A second 9/11 wasn’t prevented by Marines kicking in doors or drone strikes overseas. It was prevented by accountants.

After the attacks, the Bush administration issued an executive order to freeze the assets of organizations tied to terrorism, cutting off their ability to operate. The strategy worked. The United Nations and other international bodies soon joined the financial front in the war on terror, targeting money flows instead of just militants.

After 9/11, the United States used financial warfare to cripple terrorists abroad. We now need the same resolve at home.

It wasn’t glamorous. There were no dramatic accounting-themed visuals, let alone battlefield footage. But it starved terrorist networks of oxygen — and it saved lives.

That same approach now needs to be applied at home.

With Antifa finally designated a domestic terrorist organization, the administration should be treating these violent, unhinged groups the same way it treated Al-Qaeda: by dismantling their financial infrastructure, freezing assets, and prosecuting leadership. That makes the president’s nomination of Ken Kies as chief counsel and assistant secretary for the Internal Revenue Service baffling at best — and dangerous at worst.

Kies is a Washington hired gun with divided loyalties. He has operated inside the revolving door since 1981, moving between government and lobbying, registering more than 500 times on behalf of various clients. His political contributions suggest close ties to the Pence wing of the party — precisely the faction that has resisted President Trump’s effort to dismantle the IRS deep state and confront politicized nonprofit networks.

Instead of cleaning house, Kies appears to be preserving it.

He has been reluctant to remove entrenched IRS officials tied to past abuses, including Holly Paz (top deputy of Lois Lerner), Robert Choi, and Anthony Sacco. Paz and Choi were deeply involved in the Tea Party targeting scandal. Sacco publicly pledged to “resist” President Trump. Paz, an Obama donor, was accused of lying to Congress by Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) in 2013 — yet she remained in a senior IRS role until being placed on leave in August.

To this day, there is no public confirmation that any of these officials have been officially terminated.

Kies has also aggressively defended Kevin Salinger, his protégé and a senior IRS official who oversees day-to-day tax policy operations and supervises an army of government attorneys. Salinger wields enormous influence over whether Trump’s tax agenda is implemented — or quietly buried.

At a recent Tax Council meeting, Kies praised Salinger for working “tirelessly to faithfully implement President Trump’s agenda across all of the tax policy initiatives.” Really?

Salinger has a long record of involvement with progressive activist organizations, including extensive pro bono work for Immigration Equality, a group that pushes open-border policies, especially for LGBTQ and HIV-positive immigrants. He also served on the board of El Barrio Angels, which provides immigration legal services in Los Angeles. These are not neutral civic activities. They are ideological commitments.

If one of the president’s core goals is to depoliticize the IRS after its weaponization under the Biden administration, placing figures so deeply embedded in Democratic activist networks into senior roles is a recipe for sabotage.

And the stakes are not abstract.

RELATED: Warlord, terror, and taxpayer theft: Somali scheme allegedly bilks millions from Maine Medicaid to fund foreign army

Dmytro Lastovych

As we speak, Soros-linked nonprofits and so-called charities are laundering foreign money, taxpayer funds, and aid dollars through opaque networks — think of the Somali charity rip-offs in Minnesota and Maine — funding radical activism, facilitating mass immigration, and fueling domestic instability. These same networks help bankroll groups tied to street-level violence, intimidation, and riots. They worsen the affordability crisis Democrats endlessly complain about while escaping scrutiny themselves.

Violent left-wing extremists have already crossed from rhetoric into bloodshed. Organized threats have forced senior Trump officials to relocate their families for safety. National Guardsmen have been killed. The idea that this is merely symbolic radicalism is no longer defensible.

The IRS should be the tip of the spear in dismantling these financial pipelines — not a sanctuary for the very people who looked the other way while the agency was weaponized against the right.

The American people did not vote in 2024 for Washington lifers like Kies and Democratic-aligned operatives to remain entrenched in power. They voted to end the culture that financed, protected, and excused political violence.

After 9/11, the United States used financial warfare to cripple terrorists abroad. We now need the same resolve at home. The question is simple: Why are we appointing people who appear unwilling — or unable — to do that job?

​Opinion & analysis, Irs, Terrorism, Antifa, 9/11, Finances, Forensic audit, Weaponization, Ken kies, Kevin salinger, Lois lerner, Holly paz, Robert choi, Anthony sacco, Donald trump, Accounting, Internal revenue service, War on terror 

Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan tried her best to avoid consequence for her role in Eduardo Flores-Ruiz — an illegal alien from Mexico who later pled no contest to one count of battery and guilty to re-entering the U.S. — briefly evading U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Her best was evidently not good enough.

Dugan, relieved of her duties as a judge in April by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, was found guilty on Thursday of obstructing federal agents — a felony. The jury did not, however, find Dugan guilty of the lesser misdemeanor charge of concealing a fugitive from justice.

‘Dugan’s actions to obstruct this violent criminal’s arrest take “activist judge” to a whole new meaning.’

“The defendant is certainly not evil nor is she a martyr for some greater cause,” Brad Schimel, the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, told reporters after Dugan learned her fate. “We must all accept the verdict peacefully.”

Schimel emphasized that “experience and common sense as well as the evidence presented in this case” demonstrate that the safest place to execute an arrest warrant is within a public area of a courthouse that has security screening — and that the 66-year-old judge’s actions endangered multiple people.

“The defendant’s actions provided an opportunity for a wanted subject to flee outside that safe courthouse environment, which led to a dangerous foot chase through automobile traffic and eventually to an agent taking the subject to the ground, which is always hazardous for both the officer and the suspect,” said Schimel. “There was certainly potential for many other dangers as well.”

RELATED: ‘Truly wicked’: Trump administration blasts Obama judge over praise of illegal alien who raped disabled American woman

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

ICE agents accompanied by both FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration agents traveled to the Milwaukee County Courthouse on April 18, 2025, to arrest Flores-Ruiz, aware that the previously deported Mexican national was scheduled to attend a pre-trial hearing overseen by Dugan.

Upon learning of ICE’s presence from an attorney, the now-felonious judge “became visibly angry, commented that the situation was ‘absurd,’ left the bench, and entered chambers” while Flores-Ruiz was seated in the gallery of the courtroom, according to the original FBI charging document.

The indictment claimed that Dugan proceeded to commit several affirmative acts to aid the illegal alien in evading arrest, including:

confronting members of the ICE task force and falsely telling them they needed a judicial warrant to effectuate the arrest; directing the federal agents to go to the chief judge’s office after she learned they had the required administrative warrant for Flores-Ruiz’s arrest;dealing with Flores-Ruiz’s criminal case off the record while the ICE task force was in the chief judge’s office;directing the illegal alien and his counsel to flee the courtroom via a non-public jury door; and advising the Mexican’s counsel that he could appear remotely for his next court date.

The judge’s actions were observed by multiple witnesses and captured on film.

— (@)

With Dugan’s help, the Mexican national ran out of the building. Federal agents were, however, able to catch up with him.

Flores-Ruiz was ultimately deported on Nov. 13.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, noted at the time, “Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a previously removed illegal alien, has a laundry list of violent criminal charges, including strangulation and suffocation, battery, and domestic abuse. Judge Hannah Dugan’s actions to obstruct this violent criminal’s arrest take ‘activist judge’ to a whole new meaning.”

In the lead-up to the trial, Dugan’s lawyers tried desperately to get her case dismissed, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. United States and claiming that the radical judge was immune from criminal prosecution for judicial acts, that her prosecution violates the limits of federal power under the 10th Amendment, and that her indictment should be dismissed under the canon of constitutional avoidance.

Such efforts proved fruitless.

The jury saw and heard plenty of damning evidence during the trial that began on Monday.

They heard, for instance, an audio recording where Dugan told a court reporter that Flores-Ruiz could escape through a side door, reported the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Although Dugan’s court reporter volunteered to walk the illegal alien out, Dugan said she instead would do it: “I’ll get the heat.”

The jury also heard from numerous witnesses, including Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Kristela Cervera, who testified, “Judges should not be helping defendants evade arrest.”

Cervera was the individual who escorted the federal agents to Chief Judge Carl Ashley’s office.

For her felony conviction, Dugan could face up to five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000.

The disgraced judge’s attorney, Steve Biskupic, indicated Dugan’s team will file a motion with the Clinton-appointed federal judge overseeing the case, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, asking to set aside the conviction.

“The case is a long way from over,” said Biskupic.

While Dugan has been on administrative leave for several months, the New York Times indicated she has continued to collect her $174,000 salary.

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​Hannah dugan, Conviction, Illegal alien, Ice, Immigration, Immigration and customs enforcement, Obstruction, Justice, Milwaukee, Politics 

California police say that three teenagers told them a story that unraveled after the discovery of allegedly contradicting video on social media.

The incident unfolded after a mother in Twentynine Palms called police to report that her 15-year-old child had been attacked by their neighbor, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

One of the teens also tried to ignite curtains to start a fire before they left the residence.

When deputies arrived, they found three teenagers claiming to be victims of assault.

After determining that one of the teen’s accounts had been fabricated, police said they discovered a video on social media that showed what actually happened.

The video allegedly showed two girls and a boy brutally attacking a man who has an intellectual disability. Police said one of the girls slashed the victim’s head and arms with a large kitchen knife while he pleaded for his life.

One of the teens also tried to ignite curtains to start a fire before they left the residence.

Deputies obtained search warrants for the residences of the victim and all of the suspects, and they were able to obtain evidence of the assault, including the kitchen knife.

One of the teenage girls claimed that she suffered lacerations from being attacked by the man, but police determined that she was injured by punching through the actual victim’s window.

The three teens were booked into the San Bernardino County Juvenile Detention Center.

Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images

The suspects face numerous charges, including assault with a deadly weapon causing great bodily injury, burglary, and criminal threats. The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office is considering additional charges as well.

Police are asking for help from the public in their ongoing investigation into the case.

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​3 teens attack disabled man, Twentynine palms attack, Video on social media, Children attack adult, Crime