Five PA counties charged more than $21 million for immigration detention

Five county jails in Pennsylvania have or recently had agreements with federal immigration enforcement agencies to hold people in their jails, sometimes for months, in exchange for significant fees, Spotlight PA found, according to Spotlight PA.

Clinton, Erie, Franklin, and Pike Counties collectively charged more than $21 million for detention in 2024 and 2025, invoices obtained by Spotlight PA show. A fifth county, Cambria, has a similar detention arrangement, according to federal records and a county official — but denied Spotlight PA’s September 2025 request seeking payment information because ICE did not start sending detainees to its jail until later in the month.

Local government officials in favor of the agreements told Spotlight PA that the revenue generated supports services such as the county jail or general fund expenses.

“You’re always going to have pushback one way or another, but we haven’t really experienced it to this point,” Cambria County Commissioner Scott Hunt told Spotlight PA in early March. “This is a relationship that has gone back many years.

To read more CLICK HERE

Trump ally Lewandowski sought payment for DHS contract

More than a year ago, The GEO Group founder George Zoley asked for a meeting with Corey Lewandowski, a close ally of President Donald Trump who had just started a powerful position as a top adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, reported NBC News.

As a titan of the private prison industry, GEO Group stood to benefit from Trump’s mass deportation agenda, which would require the federal government to spend tens of billions of dollars to transport, detain, monitor and deport undocumented immigrants. The company’s federal contracts in those areas already totaled more than $1 billion per year.

But Zoley and his advisers were worried that the road to securing new government contracts now ran through Lewandowski. The two had history: Lewandowski and Zoley had butted heads during the transition between Trump’s November 2024 election and his January 2025 inauguration, before Lewandowski officially worked for the government, according to two industry sources and one senior DHS official familiar with the matter.

During the transition, Lewandowski told Zoley that he wanted to be paid in exchange for protecting and growing GEO Group’s DHS contracts, according to a senior DHS official and three people familiar with their discussion. Zoley, concerned about the propriety of the ask, told Lewandowski he would have no part of it, the sources said, describing the confrontation as tense.

Lewandowski took a role as an unpaid “special government employee” at DHS once the new administration was sworn in, where he advised and acted as a “de facto chief of staff” to Noem and, sources said, influenced contract awards. Zoley scrambled to find a way to assuage tensions from the meeting during the transition, two industry sources familiar with the matter said. He secured a follow-up with Lewandowski in late February or early March 2025.

That second meeting did not go much better.

Zoley offered to put Lewandowski on retainer — a recurring consulting fee — with GEO Group, according to two industry sources familiar with the matter.

Lewandowski balked, saying he wanted to be compensated based on the company’s new or renewed contracts with DHS, the two sources said.

“He wanted payments — what some people would call a success fee,” said a person with knowledge of the meeting.

Zoley declined, the two sources said. In the months that followed, the length of two of GEO Group’s federal contracts shrank, and currently several of its facilities that could house migrants sit idle, even as Congress and Trump have poured money into DHS to execute the mass deportation campaign. GEO Group officials believe that is tied to their not agreeing to Lewandowski’s solicitations, said a source familiar with the GEO Group officials’ thinking.

A senior DHS official told NBC News that within weeks of Lewandowski’s second meeting with Zoley, Lewandowski told him not to award more contracts to GEO Group. Lewandowski, through a spokesperson, denied that. Months later, in December 2025, GEO Group did receive a new contract for $121 million for services that help locate immigrants DHS is trying to find.

Lewandowski‘s spokesperson denied this account of his interactions with GEO Group. “This is absolutely false and did not happen — Mr. Lewandowski never demanded any payment or compensation from the Geo Group, at any time,” his representative said.

Asked whether he has ever received “any money from any of the contracts” he has signed off on, Lewandowski previously told NBC News in an interview, “zero, not one penny.”

To read more CLICK HERE

Federal government usurps state authority in violation of the 10th Amendment

On Jan. 12, one particularly crucial case was filed by the state of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, arguing that the federal Metro Surge operation—deploying thousands of ICE and other federal agents to the Twin Cities—violates the 10th Amendment, writes IIya Somin at Lawfare. That amendment states that “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” In a series of decisions supported primarily by conservative justices, such as Printz v. United States (1997) (written by conservative icon Justice Antonin Scalia), the Supreme Court has held that the federal government cannot “commandeer” state and local officials to do the federal government’s bidding, or to help enforce federal laws.

Control over state and local government personnel is one of the powers reserved to the states by the 10th Amendment. In addition, as legal scholar Michael Rappaport has shown, the original meaning of the Constitution indicates that such control is a basic element of the sovereignty inherent in being a state in the first place.

Minnesota and the two Twin Cities are among the jurisdictions that have “sanctuary policies” restricting state and local law enforcement assistance to federal immigration enforcement operations. Sanctuary jurisdictions have, for good reason, concluded that their law enforcement resources are better used to combat violent and property crime, rather than helping deport undocumented immigrants. As Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey puts it, “The job of our police is to keep people safe, not enforce fed immigration laws. I want them preventing homicides, not hunting down a working dad who contributes to [Minneapolis] & is from Ecuador.” The latter actually have much lower crime rates than native-born citizens, and many of those the administration seeks to deport have no criminal records at all. Local and state participation in deportation efforts also makes it more difficult to combat crime by poisoning relations between law enforcement agencies and minority communities.

Part of the purpose of the federal “surge” is to coerce Minnesota jurisdictions into giving up their sanctuary policies and using their resources to assist federal deportation efforts. As federal District Judge Katherine Menendez noted in a hearing in the case on Jan. 26, Trump administration officials have repeatedly indicated that this is one of their objectives. Attorney General Pam Bondi suggested as much in a Jan. 24 letter to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. A Jan. 16 White House statement explicitly indicates that Minnesota’s “sanctuary defiance” is “responsibl[e] for the enhanced enforcement operations in Minnesota.” A recent statement by Trump “border czar” Tom Homan indicates that the administration will not withdraw immigration enforcement officers from Minnesota unless state and local governments curb sanctuary policies and extend “cooperation” to federal immigration enforcers.

In addition, Bondi’s letter demands access to Minnesota’s voter rolls, linking those to the surge. That demand constitutes additional intrusion onto state autonomy in violation of the 10th Amendment. The Elections Clause of the Constitution explicitly gives states primary control over elections. While Congress can enact legislation imposing restrictions on state autonomy, no such legislation authorizes Bondi’s demands here, and courts have repeatedly rejected the administration’s demands for voter data from state governments, which one recent ruling described as “unprecedented and illegal.” With the notable exception of Homan’s comments, these and other statements fall short of demanding an explicit quid pro quo. But they provide strong evidence that the operations in Minnesota are intended to coerce the state into surrendering its autonomy on immigration and other issues.

The Minnesota case is not exactly analogous to previous anti-commandeering rulings by federal courts. But that is in part because it represents an even more blatant violation of the 10th Amendment. In Printz and other cases, such as New York v. United States (1992) and Murphy v. NCAA, the Supreme Court struck down congressional legislation requiring states to help enforce various types of federal laws, or to enact legislation of their own. In a series of decisions during the first Trump administration, and continuing in the second, numerous lower federal courts ruled that the president cannot order states to aid in immigration enforcement actions, and cannot withhold federal funds from sanctuary jurisdictions in cases where doing so would be “coercive” or Congress had not authorized immigration-related conditions on recipients.

To read more CLICK HERE

 

Propaganda failed at times for even the master purveyors of deceit

As the airwaves are flooded with government propaganda about the homicide of Renee Nicole Good at the hands of an ICE agent in Minneapolis, we are reminded that sometimes propaganda backfired on even the master purveyors of deceit. 

Hessy Levinsons Taft, who as an infant appeared on the cover of a Nazi magazine in Germany promoting her as the ideal Aryan baby, a distinction complicated by the fact that she was Jewish and had been exploited as part of a dangerous hoax, died on Jan. 1 at her home in San Francisco. She was 91.

Her death was confirmed by her family, reported The New York Times.

Terrifying at first, the story eventually became a source of pride for Mrs. Taft and her parents for the way it neatly illustrated the absurd pseudoscience underlying Adolf Hitler’s racial ideology.

“I feel a sense of revenge,” she said much later. “Good revenge.”

The episode began in 1934, when Hessy was 6 months old and her parents, Latvian opera singers living in Berlin, hired the well-known photographer Hans Ballin to take her portrait.

After framing the photo, her parents displayed it on their piano. One day, the woman who cleaned their home noticed it and told Hessy’s mother that she had seen her daughter on the cover of a magazine.

“My mother thought surely she must be mistaken, that there are many babies that look alike, and just told her, ‘Well, that couldn’t be the case,’” Mrs. Taft said in an interview with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1990.

The woman insisted that it was the same baby. “Just give me some money,” she said, “and I’ll get you the magazine.”

Soon she returned with a copy of Sonne ins Haus, or Sun in the Home, one of several pro-Nazi magazines that were allowed to circulate in the country after Hitler had shut down thousands of other publications. And there, on the cover, was the portrait from the piano.

Hessy’s mother flipped through the pages.

“On the inside of the magazine were pictures of the army with men wearing swastikas,” Mrs. Taft told the Holocaust museum. “My parents were horrified.”

Her mother went to Mr. Ballin’s studio and showed him the magazine. “What is this?” she said. “How did this happen?”

He told her that the Nazis had invited him to submit photos for a contest to find a baby representing the epitome of the Aryan race, and Hessy was among those he included in his submission. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of public enlightenment and propaganda, chose the winner.

To read more CLICK HERE

The trappings of royalty: 'America's wannabe King'

When President Trump hosted the crown prince of Saudi Arabia last month, he pulled out all the stops. To the traditional pomp of a formal White House visit, he added a few even fancier touches: a stirring military flyover, a procession of black horses and long, regal tables for the lavish dinner in the East Room instead of the typical round tables.

For surprised White House veterans who were paying attention, the unusual flourishes looked a little familiar. Just two months earlier, King Charles III of Britain welcomed Mr. Trump for a state visit that included, yes, a stirring military flyover, a procession of black horses and a long, regal table for the lavish dinner in St. George’s Hall at Windsor Palace.

In his first year back in office, reported The New York Times, Mr. Trump has unabashedly adopted the trappings of royalty just as he has asserted virtually unbridled power to transform American government and society to his liking. In both pageantry and policy, Mr. Trump has established a new, more audacious version of the imperial presidency that goes far beyond even the one associated with Richard M. Nixon, for whom the term was popularized half a century ago.

He no longer holds back, or is held back, as in the first term. Trump 2.0 is Trump 1.0 unleashed. The gold trim in the Oval Office, the demolition of the East Wing to be replaced by a massive ballroom, the plastering of his name and face on government buildings and now even the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the designation of his own birthday as a free-admission holiday at national parks — it all speaks to a personal aggrandizement and accumulation of power with meager resistance from Congress or the Supreme Court.

Nearly 250 years after American colonists threw off their king, this is arguably the closest the country has come during a time of general peace to the centralized authority of a monarch. Mr. Trump takes it upon himself to reinterpret a constitutional amendment and to eviscerate agencies and departments created by Congress. He dictates to private institutions how to run their affairs. He sends troops into American streets and wages an unauthorized war against nonmilitary boats in the Caribbean. He openly uses law enforcement for what his own chief of staff calls “score settling” against his enemies, he dispenses pardons to favored allies and he equates criticism to sedition punishable by death.

To read more CLICK HERE

George Washington's first Thanksgiving 'a civic celebration in which “we may then all unite"'

 Maurizio Valsania writing for The Conversation:

On Thursday, Nov. 26, 1789, George Washington woke early. Assisted by his enslaved valets – William “Billy” Lee and the young Christopher Sheels – he powdered his hair, put on his favorite black velvet suit, tied his white neckwear and donned his yellow gloves.

Finally ready, he set out to travel the short distance from the President’s House, at what used to be 3 Cherry St., New York, and St. Paul’s Chapel, which still stands at 209 Broadway.

He had an important aim that day: to celebrate Thanksgiving. Washington had thought carefully about this Thanksgiving, the first of his presidency. On Oct. 3, 1789, following the recommendation of a joint committee of the Senate and House of Representatives, Washington had issued a proclamation. He urged the people of the United States to celebrate “a day of public thanksgiving and prayer.”

But Washington believed that particular Thanksgiving in 1789 was a crucial occasion. He would use it to call on the people he now led to hold their new country together in the face of forces that he knew could pull it apart.

Devotion in the service of unity

It was not the first Thanksgiving Americans celebrated. The first took place at Plymouth colony in the autumn of 1621 – Pilgrims held a feast to thank God for their first harvest and invited members of the neighboring Wampanoag tribe.

It was not even the first national Thanksgiving – which was held on Dec. 18, 1777, at then-General Washington’s behest. Nor was Thanksgiving yet a federal holiday to be observed every last Thursday of November – it became so with the 1863 proclamation of President Abraham Lincoln.

Nov. 26, 1789, was a Thursday, and the weather was miserable. Few New Yorkers showed up at St. Paul’s Chapel to see the president: “I went to St. Pauls Chapel,” Washington wrote in his diary, “though it was most inclement and stormy.” There were “but few people at Church.”

The president had prepared for the occasion. He also contributed a sizable sum of his own money to buy beer and food for prisoners confined for debt in the New York City jail. The donation was deemed to be a magnanimous and moving gesture, suitable to the spirit of the holiday. A week later, in an advertisement in the Dec. 3 issue of the New York Journal, those very prisoners returned their “grateful thanks” to their president “for his very acceptable donation on Thursday last.”

Washington’s first Thanksgiving as a president may have not been tremendously successful, given the scarce attendance at the church service.

Yet, as a scholar writing a biography about Washington, I believe it was an important step in his much larger political plan to bring the executive branch to the people’s doorstep.

What Washington wanted was a virtuous kind of populism in the new country he led. Washington’s populism wasn’t about inciting an angry mob; it was about sharing in their rituals, worshiping their God, speaking their own language. And he did so in the sole interest of the American people.

Thanksgiving 1789, for Washington, was at once religious and more than religious. Washington’s proclamation invoked devotional language, literally. The upcoming festivity, in his words, could “be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.”

But Washington’s main concern was political. The nation was recently formed, and he feared that it could easily collapse. Its many internal divisions and separate interests could be lethal. Consequently, the president wanted this holiday to be a civic celebration in which “we may then all unite.”

‘Pardon our national…transgressions’

As its first president, Washington recognized that the United States was born out of slavery, conquest and violence as much as of sacred principle. Civic unification required acknowledgment of these flaws. Thus, in the proclamation, Washington asked God “to pardon our national and other transgressions.”

A tremendously self-aware man, Washington knew that he was a deeply flawed person himself.

He was a slave owner, a relentless pursuer of African American fugitives and a destroyer of Native American villages. He was also a warrior who deployed brutality against enemies. He was a commander who resorted to corporal punishment with his own soldiers. Washington believed that he was not a saint to be mindlessly imitated. This made him humble in his duties.

More importantly, Washington also grasped the power of his symbolic position as president. He sought to leverage that for the good of the nation.

As president, Washington could not advertise his actions effectively via Twitter and social media. He had to show himself around constantly, no matter the weather. He had to painstakingly attend balls, plays, dinners, public receptions and of course the church. Every occasion, every Thanksgiving counted.

Through his outings, Washington met with a diversity of people, including those who were second-class citizens or were not citizens at all. Women, for example, greeted Washington at nearly every stop of the extended presidential trips he took between 1789 and 1791. Textile workers in New England, Jewish leaders in Newport, many enslaved persons in the South and churchgoers everywhere did the same.

These women and men, in bondage or free, believers or skeptics, played a part in the invention of a new political theater. Maybe, it was just a theatrical illusion. But these individuals – just like the prisoners in the New York City jail – thanked President Washington because they felt they were voices in a larger political culture.

Washington made sure his Thanksgiving message – not simply a message, but a “proclamation” – sounded clear and strong: May God “render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed.”

To read more CLICK HERE

 

Lawyers face intensive scrutiny at the border

 Amir Makled thought he was being racially profiled. A Lebanese American who was born and raised in Detroit, the attorney was returning home from a family vacation in the Dominican Republic when he said an immigration official at the Detroit Metro airport asked for a “TTRT” agent after scanning his passport, reported The Guardian. Makled said the expression on the agent’s face changed. He felt something “odd” was happening.

“So I Googled what TTRT meant. I didn’t know,” Makled said. “And what I found out was it meant Tactical Terrorism Response Team. So immediately I knew they’re gonna take me in for questioning. And that’s when I felt like I was being racially profiled or targeted because I am Arab.”

But it quickly became apparent, Makled said, that the stop was different from the type of so-called random stop Muslims and Arab-Americans have become accustomed to at US airports. The plainclothes immigration officer said he knew who Makled was and what he did for a living, according to the lawyer; agents wanted to search his phone.

“They made it clear right off the top: ‘We know that you’re an attorney and we know that you’re taking on some higher-profile cases.’ I was like, ‘OK, well, what do you want from me?’” Makled recalled.

Among the high-profile cases Makled has taken on recently: a pro-Palestinian student protester who was arrested at a demonstration at the University of Michigan.

Sophia Cope, a senior staff attorney at the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, called the search of Makled’s phone “outrageous”.

“CBP or [the Department of Homeland Security] could not show up at this attorney’s office and say: ‘give me your contact list’ without a warrant,” Cope said. “That would be completely illegal. But because this guy is at the border, and they want it for potentially just domestic monitoring and enforcement, somehow now the fourth amendment goes away.”

Both citizens and non-citizens entering the US are potentially subject to having their phones searched at the border. Fourth amendment protections, which guard against “unreasonable search and seizure”, have been weakened at US points of entry. CBP’s role is to stop people or goods that could pose a threat to the US from entering the country. In the case of US citizens, CBP may pull a traveler whom agents have security concerns about – anything from drug or sex trafficking to espionage concerns – but must ultimately admit them into the country, Cope said.

However, there have been many recent cases of CBP pulling a US citizen about whom they have no border security concerns into a secondary screening at the behest of other federal agencies, Cope said. The FBI, for example, has in the past asked CBP to put flags on people’s travel profiles so that when they cross the border they are pulled into secondary inspection, she said.

“That may be because the person is under domestic investigation themselves or because the traveler is associated with somebody who’s under investigation and the government’s just trying to get around the warrant requirement,” Cope said.

Cope said that, based on the existing information, it doesn’t appear Makled’s stop was routine. “If they tell him: ‘We know you’re a lawyer,’ and then this terrorism flag popped up, that’s not routine, that’s pre-planned,” Cope said.

CBP has access to a vast array of databases through which agents can gain access to personal information about individuals who are traveling into or out of the US. One of these repositories may have contained a “lookout” designation for Makled, a flag on his file that can lead to a secondary screening. Those “lookouts” can remain on a person’s file as long as CBP deems them “pertinent”, according to documents revealed in a 2019 case in Massachusetts federal court.

W hen Makled was finally released around two hours after he was first detained, he asked the official if he should expect to be stopped every time he traveled abroad.

“He’s like, ‘You might be stopped next time,’” Makled said. “You might not. It depends on the agent that’s working.”

 To read more CLICK HERE

Trump Administration goes after New York Attorney General

"But let me be clear—this is a warning from the Trump administration: 'We are watching. Come after the President, and we are going to exact revenge.' The message is clear—if you're going to challenge Trump, you better be ready for the wrath of the United States government."

-Matthew T. Mangino-Newsweek

Wrap your head around this latest State Department directive

The Trump administration has ordered State Department employees to report on any instances of coworkers displaying “anti-Christian bias” 

The directive is part of the State Department's effort to implement a sweeping new executive order on supporting employees of Christian faith working in the federal government, reported POLITICO.

The department, according to a copy of an internal cable obtained by POLITICO, will work with an administration-wide task force to collect information “involving anti-religious bias during the last presidential administration” and will collect examples of anti-Christian bias through anonymous employee report forms.

We would do well at times like these to remember Sir Winston Churchill's words to the English people during the Second World War, "You see these dictators . . . They're afraid of words and thought . . .  A state of society where men may not speak their mind . . . where a businessman or small shopkeeper ruins his competitor by telling tales about his private opinion. Such a state of society cannot long endure . . ." 

The cable was sent out to embassies around the world under Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s name. The instructions also were released in a department-wide notice.

The document says the task force, which was established by the executive order, will meet around April 22 to discuss its initial findings.

The cable encourages State Department employees to report on one another through a tip form that can be anonymous. “Reports should be as detailed as possible, including names, dates, locations (e.g. post or domestic office where the incident occurred,” the cable reads.

Some State Department officials reacted to the cable with shock and alarm, saying that even if well-intentioned, it is based on the flawed premise that the department harbors anti-Christian bias to begin with, and warning it could create a culture of fear as the administration pushes employees to report on one another.

To read more CLICK HERE

A MUST READ: Maine Governor Mill's statement after challenging President Trump

 “I have spent my career — as a District Attorney, as Attorney General, and now as Governor — standing up for the rule of law in Maine and America. To me, that is fundamentally what is at stake here: the rule of law in our country.

“No President — Republican or Democrat — can withhold Federal funding authorized and appropriated by Congress and paid for by Maine taxpayers in an attempt to coerce someone into compliance with his will. It is a violation of our Constitution and of our laws, which I took an oath to uphold.

“Maine may one of the first states to undergo an investigation by his Administration, but we won’t be the last. Today, the President of the United States has targeted one particular group on one particular issue which Maine law has addressed. But you must ask yourself: who and what will he target next, and what will he do? Will it be you? Will it be because of your race or your religion? Will it be because you look different or think differently? Where does it end? In America, the President is neither a King nor a dictator, as much as this one tries to act like it – and it is the rule of law that prevents him from being so.

“I imagine that the outcome of this politically directed investigation is all but predetermined. My Administration will begin work with the Attorney General to defend the interests of Maine people in the court of law. But do not be misled: this is not just about who can compete on the athletic field, this is about whether a President can force compliance with his will, without regard for the rule of law that governs our nation. I believe he cannot.”

According to NPR, during remarks at a recent governors' event, Trump asked Maine Gov. Janet Mills if the state was going to comply with the order. Mills replied that she would comply with "state and federal law."

"Well, we are the federal law," Trump said. "You better do it, because you're not going to get any federal funding at all if you don't."

Mills then replied, "See you in court."

"Good, I'll see you in court," Trump said. "I look forward to that. That should be a real easy one. And enjoy your life after governor, because I don't think you'll be in elected politics."

To read more CLICK HERE

Connecticut company that furnished execution drugs to federal government stops production

 

A Connecticut chemicals manufacturer that was identified as having sold a lethal drug to the Trump administration for use in its execution spree has said that it will no longer produce the substance, according to a letter obtained by The Intercept.

John Criscio, the president of Absolute Standards, wrote to two Connecticut legislators last month that his company stopped manufacturing pentobarbital in December 2020. “We have no intention to resume any production or sale of pentobarbital,” Criscio added. 

The one-page letter, which has not previously been reported on, is the first formal acknowledgment by Criscio that his small family business was making pentobarbital, a barbiturate that has been used both by itself and in combination with other drugs to carry out lethal injection executions. 

The letter notes that the company had been registered with the Drug Enforcement Agency to manufacture pentobarbital, and it makes no mention of whether the company had provided execution drugs to the federal Bureau of Prisons. On two previous occasions, Criscio denied to The Intercept that his company had done so. The Intercept called Absolute Standards multiple times on Friday and was told that Criscio was not around. The company did not respond to an email requesting comment, nor did Criscio respond to messages sent to his personal email account. 

To read more CLICK HERE

'Deeply disturbing spike' in threats against government workers

Federal law enforcement has recorded a “deeply disturbing spike” in threats against government workers and public servants in recent months, Attorney General Merrick Garland told the Washington Post.

This week alone, officials are investigating bomb threats that forced evacuations at several courthouses and state capitols across the country. The attorney general said federal officials also arrested and charged a man for threatening to kill a congressman and his children.

 “This is just a small snapshot of a larger trend that has included threats of violence against those who administer elections, ensure our safe travel, teach our children, report the news, represent their constituents and keep our communities safe,” Garland said. “These threats of violence are unacceptable. They threaten our fabric of democracy.”

Garland made the comments ahead of a private meeting with law enforcement officials at Justice Department headquarters to discuss violent crime. The attorney general said officials would be discussing how best to “double down” on efforts to fight the rise in threats against government workers.

While threats are increasing, Garland said, homicide numbers across the country have declined. From 2021 to 2022, homicides dropped 6 percent. The attorney general also cited numbers from the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which reported a “double-digit decrease” in murders in 69 major cities between much of 2022 and 2023.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco told reporters that officials in Baltimore said homicides had dropped by more than 20 percent this past year. And Detroit recorded the fewest homicides last year since 1966 — along with double-digit reductions in shootings and carjackings, city officials said.

But the officials noted that not every jurisdiction has seen this decline in homicide rates. In D.C., for example, 2023 marked the city’s deadliest year in more than two decades. Garland said Friday’s meeting would cover which violent crime initiatives are working and which aren’t — and how best to apply the effective tactics in places such as D.C.

To read more CLICK HERE

 

Don't ignore the real threat of authoritarianism

The New York Times and the Washington Post each recently published news articles describing how Donald Trump intends in his second term to select political appointees who will unquestioningly follow his orders and turn the prosecutorial power of the Justice Department against his political adversaries, reported Press Watch.

What they were basically describing was a dictatorship, where one person makes all the rules, unchecked, and political opposition is considered a crime.

It is important, terrifying stuff.

But as the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch argued in a standout column on Sunday, the tone the reporters and editors chose was understated to the point of cowardice and apathy.

At the Times, he wrote, the editors “made sure to present this major report in the blandest, most inoffensive way possible — staying true to the mantra in the nation’s most influential newsroom that the 2024 election shouldn’t be covered any differently, even when U.S. democracy is on the line.”

(By contrast, Bunch called on journalists to use “the keyboard as a weapon to fight for democracy instead of dispassionately reporting, evenhandedly, on its slow death.” Amen!)

The Post’s word choices were similarly pusillanimous. After describing Trump’s plans to prosecute critics and have the military put down protests, the authors arrived at this whingey conclusion: “Critics have called such ideas dangerous and unconstitutional.”

That’s insufficient. The essential, missing context is: This is how democracies die.

Let me rewrite that for you.

The New York Times

The article by Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman was eventually headlined: “If Trump Wins, His Allies Want Lawyers Who Will Bless a More Radical Agenda”. (Gift link.)

That’s way better than the original headline: “Trump’s Allies Want a New Style of Lawyer if He Returns to Power.” I guess we should be grateful for that.

But neither comes close to telegraphing the truth. Let me rewrite that headline for you: “If Trump Wins, His Allies Want No Obstacles to Dictatorship”.

The Times subhead was “Politically appointed lawyers sometimes frustrated Donald J. Trump’s ambitions. His allies are planning to install more aggressive legal gatekeepers if he regains the White House.”

Let me rewrite that, too: “Politically appointed lawyers sometimes frustrated Donald J. Trump’s ambitions. His allies are planning to install enablers instead.”

To read more CLICK HERE

New Mexico governor uses public health order to stop the carrying of firearms

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) used a public health order to ban firearms in Albuquerque, a move that has garnered widespread criticism from Democrats and Republicans amid concerns that it could violate the Second Amendment, reported The Hill.

What does the order do?

Grisham’s declaration bans the carrying of firearms — both open and concealed carry — in parts of the state that meet a specific threshold of violent crime. Only the city of Albuquerque meets that threshold.

It applies to all public places, including government buildings and in open spaces. It will expire after 30 days unless Grisham opts to extend it.

Police and security personnel are exempt from the firearms ban.

Grisham cited a recent spate of shootings in the city, including one that killed an 11-year-old boy outside a minor league baseball game and a series of shootings targeting Muslim men last month.

“As I said yesterday, the time for standard measures has passed,” she said in a statement. “When New Mexicans are afraid to be in crowds, to take their kids to school, to leave a baseball game — when their very right to exist is threatened by the prospect of violence at every turn — something is very wrong.”

Will it be enforced?

Local police have come out against the measure. Both the Albuquerque Police Department and the local county sheriff have vowed not to enforce it.

Sheriff John Allen, a Democrat, said he did not feel comfortable enforcing a measure that could violate the Second Amendment.

“While I understand and appreciate the urgency, the temporary ban challenges the foundation of our constitution, which I swore an oath to uphold,” Allen said in a statement Friday.

To read more CLICK HERE

Accessing government officials personal social media posts in PA

 Min Xian writing for Spotlight PA:

A recent court decision raised the bar for when a government official’s personal social media posts are public records, and will likely make it more burdensome and costly for Pennsylvanians to get their hands on this information.

In an April opinion, Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court established a three-factor test to judge when social media posts made on public officials’ personal accounts should be accessible under the Right-to-Know Law.

Government agencies, the Office of Open Records, and the courts have the power to decide what records should be provided to the public. The test guides them to first examine the social media account in question, including its private or public status, its appearance or purpose, and any actual or apparent duty for public officials to operate it.

The court said agencies that receive open-records requests also should consider the contents of the account, if they “prove, support, or evidence a transaction or activity of an agency.”

The third factor to weigh is whether the person operating the account is acting in what the court calls their “official capacity.” Commonwealth Court cited a previous opinion that found a York Township commissioner’s emails on a personal computer weren’t public records because the township didn’t ratify, adopt, or confirm what the emails discussed.

“This is such a significant opinion because it is, in my opinion, a change of the law as it’s been developing,” Josh Bonn, an attorney practicing in open records and municipal law, told Spotlight PA.

A generally accepted interpretation prior to the April decision was that anytime a public official communicates about public business, “that’s presumed to be a public record.” Bonn said he felt the weight given to the official capacity factor in the court’s newly minted test was a departure from that rule of thumb.

The Office of Open Records — an independent agency that handles disputes over public record requests — had previously ruled that the contents of a social media account decide if they should be public records, and whether a government agency authorizes or controls those accounts was “immaterial” to the question.

All three factors should be assessed in a nonexclusive manner, the opinion said, meaning the agency or court tasked with deciding a record request can determine on a case-by-case basis how much weight each of the elements should carry. Legal experts said that leaves a lot of room for argument, and more litigation on this issue is likely on the horizon.

“There can be a lot of different permutations of how these accounts can be used, and this test allows those different permutations to be reviewed,” Bonn said. He added that Commonwealth Court performed a detailed analysis of relevant case laws in its opinion, and the matter is far from settled.

Courts and government officials nationwide are trying to determine the boundaries between official and personal speech on social media. Commonwealth Court Judge Lori Dumas acknowledged in the opinion that it’s an evolving legal issue, writing “this Court’s precedents are in apparent tension.”

“It will be important for agencies to remember that when in doubt, they should err on the side of openness because the [Right-to-Know] law favors access,” said Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, of which Spotlight PA is a member.

“Social media often provides an unfiltered window into public officials’ stance on important issues, and the public has a right to know where their elected officials stand,” she said.

To read more CLICK HERE

NAACP issues formal travel advisory for the state of Florida

Please be advised that Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals.

The NAACP Board of Directors issued a formal travel advisory for the state of Florida over a series of laws recently signed by Governor Ron DeSantis that the organization says “[attempt] to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools,” reported Jurist.

The travel advisory reads:

Please be advised that Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the State of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of and the challenges faced by African Americans and other minorities.

The advisory cited specific Florida policies including SB 266 and HB 7.

SB 266, signed into law just last week, effectively prohibits higher education institutions from spending state funds on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. In the words of Governor DeSantis, this law will help “treat people as individuals” by banning programs that “[stand] for discrimination, exclusion, and indoctrination.” This bill builds on SB 7044, which required periodic reviews of tenured faculty members and mandated professors to post their textbook lists online 45 days before their first classes.

In March, college students in Florida organized numerous walkouts in protest of HB 999, a similar proposal being worked on in the state’s House of Representatives.

HB 7, also known as the Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees Act (“Stop W.O.K.E. Act”), was enacted in 2022. It attempted to ban “woke indoctrination” by limiting the teaching of Critical Race Theory at public universities and restricting diversity training among employers. A federal court blocked parts of HB 7 after finding them unconstitutional.

The advisory also mentioned other pieces of legislation in Florida including HB 1, SB 7066, and HB 543, which the NAACP says threaten civil rights in the state.

To read more CLICK HERE

TN Governor's office involved in 1979 murder-for-hire

A former Tennessee governor’s administration helped fund a contract murder of a key federal witness decades ago while embroiled in the state’s largest political scandal, law enforcement officials announced according to AL.com.

The new details revealed for the first time Wednesday have elements that ring of a movie: a trusted ally of union boss Jimmy Hoffa gunned down after testifying about a corrupt governor selling prison pardons and a gunman who donned a wig and blackface to throw authorities off the scent.

Investigators in Hamilton County, which encompasses Chattanooga, have been chipping away at the 42-year-old cold case of Samuel Pettyjohn since they renewed their investigation in 2015. No new charges will be filed because all of the major players involved are now dead, but authorities say closing the case provides closure to one aspect of a complicated piece of Tennessee history.

Pettyjohn, a Chattanooga businessman and close friend of Hoffa, was fatally shot in 1979 in downtown Chattanooga after testifying before a federal grand jury during the early phases of Tennessee’s notorious “cash-for-clemency” scandal.

“Essentially, Mr. Pettyjohn cooperated with authorities and knew too much about what was going on locally, as well as the state level, and individuals didn’t like that and so individuals hired someone to murder him,” Hamilton County District Attorney Neal Pinkston said. “Here we are some 42 years later.”

The scandal ultimately led to the ousting of Democratic Gov. Ray Blanton, who was never indicted in the investigation — but three of his aides were. However, questions have lingered about the extent to which the governor’s administration actively worked to thwart the investigation. Officials say at least five witnesses in the case were murdered or killed themselves.

Pinkston told reporters that Pettyjohn would meet with inmates to indicate that money would help secure an early release from prison starting in 1976. Pettyjohn was joined by William Thompson, who had been involved in Blanton’s election campaign and would later be convicted in the cash-for-clemency scandal.

According to Pinkston, Pettyjohn and Thompson would drop payments off at the governor’s office in the Capitol.

As federal investigators began examining whether the governor’s office was exchanging cash for parole, Pettyjohn was subpoenaed to testify about the ongoing scheme. Pettyjohn eventually agreed to cooperate with FBI agents, even going as far as providing a list of people who made payments to the governor’s office for the early release of certain prisoners.

Shortly after, Pettyjohn was killed in what authorities describe as an “execution style hit.” Witnesses told authorities that they saw a Black man in a trench coat exiting Pettyjohn’s store. Meanwhile, Pettyjohn was found with his pistol nearby, which had not been fired, and more than $100,000 on him.

According to Pinkston, Ed Alley — a known bank robber who died in 2005 in federal prison — was hired by several sources to kill Pettyjohn. Pinkston said those sources included an undisclosed third party who paid some of the contract money on behalf of the Blanton administration. The estimated total murder price was between $25,000 and $50,000.

“I’m very sure. I’m proof positive,” Pinkston said when asked how certain he was that the Blanton administration helped pay for Pettyjohn’s murder.

Officials say Alley, who was white, wore a wig, glasses and covered his skin in heavy brown makeup to deceive any witnesses.

“Cooperating individuals indicated Alley admitted Pettyjohn was murdered for various reasons including he was a source of cooperation for the FBI in investigations of Gov. Ray Blanton,” according to findings from a Hamilton County grand jury.

The grand jury concluded that if Alley were alive today, he would be charged with first-degree premeditated murder of Pettyjohn.

Mike Mathis, supervisor of Hamilton County’s cold case unit, acknowledged that it was highly unusual for a prosecutor’s office to pursue a grand jury when most of the involved parties were dead but said the county chose to do so for the first time it because “it gives you a legal closing.”

Saadiq Pettyjohn, one of Samuel Pettyjohn’s sons, said his mother often described his father as someone with a “heart of gold” and “very generous, giving person,” while acknowledging his father was associated with criminal activity. Authorities say Pettyjohn was part of an organized effort to blow up a building to collect insurance payouts, but he was never brought to trial due to his untimely death.

“It’s a curse and a blessing to grow up in a family that’s connected to crime,” he added. “When that person dies, you can go that route or you can go a different route; all of us chose to try to do better in our lives.”

Blanton, who died in 1996, had sparked outrage after he pardoned and commuted prison terms for more than 50 state inmates in the waning days of his gubernatorial term. Blanton’s fellow Democrats worked with Republicans in the Legislature to move up the inauguration of his Republican successor, Lamar Alexander, by three days.

Blanton was never charged in the scandal, but in 1981, he was convicted of unrelated charges of extortion and conspiracy for selling a liquor license for $23,000 to a friend while in office.

To read more CLICK HERE

 

Pennsylvania prepared for civil unrest related to election

Gov. Tom Wolf and his top election official told reporters the state was prepared for civil unrest related to Tuesday’s election, and officials are talking daily about things that might trigger problems, reported The Morning Call.

Wolf, a Democrat, also fired back at Republican President Donald Trump over his statements ― some made at a Trump rally at HoverTech in Northampton County on Monday ― that Trump would be “watching” Wolf’s count of state votes.

“I think the president was mistaken in terms of saying that he was watching me," Wolf told reporters during a news conference. “In Pennsylvania, I don’t count; I don’t think in any state the governor actually counts the votes.”

Concerning potential unrest, Wolf and Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar described a multiagency team, formed in 2018, that has talked daily about things that might trigger unrest on Tuesday or soon afterward.

“I am not sure what the reason might be for unrest, but if there is, we have been preparing for it,” Wolf said.

The task force includes the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, state police, the governor’s office, the National Guard, and other agencies.

“Everybody is aligned to make sure that we are not only preparing in advance but ready to react if needed and also to diffuse the tensions that we know are going to be present," Boockvar said.

Wolf and Boockvar hit on several other issues related to the election, including COVID-19 precautions, the timing of results and a high-profile court case in which Republicans have sought to exclude mail-in ballots received after Election Day.

The election will happen amid a surge of coronavirus cases and increasing hospitalizations in Pennsylvania. Wolf said masks, sneeze guards and hand sanitizer have been provided to counties, and because of a huge number of mail-in ballots, lines at polling places are likely to be shorter than they might otherwise be.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday said it would not do a quick review of a Republican appeal to exclude those ballots. It remained possible the justices could take up the case after the election, and it remained unclear whether the ballots will ultimately be counted.

On Thursday, Boockvar said all 67 counties have been told to segregate any ballots that arrive after 8 p.m. on Tuesday.

Those ballots will be tabulated and recorded separately, she said. The question of whether they will actually count might depend on the court case.

“There is a lot of noise out there. We don’t know what is going to happen," Wolf said. “The Supreme Court may or may not decide to take this up again after the election.”

Wolf and Boockvar said that as of Thursday, 2.1 million mail-in ballots already had been received.

Some counties ― but none in the Lehigh Valley ― reportedly have said they will not start counting mail-in ballots until Wednesday. Boockvar said it was “only a handful” of counties, and she intended to talk to each one of them.

“I want every one of them starting on Election Day,” she said.

Wolf said that with an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots, results likely would not be available Tuesday night.

“We will have accurate results even if that takes a little longer than normal. On Tuesday night, and the days that follow, I encourage all of us to take a deep breath and just stay calm," Wolf said. "We will have a fair election. Mail-in voting is secure. And going to the polls is safe. We will have accurate election results within a few days.”

To read more CLICK HERE

 

GateHouse:Quarantine and isolation in the shadow of Ebola

Matthew T. Mangino
GateHouse News Service
August 15, 2014
The World Health Organization has officially declared the Ebola virus an international health emergency.

Emphasizing that the outbreak’s quick rise is “serious and unusual,” the organization issued the following statement, “The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is an ‘extraordinary event’ and a public health risk to other surrounding States, as well as the spread to other countries through lack of screening and monitoring.”

Ebola is a severe, often fatal, disease in humans. It was first discovered in the Republic of Congo in 1976. Until recently, there were fewer than 1,500 recorded cases of the virus. The death toll inflicted in West Africa since February has exceeded 1,000.

“Ebola is so scary and so unfamiliar, it’s really important to outline what the facts are, and that we know how to control it. We control it by traditional public health measures,” said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden.

What are traditional public health measures? Isolation and quarantine are the methods by which public health officials stop the spread of disease.

According to the Department of Health and Humans Services, the president by executive order provides for the use of federal isolation and quarantine for communicable diseases, including cholera, diphtheria, tuberculosis, smallpox, yellow fever and Ebola among other potential pandemic diseases.

Frieden told NBC News that there’s a very real possibility that someone infected with Ebola will enter the United States. But the chances of a U.S. outbreak are highly unlikely: “It’s a matter of isolating patients.”

Isolation is used to separate ill people who have a communicable disease from those who are healthy. Quarantine is used to separate and restrict the movement of people who are well but may have been exposed to a communicable disease.

Isolation and quarantine can have a significant impact on fundamental individual rights. The U.S. Constitution prohibits the federal government, as well as state governments, from depriving individuals of protected liberty rights.

Isolation and quarantine restrict the movement of people to help stop the spread of diseases. This means that an individual can be detained against his or her will for an extended period of time.

Quarantine and isolation are not new public health remedies. As far back as 1902 the U.S. Supreme Court recognized isolation and quarantine as legitimate public health techniques. Although, most patients normally have a right to refuse medical treatment, that right disappears when an infected or exposed person poses a significant risk to public health.

In addition to being medical functions, isolation and quarantine are also “police power” functions, derived from the right of the government to take action affecting individuals for the benefit of society. The authority for carrying out these functions has been delegated to the CDC.

Pursuant to federal regulations, the CDC is authorized to detain, medically examine, and release persons arriving into the United States and traveling between states who are suspected of carrying communicable diseases.

States also have police power functions to protect the health, safety, and welfare of persons within their borders. All 50 states have laws to enforce the use of isolation and quarantine.

For instance, in Pennsylvania, the Disease Prevention and Control Law provides that the state or local health departments may, without court intervention, order an individual quarantined or isolated if the individual poses a significant threat to the health of the public and there are no lesser restrictive means.

In Arizona, the governor, along with the state director of the Department of Health Services, have expansive authority in a state of emergency involving infectious disease. However, there must be an urgent threat to public health to establish a quarantine or isolation without an order of court.

In fact, in many states the governor has the authority to order a “cordon sanitaire” which is the quarantining of an entire town or city. Such authority has far-reaching implications for those not yet infected. They are being forcefully detained in an area were infected persons remain.

The government attempts to balance the good of the community with individual liberty. In times of international crisis, there is a heightened need to zealously protect those individual rights.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book “The Executioner’s Toll, 2010” was recently released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter at @MatthewTMangino.
To visit the column Click Here

Using urban transformation to eradicate crime

Researchers have long linked urban decay to crime rates. But do the old models of urban renewal—tearing down housing projects in expensive redevelopment schemes—address the roots of the problem?
In Fayetteville, NC, city authorities have been slowly buying up properties in depressed neighborhoods near the downtown area and demolishing abandoned homes, according to The Crime Report.  But without a master “blueprint” that integrates housing reconstruction with efforts to improve infrastructure, schools and community services, such efforts are likely to come up lacking.
Greg Barnes, a reporter for the Fayetteville Observer, went to Atlanta to investigate a program run by a nonprofit called Purpose Built Communities which has pioneered a different approach.  Supporters of the model point to the transformation of East Lake, one of Atlanta’s poorest and most crime-riddled neighborhoods, as evidence of its success.
And the model has been duplicated in other American cities.
Barnes says the program, which operates with private donations,  has already produced a 90 percent drop in crime in the neighborhood.


Click here for full report