A judge acquitted a Baltimore man on charges of first-degree assault after he attacked two elderly pro-life men over two years ago. He had previously been found guilty on several other second-degree assault charges.

Key Takeaways:

• In May of 2023, Patrick Brice attacked 84-year-old Mark Schaefer and 73-year-old Mark Crosby outside a Baltimore Planned Parenthood.
• Both men were injured, but Crosby particularly so, suffering a shattered eye socket and plate bone in his cheek, two fractured fingers, severe head trauma, and temporary blindness in one eye.
• Brice was arrested in 2024, and in February of 2025, was found guilty of two counts of second-degree assault and reckless endangerment. A jury failed to reach a verdict on another charge of first-degree felony assault, relating to the attack on Crosby, and acquitted the first-degree felony assault charge for the attack on Schaefer.
• Circuit Judge Yvette M. Bryant acquitted Brice on the first-degree felony assault charge, saying he might have been provoked and that there was no proof he intended to cause serious injury.

The Details:

The Baltimore Banner reported that Bryant acknowledged that Crosby suffered serious, permanent injury. Yet she also argued that his medical records somehow proved they weren’t too bad, saying he occasionally ignored directions from medical staff. She also criticized Crosby for his behavior on the witness stand, saying he was too argumentative with both prosecutors and defense attorneys, which therefore made him unreliable.

“This is sort of the experience today in testifying: ‘I’m in control,’” Bryant said. “He seems to be a person who’s at the ready.”

Considering it was Brice, and not Crosby, on trial, Bryant’s complaints seemed irrelevant to the issue at hand, and she appeared to be blaming the victim. After studying the surveillance footage, she said Crosby might not just have run to help Schaefer, but to intentionally join the fight.

She also said that while nothing justified Brice’s attack, she didn’t agree that it was unprovoked.

Assistant State’s Attorney Ashley Sudberry, however, argued otherwise. “It was intentional,” Sudberry said. “It was not justified. This is not about what the defendant thinks in hindsight.”

Brice’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender Matthew Connell, tried to downplay the severity of what Brice did, describing it as “hasty and impulsive,” and attempted to justify it by saying that Brice “wasn’t thinking.”

The Backstory:

When the attack took place, Schaefer and Crosby were praying outside the Planned Parenthood facility. Brice, allegedly an escort for Planned Parenthood, attacked them.

According to one witness, the attack was unprovoked.

“He didn’t like their opinion or what was being said. The gentleman just took it into his own hands,” one witness said. “He speared the one gentleman over that flowerpot into the window and knocked him out. He was out cold for several minutes.”

According to one pro-life advocate who was present on the scene, John Roswell, Brice even told one of the other escorts to hold his drink before attacking the men.

Brice first went after Schaefer, knocking him to the ground. Surveillance footage did not capture any audio, but it can clearly be seen that Schaefer made no move in Brice’s direction before he was attacked.

That footage was later released by the Baltimore Police Department in an effort to identify the assailant, later revealed to be Brice.

71 years of Democrat leadership in Baltimore, Maryland is precisely why this monster was let out without bail. Their policies agree with what he did to two elderly men.

This monster is 29 year old Patrick Brice. He brutally attacks 2 elderly men praying outside of a Planned… pic.twitter.com/9aLxgf3jwE

— Just Jen R (@JustJenRX) June 29, 2025

After Schaefer is thrown to the ground in the video, Crosby is seen running in Brice’s direction. Again, while there is no audio, his arms are not raised and he does not appear to attempt to strike Brice at any time.

Brice, however, knocks Crosby to the ground, punches him, and — as Crosby is lying motionless on sidewalk — kicks him in the face.

Brice will be sentenced in August, but in the meantime, remains free on his own recognizance.

The Bottom Line:

Despite being the victim of a horrific crime, Crosby being treated as if he could have somehow done something to deserve the appalling attack. “He should be in jail right now,” Crosby previously said. “It’s just truly amazing: I feel like I’m the criminal.”

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]

Topline: State and local governments spent an estimated $770 million in 2023 to incarcerate immigrants who had been in the country for less than three years, according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office.

Key facts: The CBO report reviewed the “surge population” of immigrants that began arriving in 2021 and added 4.4 million people to the U.S. population by the end of 2023. “Most” of the immigrants “were not lawful permanent residents” and “were not eligible to apply for lawful permanent residency,” according to the report.

The surge population had a $9.2 billion net cost in 2023. Immigrants who were part of the surge paid $10.1 billion in taxes to state and local governments, but the governments spent $19.3 billion on goods and services for the immigrants, according to the CBO.

That means state and local governments spent roughly $2.10 for every $1 immigrants paid in taxes. The expenses included $5.7 billion for education, $3.3 billion for food and shelter, $2.7 million on border security, $1 billion for Medicaid and similar health programs, and more.

By the end of 2023, an estimated 13,500 “surge population” immigrants were in prison for violating state or local laws. The number does not include those in federal jails for violating immigration law.

The CBO noted that 13,500 is a low number considering just how many people entered the country, and explained that “Research has consistently found that immigrants are less likely than native-born citizens to be arrested, convicted, or incarcerated.”

Still, the $770 million cost of jail time is a result of the mass migration to the U.S. from 2021 to 2023, which the CBO said increased the country’s population by 1.3% more than if immigration levels had remained at historically average levels.

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com.

Summary: A responsible government collects more money than it spends, meaning U.S. states must find a way to address increases in immigration without wreaking havoc on their budgets.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

The Department of Homeland Security is advancing its system to share citizenship verification data with state and local election officials, which has prompted “hair on fire” concerns from one legacy media outlet and a legal scholar.

Additionally, one former Biden White House official has alleged the Trump administration is creating a database to include citizens “without telling us.”

The citizenship data has been integrated with Social Security Administration information to give states and localities easier access to the data. It’s a project that the Trump administration twice announced in May and June. The move comes as three states enacted laws requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and Republicans in Congress have pushed a similar idea at the federal level.

President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14248, “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” included a provision making the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system accessible to state and local governments. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced in late May that it would share the data with local election officials.

“Integration with the Social Security Administration (SSA) significantly improves the service offered by SAVE [the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system],” USCIS spokesman Matthew J. Tragesser told The Daily Signal Monday.

“Previously, SAVE required user agencies to submit a DHS-issued identifying number, such as an Alien Registration Number (A-Number) or a Certificate of Citizenship number, for each voter registrant,” he continued. He said that most state and local voting offices do not have access to these DHS numbers but they do have access to Social Security numbers.

Multiple state agencies across the United States are signed up for the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system.

“Now, all authorized SAVE agencies can submit cases using [a Social Security number], and SAVE will query [Social Security Administration] data,” Tragesser added. “This partnership is a game-changer, and we look forward to implementing more updates. Under the leadership of President Trump and [Homeland Security] Secretary [Kristi] Noem, USCIS is moving quickly to eliminate benefit and voter fraud among the alien population.”

National Public Radio posted a story over the weekend with an alarmist tone more than a month after the administration announced it was making the data available with the headline “The Trump administration is building a national citizenship data system.”

The NPR story quoted University of Virginia School of Law professor Danielle Citron questioning if the data collection was lawful and framing it as a “hair on fire” development.

NPR, which is suing the Trump administration over cuts to its federal funding, further asserted that accessing Social Security information “turned SAVE from a tool that only responded to queries about foreign-born citizens or noncitizens into something that could comb through entire voter lists.”

In response to the NPR story, Justin Levitt, the former White House senior adviser for democracy and voting rights to President Joe Biden, wrote on the Election Law Blog, “We’ve never had a federal government database for identifying all of the citizens in the country. … Congress has never authorized the executive to create one, and has put legal limits in place to prevent the government just up and creating one without telling us.”

Such concerns are “ridiculous” and miss the point of sharing the citizenship data with state and local governments, said Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at The Heritage Foundation.

“The whole purpose of the SAVE system was to make the information available to the state agencies. The data was supposed to be available for welfare benefits. There is no reason it shouldn’t be available to election offices,” von Spakovsky told The Daily Signal. “This would determine who isn’t entitled to benefits or to voting and if they are breaking the law. To oppose that is ridiculous.”

Coordination with the Social Security Administration gives USCIS, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, a great deal of information that the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system has historically not had access to, noted Cleta Mitchell, founder and chair of the Election Integrity Network.

“The ability to upload bulk files, like voter rolls, is also a huge step forward, because the SAVE system historically has been a one-at-a-time system that also requires the alien number—which state voter rolls do not have,” Mitchell told The Daily Signal.

“We are very pleased that Secretary Noem and the team at DHS and USCIS have taken seriously the concerns of election integrity advocates and state election officials to be able to develop a system that, for the first time, can analyze state voter rolls in a manner that can identify potential noncitizens who should be contacted and asked to provide proof of citizenship,” Mitchell said.

“There should be a process for follow up and confirmation to make certain there are not mistakes,” she said. “But this would allow for a systematic review of the voter rolls to enforce the federal law which prohibits noncitizens from registering to vote or voting in a federal election.”

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

A 28-year-old man has been arrested after a pregnant mother was killed at her home in Donaghadee, County Down, Ireland.

Key Takeaways:

• Pregnant mother Sarah Montgomery was found murdered in her home in Ireland on Saturday.
• Police have arrested a suspect in the case.
• Homicide remains a leading cause of death for pregnant women.

The Details:

Police say 27-year-old Sarah Montgomery was found dead at her home on the afternoon of June 28. The mother of two young girls, Montgomery was reportedly 34 weeks pregnant with her third child — a baby boy. Authorities have arrested a 28-year-old man on suspicion of murder; a 42-year-old woman was also arrested but later released “unconditionally.”

According to police, both individuals “were known to the victim and at present, no-one else is being sought in connection with the crime.”

“This is an incredibly tragic case which has devastated Sarah’s family and friends, and leaves two small children without their beloved mum,” noted Detective Chief Inspector Tom Phillips.

“The loss of Sarah and her unborn baby boy is devastating for everyone who knew her,” a friend told reporters. “My heart especially breaks for her wee girls, her grandparents and her brothers; their loss is unimaginable. Rest in peace Sarah, you will be so missed.”

The Bottom Line:

“A woman has lost her life in an act of violence, and children have lost their mother, with their world changed forever,” noted SDLP assembly member Cara Hunter. “There is no grief more profound than that of a child robbed of the love, safety, and care of their mother.”

Go Deeper:

Though police have not given a motive for the crime, homicide remains one of the leading causes of death for pregnant women. According to research published by the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine in January 2025, between 2005 and 2022, 1,407 of 20,421 maternal deaths were due to homicide — accounting for approximately 7% of all causes of death.

Irish authorities have used the murder to call out the increase of overall violence against women in the country, noting that Montgomery is the 27th female murder victim in Northern Ireland since 2020.

“The majority of these woman have been killed in their own homes, which is a truly shocking and devastating figure,” said DUP North Down MLA Stephen Dunne. “A home should be a place of refuge and safety, but sadly that is not always the case.”

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]

While Democrat lawmakers have attempted to stump Trump’s cabinet members, they have repeatedly turned tables on their preferred narratives by providing facts that are often not reported on by Democrats or the corporate media. Members of the administration, including Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, gave congressional members reality checks on issues ranging from the riots in Los Angeles, California, or the deportation of alleged MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Pete Hegseth Turns Tables On Minnesota Dem Attacking His Response To LA Riots

During a House Appropriations Committee hearing on June 10, Democrat Minnesota Rep. Betty McCollum criticized Trump’s “premature and escalatory” decision to deploy the National Guard and U.S. Marines in light of the Los Angeles, California, riots that broke out over Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) arrests. The congresswoman attempted to contrast Trump’s handling to Democrat Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s response to the 2020 riots; Hegseth reminded her of the chaos that took place in Minnesota under Walz’s leadership at the time.

“Well congresswoman, thank you for the question. You are right, we are both originally from Minnesota and that’s why I recall 2020 quite well, when Governor Walz abandoned a police precinct and allowed it to be burned to the ground,” Hegseth said. “And [he] also allowed five days of chaos to occur inside the streets of Minneapolis. The police precinct, ma’am, was abandoned and burned to the ground and because of that, the National Guard, was eventually, far too late, mobilized.”

WATCH:

While ignoring Hegseth’s statements about Walz, McCollum attempted to make the chairman reclaim her time so that the defense secretary would answer her question “on the budget.”

“Chairman, I have limited time. I asked a budget question, could the secretary please address the budget, thank you,” the congresswoman said.

“You asked about the situation in Los Angeles and whether ICE agents should be allowed to be safe in doing their operations and we have deployed the National Guard and the Marines to protect them in the execution of their duties because we ought to be able to enforce immigration law in our country, unlike what Governor Walz did in 2020,” Hegseth pushed back.

McCollum yielded back her time in an attempt to make Hegseth stop going after Walz.

Purple-Haired Dem Shouts At Pam Bondi As She Dares To Answer Her Questions

Democrat Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro repeatedly shouted down Attorney General Pam Bondi without allowing her to answer questions about the planned merger between the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

DeLauro accused the administration of interfering with ATF agents’ abilities to tackle illegal gun and drug trafficking, including fentanyl. When Bondi attempted to answer, DeLauro accused her of filibustering.

“What I can tell you is not going to be happening is ATF agents will not be knocking on the doors of legal gun owners in the middle of the night asking them about their guns. They are going to be out on the streets, if I can finish—no, no, no, you asked me a question, now allow me to answer it. So they’re gonna be out on the streets working hand in hand with DEA,” Bondi said.

“Mr. Chairman, I’d like an answer to my question,” DeLauro snapped. “And the question is not being answered. How many ATF law enforcement officers and industry operations investigators do you anticipate will be lost to attrition as a result of the funding reduction you are opposing? You are proposing a 26% cut to ATF for Fiscal Year 2026, as well as a 4.4% cut to DEA. So you’re going to merge the two agencies together and then you’re gonna shortchange their resources so neither one will be able to do their job they were assigned to do.”

WATCH:

The exchange grew more heated as Bondi called out the congresswoman’s behavior.

“As I was attempting to answer your question very calmly, unlike you,” Bondi began, before being loudly interrupted by DeLauro.

“Excuse me, Madame Attorney General. Answer, yes or no. Tell me what the numbers are! I don’t want to hear all of your filibuster about this! Go ahead,” DeLauro said. “Please, tell us the numbers.”

Dem Sen Pleads With Hegseth To Tell Her Military Is Not Shooting Protesters In Minute-Long Tangent

Democrat Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin went on a long rant about the U.S. military’s presence at the anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles, California, and during the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020. She continuously asked and then pleaded with Hegseth to deny that he ordered the military to use “lethal force” against the rioters in Los Angeles.

“So your pooh-poohing of this shows you don’t understand who we are as a country, who we are. And all of my colleagues across the aisle, especially the ones that served, should want an apolitical military and not want citizens to be scared of their own military. I love the military, I served alongside [it] my whole life. So I’m worried about you tainting it. Have you given the order? Have you given the order that they can use lethal force against [unarmed protesters]. I want the answer to be no, please, tell me it’s no. Have you given the order?”

WATCH:

“Senator, I’d be careful what you read in books and believing it, except for the Bible,” Hegseth answered.

Slotkin referenced an accusation made by former Defense Secretary Mark Esper from his memoir, “A Sacred Oath,” where he claimed that Trump asked if the military could shoot the rioters and protesters in the legs as they were filling the streets around the White House. These accusations were never confirmed.

Dem Rep Accuses Scott Bessent Of Interrupting Her Because She’s A Woman

Democrat California Rep. Linda Sanchez lectured Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on being a “woman” as he attempted to answer her question on Trump’s tariffs.

After Bessent told Sanchez during the House Ways and Means Committee hearing that President Donald Trump’s tariffs would only cause prices to increase one time, she accused him of talking out of “both sides of [his] mouth” by claiming that prices have already risen. She then accused Bessent of sexism as he tried to correct her.

“No, congresswoman, today we had a 0.1 increase—” Bessent began, before being interrupted.

“Please don’t interrupt me. The time is mine. The time is mine, please don’t interrupt me. I will grant you an opportunity it answer them, but please don’t interrupt me during my time,” Sanchez said. “I know I’m a woman, but please, try to limit yourself to answer my questions.”

WATCH:

Several Republican congressmen then groaned.

“No, I’m sorry, but we get talked over all the time and I don’t want that to happen at this hearing,” Sanchez said.

Without giving a specific citation, the congresswoman claimed that Trump’s tariffs would cost households $3,000 more in good compared to the previous year. Bessent told her that these claims were “incorrect” and continuously questioned her on where she received this information.

“I’m sorry, that’s incorrect and I’m not sure whose estimate [that is]. And that estimate is from whom? That estimate is from whom, congresswoman?” Bessent hit back.

Despite the congresswoman’s warnings about prices, inflation dropped to a four-year low on May 30 after the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 2.3% from April 2024 to April 2025.

Far-Left Rep. Jayapal Attempts To Tell Marco Rubio He Violated Constitution, He Was Not Having Any Of It

Secretary of State Marco Rubio directly told Democrat Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal that he “proudly” revoked the student visas from non-citizens who “stir up problems” during a May 21 hearing.

Jayapal alleged that revoking the visas of non-citizens who have shown sympathies to terrorist groups is a violation of the First Amendment. Rubio repeatedly told Jayapal that no non-citizen has an inherent right to a student visa and that they can be revoked by the U.S. government at any time.

“Where in the Constitution does it say that the Secretary of State can override the First Amendment protections of free speech?” Jayapal asked. “Is there a footnote that I missed somewhere?”

“There is no constitutional right to a student visa. A student visa is a privilege … There’s a statute which says the Secretary of State gets to determine whether someone is a threat,” Rubio said. “We deny visas everyday all over the world and we’ll continue [to do so].”

WATCH:

Rubio revoked the visas of Mahmoud Khalil, accusing him of “activities aligned with Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.” Khalil considered himself a “lead negotiator” for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, an organization on the front lines of an illegal encampment that saw protesters occupying the campus in April 2024.

Jayapal claimed that Rubio revoked the visa of Turkish national Rumeysa Ozturk, who wrote an op-ed showing clear support for Palestine in Tufts University’s newspaper. At the time of her arrest, Rubio told reporters that anyone who wishes to participate in movements that involved “vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings [and] creating a ruckus” will not be allowed to remain in the U.S.

Kristi Noem Drops Hammer On Eric Swalwell As He Defends Alleged MS-13 Member

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem fired back at Democrat California Rep. Eric Swawell as he attempted to attack the administration for mistakenly deporting alleged MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

During a May 14 hearing, Swalwell repeatedly pointed to an image posted to Trump’s Truth Social account of what some believe is a digitally altered image of Garcia’s hand tattoos to further prove he was a member of MS-13. Noem told Swalwell that he was “vouching” for a criminal and that it was “never a mistake” to deport him back to El Salvador.

“You vouched for [Garcia] when you said he was mistakenly deported,” Swalwell said. “I didn’t vouch for him. In that photo, it’s so telling that you won’t look at the photo.”

“You’re vouching for a man who is a known violent criminal. Sir, I did not say that, he should’ve been deported, absolutely,” Noem responded. “It was never a mistake to deport him and we will not be bringing him back to this country and staying here. If he were brought back to this country, he would be deported right away … This is unbelievable to me that you’re focused on a photo.”

WATCH:

Garcia, who illegally entered the U.S. in 2011, was discovered loitering in a Home Depot parking lot in 2019 wearing “a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie with rolls of money covering the eyes, ears and mouth of the presidents on the separate denominations,” which represents a “good standing” with MS-13. In December 2019, the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed Garcia’s challenge to an immigration judge’s finding that he is “a verified member of MS-13,” according to documents released by the Department of Justice on April 16.

In 2022, police pulled Garcia over in a Tennessee highway and suspected him of human smuggling after local authorities discovered he was transporting eight passengers with no apparent luggage. The car belonged to an illegal immigrant named Jose Ramon Hernandez-Reyes, who was sent to prison in 2020 for human smuggling.

Garcia’s wife also sought out a restraining order against her husband in 2021 and accused him of scratching and punching her eye and leaving her bleeding after throwing her laptop on the ground.

Noem told Swalwell point-blank that he, along with many other Democrats, backed a “criminal,” “human trafficker” and MS-13 member.

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In its last two working days, the Biden administration’s Energy Department signed off on nearly $42 billion for green energy projects – a sum that exceeded the total amount its Loan Programs Office (LPO) had put out in the past decade.

The frenzied activity on Jan. 16 and 17, 2025, capped a spending binge that saw the LPO approve at least $93 billion in current and future disbursements after Vice President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election in November, according to documents provided by the department to RealClearInvestigations. It appears that Biden officials were rushing to deploy billions in approved funding in anticipation that the incoming Trump administration would seek to redirect uncommitted money away from clean energy projects.

The agreements were made despite a warning from the department’s inspector general, urging the loan office to suspend operations in December over concerns that post-election loans could present conflicts of interest.

In just a few months, some of the deals have already become dicey, leading to fears that the Biden administration has created multiple Solyndras, the green energy company that went bankrupt after the Obama administration gave it $570 million. These deals include:

• Sunnova, a rooftop solar outfit that thus far had $382 million of its $3.3 billion loan guaranteed, filed for bankruptcy this month. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
• Li-Cycle, a battery recycling facility, had a $445 million loan approved in November, but since then, the company was put up for sale and has filed for bankruptcy. The Energy Department said no money has been disbursed on that deal. Li-Cycle did not respond to a request for comment.
• A $705 million loan was approved on Jan. 17 for Zum Energy, an electric school bus company in California, and its “Project Marigold.” At $350,000 and more, electric school buses currently cost more than twice as much as their diesel counterparts. So far, Zum has received $21.7 million from the government, according to usaspending.gov. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
• A $9.63 billion Blue Oval SK loan on Jan. 16 was the second largest post-election deal, topped only by a $15 billion loan the next day to Pacific Gas & Electric, with most of that for renewables. The Blue Oval project in Kentucky – a joint venture between Ford Motor Co. and a South Korean entity – has been dealing with numerous workplace complaints, and construction of a second EV battery manufacturing plant there has been delayed. More than $7 billion has been obligated on that deal, according to the Energy Department. Blue Oval did not respond to a request for comment.

The money and the hasty way in which it was earmarked have drawn the attention of the Trump administration. “It is extremely concerning how many dozens of billions of dollars were rushed out the door without proper due diligence in the final days of the Biden administration,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement to RCI. “DOE is undertaking a thorough review of financial assistance that identifies waste of taxpayer dollars.”

The enormous sums came from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which injected $400 billion into the LPO, a previously sleepy Energy Department branch originally intended to spur nuclear energy projects. That total represented more than 10 times the amount the LPO had ever committed in any fiscal year of its existence. Prior to the post-election blowout, the office’s biggest fiscal year was 2024, when it committed $34.8 billion, records show.

Even with the rush to push billions out the door in its last months, close to $300 billion of the Inflation Reduction Act money remains uncommitted by the LPO. Trump administration officials have already nixed some smaller deals. Secretary Wright recently urged Congress to keep the money in place as the LPO now aims to use it to further the Trump administration’s energy policy, particularly with nuclear projects.

That unprecedented gusher of cash from the LPO echoes the efforts of the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency to push $20 billion out the door before it left office. As RCI has previously reported, the EPA – which had never been a consequential grant-making operation – was tasked with awarding $27 billion in Inflation Reduction Act funding through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and Solar For All programs. It did so in less than six months in 2024, including an unorthodox arrangement in which Biden officials parked some $20 billion outside the Treasury’s control. That money was earmarked for a handful of nonprofits, some of which had skimpy assets and were linked with politically connected directors.

The LPO’s post-election bonanza was put together in even less time. The Energy Department deals, however, involve mostly for-profit enterprises, which raises questions about whether the Biden administration was propping up companies that would not have survived in the private marketplace. Should any of the companies hit it big in the future, shareholders could get rich, while taxpayers will receive only the interest on the loan.

“The loan office should not be in the virtual venture business,” said Mark Mills, executive director of the National Center on Energy Analytics. “But in a few cases, it could make sense to serve as a catalyst or backstop for viable and important projects from a national security or policy perspective.”

RCI spoke with several Trump administration officials who declined to comment on the record, given the extensive ongoing review of both the LPO’s post-election arrangements and other Energy Department projects linked to Biden’s climate agenda.

“They wanted to get the billions to companies that probably wouldn’t exist unless they could get money from the government,” one current official said. “The business plans, such as they were, were ‘how do we secure capital from the government?’”

During Biden’s tenure, the office was run by Jigar Shah, who on June 17 was named to the board of directors of the nonprofit Center for Sustainable Energy. Bloomberg News reported last month that Shah “helped select roughly 400 companies with development plans to receive grants and loans upwards of $100 million each.” In response to the Trump administration’s pushback on green subsidies, Bloomberg reported that Shah is working to help some of the companies he bankrolled shift operations to Europe.

The Center relies chiefly on government contracts instead of donations, and it saw that revenue jump from $274.1 million in 2023 to more than $500 million in 2024, according to tax records. The center did not respond to a request to speak with Shah.

Thus far, no entity has received the entire amount of the deals the Biden administration struck since last November, according to the Energy Department and usaspending.gov. In a handful of cases, companies have come to the current administration and opted out of the deals.

Still, millions of taxpayer dollars have already been distributed, in some instances, to deals the department listed as “conditional commitments.”  Wright has said there are “reasons to be worried and suspicious” about the post-election binge, and vowed some of the deals will be scrubbed.

In 2023, the Biden administration made subtle changes to the LPO’s regulations, cutting strings and stipulations that traditionally attach to loans. Consequently, the office cut deals after the election on terms more favorable to the recipient than the taxpayer, and in several cases, making a “conditional commitment” the same as a loan, according to Trump officials. The changes also moved money that a later administration could have cut into “obligated” silos, making the deals harder to cancel, according to the current Energy Department.

“Essentially, they had the Loan Program Office operating like a graveyard energy venture capital fund,” one Trump official told RCI. “This was all tied to the religious fervor for any green energy project in the prior administration, and the goal was not to get the government repaid but to advance the ‘green new deal.’”

The $93 billion under review represents a separate “green bank” from smaller Biden administration deals that the Energy Department has already canceled. Last month, the Government Accounting Office said the department was not on track to “issue loans and guarantees before billions of dollars of new funding expires.”

As part of the review, Wright issued policy guidelines in May that he said offer more protection to taxpayers. The department may now require significantly more information from loan recipients and applicants, such as “a project’s financial health, a project’s technological and engineering viability, market conditions, compliance with award terms and conditions and compliance with legal requirements, including those related to national security.”

The department declined to provide the terms of specific deals, again citing the ongoing review. Trump administration officials claim the business plans for many of these deals were threadbare, that term sheets were essentially tossed out, and the entire process could be described, in the words of a Biden EPA official in December, as “throwing gold bars” off the Titanic “as an insurance policy against Trump winning.”

Despite these dubious outcomes and the alleged removal of taxpayer protections that accompanied the deals, Trump administration officials said they remain committed to the LPO. The office has a valuable role to play in fulfilling energy policy goals, which include nuclear projects, strengthening the nation’s power grid, and limiting the U.S. reliance on Chinese supply chains for key minerals and elements.

“It’s as if you went away and the kids threw a rager in the house,” one official told RCI. “You may need some new furniture and the like, but it’s still a really nice home. The Office can be a critical resource for the manufacturing base of this country, and our goal is not to end the LPO but to improve it.”

The Trump administration could face some of the same financial issues if it rejiggers the LPO along lines that support its energy policy goals, particularly within the nuclear industry. Projects there have been marred by unprofitable plants and massive cost overruns and delays in construction, making federal loans to the section inherently risky.

Prominent voices – and investors –  like Bill Gates have also encouraged the government to back new sources of energy and minerals. Geothermal projects are one such field, and there appears to be bipartisan support in Washington for capital that will shore up U.S. energy independence. On Jan. 15, the Biden administration approved a $1.2 billion “conditional commitment” with a subsidiary of EnergySource Minerals LLC (ESM), which hopes to extract lithium from geothermal brine.

A deal with Pioneer Ltd. appears to match some of the professed goals of the Trump administration, but it has also been plagued by financial setbacks since Biden’s LPO approved it in its final days. The company’s deal grew from an original $700 million “conditional commitment” in 2023, to the $996 million approved on Jan. 17, 2025.”

The Rhyolite Ridge project is a mining and manufacturing center in Nevada to produce lithium and boron. Those elements have implications for defense and national security in addition to energy, according to ioneer Vice President Chad Yeftich.

“Ioneer believes government policy should encourage projects if we want critical minerals developed domestically,” Yeftich said. “Time is the key risk for development as China continues to provide financial support to its critical minerals industry and dump critical minerals into the market thereby depressing the price.”

Yeftich noted Rhyolite Ridge has secured $200 million in private capital, but in February, its chief private equity partner broke ties with the project. Finance professionals familiar with big deals told RCI that such a rupture so close in timing to the loan would likely deep-six the arrangement, but Trump officials said Biden’s LPO stripped such boilerplate language from many of the post-election deals.

Secretary Wright told RCI that these maneuvers suggested the previous administration was more interested in disbursing funds than protecting taxpayers. “Any reputable business would have a process in place for evaluating spending and investments before money goes out the door, and the American people deserve no less from their federal government.”

Correction: This article erroneously reported the amount of money Rhyolite Ridge has secured from private capital, and the timeline of its federal loan. The former figure is $200 million, and the timeline was across two years.

Topline: The City of Los Angeles recently took out a $5 million loan to pay for police overtime during the protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and it’s no wonder why. The city spent a record $1.1 billion on overtime in 2024 and still has not solved a staffing crisis that has bilked taxpayers for years.

Key facts: Last year, five Los Angeles employees outearned the President of the United States’ $400,000 salary just in overtime alone.

Firefighter Nicholas Ferrari earned $644,457 in overtime.

The LAPD spent a record $265.5 million on overtime in 2024, an issue that has skyrocketed in the last few years. Los Angeles Magazine griped in 2022 that 35 police officers had earned $100,000 or more in overtime. In 2024, 867 police employees made that much. Seven of them earned at least $235,000 in overtime, which had never happened before.

The same names continue to crop up at the top of the payroll. In 2010, the LAPD ordered Detective Nathan Kouri to stop working for six weeks because there was no money left to pay his overtime. Kouri was once again the highest-paid police employee last year with a $603,887 salary, including $404,875 in overtime.

Police Chief Jim McDonnell makes $450,000, which is $100,000 more than his predecessor and almost double the police chief salaries in New York and Chicago.

Mayor Karen Bass made $328,394. She was one of 4,114 Los Angeles employees who outearned California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s salary of $242,295.

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Background: Some reports have suggested that the staff shortage is due to a negative perception of police following the Black Lives Matter movement, but that doesn’t tell the entire story. LAPD job applications rose by 53% in the last two years, but hiring is down 8% because of the lengthy background check process, according to Police1. Human Resources Director Dana Brown told LAist that the city’s “archaic” civil service rules force applicants to wait six months or more for an interview.

The most recent data from the city controller shows a 17.5% job vacancy rate for the entire city as of December 2023, meaning one in six positions are unfilled.

Summary: The LAPD is spending taxpayer money to keep the city safe and maintain order, but when overtime spending is out of control, it must hire more people.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

A student-run newspaper at the University of Notre Dame has won a 2023 defamation case filed against it by Professor Tamara Kay. The newspaper, The Irish Rover, had reported twice on Kay’s efforts to help students access illegal abortion, and she filed a lawsuit against it.

Key Takeaways:

• In 2022 and 2023, student-run newspaper The Irish Rover reported on Notre Dame professor Tamara Kay’s efforts to help students access illegal abortions and find the money to pay for them.
• In May 2023, Kay filed a lawsuit against The Irish Rover, claiming defamation.
• The Irish Rover cited Indiana’s Anti-SLAPP laws, which protects defendants from lawsuits meant to stifle free speech on matters of public concern.
• In January 2024, a judge ruled in favor of The Irish Rover, ruling that the articles were factual and written without actual malice. The case was dismissed.
• Kay appealed but the Indiana Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal in February 2025.
• Kay requested that the state Supreme Court take up the case, but that request was denied.

The Details:

According to The Irish Rover, on June 18 the Indiana Supreme Court denied Kay’s petition to transfer a previous decision by the state Court of Appeals in Tamara Kay v. The Irish Rover, affirming the St. Joseph County Superior Court’s original dismissal of Kay’s defamation claim in January 2024.

In that dismissal, the St. Joseph County Superior Court defended the newspaper’s reporting, calling it “true” and “not made with actual malice.” Kay was ordered to pay The Irish Rover’s attorney fees related to the case.

However, she appealed that decision to the Indiana Court of Appeals, which, in February 2025, unanimously affirmed the Superior Court’s decision, stating:

The trial court properly dismissed Dr. Kay’s complaint under Indiana’s Anti-SLAPP statute. Here, we agree with the trial court that the undisputed facts established that The Irish Rover’s two articles were written in good faith and that the alleged defamatory statements were not false.

Kay then petitioned for the case to be transferred to the state Supreme Court. In a statement signed by Chief Justice of Indiana Loretta H. Rush, the court said it had reviewed “all briefs filed in the Court of Appeals” and all materials “filed in connection with the request to transfer jurisdiction.” The state Supreme Court ruled 4-1 to deny Kay’s petition to transfer.

The Irish Rover has thanked its legal team and supporters following the legal win. “With the final and definitive dismissal of this baseless case, the editors wrote, “the journalistic integrity of The Irish Rover, as well as the honorable mission of the paper, is upheld.”

The Backstory:

According to the previous reporting by The Irish Rover, on Twitter (now X), Kay had promoted posts from “Abortion Finder” and “Catholics for Choice,” instructing students on how to get abortion pills through the mail or how to get reimbursed for abortion-related travel costs.

The newspaper also reported that Kay posted a note on her door that stated, “This is a SAFE SPACE to get help and information on ALL Healthcare issues and access — confidently with care and compassion.” Her non-Notre Dame e-mail address was included on the note.

She also posted the letter “J,” which Notre Dame professors were putting on their office doors as a symbol of their willingness to help students get abortions.

“We are here (as private citizens, not representatives of ND) to help you access healthcare when you need it, and we are prepared in every way,” Kay wrote on social media. “Look for the ‘J’, Spread the word to students!”

The Irish Rover published an article on her public social media posts offering abortion help to students in October 2022. It then published a second piece in March 2023, reporting on a campus talk in which Kay spoke about her advocacy for legalized abortion after Dobbs.

Kay then removed the signs from her door and sent an auto-response to emails that accused “white nationalist Catholics” of persecuting her. She filed the lawsuit against The Irish Rover on May 22, 2023, accusing the newspaper of making “false and defamatory statements” about her in its two articles. She said she has been “harassed, threatened, and experienced damage to her residential property” in addition to suffering both “mentally and emotionally.”

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]

The Supreme Court shot down a district court judge’s bid to circumvent an order allowing the Trump administration to resume third-country deportations.

Though the Supreme Court cleared the path June 23 for the administration to quickly deport illegal migrants to countries not specified in their removal orders, Biden-appointed District Court Judge Brian Murphy claimed hours later that one of his orders preventing the deportation of eight migrants to South Sudan remained in effect.

In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court agreed Thursday that Murphy violated its order, noting the “only authority” he cited was the dissent.

“Our June 23 order stayed the April 18 preliminary injunction in full,” the majority held. “The May 21 remedial order cannot now be used to enforce an injunction that our stay rendered unenforceable.”

The Trump administration previously urged the Supreme Court to clarify its order, accusing Murphy of “unprecedented defiance” of the high court’s authority. Murphy’s ruling was “a lawless act of defiance that, once again, disrupts sensitive diplomatic relations and slams the brakes on the Executive’s lawful efforts to effectuate third-country removals,” the administration wrote its June 24 motion.

Even Justice Elena Kagan, who dissented from the original decision, agreed the lower court could not continue to block the deportations.

“I voted to deny the Government’s previous stay application in this case, and I continue to believe that this Court should not have stayed the District Court’s April 18 order enjoining the Government from deporting non-citizens to third countries without notice or a meaningful opportunity to be heard,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a concurring opinion. “But a majority of this Court saw things differently, and I do not see how a district court can compel compliance with an order that this Court has stayed.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissent, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, that the government “may not deport noncitizens to a country where they are likely to be tortured or killed.”

“Given that the majority can muster no more than a sentence of 80-year-old dictum in support of today’s holding, the District Court can hardly be faulted for reaching a contrary conclusion,” Sotomayor wrote. “The District Court, moreover, had only moments to decide the question, for (unlike this Court) it realized that the lives and safety of eight noncitizens were at stake.”

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

The lawfare schemes assembled against President Donald Trump while he was in office, and then during the four years before his second term, likely have no equal.

He was charged in an organized crime count, he was accused of fraud when the “victims” said they’d like to do business with him again, he was accused of fomenting insurrection, he was accused of misstating business costs by labeling legal fees legal fees, he was hit with a SWAT team raid over paperwork disagreements.

The lawfare goal was clear: Not just to try to dissuade him from running for a second term, which Democrats feared, but to actually find a way to put him in jail to guarantee that result.

Now one senator has promised to name names of those involved in the schemes.

Some already are known. Letitia James, New York’s attorney general who now is under investigation herself for fraud, was one. So was Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. Several judges were in on it.

But all will be revealed, according to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

Senator Chuck Grassley: “I’m going to make sure that everybody is exposed and the documents prove it for the eight years that the opposition was trying to put President Trump in prison.”

pic.twitter.com/u3lakv8EO2

— ALX (@alx) July 4, 2025

According to a report at the Gateway Pundit, he said, “I’m going to make sure as chairman of this committee, by listening to whistleblowers, getting documents that have been kept from Congress of the United States, I’m going to make sure that everybody is exposed and the documents prove it for the eight years that the opposition was trying to put President Trump in prison.”

He said, “What we’re doing, whether we had Republican or Democrat administrations over my years in the United States Congress, this President and his appointees to the Department of Justice and the FBI have given us the first real cooperation that we should have had under both Republican and Democratic Presidents before. But it was just obfuscate and cover up and not let the truth out because it’s going to be embarrassing.

“So we’re getting some whistleblowers their jobs back. We are releasing documents because I want everybody who had anything to do since President Trump went down that golden elevator in 2015 have been trying to get him out of the presidency or when he was out of the presidency, getting into prison.”

He said, “We don’t have to put up with that in America. President Trump hadn’t put it in America. And I want to thank President Trump and his administration for helping me make this stuff more transparent and never see that it happens again.

In fact, even during Trump’s first campaign, the Hillary Clinton campaign worked with a former British agent, a legal team and a campaign advising team to fabricate the Steele Dossier which made all sorts of wild allegations about Trump.

The claims later were debunked entirely.

There’s no doubt President Donald Trump is trying to restore peace around the globe, after multiple wars broke out under the U.S. leadership of Joe Biden.

Some have been reduced, while others still rage. Key right now are the wars between Iran and Israel and Russia and Ukraine. The Israel-Iran conflict appears to be subsiding, while the Russia-Ukraine conflict isn’t.

But among the various projects on which Trump has worked is a peace deal between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

That one was ignored by many media organizations.

WND reported that it was ending three decades of war.

Vice President JD Vance praised Trump’s role, “If I think about what I know about these two countries, for 30 years, pretty much the entire time that I can remember these two countries being in the news, much of the story has been about them fighting one another, about them killing one another. And now, we can look forward to a future where my children will look at this moment as the beginning of a new story, a story of prosperity and peace.”

President Trump welcomed the Foreign Ministers of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the Oval Office to sign a historic peace agreement, ending a 30-year conflict.

“Today, the violence & destruction come to an end, & the entire region begins a new chapter of hope.” pic.twitter.com/20P2SMBQiR

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 27, 2025

And while that one hasn’t been the topic of nightly news reports, or even weekly reports, a commentary at the Washington Stand notes it may be the most important of all, the “one we all overlooked.”

That’s because of the atrocities involved.

Random beheadings en masse. Mass rapes. Dozens of bodies of decapitated victims, lootings, burnings, terrorism, butchery, for decades.

“This is the hellish situation that the Trump administration has been intensely negotiating behind the scenes to stop,” the commentary explained.

“They were going at it for many years, and with machetes,” the president emphasized. “It is one of the worst wars that anyone has ever seen. And I just happened to have somebody that was able to get it settled.”

The Washington Stand explained, “In an incredible development, the president celebrated a peace deal between the two nations, which could end the decades-long bloodshed that has ravaged the two bordering countries.

“We just ended a war that was going on for 30 years with six million people dead,” Trump said, as the foreign ministers flanked him. “No other president could do it.”

The ceasefire “is one of the most consequential achievements of Trump’s term,” the commentary said.

The article cited multiple atrocities, include when “rebels” founded up Christians, tied them together and hauled them to a nearby church where later the grisly scene “defied imagination,” as there were bodies of dozens of men, women and children, all decapitated. Manhy of the attacks are by Islamic terrorists on members of the Christian population.

“While Americans’ attention has been on Israel, Iran, Ukraine, Russia, China, and our own borders, a vicious war has raged between Rwanda and the DRC, a systematic campaign of rape, terror, and butchery against the predominately Christian nation of the DRC. For months, that quiet invasion has only intensified, as a rebel force linked to Rwanda — the M23 — along with the Islamist Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) tried to seize key territories of the second largest country in Africa and control the mineral-rich land, said to be sitting on $24 trillion worth of natural resources,” the commentary said.

“Thousands have been killed — shot in cold blood, blown to pieces with shoulder-fired rockets, or caught up in the massive explosions since the conflict peaked earlier this year,” it explained.

“In just two months, more than 10,000 cases of rape and sexual violence — almost half against children as young as 10 — have been documented (countless others were not). Until recently, the locals ‘describe[d] a state of near lawlessness in city centers, where gangs of armed men, some escaped from local prisons, prey on civilians using weapons left behind by the Congolese army,'” it said.

“Under the terms of the agreement, The Washington Post reports, the two sides agreed to ‘halt aggression against each other and to cease support for armed groups on each other’s territory.’ They also pledged to try to cooperate economically, including on ‘mining and processing materials and other resources that link both countries, in partnership, as appropriate, with the U.S. government and U.S. investors.'”

Joel Kappa, a Fulbright alumnus and resident of Congo, told the Stand, he is “deeply grateful to President Trump’s administration and its commitment to end the war.”

“I’m praying,” Kappa continued, “that God will continue to use President Trump’s administration to end this long and meaningless conflict between DRC and Rwanda. I’m convinced that the time for peace has come, and we must learn now to love and live together like brothers and sisters. That’s what God wants from us as His children, and I’m happy to see that President Trump and his administration understand it clearly.”

One Rwandan official said Trump, because of his work, “deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Absolutely.”

A constitutional expert, Jonathan Turley, who has not only testified before Congress on constitutional issues but also has represented members in court on those same topics, is warning a small college in Maine that it is entering the dangerous waters of “facilitating such abuse of students.”

The warning comes in a dispute at the school, Eastern Maine Community College, where a professor reportedly “attacked a Christian conservative student for writing an essay about gun control.”

The student, Katherine Parker, accused English instructor Carol Lewandowski “of engaging in raw political bias.”

Further, Parker said the school failed to support her constitutional rights.

Assigned to do a speech, Parker chose the topic of the 2nd Amendment. When she submitted a draft to Lewandowski for review, “Parker said that she was told to change topics and was ridiculed over her religious and political beliefs,” the report said.

The teacher apparently told Parker to “avoid proselytizing with logical fallacies in a college class,” apparently condemning her 2nd Amendment statements as a “logical fallacy.” She then added “Wasn’t your former speech a testimony to finding Jesus. Did Jesus pack heat?”

The teacher wrote, “I find this 2nd amendment nonsense exhausting and highly recommend you choose a different topic since this one is not one I can easily grade, given my own disdain for the misinterpretations of the second amendment…Hate to tell ya, but guns DO kill….You clearly do not care about people as much as you care about guns. Your argument is a solid representation of that. For fairness to you and to me, please choose another topic.”

Lewandowski continued with the insults, the report explains, stating, “And think again about Jesus packing heat. Really. You and your ilk drive me nuts with your hypocrisy. Guns kill. Own it.”

The teacher soon admitted, “Please change your topic as I earlier requested as this is a trigger issue for me. No pun intended…I admit I cannot assess the gun issue objectively.”

Turley commented, “One would think that such an abusive and politically biased attack on a student would result in the termination of the professor. However, Parker alleges that the community college did not seem inclined to take action against Lewandowski. Parker says that she spoke to EMCC Dean of Academics Lynn Hunter, who ‘assured me that discrimination was not tolerated at the community college, but she did not give me a clear answer when I asked her how she felt about what the teacher said to me — she assured me that she would be getting both sides of the story.'”

He explained, “Such abuse of a student over political and religious views should result in the termination of the professor. However, we have seen a high-level of toleration (and even support for) anti-conservative and anti-Republican positions by faculty. That includes teachers in Maine calling for Trump supporters to be ‘taken out.'”

He continued, “It is now common to hear inflammatory language from professors advocating ‘detonating white people,’ denouncing police, calling for Republicans to suffer, strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservative protesters and other outrageous statements. One professor who declared that there is ‘nothing wrong’ with such acts of violence as killing conservatives was actually promoted.”

“We have not heard directly from Professor Lewandowski, but these communications are shocking. If true, the failure of the community college to take action immediately against Lewandowski is a chilling reminder of how higher education has lost its moorings. By retaining Lewandowski, the college is not just allowing but facilitating such abuse of students.”

He said, “What happened to this student is the very antithesis of the values supporting higher education.”

A former Space Force officer’s objection to the military’s Biden-era COVID-19 vaccine mandate still haunts him over three years later.

WorldNetDaily spoke to Joshua Zermeno, a former officer who dedicated part of his career to space superiority, having served in the U.S. military for 13 years. In August 2021, Zermeno objected to then-Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s military COVID-19 shot mandate, questioning both its “efficacy and legality.” For this, he received two Letters of Reprimand (LORs) and a “Do Not Promote” recommendation that blocked his promotion to major. He was also banned from government buildings and required to work from home.

With his career collapsing in front of him, Zermeno attempted to voluntarily separate from the military in October 2021, but was told his separation was “not in the best interest of the Air Force and Space Force.” In the week following this statement, he said base leadership initiated Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) action against him. Despite the rescission of the COVID-19 shot mandate in January 2023, he was passed over for promotion a second time. Seven months later, he was forced to separate from the military entirely.

Nevertheless, Zermeno would consider returning to Space Force, but has been offered “zero guidance” from the Department of Defense and the Air Force’s Total Force Service Center, which manages Space Force matters.

The former Space Force officer said stories like his are among “the most censored topics globally.” He pointed out, “Many service members and veterans have turned to social media to share their experiences, but censorship limits reach, and account deletions risk erasing these stories.” Even his own X account has been “targeted and tagged with ‘Visibility limited: this Post may violate X’s rules against Hateful Conduct,’ despite its professional content.”

To counter the censorship, Zermeno published “DISOBEYING AN UNLAWFUL ORDER: A SPACE FORCE OFFICER’S FIGHT FOR FREEDOM” in June 2025. It was written “to preserve history of military’s COVID-19 shot mandate permanently,” he said, adding that his desire is for the book to reach current and future military leaders to “study, learn from, and prevent such mistakes from ever happening again.”

He told WND, “Current and future military leaders must understand the mandate’s impact on service members, families, force readiness, and national security to learn from these mistakes.”

In the book, Zermeno reveals:

“This memoir is my raw, unfiltered reckoning: an exposé that dismantles the military’s false narratives, revealing a mandate that crushed free thinkers who dared to question right from wrong. Its brutal side effect was a purge of some of the military’s sharpest minds, leaving shattered lives across every branch through coercion, public shaming and ruthless career destruction. I was one of tens of thousands of individuals purged from service – skilled professionals whose training, experience and institutional knowledge can’t be replaced by new recruits, a loss that weakened our military’s readiness at a time when global threats demand strength.”

According to Zermeno, “The COVID-19 mandate ranks among the gravest errors in military history and must not be forgotten.” He adds, “Service members, force readiness and national security continue to feel its negative impacts,” adding that “the mandate negatively affected tens of thousands of service members – hundreds of thousands including spouses and children.”

Because he continues to advocate for righting the wrongs associated with the mandate, it appears the attacks against Zermeno have not ended. Ten days after publishing his book, his current employer was contacted by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) to initiate a supplemental information request about his eligibility for Top Secret clearance.

He recently wrote about the ordeal on X:

On June 2, 2025, I published a memoir detailing my experience with the DoD’s COVID mandate. On June 12, 2025, the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) contacted my employer to initiate a supplemental information request regarding my Top Secret clearance… https://t.co/mymLedcWKo pic.twitter.com/XRri6NJ1Oh

— Joshua (@JoshuaZermeno) June 17, 2025

For Zermeno, the inquiry from the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency is not a coincidence. He continues to wait to hear more from DCSA, as his second career – one that requires Top Secret clearance – hangs in the balance.

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, WND earns from qualifying purchases. Purchasing through our affiliate links helps support WorldNetDaily with commissions at no extra cost to you.

“Your journey here ends today.”

That was the message one Microsoft employee said she received when her job was abruptly terminated. Another described the experience as “paralyzing, refreshing emails, staring at the screen, heart racing with every ping.” A third added, “There’s been speculation for a while, but the scale of today’s news still hits hard.”

Across social media and professional networks like LinkedIn, thousands of American workers have shared that they’ve been laid off by Microsoft, marking what has become one of the largest workforce reductions in the company’s history.

But their job titles reveal a deeper pattern: Many of the same roles are now appearing in Microsoft’s filings with the U.S. Department of Labor for H-1B foreign workers.

Earlier this week, WorldNetDaily reported that Microsoft announced major layoffs impacting workers in Washington and California, even as the company continued pursuing thousands of new foreign hires through the H-1B visa program. Since then, the number of layoffs has continued to rise, raising concerns that what began as cost-cutting may now reflect an even broader – and troubling – shift in Microsoft’s labor strategy.

As its new fiscal year began on July 1, Microsoft confirmed an additional 9,000 would be laid off companywide, including 830 cuts in Washington state. Combined with earlier waves in May and June, Microsoft has now laid off more than 15,000 workers since spring, including more than 3,100 in Washington, home to its Redmond headquarters. Although the company previously stated the cuts were meant to “flatten management,” publicly available data shows that only 17% of impacted roles in Redmond were classified as managerial.

Lobbying for immigration reforms during workforce reductions

While those layoffs were unfolding publicly, another lesser-known development was playing out in Washington, D.C.

In April, just weeks before the May layoffs began, Microsoft filed a federal lobbying disclosure, reporting $2.35 million in lobbying expenditures, much of it directed at the federal Department of Labor and the Department of Homeland Security – the very agencies responsible for overseeing visa certifications and employment eligibility. Among the listed priorities: “high-skilled immigration reforms,” a long-standing policy goal often associated with expanding access to the H-1B visa program.

This is not a new strategy for Microsoft. In 2023, the company filed federal WARN Act (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) notices disclosing 3,426 layoffs across its California and Washington offices.

During the same period, Microsoft requested 14,020 H-1B visa workers, plus another 708 through third-party staffing firms.

The company also spent $5.09 million lobbying in 2023, $4.52 million of which was aimed directly at the departments of Labor and Homeland Security on issues related to “High Skilled immigration and Immigration reform.”

Demand for foreign workers vs. job creation

Microsoft has consistently maintained that the U.S. does not issue enough H-1B visas to meet labor market demands. On its lobbying blog, the company states: “The number of H-1B visas remains very limited. Congress sets a limit on the number of H-1B visas that can be issued each year. Demand far exceeds supply.”

While it is accurate that U.S. law caps new H-1B visas at 85,000 per year, Microsoft’s own hiring data offers additional perspective. From 2021 to 2024, the company submitted H-1B requests at a staggering rate of 5.17 for every one net new job it created in the U.S.

Based on this pattern, Microsoft’s claims of a lack of available skilled workers appear less about unmet labor needs and more about the company’s inability to replace its existing workforce at scale due to the legal limits imposed by the H-1B visa cap. This imbalance raises further questions regarding how the program is being applied, whether to support innovation or to enable a deeper transformation of the labor force.

While Microsoft continues to press for expanded visa access, the real-time experiences of its displaced American employees offer a revealing counterpoint.

Skilled Americans replaced in their own country

Across social media, laid-off Microsoft employees are responding with resilience, many beginning to network and apply for new jobs within hours of receiving termination notices. Their profiles show years of experience, advanced degrees and a clear readiness to work.

Microsoft has stated that it hires foreign workers to “bring specially-needed skill sets” to their “U.S. operations and to fill roles when qualified American workers are not available.” However, the juxtaposition of recent massive American layoffs and simultaneous H-1B filings paints a more troubling picture. Indeed, a review of Microsoft’s active labor condition applications reveals that many of the job titles match those previously held by recently displaced U.S. professionals, raising questions as to whether competent American workers were truly unavailable for these roles.

The impact of these layoffs and hiring decisions is showing up in the form of disrupted careers and urgent job searchers on the part of many Americans. The pattern is unmistakable: U.S. citizens are being laid off, followed by active company filings for foreign labor certifications. Whether this reflects isolated restructuring or a deliberate global labor strategy for Microsoft, the consequences are being felt across an entire class of highly skilled U.S. professionals.

Whose interests define U.S. workforce and immigration policy?

Microsoft once posed the question in a pro-immigration blog: “[I]sn’t it in America’s best interests to keep the world’s top talent working here in the U.S., using their skills and ideas to invent the breakthrough products of tomorrow that will drive our economy and create jobs?”

For many of the American workers recently laid off by Microsoft, that question likely strikes a deeply personal chord. After all, they are not foreign talent seeking opportunity; they are citizens of this country, whose home, families and economy they have been working to support. They’ve spent years developing the skills, earning the degrees and contributing to the innovations that built companies like Microsoft into global powerhouses.

To these workers, keeping jobs in the hands of Americans is not just in the nation’s best interest, it’s a matter of basic fairness. The decision to replace them with cheaper foreign labor may serve Microsoft’s profit margins, but most people would seriously question how it serves the American people.

Microsoft’s story is not an outlier. It is part of a broader disturbing trend among multinational tech giants: Lay off Americans, lobby for foreign labor, repeat.

For the employees who received the message, “Your journey here ends today,” the impact is immediate and personal. But the broader question now facing America is whether this ongoing cycle of quiet replacement of Americans will continue unchecked – or whether it will finally be confronted.

Follow WND for breaking exclusives, evidence-based investigations and updates on America First immigration news that the mainstream media won’t touch. You can follow us on X @Worldnetdaily/, sign up for our weekly newsletter and visit wnd.com for the latest reports, whistleblower stories and ways you can take action. Let’s keep America first – always!

A majority of the judges on a state supreme court’s bench have exercised what has been determined to be their “personal preference” to overturn a “duly enacted” law banning abortion.

The details are documented a report at the Federalist, which pointed out the minority dissent in the case before the Wisconsin state Supreme Court noted even judges are supposed to follow the law, even if they don’t like it.

The report explained, “In a decision deemed judicial activism and a ‘power grab’ by pro-life and judicial experts, the leftist-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday to nullify the Badger State’s longstanding law barring abortion.”

The 4-judge majority claimed “the legislature impliedly repealed” an 1849 law that made abortion a felony. There was no specific repeal.

The new interpretation of the law, unchanged by the legislature in the state, is abortion is allowed – through a certain time period.

Chief Justice Jill Karofsky actually “repeated the leftist lie that women, such as Georgia woman Amber Thurman, lost their lives ‘because they lived in states that severely restrict abortion care,'” the report confirmed.

However, both of the women cited by Karofsky died after taking the dangerous chemicals involved in a do-it-yourself abortion pills, and the report noted that medical malpractice also was involved in their deaths, a factor ignored by Karofsky.

“In her dissent, Justice Annette Ziegler scolded the majority and the concurring chief justice for prioritizing the ‘profoundly personal way in which we might determine our respective positions on abortion’ over ‘how a court is required to interpret the law,'” the Federalist explained.

She cited the legal standard that, “It is the court’s duty to adhere to the law whether we ‘like’ the answer or not.”

The majority, she explained, took part in “a jaw-dropping exercise of judicial will, placing personal preference over the constitutional roles of the three branches of our state government and upending a duly enacted law,” the report said.

“In this dangerous departure from our constitutional design, four members of the court make up and apply their own version of implied repeal, failing to hew to any semblance of traditional judicial decision-making or jurisprudence.”

Andrew Bath, of the Thomas More Society, explained, “This decision is nothing short of a judicial power grab. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has taken it upon itself to erase a law that elected representatives deliberately preserved for over 175 years — even while Roe v. Wade rendered it unenforceable.

“The majority abandoned sound legal reasoning in favor of political activism, mocking the very concept of judicial restraint. This is a betrayal of the rule of law and a devastating blow to the state’s longstanding commitment to protecting the most vulnerable.”

Such judicial radicalism isn’t a surprise, as the original Roe decision creating a “right” to abortion was adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court majority with an absence of any link to the U.S. Constitution back in 1973. It was overturned just a few years ago.

And Kelsey Pritchard, of SBA Pro-Life America, told the Federalist that the lives of unborn now are at risk because of an “activist ruling from the Wisconsin Supreme Court.”

“Babies with heartbeats and who can feel pain have no legal protection in the state of Wisconsin where abortion through the fifth month is now the law of the land as dictated by four justices on the court,” Pritchard said.

Bath described the court’s activism as “legislating from the bench — an egregious violation of our constitutional system of separation of powers.”

“President Trump’s One Big, Beautiful Bill delivers on the commonsense agenda that nearly 80 million Americans voted for – the largest middle-class tax cut in history, permanent border security, massive military funding, and restoring fiscal sanity,” explained White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

“The pro-growth policies within this historic legislation are going to fuel an economic boom like we’ve never seen before. President Trump looks forward to signing the One Big, Beautiful Bill into law to officially usher in the Golden Age of America.”

Her comments came minutes after the House of Representatives passed 218-214 the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

“Again and again, Democrats tried to block historic tax relief, increased border security, higher wages, an expanded Child Tax Credit, No Tax on Tips, No Tax on Overtime, No Tax on Social Security, savings accounts for newborns, and so much more — but again and again, President Trump and Republicans fought and won for the American people,” the statement said.

Signing is scheduled for Friday.

A major provision is one that strips “forced taxpayer funding of the Big Abortion industry.”

“Defunding the abortion industry, led by Planned Parenthood, marks the greatest pro-life victory since the Dobbs decision. For the first time in history, Congress is halting forced taxpayer funding of Big Abortion in the Medicaid program for one year. This will save lives and strip over $500 million from Big Abortion’s coffers. Combined with last week’s Supreme Court decision empowering states to do the same, this represents tremendous progress toward achieving a decades-long goal that has long proved elusive,” said SBA Pro-Life America chief Marjorie Dannenfelser.

““For decades, Big Abortion has siphoned off billions in tax dollars to prop up a scandal-ridden industry built on abortion and partisan politics. Planned Parenthood alone commits over 400,000 abortions a year while services like cancer screenings continue to plummet — all while pocketing over $2 million every day from taxpayers.”

“The American people should not have to continue subsidizing the abortion industry – and now, thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill, they won’t be,” said Jennie Bradley Lichter, president of March for Life Action. “We joyfully anticipate President Trump signing this landmark legislation, which ensures that Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars are not being used to prop up an industry whose business model is built on ending human lives, misleading pregnant women into thinking that abortion is their only option, and delivering substandard healthcare that they then charge to the government.

“For years the majority of Americans have said they reject this status quo. Women deserve better – America deserves better – and we thank President Trump, Speaker of the House Johnson, and Senate Majority Leader Thune, as well as all of the other pro-life champions in Congress who brought this bill across the finish line.”

VICTORY: The One Big Beautiful Bill Passes U.S. Congress, Heads to President Trump’s Desk pic.twitter.com/d1nbOlL21G

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) July 3, 2025

The House of Representatives just officially PASSED the One Big Beautiful Bill.

The largest middle-class tax cut in American history — and so much more — is on its way to President Trump’s desk.

MAGA! pic.twitter.com/V3U8xhenrS

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 3, 2025

Carol Tobias, of National Right to Life, added, “We applaud pro-life members in Congress and pro-life leadership, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, for keeping their promises to the American people and delivering a bill that prevents taxpayer funds from subsidizing the abortion industry. For decades, Americans have made it clear that they do not want their tax dollars funding abortion. Today, Congress delivered.:”

Other organizations and groups had specific comments about how they are affected.

Consumer Energy Alliance President David Holt said, “This legislation unleashes affordable, reliable and cleaner energy for families and small businesses across the country, and gives the U.S. the edge in the global AI race by ensuring that always-on, reliable baseload power like nuclear and natural gas can be developed at speed and scale.

“Critically, this bill ensures offshore lease sales for Gulf of America and Alaska, which were intentionally delayed and drowned in red tape under the Biden Administration. That kept money out of the U.S. Treasury and Gulf States, and impeded the ability for companies to appropriately plan future energy development.”

Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., said, of the “huge victory, “This legislation addresses many of the legislative priorities that President Trump promised to Americans during his campaign for President. Although the bill is not perfect, as none are, nor does it include several provisions of the original House version, I voted in favor of the largest tax cut in history, ending the Biden-era invasion of our southern border, and reducing wasteful and abusive spending of taxpayer dollars.

“Americans are tired of having a government that they are afraid of, and want a government they can be proud of. This Reconciliation package scales back the size and scope of federal agencies, cuts red-tape, brings more accountability, and cuts fraud, waste, and abuse. This bill is a good start, but Congress still has a lot of work to do; as we must continue to move back to a government that is small in size, limited in scope, and dedicated to preserving the rights and liberties of the American people.

“Last November, voters gave the President and Congress an unprecedented mandate to govern, and to tackle the very challenges that this bill addresses. With this historic legislation, Americans will be keeping more of their hard-earned money and paying less for food and fuel, while enjoying a level of safety not seen in years, as our southern border becomes more secure. With President Trump’s signature, the Big, Beautiful, Bill will usher in the Golden Age of America and put our great country back on the path to prosperity.”

Article III Project founder Mike Davis said, “This is an historic and monumental victory for President Trump—and real Americans in real America. And a major loss for Trump’s opponents and doubters. Trump sealed his standing as one of America’s most consequential presidents. And his second term is just getting started.”

Democrats and other leftists universally blasted it.

“This is a direct attack on the health and well-being of low-income individuals and families,” said Mara Youdelman of the National Health Law Program. “The bill cuts nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid. It will force states to slash eligibility and services, causing individuals to lose coverage and communities to lose the providers they depend on. And all of this is done to fund tax breaks for corporations and the ultrarich.”

Joseph Geevarghese, of Our Revolution, organized originally by leftist Bernie Sanders, claimed, “Republicans have passed the most dangerous legislation of our lifetimes. This bill hands billionaires and corporations a trillion-dollar tax break, paid for by ripping health care from 17 million people, gutting funding for rural hospitals, slashing clean energy investments, and cutting food assistance for millions of children.”

He charged it is the “largest transfer of wealth from working- and middle-class Americans to the ultra-wealthy in our nation’s history.”

The National Nurses United union went to extremes, claiming, “Lawmakers have effectively signed the death warrants for millions today. It will steal money from safety-net community hospitals and reproductive health care clinics, like Planned Parenthood. It will kick people off their health insurance. It will effectively punish people for getting sick or injured, making us all sicker and less healthy.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed that lawmakers are “delivering on our promise to make America great again.”

Then the legislators voted 218-214 to adopt Senate changes to President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill.”

It’s a landmark for tax cuts and spending that includes many of Trump’s priorities. The $3.3 trillion measure installs in America budget priorities and spending – or not spending – points adopted by Republicans.

Trump, on social media, said, “The USA is on track to break every record on growth. Go Republicans, beat the Crooked Democrats tonight! Pro-growth tax cuts never fail.”

The nearly 900-page bill, read aloud on demands from Democrats who were trying to delay, and possibly even derail, the plan, extends the president’s 2017 tax cuts and further eliminates taxes on tips and overtime – a marquee promise that the president pledged repeatedly on the campaign trail.

The child tax credit is doubled and Trump’s new plan for $1000 “MAGA account” for new babies is included.

BREAKING – IT’S OFFICIAL: The Big Beautiful Bill has PASSED the House of Representatives

It now heads to President Trump’s desk for tomorrow’s July 4th signing ceremony

CONGRATULATIONS, 47! pic.twitter.com/45gl5JYavP

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) July 3, 2025

BREAKING: Congress FULLY PASSES President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which will supercharge deportations and launch historic tax cuts.

President Trump supposed to sign it TOMORROW, JULY 4TH.

Talk about a major victory for Trump and MAGA. pic.twitter.com/EnBqoIjjDy

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 3, 2025

The tax cuts alone will cost $4.5 trillion over the next ten years, according to projections from the Congressional Budget Office. To offset the massive price tag Republicans included $1.2 trillion in spending cuts, mainly trimming Medicaid.

Lawmakers used a tactic called reconciliation, so the tax and spending bill did not need 60 votes in the Senate, which had approved the plan 51-50 with the tiebreaker from Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday.

The House originally adopted the plan late in May.

The primary component is the permanent extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts that would have expired this year.

The plan also exempts pay from overtime and tips from federal income taxes – a fulfillment of one of the Trump’s campaign promises.

According to the Daily Mail, “In addition, the bill allows individuals in high-tax states to deduct up to $40,000 per year for half a decade in state and local taxes (SALT) from their federal taxes – a top priority for conservatives in blue states.”

And, it added, “Border security efforts will also be getting a major cash infusion estimated to be around $150 billion for increased immigration enforcement. It includes $46 billion for Customs and Border Patrol to build border wall and enhanced security measures and around $30 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

Also in the plan is $150 billion for Trump’s “Golden Dome” national defense plan.

Gone are billions of dollars for “green energy” schemes, and cash in federal programs that aided noncitizens.

There also now are work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP plans.

A federal judge cleared the way for the Trump administration to move forward with the deportation process for the family of a suspected terrorist accused of killing an elderly woman.

U.S. District Court Judge Orlando Garcia nixed a prior ruling that blocked the deportation of Mohamed Soliman’s family, according to court documents. Soliman, an Egyptian national, allegedly attacked a pro-Israel demonstration in Boulder, Colorado, on June 1 with Molotov cocktails and a makeshift flamethrower while screaming “End Zionists” and “Free Palestine.”

Shortly after the attack, federal law enforcement discovered that not only was Soliman living in the U.S. unlawfully, but so were his wife and five children, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The Trump administration began deportation proceedings against his family members, but a Biden-appointed judge quickly blocked those efforts.

Garcia determined Wednesday that he lacked the authority to intervene in the case and that the family’s deportation was not being improperly fast tracked, according to court documents. He stated that the case would need to be reviewed by an immigration judge.

“The Court hastens to remind Petitioners that they still have an avenue for seeking their release from detention while their removal proceedings continue,” Garcia stated. “As alluded to above, the regulations promulgated pursuant to the [Immigration and Nationality Act] prescribe administrative procedures for obtaining relief from discretionary detention.”

The judge’s ruling stemmed from confusion surrounding the timing of the Soliman’s family’s removal from the country, according to court documents. Social media posts following the Boulder attack initially claimed the family was in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody and could be deported as early as “tonight,” but federal officials have since clarified that the family would have the opportunity to petition for their release.

Soliman allegedly targeted peaceful demonstrators who were advocating on behalf of the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas during the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre. The attack left several hospitalized, and one 82-year-old woman, Karen Diamond, eventually died from her injuries.

The Egyptian national now faces more than 70 charges, including first-degree murder, first-degree assault and committing a hate crime, according to DHS. The Trump administration praised the judge’s ruling in a public statement.

“This is a proper end to an absurd legal effort on the plaintiff’s part,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said, referring to Soliman’s wife, who sued to block her deportation. “Just like her terrorist husband, she and her children are here illegally and are rightfully in ICE custody for removal as a result.”

“This terrorist will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” McLaughlin continued. “We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it.”

The 45-year-old Soliman entered the U.S. in August 2022 under the Biden administration and remained in the country after his visa expired, DHS previously confirmed to the DCNF. He had filed for asylum in September 2022.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Over 100,000 living armed services members and veterans have been negatively impacted by illegally mandated anthrax vaccines and COVID-19 shots. Yet according to military sources, the efforts of President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to right those wrongs, though greatly appreciated, are falling drastically short due to bureaucratic obstruction.

WorldNetDaily spoke to Retired Air Force Col. Tom “Buzz” Rempfer, author of “Unyielding: Marathons Against Illegal Mandates” and advocate for service members and veterans subjected to illegal medical experimentation in the military.

Rempfer, whose book has been highly praised by everyone from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to COVID vaccine whistleblower doctors Peter McCullough and Harvey Risch, greatly appreciates the steps Trump and Hegseth have taken to help restore the careers of those affected by the Biden-era military’s 2021 COVID-19 shot mandate. “We’ve come so far,” he told WND, “watching the tide turn when Congress rescinded the mandate, when Trump signed the executive order [to reinstate troops], and when the Sec Def declared it was ‘unlawful as implemented.'”

However, lamented Rempfer, “The corrections process isn’t working, and it hasn’t worked for over 20 years. The only way to fix the problem is through pardons or amnesty, wherein you take the adjudication step away from the DoD deep state bureaucrats.”

To that end, Rempfer pointed to the work of Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services, Inc., or STARRS, the MacArthur Society of West Point Graduates and the Calvert Task Group. Members of each of these organizations sent a letter to President Trump on June 5 expressing their grave concerns about both the COVID-19 and earlier anthrax vaccination mandates.

The leadership of STARRS, MacArthur Society and Calvert Task Group sent the following letter to President Trump (@POTUS @realDonaldTrump) today:

Mr. President:

We are grateful for the precedent set by your unconditional pardon on May 28, 2025, of Lieutenant Mark Bashaw for… pic.twitter.com/A0TjrPhawA

— STARRS (@STARRSmission) June 2, 2025

“As STARRS suggests,” Rempfer told WND, “pardons or amnesty are the swiftest means to right the wrongs committed against services members who were affected by either of the mandates.”

\He added, “The courts and the DoD have already admitted anthrax and COVID mandates were ‘illegal’ and ‘unlawful’ respectively, so government should be correcting records just as expeditiously as they kicked and coerced troops out of uniform.”

According to a recent Breitbart report, the Pentagon said, “Approximately 100 cases are currently under review [for reinstatement], with 13 servicemembers having already been welcomed back, while over 700 individuals who were ousted over their unvaccinated status have expressed interest in returning since President Donald Trump reclaimed the title of commander-in-chief in January.”

For this, DOD Rapid Response celebrated on X, posting the message “We are RIGHTING THE WRONGS of the previous Administration!”

Rempfer took to X shortly thereafter, referring to the numbers shared by the Defense Department as “paltry stats” while looping in the wrongs committed against service members with both the anthrax and COVID-era mandates. He told WND, “Anthrax-era veterans had the same hope, but only three records were corrected, over 20 years, out of 37 courts-martials and thousands of less than fully honorable discharges and NJP’s” (non-judicial punishment).

For Rempfer, “It’s embarrassing, because at this rate, only a handful of anthrax-era and 100 or so COVID-era corrections will occur by the end of President Trump’s term – less than 0.1 percent.”

While over 8,000 service members were separated from the U.S. military over their objection to receiving the experimental COVID-19 shot, he estimates there are tens of thousands who left voluntarily, explaining, “the only reason service members voluntarily discharged is because they were coerced, taking the voluntary discharge over the punishment they would have faced if they remained in service.”

“There have been two periods of documented, illegal experimentation on our troops in the last 20 years, and for me, this means we haven’t learned any lessons,” Rempfer told WorldNetDaily. “The Trump administration made an attempt to correct records in 2018 for those adversely affected by the anthrax vaccine, but there was zero outreach because they never even published the memo.” In his opinion, “Trump was undermined, and he should be outraged at the sabotage of his attempts for civilian control of the military.”

For this reason, Rempfer implores President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth to “take the time to address, once and for all, the adverse actions taken against service members who were punished for objecting to the anthrax vaccine and COVID-19 shot.”

Because the anthrax vaccine and COVID-19 shot mandates were illegal, he said, “Troops shouldn’t have to apply for discharge upgrades or reinstatement.” Rather, if a service member was discharged because of his or her refusal, he argued “their discharges should be unilaterally, unconditionally and retroactively upgraded.”

For those affected by the anthrax vaccine, Rempfer pointed out that 10 USC 1178 requires the Defense Department to track all service members who refused and were punished, “but they didn’t comply with this 2001 law or the 2018 White House directive to correct anthrax records.”

“Now is the time for the president and secretary of Defense to exercise their authorities under 10 USC 1552 to upgrade records.”

Regarding President Trump’s executive order, Rempfer said it could be amended to “include voluntary discharges that included coercion.” He estimated that “the Boards for Correction of Military Records (BCMR) have probably received thousands of applications from other anthrax and COVID-era veterans whose discharge upgrade requests were denied.” He emphasized, “Anthrax-era corrections are zero-cost administrative upgrades to fully honorable discharges.” In fact, he suggests Trump consider an executive order for anthrax-era discharge upgrades, as he did for those affected by the COVID-19 shot mandate.

“Laws are being ignored,” says the retired Air Force colonel. “No one complied with the law preventing a mandate of investigational drug products under 10 USC 1107 for the anthrax vaccine and 10 USC 1107a for the COVID shot.” And on top of that, the lethargic BCMR process is undermining the president and Defense secretary, inhibiting their efforts to fully restore the nation’s military.

Rempfer emphasized that he believes President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth absolutely have the best interests of the U.S. military in mind, and he simply hopes they’ll hear his message and reinvigorate the appropriate actions for all service members and veterans adversely affected by anthrax and COVID-19 mandates.

“Pardons or amnesty are the only way out of this mess,” concluded Rempfer, “and there’s an army of veterans who are ready and able to help the president and Defense secretary remove the obstructions, fix the malfunctions and secure corrections for increased readiness and restoration of trust.”

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, WND earns from qualifying purchases. Purchasing through our affiliate links helps support WorldNetDaily with commissions at no extra cost to you.

BREAKING: Diddy has been found guilty on MULTIPLE counts, including:

COUNT 3: Transportation to engage in prostltution

COUNT 5: Transportation to engage in prostltution

He was found NOT guilty of:

COUNT 1: Racketeering conspiracy

COUNT 2: Sex trafflcking by force, fraud… pic.twitter.com/x97qsqJpsS

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) July 2, 2025

BREAKING: Diddy only found guilty on prostitution charges, acquitted on sex trafficking and racketeering. pic.twitter.com/ANPUOQ6hZq

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July 2, 2025

BREAKING: Sean “Diddy” Combs found guilty on just 2 of the 5 charges in his s*x trafficking trial.

“The defense won three acquittals, with Combs found guilty of the Mann Act transportation of former girlfriends Cassie Ventura and ‘Jane’,” NBC reported.

Diddy was found not… pic.twitter.com/Q0tj9jhapQ

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 2, 2025

Megyn Kelly
Diddy was guilty as sin. The jury let him off. pic.twitter.com/2pB3qlcysu

— Big Fish (@BigFish3000) July 2, 2025

The FBI will relocate its moth-eaten headquarters from the Hoover Building to the Ronald Reagan Building downtown after USAID vacated the complex, officials announced Tuesday.

The shuffle caps nearly 20 years of bureaucratic waffling over where to park the nation’s premier law enforcement agency. By opting for a ready-made federal property — freshly emptied when the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) officially shuttered operations Tuesday — the Trump administration says it will save taxpayers billions while giving agents a secure, modern workplace.

“We are ushering FBI Headquarters into a new era and providing our agents of justice a safer place to work,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a press release. “Moving to the Ronald Reagan Building is the most cost effective and resource efficient way to carry out our mission to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution.”

General Services Administration (GSA) Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian, whose agency manages the federal real estate portfolio, said the Hoover Building “has accumulated years of deferred maintenance, suffering from an aging water system to concrete following off the structure.”

USAID’s exit made the move possible. The development agency had been headquartered in the Reagan complex since 1998 but was stripped of its lease in February, according to multiple reports. Rubio confirmed the broader shutdown Tuesday, writing that USAID “will officially cease to implement foreign assistance” as its functions fold into the State Department.

The Reagan Building already houses U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB) and several private tenants. GSA says it will “work with CBP and their agency partners to fulfill their mission while the transition of the FBI to the Reagan Building commences.”

Officials have not released a firm timetable for the relocation. What happens to the hulking brutalist Hoover block remains unclear. GSA has yet to announce whether it will pursue demolition, redevelopment or sale. Neither the GSA nor the FBI immediately responded to requests for comment.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

A man who admits murdering and crucifying a Christian pastor is now giving interviews, and says he was doing God’s will, with 13 other Christian leaders targeted for “execution.”

Adam Christopher Sheafe, 51, is openly confessing to killing 76-year-old William Schonemann at his New River, Arizona, home in April.

The victim was found dead in his bed, covered in blood, on April 28, when deputies conducted a welfare check. Sheafe had placed a crown of thorns on the pastor’s head.

If Sheafe had not been captured following a manhunt, the self-admitted killer said 13 others would have been slain.

“I was going to start in Phoenix and end in Phoenix, and circle the nation. Ten cities, 14 pastors, 10 states,” he explained.

“From there, it was Las Vegas, Nevada; Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington; Billings, Montana; Detroit, Michigan; New York, New York; Charlotte, North Carolina; Mobile, Alabama; Beaumont, Texas and El Paso, Texas,” he said.

“I was gonna put the Ten Commandments, in order, on each of the priests, on a leather tag in the right ear after I crucified them.”

PASTOR KILLER JAILHOUSE INTERVIEW:
:

Adam Sheafe has confessed to killing Arizona pastor Bill Schonemann, and crucifying him after. He describes the lengths he went to carry this out, and I press him on how horrific this is.

His… pic.twitter.com/5Km1CAQBp4

— Briana Whitney (@BrianaWhitney) June 24, 2025

Sheafe is reportedly a believer in the Old Testament only, saying the God of the Bible is not Jesus, but only the Father.

“Christian, Catholic, Mormon. Anyone preaching that Jesus is God, essentially, the Trinity, a concept created by man, by Paul. He’s not God. God, the Father alone, is God,” he said.

HAPPENING NOW: Adam Sheafe is back in court in Coconino County. He first spoke with ABC15 nearly two weeks ago confessing to multiple crimes, including the murder of Pastor Bill Schonemann in New River. He also revealed a plot to kill more religious leaders across the country.… pic.twitter.com/JLThp17Ozl

— Ashley Holden (@ashleyvholden) July 1, 2025

“What I’m saying is, what you’re preaching is not what God said. It’s the opposite of what God said.”

“I don’t hate Christians. I’m after the pastors that are leading them astray.”

Speaking with True Crime Arizona reporter Briana Whitney, Sheafe said:

“I want the death penalty because I want to show that you can’t kill God’s son. The whole story is B.S.”

Whitney: “So, if you’re given the death penalty, it’s not likely you’ll be executed quickly.”

Sheafe: “Well, I want to be executed quickly so we can get this show on the road and show exactly what I’m trying to do … All you gotta do is worship Jesus and you go to Heaven; your sins are forgiven. That’s not what God said.”

Whitney: “But did you think God was going to forgive your sins?”

Sheafe: “Absolutely he will forgive my sins. He is a forgiving God and loving God.”

Whitney: “How do you justify that? I mean, if you’re killing somebody or multiple people – attempted, how does that work?”

Sheafe: “It’s a commandment to rid Israel of evil.”

Is the news we hear every day actually broadcasting messages from God? The answer is an absolute yes! Find out how!

Schonemann’s family released a statement in the wake of Sheafe going public with the reasoning for his crimes:

“What we have seen over the last week is this suspect enjoying the attention. His side of the story is half of the whole story, and we see the need to cover it however challenging that may be for us,” the family said in a statement seen by Fox 10, although they criticized the granting of a platform to Sheafe.

“We are quite surprised by his ability to freely message with county-supplied devices. We are concerned about his increasing notoriety and possibly gaining a following,” the statement continued.

“He has clearly stated his intentions to continue his mission. From the beginning, our focus has been to stop the suspect before anyone else got hurt. We see the surge of media attention and his ability to communicate freely as a very serious threat to that end.”

In a commentary at Blaze Media, Owen Anderson laments the lack of outrage over the crucifixion-murder of the pastor.

“Had the victim belonged to a different religion –– particularly one deemed ‘marginalized’ or ‘indigenous’ –– CNN would run wall-to-wall coverage. MSNBC hosts would cry on air about America’s hatred. The Justice Department would announce investigations before the body cooled,” writes Anderson.

“If the killer had cited Christian teachings while attacking a Planned Parenthood activist or drag performer, Los Angeles would be on fire and the Palestinian flag would fly from city hall. But Pastor Schonemann preached Christ crucified. And so, the outrage is muted.”

Follow Joe on X @JoeKovacsNews

Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s Department of Education (DOE) hired a Kenyan national after he was nearly deported for sexual assault and later promoted him to a director role.

Wilson Tindi, who became the agency’s director of internal audit and advisory services in December 2023, was convicted in 2016 of sexually assaulting a woman in her sleep after breaking into her home, according to documents first reported by Alpha News. Tindi’s LinkedIn profile and government webpages indicate that he has worked multiple jobs in Minnesota’s DOE and Pollution Control Agency.

The Minnesota Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation, and Tindi could not be reached directly.

The Minnesota (DOE) removed Tindi’s profile from its website after Alpha News asked the agency for comment, the outlet reported. The now-deleted profile of Tindi said he oversees “an independent internal audit function focused on evaluating risk management, governance, and compliance across the agency.” He landed his first state job in 2018 before Walz, the failed 2024 Democratic vice presidential candidate, became governor the following year.

Tindi admitted to inappropriately touching a woman who was sleeping in Hennepin County in 2014 in exchange for prosecutors dropping a burglary charge, court records show. His plea deal brought a two-year sentence that would be stayed for five years. Another woman accused Tindi of a similar sexual assault in her home in 2012, but the case was never prosecuted.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tried to deport Tindi as early as 2008, and he became a lawful permanent resident in 2014 before later facing the renewed threat of removal over his criminal record, court documents show. Tindi appealed his immigration case and was ordered released in February 2018 based on concerns that he had been detained too long without removal.

Tindi does not currently appear in ICE’s detention database.

The Kenyan national was earning $58 per hour at the Pollution Control Agency in fiscal year 2024, according to the latest available payroll data.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.