U.S. Marines with 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division, deploy concertina wire at an undisclosed location on the southern border, Jan. 23, 2025. U.S. Northern Command is working together with the Department of Homeland Security with the emplacement of temporary physical barriers to add additional security that will curtail illegal border crossings. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Logan Courtright)
President Donald Trump has authorized the United States military to take full jurisdiction over federal lands along the U.S.–Mexico border in an aggressive push to seal the border and repel the ongoing invasion of illegal immigrants, traffickers, and cartel operatives.
The memorandum, National Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-4, directs the Secretaries of Defense, Interior, Agriculture, and Homeland Security to facilitate the immediate transfer of federal lands—including the Roosevelt Reservation—to Department of Defense (DoD) jurisdiction.
This will allow for the rapid construction of new border barriers, deployment of advanced surveillance systems, and the establishment of “National Defense Areas” where military forces will have full operational authority.
Soldiers participate in a supply drop in McAllen, Texas, Feb. 2, 2025. U.S. Northern Command is working with the Department of Homeland Security to augment U.S. Customs and Border Protection along the southern border with additional military forces. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Keaton Habeck)
“The southern border is under siege,” President Trump declared in an accompanying statement. “Weak leadership in Washington has allowed criminal aliens, drug traffickers, and hostile actors to flood into our country unchecked. Today, we are taking back control. We will no longer tolerate lawlessness, and we will use every tool at our disposal—including our military—to defend the American people.”
The order invokes 43 U.S.C. 155, a provision allowing the federal government to withdraw public lands for national defense purposes, bypassing bureaucratic hurdles that have previously stalled border security efforts.
Additionally, the memorandum builds on Executive Order 14167, signed on Inauguration Day 2025, which explicitly tasks the military with “repelling the invasion” and sealing the border from unlawful entry.
181130-M-JX780-0054 CALIFORNIA (Nov. 30, 2018) Lance Cpl. Victor Vargas, a combat engineer with 7th Engineer Support Battalion, Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force 7, emplaces concertina wire at the California-Mexico Border, Nov. 30, 2018. U.S. Northern Command is providing military support to the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to secure the Southern border of the United States. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Brendan Mullin/Released)
Critically, the directive empowers military commanders to exclude individuals from designated zones, effectively creating a hardened security perimeter where trespassers—including activists, human traffickers, and illegal crossers—could face immediate detention or expulsion.
BREAKING: President Donald Trump authorizes the U.S. military to occupy and take jurisdiction over public land along the U.S./Mexico border pic.twitter.com/vmVmyak1wN
Maxwell as an older convict, and in the ‘good-old-days’ with her partner-in-crime Jeffrey Epstein.
Former socialite and convicted sex offender, Ghislaine Maxwell is now asking the US Supreme Court to hear her appeal against a 2021 conviction on five counts of aiding convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein in his sexual abuse of young girls.
“Maxwell’s lawyers filed a 159-page Petition to the highest court in the country on Thursday asking the Supreme Court Justices to throw out her 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.”
In Epstein’s ‘Pedophile Island’, Ghislaine and French model scout – and alleged serial rapist – Jean-Luc Brunel, who died in La Santé prison in Paris.
Maxwell is serving her sentence in Tallahassee State Prison, in Florida.
“The former close friend of Prince Andrew continues to vehemently deny all the charges against her and is asking the Supreme Court to throw out the conviction which could end up with her walking free.
Maxwell argues she should never have been charged as Epstein’s ‘co-conspirator’ because of a 2007 plea deal Epstein made in Florida in which he agreed to plead guilty to two counts of child sex abuse and served 13-months in jail in exchange for any of his ‘co-conspirators’ avoiding prosecution.”
Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein seen here in 2005. (Photo: Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
A federal appeals judge rejected her appeal last year, saying the Southern District of New York was not bound by the Florida ‘sweetheart deal’.
“In their lengthy petition, Maxwell’s lawyers said: ‘Despite the existence of a non-prosecution agreement promising in plain language that the United States would not prosecute any co-conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein, the United States in fact prosecuted Ghislaine Maxwell as a co-conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein’.”
3 convicted sex offenders: Maxwell with Epstein and Harvey Weinstein in a Prince Andrew costume ball.
The prosecutors argue that different jurisdictions have different rules to honoring a plea deal made elsewhere.
“The petition, written by Maxwell’s high-powered lawyer David Markus, added: ‘A defendant should be able to rely on a promise that the United States will not prosecute again, without being subject to a gotcha in some other jurisdiction that chooses to interpret that plain language promise in some other way’.”
Epstein was found dead in 2019 while behind bars in New York, after being arrested on child sex trafficking charges.
A Massachusetts Democrat state lawmaker was indicted on five counts of wire fraud and one count of falsification of records, the Justice Department announced on Thursday.
Christopher Flanagan, a state rep for the First Barnstable District, was arrested for using stolen funds for personal and political expenses.
“Massachusetts State Representative for the First Barnstable District has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Boston for allegedly orchestrating a multi-faceted scheme that defrauded a local trade association of tens of thousands of dollars, used to fund personal and political expenses and falsifying records to conceal his alleged conduct,” the DOJ said.
“Christopher Flanagan, 37, of Dennis, Mass. was indicted on five counts of wire fraud and one count of falsification of records. Flanagan was arrested this morning and will appear in federal court in Boston at 2: 30 p.m. today,” the DOJ said.
According to the indictment, in October 2021, facing personal financial difficulty, Flanagan stole $36,000 from the Home Builders Association (HBA) in Cape Cod while he served as the executive officer of the organization.
“FLANAGAN defrauded the HBA by (a) using his signatory authority as HBA Executive Officer to secretly withdraw tens of thousands of dollars from HBA’s bank accounts; (b) entering false information in HBA’s financial bookkeeping records; (c) providing materially false and misleading HBA financial information to the HBA Board during board meetings; and (d) creating and submitting false expense reports to the HBA Board to further conceal his fraud,” the indictment read.
For the next two years, Flanagan wired thousands of dollars to himself to fund his personal and political expenses.
In one instance, Flanagan is accused of stealing hundreds of dollars in HBA funds to pay for psychic services.
The feds also accused Flanagan of obstructing the investigation.
Flanagan is facing up to 40 years in prison.
“Today’s charges against Massachusetts State Representative Christopher Flanagan reveal an appalling breach of public trust. According to the indictment, Mr. Flanagan defrauded the very organization he was supposed to serve – allegedly funneling tens of thousands of dollars into his own pockets to pay off personal bills, buy luxury items and bankroll his political campaign. He allegedly stole money and then went to extraordinary lengths to cover it up, going so far as fabricating fake personas to mislead those who questioned his conduct. This alleged scheme was calculated on every level,” said United States Attorney Leah B. Foley. “No one is entitled to power by way of fraud, and the people of Massachusetts deserve better.”
— Chinese Embassy in US (@ChineseEmbinUS) April 10, 2025
The Gateway Pundit reported,
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has escalated its trade war with the United States by imposing a staggering 125% tariff on all American imports.
This move comes in direct response to President Donald Trump’s decisive action to raise tariffs on Chinese goods to an effective rate of 145%, aiming to counter Beijing’s longstanding trade abuses and intellectual property theft.
On Wednesday, Beijing foolishly retaliated against U.S. tariffs by imposing an 84% tariff on all American imports, a desperate move following President Trump’s earlier hike to 104% on Chinese goods.
But China severely miscalculated. Within hours, Trump raised tariffs to 125%, sending a clear message: America will not be bullied.
According to Yahoo, “the White House confirmed the total base tariff on China is actually 145%, an amount higher than the 125% previously reported… The confusion about the exact number stemmed from separate 20% duties on China over issues of fentanyl and illegal migration that Trump had imposed in February and March.”
On Friday, the CCP escalated its trade war with the United States by imposing a staggering 125% tariff on all American imports.
The CCP’s retaliatory tariffs, set to take effect on April 12, 2025, are a clear attempt to undermine the U.S. economy and pressure the Trump administration into backing down.
All that the Chinese have to do is come to the table like the rest of the world and stop exploiting the American worker.
Image: Hamid Karzai International Airport Evacuation (U.S. Marine Corps photo by 1st Lt. Mark Andries)
Leading to a former service member’s suicide, an investigation by the U.S. Department of Veterans (VA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) that began in 2023 revealed “mismanaged mental health care” as a contributing factor to his death.
The Gateway Pundit spoke to Shannon McDaniel, the proud mother of a U.S. Marine who, tragically, took his own life in 2022. She described her son as “always wanting to be a Marine” and “always wanting to serve his country.” And that’s exactly what Hunter Whitley was once excited to do as a Marine Corps infantryman.
In early 2021, Whitley was deployed to the Middle East. According to McDaniel, “He was happy to be part of something big, [seizing the opportunity] to help [the Afghan] people.” However, she admitted, “it wasn’t what he was expecting.”
“[Hunter] didn’t talk to me a lot about what all happened while he was over there, but some of what I heard was terrible,” McDaniel shared.
And on August 26, 2021, what was terrible would soon become unbearable. A suicide bombing rocked the Kabul airport, killing 13 American service members and roughly 170 Afghan civilians. “He was very close to that,” she said.
After the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, Whitley returned to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. “I could tell something was different about him,” McDaniel offered. “We noticed a lot of drinking in early 2022.” While concerned about his well-being, she was also pleased to see him take steps to continue his education at the University of Alabama.
“In Tuscaloosa,” she said, “he went to a VA hospital [in August 2022] and screened positive for a traumatic brain injury (TBI).” The following month, he would have his first mental health appointment. “The VA failed to schedule the consultation after he screened positive, [and] they should’ve done that eval before putting him on meds.”
“On September 16, Hunter saw a mental health nurse practitioner who prescribed mirtazapine and hydroxyzine,” McDaniel said, adding that “there would not be a follow up until four months later.” The nurse practitioner prescribed two months of medication with a refill for two additional months of medication. “Hunter was gone by the time she would’ve followed up with him four months later,” she lamented.
While the drugs are used to treat depression and anxiety, there are potential adverse effects to mental health to consider. Take, for example, mirtazapine, which can cause thoughts of suicide.
“While there’s a box waring for suicide in young adults,” McDaniel said, “no one discussed the medication with Hunter.” Scheduled for an appointment at the local PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder) clinic on November 7, 2022, he had the chance to express his battle with suicidal thoughts, but the services rendered were inadequate.
Sadly, on the night of November 12, 2022, with an elevated level of alcohol in his system, Whitley took his life with a gunshot to the head.
McDaniel was “crushed” and “broken,” mourning the death of her son. As each day passed without him, she began to question the treatment he had received from the VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System. “[Near the end of 2022], she said, “I had tried to contact the nurse practitioner that had prescribed the medication, but she would never get back to me.” she shared. And for the grieving mom, “That was a red flag.”
In confidence, she was approached by someone at the clinic. To her astonishment, she was told, “Tuscaloosa VA dropped the ball with Hunter, but they didn’t know who, and they didn’t give me any details.”
After finally receiving Whitley’s medical records in March 2023, McDaniel developed further suspicions. Why was he prescribed the medications he was taking? Why was his suicide screening nothing more than a five-point questionnaire?
She pressed for an investigation.
Months later, in November 2023, she was informed that the VA OIG would investigate the circumstances surrounding Whitley’s care. And in September 2024, a 53-page report was published.
Francesca Graham, who also spoke to The Gateway Pundit, is a retired Army intelligence officer and senior jumpmaster, serves as the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Advisor for the Walk the Talk Foundation (WTTF). In this role, she helps clients navigate their own military whistleblower complaints. She also helps draft legislation to fix the Defense Department and Coast Guard’s administrative punishment system.
According to her, “The reason why that VA OIG report even exists is because Shannon [McDaniel] made a complaint to the VA, and tragically, Hunter’s recent suicide was a compelling enough reason for the VA OIG to conduct an investigation.”
“How many whistleblowers have come forward and raised the alarm – including, allegedly, at the Tuscaloosa VA prior to Hunter’s death, but were ignored because their story was not so compelling—that is, until someone dies?” Graham asked.
Proving McDaniel’s intuitions were correct about her son, the report determined that the VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System had “mismanaged” his mental health care. In summary, the report revealed:
Upon reading the multiple examples of neglect and disregard uncovered in the report, McDaniel was utterly shocked, adding that “It was like losing Hunter all over again.” While the OIG offered recommendations for improvement, none of this would have been made public had she not pushed for an investigation into Hunter’s experience.
For this reason, she said, it still begs serious questions: How many more people is the VA doing this to? How many more people are being hurt by the loss of a loved one? And how many are too ashamed to speak up for losing veteran to suicide?
Graham agreed, questioning that “while the IG came back and said, yes, there are all these problems, but has anything really changed?” In her experience, IGs are “toothless” and “reliant on the integrity of the leadership they just inspected and likely criticized to correct faults—a fraught proposition.”
McDaniel and her family continue to raise awareness on the issue. To prevent stories like this from happening again, the Hunter Whitley Butterly Initiative was launched in 2023. Through the initiative, she and others advocate for support systems that help transition service members to civilian life.
Better evaluations for mental health, adherence to Veterans Health Administration (VHA) standards and recommendations, and the ability to receive community care are all good places to start, she said.
A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump Administration from revoking the legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants flown in on Joe Biden’s parole program.
US District Judge Indira Talwani said the DHS did not interpret the law properly and asserted the migrants have a right to be in the US.
The DOJ argued that the parole programs were discretionary and it is up to the government to decide when it can cut the program.
Last month is was reported that President Trump was set to strip the status of 532,000 migrants living in the United States who were flown in on Joe Biden’s parole program.
Recall that Joe Biden brought in more than a half a million migrants Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela on his CHNV program.
CBP data found that over 1 million illegal aliens have been allowed into the US through what the Biden Regime defined as “legal” means.” The Biden-Kamala admin used the CBP One App and the CHNV program to allow illegals entry into the US.
These numbers are not included in the millions of illegals that have entered the US under Joe Biden’s watch.
It was previously reported that 81% of the Haitian migrants from Biden’s parole program – 362,000 out of 448,000 – were flown into red states.
Earlier this year it was reported that one of the Haitians who entered the US on Biden’s parole program was charged with triple murder, including two children.
President Trump is revoking the migrants’ legal status and telling them if they don’t self deport they will be arrested.
Fox News reported:
A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from revoking temporary legal status for hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, Cubans and Haitians who were initially granted parole.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani said on Thursday the Department of Homeland Security incorrectly read the law when it made a decision to end a two-year parole given to them by the Biden administration.
Talwani, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, said the revocation of temporary legal status would open up around 450,000 individuals to an expedited deportation process.
“What you’re prioritizing is not people coming over the border but the people who followed the rules,” Talwani said.
These are the documents President Trump intended to be released in January 2021, but the FBI scooped them up, kept them from going to public release. We sued, tried to fight for them.
Donald Trump came back in the office, and he released them a second time. Today, they got to Congress, and then they ended up in the hands of Just the News. In just an hour, you’re going to see our first story…
…Perhaps the most important thing in the documents that we found early on. Two informants that were used by the FBI to spy or to snitch on Donald Trump and his campaign was named Stefan Halper. He’s not the most famous. Christopher Steele, the guy that wrote the dossier, he’s the most famous. But Stefan Halper was used quite a bit by the FBI. In fact, he was used for three decades by the FBI, and it turns out, snitching is a pretty lucrative profession. He got paid nearly $1. 2 million by the FBI to be a confidential human source from from the early 1990s to 2017.
The last of those payments, $70,000 for his work, stitching on the Trump campaign and the Crossfire Hurricane early investigation. Now, what are we going to tell you about it? It turns out that he got that money and he kept being used by the FBI, and he kept being validated as reliable, even though the FBI detected he had given them an inaccurate, false, or disprovable story.
What is it? He’s the guy that told the FBI that Mike Flynn, soon to be Donald Trump’s National Security Security Advisor in the fall of 2016, back in 2014, had left a conference, an overseas conference, while he was a three-star general and the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, alone with a Russian woman.
Russian Svetlana Lokhova sued Stefan Halper for his lies about her and and General Mike Flynn. The FBI paid him for the false information anyway.
In February 2021, Joe Hoft at The Gateway Pundit reported that Stefan Halper was hired by the FBI to set up and take down Donald Trump. His intel was a complete lie but the FBI ran with it anyway.
The late February 2021 documents involved one of the FBI’s spies hired to set up and discredit members of the Trump team in 2016. The Conservative Treehouse noted:
The FBI documents outline how Stefan Halper was enlisted by the FBI for their operation to target the campaign of Donald Trump in 2016. Halper agreed to become a confidential human source (CHS) or spy for the FBI, and record contacts with several members of the Trump campaign in order to frame the Russian collusion narrative.
Despite secret recordings showing Carter Page clearly had no idea about any Russian connections to the campaign, or people within it; and despite Page clearly rebuking any effort to draw those inferences; the FBI still went forward with a Title-1 FISA surveillance warrant against Page and never informed the court of the exculpatory recordings.
Deep state “spy” Stefan Halper had an addiction to crack cocaine.
And this is very curious – I requested the case file and was instructed it had been destroyed. Why was Halper’s file destroyed? pic.twitter.com/ciqaWlurb5
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have arrested 21-year-old Guatemalan national Ander Cortez-Mendez—an illegal alien and convicted child rapist—after Fairfax County authorities released him despite a federal detainer request.
ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) announced that they apprehended Cortez-Mendez on April 2 in Falls Church, Virginia, nearly two weeks after the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center refused to cooperate with federal immigration officials and released him back into the community.
Cortez-Mendez first crossed illegally into the United States near Rio Grande Valley, Texas, in February 2018, where he was immediately flagged by U.S. Border Patrol and issued a notice to appear before a federal immigration judge. Years later, in March 2024, he was arrested again—this time by Fairfax County police for alleged sex crimes involving a minor.
ICE promptly lodged a detainer request with Fairfax County on March 18, but local officials—under sanctuary policies pushed by far-left Democrats—chose to release him instead of turning him over to federal authorities.
On May 20, 2024, the Fairfax County Circuit Court found Cortez-Mendez guilty of having sexual intercourse with a child. Shockingly, the court handed him a mere three-month sentence—and suspended it entirely, allowing this predator to walk free once again.
“Ander Cortez-Mendez is a convicted sex offender, and exactly the type of illegal alien that ICE officers seek to remove from Washington, D.C. and Virginia,” said ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Washington, D.C. Field Office Director Russell Hott.
“We refuse to allow such offenders to continue to threaten the residents of our neighborhoods. ICE Washington, D.C. and our law enforcement partners will continue to arrest and remove criminal aliens from the streets of our communities.”
Since he can’t perform in the fixing of his own kingdom’s problems, UK’s Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer has to milk the Ukraine crisis to the best of his abilities, going as far now as floating a plan for sending British troops to Ukraine for five years.
Second, and most importantly, Russia will not accept EU troops as peace-keeper or any other capacity. So British troops would be fair targets in a high-intensity war.
So, in the end, it may all be posturing, as US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff stated to Tucker Carlson: “I think it’s a combination of a posture and a pose and a combination of also being simplistic. There is this sort of notion that we have all got to be like Winston Churchill.”
“Military chiefs want the deployment to help train and reconstitute the Ukrainian army to prevent Vladimir Putin from mounting another invasion.
A scheme for a phased withdrawal was raised in the discussions being led by Britain and France over a ‘coalition of the willing’ to uphold any post-conflict peace agreement.”
The European force would be used ‘to deter Russia from breaching any settlement and to offer Kiev’s men some much-needed respite.’
‘Do the math’ with me, here: a 10,000-15,000 peace-keeping force will keep 600,000+ battle-hardened Russian troops in check?
“But the main aim of the deployment would be to immediately start helping to train and rebuild Ukraine’s armed forces to deter another Russian attack. They would later withdraw in stages with final troops to leave around the five-year mark.”
Does Keir ‘Starmtrooper’ even have the military might to deploy peacekeepers to Ukraine?
These grandiose plans come at a point when UK’s finances are in a dire state, with public debt hovering near 100% of GDP, leading Labour in the 2024 budget to raise taxes to fund public services.
Ukraine deployment would require £1-2 billion yearly for a modest force – not to count the political cost if servicemen and women start returning home in body bags.
UK’s Army currently has 74,000 regulars, the smallest size in over 200 years. Its recruitment effort come up 15% short 2024.
With aging tanks and limited air defense systems, it does not sound like a 5,000-strong force that will excel in the brutal conditions of the war in Ukraine.
There are those who say that a 5,000-troop deployment ‘would require allied support and years of prep.’
Starmer about to embark on an adventure sure to blow up in his face.
Many of us still remember that, in January 2024, outgoing Chief of the General Staff General Sir Patrick Sanders warned that the UK ‘lacks capacity for a major war’, urging a “citizen army” to counter threats like Russia. ‘An increase in reservists alone would not be enough—we need a whole-of-society approach to prepare’.
Dr. Rob Johnson, MoD Ex-director of war readiness official told the Financial Times that the British army would ‘rapidly’ exhaust ammunition in large-scale combat, and that ‘shortages in ships and aircraft’ would limit broader capabilities. ‘In any larger-scale operation, we would run out of ammunition rapidly’.
This July, General Sir Richard Barrons, former Joint Forces commander stated that the military operates at a ‘bare minimum’, unfit for significant conflict or homeland defense against missile threats. ‘Right now, our Armed Forces are not up to the job’.
![president-trump-gives-barron-a-shout-out-at-inaugural-parade:-his-unexpected-response-is-pure-gold!-[video]](https://news.lateawakening.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/35545-president-trump-gives-barron-a-shout-out-at-inaugural-parade-his-unexpected-response-is-pure-gold-video-100x70.jpg "President Trump Gives Barron A Shout Out At Inaugural Parade: His Unexpected Response is Pure Gold! [VIDEO]")
