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The ambush-style shooting of two West Virginia National Guard members just blocks from the White House was a gut-punch to every American who still believes the federal government has a duty to keep us safe. One young guardswoman, Sarah Beckstrom, has died and another is fighting for his life after the attacker—identified as an Afghan national who reportedly entered the U.S. under evacuation programs—ramped up from a handgun to using a fallen soldier’s weapon in a chilling, targeted attack. This wasn’t some tragic, random act; it was a failure of policy and vetting that has real blood on its hands.
President Trump moved quickly to tighten immigration and vetting rules, ordering freezes and reviews that the Biden administration should have put in place years ago while they were busy virtue-signaling open borders. Federal agencies paused certain Afghan visa issuances and asylum decisions as the country demanded answers about how a man with that background slipped into our streets and into the path of our protectors. The tough response is exactly what taxpayers and families of service members deserve—action, not excuses.
The autopen scandal that has exploded alongside this tragedy is not a sideshow; as legal scholar John Yoo bluntly warned on Fox News Live, the reliance on mechanical signatures signals a bigger problem in how executive power was actually wielded on behalf of the American people. If staffers were routinely operating the autopen to sign off on pardons, executive orders, and immigration actions, then who was really calling the shots—and whose interests were being advanced at the expense of national security? This is the kind of breakdown of accountability conservatives have been warning about for years.
Congressional Republicans and conservative lawmakers are already moving to put real limits on autopen abuse, and for good reason—there must be clear chains of command so voters know who is responsible for life-and-death decisions. Legislation like the BIDEN Act, which would bar the autopen for matters that only a president can lawfully sign, is not partisan grandstanding; it’s basic governance and a modest reform to restore trust in the presidency. Americans deserve a system where a president can’t be hidden behind a mechanical signature while policies that affect our safety are pushed through by unelected aides.
Let’s not mince words: the presence of an alleged attacker who had worked with U.S.-backed units in Afghanistan and later gained entry to the United States exposes catastrophic lapses in vetting and mercy-driven immigration policies. Washington elites who cheered open-door programs must answer for letting dangerous outcomes proliferate while putting politics above the protection of citizens and service members. The conservative position is simple—secure the border, tighten vetting, and prioritize Americans’ safety over headline-making compassion tours.
Hardworking Americans need leaders who will act decisively now: prosecute the guilty, reform the broken rules that allowed this to happen, and fix the executive-signature loopholes that hide responsibility. Call it accountability, call it common sense, call it patriotism—whatever the label, it’s what a free country is supposed to do when its defenders are attacked near the nation’s most sacred corridors of power. We owe it to the fallen, to the wounded, and to every family that sends a loved one to serve to never let politics stand in the way of justice and security.
