Republican News

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This was a really interesting couple of pieces I came across this morning, especially after writing that piece on all the student loan defaults.

It seems there might be a trend back towards the trades beginning to appear among the Gen Z crowd.

Some of the reasons seem obvious to me – the bloated cost of a college education, for one, and the ubiquitous nature of the sheepskin being required for even entry-level jobs now.

If everyone needs a college degree, doesn’t that necessarily dilute the value of earning one?

…That’s in part because of the cost of getting a bachelor’s degree, they tell CNBC Make It. The annual cost of attending a four-year, in-state public college increased by about 30% between 2011 and 2023, according to Make It calculations based on data from the Education Data Initiative, and went up by 42% at private, nonprofit four-year colleges.

“There are about 2 million fewer students in a traditional four-year university now than in 2011,” says Nich Tremper, senior economist at payroll and benefits platform Gusto.

The return on investment angle is another reason for dropping college enrollment numbers, and that shrinking ROI ties into both the overabundance of degrees and a job market in contraction.

…More than a third of all graduates now say their degree was a “waste of money,” according to a new survey by Indeed. This frustration is especially pronounced among Gen Z, with 51% expressing remorse—compared to 41% of millennials and just 20% of baby boomers. 

Another reason for the shift in thinking is trying to gauge a future degree as AI-proof. One where the keyboard robot doesn’t boot you from your livelihood after you’ve finally secured it.

…The spread of artificial intelligence into all parts of education and the workplace has made college graduates question their degree even more, with some 30% feeling AI has outright made their degree irrelevant—a number that jumps to 45% among Gen Zers. 

This is despite efforts from thought leaders in the space to calm fears about AI replacing workers. “AI is not going to take your job,” Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos said last year. “The person who uses AI well might take your job.”

That one was not on my radar, although I’m not terribly worried. The first Beegebot will be terrifying, and they’ll never make another.

It’s also turning out that a generation raised on those computers who are savvy enough to worry about the impact of coming technology on their careers – many of whom never had the opportunity for a shop class or the like in high school as such things are often the first to go in tightened schools budgets, and with all emphasis on tech – has discovered the joy of getting their hands dirty.

Of ‘fixing’ things for themselves.

And they like it.

…Morgan Bradbury, 21, first tried welding in high school. She loved it.

“I just immediately was mesmerized by the fact that I could have the ability to build things with my own hands,” she says. After graduating high school, Bradbury took a nine-month welding certification course at Universal Technical Institute for about $21,000.

She got a job at military and information security company BAE Systems before even completing her course with a starting salary of about $57,000 per year. She’s now a second-class welder on U.S. Navy ships in Norfolk, Virginia.

That ‘trade’ stigma is wearing off rapidly, no?

To the point where The Wall Street Journal has christened Gen Z the ‘Tool Belt Generation.’

1. 56% of Gen Z would rather turn a wrench than type in a spreadsheet.

They see:
• Insane college costs
• Rising pay of blue-collar jobs
• Less stigma on working with your hands

The Wall Street Journal calls them the ‘Toolbelt Generation.’ It’s easy to see why: pic.twitter.com/C7kvPyNtu4

— Codie Sanchez (@Codie_Sanchez) May 18, 2024

School districts are beginning to revisit the VoTech high school, but in ways that blow the old basic curricula out of the water.

6. Innovative new school models are blending the classroom and the jobsite

Campuses like Opportunity Central in Texas mix academics with real-world work experience.

The future of education may look more like this than a lecture hall: pic.twitter.com/wG2OBAFc5o

— Codie Sanchez (@Codie_Sanchez) May 18, 2024

Enrollment in high school and post-graduation vocational programs, the WSJ says, is ‘surging.’

…Long beset by a labor crunch, the skilled trades are newly appealing to the youngest cohort of American workers, many of whom are choosing to leave the college path. Rising pay and new technologies in fields from welding to machine tooling are giving trade professions a face-lift, helping them shed the image of being dirty, low-end work. Growing skepticism about the return on a college education, the cost of which has soared in recent decades, is adding to their shine. 

Enrollment in vocational training programs is surging as overall enrollment in community colleges and four-year institutions has fallen. The number of students enrolled in vocational-focused community colleges rose 16% last year to its highest level since the National Student Clearinghouse began tracking such data in 2018. The ranks of students studying construction trades rose 23% during that time, while those in programs covering HVAC and vehicle maintenance and repair increased 7%. 

“It’s a really smart route for kids who want to find something and aren’t gung ho on going to college,” says Tanner Burgess, 20, who graduated from a nine-month welding program last fall. 

Is Gen Z leading a revival in the trades?

Two interesting data points.

1. In an aging country, where everything is getting older, median age of electricians, mechanics, and plumbers is falling.

2. Vocational school enrollment is growing much, much faster than 4-year college. pic.twitter.com/DpuVfcMzWV

— Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) April 1, 2024

There’s always room for a guy or gal who knows their stuff and is willing to keep learning more.

…“Industries like construction, manufacturing, and trade, transportation, and utilities have had lower termination rates than sectors where many white collar workers are concentrated, like professional and business services,” he says.

And with Baby Boomers slowly exiting the workforce, more opportunities could open up. “As these folks age out,” says Tremper, “Gen Z workers are going to be able to move into a space where they’re building their own businesses, adding to the dynamism of the economy and really providing a lot more opportunity for themselves financially.”

Higher education was already facing an enrollment disaster, as the number of 18-year-olds declined in what they’ve called a ‘demographic cliff.’

…The outlook, Moore and other experts say, is that there will likely be many more such scenes in the years ahead. That’s because the current class of high school seniors scheduled to graduate this spring will be the last before an expected long decline begins in the number of 18-year-olds — the traditional age of students when they enter college.

I’m sure, in their arrogance, they hadn’t counted on general disaffection with their institutions among the graduating seniors they had left to draw from, to maintain their student bodies. Toss in a healthy dose of parents who will no longer allow their seniors to consider certain institutions thanks to what’s going on on campus, and these colleges could have a real financial crisis on their hands in short order.

It’s going to be quite a shock to the system if the virtues of honest blue-collar labor are once again celebrated instead of reviled and mocked.

Rebalancing that would be a pretty neat thing.

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Two things can be true. Trump may be exceeding his Constitutional authority in some of his executive orders–that is a matter for serious lawyers and jurists to debate and happens in every presidency–and also that there is an obvious judicial insurrection taking place in which judges declare that any decision they disapprove of is unconstitutional. 

Legal challenges to presidential actions are a normal part of the back-and-forth the Founders built into the checks and balances of the federal government. Judicial review as a principle was established shortly after our government was implemented, and in the main, that has been a good thing. Power corrupts and all that. 

But the current argument that Trump is abusing his power by fighting back against obvious judicial overreach is based on a false premise that judges get to make up the law and the meaning of the Constitution. The assumption seems to be that the Constitution binds the president and Congress, but not the judiciary. 

This has been, implicitly, the liberal take on Constitutional law for as long as I have been alive, and against which conservatives have fought for decades. Call the “living Constitution,” or “adapting the Constitution to the modern world,” or whatever other sleight of hand phrase you like, but the basic idea is that judges get to make public policy whenever they like. And, generally speaking, this has a ratchet effect that ensures that there is a leftist drift away from the limited government vision the Founders wrote into law in 1787/1791 (when the Bill of Rights went into effect).

Just NOW, the FBI arrested Judge Hannah Dugan out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin on charges of obstruction — after evidence of Judge Dugan obstructing an immigration arrest operation last week.

We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be…

— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) April 25, 2025

Just NOW, the FBI arrested Judge Hannah Dugan out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin on charges of obstruction — after evidence of Judge Dugan obstructing an immigration arrest operation last week.

We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject — an illegal alien — to evade arrest. 

Thankfully, our agents chased down the perp on foot and he’s been in custody since, but the Judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public.

When District Judges create out of thin air the right to impose nationwide injunctions against presidential decisions, or start making policies that are clearly outside their remit, they are destroying the Constitutional order and balance of powers outlined therein just as much as a president would be if he started throwing political prisoners in jail. 

A president’s power is limited constitutionally, but it is just as true that when a president uses his legitimate power in a way that a court or judge doesn’t like, they are not constitutionally authorized to stop him. If, say, a majority of the Supreme Court didn’t approve of military action the president took, that doesn’t give them the power to declare that he can no longer act as Commander-in-Chief. 

It is inarguable that judges are having a field day, acting as a #resistance against a president they despise. Any one or two presidential orders may exceed, at least arguably, Trump’s authority, and a number of them go up to the line and are arguable. Still, the fact is that judges are going out on a limb to bring the president’s agenda to a halt. 

In many cases, these judges expect to be overturned, but they know that each injunction ties the president up in courts, slows his reforms, and, in effect, hampers him from exercising his constitutional authority. They simply don’t like what he is doing, and want to put as many impediments as possible before him. 

All the rest is handwaving. 

🇺🇸 AG PAM BONDI: JUDGES THINK THEY ARE ABOVE THE LAW — THEY ARE NOT

“They’re deranged, is all I can think of.

I think some of these judges believe they are beyond and above the law — and they are not.

We are sending a very strong message today — if you are harboring a… https://t.co/Nd10WvlDd0 pic.twitter.com/wla0mTtojT

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) April 25, 2025

It’s notable that a number of these judges have obvious conflicts of interest. With family members receiving federal funds from programs being shut down, or direct connections to NGOs getting hammered, they should be recusing themselves. Instead, they are acting like autocrats in banana republics, defending their own interests. For instance, the judge recently arrested for trying to spirit an illegal alien out the back door from a court in order to help him escape arrest previously worked for Catholic Charities, one of the largest organizations involved in the illegal alien trafficking operations. 

Introducing Judge Hannah Dugan, previously the director of Catholic Charities, an organization that receives significant funding for its work with undocumented immigrants.

She was arrested by the FBI today for allegedly assisting an undocumented individual in evading… pic.twitter.com/y6kBHV204x

— Merissa Hansen (@merissahansen17) April 25, 2025

Not only is this wrong, a direct attack on the only elected official who was elected by the entire nation, but it grossly undermines the legitimacy of the courts. If courts are not limited in power by the Constitution and the laws as written, then our system of government is as deeply compromised as it would be by a president, a bureaucrat, or any other corrupt official exceeding his power. 

AG Pam Bondi on the rogue Milwaukee judge: “The judge learned that ICE was outside …

She goes out in the hallway, screams at the immigration officers — she’s furious, visibly shaking, upset — sends them off to talk to the chief judge. She comes back in the courtroom … takes… pic.twitter.com/9MJE1CX6mr

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) April 25, 2025

This is all an attempt to overturn the 2024 election by other means. During Biden’s presidency, we had a headless Executive Branch run by bureaucrats run amok; what the judges are trying to create is a headless Executive Branch with rogue judges run amok. 

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We are pleased to present this guest essay from Chef Andrew Gruel, a well-known commentator and observer. Chef Gruel is a graduate of Johnson & Wales University, a food entrepreneur, and television personality. He is the Founder of Slapfish Restaurant Group (27 locations), the award-winning food truck turned international brick and mortar, based out of Huntington Beach, CA, and currently CEO and founder of American Gravy Restaurant Group. Chef Gruel can be found on X/Twitter at this link.

As always, the opinions expressed by the guest author do not necessarily represent those of Hot Air or Townhall Media.  

 Ask any random person on the street to define junk food, and they’ll give the same answer: soda, chips, and candy. In a world where people argue endlessly over daily life, this universal agreement on junk food is rare. Given this consensus, it’s disheartening that we’ve spent billions of dollars year after year feeding low-income Americans junk food under the guise of nutrition. It’s time for elected officials to take notice of their peers – leaders such as Rep. Josh Brecheen, Sen. Mike Lee, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Idaho Governor Brad Little—among others— it’s time to step up and protect their constituents from disease.

SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, was created to ensure people don’t go hungry by providing nutritious food. Yet, we’ve done the opposite, subsidizing junk food habits. This disservice to Americans uses hard-earned taxpayer money to perpetuate chronic illness among low-income communities while pretending to help.

This failure is typical of bloated government programs: create a catchy, profound title, then waste piles of money enriching large corporations while making people sick. If we truly wanted to help, we’d provide clean, unprocessed food. Instead, we take the lazy approach—cheapening food and pushing people toward medicine and quick fixes.

As a chef, I’ve spent years creating meals that nourish both mind and body. I’ve had my own struggles with an unhealthy diet of processed junk food while working 100-hour weeks, saucing plates, and peeling asparagus. It tore my body apart and muddled my mind. Early on, I learned that to excel, I needed to live the mantra that food is more than fuel—it’s the foundation for health, culture, and community. Food is medicine; it can prevent, manage, and treat many illnesses that shorten lives and drive anxiety and depression. This is why I support restricting SNAP benefits for junk food and soda. We need to prioritize health by providing communities with real food, not just foil bags of chips or cans of sugar. These restrictions aren’t about control; they empower people to make choices that foster sustainable well-being.

By its name, SNAP should encourage nourishing food. Imagine families buying whole cuts of meat, seafood, fresh produce, herbs, spices, or even an electric slow cooker. These foods aren’t just healthier; they build culinary skills and cultural traditions. A USDA study shows that when SNAP users are incentivized to buy fresh produce, they consume more nutrient-dense foods, which improves dietary outcomes and fosters community through shared meals. Critics claim such food isn’t accessible. That’s false. Frozen beef, poultry, or fish can be shipped anywhere in the country. Even that single change would be better than the current system.

Taxpayers would feel better knowing their money supports local U.S. farmers, fishermen, and ranchers rather than large food manufacturers. Imagine that tax dollars actually producing lasting change! It’s time to rethink the SNAP supply chain: fund food producers directly and ship to SNAP recipients, like a drop-ship program between the USDA and farmers. This would save billions in administrative costs and significantly reduce future healthcare expenses, the largest expense in the federal budget.

There are obvious ways to fix SNAP, but for years, the government has been too lazy to act. Special interest money often dampens small sparks of awareness. The government’s slow, clumsy operations let a few profit from ineptitude. Now, we’re at a crossroads, with enough sparks to ignite change. The MAHA movement, driven by advocates like Calley Means and RFK Jr., has exposed the dark influence of big food and soda on government spending and our collective health. Change is now a mandate.

A few leaders have taken this mandate to the floor, facing fierce opposition. Critics argue SNAP restrictions limit choice, but they miss the point. Junk food isn’t a “choice” when it’s cheap, addictive, and heavily marketed. True freedom comes from access to quality ingredients and the knowledge to use them. Pairing restrictions with nutrition education and incentives, like matching dollars for produce, can amplify SNAP’s impact.

There’s no nuance here. This isn’t about freedom—it’s about health. SNAP is a financial transaction between taxpayers and those in need, with the government as the middleman. Too often, they subcontract their responsibility to soulless companies that profit by addicting kids and adults to nutrient-free products. Food and soda companies get rich, the public gets sick, and Big Pharma steps in with a lifetime of medicine. Healthcare costs rise, taxes increase, government grows, and corporations profit. It’s a perfect pyramid scheme.

It’s time to prioritize food and nutrition and embrace bipartisan change. Give people real food, not junk. Stop subsidizing chronic disease. Honor food as more than sustenance—a sacred bond weaving communities tight, nurturing a healthier America with every shared bite.

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Remember this guy? In a crowded field of professional liars, he is perhaps the biggest liar elected to congress, at least recently. 

Today former Rep. George Santos was handed a 78 month sentence after pleading guilty to wire fraud and identity theft last year. He tearfully begged the judge for mercy but didn’t get it. 

A federal judge in New York sentenced former Rep. George Santos to over seven years in prison Friday.

“Where is the remorse?” U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert asked Santos before sentencing him to 87 months behind bars and ordering him to almost $374,000 in restitution…

Seybert handed down the sentence after Santos made a tearful plea for mercy and acknowledged he’d “betrayed the confidence” of his constituents.

The judge did not appear moved by Santos’ sobs. She said doesn’t like sending people to jail, but Santos was “fully deserving” of the lengthy sentence.

The NY Times published an interview with Santos yesterday as he was waiting for his sentence. He seemed to know what was coming.

“Right now, my expectation is I’m going to prison for 87 months,” he said flatly when reached by phone on Wednesday. “I’m totally resigned.”…

As part of his plea, Mr. Santos admitted responsibility in court and vowed to make restitution in the amount of $373,749.97. He appeared outside the courtroom afterward, telling reporters that he took full responsibility for his actions, which were “unethical and guilty.”

But in the intervening months, Mr. Santos has struggled to maintain that penitent posture. Under pressure to repay victims and fund his defense, he has sought to monetize his infamy, beginning with personalized videos on the website Cameo. (Earlier this week, those were on sale for 67 percent off, under a banner that read “Last week on Cameo.”)

His Cameo gig probably hurt his chances of a lighter sentence. He was apparently pulling down more money there than he did from his congressional salary, and yet even after pleading guilty last August he never set aside any of that money for restitution. He’s just been living it up and laughing all the way to the bank. He also started a podcast last year where he continued to make jokes and mock the idea of contrition.

“People say, ‘Oh, he doesn’t atone.’ What does that even mean? Should I, like, curl up in a ball and stay in that fetal position forever?” Mr. Santos said in one episode.

Santos has long been a supporter of President Trump and obliquely raised the possibility of a pardon.

“The president knows my predicament. It’s not like it’s a secret,” he said in an interview. “If the president thinks I’m worthy of any level of clemency that is bestowed upon him, he can go ahead and do it, but for me to seek a pardon is to deny accountability and responsibility.”

There’s no evidence Trump has any interest in pardoning Santos and I certainly hope he doesn’t. Santos lied about literally everything and he was a crook. 

Questions about his background emerged before he even started his term. The New York Times reported that he had lied about or embellished parts of his résumé and personal history. That led to other fabrications’ being revealed, including a claim that he was Jewish. He later said he was “Jew-ish.”…

Prosecutors said he committed identity theft and swindled donors to enrich himself and live a luxurious lifestyle. Among those whose credit card information he used to make unauthorized donations were three “elderly persons suffering from some degree of cognitive impairment or decline,” prosecutors said.

He was expelled from congress by his own party even before he was convicted. He deserves his time in prison. Let him serve it.

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I guess I am a total jerk, but according to The New York Times, I should be deeply concerned that an illegal alien from Jamaica who came here as an adult, was convicted of kidnapping and who spent most of his time in the United States, was deported back to his home country. 

Nope, not grappling with it at all. Anyone who is here illegally deserves to be deported, full stop. pic.twitter.com/uP5HSkuCtN

— Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) April 25, 2025

Apparently, the new standard for being deported is…well, NOBODY should ever get deported. If you think different, then you are a Nazi, or at least Nazi-adjacent. 

As is often the case, the headline tells the people who are inclined to have their opinions assigned to them by The New York Times exactly how they must feel about this poor, misunderstood nascent curer of diseases. Without him, or at least other ill-educated, badly behaved felons, humanity might be deprived of whatever gifts to humanity he surely will give us. 

This is how we are introduced to this convicted felon:

Nascimento Blair returned home in shackles.

He landed in Jamaica in February, 21 years after he had abandoned the island, seated next to dozens of his countrymen who were also handcuffed. As he stepped off the plane at the seaside airport in Kingston and felt the scorching Caribbean sun of his youth, Mr. Blair, 44, was greeted with suspicion.

Still dazed, he looked out of place. He had on the same winter clothes — a peacoat, turtleneck, gray suit and Chelsea boots — he had been wearing when U.S. immigration authorities had abruptly detained him on a frigid morning in New York City weeks earlier.

He noticed his slightly Americanized accent as he sat through hours of interrogation by Jamaican authorities at the airport. And he felt like an outcast as Jamaican officials snapped his mug shot, took his fingerprints and asked about his past.

Nascimento was “disappeared,” as we are now supposed to describe the illegal aliens who get deported.

When Obama deported 5.3 million illegal immigrants, somehow The Lightbringer managed to not be compared to Adolf Hitler. But Donald Trump is special. It’s not what he does or to whom he does it, but that he says or does something that it becomes intolerably evil. 

“They don’t look at you like a Jamaican,” Mr. Blair said. “They look at you like a criminal.” [Newsflash: he IS a criminal.]

Mr. Blair did not give them details about his past, an odyssey that began with a side hustle dealing marijuana in the New York suburbs as a 24-year-old Jamaican transplant, which led to a kidnapping conviction he disputed and a 15-year prison sentence he fulfilled.

It was his criminal past that had gotten him deported from the United States, where he had been rebuilding his life and seeking redemption. He had earned two college degrees, started a trucking business, mentored people released from prison, cared for a fiancée with breast cancer, taken classes at Columbia University.

None of it would stave off deportation: He was among the first few thousand immigrants scattered across the globe during the early days of President Trump’s deportation campaign.

That, my friends, is the first 8 paragraphs of the story, framing just how unfair Donald Trump’s policy of deporting criminals is. Rather than embracing kidnappers as model citizens (Nascimento isn’t a citizen, but an illegal alien), Trump cruelly sends them home. And not just any home, but one where people from around the world flock to vacation.

It’s cruel beyond measure, we are to think, because Jamaican authorities look askance at felons. Felons are human beings too, even if they abuse others by taking them by force. 

I do have to admit that this is consistent, at least. Killers, wife beaters, gang members–anybody who set foot in the United States–have an instant right to be her and be fed, housed, and provided better lives than ordinary citizens because they are now on the approved list of “oppressed” people to whom we should defer. 

But to Mr. Blair and his supporters, his life story was one of rehabilitation, nuanced and filled with qualities that they believe Mr. Trump’s deportation machine disregards as it flies out immigrants en masse.

His removal from the United States and dizzying journey back to the Caribbean raises a fundamental question Americans are grappling with as they consider the president’s immigration crackdown: Who deserves to stay?

Deserves to stay? Americans are “grappling” with this difficult question.

Not really. I can confidently say that the vast majority of Americans are NOT grappling with this question at all, and I would love to see the evidence that they are presented in this “news” story. 

This isn’t news. It signals New York Times readers to adopt an opinion, and most of them will dutifully do so. 

And yet…those same people will say anybody who disagrees with them is in a cult. Only they are free thinkers, devoted to science, reason, and compassion. A compassion that sacrifices Americans to the depraved impulses of gang members and criminals–and no, I am not saying all illegal immigrants are in that category, merely that these mental automatons don’t care a whit if they are. 

These are the people who believe “The Science says…” is a compelling argument, no matter that they have no interest in actual science. If The New York Times or another elite institution suddenly discovers there are 198 genders and that sex is on a spectrum, they simply repeat it without a moment’s thought. 

This is what it means to be “educated” today. 

I went to and taught at a liberal arts college, and in those ancient days, going back two millennia, the liberal arts were intended to teach us how to reason and think critically. 

Now being educated means simply repeating whatever mantra the Establishment assigns to you. 

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As Beege pointed out a couple hours ago, a judge in New Mexico is in some trouble after allowing an armed illegal immigrant with alleged ties to Tren de Aragua to live in his guest house. 

Today, FBI Director Kash Patel announced another arrest. A judge in Wisconsin allegedly interfered with efforts to arrest an illegal immigrant. Patel put up a post on X about the arrest of the judge, but subsequently deleted it for some reason. Here’s what he wrote: “We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject —an illegal alien—to evade arrest.”

FBI Director Kash Patel appears to have deleted this post announcing the arrest of a Wisconsin judge. pic.twitter.com/3q0omNsNFO

— Tom Dreisbach (@TomDreisbach) April 25, 2025

“Thankfully our agents chased down the perp on foot and he’s been in custody since, but the Judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public,” he added.

We don’t have all of the details of what happened here yet but the underlying incident seems to have taken place last week when ICE agents came to a Milwaukee courthouse to make an arrest. What follows comes from an email sent on 4/18 by Chief Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Carl Ashley.

ICE agents showed up at the courthouse in the morning and identified themselves to security. They then went to the sixth floor, where Dugan’s courtroom is located.

“They were asked whether they had a warrant, and the agents presented the warrant as well as their identification,” Ashley’s email says. “They were asked to go to Chief Judge’s office. They complied. … They presented a warrant, which we copied.”

Ashley said the ICE agents were asked to wait until the court hearing had concluded. All of the agents’ actions, he said, “were consistent with our draft policies, but we’re still in the process of conferring on the draft.”

On Monday of this week, Judge Dugan responded to Chief Judge Ashley’s email.

“As a point of clarification below, a warrant was not presented in the hallway on the 6th floor,” Dugan wrote.

Obviously, that conflicts with the Chief Judge’s account. He said they presented a warrant and their identification on the 6th floor and were then directed to his office.

But there’s another wrinkle here, which is that there are two types of warrants. A judicial warrant is a standard warrant issued by a judge to allow search or seizure. An administrative warrant is issued by an ICE official and doesn’t meet the bar set by the 4th Amendment. Another judge in the building, Judge Cabrera, claimed the ICE agents had an administrative warrant and suggested that was insufficient.

“If the proposed protocol is to accept these warrants, I find it problematic,” wrote Cabrera, who was elected in 2024. “In effect, the protocol seems to merely facilitate ICE arrests in a manner that is quiet and least disruptive to us. On the other hand, the protocol gives the illusion to the general public that steps are being taken in the courthouse to prevent ICE overreach.”

Cabrera, a former immigration lawyer and Democratic lawmaker, said federal immigration agents have made “grave errors” in their arrests, made false allegations and blatantly violated the U.S. Constitution.

So there was obviously some resistance inside the courthouse to ICE showing up with these administrative warrants to arrest people. There was a draft of a police allowing this but obviously Judge Cabrera didn’t like it and it seems Judge Dugan didn’t either. 

So what did she allegedly do? For that we have to rely on a report from a local radio host. Here’s what he posted Tuesday on X:

Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge Hannah Dugan is under FBI investigation for allegedly helping an illegal immigrant defendant evade ICE agents who came to arrest him in her courtroom during a hearing Friday morning.

The defendant’s attorney was made aware of the arrest and told Dugan’s clerk, who then told Dugan. She allowed the defendant to hide in her jury room (which is normally off-limits to everyone except the judge and members of the jury).

The ICE agents presented their warrant to Chief Judge Carl Ashley, who sent them back to Dugan’s courtroom to arrest the defendant.

The FBI was notified about Dugan’s apparent obstruction of justice and is currently investigating.

EXCLUSIVE: Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge Hannah Dugan is under FBI investigation for allegedly helping an illegal immigrant defendant evade ICE agents who came to arrest him in her courtroom during a hearing Friday morning.

The defendant’s attorney was made aware of the… pic.twitter.com/3BU94pm2sr

— Dan O’Donnell (@DanODonnellShow) April 22, 2025

That account outraged a Wisconsin state representative named Bob Donovan:

“In all my years of Milwaukee politics and public safety issues, working with cops, district attorneys, and judges, I have never seen a more irresponsible act by an officer of the court, let alone a judge, if true. This borders on obstruction of justice and I hope the FBI continues a thorough investigation and, if warranted, prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.

Our laws are not suggestions; they must be upheld to maintain order in a functioning society. If Judge Dugan is insistent on aiding and abetting a criminal, she should be disbarred for violating her sworn oath to uphold the law.”

We still don’t know what Eduardo Flores Ruiz, the illegal immigrant ICE arrested, is accused/convicted of doing, but already, Brian Krassenstein is comparing him to Anne Frank being hidden from the Nazis.

BREAKING: The FBI has arrested Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan for allegedly helping an immigrant avoid capture.

History lesson: In 1944, Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman were arrested and sent to concentration camps for the “crime” of hiding Anne Frank and her family.

Maybe if… pic.twitter.com/4HlnSkspce

— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) April 25, 2025

I get that Krassenstein is engagement farming here, i.e. he’s being hyperbolic for clicks. But read through some of the replies and there are a fair number of people who think he’s onto something.

Update: Some more detail about what Judge Dugan allegedly did.

Dugan is accused of escorting the man, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, and his lawyer out of the courtroom through the jury door on April 18 as a way to help avert his arrest, according to an FBI affidavit filed in court.

The affidavit quotes the courtroom deputy as having heard Dugan say words to the effect of “Wait, come with me” before ushering them into a non-public area of the courthouse. The action was unusual, the affidavit says, because “only deputies, juries, court staff, and in-custody defendants being escorted by deputies used the back jury door. Defense attorneys and defendants who were not in custody never used the jury door.”

So it sounds like the FBI has a witness to what happened here. Whether the judge’s actions were a crime under the circumstances is what we’ll be arguing about for weeks to come.

Here she is leaving court with her lawyer.

New video from our crews: Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan and her attorney leaving the federal courthouse in Milwaukee and not commenting. The FBI arrested her at the MKE Co Courthouse this morning. She’s charged with 2 felonies for obstructing an ICE arrest last week pic.twitter.com/3YtgsNHTJl

— Matt Smith (@mattsmith_news) April 25, 2025

Update: From the criminal complaint:

Agents from the United States Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Enforcement and Removal Operations (“ICEERO”) identified Flores-Ruiz as an individual who was not lawfully in the United States. A review of Flores-Ruiz’s Alien Registration File (“A-File”) indicated that Flores-Ruiz is a native and citizen of Mexico and that Flores-Ruiz had been issued an I-860 Notice and Order of Expedited Removal by United States Border Patrol Agents on January 16, 2013, and that Flores-Ruiz was thereafter removed to Mexico through the Nogales, Arizona, Port of Entry. There is no evidence in the A File or DHS indices indicating that Flores-Ruiz sought or obtained permission to return to the United States.

They learned that Flores-Ruiz would be in Judge Dugan’s courtroom last Friday and a 6-person arrest team was sent to arrest him. They identified themselves, showed their badges and were asked not to make an arrest until the hearing before the judge was over. They agreed and proceeded to the 6th floor where the judge’s courtroom was. But at some point the FBI agents present for the arrest informed the courtroom deputy who was in the hallway checking people in, that they were there to make an arrest with ICE. Word of this spread. A public defender came into the hall and took photos of some members of the arrest team. Eventually, this was related back to Judge Dugan.

The courtroom deputy observed Attorney A (the individual who had photographed the agents) enter and approach Judge DUGAN’s clerk. Attorney A stated that there appeared to be ICE agents in the hallway. Attorney A told the clerk where the agents were seated and what they were wearing.

The courtroom deputy reported that the clerk then got up and talked with Judge DUGAN. Judge DUGAN became visibly angry, commented that the situation was “absurd,” left the bench, and entered chambers.

Judge Dugan and a second judge then confronted the ICE and FBI agents in the hallway.

Judge DUGAN and Judge A, who were both wearing judicial robes, approached members of the arrest team in the public hallway. Judge A’s courtroom is located adjacent to Judge DUGAN’s courtroom. Witnesses uniformly reported that Judge DUGAN was visibly upset and had a confrontational, angry demeanor. Judge DUGAN addressed Deportation Officer A and asked if Deportation Officer A was present for a court appearance. When Deportation Officer A responded, “no,” Judge DUGAN stated that Deportation Officer A would need to leave the courthouse. Deportation Officer A stated that Deportation Officer A was there to effectuate an arrest. Judge DUGAN asked if Deportation Officer A had a judicial warrant, and Deportation Officer A responded, “No, I have an administrative warrant.” Judge DUGAN stated that Deportation Officer A needed a judicial warrant. Deportation Officer A told Judge DUGAN that Deportation Officer A was in a public space and had a valid immigration warrant. Judge DUGAN asked to see the administrative warrant and Deportation Officer A offered to show it to her. Judge DUGAN then demanded that Deportation Officer A speak with the Chief Judge. Judge DUGAN then had a similar interaction with FBI Agent B and CBP Officer A.

So while part of the arrest team were escorted to speak to the Chief Judge, another part that had been recognized by Judge Dugan remained in the hallway. A courtroom deputy then related to a member of the team that Judge Dugan appeared to be expediting Flores-Ruiz’s case while a senior member of their team was still talking to the Chief Judge in his office.

Judge Dugan made a gesture toward Flores-Ruiz and his attorney who were getting ready to walk out into the hallway. She then led them through the jury room instead. However, that still led them into a different part of the hallway where members of the arrest team were waiting. They recognized him but he got on an elevator with his attorney and made it out of the building before the team could organize itself. When they confronted him outside, he ran.

FBI Agent B and DEA Agent A approached Flores-Ruiz and identified themselves as law enforcement. Flores-Ruiz turned around and sprinted down the street. A foot chase ensued. The agents pursued Flores-Ruiz for the entire length of the courthouse and ultimately apprehended him…

So they got him but it was close.

Update: Not normal, says Amy Klobuchar. Is hiding criminals from a lawful arrest normal?

This is not normal.

The Administration’s arrest of a sitting judge in Wisconsin is a drastic move that threatens the rule of law.

While we don’t have all the details, this is a grave step and undermines our system of checks and balances.

— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) April 25, 2025

Update: I’ve been wondering what Flores-Ruiz was in court for last Friday. Here it is.

Eduardo Flores Ruiz is in the country illegally and was in court for domestic violence… Judge Dugan tried to help him evade arrest.@StateRepHong, would you also like to unequivocally stand with the woman he struck? https://t.co/1zZnVdtWDo pic.twitter.com/wrm1f5knoa

— Adam Gibbs 🇺🇸 (@AdamGibbsWI) April 25, 2025

AG Pam Bondi has more:

/1 My Thread on Judge Dugan’s Obstruction of Justice. You can listen to @AGPamBondi below but here’s the story: Flores-Ruiz was in the Milwaukee Courthouse b/c he allegedly beat up a man & a woman & sent them to the hospital. Three counts of Domestic Abuse. Read more below…🧵 pic.twitter.com/zyG7FrAesw

— Dan Lennington (@DanLennington) April 25, 2025

This post was originally published on this site

I’ve lived in California my entire life. I know the deal here. We technically are able to elect Republicans for governor, and have done so many times. Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon come to mind, but so also do Pete Wilson and George Deukmejian. It used to be doable until, ironically, when we conservatives passed Prop. 187 in 1994, which is the forebearer of what is essentially the Donald Trump immigration and deportation program. If you’re here illegally, you shouldn’t be tapping out state and federal resources. That proposition passed, and was in force for about four seconds until it was challenge in court, ultimately being tossed out. And also tossed out in the process was Republicans having anything substantially to do with the governance of the Golden State. Simply put, Republicans here were about 30 years ahead of MAGA time, but they did not have any media abilities to combat the hundreds of millions spent against them by the unions. And Republicans certainly didn’t have the legal firepower to combat the left-wing slant in the courts.  

The initiative was endorsed by then-Republican Pete Wilson, who won re-election. After that, outside of the Arnold Schwarzenegger mirage following the recall of Gray “Brownout” Davis, it’s been nothing but a one-party state here. And it’s not just in the governor’s mansion in Sacramento. The bicameral legislature in our capital consists of an 80-seat Assembly and a 40-seat State Senate. Both have been controlled by supermajorities of Democrats for years.

Complicating matters of late for Republicans is another proposition, Prop. 14 in 2010, that gave us the jungle primary. The top two people from a combined primary list of candidates, regardless of party, would face off in the general election. In many cases, Republicans have faced state office November votes between two Democrats, which isn’t a whole lot of fun. 

In this state for the last couple decades, you can divide the votes cast into three buckets – L.A. County, largely Democratic, is one bucket. The Bay Area – San Francisco and Oakland, is another bucket. The rest of the state is the third bucket. Democrats swamp the first two buckets every election cycle of late, whether the Republican, if there is one on the ballot, spends $1 dollar or $100 million. The person with the R next to their name in November will usually win the rest of the state regardless of whether anyone has heard of them or not. In the end, Republicans lose statewide somewhere around 65-35. 

The only Republican to break that three bucket model was Schwarzenegger, who successfully brokered his Hollywood charisma in Los Angeles, where he was popular with Latinos, and he reversed that one county and with it, the governorship. Politics here reverted to their dismal normalcy after that. 

Now that I’ve made the entire case why there’s no realistic reason to expect anything different in 2026, here’s why I’m hopeful in a way I haven’t been in a long time. 

Steve Hilton, the former staffer to UK Prime Minister David Cameron, and until very recently a weekend anchor on Fox News, announced he was running for governor. He chose one of the prettiest backdrops in the country as the place to stage his campaign launch. It is also just about the most conservative place left in the Golden State – Huntington Beach. 

Republican @SteveHiltonx walks out to “Let the Sunshine In” during his launch event for California Governor.

His slogan is making California “Golden Again” at his rally in front of the Huntington Beach pier. pic.twitter.com/boTDuxEVRt

— Elex Michaelson (@Elex_Michaelson) April 22, 2025

Here’s my list of reasons why I am entertaining the possibility that 2026 might surprise a lot of people. 

1. The Pacific Palisades and Pasadena wildfire disasters – They’re both ongoing government-made calamities. The fires happened two weeks before Donald Trump was inaugurated. Donald Trump has dropped hundreds of executive orders, overhauled the staffing of the federal government, and is just warming up. The government in California – city, county, and state, have combined to issue in the same period of time, checks notes, four individual preliminary permits to begin the process of rebuilding. That’s four out of thousands upon thousands who were burned out. And that’s just the first permit, just to get the process started. More permits and inspections and regulations are on tap to make sure those zones look like the hellscapes they are for the next decade. That’s not just going to leave a physical mark, it leaves a political mark as well. All Democrats had to do was not screw this up. Dole out permits like you were a Pez dispenser, and you’d be fine. Instead, they’re incapable of passing up the chance to turn what was formerly the most beautiful residential area in the country into Hong Kong. Angelinos do not want into what the Democrats are going to force upon them. If Hilton can effectively communicate that message, he could break that L.A. County Democratic stronghold enough. Take that and juice the turnout in the rest of the state, and the math is there.  

2. Quantity and quality of candidates running – So far, there’s only one other Republican, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who has thrown their hat into the race. Bianco is a good sheriff and a great man, but has virtually no name ID in the rest of the state. Hilton is much more media savvy, and has already seemed to coalesce the remaining Republican politicos to clear the field. This isn’t the case with the Democrats. Former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra is presumably going to get in. Former Congresswoman and UCI housing freeloader Katie “Batgirl” Porter is already in. Former Vice-President Kamala Harris has made noise about jumping into the race, and leads by a wide margin in prospective candidate polling, but the rumor is she doesn’t actually want to work for a living. She wants to run an NGO somewhere where she makes millions of dollars a year for not doing anything, something at which she excels. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass at one point in time wanted the job, but is now toxic. Former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is contemplating another run for political office. There’s lots of Democrats, including a couple members of Congress who are considering a run. Lots of Democrats and only one or two Republicans in a jungle primary is the reverse of the last few cycles, and it favors someone like Hilton to make it through to the final two for November.

3. Media – Hilton is hands-down the most charismatic candidate running. He is like Donald Trump in the way he knows how to do both retail politics – meeting and talking to people one-on-one, as well as doing the media that’s available and communicating a message effectively. 

4.  The Glenn Youngkin factor – one of the reasons that Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin defied all the odds in the Commonwealth and defeated Terry McAuliffe was because he found a handful of issues that resonated across ideological lines – crime and education being right at the top of the list, and ran a campaign that was positive and winsome. Yes, Youngkin pointed out the negatives of McAuliffe and the results of Democratic governance, but did so in a positive, forward-looking way. This is very much the kind of campaign Hilton is running in his first week. He’s very rough on how disastrous everything in this state is – power, education, water, homeless, fire response, taxes, all issues that resonate broadly, but is doing so firmly believing that California can truly be golden again. That’s the kind of message that could work. 

5.  The British accent – It certainly doesn’t hurt. It gives him a little gravitas that Kamala Harris at her word salad best cannot come close to equalling. 

6. The Trump factor – So far, voices like Charlie Kirk and other MAGA-friendly people are endorsing Hilton, which he’s happily taking, but he’s not putting MAGA at the center of his campaign. He’s keeping his comments on the issues and his vision for the future. Democrats and unions will try to make the election a referendum on Trump. If the tariffs work as advertised, and we have a bunch of new trade deals and a roaring economy by early next year, the Trump effect is going to help Hilton a lot. If we’re in a recession, the Trump effect will hurt him. I’ve learned not to underestimate the President, so I’m willing to gamble that Trump will be a net positive for him. 

7. California’s budget hole – the grim reaper is not just knocking on the door, he’s hovering in the living room. Los Angeles as a city is facing a billion dollar shortfall. Gavin Newsom just borrowed about $3 billion from the state’s general fund, money that technically isn’t there, to pay for the effects of his sanctuary state welfare programs for illegal aliens. And that $3 billion isn’t enough. He needs another $3 billion beyond that. At some point very soon, the money runs out, especially if Donald Trump and Congress closes off the bailout pipeline. When the money is gone and the pensions can’t pay out, and Democrats are the only people in charge of everything, Hilton’s got a pretty good case to make. 

The bottom line in all this? If you were to place a Shohei Ohtani-financed wager, you’d put your money on the Democrat, whomever they pick, beating Steve Hilton, the Republican, by a 60-40 margin. That comports with conventional wisdom. But my Spidey-sense tells me that there’s the elements of a perfect storm forming here. Everything would have to play out just right, but I think there’s a chance. 

If Hilton pulls off the upset and catches the car Republicans have been chasing in California for so long, what is he going to do with it now that he’s caught it? Well, that’s another column for a different day. Let’s see how the campaign develops. 

This post was originally published on this site

I was reliably told that if Donald Trump got elected president, democracy itself was at risk. 

And sure enough, the warnings were correct. Without the unanimous consent of every federal judge, it turns out that elections can be nullified, the Constitution torn up, and the Executive Branch paralyzed. 

At the outset of his administration, President Trump signed a common-sense executive order barring transgender military service. In February, the Pentagon issued a memo affirming that people with a history of gender dysphoria are “incompatible” with U.S. military service. pic.twitter.com/KXBSEbqbj3

— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) April 25, 2025

Four years ago, no person employed by the United States military was thought to have a Constitutional right to have the taxpayers shell out for their “gender-affirming care.” Late in his term, Obama opened the door, and during Trump’s first term, that door was closed. 

And then Joe Biden went all-in. And while Biden may not have had a functioning brain, he did get to appoint a ton of judges. 

While Joe Biden failed in formally amending the Constitution by tweet, he nonetheless created new Constitutional rights out of whole cloth simply by instituting the insane policy that the Pentagon would pay to chop off people’s genitals and give them cosmetic surgery.

You can’t serve in the military if you have asthma, braces, or a peanut allergy. You can’t serve if you take certain kinds of acne medications, or if you’ve taken ADHD meds within the past year.

But if you’re a man who is convinced he’s a woman, the military has to indulge you.

— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) April 25, 2025

As much as it pains me to admit it, Obama and Biden certainly had the executive power to implement the insane policy of turning the military into a tool to subsidize transgenderism. It was absurd, dangerous, destructive, and drove away recruits, weakening the military. But it was within their legal purview. 

Being Commander in Chief is a core executive power, meaning that the president has few limits on what he can do with the military. Save for orders that violate the Constitution or explicit federal laws, the power to decide is inherent in the office. Without a well-functioning military able to preserve the Constitutional order, the Constitution is nothing but words written on a page or pixels on a screen. 

The President of the United States and his Secretary of Defense have determined that people needing constant medical and psychological care, which are inherent in being a transgender soldier, are incapable of serving competently in the military. The standard is not arbitrary or gauzy–it’s not based on feelz. It’s not even something rather vague like “good order and discipline,” which in itself is an acceptable standard by which to judge a person’s fitness for military service. Even a “loss of confidence” can get a leader expelled. 

Obviously, a chronic condition–medical or mental, however you prefer to characterize gender dysphoria–is a more than sufficient reason to kick somebody out of the military. If PTSD–a disability CAUSED by military service–is sufficient reason to discharge somebody from the military, a condition that requires constant care disqualifying one from serving on the battlefield certainly does. 

Yet according to a federal judge, that isn’t so. Because, well, they don’t like it. 

POLITICO’s story portrays this as merely a political matter–Pete Hegseth and Trump lost their “culture war” battle. 

As a result, the administration is barred from removing transgender service members or restricting their medical care, a priority of President Donald Trump and Hegseth. The administration insisted its restrictions were geared toward people experiencing medical challenges related to “gender dysphoria,” but two federal judges said in March that the policy was a thinly veiled ban on transgender people that violated the Constitution.

The Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to allow the Pentagon to ban transgender servicemembers while legal battles continue to play out.

Both judges ordered the military to refrain from forcing out more than 1,000 transgender troops and to resume providing for their medical care, including surgical procedures and voice and hormone therapy. The memo is the latest move by the Pentagon to comply with those orders.

But it presents another headache for Hegseth, who has made culture war issues — such as changing recruitment standards and reinstating the ban — a key piece of his effort to make the military more lethal. Hegseth has emphasized this theme as he’s sought to defend himself amid multiple scandals, including texting sensitive details of military operations in Yemen to multiple Signal group chats and a vicious brawl between his top advisers.

Deciding whether Pete Hegseth is fit to be the Secretary of Defense is a political matter on which people can disagree. Deciding whether the president and his duly appointed and Senate-confirmed Secretary of Defense can set reasonable standards for admission into the military is not. It is core to their powers. 

The Founders would not have imagined a federal judge deciding that they could set standards for military service, because such standards are set prudentially–the military must function optimally to perform its duties. It is not a playground where judges implement their preferred social policies. 

What next? A new right for obese people incapable of running more than 10 feet to serve as Green Berets? 

This is absurd on its face. 

Leftists may want the military to accept transgender people for service, and may believe that they pose no problem, but it is the president and his chosen military leaders who are in the position to determine that, because it is they who are charged with defending the nation–a purely prudential matter. Just as we let officers and senior enlisted decide who will be sent to take a hill or what tactics and strategy will be used to accomplish a goal, we empower the president and Congress to decide what the military should look like and what it should do. 

Not judges. Without an effective military, constitutional order, and judicial power, the country is in jeopardy. There will be no Constitutional order to preserve.

These judges seem to think that an amendment was passed that says, “Anything Joe Biden did is the final word on any matter.” This is not so. Nor is it the case that judges are empowered to use their power to set policy in all matters in the United States, whatever they think. 

For all the talk about nobody “being above the law,” that clearly is not the position of the current federal judiciary. 

The new judicial standard is, as Louis the XIV said, “L’État, c’est moi.”

This post was originally published on this site

Wow. This turned around quickly.

So, there was this fellow in New Mexico, Dona Ana County Magistrate Judge Joel Cano.

It turns out his wife had a soft heart and, when a young lad who had helped around their place as a handyman needed a roof over his head, she invited him to live in their guest house after he was evicted from the place he had been staying.

That was about a year ago.

…According to court documents, Ortega-Lopez met Cano’s wife after getting a job to install a glass door for her. It goes on to say, in April 2024, the wife offered him to stay in their casita behind their home after he was evicted from his apartment in El Paso. Ortega-Lopez added, he was introduced to Cano’s daughter and according to officials she “allowed him to hold and sometimes shoot various firearms.”

The fact that he was so comfortable living at the magistrate’s house proved to be everyone’s undoing.

First and foremost, because Cristhian Ortega-Lopez used the Cano address on his immigration papers, asking for relief in order to remain in the country.

It was especially awkward in February when Homeland Security officials in Las Cruces got a tip that the handyman living in the judge’s guest house was in the country illegally.

OH, DEAR

The DHS crew paid the Cano property a visit armed with a search warrant and holy smokes.

…On Feb. 28, Homeland Security Investigations Las Cruces conducted a search warrant on Cano’s property. Officials said they received a tip that Ortega-Lopez was in the United States illegally, was allegedly a member of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, and was in possession of a firearm. During the search, Ortega-Lopez and his roommates were taken into custody. He was federally charged with being in the country illegally and for having a firearm.

It turns out that the judge’s guest house was party central for Ortega-Lopez and his little friends, as well as a gathering place for firearms enthusiasts. They’d often go shooting with the judge’s daughter, April.

This sort of thing is frowned upon by the feds.

Once all that word broke, Judge Cano was forced to resign his position. Imagine that.

…The arrest followed a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) probe launched in January, which uncovered that Ortega-Lopez, who entered the U.S. illegally from Mexico in December 2023, was living with other undocumented migrants and had access to firearms.

According to a press release from the Justice Department, investigators found social media posts depicting Ortega-Lopez posing with multiple guns, some of which were allegedly supplied by April Cano, the judge’s daughter, who “allowed him to hold and sometimes shoot various firearms,” the agency said.

…In a resignation letter addressed to 3rd Judicial District Chief Judge Conrad Perea, Judge Cano wrote, “Working with each of you has been a very rewarding experience for which I will remain eternally grateful,” according to Fox News. Cano’s 14-year run on the bench followed a career in law enforcement.

Ortega-Lopez was formally accused by HSI of being in the country illegally and of having ties to Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that has recently drawn scrutiny from the Trump administration.

Federal authorities further allege that Ortega-Lopez not only lived with other undocumented migrants but also had access to firearms—an offense that is prohibited for noncitizens in the United States.

I’m sure the happy-go-lucky youngsters told Hizzoner they weren’t a gang, just a club, right?

Just to the south, in Las Cruces, NM, a JUDGE has resigned…

“A Doña Ana County magistrate judge has abruptly stepped down following… a possible connection to an alleged Tren de Aragua affiliate.”

Guess which one is the judge:https://t.co/CzyeGsLLBZ https://t.co/7pNEWmDnyG pic.twitter.com/ulhjkeBNbx

— Glued2TheScreen (@glued2thescreen) April 20, 2025

The powers that be in the New Mexico judiciary weren’t feeling the least bit benevolent when it came to forgiveness for the judge… 

Story of the NM Judge with a TDA member living on his Property – Story just keeps getting stranger.

🔹Shortly after his resignation the State’s Judicial Standards Commission petitioned NM Supreme Court to suspend judge for “harboring a TDA gang member.” 🔹Supreme Court barred… pic.twitter.com/B7576heBia

— DogeWatchReport (@DogeWatchReport) April 24, 2025

…and the New Mexico state Supreme Court permanently barred Cano from ever serving on a bench again yesterday.

A former judge who resigned last month after a suspected Tren de Aragua gang member was arrested at his home is now permanently barred from ever serving on a New Mexico bench again.

The Supreme Court of New Mexico ordered that Joel Cano “can never hold a judicial office again, be a candidate for a judicial office, and cannot exercise any judicial authority in the state, including officiating at weddings,” according to Fox News Digital.

And the videos that have been coming out of the guns that Cano’s family, which Ortega-Lopez and his gang buddies had access to, no doubt raised the hair on the back of some law enforcement necks.

Doña Ana County, NM magistrate judge could face charges after allegedly harboring an illegal alien who is believed to be TdA member. Includes commentary from retired ICE Field Office Director @JohnE_Fabb. https://t.co/oj77CvnIXX pic.twitter.com/WyjhDQcEut

— Illegal Alien Crimes (@ImmigrantCrimes) April 23, 2025

Which is probably why, besides being banned from the judiciary yesterday, Judge Cano and his wife received a visit from the FBI, and it wasn’t social.

It was all about ‘hands behind your back.’

The home of a former judge in Las Cruces was raided Thursday, following accusations that he and his wife had an alleged Tren de Aragua member living in their home. KFOX14/CBS4 cameras captured the moment both Cano and his wife, Nancy, were handcuffed. https://t.co/LWvz39b8bt pic.twitter.com/sL5zjafIdC

— KFOX14 News (@KFOX14) April 24, 2025

The pictures of this guy with these criminals are just nuts.

How it started and how it ended! This is how it’s done!

Judge Juan Cano and his wife arrested by federal authorities after they harbored a TDA gang member at home. pic.twitter.com/9pgmlJiaHn

— Log Home Mom and Dad (@LogHomeMomDad) April 24, 2025

This report is chock-full of the craziest stuff, photo-wise.

Former Doña Ana County Magistrate Judge Joel Cano and his wife, Nancy Cano, were taken into custody Thursday after federal agents raided their Las Cruces home.

The two face charges of evidence tampering amid allegations they harbored Cristhian Ortega-Lopez, an alleged illegal alien who is also believed to be a member of Venezuela’s notorious Tren de Aragua gang.

“Under President Trump, we have arrested over 150,000 aliens—including more than 600 members of the vicious Tren de Aragua gang,” said Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem. “If you are here illegally and break the law, we will hunt you down, arrest you and lock you up. That’s a promise.”

The arrest follows a February incident where Ortega-Lopez was apprehended at the Cano residence. Court documents reveal that he was initially hired by Nancy Cano for home repairs and later offered accommodation in the couple’s guesthouse.

It’s kind of hard to swallow that this couple didn’t have a clue for over the year this gangbanger lived with them that maybe he and his equally hardened buddies weren’t Boy Scouts. And what kind of law enforcement official would have a day laborer of sketchy origins living at his house to begin with, especially in this day and age?

To say it’s very strange doesn’t begin to cover it.

It sure is going to be interesting to see what the feds scooped up when they got to the house.

Is this a batty older, willfully blind couple, or are they part of something bigger, like a cartel angle, schmaybe?

I’ve seen a ton of comments about corruption in the New Mexico judiciary, too.

The entire situation strains credulity.

What a mess.

This post was originally published on this site

Fantasy Conclave can be fun and informative, when not taken too seriously. The mainstream media that barely covers the Catholic Church looooves to engage in tea-leaf reading to suss out how 135 electors will choose between 135 — and maybe more — potential candidates for Pope. They are usually very good at creating “short lists” out of thin air, based on nothing more than “that’s a name I recognize from press coverage,” and really good at generating cool graphics to go along with them. 

But Fantasy Conclave took a very strange turn at CBS last night. Reporting from St. Peter’s Square, their reporter noted that the crowds for the viewing of Pope Francis’ body lying in state in the basilica are much smaller than during the last funeral for a regnant pope 20 years ago. John Paul II had a much longer papacy — 27 years — and a more momentous role in world affairs, too. 

However, CBS’ reporter seems to think that the cardinal-electors will use the turnstile count as a key point of discernment in their upcoming conclave:

Roughly 50,000 mourners visited Pope Francis’ body in the first 24 hours at St. Peter’s Basilica—just a tenth of the turnout for Pope John Paul II. The stark difference in crowds is prompting speculation about how it might influence the upcoming papal conclave and the future… pic.twitter.com/6sqHC5h2jB

— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 24, 2025

Ahem. CBS seems confused by the difference between a funereal viewing and an American political rally. And they seem equally confused about the nature of the Catholic Church. 

In the first place, this is the only “election” that the Catholic Church has. It exists to safeguard and evangelize the Gospel, the Scriptures, and the two-millennia-old body of teaching called the Magisterium, along with the sacraments. It does not do this by taking the temperature of the masses, and certainly not by turnstile count at St. Peter’s Basilica. The Vatican’s official form of government is itself an absolute monarchy, and the Cathollic Church is rather famously hierarchical. CBS seems to have confused it with congregationalism, writ impossibly large.  The cardinals are not elected by the people to represent them; 80% of them were appointed by the man whose body lies in state at the basilica.

That means less than people think, too. Will Pope Francis’ legacy be part of their discernment? Possibly, but while conclaves are technically elections, they do not have ‘campaigns,’ nor do cardinals normally offer themselves up as candidates. An old saying about ambition in conclaves goes something like this: Enter a pope, exit a cardinal. This isn’t a leadership election in the parliamentary sense, even if concerns and issues facing the church are just as real as those facing any democratic legislature.

Rather than count queues in St. Peter’s Square, Crux’s Joseph San Mateo went to an actual source to explain what happens in a conclave. Filipino Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David scoffed at the secular media’s idea of conclaves and offered some good insight into how the process unfolds:

“There are no candidates in a conclave,” David, the bishop of Kalookan, told reporters on Tuesday after a Mass for the soul of Francis at the Kalookan Cathedral.

David dispelled the notion that the conclave is like a political election — a relevant metaphor because the Philippines is holding its midterm elections on May 12. “No one will give dole-outs. No one will put up tarpaulins. No one will mount a campaign,” the cardinal said.

“A conclave is a retreat. The cardinals will pray, and it is in the spirit of prayer that we will ask not whom we want to elect, but whom the Lord wants to succeed Pope Francis. That’s why we have a big moral and spiritual obligation to enter into the conclave, not in the spirit of politics but in the spirit of prayer for the continuity of the mission of the Church,” David said.

The first step isn’t looking out at the crowds in the square to take their temperature toward the deceased pontiff, David explained. The first step is to get to know everyone else in the conclave, in order to build connections for the retreat:

In his interview with journalists on Tuesday, David said that since the conclave is a “retreat,” part of the cardinals’ duty is to discern by getting to know their fellow cardinals better.

One way by which they get acquainted with each other, according to David, is by writing each other personal letters.

In other words, no one’s looking for popular sentiment, in their own dioceses or in Rome’s. The idea that funeral turnout influences conclave outcomes is absurd. And the comparison of grief on that basis between John Paul II and Francis is frankly insulting. It would be akin to counting mourners at funerals in general and judging who was the better person by the number of butts in the seats. 

Also, for those who have not yet heard, Pope Francis’ funeral will take place tomorrow morning at the Vatican. That will be very early in the morning here, but Relevant Radio® will carry it live with ongoing commentary starting at 3 am CT. I’ll be guest hosting for Drew Mariani later this afternoon (3 pm ET), and more details will be announced then.