Category: Daily Caller
Charlotte school district attendance plummets after immigration raid, sparking concerns about illegal alien numbers
With the launch of Operation Charlotte’s Web in North Carolina over the weekend, some have speculated that law enforcement has stumbled upon a large number of illegal aliens in a major city.
Social media was set ablaze on Monday and Tuesday as early reports were released about school attendance in one of the largest school districts in the country.
‘President Trump and Secretary Noem will step up to protect Americans when sanctuary politicians won’t.’
On Monday night, WSOC-TV reporter Joe Bruno posted on X: “A spokesperson for Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools says unofficial attendance data from today indicates that approximately 20,935 students were absent from school today. This accounts for approximately 15% of students enrolled in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.”
Photo by Ryan Murphy/Getty Images
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser, highlighted the report, saying, “So a conservative estimate is that one-seventh of a major southern public school district is here illegally.”
According to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools attendance data obtained by Blaze News, attendance did indeed drop precipitously on the Monday following the commencement of Operation Charlotte’s Web.
Data from November 17 reveals that 30,399 students were absent, a number significantly higher than early reports suggested. Only 79.0% of the 145,030 students enrolled in the district attended school on Monday.
The vast majority of those absences, moreover — 28,136 — were marked as unexcused.
Blaze News also obtained data from the previous Monday.
On Nov. 10, 132,043 of the 144,909 students enrolled, or 91.1%, were in attendance. Only 12,866 students were absent, most, again, unexcused.
This constitutes a roughly 12% drop in attendance week over week, though there are likely other factors that contributed to this significant drop.
Operation Charlotte’s Web, one of the Trump administration’s latest immigration enforcement operations, was launched on Saturday. The operation is set to target Charlotte, North Carolina, a well-known sanctuary city where one out of every six residents was born in a foreign country.
“Americans should be able to live without fear of violent criminal illegal aliens hurting them, their families, or their neighbors,” Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a press release Saturday. “We are surging DHS law enforcement to Charlotte to ensure Americans are safe and public safety threats are removed. There have been too many victims of criminal illegal aliens. President Trump and Secretary Noem will step up to protect Americans when sanctuary politicians won’t.”
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Zelenskyy’s hold on power uncertain as criminal charges reach his inner circle
Volodymyr Zelenskyy — the Ukrainian leader who suspended elections, dissolved rival parties, sanctioned a political opponent on suspicion of “high treason,” consolidated Ukraine’s media outlets, banned a Christian denomination, and remains president despite his term officially ending 18 months ago — rose to power on a pledge to give Ukrainians “a life without corruption, without bribes.”
Zelenskyy’s hold on power, however, now appears uncertain, as it is threatened by a historic corruption scandal that has swept up some of his closest allies.
Zelenskyy, allies prove unable to hinder probe
Earlier this year, the Ukrainian president and his closest aides attempted to neutralize the independent anti-corruption agencies that were scrutinizing Zelenskyy’s inner circle.
In July, Zelenskyy’s party pushed through legislation stripping Ukraine’s National Anticorruption Bureau of its independence and giving the prosecutor general, a Zelenskyy appointee, oversight. This took place the day after the State Bureau of Investigation — which is helmed by a Zelenskyy loyalist — arrested NABU officials and conducted numerous raids of corruption fighters’ homes.
‘Zelensky faces a day of reckoning.’
The director of the anti-corruption bureau, Semen Kryvonos, indicated at the time that “this pressure campaign is a direct response to the effectiveness of our investigations, including those targeting high-ranking officials and members of Parliament.”
Photo by TETIANA DZHAFAROVA/AFP via Getty Images
The Financial Times indicated that in the face of mass protests and outrage from Ukraine’s Western partners, Zelenskyy and his allies ultimately had to abandon their efforts to torpedo the 15-month investigation.
Zelenskyy desperately condemns his close allies
Despite the obstacles erected by the regime, the anti-corruption investigation conducted by NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office exposed an alleged $100 million kickback scheme in which Zelenskyy officials and business figures allegedly conspired to force suppliers to Ukraine’s nuclear power company, Energoatom, to pay kickbacks valued at 10%-15% of each contract’s value.
In their searches of suspects’ residences, law enforcement reportedly found duffel bags filled with cash and, in one case, a Kyiv apartment with a golden toilet.
Kryvonos indicated the funds allegedly pilfered as part of the scheme have largely been dispersed through a number of foreign nations and used to purchase property and other assets, reported the Wall Street Journal.
The Ukrainian president — who was “floored” by the scale of the charges made against members of his ruling clique, sources in the government told the Economist — has done his apparent best to distance himself from those named in the criminal corruption probe, which has been dubbed Operation Midas.
For instance, Zelenskyy, who was not named in the corruption probe, imposed sanctions last week on one of his closest associates and former business partner, Timur Mindich.
Mindich, who fled to Israel just prior to NABU’s Nov. 10 raids, has been charged with allegedly managing a criminal organization that laundered millions of dollars.
Mindich is reportedly a close business associate of Israeli-Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky, a backer of Zelenskyy’s presidential campaign who was arrested by the Security Service of Ukraine in 2023 on fraud and money-laundering charges, and a relative of Leonid Mindich, who was arrested by Ukrainian anti-corruption authorities earlier this year on charges of embezzling $16 million from an electric power company.
Zelenskyy also asked his ministers of justice and energy — German Halushchenko and Svitlana Grynchuk — to resign last week, stating, “This is also a matter of trust. If there are accusations, they must be addressed. The decision to dismiss them from office is prompt and necessary.”
Grynchuk said in a Facebook post, “There have been no violations of the law in the course of my personal activities.”
Halushchenko, who served as energy minister until his dismissal in July and was removed as justice minister on Nov. 12, has indicated that he will defend himself against the accusations.
According to Ukrainska Pravda, Timur Mindich allegedly built connections with Halushchenko through his relationship with Zelenskyy and then exerted influence over both the ex-justice minister and Rustem Umerov, secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council and ex-defense minister.
Although Umerov is presently in the U.S., Ukraine’s Center for Counter Disinformation indicated he is planning to return to Ukraine despite reports that he was hoping to stay abroad to avoid charges.
Other suspects tied to the alleged kickback scheme reportedly include:
- Ihor Myroniuk, an ex-adviser to Halushchenko and former deputy head of the State Property Fund whose lawyer claims he was not a member of a criminal organization;
- former Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Chernyshov, a close Zelenskyy ally who was removed from his position in July after being charged with bribery and abuse of office, then arrested on Tuesday on charges of illicit enrichment in connection with the alleged kickback scheme;
- Serhiy Pushkar, a current member of the National Energy Commission;
- Oleksandr Tsukerman, a Ukrainian businessman accused of running the money laundering back office in the scheme, who reportedly left Ukraine for Israel and denies wrongdoing; and
- Dmytro Basov, former head of the Energoatom security department, who also denied any wrongdoing.
Daria Kaleniuk, executive director at the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv, told France 24 on Monday that the investigation is far from over and that Zelenskyy has to look very closely into his closest inner circle, starting with his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, who Kaleniuk claimed is wielding unconstitutional powers in the country and is at the heart of the problem.
“If there will be more attempts from Zelenskyy to attack anti-corruption bodies like there was attempt[ed] in summer, there would be also for me the clear signal that Volodomyr Zelenskyy didn’t learn his lesson,” added Kaleniuk.
Sources close to the anti-corruption bodies made clear to the Economist that the investigation’s next phase may focus on corruption in the defense sector, which may prompt greater demands for a full reset of the Ukrainian government.
“Zelenskyy faces a day of reckoning,” a senior official told the Economist. “The choice isn’t great. Either he amputates a leg, or he gets an infection going through the whole body and dies.”
“I think that right now, both society and the political class understand that a political crisis would be too dangerous,” Volodymyr Fesenko, a political scientist based in Kyiv, told the Financial Times. “A lot depends on the next steps of the investigation, if new information comes out that involves Zelenskyy or the office of the president … then of course, it’ll be a new round.”
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Socialism ‘will f**k you’: Bill Maher warns Democrats the radical left is leading party to ruin
Bill Maher criticized those behind the Democratic Socialist movement, stating that the Democratic Party must move to the center if it wants to win elections.
During a Friday episode of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Maher described how Democrats have become divided, with some pushing socialist ideals and others advocating for a more centrist position. He compared the comments of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a self-described Democratic Socialist, to those of Virginia Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger (D), who stated that the party should never “use the words ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again.”
‘Because socialism, to put it simply, just doesn’t work and has never worked.’
Spanberger also previously stated that if the party does not shift toward the center, “We will get f**king torn apart.”
“So how do we decide who’s right?” Maher asked. “Well, it turns out we don’t really have to flip a coin; we have the evidence. In 2024, 13 Democrats won in districts Trump also won.”
Maher noted that all of those Democrats were “moderates.”
“All the left-leaning think tanks have done autopsies on 2024, and they all came up with the same message: Move to the center,” he said.
RELATED: Bill Maher destroys the left on the trans issue: ‘You can’t just say s**t’
Zohran Mamdani. Photo by Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images
Maher stated that Generation Z has warmed to socialism because they attribute current affordability challenges to capitalism.
“No one wants to be approaching middle age and still writing their name on food before they put it in the fridge. So they’re quitting, quiet quitting, capitalism and texting socialism that they’re down to f**k,” Maher continued. “The thing is, socialism will f**k you. Because socialism, to put it simply, just doesn’t work and has never worked.”
“If you think New York can somehow reinvent this wheel, you’re in for a rude a-woke-ning,” Maher said.
He contended that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and Mamdani are “not Democrats.”
“They’ll be the first to tell you that. They’re Democratic Socialists, and that’s a very different thing, and I don’t think people know that yet,” he added.
RELATED: Mamdani sells socialism — and Republicans peddle the Temu version
Bernie Sanders. Photo by Joe Maher/Getty Images For Fane
Maher explained that the U.S. already has “a lot of socialism,” citing Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, food stamps, veteran benefits, Pell grants, COVID-era payments, farm subsidies, disability payments, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, corporate bailouts, and the military-industrial complex.
He slammed the Democratic Socialists of America as “radicals” who want “completely open borders.” He also accused the group of “p***y politics,” stating that they required convention attendees in 2025 to submit a negative COVID test. Maher criticized the DSA’s request for attendees not to clap but to use “jazz hands” instead, as well as the stipulation against wearing “aggressive scents” during the conference to accommodate those sensitive to sensory overload.
“This is who the Democrats are thinking of following? You know, Chuck Schumer ain’t perfect, but at least he doesn’t crumble into a heap when confronted with Chanel No. 5,” Maher stated.
“You may not clap in the traditional way,” he told his audience.
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Feds, local cops rescue over 100 kids in Florida, just in time for Thanksgiving
A multi-agency operation led to the recovery of over 100 children from Florida and several other states.
Operation Home for the Holidays was led by the U.S. Marshals Service and involved partnerships with the FBI’s Jacksonville Field Office, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, and other federal, state, and local entities.
‘Many of these kids have been victimized in unspeakable ways. We will prosecute their abusers to the fullest extent of the law.’
Jason Carley, the FBI field office’s special agent in charge, explained that the mission aimed to “find missing and potentially trafficked children.”
“In these types of operations, partnerships are essential,” he added.
The law enforcement operation, which ran over two weeks, resulted in the recovery of 122 children, FBI Jacksonville reported on Monday. The children were connected to care and services.
“Protecting our children is at the core of the FBI’s mission. This operation represents the very best of what can be accomplished when state, local and federal partners come together with a shared commitment,” FBI Jacksonville stated.
Image source: FBI Jacksonville
Law enforcement agents rescued 57 children from Tampa, 14 from Orlando, 22 from Jacksonville, 29 from Fort Myers, and 13 from other states and internationally, according to the Florida Attorney General’s Office.
“The children ranged in age from 23 months to 17 years old, and many had experienced various levels of abuse, neglect, exploitation, or exposure to other criminal activity,” a statement from the AG’s office read.
Six individuals were reportedly arrested on felony charges, including child neglect, custodial interference, narcotics possession, sexual assault, terroristic threats, and endangerment.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier called the operation one of the nation’s largest child-recovery efforts.
“Many of these kids have been victimized in unspeakable ways. We will prosecute their abusers to the fullest extent of the law,” Uthmeier stated.
Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images
“What allows our Middle Florida-based child recovery initiatives to stand out is the emphasis placed on what happens after,” said William Berger, the U.S. marshal for the Middle District of Florida. “We know these children will have needs once we find them. It only makes sense to build these operations alongside like-minded partners from across the child welfare space.”
“The United States Marshals Service is proud to stand with our partners across the state of Florida in pursuit of the safety and welfare of our children,” Berger continued. “This operation was built based upon the wants and needs of our communities. We are honored to play a leading role in answering those calls. Welcome Home and Happy Holidays!”
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TRUMP TO MEET WITH MAMDANI: ‘We’ll Work Something Out … We Want to See Everything Work Out Well For New York’ [WATCH]
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President Donald Trump told reporters over the weekend that New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has reached out for a White House meeting.
TRUMP TACKLING HEALTHCARE: Don Says He’s Having ‘Personal Talks With Democrats’ About Fixing Healthcare [WATCH]
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Might an Obamacare fix be on the way?
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