Category: Justice

Commentary: The Founders Wouldn’t Recognize This ‘Justice’ System

Minnesota Sun Staff

Our Founders envisioned a Nation where the rule of law ensures justice for everyone before our legal system. Equal enforcement of our country’s laws, regardless of a citizen’s political affiliation or social status, was the primary hallmark of this system, which, although imperfect, has set a shining example for the rest of the world to follow. Unfortunately, our legal system has been transformed into one in which politics does matter, and personal connections can be the difference between being given a free pass or receiving a guilty verdict.

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Federal Prosecutor in Trump Probe Reprimanded in Earlier Case for Secretly Recording Defense Lawyer

Justin Ethridge

A Justice Department prosecutor who helped secure last week’s indictment of former President Donald Trump was publicly reprimanded by a judge in 2009 for “gross negligence” in connection with secretly taping a defense lawyer and an investigator, an agency source has confirmed to Just The News.

The prosecutor, Karen Gilbert, is now serving as a deputy to Special Counsel Jack Smith, who on Thursday issued the 37-count indictment of Trump. 

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Commentary: The Odious Practice of ‘Taxation by Citation’

RealClearWire

Poverty can be a jailable offense in Whitehall Village Court, a judicial outpost in upstate New York. Brandon Wood learned the hard way after pleading guilty to two misdemeanors in 2015.

His sentence included no incarceration, but he faced $555 in fines and fees. A wealthier defendant could have settled the tab on the spot and walked free, but Wood lacked the money. After failing to pay—for no reason other than insufficient funds—he found himself behind bars until his wife could appear in court and confirm his financial straits.

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Don’t Be a ‘Disciple of the Donor Class:’ Ramaswamy Calls on Fellow Presidential Candidates to Commit to Pardoning Trump on Classified Records Charges

M.D. Kittle

Political outsider and GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy is calling on all of his 2024 competitors — Republicans and Democrats — to commit to pardoning former President Donald Trump should he be convicted of the federal classified documents charges against him.

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Commentary: Trump Again Widens Lead in GOP Nomination After Indictment

Admin

“I’ve put everything on the line and I will never yield. I never yield. I will never be deterred. I will never stop fighting for you.”

That was former President Donald Trump in Columbus, Georgia on June 10 in his first appearance after being indicted by the U.S. Justice Department on supposed violations of the Espionage Act over documents Trump says he declassified before leaving office, with Trump unsurprisingly using the prosecution to his political advantage in his 2024 election bid to oust President Joe Biden.

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Legal Experts: Politically Motivated, Yes, But Trump Could Be in Trouble with Latest Indictment

M.D. Kittle

While many Americans feel former President Donald Trump is the target of a political witch hunt by the Biden administration and its allies, the latest allegations against the Republican Party’s top presidential candidate are troubling, according to a leading constitutional law expert.

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GOP Presidential Candidate Ramaswamy Files FOIA Request Seeking Biden Communications with Special Prosecutor in Trump Indictment

M.D. Kittle

Ohio entrepreneur and Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy says his campaign has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to uncover communications between the White House, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Jack Smith, special prosecutor behind the latest indictment of former President Donald Trump.

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Drug Manufacturers, CVS, Walgreens Settle Another Opioid Lawsuit with 22 States for $17.3 Billion

The Center Square

Thirteen attorneys general announced settlements with opioid manufacturers Teva and Allergan on Friday, while 18 states settled with CVS and Walgreens for a total of $17.3 billion.

The attorneys general said settlement funds will start flowing into state and local governments by the end of this year and will be used for prevention and treatment of opioid addiction.

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Trump’s Indictment in Miami Puts Him on Favorable Ground

Just the News

Former President Donald Trump informed the public Thursday evening that he had been summoned to face arraignment next week at the Miami federal courthouse, in presumed connection with special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into his handling of classified materials.

Though Trump, now the front-running 2024 GOP presidential candidate, has insisted the case is a political witch hunt and the product of a partisan and weaponized justice system, the venue of the case offers Trump some advantages in defending himself.

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Commentary: The DOJ Just Opened Pandora’s Box

Minnesota Sun Staff

For the first time in American history, the leading candidate to defeat the incumbent president has been indicted by the incumbent’s Justice Department. Former President Donald Trump has been indicted by a federal grand jury for illegally retaining classified government documents and obstructing justice.

This is a momentous occasion, and not only for President Trump. This moment portends a massive change in the norms of this nation that all Americans who care about the neutral rule of law should pay close attention to, for it raises the specter of the partisan weaponization of the criminal justice system—not just by the Democrats targeting Trump but by Republicans who will certainly retaliate when they regain control of the criminal charging process.

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Commentary: Court Rules Government Can’t Strip Second Amendment Rights from Those Convicted of Minor, Nonviolent Offenses

Minnesota Sun Staff

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held this week in Range v. Garland that the government cannot disarm people convicted of minor, nonviolent offenses. In doing so, it handed down perhaps the most significant Second Amendment victory since the Supreme Court’s landmark decision last year, where it held that Americans have a constitutional right to carry handguns in public for self-defense.

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Jack Smith Touts Severity of Trump Charges, but Highlights Presumption of Innocence

Just the News

Special counsel Jack Smith on Friday addressed his case against former President Donald Trump, whom he has charged with 37 counts, including mishandling classified documents, making false statements, conspiracy to obstruct, and falsification of records. Smith, whom Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed, has pursued the DOJ’s case against Trump since November. The case first became a matter of public knowledge in August of last year when the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate seeking classified materials he may have removed from the White House.

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Dr. Scott Jensen Sues Minnesota Medical Board, AG Ellison

Minnesota Sun Staff

Former gubernatorial candidate Dr. Scott Jensen is suing the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice and Attorney General Keith Ellison in connection with multiple instances over the last three years where the board conducted investigations of his medical license.

The Upper Midwest Law Center (UMLC) is representing Jensen in both claims, which were filed Tuesday in two separate actions. One is a First Amendment constitutional claim filed in federal court, and the other a Data Practices Act-related claim filed in Carver County state district court.

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Vivek Ramaswamy Calls DOJ Indictment of Former President Trump ‘An Affront to Every Citizen,’ Commits to Pardon Him on January 20, 2025

M.D. Kittle

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy released a statement on the campaign trail in Manchester, New Hampshire late Thursday, just an hour after former President Trump announced that he has been indicted by the Department of Justice.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene Reveals Contents of Biden Bribery Doc

Just the News

Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Thursday revealed the contents of a document detailing an alleged bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden. After weeks of resistance, the FBI finally permitted the members of the House Oversight Committee to view the form FD-1023 which includes allegations from a confidential human source detailing the alleged pay-to-play scheme.

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Trump Says the DOJ Has Indicted Him in ‘DARK DAY’ for the Country

Just the News

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday announced that the Department of Justice has indicted him and that he must appear at a Miami courthouse on Tuesday. “The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax, even though Joe Biden has 1850 Boxes at the University of Delaware, additional Boxes in Chinatown, D.C., with even more Boxes at the University of Pennsylvania, and documents strewn all over his garage floor where he parks his Corvette, and which is ‘secured’ by only a garage door that is paper thin, and open much of the time,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

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Supreme Court Strikes Down GOP-Drawn Alabama Congressional Map in Support of Voting Rights Act

Just the News

The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down an Alabama congressional district map drawn by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature in a decision that the Court’s majority says upholds the Voting Rights Act. 

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh sided with the court’s three liberals in the 5-4 ruling against Alabama. State officials will now have to redraw the congressional map to correctly reflect that the state is 27% black.

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Plainclothes Police Officers at Capitol During January 6 Riot, One on Video Exhorting Crowd, Key Lawmaker Says

Just the News

The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington D.C. has confirmed to Congress that it had plainclothes officers at the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot and that at least one was captured on video exhorting the crowd, a key House investigator told Just the News.

Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., the chairman of the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, said in wide-ranging interview Wednesday night that MPD body cam video that leaked onto the video platform Rumble is authentic and confirms that officers in plainclothes were at the riot.

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Syrian Refugee Reportedly Suspect in France Stabbing Attack Targeting Toddlers

Just the News

At least four toddlers were stabbed Thursday morning in a park in southeast France, the country’s interior minister says, and the suspect is reportedly a Syrian refugee who is now in police custody. Police were able to overpower and arrest the attacker, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said, according to the BBC.

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FBI Harbored Biden Allegations Since 2017, Through Impeachment, Election, Lawmaker Says

Just the News

If House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer’s sleuthing turns out to be right, the FBI harbored a deep, dark secret through the first Trump impeachment, the Hunter Biden laptop saga and the 2020 election fury. The secret: that a validated and well-paid informant raised concerns all the way back in 2017 that Joe Biden was involved in a $5 million bribery scheme involving Ukraine.

The question emerging now is did America’s most famous crime-fighting agency deep-six the allegation or dismiss it as “Russian disinformation” without thoroughly probing it.

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Female Athletes Ask to Make Their Case over Policy Allowing Biological Males to Compete in Women’s Sports

Susan Berry, PhD

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit heard arguments Tuesday in Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools in which four female athletes assert that the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference’s (CIAC) policy that allows males to compete in girls’ athletic competitions based on gender identity not only “create[s] an unfair playing field for female athletes,” but also “reverses nearly 50 years of athletic advances for women.”

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Feds Inform Trump He Is Target Likely to Be Indicted as DOJ Rebuffs Prosecutorial Misconduct Claim

Just the News

Federal prosecutors have notified Donald Trump that he is a criminal target and likely to be indicted imminently in a probe into alleged classified documents even as the Justice Department declined to delay charges to give time to investigate allegations of witness tampering submitted by the former president’s legal team, according to multiple people familiar with the case. The sources directly familiar with the case told Just the News that DOJ declined to delay the planned indictment of Trump to investigate allegations that a senior prosecutor working on the case tried to influence a key witness by discussing a federal judgeship with the witness’ lawyer.

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Report: Colorado’s 32 Percent Increase in Crime Due to Changes in Prosecutions, Sentences

The Center Square

The crime rate in Colorado increased 32 percent from 2010 to 2022, a new report from a research group says.

The Common Sense Institute’s report, titled “The Fight Against Crime in Colorado: Policing, Legislation and Incarceration,” found the cost of crime in the state was nearly $30 billion in 2022. The cost of crime in Denver was $4 billion and $2.7 billion in Colorado Springs.

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Joe Biden Bribery Allegations Involve Ukraine, First Raised with FBI in 2017, Key Investigator Says

Just the News

Allegations that Joe Biden partook in a $5 million bribery scheme involve Ukraine where his son scored a lucrative energy job and were first presented to the FBI by a reliable and well-paid informant back in 2017, House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer told Just the News on Tuesday evening. Comer made the bombshell revelation just a day after reviewing an FBI FD-1023 form that memorialized the informant’s allegations, and two days before he plans to hold a vote in Congress to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt for failing to provide a copy to his committee as demanded by a subpoena. He said the version of the informant report he was allowed to review by Wray had about 10% of information redacted and made clear the allegations were first reported to the FBI back in 2017 as Donald Trump was beginning his term as president.

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Commentary: The REINS Act Might Be Biden’s Best ‘Deal’ on Regulations if Chevron Deference is Toppled by the Supreme Court

Admin

This week, the U.S. House of Representatives will be considering H.R. 277, the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act, legislation by U.S. Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), that would require Congressional approval for any regulation that either costs the economy at least $100 million, would impact consumer inflation or has or other ‘‘significant adverse effects’’ on the economy.

The legislation would build upon the 1996 Congressional Review Act — passed as a part of the debt ceiling deal with then President Bill Clinton and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) — by increasing Congress’ role in regulation even further.

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Commentary: Conservatives Cannot Afford to Stay Cowed Any Longer

Admin

A federal court ruling likely to drop this month should provide a good indication as to whether America still has a fully functioning First World justice system. The case, involving an investigation from New York Attorney General Letitia James into the supposed mismanagement of controversial news outlet VDare.com, has received zero media coverage so far, despite it being as crude, brutish, and nakedly political as James’ other lawfare campaigns (notably against former President Trump and the NRA). In fact, it’s arguably worse, as it was clearly designed to dox VDare’s writers and volunteers and bankrupt the tiny outlet out of existence.

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J6 Unmasked: Security Footage Confirms Senate Door Opened, Allowing 300 to Enter Capitol Freely

Just the News

A door on the West side of the U.S. Capitol was left open and mostly unguarded for key moments during the Jan. 6 riot, allowing more than 300 people to enter the building unimpeded even as officers fought valiantly to keep protesters out of other sections of the official home of Congress, according to police security footage obtained by Just the News. The footage — which confirms concerns first raised by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., two years ago — shows an episode in a narrow hallway in the middle of the Capitol that began around 2:30p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021 right after the first breaches were reported elsewhere in the landmark building.

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NRA Exec, Trump Donor Says Daughter and Granddaughter Died in Plane Crash that Sparked DC Sonic Boom

Just the News

An NRA executive and major Republican donor said her daughter and granddaughter were killed alongside the 2-year-old girl’s nanny and the pilot of a private Cessna plane that crashed in Virginia and sparked a sonic boom from responding military jets.

“My family is gone, my daughter and granddaughter,” Barbara Rumpel posted on Facebook Sunday evening. 

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Comer Will Press for Contempt of Congress Against FBI Director Wray After Seeing Document Alleging Biden Bribery Scheme: Report

Just the News

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said Monday he will start the process of bringing congressional contempt charges against FBI Director Christopher Wray (pictured above), despite viewing the subpoenaed document that day that alleged Joe Biden was involved in a bribery scheme.

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White House Says DOJ to Challenge State Laws That Block Transgender Treatments for Kids

Just the News

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says the Biden administration can and will use the Department of Justice to fight state laws that “target” transgender kids.

“This year alone, more than 600 anti-LGBTQI bills have been filed in statehouses across the country, and a significant portion of those bills target transgender youth,” she said Friday. “As President Biden says, these young people are some of the bravest people he knows, but no one should have to be brave to be themselves.”

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Minnesota to Move Biological Male Inmate to All-Female Facility, Pay for Vaginoplasty

Admin

Under a settlement reached this week, the Minnesota Department of Corrections has agreed to transfer a biological male inmate who identifies as a woman to an all-female facility and will allow him to pursue a vaginoplasty procedure.

Left-wing legal group Gender Justice announced the settlement agreement Thursday, saying its client Christina Lusk will also receive $495,000 in monetary compensation, about half of which will go towards legal fees.

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Democrat-Led January 6 Panel Added Audio to Silent Security Video for Primetime Hearings

Just the News

The Democrat-led House Select Committee to Investigate Jan. 6 doctored a key piece of its evidence, adding audio to silent U.S. Capitol Police security footage used to create a dramatic video montage for the opening of its primetime hearings last summer, according to a Just the News review of the original raw footage and interviews. In at least two instances identified by Just the News, the panel’s sizzle reel that aired live and on C-SPAN last June failed to identify that it had overdubbed audio from another, unidentified source onto the silent footage. Multiple current and former Capitol Police officials as well as key lawmakers and congressional aides confirmed that the closed-circuit cameras that captured the video do not record sound and that it was added afterwards.

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Biden DOJ Won’t Charge Mike Pence over Classified Docs

Minnesota Sun Staff

The Department of Justice (DOJ) declined to charge former Vice President Mike Pence for classified documents found at his home, according to a DOJ letter obtained by the New York Times.

The DOJ sent Pence a letter Thursday night informing him that “no criminal charges will be sought” in connection with the department’s investigation into classified documents found at his Indiana home, per the NYT. One of Pence’s lawyers found the documents at Pence’s home in January, alerting the National Archives, CNN reported.

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More than a Dozen GOP States Sue Biden Admin over Recent Border Policy, Claim It’s ‘Encouraging More Border Crossings’

Minnesota Sun Staff

Republican Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and more than a dozen other GOP-led states are suing the Biden administration over a recent policy to address an expected surge of illegal migrants at the southern border, according to a statement from his office.

The Biden administration rule Miyares is contesting was implemented to mitigate an expected surge of migrants at the southern border when Title 42, a Trump-era expulsion order, ended on May 11 which made migrants ineligible for asylum if they pass through another safe country before coming to the U.S. Miyares, however, argues that the rule has many exceptions that allow migrants to enter the country, including using a phone app to book entry appointments, claiming they face imminent danger in their home country and having their asylum request denied in another country, the lawsuit argues.

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Obama-Appointed Federal Judge Who Has Criticized DeSantis Recuses Himself from Disney Case

Minnesota Sun Staff
Ron DeSantis

A federal judge known for ruling against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recused himself Thursday from Disney’s lawsuit against the governor, according to a court filing.

Chief U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Florida Mark Walker, an Obama appointee, recused himself after discovering “a relative within the third degree of relationship” owns 30 shares in The Walt Disney Company, per the a court filing. Walker blocked DeSantis’ “Stop W.O.K.E. Act”  in November, calling it “positively dystopian,” and struck down parts of his election law as unconstitutional in March 2022, citing the state’s “horrendous history of racial discrimination in voting,” according to Politico.

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Comer Wins: FBI Relents, Agrees to Deliver Subpoenaed Memo Alleging Biden Bribery to Capitol

Just the News

Facing a potential contempt of Congress vote, FBI Director Christopher Wray relented and has agreed to bring a subpoenaed document from the Biden family investigation to Capitol Hill for lawmakers to inspect on Monday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer announced Friday. The document in question, an FD-1023, contains uncorroborated allegations that an informant provided the FBI in June 2020 alleging that Joe Biden, when he was vice president, was engaged in a bribery scheme to change US policy in return for $5 million to his family’s businesses, lawmakers have said.

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Judge Orders Preliminary Injunction Against Biden’s ATF in Key Second Amendment Case

M.D. Kittle

A Milwaukee-based public interest law firm has won a key victory in a Second Amendment battle. 

The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty on Wednesday secured a preliminary injunction in federal court on behalf of three veterans challenging the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ rule regulating up to 40 million pistols equipped with stabilizing braces. 

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Commentary: The FBI Lost, Found, and Rewarded the Alleged Russian Spy Pivotal to Surveilling Trump

RealClearWire

Twelve years ago, FBI agents in Baltimore sought to wiretap former Brookings Institution analyst Igor Danchenko on suspicions he was spying for Russia. But the counterintelligence analyst they were assigned to work with Brian Auten told them he could not find their target and assumed the Russian national had fled back to Moscow. 

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FBI Chief Wray Rolls Dice with Congress over Contempt, then Jets to Las Vegas

Just the News

Just hours after informing Congress he wouldn’t comply with a subpoena and turn over an informant document on the Biden family investigation, FBI Director Christopher Wray hopped on the bureau’s Gulfstream jet and ferried off to the more friendly confines of Las Vegas.

The flight manifest for the FBI’s official jet shows Wray left the Washington suburb of Manassas, Va., at about 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday and landed about four hours later in Nevada’s most famous tourist city.

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J6 Unmasked: Security Footage Shows Pelosi Evacuating Hollywood-Style from Capitol as Daughter Films

Just the News

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has described having to evacuate a riotous Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 as traumatic. But Capitol Police security footage obtained by Just the News shows the long-time Democrat leader exited Hollywood-style from the home of Congress that fateful day with her daughter filming her as security officers tried to guide her through a secret safe passage corridor. The footage, made available by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and aired for the first time on the Just the News, No Noise television show on Real America’s Voice on Thursday night, provides three different angles of Pelosi’s evacuation the afternoon of Jan. 6. Each show her daughter Alexandra roving around her mother’s delegation with a camera as they moved briskly through corridors, led by members of the Capitol Police protective detail.

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Private Americans Patrol the Smuggler-Blighted Border Badlands of Arizona

RealClearWire

As blazing sunlight ebbs to a star-studded sky along the U.S.-Mexico border, members of the Arizona Border Recon group peer through field glasses at a trio of men on the southern side in camouflage fatigues and carrying pistols and AK-47s.

The men, almost certainly members of Sinaloa cartel factions, are using their own binoculars to scan random gaps in a roughly 30-foot-high wall of thick metal bars that stretches for miles along a flatland carved by arroyos and dotted with rocks, saguaro cactus and high grasses. At times, a solo gunshot echoes on the Mexican side, a sound the AZBR knows from experience is a signal to people to start moving north.

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Homeland Security Department Sees ‘Heightened Threat’ of Attacks on Churches, Police and Feds Ahead of 2024 Election

Just the News

The Homeland Security Department is warning communities nationwide about an increased risk of terror attacks on churches, schools, federal installations and law enforcement heading into the 2024 election, specifically cautioning that “legislative or judicial decisions pertaining to sociopolitical issues” could trigger violence in coming months.

In a bulletin issued just before Memorial Day, the agency cited a spate of violent acts this spring, including on a Christian school in Tennessee, a shopping mall in Texas and a plot on a church in Ohio by white supremacists as harbingers for future concern.

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Colleges Move to Arm Officers in Response to Inner-City Crime After Previous Calls to Defund the Police

Admin

Two inner-city colleges are arming their on-campus police officers in an effort to crack down on increased crime three years after activists called for departments across the country to be defunded.

George Washington University (GWU), located in Washington D.C., announced it will allow some officers to carry firearms while on duty after typically relying on other armed police departments, while Portland State University (PSU), located in, reversed a 2021 policy that restricted officer’s ability to arm themselves. The decisions come three years after activists across the country took to the streets in 2020 demanding policing reform, including calls to defund departments, which sources tell the Daily Caller News Foundation will better prepare officers to deal with emergency situations when they occur.

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Commentary: What a Difference a Real District Attorney Makes

Admin

Chesa Boudin, named after cop-killer Joanne Chesimard, and son of Weather Underground terrorists Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, was elected district attorney of San Francisco in November 2020. Criminals were happy with the outcome.

“Chesa Boudin threw a monkey wrench into the city’s criminal justice system,” recalls Richie Greenberg, San Francisco resident and business consultant. “Amid a series of high-profile cases, his promise to release repeat criminals and to allow quality of life crimes to go unpunished, San Francisco descended into a scofflaw paradise.”

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Outside Law Firm Finds Texas A.G. Paxton Didn’t Break Laws or Violate Office Procedure

The Center Square

A 174-page report released by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) in August 2021, made public before voters reelected Attorney General Ken Paxton to a third term in November 2022, disproved claims presented by Democratically-aligned counsel hired by the House General Investigating Committee (GIC).

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