros-backed prosecutors, as well as efforts to defund the police during the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots, have since doubled back on those positions in the face of recall elections and other political accountability.

D.C. officials have spent nearly two decades trying to redo Washington’s criminal laws— including redefining crimes, changing criminal justice policies and reworking how sentences should be handed down after convictions. The overhaul was approved late last year by the D.C. Council.

The Republican-controlled House, however, said the district’s changes would contribute to already-rising crime in Washington—the number of murders in 2021 was the highest in nearly 20 years—and make it easier for some criminals to get out of prison or evade punishment altogether.

The resolution passed the House with some Democratic support and appears poised to clear the U.S. Senate on a bipartisan basis as well, perhaps as early as next week. After Biden privately told senators that he’d sign the measure overriding the changes, some Democratic senators said they’d support the measure too.

“I don’t support some of the changes D.C. Council put forward over the mayor’s objections—such as lowering penalties for carjackings,” Biden said. “If the Senate votes to overturn what D.C. Council did—I’ll sign it.”

He later tweeted that he supported statehood for D.C., although that is constitutionally prohibited as it stands and would generate little bipartisan interest in effectively granting Democrats two extra far-left senators.

Biden has regularly shown his disregard for the rule of law and provisions of the Constitution, even admitting that measures like his controversial eviction moratorium, vaccine mandates and student-loan amnesty were probably illegal but proceeding with them anyway.

As he works to formulate his message for his expected reelection campaign, Biden is likely to pivot toward the center more frequently following more than two years of following an extreme leftist agenda that has left the nation far worse in terms of its economic stability, national security and overall spirit of unity.

Earlier Thursday, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., cited crimes in his home state of Kentucky, blaming Biden and Democrats for the nationwide scourge, including an incident two days ago when masked thieves stormed an auto showroom and drove off with a half-dozen cars.

“Getting murderers off our streets and foreign poison out of our neighborhoods are among the most basic governing responsibilities you can possibly think of,” McConnell added, a reference to the country’s fentanyl crisis. “Evidently the Biden administration does not agree or just cannot deliver.”

Washington’s criminal code hasn’t been updated substantially since it was first drafted in 1901. Criminal justice experts have said it is outdated, confusing and not in touch with how crimes are punished today.

The revisions passed the D.C. Council late last year would do away with mandatory minimum sentences for many crimes and expand jury trials for lower-level charges. The changes also would reduce the maximum penalties for burglary, carjacking and robbery.

House Republicans voted 250-173 to overturn the rewrite of the criminal code.

They have also acted to overturn a new D.C. law that would allow noncitizens the right to vote. Biden is also expected to let that override go through.

In allowing such overrides, Democrats would be abandoning a commitment to oppose the unusual rules governing the district that allow Congress to step in. The acquiescence comes despite Democrats’ longtime push to grant statehood to the nation’s capital. Some grappled with that Thursday.

Congress’s dumbest lawmaker, Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, said: “On the one hand, I really support D.C. statehood, I support D.C. home rule. On the other hand, the mayor vetoed the bill saying that it would not provide enough safety … so I am torn.”

Jean-Pierre repeatedly sidestepped questions about how Biden’s decision to substitute his own judgment and that of Congress for the will of the city’s elected representatives squares with his past support for self-government in the district.

“The decision he’s making, he’s making for the people of D.C.,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Congressional Black Caucus vowed to work swiftly to try to influence the Senate against the bill before next week’s expected vote.

“We need to make sure the Senate understands the full effect of taking away local decision-making, particularly for the District of Columbia that does not have representation in that manner,” said Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev. “What the Senate does will matter.”

The crime legislation, which would take effect in 2025, created some friction within the district government. In January, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser vetoed it, writing in a letter that she had “very significant concerns” about some of the bill’s proposals. She later proposed changes after the council overrode her veto.

In 2022, there were 203 homicides in the district, about a 10% drop after years of steady increases. Homicides in the city had risen for four years straight, and the 2021 murder count of 227 was the highest since 2003. The city’s police union said in a statement that changes would “lead to violent crime rates exploding even more than they already have.”

But Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district’s nonvoting delegate in the House, said the criminal law overhaul was “extraordinarily important” and the result of years of work by lawmakers, criminal justice experts and nonprofits that deal with offenders.

“Any effort to overturn the District of Columbia’s democratically enacted laws degrades the right of its nearly 700,000 residents and elected officials to self-govern—a right that almost every other American has,” claimed D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb.

While it has been more than three decades since Congress outright nullified a D.C. law, Congress has frequently used alternative methods to alter local laws on issues, from abortion funding to marijuana legalization.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

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