“For locals, the guard members’ effect on crime remains debatable, but the accompanying checkpoints and stops have been uncontroversially disruptive. The oddest part of the spectacle is captured in the photos that follow. Uniformed and armed men and women from across the country can be seen all over the city wielding leaf blowers, hoses, and brooms as they do municipal chores—tasks for which they are surely overqualified.
The deployment is costing taxpayers between $1 million and $1.5 million per day. But over Thanksgiving weekend, the cost rose sharply: A close-range ambush near Farragut Square killed 20-year-old Specialist Sarah Beckstrom and left 24-year-old Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe in critical condition. The Trump administration immediately pledged to send in 500 more guard members. This act will further scramble the already confused logic about the necessity and utility of National Guard presence in American cities.”
In Cambodia there is a scam empire. If an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is not true. If something seems so good that you are wondering who is the sucker here?, then you may be the sucker. Don’t send money to people you don’t know, especially girlfriends who may be scamming you. Many people were offered fake jobs, and when they flew to the country, they were kidnapped and forced to scam people online.
“While the administration stokes fear about Afghan immigrants, data paint another picture. A 2019 study from the Cato Institute showed that the incarceration rate for Afghans between 18 and 54 was 127 per 100,000, a stark comparison to the 1,477 per 100,000 for native-born Americans.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) reported that, according to a 2024 Department of Health and Human Services study, refugees brought a $123.8 billion net fiscal benefit to the U.S. between 2005 and 2019, contributing $581 billion in taxes while receiving $457.1 billion in government support. This combats the Trump administration’s objections based on the net cost of admitting refugees to the U.S.
While refugees’ earnings may be limited on arrival, IRC says they “increase significantly” with time. A median household income of $30,500 in a refugee’s first five years in the U.S. becomes a median income of $71,400 after being here for 20 years. That number exceeds the national median income by nearly $4,000.
IRC also reported that more refugees become entrepreneurs (13 percent) than their U.S.-born counterparts (9 percent), benefitting their communities.
…
The administration is using an isolated act of violence to justify sweeping crackdowns on refugees and wartime allies who were already thoroughly vetted.”
The overwhelming share of shootings in the US are from arguments. They aren’t from people committing a crime, or people murdering for revenge, they are from heated arguments, and in the moment of escalation, someone shoots someone else.
Wealthy areas have much less shootings, but even between neighborhoods with similar socio-demographics, there are some with high shootings and some with low shootings.
Experiments that involve cleaning up vacant lots in neighborhoods, and teaching men how to respond to provocation, have found drastic reductions in violence.
The administration says they are targeting the worst of the worst in their illegal immigration crackdown, but the facts are, they are sweeping up lots of people whose only crime was illegally immigrating.
Mexican cartels are using drones to drop bombs on rival cartels and police, and to intimidate civilians. Criminal organizations in many countries are using drones and have gotten good at using them in advanced ways.
According to an Epstein email, Trump spent hours at Epstein’s house with a victim. This is where Epstein called Trump “that dog that hasn’t barked”.
In another email between Michael Wolff and Epstein, Wolf suggests that Trump has been on Epstein’s plane and at his house in such a way that Epstein could save Trump by keeping secret about it.
This is all in the context of Trump being uncharacteristically resistant to releasing files about Epstein, even pressuring Republican congress people to not do it; in the context where Trump openly said that Epstein likes them young; in the context where Trump has had many many sex scandals; and in the context where the Trump administration has moved Epstein’s coconspirator to a more comfortable prison.
It looks like Trump was either involved in Epstein’s crimes, or knew about them and kept silent when he should not have. It’s possible that Trump didn’t really do or know anything, and just doesn’t want Epstein or Maxwell to make him look bad.
“In a 2019 email to Wolff, Epstein wrote that “Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever. [O]f course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.”
The message appears to reference Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted Epstein co-conspirator currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for crimes connected to Epstein.
The following year, Epstein and several associates received word that Reuters was readying a story about a lawsuit filed against the disgraced financier and Trump over an alleged sexual assault from 1994.
“Well, I guess if there’s anybody who can wave thus [sic] away, it’s Donald,” Wolff wrote. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
These quotes seem too vague to draw strong conclusions from.