Free Republic

@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.

This mom reflects what most Americans think.

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...

Reporting live from Central America. The General Elections from 30 November gives dysfunction a bad name. Let me bring you up to date. My source is local Honduran television, before the signal was mysteriously cut, just now. The conservative candidate from the National Party "Tito" Asfura remains in the lead by 42,407 votes (1,298,835 votes) over the moderate Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla with (1,256,428). The socialist (let's be honest, communist) Libre Party candidate Rixi Moncada is a distant 3rd with 618,448 votes. The current president Xiomara Castro is from the Libre Party and under the Honduran Constitution, cannot run...

The girl Wyoming Highway Patrol troopers say they rescued from two kidnappers told her sister before the incident that she was being followed and that someone AirDropped to her a photo of a gun pointed at the house where she was staying, court documents say. The Wyoming Highway Patrol on Nov. 29 arrested two men who were traveling with a 16-year-old girl, on claims the two men were kidnapping her from her home in Wisconsin. They struggled with cellphone pings in the sparse state and resorted ultimately to scouring the state’s roadways until they found the girl, the agency said...

Using the U.S. military to target cartel drug smugglers in Latin America 🟢 Support: 58% 🔴 Oppose: 42% Harvard/Harris poll | 12/2-12/4

A former Drug Enforcement Agency agent was indicted on federal charges of conspiring to traffic drugs and launder millions of dollars for a Mexican cartel. Paul Campo, who was a DEA agent for nearly 25 years, his associate Robert Sensi, are accused in a new indictment unsealed Friday of converting cash into cryptocurrency to buy 220 kilograms of cocaine, worth $5 million, and launder $750,000 in proceeds from drug sales for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or CJNG. The State Department designated CJNG as a foreign terrorist organization earlier this year. Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York allege...

A former longtime Drug Enforcement Administration agent who rose to help oversee the agency’s financial operations has been charged with agreeing to launder millions of dollars in narcotics proceeds for a Mexican drug cartel, according to an indictment unsealed Friday in U.S. District Court in the Manhattan borough of New York City. The former agent, Paul Campo, worked for the DEA for about 25 years, the indictment said, first as a special agent in New York and eventually rising to become a high-level official — the deputy chief of the Office of Financial Operations. He retired in January 2016 and...

Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA), Ranking Member of the House Rules Committee and Co-Chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY), and Representative Joaquin Castro (D-TX), Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, have introduced a War Powers Resolution to block the Trump administration from engaging in hostilities within or against Venezuela absent congressional authorization. The Constitution does not permit the executive branch to unilaterally commit an act of war against a sovereign nation that hasn’t attacked the United States,” said Rep. Massie.

The family of a Colombian fisherman who died in a U.S. military boat strike in September has filed a formal complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights alleging the U.S. government illegally killed him. Alejandro Carranza was killed in a strike in the Caribbean on Sept. 15, according to the petition, filed on Tuesday. "From numerous news reports, we know that U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was responsible for ordering the bombing of boats like those of Alejandro Carranza and the murder of all those on such boats," according to the petition. In the petition, Carranza's lawyer Dan...

(CNSNews.com) - Amid growing concern about the illicit drug trade across the U.S.-Mexico border, the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas have been linked to South American drug trafficking organizations–and the money Hezbollah and Hamas make from narco-trafficking is used to finance their organizations, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS). “International terrorist groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, have also reportedly raised funding for their terrorist activities through linkages formed with DTOs in South America, particularly those operating in the tri-border area (TBA) of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina,” stated CRS in an April 30 report. As evidence that Hezbollah and...

Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) claimed the Trump administration’s first military strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean was a “war crime.” Host Dana Bash said, “I want to turn to new questions around the first U.S. military strike in September on a ship that the administration says was carrying drugs. Now, sources tell CNN, after the missile struck the boat, there were survivors and that a second strike was launched to kill anyone who was left. Secretary Pete Hegseth is defending the move, saying it is lawful under both U.S. and...

Monday on CNN’s “News Central,” former national security adviser John Bolton said President Donald Trump had “put the gun on the table” to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.Host Kate Bolduan asked, “One of the things that we know he’s doing right are these boat strikes. I mean, do you think these boat strikes are stopping the flow of drugs to the United States, for one, and do you think they are doing anything to stop Maduro or go to the ends that you’re talking about?”Bolton said, “Well, I think the drug smugglers can obviously see what’s happening. It’d be stunning,...

Many Mexicans are at their limit with the cartel violence and political bribery plaguing their country, and a crowd made its anger felt in a startling and fierce way by storming the National Palace Saturday. The violent protest was particularly striking as being explicitly organized by “Gen Z” — that is, very young adults, my age group. There were, however, angry citizens of all ages in the mob that clashed with riot police and breached a barrier at the National Palace. President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo faces mounting criticism for her refusal to address rampant cartel violence, with one of her...

“NEWPORT, Ore. — Newport city officials said Monday they are aware the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is evaluating locations along the Oregon coast for a potential immigration enforcement facility and that the Newport Municipal Airport has been identified as a possible site. City officials said they are working with local, state and federal legislators to verify the information, assess potential effects on public safety and city resources, and explore available municipal and legal options. Attempts to contact Homeland Security representatives by phone and email have not received a response, according to the city.”