Free Republic

A Long Beach mayoral candidate is drawing intense scrutiny after issuing what critics describe as a reckless and potentially dangerous call for gang involvement in opposing federal immigration enforcement. Rogelio Martinez, who is running for mayor of Long Beach, California, posted a statement urging local gang leaders to mobilize against Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of his push to make the city “ICE free.” In the message, Martinez explicitly called on gangs to organize and appear in person at City Hall, language that opponents say amounts to an invitation for confrontation with federal authorities. “I am calling every gang...

Rand Paul made his name as a gadfly preaching about the dangers of a tyrannical federal government. Now, after the killings of two Minnesota residents at the hands of Homeland Security agents, the Kentucky Republican has a chance to do something about it. The 63-year-old, who spent years on the outskirts of the party, is now at the center of the Senate’s response to the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, which have sparked new criticism of the administration’s immigration enforcement policies and raised many of the same civil liberties questions Paul has long been asking. As chair of...

Governor Newscum May Be Involved in Dirty Money Laundering Scheme From Mexican Cartels

Eight additional Democrats signed on to an impeachment resolution against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in the wake of the killing of Alex Pretti, bringing the total number of co-sponsors to 120, according to a spokesperson for the office of Rep. Robin Kelly of Illinois. Kelly’s impeachment resolution against Noem had garnered 100 co-sponsors as of Jan. 20, according to a press release, but the number spiked in recent days amid outcry over immigration enforcement practices as thousands of federal officers were deployed to Minnesota in what the administration has dubbed Operation Metro Surge. “IMPEACH KRISTI NOEM,” the Democratic Party...

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes suggested in a recent interview with local Arizona 12 News that people would be justified in shooting masked ICE agents in Arizona, even presenting a legal argument for doing so.

President Donald Trump has granted clemency to James Phillip Womack, the son of Arkansas Republican Rep. Steve Womack, commuting the remainder of his federal prison sentence for drug distribution. The commutation was issued under an executive grant of clemency signed by Trump and released by the Justice Department. USA Today reported that James Womack was sentenced in federal court in May 2024 to eight years in prison and fined $1,900 for distributing more than five grams of methamphetamine.The sentence stemmed from a federal indictment filed April 26, 2023, charging James Womack with distributing methamphetamine and being a felon in possession...

Five decapitated heads were strung up and put on display at a popular tourist beach in Ecuador on Sunday — in what appeared to be a gruesome warning to gangs. The heads were suspended between two wooden poles and tied to a length of green rope on a beach in the Pacific resort of Puerto Lopez, the Ecuadorian outlet Primicias reported. A sign was found alongside the decapitated heads with a warning to gangs about extorting local fishermen, the outlet reported. “The town belongs to us. Keep going out to rob the fishermen. And keep asking for vaccine cards, because...

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced that she ordered her country’s top diplomat to speak with the highest levels of the U.S. government to work on improving binational coordination in order to keep U.S. forces from carrying out direct attacks against cartels inside Mexico. This appears to be her latest effort to protect the violent drug trafficking cartels that exert political influence at every level of her country. The announcement came in response to a series of comments made by U.S. President Donald J. Trump, who claimed that while his forces had been highly effective in stopping the maritime flow of...

The Swiss federal government announced on Monday that it has frozen “any assets held in Switzerland by Nicolás Maduro and other persons associated with him, with immediate effect.” Maduro was taken into custody by the U.S. military on Saturday to face narco-terrorism and weapons charges. The Federal Council, which is the seven-member cabinet that serves jointly as head of state for Switzerland, said it was acting quickly to “prevent an outflow of assets.” “The asset freeze does not affect members of the current Venezuelan government,” the statement noted. “Should future legal proceedings reveal that the funds were illicitly acquired, Switzerland...

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Thursday offered a $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.“Maduro uses foreign terrorist organizations like [Tren de Aragua], Sinaloa and Cartel of the Suns to bring deadly drugs and violence into our country,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a video posted on X.The Drug Enforcement Administration has thus far seized 30 tons of cocaine linked to Maduro and his associates, Bondi said, and “nearly seven tons linked to Maduro himself, which represents a primary source of income for the deadly cartels based in Venezuela and Mexico.”***The...

Sergio "El Shaka" Vega, a Mexican musician famous for his songs about drug barons, was murdered Saturday night while driving in his red Cadillac to a concert in Sinaloa state in northwest Mexico. Only hours before the attack, the 40-year-old Mexican singer had publicly denied rumors that he had been murdered, reports the BBC. "It's happened to me for years now, someone tells a radio station or a newspaper I've been killed, or suffered an accident," Mr Vega told entertainment website La Oreja according to the BBC. ...the musician was gunned down by unknown men who were following him while...

A string of deadly shootings connected to Oklahoma marijuana farms — including a quadruple execution and a home-invasion murder — has exposed a shadow network tied to New York money, organized crime and groups with links to China, according to a new report. Authorities told the New York Times that the operations were fueled by out-of-state cash, concealed ownership and lax marijuana laws — allowing criminal groups to scale up illicit grows, exploit immigrant labor and divert massive amounts of weed into the black market. The trail led investigators far from rural Oklahoma to New York City, where real estate...

@ChrisVanHollen Netanyahu is restricting aid trucks into Gaza—the best way to get food to starving people there—so Jordan is delivering some with air drops. The Jordanians said @SenJeffMerkley & I could join one of those flights to see the devastation, but Israel denied authorization for our scheduled flight.

We have another ruling in the case involving Venezuelan nationals identified as members of Tren de Aragua and removed from the U.S. to El Salvador in March pursuant to a proclamation signed by President Trump, which invoked the Alien Enemies Act. Monday afternoon, Judge James Boasberg entered an order granting summary judgment to the plaintiffs in the case styled J.G.G. v. Trump. Boasberg also granted the plaintiffs' motion for class certification and denied the Trump administration's motion for summary judgment.

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United States Southern Command on Monday announced that Joint Task Force Southern Spear took out three narcotrafficking vessels in the Eastern Pacific. A total of eight “narco-terrorists” were killed in the strikes. “Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and were engaged in narco-trafficking,” US SOUTHCOM said. Video from the strikes shows massive explosions on each boat, turning them into burning piles of rubble. WATCH: US Strikes More Venezuelan Drug Boats US Southern Command said in a statement on X, On Dec. 15, at the direction of @SecWar Pete Hegseth, Joint Task...

A federal appeals court on Monday took Judge Boasberg to task and delayed his contempt hearings until 2026. In March Boasberg granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) to stop the Trump administration from deporting thousands of Venezuelan nationals believed to be members of Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang under the Alien Enemies Act. Boasberg then threatened to hold Trump officials in contempt for not bringing some of the world’s most vicious killers, criminals, and rapists back to the United States. Judge Boasberg said he found probable cause to hold the Trump Administration in criminal contempt of court for defying his...

Suspected MS-13 gangbanger Kilmar Abrego Garcia was paid up to $1,500 per smuggling trip and may have raked in more than $100,000 annually trafficking humans, including minors, according to witnesses. The new details about Abrego Garcia’s alleged “full-time job” come from co-conspirators and witnesses cooperating with the federal government’s human smuggling case against the Salvadoran national who was wrongly deported in March. The allegations were shared by a federal agent during a Friday detention hearing in a Nashville court, where Abrego Garcia entered a plea of not guilty. As part of the illegal operation, smugglers charged migrants from Central and...

A federal judge in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Thursday ordered Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia released from ICE custody, capping — for now – an extraordinary, 10-month legal fight that has spanned two continents, multiple federal courts, and prompted dozens of hearings in the aftermath of his removal. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered Abrego Garcia released from the ICE Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Philipsburg, Pa., ruling that the Trump administration had not obtained the final notice of removal order needed to remove him to a third country. "Since Abrego Garcia’s return from wrongful detention in El Salvador, he has...

21st Century SocialismThe attempt to destroy democracy in Latin America.  The Obama administration started out on the wrong foot in world affairs. It used techniques better suited for domestic political campaigns — popularity contests — in its foreign policy. In our own hemisphere, the result was confusion for our allies and our enemies alike. The overriding objective of U.S. policy — in Latin America and elsewhere — should be to advance U.S. national interests, not to curry favor with foreign leaders. If we can be liked while advancing our interests, so much the better. But when we try to befriend...