Published by an old curmudgeon who came to America in 1936 as a refugee from Nazi Germany and proudly served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He is a former law enforcement officer and a retired professor of criminal justice who, in 1970, founded the Texas Narcotic Officers Association. BarkGrowlBite refuses to be politically correct.
(Copyrighted articles are reproduced in accordance with the copyright laws of the U.S. Code, Title 17, Section 107.)
Trump green lights UFO disclosure of secret bases hiding crashed ships and non-human bodies, US congressman claims
By Chris Melore
Daily Mail
Feb 5, 2026
US Congressman Eric Burlison
(Pictured) has claimed that he has received approval from the White
House to visit classified US facilities allegedly tied to evidence of
alien life
The Trump Administration has given the
green light to reveal the secret UFO facilities to one of the leading
voices in Congress calling for full disclosure of alien life.
US
Congressman Eric Burlison of Missouri revealed that he has requested
and been granted access to secure locations, such as Area 51, which have
decades-old ties to UFOs and secret government projects.
Speaking
on the ALN Podcast, Burlison added that the request to President Trump
and his staff included visiting US military bases and facilities where
evidence suggests unidentified craft, materials, bodies, or archives
allegedly exist.
Burlison is a member of the congressional oversight committee involved in the ongoing investigation into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), commonly known as UFOs.
Although the US government and the Pentagon have
officially denied that there has been any physical evidence of UFOs or
alien life ever recovered, Congress has heard from multiple
whistleblowers claiming secret programs have covered up the truth.
In fact, Burlison has previously claimed President Trump has been 'fully briefed' on the existence of aliens, UFOs recovered by the military since the 1940s, and alien-human hybrids allegedly living on Earth today.
Now, as Trump insiders have allegedly leaked that the White House is planning to reveal what America knows about extraterrestrials by July, the UAP committee may soon have the physical proof of non-human intelligence in their hands.
The
congressman revealed: 'The White House has told the DoD to make it
happen. The extent at which they've been involved is literally just
saying to the Department of Defense that "we're backing his request. Do
what you can to make it happen."'
Area 51 (Pictured) has been tied to UFO encounters and advanced military aircraft since the 1950s
Over the years, multiple US military sites
have been linked to non-human craft, including facilities anonymous
sources have said were housing crashed spaceships and experimental
aircraft constructed using reverse-engineered alien technology.
These include Naval Air Station Patuxent River
in Maryland, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, the Atlantic
Undersea Testing and Evaluation Center (AUTEC) in the Bahamas, and the
Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR), home to Area 51.
'There
is reportedly an object that is not in this country that is so large it
cannot be moved, that they've built an entire building around it,' Burlison said during the January 30 podcast.
The congressman noted that this facility outside the US was classified so he was unable to reveal its exact location, but it was on his list of places he had requested to visit as part of the committee's investigation.
'It's going to involve a lot to make that happen, but that may be the final destination.'
Burlison
said during the interview that he started out as a UFO skeptic but was
convinced these phenomena were real after listening to whistleblower
David Grusch's public interview shortly after entering Congress in early
2023.
The Missouri Republican reached
out to Grusch, connected him to the House Oversight Committee, and
helped facilitate the string of public hearings which have revealed
shocking evidence of alien encounters from respected military officials.
Most
of the current evidence has taken the form of images and videos of
alleged non-human craft captured by both civilians and military
personnel. Many have been leaked to the public after being classified by
the Pentagon for years.
President Trump (Pictured)
expressed skepticism that reports of UFOs were real during a June 2024
interview but has allegedly granted access to secret bases tied to such
claims
The November 2025 documentary 'The Age of Disclosure' alleged that there's been an 80-year cover-up on UFOs and alien technology
Burlison himself revealed
never-before-seen video of a US military drone striking an orb-shaped
UFO with a Hellfire missile during a September 2025 UAP hearing.
The
shocking footage from October 30, 2024 revealed that the unidentified
craft not only survived the missile strike, but continued to fly away at
extreme speed as the 100-pound, air-to-ground precision weapon simply
bounced off the UFO's hull.
The
congressman added that access to government records on UAP has been
intentionally made difficult to obtain and convoluted to research, with
some agencies allegedly failing to report their data properly to
Congress.
'We created government and
it's not the right of any government to withhold from you and I
the truth about reality,' Burlison declared.
'No
government has the right to withhold from you and I that we might be
alone or not alone in the universe. That is not their right. That is not
classified. That's a truth that humanity deserves to know.'
Burlison
has previously claimed to have 'a lead' on new UFO whistleblowers.
However, he said during the new interview that it's been difficult to
convince potential witnesses to risk losing their government clearances
in retaliation, comparing these individuals to 'guinea pigs' in terms of
how the Pentagon would respond.
Beneath Gaza, Israel's war with Hamas has only begun
Phase Two? A ceasefire? Beneath Gaza's
soil, a war with no red or yellow lines is raging: the fight against the
tunnels. At the heart of the network, alongside engineering officers,
it becomes clear that the threat remains, and could intensify in the
future. And also: the city people joke about, saying, "Wherever you drop
a drill, you hit a tunnel."
After meeting with us, Lt. Col. Y., head of the Subterranean Branch in
the IDF Southern Command, waited for representatives of the US military
near a Hamas attack tunnel discovered close to Kibbutz Nir Am about a
decade ago.
The Americans wanted to hear an
explanation of the phenomenon and exchange information on tunnel
warfare. Some believe the danger will fade with slogans like "total
victory," while others think this is only the beginning.
"Look at Pakistan and India," Lt.
Col. Y. says. "The Pakistanis plant explosives under Indian patrol
routes. Between Mexico and the US there are smuggling tunnels that make
what we see here look like child's play. In the war between Russia and
Ukraine, the subterranean front has taken on major significance. Go back
to history. What did the Maccabees do? They dug. You see it in Iran, in
Yemen, in Lebanon, and it is only going to intensify. We as a military
understand this. Today, at the Kirya in Tel Aviv you sit in a bunker,
and at Northern Command you sit in a bunker, which is essentially a
fortified underground facility. The world is moving in that direction.
Whoever controls the subterranean realm will control many things,
because it is a front that has not yet been fully cracked
technologically, and in my view not even physically. On land you know if
you hit the target, and if you blow up a satellite you see the result
with your own eyes. Underground, you have no real sense of whether you
accomplished the mission. It is a lot of trial and error, and waiting to
see how the enemy responds."
A massive tunnel beneath the Philadelphi Route.
Right under our noses
Until October 7, Israel knew that
digging was taking place in Gaza, and on a massive scale. But for a long
time, warning signs were ignored, and there was a refusal to believe
that one day we would discover a dark, brutal world beneath the ground.
Today, after more than two years of fighting, tunnel experts who grew
out of experience on the ground are warning against falling asleep on
watch again.
"Before the war we said, 'It's
there, we're here, we'll make sure there are no tunnels crossing the
fence.' Basically, we created a separation," says Lt. Col. R., commander
of the IDF's 603rd Combat Engineering Battalion, who knows Gaza's
shafts and passageways intimately. "At the end of the day we're the
tactical level, but I hope the level above us understands there is no
other way. If they are digging beyond the border, it's not to get home
faster. It's to get here and slaughter Jews. We understand their
learning curve is constantly improving, and we are doing the same. I am a
million percent certain that at this very moment they are digging."
Are new tunnels still being found at this stage?
"There are surprises all the time.
Even right now. We won't go into details because we're dealing with it,
but there are surprises in depth and length. Intelligence is not precise
down to where a tunnel starts and where it ends. It gives an
assessment, and you have to find it. Before the war, locating a
subterranean site was considered an achievement. We'd say, 'Wow.' But
last Saturday alone, just in my sector, a company commander destroyed a
kilometer and a half of tunnel. It's no longer exciting. We're in a
different place in understanding the enemy."
In 2024, the New York Times
estimated that Gaza's underground network was between 560 and 720
kilometers long. When I try to understand how many tunnels have been
found in recent years, Lt. Col. Y. is careful not to cite a number.
"When we began the ground maneuver,
the target of the first brigade to cross the fence was Hamas'
'Ashkelon' outpost," he recalls. "Everyone was waiting to see a tunnel
explode. We encountered two shafts and said, 'Let's go.' In hindsight,
those were agricultural pumping shafts, but we still said we had blown
up a tunnel. From that moment, everything flipped. It's not normal, but
every meter, every maneuvering force encountered subterranean
infrastructure. The terrain produced more information than we ever knew.
We set up collection and management systems for every shaft the forces
encountered. Today the system is at the level of thousands. I won't say
how many, but it's closer to tens of thousands than to a few thousand
shafts that were probed and marked by the forces."
The two officers, who have spent
years studying hundreds of tunnels, never imagined when they enlisted
that a significant portion of their service would take place
underground. Today, it is part of their daily routine.
"In tunnels without reinforcement
you feel the humidity and you sweat," says Lt. Col. R. "Once we prepared
infrastructure inside a tunnel to pump in a certain substance. Two days
of work, but days of Sisyphean labor where you spend most of the time
inside with no ventilation. Physically, it's hard on the body. When you
come out, you get fresh air into your lungs and it feels great."
Lt. Col. Y., who has become an
expert on all things subterranean, agrees. "There wasn't a single time I
exited a tunnel and wasn't happy," he admits.
Lt. Col. R., commander of the IDF's 603rd Combat Engineering Battalion, inside a Hamas tunnel.
Fighting insects
Neither officer shows any trace of
contempt for the work done by the enemy. Lt. Col. R. is keen to stress
this point. Over the two years since the fighting began, the IDF
realized it is not dealing with amateurs hauling wheelbarrows
underground. This is an organization that works methodically and knows
exactly where it wants to go.
"I know the image sometimes is of
four laborers with shovels, but that's light years from reality," says
Lt. Col. R., 37. "Here, in the tunnel we're standing over now, they dug
with pneumatic drills. That's a completely different pace. Since then
they've advanced significantly. They have good mapping of where they
dug, at what depths and angles. In northern Gaza there is the
'Orchid-like' tunnel, six meters wide, with vehicles driving inside. So
it's not just the size that's impressive. You need ventilation systems,
engineers who know what they're doing, water drainage, electricity,
communications, sleeping quarters. In Gaza City we found a tunnel with
an elevator."
Lt. Col. Y., 36, knows the findings
well. "They live there in routine times, not just during war," he says.
"We saw prayer rooms, offices, production sites. Think about what it
means to lower an entire factory deep underground. And I'm not talking
about five meters down, but 30 meters. You encounter a place where they
mix high explosives, an insanely toxic chemical process. Underground,
this is planning at the most advanced level. Hamas invested close to a
third of its annual budget in the subterranean program. It understood
the relative advantage, and once it understood how we operate, it
improved."
To this day, it sounds like a
cat-and-mouse chase beneath the surface. Both sides are in an arms race,
one refining digging methods, the other improving detection and
destruction.
"The most challenging thing is the
endless learning competition, even during the war," says Lt. Col. R.
"Over these two years we've seen monthly changes in their
infrastructure, thinking, and operational methods. Hamas understands how
we work and adapts defensively, and we have to reinvent ourselves."
Lt. Col. Y. jumps in. "Unlike the
IDF, Hamas can change much faster. It places no real value on human
life. From its perspective, if you try something innovative underground
and die, it's not a disaster. Another factor is the absence of
regulation. A field operative understands something and implements it
the next day. He doesn't need to go to a company commander, who needs to
go to a brigade commander, who needs approval from Sinwar. I cannot
absorb the cost of soldiers' lives just to learn faster. Think of
evolution among creatures with an 80-year lifespan versus insects that
live four days. The evolution of warfare is faster. And if you ask what
parameters allow Hamas to survive, it's the population it relies on and
the subterranean realm."
Because of the understanding that
underground warfare requires a decisive response to the advantage Hamas
has built over the years, the IDF has been developing solutions on the
move, drawing on accumulated field experience.
"We discovered connectivity between
tunnels," says Lt. Col. D., a company commander in the elite Yahalom
engineering unit. "Imagine a corridor you're walking down, sometimes you
knock on the wall, feel a hollow space, open it and discover something
new. We said the first thing is to cut the Strip north to south, then
cut it east to west. That way we prevented reinforcements and movement.
We came up with operational ideas that weren't just 'let's blow up a
shaft,' but a systemic way of looking at the network and forcing the
enemy into closed spaces it can't escape. In a tunnel the space is
narrow and low. Operatives sit there eating dates and canned food until
supplies run out and they have nowhere to relieve themselves. That's
real. They suffocate until they come out and are killed, basically."
Lt. Col. Y., head of the Subterranean Branch in the IDF's Southern Command.
Everyone, now
One of the biggest challenges
underground was not just the fear of direct clashes with terrorists, but
the concern that hostages could be harmed during operations, a
possibility that hovered for two years of fighting.
"I gathered the guys, brought them
into the office, and said, 'No one leaves until there's an operational
idea or a ruse that allows us both to protect the hostages inside the
tunnels and to destroy the enemy or push it away so it doesn't hurt
us,'" says Lt. Col. D., 34. "You're careful with the means you use.
During Operation Gideon's Chariots II in August 2025, we developed an
idea that in practice meant no hostages were killed in underground
operations, largely thanks to it."
What kind of methods?
"A set of actions. Some inside
the tunnels, some aerial, and also the pumping of liquids. When you pump
liquids into a tunnel, you can choose the flow strength and level,
whether it's lethal or not. I'll leave it at that."
Another key to dealing with the
subterranean threat was the intelligence treasure trove discovered in
command tunnels that were exposed. Today, almost every soldier can
distinguish between tunnels used by low-level Hamas operatives, like
those found in large numbers in Rafah, which were filthy and neglected,
and tunnels of senior leaders uncovered in Gaza City, which were painted
and sometimes had synthetic grass and conference rooms.
On one computer hard drive,
security camera footage led in May 2024 to the discovery of the bodies
of Shani Louk, Itzhak Gelerenter, and Amit Buskila, all murdered on
October 7.
"In the footage we saw bodies
being taken out of a building, loaded into a vehicle, and lowered into a
shaft," says Lt. Col. Y. "We found the shaft and uncovered an explosive
charge hidden in the wall, aimed exactly at the entrance. They were
waiting for the moment we arrived. Through tactical actions by the
force, the charge was neutralized, and we realized something of value
was hidden inside. The force located the three bodies in two separate
graves. There was a small doubt there might be another body, because we
identified a blockage of sacks from floor to ceiling. For 12 hours we
cleared an enormous number of sacks, each weighing 20 kilograms. Every
piece of fabric was collected with reverence and placed in a Ziploc bag.
We essentially set up a forensic lab. We didn't bring back new
information, but it showed that everything would be done to bring a
hostage home."
The search for the body of Lt.
Hadar Goldin, killed and abducted by Hamas during the 2014 Gaza war, was
also conducted based on intelligence, painstaking work that stretched
over a year and a half.
"We didn't sleep for long
nights," says Lt. Col. R. "If someone took a satellite image of the
area, they'd see the number of shafts drilled, because every time a new
intelligence fragment came in. We carried out several searches a week
and turned over every centimeter. Imagine a length of 10 kilometers, and
you go concrete slab by concrete slab, opening, searching, and closing.
It's thorough work."
Did it frustrate you that you didn't find living hostages?
Lt. Col. R.: "There were areas we
avoided searching because you understand that if you corner a
kidnapper, the easiest thing for him is to kill the hostage. In the
Strip you can see where there are still standing houses, ones that
weren't hit because hostages were nearby. We didn't strike there, above
ground or below."
In the end, it was Hamas that
closed the open wound of the Goldin family, returning the officer's body
last November. Lt. Col. Y. is convinced it happened only because the
terrorist organization understood the IDF was close to finding the body
itself.
"They realized we were right
there, and that if they didn't return it, they wouldn't even gain the
half gram of legitimacy from returning a fallen soldier who became a
symbol," he says. "Hamas did it because it had no choice."
Hamas tunnels in Gaza.
Destroying the "how"
When senior officers talk
about the tunnel industry, they point to the areas around Rafah in
southern Gaza as the capital of digging.
"There's a joke that wherever you
drop a drill there, you'll hit a tunnel," says Lt. Col. Y., no longer
smiling. "At first we laughed, and in the end we discovered it was true.
Historically, Rafah is the mother of tunnels. It started with a unit
that led smuggling between Gazan Rafah and Egyptian Rafah, but I have a
subterranean archive in command with testimonies from 1967 of tunnels
that were basically underground pantries. From the 2000s it became an
empire. Every crime family that wanted to set up a business without a
headache dug a tunnel."
Lt. Col. R.: "Just along the
Philadelphi Corridor, over nine kilometers, we found about 200 tunnels,
and I've been in all of them. Sometimes you find one tunnel beneath
another. That's what happens when you don't need city permits. In my
view, the future hinges on the question of our presence. If there's a
presence, we'll have the ability to sample and inspect digging on a
daily basis. The moment we leave, their ability to dig freely becomes
much easier. We saw digging in Philadelphi just 30 meters from an
Egyptian position. There's no confusion. The Egyptian saw them digging."
Entrance to a Hamas tunnel in Gaza.
The detection of tunnels in Rafah
increased Gazans' use of drones and maritime smuggling. "Carefully and
humbly, we understand that the situation in Philadelphi does not allow
Hamas to operate freely today," says Lt. Col. Y. "We see other efforts
intensifying, which reinforces the understanding that underground
operations are complex for them. But we don't trust anyone."
Today, extensive work is underway
to destroy a large portion of the tunnels, whether through controlled
explosions, sealing with concrete, and other projects requiring massive
effort.
"These are major engineering
operations," explains Lt. Col. Y. "The largest concrete pour ever done
in Israel was around 20,000 cubic meters. We have a tunnel into which
12,000 cubic meters were poured over three days. That's about 1,000
truckloads and shutting down concrete plants across the southern region.
But this was a tunnel that demanded treatment because it threatened
Israeli communities. We are focused on destroying subterranean
infrastructure in the Green Area, territory under Israeli control.
That's the mission given to us by the political leadership and the IDF
chief of staff. There is no hermetic seal underground, but we want to
get as close as possible, to locate tunnels reaching the area and
destroy them."
How do you decide which tunnel to destroy?
Lt. Col. Y.: "A substantial
amount of underground infrastructure has been handled. If you quantify
it in percentages, once you hit 50 percent or more, the damage becomes
significant. We have inflicted significant damage. Hamas doesn't
function as a single integrated system. It can't enter a shaft in Gaza
City and exit in Rafah. It has to move above ground. The issue isn't how
many kilometers you destroyed, but what you destroyed. You need to
eliminate centers of gravity that destabilize the organization. When we
destroyed the attack tunnels, we destabilized it. When we destroyed
junctions connecting battalions and brigades, we prevented it from
conducting organized fighting. When we hit underground command centers,
senior leaders had nowhere to convene and make decisions. When we
eliminated production sites, where would they manufacture explosives? We
focused on systemic and strategic centers of gravity. Still, in the
Green Area I don't want a single meter of a functional tunnel. That's a
statement. IDF forces will defend areas only when they are confident in
the subterranean space beneath them."
Lt. Col. R.: "It's easy to stand
on a rooftop, see standing buildings, and say, 'There's a cluster there
that threatens us, let's remove it.' Underground there is no 100 percent
certainty. The threat of a raid on an IDF post is very real. These
terrorists aren't going to become better people. The distance between
the buffer line and the kibbutzim is six to seven kilometers, which is a
major digging investment. Digging toward an IDF post is shorter and
could yield a bigger operational 'achievement.' They will try to hit us.
If there's a raid soon, I won't be surprised."
Just last month, in an area of
Rafah under IDF control, six terrorists emerged from an underground
shaft and exchanged fire with Israeli forces.
"It was pouring rain," Lt. Col.
R. recalls. "They disappeared into the rubble. To avoid endangering
soldiers, we used two robotic D9 bulldozers to push the debris until the
terrorists popped out. Armed terrorists were moving in our territory
and firing during the incident."
Lt. Col. Y.: "Before the war, the
average digging rate was six to 11 meters per day. The pace has slowed
significantly. Digging has become manual, less massive, but that doesn't
matter. In my view, their intention now is not to reach communities.
Think about it: if Hamas manages to abduct a soldier, we're back to
square one. That's the goal from their perspective. If you think they're
digging for defensive purposes, I say they're doing it for offensive
ones. They just don't know the timing."
Are there still cross-border attack tunnels?
Lt. Col. Y.: "You have to look at
this more deeply. There hasn't been a single raid since October 7 until
now from attack tunnels. Hamas understands the superiority that has
been developed here in the underground barrier space. There's something
strong here, especially in deterrence. They dug dozens of attack tunnels
and didn't use them. They didn't attack our maneuvering forces through
them because they understood the IDF has superiority there and it's
better for them to avoid it."
About 200 tunnels over a 9-kilometer (5.6-mile) stretch of the Philadelphi Corridor.
A bottomless pit
The Gaza Strip is in ruins, and
in the IDF there is an assessment that even now Hamas operatives are
using remaining tunnels to hide, especially as targeted killings
continue. There, underground, the enemy is preparing for the day after.
"You can dig a hole in the ground
too," says Lt. Col. Y. "To stop it, you need something more complex,
and it's not at the system-wide, IDF level. The destruction caused by
the fighting is now fertile ground for digging. How do you distinguish,
amid entire neighborhoods lying in rubble, between someone clearing sand
to salvage belongings from a destroyed home and someone digging a
tunnel? At this stage Hamas isn't fantasizing about strategic tunnels.
It's planning moves that can yield a tactical advantage in the next
round of fighting. And that's something it knows how to do."
Lt. Col. R., commander of the 603rd Battalion, knows where the challenges will arise soon.
"The tunnel in Gaza City that
housed Hamas' intelligence data was 13 meters deep, in a UNRWA
compound," he says. "It took time to find it, and while we were
searching for the shaft, a deputy battalion commander and a company
commander from the IDF's Shaldag unit were killed by a sniper ambush.
The electricity we identified underground was connected to UNRWA
headquarters. That's the challenge. Identifying a digging workshop in
the middle of nowhere and saying, 'These are Hamas operatives,' is easy.
Identifying a UNRWA employee building what appears to be a regular
structure in his compound is different. No one notices if instead of 10
trucks, 200 trucks of sand leave the site. He builds a tunnel in a place
that is hard to strike because of legitimacy and international law."
As we spoke, gunfire could
occasionally be heard across the border. With it came the understanding
that despite the return of the body of Ran Gvili, the final hostage, and
talk of the next phase in Gaza, it will take a long time before the
threat to the south of Israel is removed.
"The
underground threat we will face in the future won't resemble what we're
dealing with today, so we'll have to improve," Lt. Col. Y. is
convinced. "Factually, Hamas is deterred. But the question is whether it
has a choice. From its perspective, what it went through was
successful. To sustain two and a half years of fighting against the
strongest army in the Middle East, regardless of how, all within a
relatively small territory, that's a significant achievement in its
eyes."
The Epstein files’ toxic mix of true crime and conspiracy theories
The mistaken belief that the sex offender’s vast network of
connections explains all that is wrong or evil in the world fits easily
into the way antisemitism is spread.
Political commentator Megyn Kelly unapologetically and repeatedly mimicked Tucker Carlson's assertion that Epstein was a Mossad agent.
The federal government’s release of the
latest tranche of files related to the case of convicted sex offender
Jeffrey Epstein set off another surge in interest in a case that
continues to possess a hold on the imaginations of growing numbers of
people. The new batch of Epstein files this week consists of 3 million
pages of documents, 2,000 videos and 180,000 images. Going through it is
providing work for an army of journalists and a hobby for a horde of
amateur sleuths and other obsessives.
Given the sheer volume of material, the
files seem to provide something for everyone. But it’s not likely to
satisfy most or really any of the people who are taking deep dives into
the files and those who are mentioned in them. That’s not because it
isn’t filled with juicy tidbits of information about a great many
celebrities. It’s due to the fact that the case has become more than
just an investigation into the horrible deeds of a wealthy hedonist and
his clique. Ever since Epstein’s suicide in a New York City jail (an
event which is itself a subject of controversy), it has morphed into
something far more than a particularly vile example of true crime or a
tale of sexual perversion.
A collection of theories
It’s now a conspiracy theory—or rather, a
large collection of them all housed under the title “Epstein files.” And
like all conspiracy theories, those who have embraced it are convinced
that it will provide answers to all the questions about the world that
trouble them and solutions to its problems.
In this way, a sex-trafficking ring isn’t
just a shocking story of how lawbreakers sought to exploit and game the
system. Instead, it has become the key to understanding what they are
sure is an evil cabal running the world. They think it is the key that
will enable them to unlock the deep-seated wrong at the heart of the
national soul of America and discredit the people they already didn’t
like.
As such, it has become something of a
funhouse mirror in which those who latch onto it interpret the story
through the lens of every other pathology of 21st-century life: paranoia
about governments, hyper-partisanship, and inevitably, antisemitism.
Those who think the biggest problem in the
world is President Donald Trump and his Republican supporters search
the files in hopes of finding the silver bullet that will finish off
their bête noire. The same is true for those who think of Democrats in
the same way, especially about former President Bill Clinton, the
commander-in-chief who was first coined with the phrase “derangement
syndrome.” And for those who think that Israel and the Jews are the
answer to every question they have about why things are bad, Epstein is,
similarly, the entry point for a new round of crackpot blood libels.
No one is likely to be fully satisfied,
even after every document, video and image is eventually unearthed and
analyzed. And, as with other conspiracy theories, Epstein connoisseurs
will claim that the real truth—the proof they’ve been searching for—was
covered up or destroyed by the guilty parties, thus ensuring that the
lunacy can go on forever.
That’s not to say that there won’t be some
examples where the files will prove the undoing of some public figures,
including perhaps a few that never met or had anything to do with
Epstein.
Political fallout
For example, British Prime Minister Keir
Starmer, already mired in a political slump, as well as the focus of
deep dissatisfaction from both opponents and fellow Labour Party
members, could conceivably be toppled from his post because of the
files. Starmer isn’t in the files, but he appointed one of Epstein’s
many cronies, Peter Mandelson, as Britain’s ambassador to the United
States. He claims that Mandelson lied to him about his ties to Epstein.
Still, the investigation has led to resignations and a criminal
investigation into the ambassador revealing government secrets, which
raises the possibility that the entire mess could sink Starmer. The idea
that he, as opposed to Trump, could be the main casualty of this
scandal is both ironic and infuriating to those on the left who have
seized on it as the answer to their prayers.
It’s hard to think of a precedent for the
Epstein case. It’s far from the only example of large-scale sex
trafficking, in addition to the exploitation of women and girls by
powerful men and their enablers. But it is singular in that it was
carried out by someone who was not merely wealthy (and Jewish), but who
seemed to make it his business to know a vast cross-section of the rich
and the famous—powerful persons among the governing classes, in addition
to writers and artists.
Epstein was an Olympic-level networker. If
you were anyone who was anyone in high society, politics or
celebrity-hood during the period when he was flaunting his wealth, the
files give the impression that the odds are that you were invited to
some kind of function or sought a connection to the man.
Trump and Epstein were clearly friendly
for a long time, but eventually, they quarreled. Those who hate Trump
are counting on the unsavory, though not criminal, stories associated
with that friendship—or some as of yet undiscovered tidbit discrediting
the president.
Given the fact that Trump has been elected
president twice, despite the public knowing about his decades of public
and private indiscretions, anything in the files is unlikely to do him
in. Yet his opponents hold onto the hope that it will, waiting with the
same dogged determination that their counterparts on the right seek
details about the friendship between Epstein and the Clintons. That
power couple will be dragged before Congress to talk about Epstein with
the same low likelihood that anything found or said will do more than
compound the embarrassment the case has already caused them.
Epstein’s Israeli crony
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak
is in the same boat as Bill and Hillary Clinton. He had business
dealings with Epstein and even sought to involve him in Israeli
politics. Some of the email messages in the Epstein files show how he
sought to get his help in opposing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu in the 2019 elections. It also showed that Barak had made a
sexist comment amid his usual rants trashing the prime minister, and
Israel’s religious and Mizrachi population that support him, as well as
revealing a sexist comment made by Barak.
Does that mean that Barak was involved in
Epstein’s sexual crimes? No. And there’s no proof to hint at that. But
that isn’t stopping Likud supporters, including his longtime foe
Netanyahu, from exploiting it to his detriment and forcing Barak to make
the sort of public denials that do more harm than good to those who have to utter them.
That’s the problem with the publicity given to the files. For example, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is under fire
for two documented meetings with Epstein, though in both instances, he
had his wife with him, and, again, there’s not even a suggestion of
wrongdoing about them. But partisans are still saying with a straight
face that anyone who had lunch with the financier, as Lutnick did, is
“shamefully complicit” in his crimes.
It isn’t really fair. Then again, no one
needs to mourn for the trouble Epstein is causing Trump, the Clintons,
Barak or Lutnick, all of whom knew what they were getting into when they
entered political life. Being in the spotlight and profiting from it in
one way or another brings with it the possibility that someone you know
is going to do things you will have to answer for, whether you are
actually complicit in them or not.
The connection to Jew-hatred
What is of far greater concern is the
conviction that what we know about Epstein’s crimes is just the tip of
the iceberg, which plays into the grandfather of all conspiracy
theories: antisemitism.
The willingness of a prominent Jew-hater like former Fox News host and current podcaster Tucker Carlson to use
the Epstein case as fodder for his obsession with discrediting Israel
and the Jews is bad enough. But that inspired fellow political
commentator Megyn Kelly to unapologetically and repeatedly mimic the
assertion that Epstein was a Mossad agent. Another conservative in the
media, Ben Shapiro, who has clashed with Carlson for his antisemitism
and Kelly for her stance of neutrality on that subject matter, pointed out
that there is just as much evidence for a claim that Epstein was
working for aliens from outer space. But that doesn’t stop people who
should know better from associating Israel and the entire Jewish people
with all things evil in the world.
The way the case is being used by
antisemitic conspiracy mongers ought to be a warning to everyone else
speculating on it and hoping that it will somehow further some political
or policy agenda of their own. The crimes Epstein committed warrant
scrutiny, and those about whom there is reasonable suspicion and even
some proof that they were involved in his sexual misdeeds, such as
Britain’s Prince Andrew, need to be held accountable. But the enthusiasm
for the story ought to be tempered by a sober admission that the
obsession with the case is primarily a sign of the declining health of
our society.
Conspiracy theories have already taken
over so much of national and even international discourse. As the
coverage of Israel’s two-year war against Hamas in Gaza revealed, the
belief that Jews are either running the world or committing “genocide,”
even when they are the ones under attack from genocidal Islamist
terrorists, is rooted in myths that date back to the Tsarist forgery, Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Along with a bifurcated partisan press and
the impact of social media, these theories turn every discussion toxic.
They send people down rabbit holes with no exit ramp, rather than
engaging in serious debate about the many issues that divide the country
right now.
The Epstein scandal is a terrible story, but it is not the great puzzle at the heart of America’s national existence.
Each end of the political spectrum—first,
the right wing, and now the left, since Trump returned to the White
House—has seized on it as the secret formula by which they can unravel
all that is wrong and vindicate their pre-existing prejudices and
opinions about everything. That is itself a symptom of rot in
contemporary culture. And those who fan these conspiratorial flames with
smears based on guilt by association aren’t brave voices speaking up
for truth. They are, like those who exploit it to point fingers against
the Jews, regardless of where they sit on the political spectrum,
irresponsible demagogues doing real harm.
New roofs appear on buildings at Iran's Natanz facility, January 2026.
We are approaching the moment of truth.
After a dramatic cancellation, U.S.
President Donald Trump agreed to revive the farcical nuclear meeting
with Iran—manipulated, postponed and even relocated to Oman to appease
Tehran—only after pressure from nine Arab states to resume the process.
Predictably, Iran now promises to discuss
its nuclear program, even as it drags out preparations to reposition
missiles, troops and Revolutionary Guards at its convenience.
Trump has warned Tehran to “be very
careful.” His apparent oscillation—between threats of imminent attack
and calls for a deal—may not be hesitation at all, but a calculated
strategy allowing Washington to define its objectives as realities on
the ground evolve.
This was the backdrop to the lengthy
meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Steve
Witkoff, Trump’s envoy for the most serious diplomatic missions. For
more than three hours, Netanyahu laid out why neither of the West’s
standard expectations—abandoning nuclear ambitions or reforming the
regime—can ever succeed.
Iran’s nuclear project is not a policy
choice. It is the soul of the regime. Rooted in Shiite messianism, it
embodies the belief in the Mahdi’s final arrival and represents the
pinnacle of global Islamic power. To abandon it would mean to renounce
the regime’s very identity. For leaders who see themselves as divinely
appointed, reform would amount to betrayal of a sacred mission.
The same logic applies to Iran’s armed
proxies, including Hamas and Hezbollah. These groups sustain a permanent
state of conflict that underwrites Tehran’s regional and global
influence—an influence reinforced by Iran’s mutually beneficial
relationships with China and Russia, both of which profit from Iran’s
capacity to keep the Middle East, and the West, in perpetual turmoil.
Even now, with Iran’s economy in collapse
and its population in revolt, the regime does not operate according to
pragmatism or concern for its people’s welfare. Israel, more than any
other nation, understands the cost of pacifist illusions.
There is also the personal dimension of
Trump himself. Witkoff may be a pacifist and a businessman, but Trump
seeks a peace that aligns with his principles and defines the legacy he
intends to leave behind. He promised Iran’s street protesters—and the
Western world—that an American “armada” would come to the defense of
innocent civilians. He urged resistance against a violent, fascist
regime even as young Iranians paid with their lives.
Those promises cannot simply be erased.
After the dead filled morgues, abandoning that commitment—as Barack
Obama did—would leave an indelible stain. Now that the “armada” has
arrived, the question is no longer whether force exists, but whether
illusion still does.
As long as Iran envisions a nuclear-armed
Middle East and openly seeks Israel’s destruction, no peace plan can
hold. There will be no Nobel Prize, no meaningful expansion of the
Abraham Accords, and no genuine intercontinental partnership with Europe
or India.
Iran has managed to restore the canceled
nuclear talks. But after decades of deception, delay and ideological
rigidity, the question remains unavoidable: Who can still believe them?
President Trump and Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad
al-Thani at the start of a state dinner at the Lusail Palace in Doha on
May 14, 2025.
When people are called pragmatic, it’s
meant to imply reasonableness, the ability to compromise, occupying the
sensible middle ground.
That compliment may often be justified.
However, as the obverse of principle, pragmatism has also been the
West’s progressive undoing.
U.S. President Donald Trump is an arch
pragmatist. His “art of the deal” is based on beating down the other
side through negotiations in which he plays a superior hand.
This approach characterizes his foreign
policy. Over both Iran and Gaza, however, it’s currently threatening to
derail his intention to restore respect for American power—not to
mention his much-desired legacy as the world’s principal peacemaker.
At the time of writing, a negotiation
process still seems to be underway between the United States and the
Iranian regime as an alternative to war. Trump’s terms include the
regime giving up its nuclear program, ballistic missiles and sponsorship
of terrorism—a demand for nothing less than surrender, to which the
regime will never agree.
If Trump attacks Iran, we’ll finally know
that he realizes that deal-making among nations has its limits. The fact
that he keeps being persuaded to continue with these talks, however
reluctantly, has created fears that he’s being played by the world’s
supreme masters of tactical concessions, delay and manipulation.
In Gaza, where Trump prevented Israel from
finishing off Hamas and forced the Israelis into a negotiated
ceasefire, Hamas has regrouped and strengthened, daily breaking the
ceasefire by attacking Israeli troops.
Although Hamas refuses to demilitarize,
Trump is moving ahead with the second stage of his Gaza peace plan,
which he originally said was dependent on total demilitarization. The
concession is another example of choosing pragmatism over principle.
This reveals a fallacy that Trump shares
with his liberal universalist foes, who form the majority of mainstream
diplomats and for whom “conflict resolution” rather than war is an
article of faith.
This is based on the iron belief in the
efficacy of negotiation and compromise, which relies in turn on the
fallacy that everyone in the world, like the West, is governed by
short-termism and self-interest.
To such pragmatists, the idea that
Islamists believe they are doing divine work in murdering and conquering
unbelievers is too absurd to be taken seriously.
They therefore fail disastrously to
realize that Tehran’s agenda is totally and irrevocably non-negotiable.
They also fail to grasp that Hamas similarly views negotiated
concessions as a sign of weakness, which galvanizes them to redouble
their infernal efforts.
Last week, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, told
the president that Hamas will demilitarize “because they have no
choice.” “They’re going to give it up. They’re going to give up the
AK-47s,” he said. Why? What incentive do they have?
Moreover, Britain’s Telegraphreported
last month that Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s national security
adviser, Jonathan Powell, had been “hammering the phone” with Witkoff
and other officials pushing for Hamas to be allowed to retain AK-47s and
other personal weapons.
To break the deadlock, Powell was suggesting, just abandon the demand for demilitarization. Simple!
The sinuous Powell, who is highly
influential in Washington, D.C., has a long record of pragmatic
engagement with terrorists. His connections with IRA leaders during
Northern Ireland’s sectarian violence in the 1980s and 1990s led to the
1998 Good Friday Agreement and 28 years of peace in the province.
The British are constantly thrusting this
agreement down the throats of the Americans as a genius strategy to end
world conflicts.
Last year, Robert Ford, a former U.S.
ambassador to Syria, revealed that in 2023, Powell’s NGO Inter Mediate,
which provides a bridge between diplomats and terrorists, had introduced
Ford to the Al-Qaeda terrorist Mohammed al-Jolani, now known as Ahmed
al-Sharaa and, since last January, Syria’s president.
Powell was thus instrumental in prompting
Ford to help transform al-Jolani into a “moderate” statesman who said he
had renounced his earlier extremism. Yet last month, after having
slaughtered Alawites, Druze and Christians, al-Sharaa’s army smashed the
Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces and captured swathes of Kurdish
territory, inflicting atrocities in Rojava.
A ceasefire deal brokered by the Americans
delivered the Kurds into al-Sharaa’s control. This has caused the Kurds
to feel bitterly betrayed by the West, having previously acted as its
invaluable allies against Islamic State, the terrorist group to which
al-Sharaa once belonged.
Using the Good Friday Agreement as a
global “conflict resolution” template is a category error. The IRA
merely wanted a united Ireland, a reasonable if contested aspiration.
Islamists, however—with their fanatical,
absolute and non-negotiable agendas to destroy Israel, the Jews and the
West—don’t suddenly become convinced of the benefits of pragmatism.
Instead, they become convinced of the endless gullibility or amoral
cynicism of Western diplomats bent upon making concessions which these
implacable foes rightly perceive as weakness.
Pragmatism involves dismissing or even
denying the importance of virtue and its opposite, evil. This is the
hallmark of today’s Western world.
That’s why Jeffrey Epstein, the pedophile
financier whose copious files were dumped into the public arena this
past week—revealing the staggering scale and depth of his depraved
influence—was not an aberration but the monstrous apotheosis of the
culture.
He was a spider spinning an enormous
global web of financial, sexual and political corruption. People were
drawn into it in huge numbers because he was a passport to money, sexual
license and political influence. That was because all the West’s
normative moral rules had broken down.
Hyper-individualism had made
licentiousness the order of the day. Absolutes such as truth or
objectivity were abolished in favor of subjective opinions and the
primacy of feelings and emotion.
The nuclear family was smashed. Sexual
morality gave way to a lifestyle free-for-all. Non-judgmentalism was
mandatory. Young people now learn codes of sexual behavior from
pornography.
For the West’s elites to be clutching their pearls over Epstein piles hypocrisy upon moral collapse.
In Britain, the Epstein scandal is
threatening to bring down Starmer, who in 2024 appointed Lord Mandelson
as ambassador to the United States. It’s now been revealed that
Mandelson appears to have received money from Epstein while sending him
market-sensitive, secret information about the government’s responses to
the financial crash in 2008.
Starmer has been forced to admit that when
he sent Mandelson to Washington, he was aware that his new ambassador
had continued his friendship with Epstein after the financier’s
conviction in 2008 for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Starmer appears to have taken the
pragmatic view that Mandelson’s stellar political abilities made it
worth the gamble. With the gamble now blowing up in Starmer’s face, it
turns out that pragmatism was a losing bet.
Pragmatism is fine within the guardrails
of normative morality. But if it tears out those guardrails and throws
them into the trash, then it goes belly-up.
Pragmatism has corrupted the West and
exposed it to grave danger in one particularly graphic example. Qatar,
an Islamist Muslim Brotherhood state, works to destabilize and
ultimately conquer the West for Islam.
Accordingly, over the decades, it has
insinuated itself into America and Britain, turning their universities
into Islamic propaganda factories and buying up countless individuals in
politics and the media.
Qatar 'gifted' President Trump with a $400 milliom Boeing 747-8 luxury jetliner.
As a result, instead of viewing Qatar as
an enemy, America has treated it as a valuable ally. It used Qatar—the
sponsor of Hamas—as an honest broker in the Israeli hostage
negotiations, which is why they dragged on at the cost of countless
hostages’ and Israeli soldiers’ lives.
And now, Qatar has pride of place on
Trump’s Board of Peace—and is using all its influence to stop Trump from
destroying the Iranian regime.
You might say that Qatar is the Jeffrey Epstein of world politics.
Dealing with the devil never ends well.
Abandon principle for pragmatism, and everything goes smash. It’s a
lesson the West clearly has yet to learn.
There’s one superpower that dominates the planet again, and it’s the United States.
In just one year in office, President Donald Trump
has catapulted the U.S. from a country that seemed on the brink of
inevitable decline, into the American colossus that’s put the other
great powers — especially China and Russia — in the shade, and now
determines the tempo and direction of world events.
What happened
in Davos should set aside any doubts. In 24 hours, President Trump
turned worldwide panic about possible U.S. military intervention in Greenland into worldwide relief with a framework for peacefully securing the giant island for generations to come.
We were the world’s "sole superpower" twice in the 20th century, right
after World War II and again after the Cold War. Now, thanks to Donald
Trump and his administration, it’s happening again in the 21st century.
It’s important to understand why and how, and what it means for the
future.
There are three components that make a dominant world power: military strength, economic strength and bold leadership.
Military power: By taking out the Iranian nuclear program and by snatching the Venezuelan dictator
in the middle of the night — both without losing a single American —
Donald Trump demonstrated that we have a military with an unparalleled
global reach and effectiveness. Meanwhile, Russia is bogged down in a
World War I-style stalemate in Ukraine, while the last time China’s army
fought a real war was in 1979 against Vietnam — a war China lost.
Economic
strength: This year will mark the start of an economic boom triggered
by the Trump tax cuts and deregulation, that may see the U.S. economy
grow by 5% or more (China will be lucky to hit above 4.5%). Trillions
of direct foreign investment dollars and a revived American industrial
landscape means we will have an economy geared toward making things
again, not just spending money. At the same time, Trump’s use of tariffs
has redirected the flow of world trade to America’s advantage and
China’s disadvantage, as we leverage our power as the world’s biggest
and best customer to get other nations to play fair in the trade game.
The global management company Teneo’s annual CEO and Investor Outlook
Survey shows that 73% of global CEOs expect the global economy to
improve in 2026, in large part because of the coming U.S. boom.
Bold leadership: Just a year ago, America was still feeling the
disastrous effects of an enfeebled president who surrendered world
leadership to China, Russia and Iran.
Joe Biden and his team had all but crippled the American economy with
rampant inflation and declining productivity, while their obsession with
"climate change" came at the expense of one of the country’s most
important economic assets, our oil and natural gas industry.
Along
comes Donald Trump, and suddenly what seemed like problematic areas of
the U.S. economy — AI, cryptocurrency, oil and natural gas production,
manufacturing — leap into the forefront of administration policy for
making America great again. Instead of weakness and impotence on the
world stage, the United States has retaken the lead, from ending the
fighting in Gaza and reshaping the future of the Middle East, to
starting to push interlopers like China, Russia and Iran out of the
Western Hemisphere — whether it’s Venezuela or Greenland or the Panama
Canal.
Most importantly, for the first time in a very long time — perhaps not
since Ronald Reagan was president, — we have a president who is
unapologetic about flexing American power and influence around the
globe, and who sees world leadership not as a temporary transition
phase, but as America’s birthright on its 250th anniversary.
Leadership doesn’t mean being globocop. It does mean acknowledging moments like the one last month, when Venezuela’s Maria Machado handed over her Nobel Peace Prize to Donald Trump, in gratitude for supporting the democratic resistance in her country.
The
moment tells us that, under President Trump, America has re-assumed the
moral leadership, as well as military, economic and technological
leadership, of the planet.
These "sole superpower" moments can speed by. The first after World
War II faded with the rise of the Soviet Union, and died in the jungles
of Vietnam. The second, after the Cold War, was dissipated in military
spending cuts and an orgy of "peace dividend" spending, which
facilitated the advance of Communist China. Russia and especially China
remain formidable adversaries — and nuclear-armed ones. Trump and his
administration need to take full advantage of America’s current sole
superpower status before some unforeseen event, or failure of judgment
or nerve, triggers its demise.
In the meantime, enjoy being the dominant power on the planet. It’s a great way to start America’s next 250 years.
SAN ANTONIO
– Federal agents arrested two San Antonio men on Tuesday in connection
with the discovery of more than 550 kilograms of methamphetamines hidden
in a shipment of lettuce heads, according to the United States
Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas.
Gerardo
Pineda-Gallegos and Jose Lopez-Ruiz were identified as meth
distributors, according to court documents, accused of participating in
the transportation, packaging and distribution of narcotics.
Pineda-Gallegos
and Lopez-Ruiz were placed at a wholesale produce distribution
warehouse on Dec. 15, 2025, where they received large shipments of meth
concealed within the produce, according to the United States Attorney’s
Office.
A
criminal complaint said the two suspects were seen walking in and out
of the warehouse multiple times before entering a cargo van and driving
to an office space where the meth was stored and later prepared for
distribution.
Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI agents, along with the San
Antonio Police Department’s High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas
(HIDTA) unit, executed a warrant and searched the office space.
They
found 100 boxes containing fresh heads of lettuce and 998 ball-shaped
packages of meth that weighed 555 kilograms on Tuesday, federal
officials said.
Pineda-Gallegos
and Lopez-Ruiz were charged with one count of conspiracy to possess
with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of methamphetamine.
If convicted, they face 10 years to life in prison and a fine of up to $10 million.
FBI Atlanta special agents, working with law enforcement
partners from across Georgia and in other states, captured 55 of 56
people indicted in a large drug trafficking case based in Glynn County
and St. Simons Island.
All suspects are charged with variations of
possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance. Some also
face firearms charges.
More than 150 special agents, deputies, and
police officers from multiple agencies combined to make the early
morning arrests. Multiple SWAT teams from FBI Atlanta, plus additional
SWAT teams from FBI Jacksonville, Glynn County Police Department, and
Brunswick Police, combined to make some of the most dangerous arrests.
The
FBI Atlanta investigation, led by the agents in the Brunswick Resident
Agency, found that members of the group were traveling to Los Angeles,
Miami, Atlanta, and Jacksonville to source the drugs. One indicted
suspect communicated with a supplier in China and had multiple kilos of
drugs shipped to Brunswick from overseas.
The drug trafficking
organization was responsible for distributing large quantities of
methamphetamine, MDMA, fentanyl, cocaine, crack cocaine and marijuana
throughout the area.
Agencies involved in the operation included
the DEA, GBI, Glynn County Police Department, Glynn County Sheriff’s
Office, and Brunswick Police.
FBI Dallas, FBI Columbia, and FBI Buffalo also assisted in arrests in Texas, South Carolina, and New York.
FBI Atlanta expects the final person indicted in this case to turn herself in in the coming days.
All indicted defendants are considered innocent unless and until proven guilty.
The case will be prosecuted by the United States Attorneys Office-South Georgia.
Texas Education Agency warns districts of potential state takeovers for “encouraging” student protests
The state education agency issued guidance to districts after Gov.
Greg Abbott directed its commissioner to investigate the student
protests of killings by federal agents.
Students
from San Antonio's Memorial High School walk out in protest against
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Jan. 30, 2026. School staff
and Edgewood ISD police officers blocked access to public sidewalks and
the road in front of the campus saying that school property was
extended for student safety. Students were directed back to class after
the brief demonstration.
The Texas Education Agency on Tuesday warned
school districts that they could be taken over by the state if they help
facilitate students walking out of class to attend protests.
The agency released guidance after Gov. Greg Abbottdirected
Education Commissioner Mike Morath to investigate a social media post
showing Austin Independent School District students participating in
nationwide walkouts against the recent killings
of several people by federal immigration officers. Austin school
district police officers drove near some of the students during the Jan.
30 protest in downtown Austin.
In the guidance released Tuesday evening, the
education agency said students, teachers or school districts
participating in “inappropriate political activism” could face the
following consequences:
Students being marked absent and districts losing state funding.
Educators being investigated and disciplined, including losing their teaching license.
Districts facing state oversight, including the replacement of an elected school board with a board of managers.
“Today, in classrooms across Texas,
tomorrow’s leaders are learning the foundational, critical thinking
skills and knowledge necessary for lifelong learning, serving as the
bedrock for the future success of our state and nation,” the TEA’s press
release said. “It is in this spirit that school systems have been
reminded of their duty and obligation to ensure that their students are
both safe and that they attend school, with consequences for students
for unexcused absences.”
State law
grants Morath authority to conduct special investigations into school
districts as he determines necessary. Based on the results of those
investigations, the commissioner could lower the district’s
accreditation status or accountability rating. He could appoint an
individual to monitor the district. He could also replace its elected
school board.
Districts that experienced walkouts at their
schools on Friday and Monday have maintained they did not endorse or
enable the protests and that participating students would receive
unexcused absences. Austin ISD Superintendent Matias Segura said in a statement
Monday that district staff could not physically prevent students from
leaving campus, and that school resource officers remained with students
nearby for their safety.
“During the school day, our students are our
responsibility and we’re committed to the safety of our students in our
community, regardless if they are on our campus,” Segura said. “That is
why our administrators and Austin ISD Police remain with our students
during protest activities during school hours.”
Attorney General Ken Paxton on Monday requested
documents from Austin ISD on student leave policies and internal
communications during Friday’s protest and accused district officials of
encouraging students to participate.
Hundreds of students also walked out of
schools Monday in Hays Consolidated Independent School District, during
which two students were arrested by police and several others got into a
physical altercation with a passerby. The district denied any
connection to facilitating or condoning the walkouts and asserted that
“future walkouts cannot happen.”
During that Monday walkout, Kyle police
arrested two students for allegedly possessing alcohol and resisting
arrest, according to the district’s statement. However, the Kyle Police
Department said in a statement that the arrests were unrelated to the protest.
Videos of the arrest circulated online Monday, which prompted Abbott to assert in a second social media post that he was looking into ways to strip state funding from schools if they “abandon their duty” to students.
“It’s about time students like this were
arrested. Harming someone is a crime — even for students,” Abbott said.
“Disruptive walkouts allowed by schools lead to just this kind of
chaos.”
State Rep. Erin Zwiener, a Democrat whose district includes Kyle, criticized Abbott on Tuesday for not acknowledging an incident
involving a 45-year-old man fighting a group of minors who were
participating in the protests. Police arrested the man and described him
as “the primary aggressor.”
“Gov. Abbott’s threats to schools are only
making protests less safe for students & more disruptive for Texas
communities,” Zwiener wrote on social media.
Hays CISD, meanwhile, placed a teacher on
administrative leave after pictures circulated online of him displaying
protest signs with profanity, according to the district’s statement. The
teacher was not identified, but Hays CISD officials said “he will not
be returning to work” in the district.
“The school district belongs to everyone and
we do not, as an entity or as employees, use taxpayer time and resources
to engage in political activity,” Hays CISD Superintendent Eric Wright
said in a statement Tuesday.
The Central Texas district also directed
parents to begin signing children out of school if they consent to their
participation in protests. Students not signed out, the district said,
will receive unexcused absences, and the school will count them as
truant.
