Author: nick

[ad_1] Selene Varela pleaded guilty to theft concerning a program receiving federal funds and faces up to 10 years in federal prison for stealing money meant to help homeless people during the COVID-19 pandemic. While working in the Community Development Department in Amarillo, Texas, Varela created fake landlords, tenants, and housing applications so she could steal $41,350 in federal housing aid, even paying her own rent for six months with housing vouchers. Authorities said she cashed the fraudulent payments through relatives while working remotely during the pandemic. Two other former city employees also pleaded guilty in related cases: Varela’s supervisor,…

[ad_1] As the U.S. and Israeli governments flirt with peace with Iran while preparing to unleash Armageddon, the struggles within the American Mainland continue to percolate. In March, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were deployed at major U.S airports as part of a strategy that is just as opaque as the Trump administration’s Middle East policy. The ICE deployment is the latest plot twist in the great American immigration saga. The immigration issue has divided the nation. It has driven wedges among libertarians and between libertarians and our natural anti-war allies. The maximalist opposing positions are: The federal government…

[ad_1] This photograph was staged by photographer Solomon D. Butcher to illustrate fence cutters and the tensions between farmers and ranchers created by the appearance of homesteads on the open range. It is unlikely, however, that these desperadoes were likely to do much damage with their wooden wire cutters, a detail lost on many historians over the years who published this photograph as a historical event. (Nebraska State Historical Society) Long before the Lone Star State started shifting, in the 1990s, from blue to red—after a century of Democratic Party domination—some working-class Texans had a reputation for being a different…

[ad_1] Ray McGovern discusses the immediate threat to Cuba in the context of the history of U.S. hostility to the Caribbean island stretching back to his earliest days at the C.I.A. in 1963, just months after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Guest: Ray McGovern. Host: Joe Lauria. Producer: Cathy Vogan. Please Donate to the Spring Fund Drive!   [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] American political successions in recent years happen counterintuitively: implicit hand-offs between two nominally opposing sides. This strange reality is where we derive our notion of “the uniparty” and the media its notion of “partisanship.” Through the “partisan” lens favored by media, our politics appears divided between a party, the Republicans, in hock to Israel, the “big five” weapons contractors, real estate, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley; and a party, the Democrats, in hock to powerful “progressive” or “Left” nonprofits like ActBlue, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Center for American Progress, and the Open Society Foundations. But the “uniparty”…

[ad_1] Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain Surprise!  The Trump-appointed federal Commission of Fine Arts approved construction of the 250-foot triumphal arch that the president plans to erect between Washington’s Lincoln Memorial and the Arlington National Cemetery.  And this despite Trump’s rejection of the Commission’s recommendation to 86 (if you’ll pardon the expression) the giant golden angel and eagles that he insists will top a structure almost twice the height of Paris’s Arc de Triomphe.  Most discussion of the Arc de Trump has focused on the project’s proposed size, statuary details, location, and legal authorization. The dominant themes…

[ad_1] “Farthest fall the virtuous with feet of clay.” The nationalist former first minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, and her husband, Scottish National Party CEO Peter Murrell, dominated Scottish politics for a decade and arguably came close to breaking up Britain. Their project ended in ignominy Monday, as Murrell was led in handcuffs from the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh, where he had pleaded guilty to embezzling more than £400,000 of SNP funds. There is a special irony in his tawdry tale of petty larceny and greed. The pair always conveyed an image of honest Scottish moderation. They lived…

[ad_1] Reinink v. Hart presented an excessive force claim under the Fourth Amendment. The case was rescheduled three times and relisted after eight conferences. On May 26, the Court finally denied certiorari. But there was an unusual notation: Petition DENIED. Justice Thomas and Justice Alito would grant the petition and summarily reverse for essentially the reasons given in Judge Larsen’s separate opinion. See Hart v. Grand Rapids, 138 F. 4th 409, 426–428 (CA6 2025). It is not uncommon for a Justice to dissent from the denial of certiorari, and maintain they would have summarily reversed the lower court. I found…

[ad_1] Great nations are rarely destroyed in the way Hollywood imagines. Most people still think empires collapse under missile strikes, invasions, assassinations, revolutions, or dramatic military defeats broadcast live across television screens. History, however, tells a colder and far more disturbing story. The strongest civilizations usually begin dying financially long before the population realizes anything irreversible has started. Military decline only becomes visible later, after the economic foundations supporting the empire have already begun cracking underneath the surface. Rome did not suddenly wake up one morning and discover barbarians had magically become stronger than the empire itself. Rome exhausted its…

[ad_1] INDIAN SPRINGS AIR FORCE AUXILIARY FIELD, Nev. – A B-1 Lancer performs a fly-by during a firepower demonstration here recently. The bomber is from the 7th Bomb Wing at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Robert W. Valenca) A top US military official told their European counterparts that Washington plans to provide NATO with fewer warplanes, drones, and refueling tankers.  The German outlet Der Spiegel reports that Department of War official Alexander Velez-Green briefed high-ranking representatives from NATO member states that the US will curtail its military support to the alliance. The military…