quote:

Originally posted by oddball:
Tim Pool in the White House press briefing, asking a very pertinent question.

I cannot understand how Tim can speak so disrespectfully of the El Salvadoran Ward Cleaver.


.

Trump to sign executive order targeting ActBlue foreign donation, fraud allegations

https://justthenews.com/govern..._campaign=newsletter

President Donald Trump is planning to sign as early as Thursday an executive order to crack down on foreign straw donors in elections, instructing federal agencies to take action on concerns raised by Congress and chronicled by Just the News about the progressive online fundraising platform ActBlue, according to multiple officials.

The order will put the Justice Department as the lead in deciding whether any criminal charges or lawsuits should be filed against ActBlue, which has admitted it did not follow common anti-fraud protections for much of the 2024 election even as it processed hundreds of millions of dollars for Democrat-affiliated campaigns and causes.

The order will also empower agencies to devise further protection to avoid foreign interference or cheating in future elections.

The House Administration, Judiciary and Oversight committees launched probes last year into the company, uncovering evidence the platform changed its donation policies twice during the 2024 election cycle to make its standards “more lenient” and processed donations from foreign sources, Just the News reported earlier this month.

According to internal company documents reviewed by the committees, during the 2024 campaign cycle, ActBlue issued new standards encouraging staff to “look for reasons to accept contributions.” Before the policy change, the platform already failed to require CVV numbers for credit card transactions, increasing fraud risks.

An internal assessment by the company determined the policy change led to “between 14 and 28 additional fraudulent contributions each month.” Between September 2022 and November 2024, ActBlue recorded up to 1,900 fraudulent transactions in total, but the report authors claim the suspicious donations are far more “widespread.”

The documents also show the platform began monitoring potential fraudulent donations from several foreign sources, including hundreds of donations from Brazil, Colombia, India, Iraq, the Philippines and Saudi Arabia, and other countries.

These fraudulent donations raised concerns among Members of Congress investigating ActBlue that the platform may have violated the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, which states persons who “knowingly accept a contribution made by one person in the name of another person’ may face criminal liability.”

Donations from foreign nationals for American campaigns are also illegal under federal law.

The three House committees leading the investigation recently escalated their probe into the platform, demanding that four former officials appear for transcribed interviews. The committees sent letters last week to former general counsel Darrin Hurwitz, former Assistant Director of Research Natalie Niemeyer, former Chief Revenue Officer Peter Slutsky, and former Vice President of Customer Service Alyssa Twomey, who have each resigned from their role since February amid reported allegations of “internal retaliation” and chaos at the company.

Former New Mexico judge and his wife arrested for allegedly housing suspected Tren de Aragua member

https://justthenews.com/govern..._campaign=newsletter

Former Doña Ana County Magistrate Judge Joel Cano and his wife, Nancy Cano, were arrested in New Mexico on Thursday after FBI agents raided their home over suspicion of housing a suspected illegal gang member.

Joel Cano resigned his post last month and the state Supreme Court permanently barred him from holding a judicial office in the state on Tuesday over the allegations they took in an illegal migrant, who was also a suspected member of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

The couple are expected to be charged with evidence tampering, according to Fox News, after the migrant Cristhian Ortega-Lopez was arrested at their residence in February. Documents allegedly showed that Nancy Cano hired the migrant for home repairs, and offered him housing.

"Under President Trump, we have arrested over 150,000 aliens—including more than 600 members of the vicious Tren de Aragua gang," Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said. "If you are here illegally and break the law, we will hunt you down, arrest you and lock you up. That's a promise."

Evidence obtained in the FBI raid also allegedly link Ortega-Lopez to the Venezuelan gang.

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
Former New Mexico judge and his wife arrested for allegedly housing suspected Tren de Aragua member

https://justthenews.com/govern..._campaign=newsletter

Former Doña Ana County Magistrate Judge Joel Cano and his wife, Nancy Cano, were arrested in New Mexico on Thursday after FBI agents raided their home over suspicion of housing a suspected illegal gang member.

Joel Cano resigned his post last month and the state Supreme Court permanently barred him from holding a judicial office in the state on Tuesday over the allegations they took in an illegal migrant, who was also a suspected member of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

The couple are expected to be charged with evidence tampering, according to Fox News, after the migrant Cristhian Ortega-Lopez was arrested at their residence in February. Documents allegedly showed that Nancy Cano hired the migrant for home repairs, and offered him housing.

"Under President Trump, we have arrested over 150,000 aliens—including more than 600 members of the vicious Tren de Aragua gang," Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said. "If you are here illegally and break the law, we will hunt you down, arrest you and lock you up. That's a promise."

Evidence obtained in the FBI raid also allegedly link Ortega-Lopez to the Venezuelan gang.

Could the judge be on the cartels take? Say it ain’t so! Better take a freaking good look at every case he ever adjudicated.

He is a terrorist sympathizer

Magistrate judges in New Mexico are the old Justice of the Peace. He is a former police officer and spent 11 years as a magistrate judge. Could have resigned to protect his pension. Dona Ana County is solidly blue and the arrest was probably waiting on the new US attorney for the state. Frankly, I was surprised he was arrested. Dems take care of their own in New Mexico.

quote:

Frankly, I was surprised he was arrested. Dems take care of their own in New Mexico.

He was arrested by Federal officers, not State.

Looking a lot less smug these days, Tish.

FBI arrests Wisconsin judge for allegedly helping illegal migrant 'evade arrest'

https://justthenews.com/govern..._campaign=newsletter

FBI Director Kash Patel on Friday announced the arrest of a Milwaukee judge who allegedly helped an illegal migrant "evade arrest."

Patel said that Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested on obstruction charges.

"We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject – an illegal alien – to evade arrest," Patel wrote on the social media platform X.

He said Flores Ruiz was also arrested, and more information would be made available soon.

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
FBI arrests Wisconsin judge for allegedly helping illegal migrant 'evade arrest'

About time we brought the heat on these assholes.

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
FBI arrests Wisconsin judge for allegedly helping illegal migrant 'evade arrest'

https://justthenews.com/govern..._campaign=newsletter

FBI Director Kash Patel on Friday announced the arrest of a Milwaukee judge who allegedly helped an illegal migrant "evade arrest..."

IIRC, a Boston judge did something similar a year or two back. I could not find it after a quick search.

Nothing happened to her, let's hope DoJ goes after her as well.

More information here:

FBI Arrests Wisconsin Judge Accused Of Helping Illegal Immigrant Hide From ICE: Patel

https://www.zerohedge.com/poli...grant-hide-ice-patel


https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1915795091429396707

As for Letitia claiming "Mistakenly", bullcrap. She notarized that statement. She's in big trouble.

I think I know the answer but going to ask anyway.

The dems are suing Trump over tariffs and everything else under the moon.

Who pays for all of the lawyers involved in this? I assume we are paying through our taxes right or are campaign contributions used?

Seems like it should cost them instead of us if they loose. Maybe it would eliminate a lot of this crap.

If they're gov't. employees, they're salaried and get paid the same whether they're in meetings or in court. That doesn't really get me exercised. If they're hiring DC super lawyers and paying their hourly rates out of Congressional committee budgets, then I'd be pretty chapped about that.

quote:

Originally posted by Mustang-PaPa:
I think I know the answer but going to ask anyway.

The dems are suing Trump over tariffs and everything else under the moon.

Who pays for all of the lawyers involved in this? I assume we are paying through our taxes right or are campaign contributions used?

Seems like it should cost them instead of us if they loose. Maybe it would eliminate a lot of this crap.

Well it's Soro's and ActBlue and other wealthy communists who run the D party taking the initiative, we all know it's part of the plan to slow it down until midterms where they'll spend billions to get the house back and stop DJT.

Taxpayers are funding the defense against these suits, as the government is the one getting sued.

Problem is the Senate, the house can't get anything done because we don't have 60+ seats, if you want these suits stopped you need 60+. Then all this can be done legislatively and we'll win big time.

quote:

Originally posted by Mustang-PaPa:
I think I know the answer but going to ask anyway.

The dems are suing Trump over tariffs and everything else under the moon.

Who pays for all of the lawyers involved in this? I assume we are paying through our taxes right or are campaign contributions used?

Seems like it should cost them instead of us if they loose. Maybe it would eliminate a lot of this crap.

Taxes pay for the defense of President Trump's actions. Kinda nice to have an unlimited budget to spend on litigation.

My question is "Why?"

Besides the President's actions being needed to save our Republic, was the plan to use these actions to expose the very people who are trying to destroy the last best hope of people wanting only freedom from tyranny? I'm getting inclined to believe so.

This is why, among other nefarious reasons..

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1915802590937587923

^^^^
Given the above comments about illegals skewing the House of Reps causing an over-representation of Dems, maybe the number of reps in the House needs to be expanded. The below article was written in 2018, but it has only gotten worse in constituency size.

https://www.pewresearch.org/sh...size-as-in-taft-era/

U.S. population keeps growing, but House of Representatives is same size as in Taft era

The U.S. House of Representatives has one voting member for every 747,000 or so Americans. That’s by far the highest population-to-representative ratio among a peer group of industrialized democracies, and the highest it’s been in U.S. history. And with the size of the House capped by law and the country’s population continually growing, the representation ratio likely will only get bigger.

In the century-plus since the number of House seats first reached its current total of 435 (excluding nonvoting delegates), the representation ratio has more than tripled – from one representative for every 209,447 people in 1910 to one for every 747,184 as of last year.

The first Congress (1789-91) had 65 House members, the number provided for in the Constitution until the first census could be held. Based on an estimated population for the 13 states of 3.7 million, there was one representative for every 57,169 people. (At the time, Kentucky was part of Virginia, Maine was part of Massachusetts, and Tennessee was part of North Carolina. Vermont governed itself as an independent republic, despite territorial claims by New York.)

By the time the first apportionment bill took effect in March 1793, Vermont and Kentucky already had joined the Union; the 15 states had a total population of 3.89 million. Since the apportionment law provided for 105 House members, there was one representative for every 37,081 people.

For more than a century thereafter, as the U.S. population grew and new states were admitted, the House’s membership grew too (except for two short-lived contractions in the mid-1800s). The expansion generally was managed in such a way that, even as the representation ratio steadily rose, states seldom lost seats from one apportionment to the next.

That process ran aground in the 1920s. The 1920 census revealed a “major and continuing shift” of the U.S. population from rural to urban areas; when the time came to reapportion the House, as a Census Bureau summary puts it, rural representatives “worked to derail the process, fearful of losing political power to the cities.” In fact, the House wasn’t reapportioned until after the 1930 census; the 1929 law authorizing that census also capped the size of the House at 435. And there it has remained, except for a brief period from 1959 to 1963 when the chamber temporarily added two members to represent the newly admitted states of Alaska and Hawaii.

There have been occasional proposals to add more seats to the House to reflect population growth. One is the so-called “Wyoming Rule,” which would make the population of the smallest state (currently Wyoming) the basis for the representation ratio. Depending on which variant of that rule were adopted, the House would have had 545 to 547 members following the 2010 census.

However, a recent Pew Research Center survey found limited public support for adding new House seats. Only 28% of Americans said the House should be expanded, versus 51% who said it should remain at 435 members. When historical context was added to the question, support for expansion rose a bit, to 34%, with the additional support coming mainly from Democrats.

How the U.S. compares globally

The House’s hefty representation ratio makes the United States an outlier among its peers. Our research finds that the U.S. ratio is the highest among the 35 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, most of them highly developed, democratic states.

We took the most recent population estimate for each OECD nation and divided it by the current number of seats in the lower chamber of each national legislature (or, in the case of unicameral bodies, the single chamber). After the U.S., the two countries with the highest representation ratios are Japan (one lawmaker for every 272,108 Japanese) and Mexico (one for every 247,965 Mexicans). Iceland had the lowest ratio: one member of the Althing for every 5,500 or so Icelanders.

While much of the cross-national disparity in representation ratios can be explained by the big population of the U.S. (with more than 325 million people it’s the largest country in the OECD), that’s not the only reason. Eight OECD countries have larger lower chambers than the U.S. House, with Germany’s Bundestag topping the league table with 709 members. The British House of Commons has 650 MPs (Members of Parliament); Italy’s Chamber of Deputies has 630 lawmakers.

Even if Congress decided to expand the size of the House, the large U.S. population puts some practical limits on how much the representation ratio could be lowered. If the House were to grow as large as the Bundestag, for instance, the ratio would fall only to one representative per 458,428 people. In order to reduce the ratio to where it was after the 1930 census, the House would need to have 1,156 members. (That would still be smaller than China’s National People’s Congress, the largest national legislature in the world with 2,980 members.)