Author: adler

By Casey Harper (The Center Square)
The U.S. Senate voted 81-14 Wednesday to overturn the Washington, D.C. city council’s plan to lower the penalties for a range of criminal offenses. Biden had expressed support for Congress stepping in.
As previously reported, the bill would have reduced the maximum penalties for offenses like murders, armed robberies, armed home invasion burglaries, armed carjackings, unlawful gun possession, and some sexual assault offenses.
Late Wednesday, 33 Democrat Senators voted with Republicans to block the criminal penalties reform in a rare exertion of Congress’ jurisdiction over the capital city. Total crime is up 25% in D.C. so far this year.
The plan sparked bipartisan opposition, including from the city’s Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser.
After the pushback, the city’s Council Chairman Phil Mendelson announced he was withdrawing a controversial crime law from Congressional consideration, but that didn’t stop the Senate from going through with their vote to reject the city’s bill.
Related: D.C. Dems Back Down From Crime Bill After Pushback
According to data from the D.C. government, homicides this year are up 31%, sex abuse is up 113%, motor vehicle theft is up 110%, and arson is up 300%. Some crime categories were slightly lower or about the same.
Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee weighed in on the issue, calling for keeping “bad guys with guns in jail.”
“What we got to do, if we really want to see homicides go down, is keep bad guys with guns in jail,” Contee said in a news conference. “Because when they’re in jail, they can’t be in communities shooting people. So when people talk about what we’re gonna do different, or what we should do different, what we need to do different, that’s the thing that we need to do different.”
He went on to point out that “the average homicide suspect has been arrested eleven times prior to them committing a homicide.”
Other critics of the crime reform effort have pointed to those kinds of repeat offenders.
“We see these news stories nearly every day,” the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund said in a statement. “Law enforcement officers and innocent citizens are killed by career criminals who should have been behind bars.”
Related: Elizabeth Warren Swings For Washington DC Statehood, Gets Smacked With the Constitution
In one high-profile case, U.S. Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., was robbed in the elevator of her apartment building in Washington, D.C. last month and suffered minor injuries.
That same evening, police arrested 26-year-old Kendrid Hamlin, who has a lengthy criminal history with involvement in incidents often near the Capitol.
“It’s time to stop the crime,” said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. “Time to stop the chaos – chaos that we’re seeing in cities all across our country. Republicans are united by solutions – solutions to make American communities safer. That is what this body is going to vote on today: to improve the security and the safety of those in our nation’s capital.”
Syndicated with permission from The Center Square.
The post U.S. Senate Widely Rejects Democrats D.C. Crime Plan appeared first on The Political Insider.

By Philip Wegmann for RealClearWire
The clarion call to “build the wall” is no longer enough. Each of the declared Republican candidates for president tell RealClearPolitics that Mexican drug cartels must be designated as foreign terrorist organizations. It is the newest populist orthodoxy, one that the Biden administration flatly rejects.
The context for the latest partisan divide was Friday’s kidnapping of four Americans in the Mexican border town of Matamoros. Two of them were murdered, the other two were rescued and are in a Texas hospital. The White House insisted this kind of designation is unnecessary while implying that their critics are grandstanding..
“Designating these cartels as [foreign terrorist organizations] would not grant us any additional authorities that we don’t really have at this time,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday, adding that the United States already has “powerful sanctions authorities” and “we have not been afraid to use them.”
The steady flow of fentanyl across the southern border, and the violence that follows, have left Republicans unconvinced. The say the federal government must do more. Legislation reintroduced Wednesday by Sens. Roger Marshall of Kansas and Rick Scott of Florida would designate the cartels as terrorist organizations, providing what they describe as “additional power” for law enforcement to combat drug trafficking.
The bill’s sponsors say it would grant the Treasury Department necessary new authority to freeze the assets of cartels beyond the sanctions that the U.S. has in place. Beyond banking, it would also flag any foreign national formally associated with a cartel as an individual “engaged in terrorist activity” and ban them from entering the country, while make it illegal for anyone to knowingly provide them “material support.”
Related: Former AG Bill Barr Calls For Military Action Against Drug Cartels Inside Mexico’s Border
Once the Mexican drug cartels are placed in the same legal category as al-Qaeda and ISIS, the Republicans now competing for the presidency have revealed an appetite for more than financial assets. Former President Donald Trump, who is running again in 2024, promised in January that he would “designate the major drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations” and then deploy special forces to “inflict maximum damage” on their infrastructure and operations.
A Trump campaign spokesman told RCP that the goal is simple: “Stop the scourge of drugs and violence from crossing our southern border.” The plan, straightforward: “Declare war on the cartels.”
By design or otherwise, the move creates a contrast with the current president. Republicans have accused him of being MIA on the entire border issue since coming into office, with the Trump campaign arguing that “Joe Biden leads from the back and is on the side of the cartels” and “as a result, he has put the safety of Americans and their communities at risk.”
This isn’t the first time Trump has promised to designate drug gangs as terrorists. He threatened to do so after a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel ambushed and killed nine American citizens in the Sierra Madre mountains in 2019. The victims were traveling to the La Mora ranch, a tight-knit community of Mormons in Mexico. Among the murdered were two 8-month-old children.
“All necessary work has been completed to declare Mexican Cartels terrorist organizations,” Trump said at the time. “Statutorily we are ready to do so.” But he held off at the request of Mexican President Lopez Obrador, “who I like and respect, and has worked so well with us.” It was only a temporary move, he explained on Twitter, in order to provide room for both nations to “step up our joint efforts to deal decisively with these vicious and ever-growing organizations!”
Obrador celebrated that decision, thanking Trump “for respecting our decisions and for choosing to maintain a policy of good neighborliness, a policy of cooperation with us.”
Republican patience has since run out, and the call to fight cartels like terrorists has hardened into something approaching political orthodoxy. In February, Republican attorneys general from 21 states sent a letter to the president and Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging the terrorists designation for the drug organizations. Noting that 100,000 Americans now die from drug overdoses annually – two thirds of them from fentanyl smuggled across the border – the state law enforcement officers noted that the cartels have built private armies to protect themselves from rival cartels and the Mexican government.
“The existence of such forces just across our southwestern land border, and the Mexican government’s inability to control them, pose a threat to our national security far greater than a typical drug-trafficking enterprise,” they said. This view has now morphed into the Republican Party’s view.
GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy told supporters on Wednesday that combatting the cartels would be a “top foreign policy priority.” The former biotech CEO has promised to use military force, unmanned drones in particular, to cut them off at the head. A spokesman for the campaign told RCP that the cartels should be “decimated,” and said Ramaswamy considers their leaders no better than “Bin Laden, Soleimani, and Al-Zawahiri.”
Mexico could be a partner in that effort – if it so desires: “As president, Vivek will call Mexican President Obrador (or the next Mexican president) in January 2025 with a clear message: We will support you in decimating the cartels.” But he told RCP that the candidate would be willing to move without Mexico’s blessing: “And if you don’t, we’ll come in and do it for you. Time to end the fentanyl crisis.”
A political newcomer, Ramaswamy is considered a longshot. But his bellicose rhetoric is increasingly in line with a bloc of the country that is fed up with the situation on the southern border. The hawks once comfortable with hurling cruise missiles in the Middle East now seem willing to fire them across the southern border.
In New Hampshire last September, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reminded voters of previous news reports that “Trump wanted to bomb Mexico.” According to Mark Esper, the previous defense secretary, Trump had asked his military advisors at least twice if he could “shoot missiles into Mexico to destroy the drug labs.”
But that idea didn’t come from the Oval Office, Pompeo said. The media had it wrong. According to Pompeo, who is considering his own bid for the presidency, “that was actually me!” He likens the border to “an ungoverned space,” not so different than Afghanistan other than being “a stone’s throw from El Paso.” The real story, he said, was how the Trump administration was considering how best to stop the cartels from moving Chinese fentanyl across the southern border and “what are the tools we might have?”
Citing the need to cut off the money supply, Pompeo told RCP that Biden “is making a clear mistake in refusing to designate Mexican cartels as a terrorist organization” and missing an opportunity to “hit them where it hurts.”
Related: U.S. Treasury Sanctions Cartel-Run Timeshare Fraud Network Targeting Americans
A spokesman for the Nikki Haley campaign told RCP that the former U.N. ambassador also supports designating cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
Combatting cartels like terror cells would come with controversy on both sides of the border. The Mexican government has already expressed alarm at the idea, and former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who served in George W. Bush’s administration, warns that the move could erase established norms in the United States.
“There’s been a longstanding tradition that we don’t use our military within our borders related to enforcement matters,” he said in an interview with NewsNation, noting that even litigating something like the rules of engagement would be a thorny legal question.
“It just remains to be seen whether or not this can be sufficiently cabined in a way that won’t have the military and law enforcement falling over each other,” Gonzales continued, “that we don’t have the military battling the rights of American citizens in this country.”
But if Republicans win the White House, the next president will have made commitments to the contrary. Political momentum is already behind the idea.
“The same cartels who produce and traffic this dangerous chemical are also assassinating rivals and government officials, ambushing, and killing Americans at the border, and engaging in an armed insurgency against the Mexican government,” wrote the 21 GOP state attorneys general. “This dangerous terrorist activity occurring at our border will not abate unless we escalate our response.”
Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.
The post GOP Presidential Field Rallies Around One Idea: Declare Drug Cartels Terrorists appeared first on The Political Insider.

By Bethany Blankley (The Center Square)
A federal judge in Florida ruled Wednesday that the Biden administration’s “catch-and-release” border policy, in which foreign nationals in the country are released into the U.S. instead of being deported, is unlawful.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody has argued since she filed a lawsuit challenging the policy in March 2021 that the program is illegal. On Wednesday, a federal judge agreed.
In a scathing 109-page opinion, U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell for the Northern District of Florida Pensacola Division ruled the Biden administration’s “catch-and-release” policy is unlawful and “due to be vacated.” He also denied the administration’s motion for summary judgement, vacated the administration’s “Parole+ATD” Policy under the Administrative Procedures Act, and gave the administration seven days to seek appellate review and comply with federal law and his ruling.
Wetherell, of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Florida, ruled, “The Court finds in favor of Florida because, as detailed below, the evidence establishes that Defendants have effectively turned the Southwest Border into a meaningless line in the sand and little more than a speedbump for aliens flooding into the country by prioritizing ‘alternatives to detention’ over actual detention and by releasing more than a million aliens into the country – on ‘parole’ or pursuant to the exercise of ‘prosecutorial discretion’ under a wholly inapplicable statute – without even initiating removal proceedings.”
The judge also said of the administration’s policies: “Collectively, these actions were akin to posting a flashing ‘Come In, We’re Open’ sign on the southern border. The unprecedented ‘surge’ of aliens that started arriving at the Southwest Border almost immediately after President Biden took office and that has continued unabated over the past two years was a predictable consequence of these actions. …
“Thus, like a child who kills his parents and then seeks pity for being an orphan, it is hard to take Defendants’ claim that they had to release more aliens into the country because of limited detention capacity seriously when they have elected not to use one of the tools provided by Congress in §1225(b)(2)(C) and they have continued to ask for less detention capacity in furtherance of their prioritization of ‘alternatives to detention’ over actual detention.”
Moody said the ruling confirms what she has been saying for two years.
“Today’s ruling affirms what we have known all along, President Biden is responsible for the border crisis and his unlawful immigration policies make this country less safe,” Moody said. “A federal judge is now ordering Biden to follow the law, and his administration should immediately begin securing the border to protect the American people.”
Related: Border: 205,000 Apprehensions, Gotaways In February As Gotaways Increasing In West
Throughout the course of litigation, various Biden administration policies were exposed.
Last August, in one deposition, U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz testified the southern border was “currently in a crisis” as a result of Biden administration policies. By September, Florida made public a memo issued by Ortiz instructing agents to release noncitizens into the U.S. en masse because there wouldn’t be enough space to detain them.
Another deposition of another top federal official revealed that that ICE agents were removing seven times fewer people who entered the U.S. illegally in the past year than the agency did 10 years ago. ICE was also only detaining about half the number of people it did during the Trump administration and 40% less the number of people who entered the U.S. illegally than it did during a 2019 border surge, according to the testimony.
Another piece of evidence released by Moody related to Biden administration policies repealing processing pathways of the MPP, ACA and PACR, which impacted Border Patrol agents’ ability to expeditiously process and remove illegal foreign nationals. Restrictions were also put in place regarding detention that forced agents to release hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals into the U.S. instead of deporting them.
The case went to trial in January and lasted one week. On the first day, Moody’s legal team presented what she called  “bombshell evidence that the federal government wrongfully withheld until just before the trial” showing the administration’s plan to release people en masse into the U.S.
The ruling comes as U.S. Customs and Border Protection Miami Sector reported a 500% increase in apprehensions in fiscal 2022 compared to fiscal 2021, and as U.S. Coast Guard crews off the coast of Florida are on track to break last year’s apprehension records.
Related: Border Chief: Majority Illegally Entering Tucson Sector Are Single Military Age Men
In January, Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency and last month introduced sweeping border security measures.
“Florida is a law and order state, and we won’t turn a blind eye to the dangers of Biden’s Border Crisis,” DeSantis said. “We will continue to take steps to protect Floridians from reckless federal open border policies.”
Syndicated with permission from The Center Square.
The post Federal Judge Rules Biden’s Border Policies Illegal appeared first on The Political Insider.

An Oklahoma Democrat state representative has been formally censured after allegedly attempting to harbor a fugitive who had been accused of assault and battery on a police officer.
Representative Mauree Turner, who uses ‘they/’them’ pronouns in her Twitter bio and is identified by media outlets as ‘non-binary’, has been accused of blocking police from making an arrest of a transgender rights activist accused of assault.
The incident came late last month as lawmakers were voting on legislation to protect children from “gender transition procedures” or similar physical abuse.
State Rep. Bob Culver was hit with a “liquid substance” later simply identified as water as he passed through a group of protesters.

Here’s the beginning of the incident, you can see water being thrown from a transgender rights activist. It looks like the water hits Rep. Bob Culver (who didn’t debate the bill). He did vote for it though. pic.twitter.com/wCI8yrYKGp
— Payton May (@paytonnmay) February 28, 2023

RELATED: Tucker Carlson Demands ‘Professional Christian’ Leaders Stand Up For Canadian Pastor Arrested For Protesting Drag Queen Event For Kids
Activist Arrested, But Another Tried to Interfere
As the first activist was being arrested, another named Austin Ross interfered and yelled at the arresting officer that the water tosser was “not going to be placed under arrest.”
Ross then grabbed the trooper’s hands in an attempt to free the individual. Which, of course, is ill-advised.
Court documents indicate the trooper had identified Ross as having attempted to “prevent the arrest” of the first individual.

Here is the video of the interaction I missed the water being sprayed on Culver but here’s everything after that. pic.twitter.com/TLi4f9wcoW
— Reese Gorman (@reesejgorman) February 28, 2023

Ross then fled the scene and was given refuge in Turner’s office. Troopers indicated the state representative’s office door was locked when they tried to get in to arrest the man at the scene.
“When we go up to the representative’s office, we were not allowed in, even from opening the door,” said Highway Patrol Trooper Eric Foster.
Ross had an arrest warrant issued a few days later.

BREAKING: The House has voted to censure Rep. Mauree Turner on a vote of 81-19 for allegedly harboring a fugitive during last week’s protests against a series of anti-trans bill. Below is a statement from Speaker Charles McCall. #okleg pic.twitter.com/JSDlBVRcQZ
— Tyler Talley (@tylertalley22) March 7, 2023

RELATED: Smithsonian’s New ‘American Women’s History Museum’ Will Feature Biological Males In Attempt To Be ‘Inclusive’
Oklahoma Democrat Censured For Harboring Fugitive
On March 7th, Turner was censured by an 81-19 vote for allegedly helping to aid and abet Ross in his effort to elude police.
“The member,” according to a statement by the Oklahoma House, “harbored a fugitive wanted for questioning in conjunction with the alleged assault inside of their House office and rejected multiple requests by law enforcement to question the individual.”
House Speaker Charles McCall accused Turner of “knowingly, and willfully, imped(ing) a law enforcement investigation, harboring a fugitive and repeatedly lying to officers.”
“I will not allow members of the House of Representatives to use their House-assigned offices and official positions to impede law enforcement from carrying out investigations or making arrests in the State Capitol,” said McCall.

The member, Rep. Mauree Turner, D-Oklahoma City, allegedly harbored a fugitive wanted for questioning in conjunction with the alleged assault inside of their office and rejected multiple requests by law enforcement to question the person.https://t.co/7iFGQnZdFt
— KOKH FOX 25 (@OKCFOX) March 8, 2023

With the censure, Turner will be stripped of her committee assignments unless she issues a formal apology for trying to harbor a fugitive and impeding a police investigation.
But the Democrat doesn’t seem to be interested in doing so.
“I think an apology for loving the people of Oklahoma is something that I cannot do,” said Turner. “It’s something that I actively refuse to do.”

. @MaureeTurnerOK, who was stripped from their committees unless they publicly apologize, said they don’t plan on apologizing.
“I think an apology for loving someone is something I cannot do. It’s something I actively refuse to do.” #OkLeg
— Reese Gorman (@reesejgorman) March 7, 2023

Only somebody actively confused about how gender works could possibly turn harboring a fugitive into ‘I was simply loving the people of Oklahoma.’
The only question here is why police officers didn’t arrest Turner.
Had they gone to a civilian’s home to serve a warrant or after having witnessed a crime, and somebody prevented them from entering the home, that person would have been arrested as well.

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The post A Non-Binary Oklahoma Democrat Tried Harboring a Fugitive Who Assaulted a Police Officer – Now She’s Been Censured appeared first on The Political Insider.