Southeast
Former Green Beret shreds 'criminally incompetent' Biden, stresses need for more veterans in Congress
A former Green Beret running for Congress in North Carolina is taking aim at President Biden’s handling of his duties as commander in chief while stressing the need for more veterans to be elected to higher office.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Pat Harrigan, a former U.S. Army officer, firearms business owner and Republican candidate for North Carolina’s 10th Congressional District, said Biden’s failures were one of the main things that drove him to enter the race.
“I’m incredibly concerned for the future of our country. With the fall of Afghanistan – being a West Point graduate and a former Green Beret who spent a little over 18 months in Afghanistan – I honestly could not believe how we could have a criminally incompetent chief executive lead the exit and lead the failure of Afghanistan the way that it happened,” Harrigan said.
HALEY TAKES AIM AT CONFUSED’ TRUMP’S MENTAL STATE IN VIDEO RAILING AGAINST NEW YORK COURT PROCEEDINGS
Former Special Forces officer Pat Harrigan is running for Congress in North Carolina as a Republican. (Pat Harrigan)
“It’s just absolutely catastrophic for America… We have to go to Washington and make some change and make it very quickly, or this world is going to devolve into a place that I don’t think any American has ever truly experienced,” he said.
Harrigan first ran unsuccessfully for Congress in North Carolina’s Democrat-leaning 14th Congressional District in 2022. After graduating from West Point and being commissioned as an Army officer in 2009, he joined the infantry and completed Ranger School before being assigned to a Special Forces unit at a small combat outpost in Afghanistan.
“I was in the Arghandab Valley up north of Kandahar, 23 years old. I was leading almost 400 Americans and Afghans all by myself. I had nobody over me for about 65 or 70 miles away, and so I really got to kind of create my own adventure, cut my teeth, during some pretty significant combat operations,” he explained.
HALEY FACES GROWING CALLS TO LEAVE 2024 RACE AS RNC NEARLY CONSIDERS DECLARING TRUMP THE PRESUMPTIVE NOMINEE
Harrigan said the experience gave him a “leadership perspective” to understand what’s at stake across the world, and why America’s strategic interests actually “secure the American way of life.”
President Biden speaks during an event at Earth Rider Brewery in Superior, Wisconsin, on Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024. (Nicole Neri/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“We’ve done a terrible job of doing that in the last 20 years. I think we can do it much, much better. And I think… that when America fails to lead, the world burns and, boy, the world is burning today,” he said.
“We just need principled leaders of character to return to Congress. We need veterans to return to Congress,” he said, noting the small percentage of veterans serving in Congress today and how it contrasts to the times following World War II when a majority of members had military experience.
HALEY CAMPAIGN LASHES OUT AT RNC, RONNA MCDANIEL OVER RESOLUTION TO DECLARE TRUMP PRESUMPTIVE GOP NOMINEE
“If we don’t have veterans at the helm, if we just have more go along to get along, same old, same old lawyers, term career politicians who are just climbing the political ladder to the next level in Washington, D.C., we’re going to have the same old problems that we’ve always had,” he said.
During his time in the military, Harrigan opened a small firearms business that he ran out of his double-wide trailer home, first selling to just friends and family before it became popular and outgrew his family’s kitchen table.
If elected in November, Pat Harrigan said the first issue he would want to address is the crisis at the southern border. (Pat Harrigan)
“My last deployment to Afghanistan, my wife actually built a warehouse behind the double-wide, and by the time I got back, that warehouse was built, and we’d already grown out of it. So my wife was an intricate part of our ascent into the business world,” he said.
Harrigan explained that his business now operates out of a 120,000-square-foot facility on about 80 acres, does “everything underneath the small arms umbrella, from gun parts to complete firearms themselves,” and produces about 1,000 guns a week.
VENTURE CAPITALIST, CONSERVATIVE FIREBRAND RAISES EYE-POPPING AMOUNT IN BID FOR ARIZONA HOUSE SEAT
He says operating a small business has made him “incredibly passionate” about American manufacturing, and that it’s important to have “vibrant” production in the U.S. He added that his own small business story was “a testament to the conditions that are set by the right frame of government, an economic system that allows people to go out and create their own success stories.”
If elected in November, Harrigan said the first issue he would want to address is the crisis at the southern border.
Pat Harrigan and his wife run a firearms manufacturing business. (Pat Harrigan)
“That southern border needs to close immediately. And I’ve been saying this for years: President Trump’s position on the border, which is to create a massive wall in order to safeguard our domestic security, should be our one and only priority. We have got to protect this nation,” he said.
“I think it’s very clear the American people need that border shutdown. We have 300,000 people a month coming across that border. We do not know who they are. We do not know what their intentions are. We know that we have dozens and dozens and dozens of folks on the terrorist watch list who have just walked across our leaky southern border, and that’s got to stop,” he added.
His position on the border is a more hardline approach than the one he took during his first run for Congress when he compared deporting illegal immigrants to Nazi Germany, and said he was “not opposed” to fast-tracking citizenship for recipients of Deferred Action Childhood Arrivals, also known as “Dreamers.”
Harrigan faces a crowded Republican primary field that includes state Rep. Grey Mills Jr., activist Brooke McGowan, entrepreneur Charles Eller and nurse Diana Jimison.
Considering the district’s conservative leaning, the primary winner will likely replace Rep. Patrick McHenry, who served briefly as speaker pro tempore of the House following House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ouster last October.
McHenry announced in December he would not seek re-election.
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Read the full article from Here
Southeast
Virginia prosecutor’s record on violent offenders scrutinized after illegal immigrant charged in mom’s murder
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
A prosecutor in Virginia is facing criticism after a Fairfax County Police Department officer warned the county’s commonwealth attorney about a criminal illegal immigrant who has racked up over 30 arrests before allegedly killing a mother.
Abdul Jalloh, 32, was charged with second-degree murder after he allegedly stabbed a mother to death while at a bus stop in Fairfax County, Virginia, on Feb. 23. Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano’s office, however, was warned several times about how dangerous Jalloh is, and dismissed many of his previous criminal charges.
Jalloh’s case is far from the only controversial actions by Descano’s office, which even includes a plea deal with a murder suspect that allows him the chance at freedom.
POLICE WARNED PROSECUTORS 3 TIMES ABOUT VIOLENT ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT BEFORE HE ALLEGEDLY KILLED VIRGINIA MOTHER
Here’s a list of controversial cases handled by Descano’s office:
Abdul Jalloh
Abdul Jalloh, 32, is accused of killing Stephanie Minter, 41, at a Virginia bus stop. (Fox 5 DC)
Jalloh, 32, was charged with second-degree murder after he allegedly stabbed a mother to death while at a bus stop in Fairfax County, Virginia, on Feb. 23. The victim, 41-year-old Stephanie Minter, was found dead with multiple stab wounds to her upper body, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Jalloh has a violent rapsheet dating back to 2014 and includes over 30 arrests with several charges dismissed by Descano’s office.
Jalloh was arrested the next day while he was allegedly trying to steal from a liquor store when an employee called 911. Officials said Jalloh came to the U.S. illegally in 2012 from Sierra Leone under the Obama administration.
United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement lodged a detainer on Jalloh in 2020, and he was later issued a final order of removal allowing him to be deported to any country other than Sierra Leone. Despite that order, he was not deported.
A police major for the Fairfax County Police Department even warned Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano about Jalloh on at least three separate occasions, according to emails obtained by WJLA.
In one email to Fairfax County Chief Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Jenna Sands, the police major said Jalloh “is one of the repeat (and violent) offenders” that they had discussed before.
TRAVIS COUNTY DA FACES RENEWED ‘SOFT ON CRIME’ CRITICISM AFTER CAREER CRIMINAL CHARGED WITH MURDER
Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano speaking at an event. (Sarah Voisin/Getty Images)
“I wanted to get your background on why he is out so soon and ask if his prior suspended sentence (of I believe 5 years) was pursued by your office? Unfortunately, based on MTV Station’s numerous dealings with him, it is not a question of if, but rather when he will maliciously wound (or worse) again. My role of keeping the public safe, prompts me to follow up on his status,” the major wrote.
A Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the office “was aware of Jalloh’s criminal history and shared police concerns about potential future dangerousness. That is why our Chief Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney personally handled these cases.”
The spokesperson added that prosecutors “will often explore many different pathways to successful prosecution, but, at the end of the day, our decisions are constrained by what testimony is available and what is legally permissible and practicable in Fairfax courts.”
Joshua Danehower
In 2022, Joshua Danehower was arrested for the murder of Gret Glyer. (Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office)
In 2022, Danehower was charged with Gret Glyer’s murder. According to WUSA 9, Glyer, who owned the donation platform DonorSee, was shot 10 times as he slept next to his wife on June 24, 2022.
Prosecutors alleged Danehower killed Glyer because of an obsession with his wife. The suspect allegedly became fixated with her after a church function, and according to her family, the two had gone on a date about a decade ago.
Danehower was given a plea deal by Descano’s office, which found him not guilty by reason of insanity in February.
DHS RIPS DEM-RUN COUNTY AFTER ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT MURDERER RELEASED: ‘BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS’
Virginia law requires Danehower to be sent to a psychiatric hospital, where his status will be evaluated on an annual basis for the next five years, then every two years afterward. If he’s deemed no longer a threat to himself or others, he’d have an opportunity to be released from the psychiatric hospital.
Heather Glyer, the victim’s wife, said while on the witness stand, “I was robbed of my life partner.”
“My kids were robbed of their father,” she added.
Wilmer Osmany Ramos-Giron
Wilmer Osmany Ramos-Giron pleaded guilty to lesser charges. (DHS)
In January 2025, according to a report by former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, Ramos-Giron, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, choked his ex-wife during an argument and pulled out a knife.
He was charged with felony abduction by force, felony strangulation, and misdemeanor assault and battery against a family member after the incident, but Descano’s office allowed him to plead to lesser charges of misdemeanor battery and brandishing a bladed weapon.
In a statement released by Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Deputy Chief of Staff and Public Information Officer Laura Birnbaum, according to the report, the plea agreement “achieved the outcomes that the victim wanted.”
SEND US A TIP HERE
However, when the victim spoke with 7News, she refuted Birnbaum’s statement, saying she didn’t agree to the plea deal.
“He’s dangerous,” she said, fearing another violent incident would happen.
“If I die, who is going to take care of them?” the victim asked, referring to her children.
Ronnie Reel
Ronnie Reel accepted a plea deal by Fairfax county prosecutors. (Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office)
In July 2021, Reel was arrested on charges of sexual penetration, forcible sodomy and aggravated sexual battery against a minor, according to the Fairfax County Times.
During Reel’s trial on Sept. 13, 2022, Chief Judge of the Fairfax County Circuit Court Penney Azcarate ruled that the Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney’s office had missed an evidentiary deadline, meaning confessions, including a call from Reel to a defendant’s mother where he allegedly confessed, as well as other evidence and witnesses couldn’t be used in court.
According to the outlet, that meant the case would rely on the victim’s testimony entirely.
As a result, Reel was offered a plea deal and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and battery and was sentenced to one year in prison, but was released on time served. He also wasn’t required to register as a sex offender, according to FOX 5.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
The mother, who asked to be identified as Amber, told FOX 5 the case has had a big impact on her son.
“I was really upset. This is my child, this is my baby,” she said while crying. “And he got no justice. So he continues to see me cry and everything. He held his own, he stayed strong. He’s always trying to be strong for mom.”
“He was confessing every little detail that he did, and it was making me sick to my stomach,” she added. “It was horrible. He literally confessed to me why he did it.”
Fox News Digital’s Alexandra Koch contributed to this report.
Read the full article from Here
Southeast
MIKE DAVIS: Virginia returns to the Confederacy with a seditious conspiracy against ICE
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Immigration enforcement is a core federal power. Under Article I of the Constitution, Congress has the duty to write our federal immigration laws. Under Article II, the President has the duty to enforce them. States cannot meddle and certainly not obstruct. Unfortunately, many Democrat states, especially Virginia, are on a deadly collision course with the federal government.
American voters gave President Trump and the Republican-led Congress a broad electoral mandate to reverse the disaster the Biden-Harris border policy caused in every state in America by mass importing as many as 20 million illegal aliens, including the worst of the worst around the world.
Activist judges and other Democrat politicians and election deniers have done everything they can fathom to thwart Trump’s constitutional duty to expel these dangerous illegal aliens.
TRUMP URGES DHS, ICE TO PUBLICIZE ARRESTS, SAYS CRACKDOWN IS ‘SAVING MANY INNOCENT LIVES’
The latest example is Virginia, which is passing a series of unconstitutional laws that would dangerously and illegally obstruct ICE. These proposals include criminal penalties, meaning that state law enforcement would attempt to arrest and jail ICE agents for simply doing their jobs.
This effort is seditious, insurrectionist, extremely dangerous and blatantly unconstitutional. For the sake of the Republic, the Justice Department must immediately and aggressively quell this Virginia seditious conspiracy.
Virginia Gov. Abigail Davis Spanberger laughs aloud during a ceremony in a Virginia court in Richmond. (Mike Kropf-Pool/Getty Images)
Fairfax County District Attorney Steve Descano is the Soros puppet Democrat prosecutor in the DC suburb, an uber-wealthy Democrat enclave that is an albatross around Virginia’s neck. Abdul Jalloh is an illegal alien who invaded our country in 2012. Jalloh settled in Virginia and began wreaking havoc on the good citizens there, racking up a whopping 30 arrests. These included one for rape and four charges for stabbing Americans.
Yet, thanks to the willful ineptitude of Fairfax County’s Democrat regime, Jalloh only had one felony conviction. He violated his probation, spent three months in jail and went free because of a deal between his lawyer and Descano’s office. Sanctuary jurisdictions like Fairfax County do not notify ICE when detaining or releasing illegals like Jalloh, who had a final order of removal from 2020.
Police in Fairfax repeatedly warned Descano’s office via email that Jalloh’s release would endanger the public, but the pleas fell on deaf ears. Earlier this week, Jalloh allegedly stabbed to death 41-year-old innocent mother Stephanie Minter at a bus stop.
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger ran as a moderate Democrat. But after her inauguration this year, she immediately showed her true leftist colors. She issued an order prohibiting cooperation between state officials and ICE.
Several anti-ICE bills await Spanberger’s signature: (1) a prohibition against ICE arrests at courthouses (where these alleged dangerous criminal illegals visit daily); (2) a prohibition against ICE arrests within 40 feet of polling places (where illegals violate federal criminal laws by voting); and (3) criminal penalties for ICE agents who wear masks (because they don’t want to get doxxed and killed).
Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano (Sarah Voisin/Getty Images)
If Spanberger signs these unconstitutional state laws, the Trump Justice Department should immediately sue and seek to enjoin them in court. A Virginia federal judge should issue an injunction, following the lead of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which fully stayed California’s unconstitutional prohibition against ICE agents’ use of masks.
But civil enforcement is not enough. Virginia Democrat officials plotting to arrest ICE agents for doing their jobs (seditious conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 2384) — and especially those who cause the arrests (insurrection under 18 U.S.C. § 2383, assault, kidnapping, harboring, conspiracy, and more) — must go to federal prison for their serious federal felonies. If anyone gets killed in a deadly standoff between these new Virginia confederates and ICE, these Virginia Democrat officials must face felony murder charges.
VIRGINIA LAWMAKERS UNLEASH ON VCU NURSE FIRED OVER ‘HEALTHCARE TERRORISM’ ENCOURAGING HARMING ICE AGENTS
Former President Biden and his missing-in-action border czar Kamala Harris allowed millions of illegal immigrants, including the most violent and dangerous criminals in the world, to pour across our borders. Trump is doing everything in his power to fulfill his broad electoral mandate and undo the damage by arresting and deporting these illegals.
Virginia’s proposed laws do not merely prohibit communication between state officials and ICE; rather, they criminalize federal law enforcement actions that are plainly within the scope of federal immigration enforcement power.
Abdul Jalloh has racked up over 30 arrests since entering the U.S., according to officials. (DHS)
States do not have to help ICE by, for instance, providing law enforcement resources to assist in ICE apprehensions of illegals. But states certainly cannot subvert or obstruct these federal efforts. This is especially true of Virginia’s attempt to arrest ICE agents in the line of duty, which could justify their use of deadly force.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Virginia’s attempt to subvert and obstruct federal law must fail. We fought the Civil War because the Confederacy, headquartered in Virginia, sought to nullify federal law with respect to slavery. Today’s Virginia Democrats are reverting to their confederate roots.
Just as the federal government did during the Civil War and for a century after when segregationist states continued their efforts to nullify federal law, the federal government now must stand strong against Virginia’s sedition and insurrection. The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution makes plain that federal law is supreme in areas where the federal government has authority.
If Virginia gets away with effectively nullifying federal immigration enforcement, other states can nullify any other federal law that it finds distasteful. Let’s hope Abigail Spanberger comes to her senses and vetoes this insanity. If she does not, the federal government must use all tools at its disposal, including the Insurrection Act of 1807 and other federal criminal statutes, to preserve federal law.
Virginia state officials must go to federal prison for engaging in seditious conspiracy, insurrections and other very serious federal felonies. Anything less would threaten the existence of the Republic.
CLICK FOR MORE FROM MIKE DAVIS
Read the full article from Here
Southeast
South Carolina pastor describes evacuating members from Middle East after war broke out during Israel trip
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
SUMMERVILLE, S.C. – Dozens of members of a South Carolina church are finally back in the United States after Operation Epic Fury left them stranded in Israel for nearly a week after their flight was supposed to depart.
Forty members of Calvary Chapel Summerville landed in Israel on Feb. 20 for eight days of exploration in the Holy Land.
The group was set to fly home on Feb. 28 and had arrived at the airport three hours before their scheduled departure when the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran. The attack prompted the closure of Israel’s airspace and the group had to evacuate the airport.
“It felt like the weight of the world on my shoulders and I just prayed and prayed and prayed and asked God to give me wisdom,” said Vic Carroll, pastor at Calvary Chapel Summerville in South Carolina.
TRAVELERS STRANDED IN DUBAI PAYING HUGE SUMS TO FLEE ON PRIVATE CHARTER FLIGHTS AMID OPERATION EPIC FURY
Members of Calvary Chapel Summerville visit Al-Khazneh in Petra. (Melanie Carroll)
Carroll said the group had to shelter-in-place in Israel, going in and out of bomb shelters for several days. He then had to face the decision of the group staying or taking a bus to Jordan to have a shot at getting a flight back to the United States.
“We ultimately, you know, made the decision between what was bad and what was worse. I thought the worst would be to stay,” the pastor said.
“We were instructed that if a siren goes off while we were on the road, the bus would pull over, we would all need to get on the ground, lay on the ground face-down for at least 10 minutes until the threat was gone, and then be on our way,” he continued.
STATE DEPARTMENT USES PATRIOTS TEAM PLANE TO EVACUATE AMERICANS FROM MIDDLE EAST
The members of Calvary Chapel Summerville sightseeing in the Holy Land. (Melanie Carroll)
Fortunately, that did not happen and the group made it to the airport in Jordan to hop on a flight out of the Middle East Thursday morning.
Before the flight, Carroll said it was frightening, but their faith was greater than their fear.
“We’re just having to trust that we’re making the right decision, and this is our only option to get home, so we [were] just trusting in God,” he said.
AMERICAN STUCK IN MIDDLE EAST ESCAPES IN RACE TO REACH CRITICALLY ILL HUSBAND IN CALIFORNIA
The group returned to the U.S. on Thursday night, landing at JFK in New York.
Melanie Carroll, the pastor’s wife, texted, “We are so thankful!!!!! It’s surreal!!”
Melanie and Vic Carroll while visiting The Holy Land. (Kailey Schuyler)
The unexpected extension of the trip caused the price tag to increase significantly. Melanie created a GoFundMe, writing, “The path to get us home between lodging, flights and transfers will be upwards of $2500 per person.”
The group was able to raise their goal of $100,000 in less than three days.
Melanie said the group is continuing to pray for everyone trying to get out of the Middle East.
Nearly 24,000 Americans have returned to the U.S. after fleeing the Middle East since Operation Epic Fury began last week, according to the State Department.
Read the full article from Here
-
San Diego, CA53 seconds agoGame 21: San Diego Padres at Los Angeles Angels
-
Milwaukee, WI7 minutes ago
One person injured following early Sunday morning shooting in Milwaukee
-
Atlanta, GA13 minutes agoPlay Fair ATL kicks off ‘The People’s Cup’ in Candler Park
-
Minneapolis, MN19 minutes agoBetween Minneapolis And Lake Superior Is The ‘Agate Capital Of The World’ With Cozy Charm And A State Park – Islands
-
Indianapolis, IN25 minutes ago1 dead after shooting on Indy’s near south side
-
Pittsburg, PA31 minutes agoGame #22: Tampa Bay Rays vs. Pittsburgh Pirates
-
Augusta, GA37 minutes agoWhat is the cheapest city in Georgia to live with a roomate?
-
Washington, D.C43 minutes ago12th Honor Flight Tallahassee returns home from successful trip to Washington D.C.