Texas Governor Greg Abbott called on Congress to reimburse the State for more than $11.1 billion spent on border security. The governor said Texas taxpayers footed the bill for border security “due to the Biden Administration’s refusal to do its job for the last four years.”

“President Biden’s policies left Texas and the rest of America defenseless against an unprecedented infiltration of violent criminals, known terrorists, and other hostile foreign actors, like the dangerous Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua,” Abbott’s letter reads. “I launched Operation Lone Star (OLS) to combat these threats to all Americans. Over the past four years, OLS efforts successfully reduced illegal immigration into Texas by 87%, demonstrated the ongoing effectiveness of President Donald Trump’s border measures, and shone a spotlight on a national crisis.”

“In total, Texas has spent over $11.1 billion to protect the nation and secure the border,” the governor continued. “Accordingly, I am formally requesting that the federal government reimburse Texas for these costs in full.”

Abbott sent the letters to the U.S. Congressional Leadership and the entire Texas Congressional Delegation. The letters followed Governor Abbott’s meeting with U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson nearly one week ago. During the meeting, the governor discussed the continuing Biden border crisis and the State’s efforts to undo the damage caused by the Biden administration.

Intensifying talk in European capitals about sending peacekeepers to Ukraine’s front lines is welcome but it won’t work without American boots on the ground, President Volodymyr Zelensky says at the Davos World Economic Forum meeting.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has been at Davos this week drumming up support, but also attempting to ingratiate himself with President Donald Trump by acting as a conduit for America First messaging to European leaders. Nevertheless, Bloomberg reports the Ukrainian “bristled” at the suggestion the United States wouldn’t put boots on the ground in Ukraine to deter further Russian aggression.

The conversation follows months of talk in Europe, particularly in capitals like Paris, Warsaw, and London, about what happens when the now apparently inevitable ceasefire comes. Preventing Russia from simply using a pause as a chance to catch its breath, re-arm, and then attack anew after a short break is the main concern and European leaders have told President Zelensky they would want to consider deploying their own armies to Ukraine to prevent Russia from renewing hostilities.

But forward-deploying NATO like this and de facto welcoming Ukraine into its protective embrace wouldn’t work, President Zelensky reportedly told Bloomberg on the side-lines of Davos, without American manpower. He is reported to have said: “It can’t be without the United States… Even if some European friends think it can be, no it can’t be. Nobody will risk without the United States.”

As well as the United States, Zelensky also expressed optimism that China might be persuaded to force Russia to peace, because so much of Russia’s economy and military supply relies on Beijing. While “President Trump is the strongest”, Xi Jinping “can push Putin for peace, I’m sure”.

A conservative think tank is demanding President Trump release Prince Harry’s immigration file, on the heels of allegations that the Duke of Sussex may have lied about past illicit drug use when emigrating from the UK.

Harry’s immigration status has already sparked a legal battle and a pledge from Trump, 78, on the 2024 campaign trail that he’d take appropriate action in response to any false claims on official forms — after the exiled British royal family member confessed to taking cocaine, cannabis and psychedelic mushrooms in his 2023 memoir, “Spare.”

Applicants for visas or green cards are typically required to disclose their history of drug use — and can face potentially serious consequences like removal if they are misleading — but a federal judge ruled against any disclosure of the prince’s application papers last year.

Now, lawyers and fellows at the Heritage Foundation are hoping the 47th president will override the court’s decision to keep the records sealed — by opening them himself.

“I’ll be urging the president to release Prince Harry’s immigration records and the president does have that legal authority to do that,” said Nile Gardiner, who directs Heritage’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom.

cross-posted from: https://thelemmy.club/post/21778892 >> Transgender inmates have been sent into a tizzy with President Trump's day one executive order that will send them back to men's prisons.

cross-posted from: https://thelemmy.club/post/21778823 >> Fox News exclusively embedded with ICE Boston on Wednesday, witnessing the agency arrest multiple egregious criminal aliens as part of mass deportation efforts.

cross-posted from: https://thelemmy.club/post/21778557 >> Pete Hegseth cleared a procedural hurdle Thursday for a final Senate vote to advance his confirmation to lead the Department of Defense, setting up a high-stakes showdown.

cross-posted from: https://thelemmy.club/post/21776015

cross-posted from: https://thelemmy.club/post/21775166

cross-posted from: https://thelemmy.club/post/21761083 >> Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in the first days of the Trump administration, has made hundreds of arrests of illegal immigrants across the U.S.

cross-posted from: https://thelemmy.club/post/21708128 >> President Trump grants full pardon to Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, early bitcoin advocate.

At the inaugural prayer service, the Right Rev. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, made a direct appeal to President Donald Trump to have mercy on the LGBTQ+ community and undocumented migrant workers.

Referencing Trump’s belief that he was saved by God from assassination, Budde said, “You have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”

The Trump administration has already issued executive orders rolling back transgender rights and toughening immigration policies.

When he returned to the White House, Trump was asked about the sermon.

“Not too exciting, was it?” the president said as he walked with staff toward the Oval Office. “I didn’t think it was a good service. They could do much better.”

A Republican strategist told Politico on Monday that “everyone wants” Vivek Ramaswamy “out” of Mar-a-Lago and Washington, D.C., as the Trump surrogate announced his departure from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

It was announced on Monday that Ramaswamy would be leaving his position as co-head of the DOGE advisory commission and reportedly seeking to run as governor of Ohio instead.

“It was my honor to help support the creation of DOGE. I’m confident that Elon & team will succeed in streamlining government,” he said in a statement. “I’ll have more to say very soon about my future plans in Ohio. Most importantly, we’re all-in to help President Trump make America great again!”

According to reports, however, Ramaswamy was pushed out after Elon Musk and others soured on the former Republican presidential candidate.

An unnamed Republican strategist “close to advisers of President Donald Trump told Politico that Ramaswamy “just burned through the bridges and he finally burned Elon.”

“Everyone wants him out of Mar-a-Lago, out of D.C,” the strategist claimed.

Another person told Politico that while “they wanted him out” before he received backlash for backing foreign H-1B visa workers and claiming that American culture “venerated mediocrity,” they “kicked him to the curb when that came out.”

An “embittered” President Joe Biden is spending the final hours of his presidency in a “dark” mood, according to CNN’s MJ Lee.

Lee described Biden’s frustrations after being asked what she’s learned about Biden’s “waning hours in office” by Jake Tapper on Monday morning.

“Well, Jake, very soon, we are going to see the ceremonial aspects of inauguration morning migrate here to the White House. The Bidens, of course, will host the Trumps for tea here at the White House before the two couples get in the motorcade together and take that short ride together over to Capitol Hill,” replied Lee. “And in talking to White House officials familiar with the planning, I am told that all of these traditions –which we have to point out again, were traditions and courtesies that Donald Trump refused to offer to then-incoming President Joe Biden four years ago — that these were not traditions that at any point President Biden thought about basically blowing off because he believes that these traditions are important. He wanted to make sure that all of these things were basically done by the book.”

“But having said all of that, Jake, all of our reporting, talking to sources in recent days and weeks, really suggests that the president is in a bit of a dark space when it comes to just his headspace in these very final days. We are told that he never really stopped feeling angry about the fact that he believes he was forced out,” she continued. “This pressure campaign to drop out of the 2024 race and then, especially since Election Day, when his vice president, Kamala Harris, was defeated by Donald Trump. He has grown increasingly embittered, we are told by sources, at the blame that he has gotten for Donald Trump’s eventual return to the White House.”

“And one thing, importantly, that President Biden has been absolutely consistent about is this belief that he believes that had he stayed in the race, he would have defeated Donald Trump again. Now, all of this adds up to, I would say, a mood of sadness and sort of this sense of tragedy here at the White House,” concluded Lee. “Those around him believing and actually hoping that when history judges President Biden years from now, that it will be a little bit more forgiving than how the president is being widely judged, at least today, Jake. ”

Former Obama-era Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson told Morning Joe that he expected “mass resignation” from the Department of Justice following President Donald Trump’s pardoning of January 6 offenders.

On his first day in office on Monday Trump pardoned approximately 1,500 Capitol riot defendants and prisoners, and commuted the sentences of 8 more, in an on camera Oval Office event after his inauguration.

eflecting on the move, which Trump had long teased, Johnson spoke with MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on Tuesday.

Scarborough began by noting that pardons for January 6 offenders were “what his base wanted” and what they had “voted for” – even for “rioters who beat the hell out of law enforcement officers” despite Vice President JD Vance’s cautious comment in previous weeks that violent offenders should not be pardoned.

The host asked: “What I’m curious about Jeh Johnson, with obviously your background and extensive knowledge of law enforcement and the dealing with U.S. Attorneys, I’m wondering what the repercussions of this will be? What the impact will be for each one of those 1600 cases?”

Johnson replied to say that he’d already spoken to “disenchanted” Justice Department prosecutors.

>There’s a federal prosecutor assigned dedicated to the case who’s feeling pretty disenchanted this morning. I would not be surprised if we saw a mass resignation from the department of justice as a result of this. Going back to this issue of the executive orders, that’s probably.

“Yeah, that’s what some would argue,” Scarborough said.

Democrat Senator John Fetterman recently shot down rumors that he planned to leave the Democrat party in favor of the GOP.

Speculation surrounding Fetterman’s (D-Pa.) potential party affiliation switch followed after stating that he’s not “rooting against” Trump, along with his support for the Republican led Laken Riley Act.

>“If you’re rooting against the president, you are rooting against the nation,” Fetterman stated in December. “So country first. I know that’s become maybe like a cliché, but it happens to be true.”

The Laken Riley Act, named after a 22-year-old woman killed by an illegal immigrant in Georgia last year, requires the detention of undocumented immigrants charged with theft, along with other crimes.

>“If you’re here illegally and you’re committing crimes, I don’t know why anybody thinks that it’s controversial, they all need to go,” Fetterman stated regarding the Laken Riley Act.

cross-posted from: https://thelemmy.club/post/21693484 >> A Customs and Border Protection source has identified the Border Patrol agent shot and killed during a traffic stop Monday as David Maland, 44.

cross-posted from: https://thelemmy.club/post/21692118 >> The White House said that Trump had done away with measures that had barred Americans from dealing with both Israeli settlers and entities associated with them.

cross-posted from: https://thelemmy.club/post/21692116 >> Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi is the most senior Israeli figure to resign over the security breakdown on Oct. 7, 2023.

cross-posted from: https://thelemmy.club/post/21685986