Boots & Sabers

The blogging will continue until morale improves...

Category: Politics

NOLA Uses Facial Recognition to Find Criminals

I don’t want to live in a surveillance society. Yes, that means that some bad people will get away with bad things.

During the ongoing massive manhunt for 10 inmates who escaped from a New Orleans jail last week, authorities say the use of facial recognition cameras run by a private organization helped lead to the recapture of one of the fugitives — even as the police department has come under scrutiny by critics from civil rights organizations to conservative politicians over its use of the technology.

 

Earlier this week, New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told ABC News that facial recognition cameras maintained by Project N.O.L.A. had been used in the New Orleans manhunt despite the fact that she recently ordered a pause in the automated alerts her officers had been receiving from the group, which operates independently of the police department.

 

[…]

 

In a March 27, 2025 letter to Kash Patel, who was then acting director of the federal Bureau Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms Explosives, Biggs, the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance, and Davidson raised concerns over news reports indicating the ATF utilized facial recognition technology to identify gun owners. “The Subcommittee has concerns about ATF’s use of facial recognition and Al programs and the effects that its use has upon American citizens’ Second Amendment rights and rights to privacy,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter, requesting documents on policies and training in the use of facial recognition technology.

Nebraska is First State to Ban Soda from Food Stamps

Excellent. Where are you, Wisconsin? I believe in the freedom of people to eat and drink crap at their own expense, but if I’m paying for it, I only want to pay for healthy-ish food. Yes, I understand that there are widely differing opinions on what is healthy and what is not, but we can all agree that soda is terrible for you.

Nebraska is the first state to receive a federal waiver to ban the purchase of soda and energy drinks under the benefit program for low-income Americans long known as food stamps.

 

The move, announced Monday by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, would affect about 152,000 people in Nebraska enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps families pay for groceries.

 

“There’s absolutely zero reason for taxpayers to be subsidizing purchases of soda and energy drinks,” Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen said in a statement. “SNAP is about helping families in need get healthy food into their diets, but there’s nothing nutritious about the junk we’re removing with today’s waiver.”

 

Six other states — Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Indiana, Iowa and West Virginia — have also submitted requests for waivers banning certain foods and drinks or, in some cases, expanding access to hot foods for participants, according to the USDA.

SCOTUS Allows Trump to Do His Job

Too slow. Too often wrong. But the judicial process is working.

The US Supreme Court has said it will allow the Trump administration to terminate deportation protections for some 350,000 Venezuelans in the US.

 

The ruling lifts a hold that was placed by a California judge that kept Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in place for Venezuelans whose status’ would have expired last month.

 

Temporary Protected Status allows people to live and work in the US legally if their home countries are deemed unsafe due to things like countries experiencing wars, natural disasters or other “extraordinary and temporary” conditions.

 

The ruling marks a win for US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly tried to use the Supreme Court to enact immigration policy decisions.

I can’t let that last sentence go. This is literally a story about how Leftists sued to stop Trump from doing what he is empowered by the Constitution to do and this bonehead reporter says that Trump “has repeatedly tried to use the Supreme Court to enact immigration policy decisions?” What an idiot.

On the issue itself, Biden arbitrarily granted TPS for hundreds of thousands of foreigners because he wanted to flood the country and destabilize it with mass migration. I support healthy immigration and want to keep our doors open to refugees from around the world. But we can only absorb so many people at a time before it overwhelms our social safety net and undermines our nation. I understand that Venezuela is a socialist hellhole that people want to escape. It is not Americans’ responsibility to be the safety net for failed nations. We can help some, but only with our reasonable ability to absorb the population.

And what Biden did, Trump has the power to undo. It sucks for the Venezuelans who will be sent back to their homeland. I hope they work hard to reclaim their nation from its socialist nightmare.

Biden Has Cancer

Prayers for his speedy recovery, but this raises more questions about the honesty and transparency of the Biden family and his administration.

Former US President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, a statement from his office said on Sunday.

 

Biden, 82, was diagnosed on Friday after he saw a doctor last week for urinary symptoms.

 

The cancer is a more aggressive form of the disease, characterised by a Gleason score of 9 out of 10. This means his illness is classified as “high-grade” and that the cancer cells could spread quickly, according to Cancer Research UK.

The obvious inconsistency is that Biden is an elderly man with a private physician and was, until very recently, his health was the rightful concern of the American people. Biden has a phalanx of doctors and they all missed diagnosing one of the most common cancers in elderly men? We are supposed to believe that?

Or, the more likely scenario, is that the same doctors and Biden supporters who lied to us about his dementia also lied to us about his cancer.

Again, I sincerely pray for his speedy recovery, but the cancer within his government needs to also be excised.

 

USA’s Credit Rating Drops

Frankly, Moody’s was negligent by not lowering it sooner. Until our politicians control spending and get our debt under control, we are a credit risk. Pretty soon our Congress is going to be getting payday loans to keep the spending going.

The US was stripped of its last top credit rating by Moody’s Ratings, reflecting deepening concern that ballooning debt and deficits will damage America’s standing as the preeminent destination for global capital and increase the government’s borrowing costs.

 

Moody’s lowered the US credit score to Aa1 from Aaa on Friday, joining Fitch Ratings and S&P Global Ratings in grading the world’s biggest economy below the top, triple-A position. The one-notch cut comes more than a year after Moody’s changed its outlook on the US rating to negative. The credit assessor now has a stable outlook.

 

[…]

 

The shift comes at a time when the federal budget deficit is running near $2 trillion a year, or more than 6% of gross domestic product. A weaker US economy in the wake of a global tariff war is set to increase the deficit as government spending typically rises when activity slows.

That outlook comes as the overall debt level for the US has already surpassed the size of the economy in the wake of profligate borrowing since Covid. Higher interest rates over the past several years have also pushed up the cost to service the government’s debt.

 

[…]

 

The US government is on track to surpass record debt levels set after World War II in just four years, reaching 107% of gross domestic product by 2029, the Congressional Budget Office warned in January.

Comey’s Shell Game

On the one hand, Comey clearly knew what he was doing when he posted the “8647” picture. He has hated Trump for years and apparently has the maturity of your average internet troll. On the other hand, while Comey is feeding into the pervasive violent rhetoric of the Left, I think the notion that his action constitutes a credible threat against the POTUS is overstated. All things considered, I’m glad that he was inconvenienced today, because I have absolutely no doubt that he did worse to conservatives as head of the FBI. 

Former FBI director James Comey has been interviewed by the US Secret Service after he shared then deleted a social media post that Republicans alleged was an incitement to violence against US President Donald Trump.

 

Comey voluntarily participated in the questioning at the law enforcement agency’s Washington DC headquarters and was not being held in custody, sources told US media.

 

It comes a day after he posted on Instagram a photo of seashells that spelled the numbers “8647”.

 

The number 86 is a slang term whose definitions include “to reject” or “to get rid of”, however, it has more recently been used as a term to mean “kill”. Trump is the 47th US president

 

Comey, whom Trump fired as FBI director in 2017, was interviewed on Friday afternoon about what he meant by the post, and whether he intended it as a threat to Trump or an attempt to inspire others to commit violence, according to CNN.

Big Beautiful Bill Stalls

It is, indeed, big, but it is not beautiful. Frankly, I would rather it fail and the House go about passing individual parts on their own merits. I’m sick of omnibus bills advocated by either party.

A budget bill, long touted by Donald Trump as the “big, beautiful bill” hit a roadblock on Friday when lawmakers from the president’s own party voted against it in congress.

 

Five Republicans joined all Democrats in delivering a stunning setback to President Trump’s domestic agenda, demanding deeper budget cuts.

 

Trump, who has muscled through close votes several times this year, urged lawmakers to unite behind the legislation. “We don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party. STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE!,” he posted on Truth Social.

 

The bill’s chances of success are not hopeless, but its failure gives the Trump administration its first legislative bruise of the year.

Support for the bill among Republicans varies. Some hard-liners want to see the budget cuts go further, while other Republicans have expressed concern about cuts to programmes like Medicaid, which their constituents are dependent on.

Federal Government Backs off on Regulations

While this story is written to insinuate that the federal government is inappropriately favoring Musk, this is happening all across the country. It’s a good thing. The federal government’s regulatory overreach works to retard growth and we should celebrate the Trump administration for pulling the government regulators back.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s regulatory problems have started to fade into the past.

 

Since the start of the second Trump administration, federal agencies that had scrutinized Musk and his business empire in recent years have begun to look a lot different. At the Department of Agriculture, for example, President Donald Trump fired the person who had been investigating the Musk company Neuralink. At other agencies including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Trump and Musk have tried to slash the number of employees — potentially hobbling those regulators’ ability to enforce the law against companies including Musk’s Tesla and X.

 

In the past few months, Trump’s Justice Department has dropped a case against Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, and his Labor Department has canceled a planned civil rights review of his automaker, Tesla. Another regulatory matter against SpaceX has entered settlement talks with the National Labor Relations Board.

Dad of School Shooter Charged with Felonies

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

MADISON, Wis. — The father of the 15-year-old girl who opened fire at Abundant Life Christian School last December, killing two people and injuring six more is in custody, online records show.

 

[…]

 

However, evidence collected from the Rupnows’ home and further testimony from Rupnow show his child had access to numerous guns while he was aware of her ongoing mental health struggles.

According to the complaint, Rupnow told police on the day of the shooting that he had 12 guns at his home, locked in a safe. However, police allegedly only found eight of those firearms when searching the home.

 

The complaint alleges that Rupnow took one of the guns out of the safe the day before the shooting at his daughter’s request, and he later told investigators that he couldn’t remember if the gun was returned before he closed the safe back up.

 

[…]

 

Jeffrey Rupnow had previously been questioned about his daughter’s suicidal tendencies in 2021. At the time he said he didn’t take things seriously. In 2022, Madison police spoke to him about high-risk behavior the eventual shooter was engaging in on the internet.

 

When asked why he allowed his daughter to unpack and pack the gun safe, Rupnow allegedly told investigators “I didn’t feel like I needed to babysit her with this.”

In general, I am in favor of charging negligent or criminal people who facilitate someone else committing a crime – even if that other person is their kid. Details matter here, though. In this case, it appears that the dad knew his daughter was not mentally stable and still gave her free and unsupervised access to guns. If those facts are true, then it rises to the level of negligence, at least.

What I worry about is prosecutors going too far. It is not a crime to have guns in your home. It is also not a crime to have unsecured guns in your home. It is a good idea if you have small or mentally disturbed children around, but if your kids are normal, responsible teenagers, it could be perfectly acceptable to have unsecured guns in your home. For generations, this was normal behavior. We don’t want our government to criminalize the “keep” part of the 2nd Amendment.

Fed Holds Interest Rates

I am one of those who thinks we should abolish the Federal Reserve Bank and this is one of the reasons why. Their decisions don’t follow any kind of data-driven process. Based on the rate of inflation, employment, and every other metric, the Fed would have lowered interest rates if Biden were president. Because they don’t like the current president, they decided to keep interest rates where they are. If the Fed is just another political body trying to manage our economy based on political motivations, then they are doing more harm than good.

The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady on Wednesday, just weeks after President Donald Trump intensified calls for lower borrowing costs and voiced eagerness about the potential “termination” of Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

Leftists Defend Slave Labor Force

Some things never change. Just read the Leftists’ opposition to ICE raids. Illegal immigrants are exploited by employers who can underpay and abuse them because they know that the illegals will never go to the cops. This is this slave labor relationship that the Leftists persist in defending. And while they try to confuse the issue by lumping legal and illegal immigrants together, ICE is only concerned with the illegals.

“If ICE wants to snatch up every single immigrant working in food service and delivery, then the entire industry will collapse,” Amy Fischer, a core organizer with Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid, which supports migrants arriving in the capital, said in a statement.

 

The Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington — which represents the more than 60,000 restaurant workers in the area — said in a statement shared with ABC News that it was “deeply concerned” by the reports of ICE raids and drop-ins across Washington, D.C.

 

[…]

 

“Immigrants make up a significant portion of our workforce at all levels. From dishwashers to executive chefs to restaurant owners, immigrants are irreplaceable contributors to our most celebrated restaurants and beloved neighborhood establishments,” the statement said. “The immigrant workforce has been essential to sustaining and growing our local restaurant industry and has been a major contributor to our local economy.”

Hegseth Orders Reduction of Top Leadership

Seems like a good start.

CNN — 

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered senior Pentagon leadership to cut the number of four-star generals and admirals by at least 20% across the military, according to a memo signed by Hegseth dated Monday and obtained by CNN.

As of 2023, there were 37 four-star generals and admirals across the entire military.

The memo also directs the Pentagon to cut the number of general officers in the National Guard by 20%, and to cut the total number of general and flag officers across the military by 10%. There are currently about 900 general and flag officers — those with the rank of one star or higher — across the military.

At the end of WW2, we had about 12 million active duty military and about 450 generals and admirals – about 1 general/admiral per 26,667 service members.

Currently, we have about 900 generals and admirals leading a military of about 1.26 million service members – about 1 general/admiral per 1,400 service members. We only have 241 active ships in our navy and over 300 admirals.

Yes, it’s time to streamline our armed forces and make them less top heavy starting with the 4-stars.

Josh Shoemann Runs for Governor

Story from Wisconsin Right Now. You can click through to watch his announcement video.

Schoemann, 43, who is running as a Republican, is holding an event on Sunday, May 4, 2025, to officially announce his campaign against Democrat Gov. Tony Evers.

 

“I’m Josh Schoemann, and I’m running for governor,” he confirms in the video, which sketches out his bio and strikes a theme of commonality and unity through being neighbors. The tone stands in stark contrast to the very partisan rhetoric and stances lately of Evers, and Schoemann also emphasizes his deep Wisconsin roots.

Let me start by saying that, barring some unforeseen circumstance, I don’t think Shoemann has a chance.

I’ve watched Shoemann’s public career since he started because I lived in his county. He started out as a hired County Administrator. He was effective, but in that role his responsibilities were to the board that hired him. He pushed to change Washington County into a County Executive form of government where the County Executive is an elected branch of county government. The County changed the form of government and Shoemann ran for, and won, that job. He’s been the Washington County manager and executive for the last eleven years.

Shoemann has a great biography for Wisconsin. He’s a combat veteran, lives on a farm, is a practicing Lutheran, a family man, and is involved in multiple local organizations. His governing style has been traditionally conservative. He navigated the urban/rural divide of an overly large county board, sought compromises, and incrementally helped lead the county in a conservative direction. The county has managed to keep taxes comparatively low, sought efficiencies, privatized the county old folks home, encouraged private investment, and, with a few exceptions, ran a good shop.

Shoemann is the kind of Conservative that I support. Shoemann’s challenge is that there aren’t enough people like me to elect him to be governor.

Shoemann’s headwinds are substantial. First, this election will be the midterm election after a new president. This is usually an election in which the opposition party of the president does well. Trump has defied all kinds of political norms and that may be true this time too, but odds are that any Republican will struggle to win the governorship next year.

Second, Shoemann lacks statewide name recognition. This is probably why he’s starting so early, but it’s a significant uphill climb.

Third, while not certain, it is looking more likely that Governor Evers will run for a third term. If he does, then the two challenges above are amplified by running against an entrenched, well-funded incumbent.

Fourth, the last few statewide elections have taught us something. Wisconsin is a blue-leaning state. There simply aren’t enough conservatives to win statewide anymore. Since the Walker era, too many conservatives have left the state and been replaced by growth in liberal bastion of Dane County and filtering into the WOW counties. The only thing that has defeated Democrats at the state level is a coalition of Populist/Trump and Conservative voters. For a Republican to win, he or she must turn out the traditional conservative Republican base in SE and somewhat NE Wisconsin, but also turn out the more rural outstate and disaffected minority and youth votes. It’s the Trump coalition. Yes, there may be another path to victory, but this is the only formula that has worked since 2016.

Given all that, Shoemann is not that guy. As Washington County Executive, he didn’t take the big swings that would attract the Trump voters. He didn’t cancel the sales tax. He didn’t drastically reduce the property tax. He didn’t take a DOGE-like hatchet to county government. He governed like a traditional conservative. He also governed a 94% white county that, while not without challenges, certainly doesn’t face the challenges that Milwaukee County did when Scott Walker ran it.

Josh Shoemann is the kind of governor that Wisconsin SHOULD elect, but I am almost certain that they won’t.

Governor Evers Talks Tough

This has been entertaining to follow the back and forth the past few days. Notice how Scott Bauer from the AP continues to just regurgitate the spin and lies from Evers. Evers’ “guidance” was nothing of the sort. It was written as an instruction – one might even call it an order. I’m pretty sure that the Trump Administration wouldn’t arrest a sitting governor, but we can expect to see some government employees in cuffs if they follow Evers’ instructions.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said Friday that every American should be concerned about “chilling” suggestions from President Donald Trump’s top border adviser that he could be arrested over guidance the Democrat issued to state employees about what to do if confronted by federal immigration agents.

 

“I’m not afraid,” Evers said in the extraordinary video posted on YouTube. “I’ve never once been discouraged from doing the right thing and I will not start today.”

 

At issue is guidance Evers’ administration issued last month in response to state workers who asked what they should do if agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement show up at their offices.

Evers’ guidance advised them to contact an attorney immediately and ask the officers to return if an attorney is unavailable. The memo also advises state workers not to turn over paper files or give ICE officers access to computers without first consulting the state agency’s attorney and not to answer questions from the agents.

Prison Warden Gets Away With Homicide

I’m certainly not a softy when it comes to crooks but making someone die of dehydration is beyond inhumane. This warden should be in jail for the rest of his life. Yet another example of our two-tier justice system.

In a move that is sure to have political repercussions, Dodge County District Attorney Andrea Will, an appointee of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, has slashed felony misconduct charges against former Waupun Correctional Institution Warden Randall Hepp to a misdemeanor, letting him off with a $500 fine for his role in the death of inmate Donald Maier.

 

The plea deal, finalized Monday in Dodge County Circuit Court, is the latest chapter in Governor Evers’ Wisconsin Department of Corrections’ ongoing saga of mismanagement and dodged accountability.

 

Hepp, who conveniently announced his retirement just days before charges were filed in June 2024, was initially accused of felony misconduct in office, a charge that could have landed him three-and-a-half years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The allegations stemmed from the deaths of two inmates at Waupun, Wisconsin’s oldest maximum-security prison: Cameron Williams, who died of a stroke in October 2023, and Maier, who succumbed to dehydration and malnutrition in February 2024 after guards shut off his cell’s water supply. Court documents paint a grim picture: Williams, ignored after begging for hospital care, collapsed and crawled to his cell, his body undiscovered for at least 12 hours. Maier’s death, ruled a homicide by the Dodge County Medical Examiner, was a slow torture of starvation and thirst, with staff failing to provide meals or water.

 

Yet, according to a report by WLUK, Will justified the reduced charge by claiming Hepp was “well respected” within Evers’ Department of Corrections and unaware his guards were flouting policy Hepp pleaded no contest, and Judge Martin Devries, an appointee of former Republican Governor Scott Walker, ordered the $500 fine and court costs, requiring Hepp to pay within 48 hours and submit a DNA sample. Maier’s mother, Jeanette, called the sentence a “slap on the wrist,” lamenting that her son was “treated worse than a caged animal.”

Ah, Eduardo… We Barely Knew Thee

But we knew enough. This is the upstanding “migrant” that the Left and Judge Dugan are so worked up about.

He was previously removed from the U.S. through Arizona in 2013, authorities say.

 

The complaint charges Ruiz with domestic-violence-related battery and says that he told police that there was a fight that arose because he was playing loud music.

 

He was accused of intentionally elbowing a woman, causing her pain and bruising. Ruiz was also accused of striking his roommate 30 times with a closed fist and shouting obscenities when the man confronted him about the music, the complaint says. The roommate’s girlfriend tried to intervene, and Ruis struck her with a closed fist too and shoved her, the complaint says. He is also accused of grabbing the roommate by the neck.

Despite Evers’ “Year of the Kid,” Government Education is Failing Them

I feel like I’ve been shouting about this for decades and nobody in government has ever expressed real concern. The government-education complex is just about funneling gobs of money to political-favored groups of people… the kids be damned.

The Department of Public Instruction on Monday released the scores from several years of the state’s Forward Exam, which is the state test taken mostly by kids in elementary school and junior high.

 

“The Forward Exam, revised extensively and administered during the 2023-24 school year, was updated to align with newer, revised Wisconsin Academic Standards in English language arts and mathematics,” DPI said in its announcement. “Given the differences between the previous and updated Forward Exam ELA and mathematics assessments, the trend data should be interpreted with caution.”

 

DPI’s release includes hundreds of pages of school-by-school test results, but it does not include any overall numbers. Parents would need to look for their kids’ school, broken down by year, and then look to compare those scores with earlier years.

 

Will Flanders, an education expert for the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, said any parents who do that will see the Wisconsin school kids continue to fall behind.

 

“To the surprise of no one, [the test scores] reveal that student proficiency is still down since the COVID 19 pandemic. Proficiency is about 3.61% lower in third grade reading statewide than the 2018-19 school year,” Flanders wrote on Twitter.

 

He also said the test scores show the DPI lowered the bar for kids.

Trump Floats Baby Bounty

This is a terrible idea.

The White House has been fielding proposals aimed at persuading people to marry and have children, an effort being pushed by outside groups focused on increasing the nation’s birth rate after years of decline.

 

One such proposal that has been pitched to White House advisers is a $5,000 “baby bonus” to every American mother after she gives birth.

 

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” President Donald Trump said Tuesday when asked about a $5,000 incentive for new mothers.

A healthy nation has babies and we want to have policies that encourage families. Bribing new moms with $5k does not fix the underlying forces for why people are having fewer babies. Focus on policies that lower the cost of living, make housing more affordable, and stop with the apocalyptic global warming nonsense. We don’t need more welfare. We need a more stable, prosperous nation. Then the babies will come.

Leftist Prosecutor Refuses to Prosecute Man for Felony Property Damage for Political Reasons

This is unconscionable. Our two-tier justice system is alive and well in Minnesota. This goon is caught on video causing tens of thousands of dollars of property damage – damage that the citizens of her county will have to pay to repair out of their own pockets – and she refuses to prosecute because she agrees with the goon’s political cause. If you live in Hennepin County, you cannot rely on the “justice” system to prosecute criminals who are part of the political Left.

Hennepin County officials are not charging the man accused of damaging several Tesla vehicles in Minneapolis.

 

Authorities arrested Dylan Adams for keying six Teslas, with the damage valued at $21,000.

 

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty decided not to file charges against Adams, referring him to an adult diversion program.

FBI Investigates Milwaukee Judge for Obstruction

Well, well, well. Recognize where we are.

EXCLUSIVE: Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge Hannah Dugan is under FBI investigation for allegedly helping an illegal immigrant defendant evade ICE agents who came to arrest him in her courtroom during a hearing Friday morning.

 

The defendant’s attorney was made aware of the arrest and told Dugan’s clerk, who then told Dugan. She allowed the defendant to hide in her jury room (which is normally off-limits to everyone except the judge and members of the jury).

 

The ICE agents presented their warrant to Chief Judge Carl Ashley, who sent them back to Dugan’s courtroom to arrest the defendant.

 

The FBI was notified about Dugan’s apparent obstruction of justice and is currently investigating.

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