Salvation Prayer
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Salvation Prayer
Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley has faced criticism from former President Donald Trump and others over reports that he improperly shared U.S. military intelligence with Chinese officials.
While Milley has attempted to defend his actions, another troubling report has emerged from within the ranks of the U.S. military regarding the dissemination of classified information to China.
The Department of Justice recently indicted 29-year-old former Army Sgt. Joseph Daniel Schmidt on charges related to retaining and attempting to transmit national defense information to China via email. He was arrested on Friday.
According to the charges against him, Schmidt allegedly accessed top-secret military data during the five years he spent in the 109th Military Intelligence Battalion.
Prosecutors say that after leaving his final post at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington, he sent an email to China’s consulate in Turkey and indicated a willingness to provide classified information he obtained during his military service.
The indictment lays out Schmidt’s alleged plot, including a request to meet with Chinese officials in person. He reportedly traveled to Hong Kong a short time after his military career ended, where he allegedly continued tapping into sensitive military data in an effort to share it with China.
Evidence provided in the court documents includes computer files such as a document he titled “Important Information to Share with the Chinese Government.” That Word document allegedly contained classified information and was created two days after he sent the email.
“Members of our military take a sworn oath to defend our country and the Constitution,” asserted acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington Tessa M. Gorman in a statement announcing the arrest.
She went on to accuse him of plotting to “betray our country,” adding that his “shocking” behavior involved “not only attempting to provide national defense information but also information that would assist a foreign adversary to gain access to Department of Defense secure computer networks.”
Schmidt was on his way to San Francisco, California, from Hong Kong when he was detained by authorities.
Gorman expressed gratitude for the “diligent work” thus far. The case is still under investigation by the bureau and the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Command.
If convicted, Schmidt could be fined $250,000 and face a sentence of 10 years for each of the counts against him.
More Californians with untreated mental illness and addiction issues could be detained against their will and forced into treatment under a new law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, a move to help overhaul the state's mental health system and address its growing homelessness crisis.
The new law, which reforms the state's conservatorship system, expands the definition of “gravely disabled” to include people who are unable to provide themselves basic needs such as food and shelter due to an untreated mental illness or unhealthy drugs and alcohol use. Local governments say current state laws leave their hands tied if a person refuses to receive help.
The law is designed to make it easier for authorities to provide care to people with untreated mental illness or addictions to alcohol and drugs, many of whom are homeless.
The bill was aimed in part at dealing with the state’s homelessness crisis. California is home to more than 171,000 homeless people — about 30% of the nation’s homeless population. The state has spent more than $20 billion in the last few years to help them, with mixed results.
Newsom is pushing his own plan to reform the state's mental health system. Newsom's proposal, which would overhaul how counties pay for mental and behavioral health programs and borrow $6.3 billion to pay for 10,000 new mental health treatment beds, are expected to go before voters next March.
“California is undertaking a major overhaul of our mental health system," Newsom said in a signing announcement Tuesday. “We are working to ensure no one falls through the cracks, and that people get the help they need and the respect they deserve.”
The legislation, authored by Democratic Sen. Susan Eggman, is the latest attempt to update California’s 56-year-old law governing mental health conservatorships — an arrangement where the court appoints someone to make legal decisions for another person, including whether to accept medical treatment and take medications.
The bill was supported by the National Alliance on Mental Illness California and mayors of the biggest California cities, who said the existing conservatorship law has made it challenging to provide mental health treatment to those most in need.
Opponents of the bill, including disability rights advocates, worried the new law will result in more people being locked up and deprived them of their fundamental rights. Coercing a person into treatment could also be counterproductive, they said.
Eggman said detaining a person with mental illness against their will should only be used as a last resort. The legislation aims to provide an alternative to sending people with mental illness and addiction problems to the prison system.
“Our state prisons are full of people who, after they’ve been restored to competency, are in our state prisons because of serious mental health issues and drug addiction issues,” Eggman said in an interview. “I think that is the most inhumane way to treat the most vulnerable of us.”
The law takes effect in 2024, but counties can postpone implementation until 2026. The changes will serve as another tool to help the state reform its mental health system. Last year, Newsom signed a law that created a new court process where family members and others could ask a judge to come up with a treatment plan for certain people with specific diagnoses, including schizophrenia. That law would let the judge force people into treatment for up to a year. The court program, started this month in seven counties, also aimed at addressing the state's homelessness crisis.
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Democrats are being forced to face the consequences of their failed policies.
That’s leading to some uncomfortable conversations.
And comedian Bill Maher spoke one brutal truth that Democrats never wanted to hear.The tables were turned on Democrat-controlled sanctuary states and cities by Republicans like Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Illegal aliens were transported to these Democrat jurisdictions that claimed to welcome them with open arms.
Democrat politicians are in meltdown mode over dealing with a small fraction of illegal aliens that Texas and other border states deal with every day.
Comedian Bill Maher roasted sanctuary city supporting Democrats on his HBO show Real Time.
He said that Republicans who bussed illegal aliens to sanctuary cities “called the Democrats’ bluff about sanctuary cities,” and exposed them as complete hypocrites.
“Here’s how serious the situation is: You know, they’ve been busing the migrants to the cities now,” Maher said during his opening monologue. “They kind of called the Democrats’ bluff about sanctuary cities, and they said oh, you love them so much? Here you go. And the cities don’t like it so much.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams warned that the influx of illegal aliens flooding his city would destroy it.
State and local Democrat politicians have flipped on President Joe Biden and demanded that he take action to solve the border crisis. “I love Eric Adams . . . he went today, to Mexico,” Maher continued. “He’s going to Mexico, Ecuador, and Colombia, I think door-to-door, no, really, just to tell people personally, we don’t have room, I’m not kidding, don’t come. That’s pretty amazing. No, he’s telling these people, we don’t have room. This is New York City. Don’t you know our catchphrase? We’re the Little Apple. And our theme song, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere, so go anywhere, don’t come here.”
Adams was widely mocked for traveling to Latin America to warn locals not to come to the U.S. for a publicity stunt that was a waste of time and taxpayer money.
Maher said that transporting illegal aliens around the country opened up eyes to the damage inflicted by the border crisis.
“The border crisis has sort of become a national crisis,” Maher said. “It was always something like oh, it’s down there, and yes, it’s bad. But it’s — and now it’s all over the country because they’ve been busing the migrants and so forth.”
The Department of Homeland Security made the shocking decision to announce the construction of 20 miles of border wall in hard-hit South Texas.
“It looks like Biden is adopting [Trump’s] policy,” Maher added. “This does not look good for the Democrats. Also, they look like sanctuary city hypocrites. They were the ones who said, look, we’re the compassionate people. Everybody should get a shot here. And then when they started sending — I mean, the [quotations] from Eric Adams, this is the mayor of liberal New York, this issue will destroy our city.”
Republicans completely changed the conversation around illegal immigration by transporting illegal aliens to sanctuary cities.