Letitia James’ Lawyer Responds to the DOJ

Letitia James' Lawyer Responds to the DOJ 1

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Letitia James' Lawyer Responds to the DOJ 2

New York AG Letitia James has hired attorney Abbe Lowell to respond to the allegations that she was involved in some sort of mortgage fraud on her various properties. If Lowell’s name is familiar it’s probably because he was Hunter Biden’s attorney last year. He has also worked for Sen. Bob Menendez, Jared Kushner, Gary Condit, John Edwards and others. Today, Lowell sent a letter to the DOJ countering the claims made in a criminal referral of AG James.

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Abbe Lowell, a high-profile lawyer retained by the attorney general in recent days, was responding to a criminal referral letter sent to the Justice Department last week by Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Mr. Pulte’s letter focused on two houses that Ms. James owns in Virginia and New York. It said that she “appeared to have falsified records” related to the properties, which might have allowed her to receive favorable loan terms.

But Mr. Lowell, in his own letter to Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general, said Mr. Pulte’s allegation lacked “any credible foundation.” He characterized them as “the next salvo in President Trump’s revenge tour against Attorney General James.”

The letter itself is heavy on framing this as retribution by President Trump and spends a page citing Trump’s critical comments about James:

In fact, Mr. Trump has singled out Attorney General James dating back to her campaign in 2018, and ever moreso during and after the trial and verdict in New York in which Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization were found liable for financial fraud and assessed a $454million judgment. For instance:

“How do I get a fair trial with a monster like ‘Attorney General ‘Peekaboo James, who is willing to break every law in the book? This is not a legitimate trial 

“…A bond of the size set by the Democrat Club-controlled Judge, in Corrupt, Racist Letitia James’ unlawful Witch Hunt, is unConstitutional,un-American, unprecedented, and practically impossible for ANY Company, including one as successful as mine.”

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Eventually, Lowell does get around to the facts about the houses and mortgages which really ought to be the only issue here. As for the house in Virginia he says James wrote to the lender to let them know the house would not be her primary residence saying the document to the contrary was a mistake.

In 2023, Ms. James assisted her niece, Shamice Thompson-Hairston, who needed financial support, with the down payment to purchase a home in Norfolk, Virginia. The mortgage application required only one individual to live at the property. Director Pulte cherry-picked an August 17, 2023 power of attorney that mistakenly stated the property to be Ms. James’ principal residence and at the same time absolutely ignored her very clear and all caps statement two weeks earlier to the mortgage loan broker that “[t]his property WILL NOT be my primary residence[.] It will be Shamice’s primary residence.” The broker understood this, and that Ms. James was not a Virginia resident, and replied, “Section 4 indicates that the property will be occupied as a primary residence for Shamice….Your declaration is marked as a non-occupying co-borrower.”

Furthermore, after the erroneous power of attorney (given to the person who would be the principal resident), Ms. James filled out a Uniform Residential Loan Application, including property “occupancy” information for the loan, in which she again made clear that the Norfolk property was not her “primary residence.”

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The other issue raised in the referral letter involved a multi-family home in Brooklyn. The referral suggested that was a 5-unit property but Lowell says it has been a 4-unit dwelling for more than 20 years.

In 2001, Ms. James purchased her Brooklyn, New York home with her savings to facilitate supporting her mother (sick at the time) and give other family members a place to live. Ms. James and her family members have lived there since 2001. The co-occupancy dwelling has four floors and, for as long as Ms. James has lived there, the property has always functioned as a four-person residence. Initially, Ms. James’ mother lived on the first floor; Ms. James occupied the second floor; a close family friend occupied the third floor; and her brother occupied the fourth floor. The basement did not have any unit. After Ms. James’ mother died, and to this day, Ms. James has occupied the first and second floor units for her self, while her close family friend and brother occupy units on the top two floors.

Director Pulte points to a 24-year-old certificate of occupancy listing the property as having five units, despite that the property has functioned as a four-unit residence for the past 24 years since Ms. James bought it. In fact, a document he is well aware of, the August 23, 2011 Home Affordable Modification Program application, confirms it as being a four-unit property. Worse yet, Director Pulte ignores altogether the other New York City records that list the Brooklyn property as a four-unit property, including the NYC Department of Finance property record listing the Brooklyn property’s Building Class as “C3–Four Families” for tax purposes (e.g., 4 residential units).

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Finally there was an issue involving an house in Queens in which James was listed as being married to her father. Lowell again claims this was a mistake, this one made without her knowledge.

In 1983, Ms. James’ father, Robert James sought to buy a home for his family in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, New York. He asked his daughter (then a few years out of school) to help by allowing him to add her name to the mortgage application. Mr. James filled out the mortgage material (wherein he described their relationship as being “spouses”) and purchased the home without his daughter’s involvement. Yet, in a predictable pattern here, Director Pulte cites a mistaken May 20, 1983 document Mr. James filled out to cast his baseless allegation while again ignoring the other supporting documentation, one on the same exact date that correctly describes Ms. James as being his daughter. The actual May 20, 1983 property deed for the Jamaica, Queens residence lists Robert James “and Letitia James, his daughter.”

So, in short, Letitia James has bought homes or helped buy homes for numerous people in her family and some of those mortgage applications contain mistakes which Lowell says were corrected. 

There are two sides to every story and James has offered hers now. We’ll have to wait and see if Pulte or others have anything else to add to this story.

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Posted in Republican News

For All The $$$ Degrees, Huge Chunk o’ Student Loan Borrowers Still Dumb as a Box o’ Rocks

For All The $$$ Degrees, Huge Chunk o' Student Loan Borrowers Still Dumb as a Box o' Rocks 3

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For All The $$$ Degrees, Huge Chunk o' Student Loan Borrowers Still Dumb as a Box o' Rocks 4

I almost – ALMOST – didn’t write about this because listening to the whining of these people was so Gott-danged painful, I was near the end of my tether.

But then I remembered two things – pain is best shared, and I have y’all.

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YOU WIN!

Actually, though, I think I’m performing some sort of public service by publicizing how intellectually barren the squishy grey brain matter swishing around the voluminous craniums of a fair majority of college types who owe money on their student loans is.

It offers an explanation of why progressives act as they do, for one thing, and why people so readily believe the AOC and Bernie snek oil salesmen of the world, and the ‘Maryland Man‘ type fairytales they peddle.

All through the POTATUS years, there were get-out-of-dun-territory schemes aplenty floated using COVID as a cover to buy student loan borrowers’ votes with ‘forgiveness.’ So benign, so caring, the Democrats thought to wrap millions of new voters in their tender tentacles by wiping out legally incurred debts under one cleverly disguised give-away after another.

Yeah, plenty of them were shot down by the Supreme Court, but plenty got through the cracks as well. There were federal workers being handed payoffs along with teachers and others – they found all manner of workarounds. 

By January of this year, in the waning days of the Biden White House, the total of bought-off debtors at taxpayer expense was mindblowing, especially when you think how much worse it would have been had SCOTUS not crimped his Lord Bountiful act.

More student loan forgiveness on his way out the door, wwweeeee!

…Since Biden took office, he has forgiven debt for more than 5 million federal student loan borrowers, totaling $183.6 billion in relief.

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Through it all, borrowers had multiple fits and starts of hoping it was their turn to catch the brass ring. Being denied, whining and gnashing their teeth, railing against the cruelty of life, and then lather, rinsing and repeating as the musty old corpse promised relief all over again, and they fell for it. 

At no time during the Sturm und Drang was interest accruing, payments required, or were there any adverse reports going to credit agencies for non-payment.

CHA-CHING

You’d think that it might be a perfect time to start making some progress on a loan and knock the balance down, basically free of charge.

But, no. That’s not what these people did. What monies should have been their student loan payments became additional monthly income they were soon loath to part with.

And expectation of government release from, again, a voluntary and legally incurred debt morphed into a God-given right up there with freedom of speech and the press.

These were bad habits to fall into, but this is also an extraordinarily self-centered and overindulged group who believe that if they say something, the utterance makes it so.

 As both a mercy and a warning, the Biden administration afforded these infants a twelve-month, penalty-free grace period to get their act together. That ended in October of last year, and the ‘payment due’ clock restarted on loans.

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By this March, which coincided with the 90-day-past-due mark, it was obvious people weren’t back in the swing. And the numbers were growing.

…Now, the numbers are just starting to come in for how many student loans are already behind.

Around 9.7 million student loan borrowers became past due on their bills after the Covid-era payment pause expired, according to a new estimate by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

All those degrees, so little responsibility or common sense.

So much money wasted on so few brains.

The days of ignoring the letter in your mailbox are rapidly drawing to a close, too. As of May 5, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced that the government will resume collections on defaulted student loans.

What that translates to is the federal government actively recouping what’s been borrowed through tools such as wage garnishments or garnishing tax returns.

It’s quite a shock to those in a system that’s been somnolent and benign for years, lulling many borrowers into believing their loans were as good as gone.

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Borrower advocates are warning about the potential for confusion and chaos as the Department of Education prepares to start forcibly collecting on defaulted student loans for the first time in five years.

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced this week that the agency would resume mandatory collections next month, ending a pause that’s been in place since the beginning of the pandemic. In doing so, the government will be dusting off vast legal powers to recoup unpaid education debts that include the ability to garnish wages and withhold tax refunds as well as Social Security checks.

While many outside experts have acknowledged that the collections process needed to resume at some point, they’ve warned that recent upheaval within the Education Department and student lending program could end up creating new problems for borrowers, many of whom may not realize they still owe their debts after years of not having to pay them.

There are currently more than 5 million borrowers with loans in default, who will be immediately affected by the restart. Millions more Americans are expected to fall deeply past due on their student debts in the coming months, with a large bulge in the fall.

The wig-out videos have been epic. 

I’ll just put the NSFW warning right here above all these, because even if there’s no swearing, the overwhelming sense of entitlement and pathetic keening will cause you to do so.

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God bless.

LOSER IN LIFE SAYS: YOU CAN’T GARNISH WHAT ISN’T THERE

And this fetching young legal scholar weighed – or is it ‘whined’ – in.

‘And MAGA can come tell me where I went wrong because none of you have student loans because none of you went to college.’

And the best example of rational thinking one learns by having earned an expensive higher education degree:

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TRUMP NEEDS FACTORY WORKERS

Holy smokes.

And ERMAGERD! Won’t anyone think of the economy!

Yes, there are significant issues with ‘student loan’ programs, and, hell to the yeah – first and foremost, colleges should have significant skin in the game and the government should have none.

Right here, right now, the issue is voluntarily signing a legal and binding agreement for a product you have received and then reneging on the contract.

I don’t owe that freight, and neither does my neighbor.

Posted in Republican News

David French Misses the Point

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David French Misses the Point 6

David French’s latest newsletter/column is titled “The Anti-Woke Right Has a Lot to Answer For.” The gist of the argument is that the anti-woke right are hypocrites on free speech because Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump have pushed their agenda though legislation aimed at limiting woke speech rather than competing in the marketplace of ideas. As I’ll explain, I think French is fundamentally wrong about this. 

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That’s not to say he’s completely wrong in every instance. There may indeed be conservatives who are no less censorious than their opponents on the woke left. But I think French’s argument is mistaken on a more fundamental level in a way he seems rather eager to skip over and ignore. But let’s start with his argument and go from there.

We might not like to dwell much on 2020 (it was a terrible year), but we can’t understand 2025 without remembering that both the racial reckoning and the early Covid response had a dark side. Cancel culture was real. Efforts to combat disinformation about Covid were often amateurish and heavy-handed…

In an alternate universe, the rise of the anti-woke right would have been the beginning of a constitutional renaissance. At the very moment when public debate was most necessary — to address some of the most complicated and emotionally fraught issues that divide our nation — was the moment when millions of Americans felt most afraid to speak.

He’s right about 2020. It was a terrible year for many reasons but his association of cancel culture with that year and his use of the past tense when referring to it strikes me as an early sign of trouble for his argument. Because the truth is not that cancel culture “was real” but that cancel culture had been real for years prior to 2020 and that it is still real in this moment.

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But its what he says in the next paragraph about “public debate” that is where he really misses the point. I’ll explain why in a moment but let’s continue with his argument. [emphasis added]

The anti-woke right…has gone reverse Marcuse. It embraces intolerance against movements from the left and tolerance for movements from the right.

All of this has been obvious for some time. Or, another way to put it is that Ron DeSantis walked so that Donald Trump could run. When the time came to formulate a policy response to the woke left, no one mattered more than the governor of Florida.

He tried to ban critical race theory in education. He sharply limited discussion of gender and sexuality in public schools. He tried to limit the free speech of university professors. He retaliated against Disney when it had the audacity to exercise its freedom of speech to criticize the governor’s policies.

And through it all, DeSantis declared that Florida was the place where “woke goes to die.”

Many of DeSantis’s targets (and Trump’s) have involved education. For instance, it’s true that DeSantis limited discussion of gender but that was primarily aimed at kindergarten to 2nd graders out of concern that young children were being indoctrinated with the left’s views, especially on trans issues. To be blunt, many parents did not want teachers of these young children indoctrinating them with the idea that boys can be girls and girls can be boys as if biological sex was just a cultural construct.

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Here’s where I think French is being disingenuous. There is absolutely no sense in which a teacher engaging in lessons about the gender binary with a group of 6-year-olds is the “marketplace of ideas.” I’d really love to see French defend it as such. These kids are still learning to read and tie their shoes but they are perfectly capable of engaging in dialogue about trans issues. It’s an absurd idea which is why he skips over the details and just includes it in a vague list of examples of right-wing censorship.

The actual marketplace of ideas in this case comes from parents who have the right to object to what schools are teaching their kids, especially the youngest ones. The fact that a group of elected officials in Florida set guidelines for the teaching of these topics in public schools, guidelines which polls show most parents agreed with, does not mean the state is censoring speech any more than any other curriculum for primary school is censoring everything it intentionally leaves for later. We don’t generally read Orwell’s 1984 to third graders and for good reasons. This is not a sign of censorship but of common sense.

Similarly, the attempt to ban critical race theory in K-12 schools also involves an attempt to set guidelines for curricula. It was an attempt to push back on a specific set of ideas connected to critical race theory, specifically the embrace of an identity politics in which people are divided into oppressors and oppressed based on their race. 

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Left-wing activists have tried to frame this as an argument solely about how we teach history but the whole point of critical race theory is that it’s not about history it’s about the present. The proponents of this view are not shy about saying so. It is possible to teach history without also indoctrinating people with the idea that nothing has changed.

It’s instructive to notice that when the right first began pushing back on ideas like critical race theory, the left’s response was to act befuddled. CRT was said to be an esoteric set of ideas taught only in grad schools and law schools. We were repeatedly told it was silly to even suggest such a thing was being taught in any K-12 school. If this were true that DeSantis’ attempts to keep it out of K-12 schools would have made no difference. You can’t ban what doesn’t exist.

In fact, popular versions of this material have been trickling down into K-12 schools for some time. The concepts of identity politics, white supremacy, white privilege and implicit bias are all making their way into public schools, sometimes in the form of mandatory courses and other times as frameworks presented in other classes. 

Again, the marketplace of ideas here is among adults and elected officials who set curriculums, not in classrooms where adults are teaching these ideas to teenagers. It is perfectly reasonable for adults to argue that some of this material is noxious and contrary to the fundamental views most Americans hold about race, identity and merit. It is not censorious to remove ideas from a public school curriculum on the basis that they are more appropriate topics for colleges or grad schools.

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French is on more solid ground when it comes to efforts to limit what can be taught in colleges. Here you have adult students who are capable of forming their own views. It is something closer to a marketplace of ideas, at least it should be. But even here I don’t think French is being particularly honest.

He could at least acknowledge that universities are hotbeds of leftist thought which often work to exclude conservative ideas and those who hold them. When you have entire universities requiring DEI statements of every potential hire and potential promotion you are not engaging in a marketplace of ideas, you are setting up a left-wing purity test. US universities have a lot going for them but they are also the areas of our society where differing opinions about cultural and political issues are the least tolerated and where refusal to embrace woke views is the least tolerated. 

Universities are a marketplace for ideas in the same way California is a marketplace for various political views, which is to say not really or hardly at all.

The anti-woke right was right to push back on woke ideology. Schools should not be adopting explicitly far left view points and teaching those to a captive audience of children. The real marketplace of ideas means that adults, parents and teachers can argue about what gets taught to their own kids and can even rule some of these ideas out as inappropriate for a specific age group. It seems likely the Supreme Court is soon going to make that point explicitly.

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Trump Launches ‘Secret Weapon’ Against Academia — And More

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Trump Launches 'Secret Weapon' Against Academia -- And More 8

This move makes the war on Harvard look like a brief skirmish. 

In fact, Donald Trump’s executive order may moot it altogether by simply bypassing the administration at Harvard and other Academia institutions. Trump has unveiled what he calls his “secret weapon” for transforming higher eduction — an executive order that will transform the federal accreditation process. 

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And Academia isn’t its only target, either:

President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday to shake up the arcane but pivotal world of college accreditation, a move Trump has called his “secret weapon” in his bid to remake higher education.

The order aims to use the accrediting system to combat what Trump views as discriminatory practices and “ideological overreach” on college campuses, the White House said. The order intends to put a greater focus on intellectual diversity among faculty and student success.

It also would make it easier for schools to switch accreditors and for new accreditors to gain federal approval.

That last part is key to the strategy. The existing accreditor establishment may react much like Harvard’s administration did, by balking at what are common-sense reforms for Harvard and other higher-ed institutions. If the existing accreditors control the market, it will be difficult for Trump to succeed in this mission. By fast-tracking new competitors, however, it will be easier to decertify existing accreditors and to transform the market.

Why is that important? Accreditors are a key gateway to all federal funding:

Accreditors play a role largely unseen to the public but crucial for universities, setting standards that must be met to access federal financial aid. The federal government gave $120.8 billion in loans, grants and work-study funds to more than 9.9 million students in the year ended last September. To earn an accreditor’s seal of approval, higher-education institutions must prove they meet wide-ranging standards covering everything from their mission and admissions policies to the quality of their faculty and programming. 

Few schools ever lose their accreditation, even ones with low graduation and job-placement rates. 

Trump and other Republicans have long criticized the accreditation process, calling it a cartel that stifles competition and doesn’t help police colleges and universities with poor student outcomes. Accreditors, which must be approved by the federal government, argue they help maintain the integrity of schools and work with those that are struggling.

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Some of them have “struggled” for decades. Many of them don’t even produce educated graduates any longer, in part because compulsory education doesn’t produce educated graduates to feed into the schools. Instead, many universities and colleges operate as indoctrination centers for progressive activism, particularly in the ‘humanities.’ They saddle students with massive debt and give them few skills — outside of the true professions — to make it worth repaying. The student-loan crisis is the result of this escalating trend of charging a fortune while delivering poorly.

Frankly, this is a bit of an end run, though one can see why it’s attractive. The better option would be to eliminate all federal funding for higher education altogether — grants, student loans, research funds — and force schools to operate on clear pricing signals and market performance. That path is cleanest and gets the federal government out of education policy altogether, and leaves the enforcement of the Civil Rights Act to the Department of Justice and the courts.  

One downside: That option would probably require Congress. But the other downside is obvious and more pertinent: That option would remove any influence Trump has to force Academia to transform itself. As long as Trump controls federal funding to universities and colleges, he can force them to change — one way or another.

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Academia isn’t Trump’s only target in this EO, either. This fires a warning shot across the bow of the legal establishment too, via the American Bar Association and its monopoly on accreditation of law schools:

The American Bar Association’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (Council), which is the sole federally recognized accreditor for Juris Doctor programs, has required law schools to “demonstrate by concrete action a commitment to diversity and inclusion” including by “commit[ting] to having a student body [and faculty] that is diverse with respect to gender, race, and ethnicity.”  As the Attorney General has concluded and informed the Council, the discriminatory requirement blatantly violates the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023).  Though the Council subsequently suspended its enforcement while it considers proposed revisions, this standard and similar unlawful mandates must be permanently eradicated. …

(b)  The Attorney General and the Secretary of Education shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, investigate and take appropriate action to terminate unlawful discrimination by American law schools that is advanced by the Council, including unlawful “diversity, equity, and inclusion” requirements under the guise of accreditation standards.  The Secretary of Education shall also assess whether to suspend or terminate the Council’s status as an accrediting agency under Federal law.

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There is similar language targeting the medical establishment, too. Although the EO doesn’t call out the American Medical Association by name, there is also only one accreditor for medical schools in the country, and it’s clearly acting within the AMA’s ambit. The message here is clear — dump DEI in both name and practice, or lose all control of accreditation for the long term. 

This may not be the “War’s over, man, Wormer dropped the big one” moment in Trump’s fight with the academic, legal, and medical establishments. But it puts the big one right over the biggest target and makes it clear that Trump really wants to drop it. Some opponents may have Bluto’s reaction, and perhaps some of them don’t even get the joke within it, having been educated in more recent times.

Posted in Republican News

J.B. Pritzker Chomps on El Salvador for Taking Their Own Citizen Back

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J.B. Pritzker Chomps on El Salvador for Taking Their Own Citizen Back 10

If that isn’t a frightening mental image, I don’t know what would be.

J. B. Pritzker, hotel chain bazillionaire and Illinois’s massive snapping-turtle Turk governor, has decided to place his marker down. His meaty hamfist laid it atop the incomprehensible vanity bonfire of current progressive Democrat posturing over the deportation of a rumored wife-beating, human-trafficking, gangbanging illegal immigrant to the tiny Central American country of El Salvador.

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Oddly enough, and most baffling as far as these hysterical public objections to the case of Kilmar Abrego-Garcia go, El Salvador is the very same country from which the border-jumping illegal alien *checks notes* started his journey north to cross into our country.

Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran ‘citizen.’ He is a ‘criminal illegal alien’ in the United States.

Couldn’t be simpler…and yet, here we are.

FATHERS IN SALVADORAN GULAGS! MARYLAND MAN! UNION MEMBER!

DOGS AND CATS, LIVING TOGETHER!

Maryland man has nothing to hide, living quietly as he has with his loving wife. 

His life is an open book.

Seriously. 

Who among us is so pure that they can cast the first stone?

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If it wasn’t for progressives, there’d be no Maryland man at all – think about that.

And they’re hard at work trying to convince the American public that we need this gem of a Latin male right back here where he doesn’t belong. 

For all the virtue-signaling trips to El Salvador, weeping at the prison wailing walls when denied access to see their martyr of the moment…

 …and the constant spew of vicious, inflammatory invective directed at the administration, you wouldn’t think there was much space left for anyone else to muscle in on airtime.

Au contraire, mon frere.

The super-sized ego of the Illinois governor has found a way.

Pritzker has declared economic war on El Salvador and President Nayib Bukele and directed his state to immediately cease and desist doing business there.

Also, Trump sucks, like Hitler or something.

Illinois Gov. Pritzker acts against El Salvador over Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker announced the state will take punitive actions against the country of El Salvador for holding Kilmar Abrego Garcia in custody.

“The United States Constitution guarantees due process. We are witnessing Donald Trump erode our fundamental Constitutional rights in real time, and we must fight to restore the balance of power,” said Pritzker. “The State of Illinois will stand up for the Rule of Law and do everything in our power (to) stop the Trump Administration from ripping apart our most basic rights.”

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‘Do this right now,’ decreed the snapping-turtle Turk.

…Pritzker has asked the Illinois State Board of Investment, the State Universities Retirement System and the Teachers’ Retirement System to review any investments in companies controlled by El Salvador, with the purpose of withholding investments in those companies.

The governor is also directing the Illinois Department of Central Management Services to identify state contracts with companies controlled by El Salvador, with the purpose of stopping them.

Additionally, Pritzker wants the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity Office of Trade and Investment to send in an analysis of the scale of trade El Salvador has with Illinois.

I will concede that while Gov. Pritzker is shaky on who he should be defending, he’s also an expert when it comes to ‘criminal’ matters, both the kind you lock up and what he’s done to the state. 

President Bukele, on the other hand, has proven to be adept at cleaning out the refuse, some of which was also the excuse for Maryland man’s continued presence in the United States. Bukele’s reforms have eliminated the gang that supposedly threatened Abrego Garcia’s existence in his home country.

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As they were no longer a threat, President Bukele was kind enough to welcome home his errant Salvadoran citizen.

…NPR leaves out a couple of facts in its passing reference to his being “granted protection by an immigration judge.” Abrego Garcia already had a hearing at which the judge found evidence that he was an MS-13 member. It was not only based on his being arrested with MS-13 gang members and wearing clothing associated with the gang. It was also based on a confidential source connected to the gang. After losing at his hearing, Abrego Garcia then lost on appeal.

The only reason that Abrego Garcia was not removed is that he said that he was being threatened by a gang that could harm him in El Salvador. That gang, however, reportedly no longer exists.

More importantly, President Trump has declared MS-13 a Foreign Terrorist Organization, which bars the use of the justification for his not being removed. In other words, he has little factual or legal foundation under his original claims to remain in the country.

A good deed for which the state of Illinois now wants to punish the little country, or at least the rotund IL chief executive wants to make a fine public show of ‘doing something, something, outrage, outrage.‘

I choose Door Number Two.

Getting a leg up on Spartacus, Van Hollen, the fool AWFL who is insisting on staying in El Salvador until she wins her hero’s freedom, etc., is more to the point, I believe, for a governor of national aspirations.

Plus, he beat Gavin Newsom to a press release.

*sigh*

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The progressive Greek chorus performance of The Ballad of Maryland Man dirge wails on.

Looks like it’s gonna be a while.

BYOB

Posted in Republican News

‘TdA Is Not A Street Gang’: DoJ Brings First Terror Case Against Crime Org (Updated)

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'TdA Is Not A Street Gang': DoJ Brings First Terror Case Against Crime Org (Updated) 12

The gloves have come off against Tren de Aragua, and not just in terms of deportations. 

Among the first actions Donald Trump took on taking office was to designate TdA as a terror organization. That simplified deportations already in the pipeline, as that designation can accelerate the expulsion process for anyone affiliated with terror orgs. Last night, however, the Department of Justice made clear their intent to use that designation to prosecute TdA leaders on terror charges, which could result in life imprisonment in the US:

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A high-ranking Tren de Aragua gangbanger was slapped with federal terrorism charges — marking the first time US authorities have levied the criminal offense against an alleged member of the notorious Venezuelan gang, the Justice Department announced Wednesday. 

Jose Enrique Martinez Flores, 24, was charged in Texas federal court on a new indictment for conspiring to provide and providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization — a designation President Trump assigned to Tren de Aragua in February, according to a DOJ press release. 

Martinez Flores, also known as “Chuqui,” was also hit with international cocaine distribution charges for smuggling more than five kilograms across the US border.

The DoJ release paints Martinez Flores as “a high-ranking TdA leader” in its press release:

According to the allegations, Flores is charged with one count of conspiring to provide material support to TdA in the form of personnel (including himself) and services and one count of providing material support to TdA. The indictment also alleges one count of international drug distribution conspiracy based on his involvement in the distribution of five kilograms of cocaine or more, and two substantive counts of international drug distribution. …

According to information presented to the court, Flores is a high-ranking TdA leader in Bogota, Colombia, and is part of the inner circle of senior TdA leadership.

Flores also allegedly caused the delivery of approximately five kilograms or more of cocaine for international distribution, proceeds that were used to further TdA’s criminal goals. 

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At the moment, Martinez Flores remains in custody in Columbia, which detained him in cooperation with the DoJ’s investigation and “provisional” arrest warrant. Presumably, the grand-jury indictment will kick off extradition proceedings next. The grand jury only needs enough evidence for probable cause to issue an indictment, but if the DoJ can connect him to TdA and the drug trafficking, Martinez Flores will spend the rest of his life in prison in the US. 

That’s a message that Attorney General Pam Bondi wants to send, loudly and clearly, to other TdA members and leaders, inside the US and outside as well:

“TdA is not a street gang – it is a highly structured terrorist organization that put down roots in our country during the prior administration,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “Today’s charges represent an inflection point in how this Department of Justice will prosecute and ultimately dismantle this evil organization, which has destroyed American families and poisoned our communities.”

The move to prosecute TdA on federal terror charges will almost certainly have an impact. Until Trump took office, the federal government treated TdA organized crime and terror activities as local law enforcement issues. That allowed an open season for TdA to take root in US cities, terrorizing neighborhoods while they operated with impunity. They may not rush to self-deport with this new legal threat, but some of them may well decide the juice ain’t worth the squeeze in the US any longer. And those who considered relocating here may already be thinking otherwise.

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It might also give American politicians and pundits reason to reconsider their sympathies in these cases. Scott Jennings made that case last night on CNN, arguing, “If you’re explaining how you came to be sipping margaritas with an MS-13 gang banger, you’re LOSING.” Indeed. 

Update: This is the story that Jennings references:

Deported alleged MS-13 gangbanger Kilmar Abrego Garcia was driving a convicted human smuggler’s car when he was stopped by cops while transporting a group of men on a Tennessee highway in 2022, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed Wednesday.

Abrego Garcia, 29, was pulled over by a Tennessee state trooper in 2022 for speeding, but when the cop stumbled upon the Salvadoran illegal migrant with eight others and no luggage amid their days-long trip from Texas to Maryland, he suspected something was amiss, according to an internal memo obtained by The Post last week.

At the time, the alleged gangbanger — who was deported by the Trump administration last month — claimed that the packed SUV was owned by “his boss” at his construction job, who turned out to be Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes, an illegal migrant previously convicted of smuggling others into the US, Just The News first reported.

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The claim that Abrego Garcia was just “living quietly in Maryland” is absurd, even if that’s how NPR tries to sell its sympathetic narrative. Read Jonathan Turley for more on how NPR refuses to part from its media gaslighting even as it faces defunding over it. 

Posted in Republican News

Trump Is Exacerbating Crises, and It Is Sadly Necessary

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Trump Is Exacerbating Crises, and It Is Sadly Necessary 14

Winston Churchill once said, and I believe it was Rahm Emanuel who famously repeated, that one should never let a good crisis go to waste. 

As awful as it sounds, there is a kernel of truth in the idea that in politics (and probably almost every other facet of life), nothing big gets done in most cases unless people have the fear of God put into them. 

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Inertia rules the physical world, and while human beings have agency that rolling balls and ballistic rockets do not, experience shows that most people and organizations tend to do the same things over and over until they clearly don’t work, and then continue doing those things until there is no alternative. 

What can’t go on forever won’t. But it will go on far past the point where you would think that a sane person would change direction. 

I got to thinking about this when I saw this clip of the German Finance Minister Jörg Kukies explaining that the chaos seen in Washington is hardly unique. There is an urgency in most Western countries that fundamental problems must be addressed because the alternative is disaster. 

He also referred to the horrific economic stagnation in Europe and their dependence on Russia for energy and the United States for defense. All of these have been known problems for decades now and nothing was done to rectify them–in fact, the Germans actually laughed at Trump–literally–when he warned them that their dependence on Russian gas would bite them in the butt. 

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Relying on Russia was easy, right up to the moment it was disastrous. 

Markets, and lots of ordinary people, are feeling whiplash because Trump is so unpredictable and is moving at the speed of a whirling dervish. I get uncomfortable–he has so many spinning plates on poles that one is left waiting to see when or if they all come crashing down. 

And they may. I don’t know whether Trump’s strategy for dealing with multiple crises at once–runaway federal spending, the flood of illegal immigrants, left-wing cabals in our government, and corruption found everywhere–will result in all of them being tamed or not. 

Conventional wisdom says that any president should focus on at most three major issues in order to ensure or at least maximize the chances of making lasting change. Every president has limited political capital, and spending it on many things buys you little or nothing on any of them. Purchase three high quality items rather than 10 pieces of rickety crap. 

Trump is trying to fix it all at once, intensely aware that his window of opportunity is short, and the looming crises are numerous and existential. 

Trump has courted chaos, I believe, not just because he thrives in chaotic environments and has an uncanny ability to win against all the odds. I think he realizes that a number of the problems he has identified as critical to fix are not “ripe” for fixing–the disaster that is imminent has yet to strike–and he wants to address them before the worst happens. 

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All societies rebel at that, and democracies most of all. That’s why we get things like the mortgage-backed security crisis–everything seemed great until it didn’t. 

I think–I am guessing–that Trump is courting the sense of crisis to generate momentum for fixing them, and trying to keep his political opponents confused about how to fight him on so many fronts. After all, they have even less political capital to spend and too many things they need to protect. 

Trump is trying to blow up the old, corrupt order in Washington and transnational politics. That has Washington and Wall Street spooked. 

And, to be honest, it frightens a lot of ordinary people. Nobody wants the crises to keep popping up, but watching the old blow up without being sure of what the new will look like is scary. 

Trump is going to stay the course, keeping the chaos going, because it is a powerful tool to make change. Whether you think that the price in chaos is worth the potential rewards or not depends on how inclined you are to trust Trump. 

Personally, as you all likely know, I am cautiously optimistic. I don’t think Trump is going to win all the battles he chooses, but I think it is likely he will win more than we could expect from any other president. 

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But I see the danger; if those spinning plates lose momentum, Trump could lose them all and leave a lot of broken china. Which will be one really big crisis indeed. 

Posted in Republican News

Wednesday’s Final Word

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Wednesday's Final Word 16

Mike Mike Mike Mike Mike — what time is it? Closing tabs time …

It’s bad enough that they’re teaching with this kind of material—material that’s explicitly designed to push an agenda—but by telling parents they can’t opt their children out of it, they crossed a serious line.

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And for what?

You can opt your kid out of health class when they talk about sexual education even though an improper understanding of the subject could result in potentially fatal diseases and/or pregnancy that could sideline one’s entire life all because it may not align with parental values, but pushing the LGBTQIAWTFBBQ agenda is too important to let parents have a say.

The goal isn’t education. It’s indoctrination. Tom Knighton believes that the justices will order Maryland to allow parents to opt out, and that would be a just outcome. But Maryland parents and voters need new leadership that will replace the public indoctrination system with actual education — or eliminate it altogether. 

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Ed: Does Justice Jackson understand that parents do not have a choice in sending their children to school? The law requires them to do so, and in places without school vouchers, that means the public school for all but the wealthiest families. 

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The head of Harvard University doubled down on his defiance against the Trump administration Wednesday, saying the Ivy League school would not compromise on certain issues despite the federal government’s threat to freeze more than $2 billion in funding.

In an exclusive interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt, Harvard President Alan Garber said the school had “no choice” but to fight back against what it believes is federal overreach and an illegal attempt by the government to withhold funding as leverage to control academic decision-making.

Ed: What’s the difference between now and the decades in which the federal government used funding and leverage? Garber doesn’t like the current people elected to run the federal government. That’s it. If Garber wants true independence for Harvard, he should adopt the Hillsdale College model. With a $53 billion endowment, Harvard can certainly afford independence. 

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Ed: Kudos to Natalie. And yes, that’s the same CNN ‘reporter’ last seen yukking it up with Taylor Lorenz over how Luigi Mangione was so dreamy and such a “morally good man.”

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The U.S. Election Assistance Commission has operated in relative anonymity since, but is now central to President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to overhaul elections. One of the commission’s boards will meet Thursday in North Carolina, the first commission-related meeting since the directives were announced.

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Among other things, Trump directed the agency to update the national voter registration form to add a proof of citizenship requirement. But whether the president can order an independent agency to act and whether the commission has the authority to do what Trump wants will likely be settled in court.

Ed: Golly, I guess Congress should have thought about that before passing the buck on its legislative responsibilities to the executive branch — over and over again for the last century. I’d prefer to see Congress address this, but then again, I would have preferred that Congress did their own work for the last 100 years, too. 

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Ed: Oh no! Anyway …

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Ed: Russia grabbed it eleven years ago. Ukraine has tried for three years to push the Russians out, and even with massive infusions of materiel from the West, they can’t do it. If Zelensky wants to fight for every last inch of Ukraine for an interminable time, he’s welcome to do so, but he’s going to find himself increasingly alone. 

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There are some other more minor terms, but those are the basics. I think there is good reason to think that this is essentially the deal that could have been struck a long time ago. Some Europeans, recently including French President Macron, object to any loss of Ukrainian territory. I am sympathetic to that position; after all, Russia invaded Ukraine, not the other way around.

But the war has dragged on for more than three years, with probably close to one million casualties. I am about as far from a peacenik as you can get, but isn’t that the paramount fact? Isn’t it time to bring the killing to an end? It seems to me that both Ukraine and Russia would be crazy to prolong this war.

Ed: I am in complete agreement with John Hinderaker. However, Zelensky may fear for his life if he accepts these concessions, and it’s not at all clear that Ukrainians will accept them even if he does strike this bargain. It’s a mess. But yes, this stalemate will go on forever unless both parties find a way to live with each other. And if they won’t, it doesn’t have to be our problem. 

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The disastrous Summer Counteroffensive of 2023 made that abundantly clear.

If Zelensky won’t concede this, he won’t concede anything, so a deal with him is impossible. The Secretary of State is right to walk away.

Ed: This stinks — it really does. But it’s the reality on the ground, and three years of war preceded by eight years of Russian occupation haven’t changed that reality. 

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“At the top of the list it says ‘Survival Gear List with Alternative’ which included sleeping bag, lighters, 8 magazines, knives, pepper spray, a ‘6-mag chest right,’ bows and arrows,” says the criminal complaint. “Mohammed [sic] had stolen eight magazines.”

Further, court documents say that a police officer was recently on a call for service which involved social media posts Mohamed made featuring ammunition and guns. The officer noted that one of the posts showed Mohamed pointing an assault rifle at the camera and included the hashtag “#deathtoamerikkan&israelliImperialism.”

A special agent with Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) who was aware of the social media postings and the alleged theft reportedly told law enforcement officials that “there were strong indicators that Mohamed was preparing to conduct some sort of attack (Mass Casualty Event) in the next twenty-four hours.”

Ed: Kudos to the BCA for their good work on this threat. 

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Ed: Our VIP members wondered when Trump and his team would take a closer look at accreditors. Looks like that day is arriving, if not here already. 

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Posted in Republican News

Democratic AGs Sue Over Trump’s Tariffs

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Democratic AGs Sue Over Trump's Tariffs 18

A group of 12 Democratic AGs have sued the Trump administration over the president’s tariffs. The group was led by the AGs from Arizona and Oregon but also included New York’s AG Letitia James.

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The legal challenge, led by Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, seeks to halt the enforcement of the global tariffs Trump levied that invoked a wartime law granting presidents the power to oversee trade if the United States is in a state of emergency.

“By claiming the authority to impose immense and ever-changing tariffs on whatever goods entering the United States he chooses, for whatever reason he finds convenient to declare an emergency, the President has upended the constitutional order and brought chaos to the American economy,” said the complaint Democratic attorneys general filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade…

New York Attorney General Letitia James, a frequent target of Trump’s attacks, argued that the tariffs “will lead to more inflation, unemployment, and economic damage” and that U.S. consumers will be forced to foot the bill for what amount to high import taxes.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai gave a statement mentioning James by name.

“Once again, Democrats like Letitia James are prioritizing a witch hunt against President Trump over protecting the safety and wellbeing of their constituents,” he said. “The Trump Administration remains committed to using its full legal authority to confront the distinct national emergencies our country is currently facing — both the scourge of illegal migration and fentanyl flows across our border and the exploding annual U.S. goods trade deficit.”

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The AGs argue that President Trump doesn’t have the authority to put tariffs in place and that the emergency declaration he has used to do so doesn’t hold up. Specifically, Trump has justified the tariffs with reference to an emergency created by the flow of fentanyl across the border. Here’s a bit of the lawsuit‘s argument.

By the 1970s, Congress had grown troubled with the proliferation of emergency declarations under laws like the Trading with the Enemies Act (TWEA). Such laws were originally intended to lend the President special or heightened powers during times of crisis but were ultimately used as shortcuts around peacetime constraints on the President’s powers. Congress recognized that the exception threatened to swallow the rule. As one House report on efforts to reform TWEA noted, TWEA bestowed upon the President “essentially an unlimited grant of authority for the President to exercise, at his discretion, broad powers in both the domestic and international economic arena, without congressional review.”

One reform Congress made to curb the President’s emergency powers was to restrict TWEA to its original purpose, limiting its application to “time[s] of war.” At the same time, Congress enacted IEEPA, which allowed the President to regulate imports and exports in response to certain non-wartime emergencies, while stressing that the triggering event had to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat.” Thus, it is not enough that the President declare a national emergency under the National Emergencies Act (NEA); only those arising from unusual and extraordinary threats originating “in whole or substantial part outside the United States” unlock IEEPA’s grant of powers. Id. Congress also subjected the President’s authority under IEEPA to reporting requirements and reserved for itself the ability to terminate declared emergencies by joint resolution.

Not once has any other President used IEEPA to impose tariffs. In the nearly five decades since IEEPA was enacted, no other President has imposed tariffs based on the existence of any national emergency, despite global anti-narcotics campaigns spearheaded by the United States and longstanding trade deficits.

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The bottom line is that the AGs want a court to rule the tariffs illegal and declare this a matter for congress. If that happens the current tariffs (at least the ones on our end) would presumably vanish along with any existing interest on the part of other nations in negotiating new trade deals with the US. No doubt this sounds pretty good to China right now. Other countries might also be tempted to wait it out and see if Democrats can solve the problem for them.

Posted in Republican News

Dim Sun Governance

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Dim Sun Governance 20

I’ll bet you think I was going to talk about China and the tariffs.

I’m not.

I’m going to talk about Britain again, and the latest brilliant plan to save the Earth from the dimwits running the country.

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The country, mind you, that already has the highest electrical cost in Europe, why?

SING IT WITH ME

Because they’ve sold their souls to the renewal Green Gods!

When the United Kingdom closed its last remaining coal plant in October of last year, it had its Net-Zero transition all planned out.

Wind and solar, baby, would be picking up the lion’s share of power generation in no time at all.

Wind and solar generation quadruple to displace coal

Coal power was predominantly replaced by wind and solar growth without increasing reliance on gas. As coal generation fell, wind and solar generation increased from 6% to 34% of UK generation, whereas the share of gas grew only from 28% to 34% in the same period. The driving force behind this was wind power, which grew 315% (62 TWh) from 2012 to 2023. Wind and solar grew by 75 TWh during that period, displacing 28 million tonnes of coal and avoiding an estimated £2.9bn in costs based on 2023 coal prices.

Except it’s always one wrinkle after another with these renewables, isn’t it?

Climate cult lunatic and Energy Minister Ed Miliband has had a change of heart, and managed to push an amendment to legislation that will ban all solar panels made with Chinese slave labor.  

Solar panels linked to Chinese slave labour will not be used by Britain’s state-owned energy company after a government climbdown that could threaten its net-zero ambitions.

In a major policy reversal, the energy minister Ed Miliband will introduce an amendment to legislation that will force GB Energy to ensure “slavery and human trafficking is not taking place” in its supply chain.

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The devil in those details is that there are a lot of Chinese panels suddenly taken out of the supply chain, then, and darned if they aren’t also the most affordable.

Slave labor-derived products usually are.

…Critics said it would also heap further pressure on the government’s 2050 net-zero ambitions by slowing the pace of the UK’s transition away from fossil fuels. It has also pledged to achieve clean energy by 2030.

…Andrew Bowie, the acting shadow energy secretary, told The Times the move would lead to a “real slowdown in the deployment of solar in the United Kingdom”.

He said: “It’s a belated realisation that the use of slave labour in the manufacturing of solar technology is real, but Labour really need to answer serious questions about whether their own self-imposed targets can be met without these solar panels, and what they’re going to do to address this.”

…Campaigners have said that 97 per cent of solar panels sold in the UK include materials from Xinjiang. Senior government sources insisted pledges would still be met due to the building-up of domestic supply chains and pressure put on China.

…About 40 per cent of Britain’s solar industry has been reported as being at risk of being linked to Uighur forced labour.

None of it’s been cheap, and Brits aren’t buying it.

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But Miliband is full solar ahead.

Gimme that sunshine, such as it is.

Panels, panels everywhere, and all the land did shrink.

Miliband never met a solar array he didn’t want to slap up somewhere to catch some rays, which is making the government’s latest announcement a bit confusing.

For all the glistening glass turned skyward on sunny British days to eke out a fraction of the power required to run the UK, they are now going forward with experiments to dim the source of that radiance.

The British are going to try to block that same sun.

VURT THE ACTUAL FURK?

And trust the Science™ – it’s all ‘Perfectly Safe™.’

Of course it is.

Experiments to dim the Sun will be approved within weeks

Experiments to dim sunlight to fight global warming will be given the green light by the Government within weeks.

Outdoor field trials which could include injecting aerosols into the atmosphere, or brightening clouds to reflect sunshine, are being considered by scientists as a way to prevent runaway climate change.

Aria, the Government’s advanced research and invention funding agency, has set aside £50 million for projects, which will be announced in the coming weeks.

Prof Mark Symes, the programme director for Aria (Advanced Research and Invention Agency), said there would be “small controlled outdoor experiments on particular approaches”.

“We will be announcing who we have given funding to in a few weeks and when we do so, we will be making clear when any outdoor experiments might be taking place,” he said.

“One of the missing pieces in this debate was physical data from the real world. Models can only tell us so much.

“Everything we do is going to be safe by design. We’re absolutely committed to responsible research, including responsible outdoor research.

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They should be committed, alright. And this is ‘responsible research’ like Wuhan was a vet clinic.

Now, I’m no solar scientist or student of logical reasoning- I only play one here at HotAir – but it seems to me that if I was betting my nation’s future energy security on the solar farm, the last thing I would do is block the big burning ball that makes the farm work.

But I’m blonde, so perhaps there’s some detail that’s escaped me in this.

I also have a problem with the British messing with the sky in general, as it belongs to everyone, especially considering the general state of affairs on that sorry island. 

Act like lunatics on your own little patch of earth, dudes, but keep that sun blocking scheme s**t to yourself.

Someone really needs to check their water for something other than sewage and heavy metals.

I’m thinking hallucinogens. 

There are pasty-faced weirdos enough in the world without these dim sun dimwits.

Leave the sunshine alone.

Posted in Republican News