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Abbey Gate terrorist, human smuggling ring leaders, cartel bosses among Bondi DOJ’s first-month successes

Abbey Gate terrorist, human smuggling ring leaders, cartel bosses among Bondi DOJ’s first-month successes

Attorney General Pam Bondi spent the first month at the Justice Department arresting ISIS-linked terrorists and violent illegal immigrants, dismantling drug cartels and more, telling Fox News Digital she will “continue working day in and day out to deliver on President Trump’s Make America Safe Agenda.” The Justice Department’s core mission under Bondi’s leadership is focused on fighting violent crime while undertaking key initiatives to protect women’s sports; eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion; and fight antisemitism.  BONDI WARNS THREE STATES TO COMPLY WITH LAW KEEPING BOYS OUT OF GIRLS SPORTS OR FACE LEGAL ACTION Since taking her oath Feb. 5, under Bondi’s leadership the DOJ has arrested an ISIS-linked criminal in New York who allegedly financially supported ISIS; arrested the ISIS-K attack planner who allegedly orchestrated the attack at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan that led to the death of 13 U.S. service members; and arrested two illegal immigrants accused of running one of the largest human smuggling rings in the United States.  In March, the DOJ also secured custody of 29 defendants from Mexico who are facing charges in districts around the country relating to racketeering, drug-trafficking, murder, illegal use of firearms, money laundering and other crimes in the U.S., including Mexican drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who had been wanted for and accused of torturing and murdering a Drug Enforcement Administration agent in 1985. This followed a bilateral meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and counterparts in the government of Mexico. “This Department of Justice is arresting violent terrorists, dismantling cartel networks, and rooting DEI out of American institutions,” Bondi told Fox News Digital. “We will continue working day in and day out to deliver on President Trump’s Make America Safe Agenda.” Bondi also warned California, Maine and Minnesota to comply with the federal antidiscrimination laws that require them to keep boys out of women’s sports or face legal action.  She also vowed that the DOJ will “hold accountable states and state entities that violate federal law.”  The Justice Department also sued Illinois and New York earlier in February for defying federal immigration laws, with Bondi warning others that they “stand ready to sue states and state entities that defy federal antidiscrimination laws.”  BONDI’S DOJ DAY 1 DIRECTIVES: FIGHT WEAPONIZATION OF JUSTICE, ELIMINATE CARTELS, LIFT DEATH PENALTY BAN Meanwhile, earlier in March, ISIS-K member Mohammad Sharifullah — accused of plotting the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing that killed 13 U.S. military members and at least 160 civilians amid the chaotic Biden administration withdrawal from Afghanistan — was extradited to “face American justice,” FBI Director Kash Patel said.  “3 and 1/2 years later, justice for our 13,” Patel wrote on X.  Sharifullah is charged with providing and conspiring to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization resulting in death and was expected to make his first federal court appearance in Virginia Wednesday. “This is just the beginning,” a Justice Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “Attorney General Bondi is completely dedicated in her mission to refocus the Department of Justice on fighting crime, prosecuting dangerous criminals, holding rogue jurisdictions accountable for flouting federal law, and removing DEI from our institutions.”  The spokesperson added: “The DOJ has more to come on all those fronts and more.” 

Dems threatening government shutdown over Elon Musk hate, Republicans say

Dems threatening government shutdown over Elon Musk hate, Republicans say

House Republicans are accusing Democrats of waging their opposition campaign against the GOP’s government funding plan over their fury at Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts. “They hate Elon Musk and Donald Trump more than they love their country,” Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., told Fox News Digital. “They’re just losing their f—— minds.” Mace was still optimistic that some Democratic lawmakers will vote for the legislation on Tuesday afternoon, “I mean, they voted for every CR under the sun when [former President Joe Biden] was president. That’s what this is — it’s just political games.” First-term Rep. Jeff Crank, R-Colo., told Fox News Digital, “It’s either [President Donald Trump] or Elon Musk or a combination thereof, right?” DEMOCRATS PRIVATELY REBUKE PARTY MEMBERS WHO JEERED TRUMP DURING SPEECH TO CONGRESS: REPORT “They’ve had nothing but political losses from November forward. Last week was the worst political loss I think they’ve suffered in a long time,” Crank said, referring to Democrats’ intra-party divisions over some lawmakers’ disruptions during Trump’s speech to Congress. “I guess they’ve got to keep fighting, but what they should do is the right thing: Keep the government open.” Musk and his DOGE work have been met with near-universal condemnation by Democrats, even those who have agreed with the need to cut the federal bureaucracy.  Democrats have held Musk up as a political boogeyman, an unelected billionaire who was given too much access to the federal government that he also profits from as a military contractor. But Republicans, with some exceptions, have defended his work as necessary. Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., told Fox News Digital that Musk is “doing damage to our government” but denied his work being a factor in his likely decision to oppose the funding bill. “Musk doesn’t live rent-free in my head,” Crow said. “I’m not making legislative decisions based upon Elon Musk and what he does and doesn’t do in any given day… I’m focusing on my constituents.” GOLDMAN SACHS HIGHLIGHTS TARIFF WARS WINNERS AND LOSERS Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., when asked about Musk, did not mention the billionaire at all. Instead, he pivoted to criticize House Republicans for putting a stopgap government funding bill known as a continuing resolution (CR) up for a vote, rather than dealing with a fresh slate of fiscal year (FY) 2025 appropriations bills. “Republicans have said for the longest time, right, that CRs are no longer the way to fund the government. Speaker Johnson promised to do individual spending bills. That was his pitch to his colleagues in order to remain speaker. OK. He’s the one who’s going back on his word to his own colleagues,” Moskowitz said. But Democrats have nevertheless used Musk in their public broadsides against the bill. “It takes away veterans’ healthcare. It takes away critical research funding. Those are the things that House Republicans are willing to do just to give Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s friends continued tax breaks. That’s unacceptable to House Democrats,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., told reporters on Monday. Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., wrote on X, “Trump and Musk are illegally shutting down federal agencies, mass firing federal workers, and freezing congressionally mandated funding. It’s causing massive job losses and economic chaos for my constituents, and the Republican CR would continue this disaster. I will vote no.” The proposed CR roughly freezes government funding at FY 2024 levels through the beginning of FY 2026, on Oct 1. It includes extra funding for defense while cutting nondefense funding by roughly $13 billion. House GOP leadership aides said over the weekend that the bill includes some added funding for veterans’ healthcare — putting them at odds with Democrats’ messaging. Democratic lawmakers normally vote in droves to avert a government shutdown, but this time it’s likely House Republicans will need to share the burden largely on their own. As of Monday night, several Republicans are still undecided on how they will vote, despite Trump making calls to GOP lawmakers who are on the fence.

‘Pro-criminal’: Blue state sheriff unloads on ‘disgusting’ bill targeting the right to self-defense

‘Pro-criminal’: Blue state sheriff unloads on ‘disgusting’ bill targeting the right to self-defense

A California sheriff is speaking out against a bill in the Democrat-controlled capital of Sacramento that he says would essentially make self-defense illegal and believes is emblematic of liberal policies putting people in danger in the state.  After Assembly Bill 1333 was introduced in California two weeks ago, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco gained traction on social media with a post reacting to the bill which he says will essentially make self-defense illegal in the state.  Los Angeles Assembly member Rick Zbur introduced the bill, which he says aims to narrow the criteria for justifiable homicide, but Bianco told Fox News Digital that the bill will just further embolden criminals.  “This Assembly member that has come up with this, If it was his idea, he certainly has absolutely no business being an assembly member representing people,” Bianco said. “And what my knowledge is of how things happen in Sacramento. I’m not giving him an out because he certainly had some talking points for this bill, but these are bills written by special interest groups and the majority of the special interest in Sacramento are pro-criminal.” TRUMP SUPPORTING CALIFORNIA SHERIFF LAUNCHES REPUBLICAN RUN FOR GOVERNOR IN RACE TO SUCCEED NEWSOM Bianco continued, “They want criminals to thrive. It’s just bizarre to me. How you could even have the thought process that says people should not be able to protect themselves is beyond me. Honestly, I don’t understand it. And I’ve never heard a sane, legitimate argument otherwise.” Bianco told Fox News Digital that the bill will make it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to protect themselves from violent criminals.  “This is basically saying if someone approaches you and is going to rob you or steal your stuff or harm you, your only option is to run, and they get whatever they want,” Bianco said.  “If they’re there to steal your car and or your purse or your wallet or to harm your wife or your kids, your only option is to run away from them. They get to do whatever it is they want, and you just have to run away. And this is like the absolute ultimate display of zero consequence for criminal behavior.” Bianco, who is running for governor of California, told Fox News Digital that he is on the ground talking to Californians every day, and he is yet to run into someone who supports this bill.  CA MAYOR DECLARES ‘HOMELESSNESS CAN’T BE A CHOICE,’ SUGGESTS ARRESTING THOSE WHO REPEATEDLY REFUSE SHELTER “There is no one,” Bianco said. There is no one other than the Democrats in Sacramento who think this is a good idea and then the beautiful part of this is based on what I did, a viral video calling it out, calling him out and making people call and demand better, and then other people doing the same thing. We exposed it. So this bill, there’s no way this bill is ever going to pass.” Fox News Digital reached out to Zbur for comment.  It is unclear when the bill will be heard on the floor and Zbur has said that he plans to revise the bill to make it more clear.  “What this bill is focused on is someone who goes out in public, picks a fight, and when the victim responds, they shoot them and claim self-defense,” Zbur said about the bill, Cal Matters reported.  “Hopefully they remove it from the floor like they should, but this is going to happen to every single bill. They need to be put on notice that the light is going to be shined very bright in that dark little pit they call the Assembly floor, in the Senate floor, on these bills that are harming Californians,” Bianco told Fox News Digital. “And I’m going to be holding the flashlight and there is no sane person that thinks this is a good idea.” “There’s no dad that believes that he shouldn’t be able to protect his daughter or his wife. There’s no woman that believes that she should not be able to defend herself against an attacker and for these people in Sacramento, these lawmakers to come up with these types of bills. It’s truly disgusting that they would even think this is okay.”

Texas lawmakers considering bill to ban gender changes on birth certificates

Texas lawmakers considering bill to ban gender changes on birth certificates

Lawmakers in the Texas legislature are considering a bill that would prohibit people in the state from changing the gender marker on their birth certificate to reflect their gender identity. The measure, Senate Bill 406, is now being debated in the Texas Senate. Last year, the Texas Department of Public Safety stopped changing gender on driver’s licenses unless courts intervened, according to FOX 4. The Senate bill would block changes to gender on birth certificates, regardless of whether there is a court order. TEXAS LAWMAKER PROPOSES BILL TO BAN GENDER TRANSITION TREATMENT FOR EVERYONE, INCLUDING ADULTS “This bill is not about restricting anyone’s personal expression. It is about ensuring legal documents reflect accurate statistics,” GOP state Sen. Mayes Middleton, who sponsored the bill, said Monday in a State Affairs Committee hearing. “Right now, the only way to change sex is by court order, and this bill prevents that.” Testifying before the committee, Megan Benton of the group Texas Values said this is “a matter of public safety and public record.” “If a man can legally change his birth certificate to say he is a woman, then it’s possible to get a driver’s license, passport, and social security card that also says he is female,” she said. Several transgender Texans also testified before the committee, saying they believe they are being unfairly targeted. “I’m not a monster. This is not a fetish for me, and I did not decide to be a woman,” Amanda McLaughlin said. Megan Fairbanks asked, “What harm have I caused society?” “I don’t play sports. The only thing I want to do in the bathroom is use the bathroom and touch up my makeup and wash my hands,” Fairbanks said. The Transgender Education Network of Texas’ policy coordinator, Landon Richie, argued that the bill would lead to isolation and incentivize others to discriminate or put targets on the backs of transgender people who he said are already vulnerable. DYLAN MULVANEY REACTS TO GAVIN NEWSOM’S REMARKS ON TRANS ATHLETES PARTICIPATING IN WOMEN’S SPORTS The bill is expected to pass through the Senate and be sent to the House. This comes after state lawmakers passed legislation banning biological men from competing in girls’ school sports. At the federal level, President Donald Trump signed an executive order recognizing male and female as the only genders.

Donald Trump, facing terrible coverage, softens tone and tactics for Elon Musk’s DOGE crusade

Donald Trump, facing terrible coverage, softens tone and tactics for Elon Musk’s DOGE crusade

Most people think of government workers as part of a faceless bureaucracy with cushy and clearly useless jobs. Now it’s true that the federal workforce is bloated and needs to be trimmed. But the politics of Elon Musk’s mass firings are shifting, prompting President Trump to soften his approach to the DOGE campaign. A major factor in this evolution is the negative media coverage, which Trump follows with great interest. It’s no accident that he said the other day the budget cutbacks should be done with a “scalpel” and not a “sledgehammer.” He’s acutely attuned to the growing backlash against the massive layoffs–which include 80,000 at Veterans Affairs.   Many of the stories, on television and in print, follow a formula: Lead off with one person who has been booted or negatively impacted by the Musk bros. That puts a face to the story, an actual saddened person whose life has been upended. Consider this New York Times piece:  “At the Veterans Affairs hospital in Pittsburgh, researchers spent months preparing for a clinical trial of a new drug to treat advanced cancers of the mouth, throat and voice box. LATEST TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDER WILL SHIFT POWER OVER MANAGING NATURAL DISASTERS OUT OF DC “They were ready last month to start enrolling patients — veterans whose cancer had spread to other tissue and who had run out of treatment options. Then a problem arose. “The hospital was unable to renew the job of a key staff member involved in running the study, a typically routine process thwarted by a hiring freeze imposed under the government-cutting project led by President Trump and Elon Musk. Suddenly, the clinical trial was on hold. “‘They were ready to enroll,’ said Alanna Caffas, the chief executive of the Veterans Health Foundation, which administers the trials. ‘They had the lab kits on site. They had the drug to dispense. But they couldn’t get the clinical research coordinator renewed.’” Here’s a Washington Post report from Texas: “Jaylee Williams needed to find somewhere to deliver her son. The 19-year-old knew more about barrel racing on her horse Bet-n-pep than the complicated metrics of who takes what health insurance. But relief for Williams and her boyfriend, Xander Lopez, came when they realized Medina Regional Hospital — just 15 minutes from their home — accepted Medicaid, the federal-state program that covers medical costs for lower-income Americans. “Provider groups an hour away in San Antonio had refused to take the insurance, she recalled while cradling little Ryker. ‘You never know when something could happen,’ Williams said, with Lopez adding, ‘I have no idea where we would have gone’ without Medina Regional Hospital. But the lifeline that the 25-bed critical-access hospital offered to Williams and Lopez could disappear in Hondo and other communities like it.”  That’s because rural hospitals are fearing “massive Medicaid cuts,” since they’re so dependent on the federal-state program. Trump says he will not allow cuts to Medicaid, as well as Medicare and Social Security, but that would be the only way Republicans could save a promised $80 billion. Some 72 million people are on Medicaid. In the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire says Trump’s shift on DOGE began on Feb. 19. “Jesse Watters, a co-host of the Fox News hit show ‘The Five’…told a surprisingly emotional story about a friend working at the Pentagon who was poised to lose his job as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the federal workforce. ‘I finally found one person I knew who got DOGE’d, and it hit me in the heart,’ said Watters, who urged his Fox colleagues to ‘be a little bit less callous.’… “Trump watched the clip and asked advisers if it was resonating with his base of supporters, according to one of three White House officials I spoke with for this story.”  Lemire adds that “over the ensuing weeks, the president grew unhappy with the television coverage of cuts affecting his voters, according to two of those officials, while the White House fielded calls from Cabinet members and Republican lawmakers frustrated by Elon Musk.” MUSK VOWS TO TRACE HACKERS BEHIND ‘MASSIVE CYBERATTACK’ CRIPPLING X SOCIAL MEDIA SITE Trump decreed that agency heads should make the layoffs and cutbacks, and Musk should step in only if they fail to take action. The move also may be aimed at the various lawsuits against Trump, since Musk is only supposed to be an adviser and not a government employee. Tensions have been rising behind the scenes (as well as publicly at town hall meetings, to the point that the GOP urged its members to stop holding the events). As the Times reports: “Marco Rubio was incensed. Here he was in the Cabinet Room of the White House, the Secretary of State, seated beside the president and listening to a litany of attacks from the richest man in the world. Seated diagonally opposite, across the elliptical mahogany table, Elon Musk was letting Mr. Rubio have it, accusing him of failing to slash his staff. You have fired ‘nobody,’ Mr. Musk told Mr. Rubio, then scornfully added that perhaps the only person he had fired was a staff member from Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Mr. Rubio had been privately furious with Mr. Musk for weeks, ever since his team effectively shuttered an entire agency that was supposedly under Mr. Rubio’s control: the United States Agency for International Development. But, in the extraordinary cabinet meeting on Thursday in front of President Trump and around 20 others — details of which have not been reported before — Mr. Rubio got his grievances off his chest. Mr. Musk was not being truthful, Mr. Rubio said. What about the more than 1,500 State Department officials who took early retirement in buyouts? Didn’t they count as layoffs? He asked, sarcastically, whether Mr. Musk wanted him to rehire all those people just so he could make a show of firing them again. Then he laid out his detailed plans for reorganizing the State Department. “Mr. Musk was unimpressed.