The costs from the Biden Administration facilitating an illegal alien invasion continue to mount. In Texas alone, hospital costs for treating illegal aliens was more than $1 billion.
Texas hospitals incurred more than $1 billion in health care costs for patients not lawfully present in the United States during fiscal year 2025, according to new data obtained from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.
The figures were collected under an executive order issued by Gov. Greg Abbott in August 2024, which requires hospitals to report the cost of inpatient and emergency care provided to individuals in the country illegally. Under Abbott’s order, hospitals are also required to inform patients that responses regarding immigration status will not affect their care, as required by federal law.
Statewide totals show 313,742 hospital visits from patients not legally present in the U.S., costing hospitals $1.05 billion during the reporting period. The largest share of the expense—more than $565 million—came from inpatient discharges for non-Medicaid and non-CHIP patients.
Emergency department visits accounted for roughly $230 million, while total inpatient care exceeded $820 million, underscoring that long-term hospitalizations, not emergency treatment alone, are driving much of the cost.
Although hospitals are required under federal law to deliver the care, unpaid medical costs are ultimately passed along to Texans. Taxpayers absorb the burden through higher insurance rates, public hospital funding, and state health programs.
Notably, the data does not reflect a full fiscal year of mandatory reporting. Hospitals were only required to begin submitting data in November 2024, leaving the first two months of fiscal year 2025—September and October—unreported.
Snip.
In 2021, Attorney General Ken Paxton estimated Texans were paying between $579 million and $717 million annually in uncompensated care for illegal aliens. The partial FY 2025 totals alone already surpass that range.
Funny how Libertarian sorts claiming that illegal aliens are a net benefit to the economy always seem to leave a lot of “externalities” out of their calculations: Higher crime rates, more sex trafficking, enabling transnational criminal organizations, more voting fraud, higher government spending and higher taxes to provide government services for illegal aliens, higher prices for citizens for limited housing, depressed wages for citizens, etc. And, of course, higher medical bills and insurance rates for citizens, since illegal aliens generally feel no compulsion to buy health insurance.
So added health care costs add up to more than $1 billion in extra costs for Texas. How much more is it for the rest of the nation?
Iran teeters, Walz falls, more Russia’s shadow fleet has an epically bad week, more Minnesota Somali fraud fallout, more computer security vulnerabilities, and a policeman transformed into a frog using the power of AI! Plus the Austro-Hungarian and Achaemenid empires. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Personally, this week has been deeply frustrating, as I’ve been trying to withdraw money from my 401K account to pay my property taxes, a process I began mid-December, and it’s still not done. “Oh, these things take time,’ says 401K company. Then it’s “Oh, we haven’t heard back from your former employers.” Former employer: “Oh, we haven’t received the request from your 401K company.” Then: “Oh, the third party company we hired to handle 401K requests hasn’t received the request.” Now it’s “Oh, they’ve just started working on it, but they’re always slow at the end of the year.” It’s frustrating to have to jump through so many hoops to access my own money.
On to the LinkSwarm!
From the outside, it’s hard to tell how serious the chances of protesters are to free their own country, but they’re so fed up with the mullah’s rule that they’re burning mosques.
Iranian protestors demonstrating against the theocratic regime will face harsh punishment with absolutely zero leniency, Iran’s top judge has warned — as footage emerged Friday of mosques burning on the streets of Tehran amid the ongoing riots.
Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, the head of Iran’s judiciary, issued the stark warning after President Trump vowed to back those peacefully demonstrating across the country.
Signaling a potentially violent crackdown, Ejei vowed the punishment for rioters would “be decisive, maximum and without any legal leniency.”
Protesters gather as vehicles burn in Tehran, Iran.
Things in Iran seem to be moving very fast indeed…
“Authorities report that Mahmoud Haqiqat, a police station commander in Iranshahr, Iran’s southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan Province, was shot and killed by unknown assailants this week in a drive-by attack. Video circulating online appears to show gunmen firing on Haqiqat’s vehicle before it crashed. Social posts and video descriptions identify him as the former head of the city’s intelligence and allege that he was involved in operations targeting anti-regime Baluch groups in the area.” Add Balochs to Kurds and Lurs as ethnic minorities pissed at the mullah’s government. There’s also a substantial Baloch population in Pakistan, and they don’t like the Pakistani government either. Hell, history records the Balochs rebelling against the Achaemenid Empire three millennia ago…
With constant pressure from liberal activists, some states now dispatch mail-in ballots 45 to 60 days before Election Day and allow the counting of such absentee votes as many as three weeks afterward, creating an election trimester that causes vote tallies to wildly fluctuate days after polls close and increasingly erodes Americans’ trust.
But conservatives are now fighting back, first with an executive order by President Donald Trump requiring all ballots to be counted on election night, followed by a challenge to Mississippi’s counting process that has not reached the U.S. Supreme Court and then the Ohio legislature’s vote to require all its ballots to arrive on election night to be tallied.
“It’s common sense that ballots should arrive by Election Day,” Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose told Just the News this week after his state became the 35th to require mail-in ballots to arrive by Election Night in order to be counted. Previously, the state had a four-day grace period for ballots to arrive after Election Day.
“I think that trying to reduce complexity should be our goal in government, and certainly when it comes to the rules for how elections run,” LaRose said in a wide-ranging interview with the John Solomon Reports podcast. “If you were to stop the average person on the street last year and say, what’s the deadline for your ballot to get back to the board of elections, they would not know that it’s four days after. It’s kind of an arbitrary date.”
The National Conference of State Legislatures reported that many states now mail out ballots as early as 45 days to two months before Election Day and about a dozen states allow them to be counted days later — as long as three weeks afterward in Washington state, 14 days in Illinois, 10 days in Maryland and seven days in California and New York.
Tim Walz is dropping his bid for a third term as governor of Minnesota amid a national political firestorm sparked by the identification of massive welfare fraud in the state’s Somali community.
Walz released a statement Monday morning ahead of a late morning press conference announcing his withdrawal from the race.
“But as I reflected on this moment with my family and my team over the holidays, I came to the conclusion that I can’t give a political campaign my all. Every minute I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who prey on our differences,” Walz said. “So I’ve decided to step out of the race and let others worry about the election while I focus on the work.”
Translation: “I got caught, and I need to see if I can get away from this giant pile of graft as quickly as possible.”
Walz and fellow Minnesota Democrats have been subjected to withering attacks at the hands of Trump and his allies over the staggering scale of welfare fraud that’s taken place under their noses in recent years. Federal prosecutors announced last month that the cost of the welfare fraud perpetrated against state-run Medicaid services alone could exceed $9 billion, half or more of the $18 billion paid out since 2018.
A federal probe into the matter has been initiated, and Minnesota officials have until January 9 to provide the administration with more information regarding who is receiving the welfare benefits in the state.
It’s amazing that anyone can give Gavin Newsom a run for the title of America’s Most Incompetent Governor, but Walz is just that special.
It’s been going on a while. “Minnesota Inspector General [Carolyn Ham] covered up hundreds of millions in Somali childcare fraud in 2018.”
You know how the Somali childcare fraud has been a big thing, kind of an open secret in Minnesota for years now?
Well, not only has this been happening for at least a decade, but, according to this report, the state has known about it for at least that long.
Check out these receipts from Maze on X detailing a nine-year-old investigation into the fraud at Minnesota’s Child Care Assistance Program — an investigation that went nowhere.
The Minnesota child care fraud saga is so strange because years ago it was fully investigated, documented, and reported on by a team of state investigators set up to catch and stop child care fraud.
They spent years gathering evidence including many hours of surveillance footage. In 2018 they compiled a detailed report and delivered it to their boss, the DHS Inspector General.
Directly from the report: ‘Investigators, as well as the Supervisor and Manager of this unit believe that the overall fraud rate in this program is at least 50% of the $217M paid to child care centers in CY2017.’
What did the Inspector General do with this information? She refused to meet with her own team, refused to discuss the findings of the report, and then spent $90,000 of taxpayer money to have an outside company write a report saying the fraud isn’t quite as bad as her own team of investigators was claiming.
Woke is a heckuva drug, isn’t it?
So is corruption, scamming, and Democratic politics in general.
Former Wall Street Journal reporter Asra Nomani, now at Fox News, is investigating the left-wing, billionaire-funded dark money networks in the nonprofit world and offering much-needed coverage for mainstream Americans on how these NGOs influence protest movements, unleash riots, and conduct sophisticated political pressure campaigns.
Snip.
Key details from the report:
MacKenzie Scott disclosed sending at least $5 million in a new round of donations to the Solidaire Network, on top of a $10 million gift in 2021 via her philanthropy vehicle, Yield Giving.
Solidaire funds a network of radical anti-Israel activist groups, including Students for Justice in Palestine and American Muslims for Palestine, both of which are under House and Senate investigation for alleged coordination with Hamas-linked activities.
Other Solidaire-backed groups include the Palestinian Youth Movement and the US Palestinian Community Network, which publicly justified Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Scott’s grants are unrestricted, allowing recipients to spend funds freely. Solidaire used this flexibility to finance campaigns promoting “Palestinian liberation,” campus protests, and direct-action activism, including efforts to block U.S. military logistics supporting Israel.
Funding was often routed through fiscal sponsors such as WESPAC Foundation and Tides Foundation, structures that have drawn scrutiny from Republican lawmakers investigating possible links to extremist groups.
Scott’s cumulative charitable giving has reached roughly $26 billion since 2019, surpassing the lifetime donations of George Soros, and placing her at the center of growing political controversy over billionaire-funded activist networks.
The Somali ambassador to the United Nations, Abukar Dahir Osman, who is tied to a daycare company in Ohio under investigation in Washington, might have acquired an American citizenship fraudulently, according to a source in Somaliland.
Ambassador Osman, who currently serves as the rotating president of the UN Security Council, first entered America in the mid-1980s and again in 1989. He claimed to be a refugee of a minority in Somaliland persecuted by the Somali regime at the time, a Somaliland ambassador at large who tweets under the name of Haggoogane, tells the Sun via text.
Haggoogane, whose real name is Mustafa Osman but is unrelated to the ambassador, says that the current Somali UN ambassador was far from a refugee fearing extermination by the Somali regime. Instead, he tells the Sun, the UN ambassador was part of that regime in the late 1980s. “His job was to identify anyone the regime saw as a threat,” Haggoogane says.
Between 1960 and 1991 the government of Somalia killed hundreds of thousands of ethnic Isaaq and others in Somaliland, which declared independence of Mogadishu in 1991.
Following Israel’s recognition of Somaliland last month, the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, visited its capital, Hargeisa, on Tuesday, and met with President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi. After Israel became the first UN member to recognize Somaliland’s independence, Mr. Osman, the Somali UN ambassador, convened an “emergency session” of the security council.
At Washington on Tuesday, the deputy secretary at the Department of Health and Human Service, Jim O’Neill, confirmed a rumor regarding the Somali ambassador, which has long been whispered in UN corridors.
“I can confirm public speculation that Ambassador Abukar Dahir Osman, Permanent Representative of Somalia to the UN and President of the Security Council, is in fact associated with Progressive Health Care Services, a home health agency in Cincinnati,” Mr. O’Neill wrote on X. “HHS has previously taken action against Progressive in response to a conviction for Medicaid fraud. More to come.”
The United States seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the North Atlantic this week while also intercepting a separate stateless “dark fleet” vessel tied to Venezuelan oil exports, US officials said, marking a significant escalation in Washington’s enforcement campaign against sanctioned energy shipments.
According to US officials, the Russian-flagged tanker Marinera, previously known as Bella-1, was seized on Wednesday near Iceland after being tracked for more than two weeks across the Atlantic, reports Reuters. The operation occurred as Russian military assets, including a submarine, were operating in the general area, though officials said there were no signs of confrontation.
In a post on X, US European Command said the tanker was seized for violating US sanctions. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth responded, writing, “The blockade of sanctioned and illicit Venezuelan oil remains in FULL EFFECT — anywhere in the world.”
Two US officials said the operation was carried out by the US Coast Guard with support from the US military. The Coast Guard declined to comment. Russian officials have not issued a response, though Russian state media outlet RT published an image showing a helicopter hovering near the ship.
The Marinera had previously evaded US enforcement efforts in the Caribbean and refused boarding attempts. After those encounters, it re-registered under a Russian flag and changed its name, officials said. Sources indicated the vessel may now be heading toward British territorial waters, though its final destination has not been confirmed. The UK Ministry of Defence declined to comment.
Separately, US Southern Command confirmed that the Coast Guard intercepted another tanker, the Panama-flagged M/T Sophia, in Latin American waters early Wednesday. The vessel was described as a “stateless, sanctioned dark fleet motor tanker” linked to Venezuelan oil shipments.
U.S. First Assistant Attorney Bill Essayli Thursday called California Gov. Gavin Newsom “the king of fraud,” accusing him of a lack of oversight on spending to address homelessness.
Essayli made the comments on the “Fox and Friends” telecast, during which he discussed the federal fraud charges that were filed in October against real estate executives Steven Taylor and Cody Holmes for allegedly misusing grant money meant for homeless housing.
Holmes, 31, of Beverly Hills was charged with mail fraud charge that was allegedly linked to millions of dollars in grant money that the state paid Shangri-La Industries to purchase, build and operate homeless housing in Thousand Oaks, just north of Los Angeles. Holmes was Shangri-La’s chief financial officer.
Taylor, 44, of Brentwood, was charged with seven counts of bank fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of money laundering.
Essayli Thursday said the charges are the “tip of the iceberg” in an investigation he launched with a task force in April. He said more charges would be coming, probably later this month.
The state spent $24 billion in the last five years to address homelessness and can’t account for where the money went, Essayli said on “Fox and Friends.”
California Democrats: “Hey, let’s institute a wealth tax on billionaires!” California billionaires: “See ya!”
A ballot measure that could tax the wealthiest people in California may reportedly push billionaires Larry Page and Peter Thiel to leave the state, while other wealthy residents have condemned the idea, whose supporters claim could generate up to $100 billion—though the measure has yet to be considered by state officials or voters.
Thiel, who cofounded PayPal and Palantir, and Google cofounder Page have held discussions to reduce their ties to California by the end of the year because of the billionaire tax proposal, The New York Times reported, citing people familiar with their thinking.
Thiel operates the investment firm Thiel Capital and may open an office for the company in another state, with plans to spend more time outside of California, while Page has filed documents to incorporate three limited liability companies in Florida, according to the Times.
Bill Ackman weighed in, calling California “on a path to self-destruction,” adding, “Hollywood is already toast and now the most productive entrepreneurs will leave, taking their tax revenues and job creation elsewhere.”
Billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya wrote on X the proposed ballot measure would result in an “exodus of the state’s most talented entrepreneurs” who would opt to “build their companies in less regressive states,” and argued the middle class would be the worst hit by the tax.
Dear Fleeing Billionaires: Welcome to Texas! Please be sure to discard any liberal ideas you brought with you in the nearest trash receptacle…
“Major train crash on key route used to feed Putin’s war machine with North Korean military equipment…A freight train hauling 35 wagons spectacularly derailed in Russia’s remote Amur region on the Transbaikal Railway – a strategic line linked to the famed Trans-Siberian route.”
Ukraine also hit Russian shadow fleet tanker Elbus in the Black Sea off the coast of Turkey. It’s been a bad week all around for Russia’s shadow fleet…
France and UK bomb Islamic State targets in Syria. This isn’t the first time France has bombed Islamic State terrorists, as they also participated in Operation Chammal in 2014, back when the would-be caliphate was much closer to the extremely short zenith of its limited powers.
Minnesota woman tries to run over ICE agent, immediately enters find out phase.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers fatally shot a woman during an operation in Minneapolis Wednesday.
As videos of the incident went viral, the Department of Homeland Security justified the shooting on self-defense grounds, calling the slain woman a “violent rioter” who “weaponized her vehicle” by driving towards federal agents.
Today, ICE officers in Minneapolis were conducting targeted operations when rioters began blocking ICE officers and one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them—an act of domestic terrorism. An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots,” said DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin.
“The alleged perpetrator was hit and is deceased. The ICE officers who were hurt are expected to make full recoveries. This is the direct consequence of constant attacks and demonization of our officers by sanctuary politicians who fuel and encourage rampant assaults on our law enforcement.”
She wasn’t the only idiot dirtnapped trying to run over ICE agents. A Tren de Aragua scumbag tried the same trick, and met the same fate, in Portland. Naturally, the usual leftist idiots there rioted.
Yesterday, Border Patrol officers had to shoot a dangerous criminal gang member in self-defense after he committed a vehicular assault on them to evade arrest. Leftists in the sanctuary city of Portland, Ore., promptly turned out to protest his shooting — and apparently to try to accomplish his deadly intention against federal officers.
In case you still have any illusions that the Democratic Party is not essentially a criminal organization, just look at the fury and violence the last few days in blue cities over the shootings of individuals who deliberately tried to seriously injure or kill Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Border Patrol officers. Renee Good in Minnesota and the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua member in Oregon were both violently and dangerously ramming their vehicles into officers at the time they were shot. That makes them leftist heroes and martyrs, it seems.
The American left is trying to do a repeat of the summer of love and mostly peaceful protests in 2020. They want to burn down what is still standing after their previous riots. With Democrat politicians and media lying to fuel violence and their followers cheering for murder, how can we avoid the conclusion that the Democratic Party is acting like a terror organization?
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has suspended the funding for Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley (CCRGV) pending an investigation into whether or not the charity is complying with federal grant requirements.
According to CCRGV, the charity learned of the suspension in late November 2025. It claims that it is “committed to compliance with federal grant requirements and will work expeditiously with DHS to resolve the matter.”
The charity stated that all of its funding was used to care for people brought to CCRGV by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) — individuals who were “released by CBP with a document that gave them permission to travel to their points of destination with instructions on where to follow up with their immigration proceedings.”
CCRGV runs the Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, a place that offers food and shelter to immigrants who are awaiting court hearings.
According to reporting by Fox News, CCRGV was suspended after a DHS investigation revealed what the outlet called “major grant violations.”
The suspension follows “months of warnings and data reviews that auditors say uncovered sweeping inaccuracies, large gaps in migrant records, and significant billing outside federally allowed timeframes,” Fox News reported.
The investigators also reportedly found 248 instances in which CCRGV billed the federal government for services to immigrants outside of the 45-day window allowed by federal rules.
Surging liquefied natural gas exports from new North American export plants likely pushed global LNG shipments in 2025 by the most since 2022, Kpler data showed on Tuesday.
The annual rise in 2025 would be the steepest increase in global LNG exports since 2022, when shipments grew by 4.5% compared to 2021, the data showed.
North America was the key supplier of new LNG volumes, as Canada’s first-ever export facility, LNG Canada, started shipments in the middle of 2025, and Plaquemines LNG in Louisiana launched operations and ramped up shipments throughout the year.
Thanks to rising capacity and volumes, the U.S. is set to become the first LNG exporter in the world to have passed in 2025 the threshold of 100 million tons of LNG exports in one year.
Additional LNG supply is poised to hit the market between 2026 and 2030 as more U.S. export plants come online and Qatar begins shipments from its huge capacity expansion of the North Field export facilities.
The U.S. is set to export 14.9 billion cubic feet per day of LNG in 2025, up by 25% from 2024, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) for December. With new projects ramping up, the EIA expects U.S. LNG exports to jump to an average of 16.3 billion cubic feet per day in 2026.
President Donald Trump on Friday blocked the Delaware firm HieFo Corporation from acquiring assets in New Jersey-based aerospace and defense specialist Emcore for $3 million, citing national security and China-related concerns.
The president claimed HieFo was “controlled by a citizen of the People’s Republic of China,” and that there was evidence to believe HieFo, through the merger, may “take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.”
“The Transaction is hereby prohibited,” Trump said and ordered HieFo to “divest all interests and rights in the Emcore assets, wherever located,” within 180 days.
Snip. “HieFo purchased Emcore’s chips business and indium-phosphide wafer-fabrication operations for $2.92 million.” Indium-Phosphide is a pretty exotic wafer material used in optics and photonics chips.
Leprino Foods, the world’s largest mozzarella producer and a vital supplier to major pizza chains like Domino’s, Pizza Hut, and Papa John’s, moved its operations from California to Texas. “For over a century, the Lemoore plant in California’s Central Valley served as a cornerstone of the dairy industry, but the company is now shifting billions of dollars and hundreds of jobs into a new $870 million facility in Lubbock, Texas.”
Progress! “Corporation for Public Broadcasting votes itself out of existence. The private agency, which has distributed federal funding to PBS, NPR and hundreds of local television and radio stations across the country for more than a half-century, saw its appropriations from Congress eliminated this past summer.” They promised Big Bird and delivered leftwing propaganda.
I get an incredible sense of deja vu all over again looking at Mitre’s list of top 25 exploits for 2025.
The top 4 are all very, very old. I myself demonstrated #4 when I taught a computer security class (with corporate IT Security present) back in 1994. That’s three decades ago.
And what’s with numbers 11 and 14? One of the classic papers on software security is Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit – from 1996.
Numbers 3, 6, and 22 are web server vulnerabilities that are over 20 years old, and I’ve posted about them before.
17, 19, and 21 have been known since before I was in this industry. Call it the 1980s, although it’s likely older.
Happy New Year! The Somali welfare fraud scandal just grows and grows, Ukraine hits more Russian oil refineries, Iran revolts against the Mullahs, and Austin steels itself for an .0825% budget cut.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Here’s the original Nick Shirley video exposing child care fraud in Minnesota:
🚨 Here is the full 42 minutes of my crew and I exposing Minnesota fraud, this might be my most important work yet. We uncovered over $110,000,000 in ONE day. Like it and share it around like wildfire! Its time to hold these corrupt politicians and fraudsters accountable
A 42-minute bombshell video by journalist Nick Shirley and a local private investigator documents an on-the-ground investigation in Minneapolis that alleges massive, ongoing fraud in government-funded social services. The main focus is on Somali-owned businesses in child daycare, adult/autism care, home healthcare, and non-emergency medical transportation programs that draw from the taxpayer-funded Child Care Assistance Program.
Shirley claims his team uncovered more than $110 million in questionable payments to Somali-owned businesses on just the first day of their investigation, as part of a broader welfare fraud scandal totaling upwards of $9 billion.
Shirley and the investigator visited several childcare facilities that had no visible children, toys, or activities during peak hours. Staff could not answer basic questions about rates or licenses. Both were denied entry to the reception areas of these facilities:
Quality Learing Center: Licensed for 99 children; received $4 million over two years. Sign misspells “learning” as “learing”; no children visible, doors locked, no playground.
Future Leaders Early Learning Center: Licensed for 90 children; received $6.67 million over two years. Facility empty; staff evasive when asked about child numbers.
Mako Child Care and Mini Child Care Center (combined): Licensed for 120 children; received $1.3M (2020), $987K (2021), $714K (2022), $1.6M (2025). No children observed.
ABC Learning Center: Licensed for 40 children; nearly $3 million over three years. Blacked-out windows, no activity.
Sweet Angel Child Care: Licensed for 74 children; $1.26 million in 2025 alone.
Millions of taxpayer dollars went to one daycare company that could not even spell “learning” correctly…
Agents with Homeland Security Investigations, the primary investigative arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, are on the ground in Minneapolis Monday morning, conducting what DHS Secretary Kristi Noem described as a “massive investigation into childcare and other widespread fraud.”
Snip.
While allegations of Somali-linked welfare fraud in left-wing-controlled Minnesota have been known for years, the timing of Nick Shirley’s bombshell investigation suggests the federal government needed positive sentiment in the news cycle to begin the action phase on the ground. That’s usually how these types of operations work.
* * *
A viral video that has topped 76 million views on X within 48 hours has significantly heightened public scrutiny of multiple Minneapolis daycare centers linked to Somali operators that received millions in state and federal funding despite showing minimal operational activity. The apparent mismatch between allocated taxpayer funds and observable services strengthens a recent report by Christopher F. Rufo, which alleges that Somali-linked fraud in the left-wing-controlled state may involve front companies potentially diverting taxpayer funds to at least one overseas terrorist network.
Update: And according to FBI Director Kash Patel, the agency will “continue to follow the money” in Minnesota, and their investigation is “ongoing.” (And why did it take Chris Rufo cracking the case before they took action?)
“To date, the FBI dismantled a $250 million fraud scheme that stole federal food aid meant for vulnerable children during COVID. The investigation exposed sham vendors, shell companies, and large-scale money laundering tied to the Feeding Our Future network,” Patel said on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party and its PR machine across left-wing corporate media outlets, including CBS, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, 60 Minutes, The New York Times, and the Associated Press, have largely remained silent on citizen journalist Nick Shirley’s investigation.
And the “Quality Learing Center” has been shut down…
Moreover, it’s obvious that the fraudulent child care facilities were always fraudulent, and yet the checks kept coming.
Daycare centers with millions of dollars in government funding and no children inside, and neighbors who say they’ve never seen children going in or coming out. This is a slam dunk, and I couldn’t possibly love it any more.
He names the daycare centers he visits, so you can start to find out how much the State of Minnesota knows about the scam without getting off the couch. Daycare centers are licensed and inspected: government inspectors regularly show up with a clipboard and look around. So go look at the record of inspections for Quality Learning Center of Minneapolis, the one in the video with the misspelled sign over the door. The whole thing instantly becomes darkly funny, because there’s no way anyone has ever believed that this is a functioning daycare center running at anything near its declared and funded capacity of 99 children.
He then supplied a list of 29 code violations just from May of 2022. And there are lists of violations from 12 other visits.
This inspection implies that there have been some children on site at some point, possibly family, but the inspector couldn’t identify anyone in the building: “The program did not have a file for each child,” and, “The program did not have a file for each staff person.” No training, no equipment, no records. This place has never been a functioning daycare center. No one has ever believed that it was. But the government checks kept coming, and government inspectors kept coming around and playing make-believe.
Spending in Minnesota has risen 19% per person since 2019.
As government does more and spends more, government does less. Explosive budget growth leads to declining effectiveness and quality. Low-tax red states pave the roads. High-tax blue states slop cash around to friends. Progressive elected officials view the task of governance as a series of costumed performances.
They’re not trying to run anything. They intend to make faces for the camera and steer money to their friends, the end.
The “Nick Shirley Effect” has begun, with Muckraker founder Anthony Rubin on the ground in Columbus, Ohio, home to the second-largest Somali community in the U.S., investigating daycare centers. This development comes less than a day after Ohio attorney Mehek Cooke said federal investigators are examining allegations that elements within Ohio’s Somali community defrauded millions of dollars from the state’s Medicaid system.
“The first Somali-affiliated daycare facility that we knocked on after landing in Columbus, Ohio, today did not answer,” Rubin wrote on X, alongside a video showing the daycare center, Great Minds Learning Academy.
Rubin continued, “A neighbor across the street told us, ‘I’ve never seen anybody come out of the building or go into the building.'”
On Sunday, Breitbart News published an interview with Ohio attorney Mehek Cooke, who alleges that members of the Somali community in Ohio have defrauded millions of dollars from the state’s Medicaid program. She said that authorities at the highest levels are investigating “what is happening in Ohio.”
Since Ohio is a red state, at least there’s a chance that officials there will actually investigate the fraud…
“Could Democrat Tim Walz Face Criminal Charges Over Growing Somali Fraud Scandal in Minnesota?”
The growing social services scandal in Minnesota — now reckoned to amount to billions of dollars — raises the possibility that the state’s two term Democratic governor, Tim Walz, could face criminal jeopardy.
Congressman James Comer, who leads the House Oversight Committee, is widening his probe into the scandal, which is centered on Minnesota’s Somali community. This week he took to Fox News to declare that “The walls are caving in on Tim Walz,” who was Vice President Kamala Harris’s choice as a running mate in the 2024 election. They lost to President Trump.
While regular citizens are not usually required to report crimes, public officials like Mr. Walz are usually held to a higher standard. They are generally seen to have a fiduciary duty to protect state assets. Actively concealing a felony could amount to the crime of “misprision of felony” or, alternatively to obstruction of justice. A failure to report could —theoretically — even lead to a charge of conspiracy, with the silent party accused of being an accessory to a crime.
Mr. Walz has a national reputation due to his service as Ms. Harris’s running mate, and has become a lightning rod for criticism of how such staggering fraud could have gone unnoticed for years until two New York-based publications, the New York Post and City Journal, an outlet of the conservative Manhattan Institute, published investigations.
Earlier this month, Mr. Walz sought to deflect negative attention from the Somali community, telling reporters that society “should be holding a lot of white men accountable for the crimes that they have committed,” rather than focusing on one ethnic group. Mr. Walz has also said he is accountable, as the fraud occurred “on my watch.” He added that “I am accountable for this, and more importantly, I am the one that will fix it.”
Mr. Comer announced his intention to invite whistleblowers to testify under oath and subpoena banks that operate out of Minnesota. He added that “hopefully we’ll have some criminal referrals at the end of this investigation.” Once a criminal referral is issued by Congress, it is up to the Department of Justice — led by Attorney General Pam Bondi — to seek indictments, perhaps of the governor himself.
Snip.
Mr. Comer, in a statement last week, declared that “The House Oversight Committee is aggressively investigating widespread fraud in Minnesota’s social services programs and the failures of Governor Walz’s administration that allowed taxpayer funds to be funneled to terrorist networks responsible for the deaths of Americans.” The reference is to allegations that stolen money made its way to the coffers of Al-Shabaab, a Somali terrorist group.
Longtime critics of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party – what the state’s Democratic Party is known as — accuse Mr. Walz of looking the other way at misconduct in the Somali community since they wield significant political power as a voting bloc.
Snip.
Prosecutors claim that more than half of the $18 billion in taxpayer funding spent on 14 Medicaid programs in Minnesota since 2018 was stolen. More than 90 people have been charged, the vast majority of Somali ancestry. The lead federal prosecutor, John Thompson, said in a statement earlier this month that “What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes. It is staggering industrial-scale fraud.”
The question, of course, is whether Walz is merely grossly incompetent, or an active participant in the fraud and the cover-up.
And why do Somalis keep getting away with all this fraud? Because Social Justice infected Democrat judges let them.
Meet three AWFL (Affluent, white, female, liberal) Minnesota judges who are making headlines for the most predictable reasons imaginable.
These ladies have recently dismissed cases against Somali fraudsters in Minnesota, even overturning jury verdicts, allowing the immigrants stealing millions from Americans and Minnesotans to walk free.
🚨 BREAKING: Multiple corrupt Minnesota judges are under fire for dismissing a FLURRY of recent Somali fraud cases
– Judge Sarah West: Abdifatah Yusuf – Judge Amber Brennan: Yusuf's wife Lul Ahmed – Judge Hilary Caligiuri: co-defendant Abdiweli Mohamud
Each of these judges found small, technical prosecutorial errors, resulting in the cases being tossed.
Snip.
Here’s local reporting in Minnesota on the case where Judge Sarah West tossed the jury verdict:
Jurors who were chosen for the case were shocked by West’s decision.
‘I am shocked,’ jury foreperson Ben Walfoort told KARE 11 News.
‘I’m shocked based off of all of the evidence that was presented to us and the obvious guilt that we saw based off of the said evidence.’
When the one case was tossed, these other lady judges decided to toss the related cases.
More Minnesota reporting:
… Judge West’s decision stems from a strict review standard for cases that involve mostly circumstantial evidence. A jury is not asked to consider that standard, but appeals courts do, and Young said in this case, Judge West based her decision on it …
Judges analyzing these cases look not just at proof beyond reasonable doubt but whether guilt is the ‘only reasonable hypothesis.’
‘In other words, if there is another reasonable explanation, that could be the reasonable doubt,’ Young said.
So Somali fraudsters haven’t been convicted because Democrat judges don’t want the fraudsters convicted.
In Iran, the people have launched massive protests against the theocratic government in the wake of the currency collapsing. “Protests come as the country deals with economic instability and declining living standards. Not to mention, citizens might just want to be a regular country instead of being the world’s terrorist state.”
In the videos, protesters chant anti-regime slogans and confront security forces in crowded streets.
Footage included scenes of screaming and apparent gunfire, with demonstrators throwing objects and shouting, ‘Death to the Dictator’ and ‘Proud Arakis, support, support.’
What proud Arakis might look like
Additional footage shared by MEK shows crowds chanting, ‘Death to Khamenei!’ and ‘Shame on you, shame on you!’ as anger appears to spread across the country, with a particular focus on bazaar-led protests in Tehran.
The four days of protest have left at least one Revolutionary Guard member dead and the country was at a “near standstill” for about a day due to the unrest. In the city of Fasa, protesters stormed the governor’s office, forcing the Revolutionary Guard to open fire on the insurrectionists. The military then flew helicopters over the city to intimidate the protesters.
Moreover, President Trump is threatening dire consequences if the regime starts killing protestors.
President Donald Trump warned early Friday that the U.S. would intervene if Iran started killing protesters.
Writing on Truth Social, the president said if Iran shoots and “violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue.”
“We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump said.
Trump’s warning comes as demonstrations triggered by Iran’s deteriorating economy expand beyond the capital and raise concerns about a potential heavy-handed crackdown by security forces. At least seven people — including protesters and members of Iran’s security services — have been reported killed during clashes, according to international reporting.
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.) It’s possible that hostile regimes in Iran, Venezuela and Cuba could all be swept aside before the end of 2026.
Moscow suburb blacks out after Ukrainian drone strike on power sub-station.
Australia donated a number of M1A1 tanks to Ukraine, and they’ve already arrived and entered key fights.
Massachusetts: “When we said ‘life without parole’ we didn’t mean it.”
The Massachusetts Parole Board has granted parole to 39 individuals convicted of murder who were originally sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, following a landmark state Supreme Judicial Court decision that upended sentencing practices for a specific group of offenders.
Under the 2024 Commonwealth v. Mattis ruling, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that it is unconstitutional to impose life-without-parole sentences on people who were 18, 19 or 20 years old at the time of their offense. The court defined those in that age range as “emerging adults.”
If you’re old enough to vote, you should be old enough to hold accountable for murder.
As a result, individuals who previously had no opportunity for release were made eligible for parole hearings. In recent months, the Parole Board has processed dozens of cases under that framework, ultimately approving the release of 39 murder convicts while denying parole to a dozen others.
Murderers seem to be one of the social justice Democrats most respected constituencies.
Italian prosecutors said on Saturday they had arrested nine people on suspicion of financing Hamas through charities based in Italy, in an operation coordinated by anti-mafia and anti-terrorism units.
The suspects are accused of “belonging to and having financed” the Palestinian group – classified as a terrorist group by Israel, its top ally the U.S. and the European Union – prosecutors in the northern Italian city of Genoa said in a statement.
Those arrested allegedly diverted to Hamas-linked entities around 7 million euros ($8.2 million) raised over the last two years for ostensibly humanitarian purposes, prosecutors said. Police seized assets worth more than 8 million euros.
In another statement, police said officers had seized 1.08 million euros in cash found in the offices of a pro-Palestinian charity and in suspects’ homes, as well as material supportive of Hamas, Israel’s foe in the two-year Gaza war.
At this point it’s safer to just assume that every “Islamic charity” is funding terrorism.
Are you eating slave sushi? “Feds say Chinese brothers ran sushi slavery ring in Arizona that forced illegal aliens to work 7 days a week.” “Court documents allege Yung Lau, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from China, along with two managers, including his brother, kept dozens of undocumented immigrants in four “stash houses” and forced them to work at restaurants seven days a week with no days off. The restaurants involved were Sakura Sushi in Gilbert, Mesa, and Phoenix and Akita Sushi in Scottsdale.”
Austin’s municipal government is poised to cut its social services budget by approximately $5.3 million.
According to a memo from City Manager T.C. Broadnax, the city plans to “reallocate” social services contracts from a series of city departments. Affected departments include economic development, homeless strategies and operations, Austin community court, and public health.
The $5.277 million in proposed reductions represents a .0825 percent decrease from the record-setting $6.3 billion budget the city council passed in August.
This curtailment follows the landslide defeat of Proposition Q last November. Had it passed, Proposition Q would have represented a record-setting tax increase.
The council had previously approved $95 million in emergency budget cuts following Prop Q’s defeat.
The reductions come as a coalition of citizen groups has launched a petition drive to amend the city charter, requiring an independent audit of municipal finances before any future tax increases. If successful, this petition drive would place the proposed charter amendment on the May 2026 ballot.
A .0825% decrease isn’t enough. All the social justice items in Austin’s budget need to be removed with a chainsaw.
And speaking of Austin, groundbreaking on a planned downtown condo hes been delayed until market conditions improve.
Part 2 of the Professor of Rock’s interview with Rick Beato.
Matt of Diesel Creek once again exposes his junk to the camera. If you ever thought you’ve just got too many projects going on, here’s the ultimate “hold my beer.”
I hope everyone had a great Christmas! GDP says that some of the economy is already booming, Minnesota Somali fraud is even greater than we thought, Nigerian jihadis get dirtnapped, California drives yet more businesses out, another Democrat pedophile busted, Trump cleared in Epstein scandal by NYT, some cursed gun images, and some leftover Christmas cheer.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Is the Trump Boom here? “US Economy Grows By Big 4.3% In Third Quarter.” I can hardly wait for this booming economy to catch up with me…
“Minnesota Somalia Community Fraud Likely to Exceed $9 Billion.
According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson, 14 Medicaid services currently under audit and deemed “high risk” have cost the state $18 billion since 2018. “I don’t make these generalizations in a hasty way,” he said. “When I say significant amount, I’m talking on the order of half or more. But we’ll see. When I look at the claims data and the providers, I see more red flags than I see legitimate providers.”
Thompson said during a press conference announcing new indictments that entire companies were created not to provide medical services but to pocket federal funds for international travel, luxury vehicles and lavish lifestyles. “The magnitude cannot be overstated,” Thompson said. “What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes. It’s staggering, industrial-scale fraud.”
Thompson then outlined an industry of “fraud tourism” where some outsiders -specifically two from Philadelphia- even travelled to the state to participate in the financial windfalls. The scheme was “easy money,” he said.
Why, it’s almost as if the Democrats running the state didn’t try to stop the fraud…
Nigerian foreign minister, Yusuf Tuggar, has told broadcaster ChannelsTV that he was on the phone with the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and that Nigeria “provided” the intelligence.
“We spoke twice. We spoke for 19 minutes before the strike and then we spoke again for another five minutes before it went on,” Tuggar said.
He added that they spoke “extensively” and that President Bola Tinubu gave “the go-ahead” to launch the strikes.
Tuggar did not rule out further strikes, describing them as an “ongoing process” that would also involve other countries.
In an interview with the BBC, Tuggar insisted the strikes had “nothing to do with a particular religion”. He said the operation did not have “anything to do with Christmas, it could be any other day – it is to do with attacking terrorists who have been killing Nigerians”.
Of course, the Islamic State has everything to do with religion, but it’s smart to say “We’re not killing Muslims, we’re killing terrorists.”
The BBC has more information on the strikes, saying they hit not Boko Haram, but “a smaller group [known] locally as Lakurawa” that “sought to establish a base in north-western Sokoto state.” DoD images released suggest the use of Tomahawk cruise missiles, but I haven’t seen any confirmation of the weapons used in the strikes.
Harsh but fair: “Democrats are letting criminal illegal immigrants kill people.”
Democrats are allowing people to be murdered by illegal immigrants so they can brag that they are not cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
This is the reality of the most recent case in Fairfax County, Virginia. There, El Salvadoran national Marvin Morales Ortez had been jailed and charged with multiple crimes after “maliciously wounding” someone who was living in the same home with him. When the alleged victim did not show up to testify, Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano’s office dropped the charges, and a judge ordered Ortez to be released. He was then arrested after allegedly murdering the same person he had injured, not even a day after being released.
ICE had put a detainer request on Ortez, given that he was an illegal immigrant, but Fairfax County refused to honor it and hand him over to be deported. Now, someone is dead. And this is not the first time there has been an issue with Ortez; Descano dropped murder charges against him from a 2019 killing where he had, according to Descano’s own office, confessed to participating in the murder. He has been charged with at least seven crimes in Fairfax County over the past five years, but Descano has dropped charges against him multiple times.
And, sure enough, he is also an alleged member of MS-13.
There are some questions to be asked here. For one, how can you be unable to prosecute an alleged MS-13 member after bringing charges against him multiple times? Descano’s office has constantly claimed noncooperation by the alleged victims, as if that is an insurmountable obstacle. But, more importantly, why not just hand him over to ICE, send him back to El Salvador, and never play this cat-and-mouse game where you arrest him for crimes and drop the charges the moment the case is more difficult than a slam dunk?
This guy could have been deported at any time, and yet he was allowed to stay free in Fairfax County through dropped charges and ignored ICE detainers. The Democrats who run Fairfax County are so obsessed with supporting illegal immigration that they allowed an alleged murderer to stay in the country, constantly released him from jail, and watched him allegedly commit another murder in the process.
This is the mindset of Democrats across the country in all sanctuary states, cities, and jurisdictions. They care more about protecting the concept of illegal immigration than they do about the lives of the people who are being victimized by illegal immigrants.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has posted a woman’s privacy complaint form. So if any of you woman see a man pretending to be a woman using your restrooms, now you know where to report them.
California state officials received an emphatic legal rebuke over public school policies that required school officials to withhold from parents the gender identity or “social transition” expressions of minor students.
U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez ruled yesterday in a summary judgment decision that California’s parental exclusion policies are unconstitutional and issued a class-wide permanent injunction in the case of Mirabelli v. Olson.
The injunction permanently blocks California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the state’s Department of Education from forcing teachers to lie to parents about their children being socially transitioned with new names and pronouns.
I hope every parent who had their child “transitioned” sues the asses off the groomers.
Speaking of crazy trannies: “Transgender felon who blinded Seattle woman was arrested and released 8 times this year.”
Because the People’s Republic of California wasn’t doing enough to destroy business in their state, they’re passing on more business-destroying taxes.
We may never run out of signs that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) is an utterly incompetent executive who belongs nowhere near power. The latest is that he has not repaid a federal pandemic unemployment loan, effectively creating a new California tax on jobs.
During the 2020 pandemic, the Trump administration provided loans to states to help address unemployment as businesses were shut down. California received a loan of $20 billion and, more than five years later, has not paid it back. In fact, California is one of only two states that have not repaid their loans. And California failed to do this despite the Biden administration giving all states the ability to repay loans with federal stimulus money.
This means the cost is now passed on to California employers. Every employer in California will be required to pay an additional $42 per employee in payroll taxes to help the state pay back the loan. That will increase by $21 every year until the loan is paid back (which is not projected to happen until the 2030s). It does not matter if the employee is part-time or full-time. It does not matter if the employer is a big business or a small, family-run store. Everyone will be taxed for each person they employ.
That means, in effect, Newsom and California Democrats have allowed a new tax on employing people to take effect while having the highest unemployment rate of any state in the country. California, with onerous regulations and taxes, already makes job growth difficult; in 2024, 96.5% of new jobs created were government jobs. This will only make it even more difficult, all because Newsom and California Democrats want to recklessly spend money without making sure everything is paid for.
ity poor Cuba — one of the wealthier nations in the Latin America before the Communists got hold of it, and now at risk of “collapse” due to President Donald Trump’s seizures of sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers.
If you liked the pressure Trump’s blockade put on the Maduro regime, you’re gonna love the second-order effects it could have on Cuba.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that “Venezuelan oil exports are at risk thanks to a partial blockade targeting sanctioned tankers — the kind that carry about 70% of the country’s crude.” The story continued, “Were Venezuela’s oil shipments to stop, or sharply decline, the Cubans know it would be devastating.”
Cuban exile and energy expert Jorge Piñón told the Journal, “It would be the collapse of the Cuban economy, no question about it.”
Communist Cuba has relied on foreign benefactors to stay afloat, pretty much since Fidel Castro and his butcher boys like Che Guevara seized power more than 60 years ago. In recent years, the regime — ruled since 2018 by Communist party chief Miguel Díaz-Canel — relies on the largess of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro for cheap oil the country can’t afford to buy at market price.
Yes, even at today’s low prices. I’d also pause here a moment longer and ask you to ponder that under the Communists, Cuba is so poor that Maduro’s Venezuela — where they already ate all the zoo animals — is its economic lifeline.
Venezuela is in such dire straits that oil shipments to Cuba already declined by two-thirds, from 100,000 barrels a day to 30,000. That was before we started pulling over their tankers and checking for license and registration.
My PJ Media colleague Sarah Anderson reported Saturday that U.S. forces just “seized another oil tanker that was last docked in Venezuela.” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem posted on X, “This morning [the U.S. Coast Guard] in coordination with the [Department of War] executed a lightning strike operation to seize the Motor Tanker Centuries, which is suspected of carrying oil subject to U.S. sanctions. The iron fist of America’s joint military and federal law enforcement rules the waves.”
With the Motor Tanker Centuries tanker went another small fraction of $150-$435 million or so in hard currency imports (estimates seriously vary!) the Maduro regime requires each week to do little things like pay the troops who keep it in power.
And Díaz-Canel’s lifeline got that much shorter.
It would be ironic of all that military buildup people think is for Venezuela actually liberated Cuba…
How does this happen in an American city with nearly 90,000 residents?
Welcome to Lawrence, Massachusetts…
Mayor [Brian] DaPena was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He came to the United States, according to his website, in the early ’80s.
More than 40 years later, he still struggles with English, showing no interest in assimilating to American culture or language.
“REPORT: ‘Ghost jobs’ with no intent to hire make up 22% of online job postings.” I think that estimate is too low. I think it’s probably more like 40-50%.
If a Democrat ever tries to lecture you about decency and morality, just drop this name on them: Randy Sprinkle.
Yes, that’s a real name. It’s actually the name of a Democrat operative who was just arrested by the FBI and charged with distributing child porn. Randon “Randy” Alexander Sprinkle, 30, it turns out, was recently the finance chairman of the Virginia Democrat Party; he once served as a leader in the Young Democrats of Virginia, and worked in 2025 as the campaign treasurer for Richmond City Council Vice President Katherine Jordan.
And, now, Mr. Sprinkle is in big trouble with the law. It seems that he was an avid user of an app called “Jack’d,” which markets itself as “the premier social app for gay, bi, trans, and queer people” and boasts of having more than 15 million members. Whilst using Jack’d (under the name “Randy,” by the way), Sprinkle unknowingly made contact with an undercover FBI agent working out of the Manassas, Virginia, FBI field office; the agent is referred to as “OCE” in the 9-page affidavit against Sprinkle that was filed Friday.
Here’s the exchange Sprinkle initiated on the app:
Randy: “Hey how’s it going”
OCE: “What’s up man”
Randy: “Just horny af you, telegram”
OCE: “Let’s go Randy, what’s your Tele”
Randy: “hmudmv9, got a face pic btw”
Once the conversation was brought over to Telegram, Sprinkle advised the agent of his twisted, perverted interests: “Mostly into Yng, rape, incest you.” Sprinkle later sent the agent a video of a young boy being sexually abused by a grown man.
You know it must have physically pained them to admit this: “NY Times Finds ‘No Evidence’ Implicating Trump in Epstein’s Sex Trafficking.”
To justify their efforts, reporters Nicholas Confessore and Julie Tate drowned exonerating details in a sea of innuendo, for example: “Over the years, Mr. Epstein or his partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, introduced at least six women who have accused them of grooming or abuse to Mr. Trump, according to interviews, court testimony and other records. One was a minor at the time. None have accused Mr. Trump himself of inappropriate behavior.” (Italics added)
Almost all of the specific allegations of bonding between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein date back to the 1990s before Trump’s marriage to Melania in 2005. The reporters pretend to be shocked that during this period Trump enjoyed the kind of lifestyle rich men have enjoyed since the beginning of recorded time.
Thursday I got back from a trip to visit my mother and shop for books. Before my sister left my mother’s place to visit her daughter, she changed the WiFi password and neglected to write it down, making blogging a bit more challenging, but I persevered.
Hard evidence that the 2020 Presidential Election was stolen, more details on those vast Minnesota Somali/Democrat fraud networks, the illegal alien hiding judge was convicted, big banks admit to debunking people in the name of ESG, Ford takes a huge write-down on EVs, and Asmongold offers dating advice.
Earlier this month, Fulton County admitted that approximately 315,000 early votes from the 2020 election were illegally certified but were nonetheless still included in the final results of that election.
The admission came during a Dec. 9 hearing before the Georgia State Election Board (SEB) stemming from a challenge filed by David Cross, a local election integrity activist. Cross filed a challenge with the SEB in March 2022. Cross alleged that Fulton County violated Georgia statute in the handling of advanced voting ahead of the November 2020 election, counting hundreds of thousands of votes even though polling workers failed to sign off on the vote tabulation “tapes” critical to the certification process.
And Fulton County admitted to it.
Ann Brumbaugh, attorney for the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, told the SEB in the hearing that while she has “not seen the tapes” herself, the county does “not dispute that the tapes were not signed.” Brumbaugh continued, “It was a violation of the rule. We, since 2020, again, we have new leadership and a new building and a new board and a new standard operating procedures. And since then the training has been enhanced. … But … we don’t dispute the allegation from the 2020 election.”
Georgia’s Secretary of State Office investigated the alleged failure to sign tabluation tapes and “substantiated” the findings that Fulton County “violated Official Election Record Document Processes when it was discovered that thirty-six (36) out of thirty-seven (37) Advanced Voting Precincts in Fulton County, Georgia failed to sign the Tabulation Tapes as required [by statute],” according to a 2024 investigation summary. In addition to probing the unsigned tabulation tapes, the investigation also found that officials at 32 polling sites failed to verify their zero tapes.
Georgia law requires that election officials have each ballot scanner print three closing tapes at the end of each voting day. Poll workers must sign these tapes or include a documented reason for refusal. Voting laws also require poll workers to begin each day of voting by printing and signing a “zero tape” showing that voting machines are starting at zero votes.
If there is no record of whether the tabulator was set at zero at the start of polling, there is no way of telling whether ballots from a previous election (or ballots from a test run) were left on the memory card and might later be counted. Notably, this happened in Montana, where officials discovered more votes than were cast and believe the votes were leftover sample data that had not been cleared.
“These signed tapes are the sole legal certification that the reported totals are authentic,” Cross told the SEB at the Dec. 9 hearing. “Fulton County produced zero signed tabulator tapes in early voting.”
Cross stated that he obtained 77 megabytes of election records from Fulton County through an open records request that cost $15,800. According to Cross, these included 134 tabulator tapes, representing 315,000 votes. Each signature block on these tapes was blank, Cross said.
So, just like everyone in the conservative blogsphere has contended for five years, Democrats stole the 2020 Presidential election for Biden. When do we get our apologies from Conservatism Inc.? (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Americans were stunned last month to learn that members of Minnesota’s Somali community had scammed state taxpayers out of hundreds of millions — possibly even billions — of dollars.
The question on everyone’s mind was how did this go undetected for so long?
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) may have provided the answer in remarks delivered earlier this month that have only recently come to the media’s attention.
The always entertaining senator from Louisiana read a particularly damning portion of an internal memo written by a fraud investigator from the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office. Kennedy told his colleagues that those benefiting from the Feeding our Future program [Emphasis added.]:
[W]ent to the state and said, ‘If you stop giving us this money, we’re gonna call you racist and we’re gonna sue you. And you don’t want to be in the news.’
Well, why didn’t the employees do something? They did. They told the people higher up — the people with the flags in their office, and you know what they did? Nothing. You know why? Here’s what the legislative auditor in Minnesota said: He said that the threat of litigation and the negative press affected how the state politicians used their regulatory power.
Here’s what a fraud investigator in the Attorney General’s office said. She said, ‘There is a perception that’ — I’m quoting now — ‘that forcefully tackling this issue would cause political backlash from the Somali community, which is a core voting block for Democrats.’
Senator John Kennedy reads an internal memo from the Minnesota Attorney General’s office
They openly say they did not stop the Somalia immigrant fraud because Democrats would lose votes.
More: They lied to the state government lied to the Feds about it as well.
Still more: “Taxpayers’ Money Still Flowing To Indicted Fraud Suspect.”
A Minnesota lawmaker alleged on Dec. 17 that a man awaiting trial on federal charges that he laundered $1.1 million in taxpayer dollars and his wife continue to collect payments from other government programs, a state lawmaker said Dec. 17.
hat’s concerning, state Rep. Kristin Robbins told the fraud-fighting committee that she chairs.
“This is just one example of how potential fraudulent activity is being allowed to continue in Minnesota,” she said during a hearing at the state Capitol in St. Paul, Minnesota. Later, she alleged on social media that the state government “continued to pay a fraudster who was indicted.”
With the help of whistleblowers, a public-records researcher uncovered an intertwined web of people and entities allegedly tied to the man. Those connections are still receiving taxpayer dollars for assisted-living facilities and adult day services despite multiple “red flags” indicating possible fraud, Robbins said.
These revelations show that state agencies are failing to employ “the most basic checks and balances” to prevent and detect fraud despite state agencies promising reforms, Robbins told fellow members of the Fraud Prevention and State Agency Policy Committee.
The committee—five Republicans and three Democrats—has met regularly since February, trying to get a handle on the state’s burgeoning fraud scandals. In recent weeks, Minnesota fraud cases have drawn national attention and multiple federal investigations. The scandals mostly involve federal programs that state programs administer, with matching state contributions in some instances.
The defendant, whom Robbins dubbed Person One, allegedly received $49 million from state-run programs from 2019 to 2024 on top of the $1.1 million he is accused of laundering, she said.
He is among 78 people charged since 2022 in the Feeding Our Future (FOF) scandal. Fraudsters connected to that now-defunct nonprofit agency reaped a total of nearly $250 million from the Federal Child Nutrition Program after falsely claiming to provide 91 million meals to needy children.
Robbins alleged that Person One “changed his name months before he was indicted” for FOF, and used his new name to purchase two homes that are operating as an assisted-living facility that receives government money.
One of those homes, Robbins alleged, was bought under the same business name tied to alleged money laundering in the FOF case.
Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday narrowly passed the Protect Children’s Innocence (PCI) Act which would criminally charge medical providers who perform so-called gender-affirming care on minors.
The Act prohibits permanent genital mutilation surgeries such as mastectomies or phalloplasties on otherwise physically healthy minors and also outlaws administering cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers for patients under 18.
The bill, which cleared the House by a vote of 216 to 211, would impose fines and up to 10 years in prison on medical providers who perform sex-change surgeries or administer hormone therapy to minors, with exceptions for rare medical conditions or the reversal of prior procedures.
The bill was introduced by retiring Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) who explained, “Protecting children is not optional, it’s our duty.”
MTG may frequently dance on the edge of clownshowdom, but she’s not wrong here.
The arrests include aliens with criminal histories, including those convicted of murder, kidnapping, sexual assaults, and other violent crimes, according to officials.
Officials underscored that their operations have been consistently undertaken amid assaults on agents by protesters who have thrown projectiles and firebombs, as well as attempted to interfere with agents in the middle of detaining suspects.
“In the face of violence from rioters and demonization by sanctuary politicians, DHS law enforcement has made over 10,000 arrests in Los Angeles since operations began in June. Some of the most heinous criminal illegal aliens arrested include murderers, kidnappers, sexual predators, and armed carjackers,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
She said that California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass failed the people of California, alleging that the state allows criminals to roam free.
“Thanks to our brave law enforcement, California is safer with these thugs off their streets,” McLaughlin said. “Instead of thanking our law enforcement for removing criminals from their communities, Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass repeatedly demonized our brave law enforcement during these operations.”
Among the criminal illegal aliens arrested are Alireza Hashemi, from Iran, convicted of rape, aggravated assault, domestic violence, burglary, and driving under the influence, according to the statement.
Andres Velasquez-Ocampo, from Mexico, was convicted of armed carjacking, vehicle theft, and vandalism, it said.
Juan Carlos Tamayo, from Mexico, was convicted of homicide, conspiracy to commit homicide, and multiple counts of attempted murder, it stated.
Ambartsoum Pogosium, from Armenia, was convicted of kidnapping, homicide, fraud, burglary, larceny, and forgery, it said.
Rene Reyes-Miranda, from Cuba, was convicted of a sex offense against a child, sex offender registration violation, harassing communication, cocaine possession, robbery, burglary, larceny, probation violation, property crimes, possession of stolen property, and possession of burglary tools, the statement said.
Akop Jack Kantrozyan, from Armenia, was convicted of identity theft, burglary, multiple counts of conspiracy to commit a crime, larceny, multiple counts of fraud, receiving stolen property, shooting at an inhabited dwelling/vehicle, possession of a firearm, grand theft of access cards, violation of parole, battery, and conspiracy to defraud the United States, it said.
Everado Garcia Martinez, from Mexico, was convicted of vehicle theft, armed carjacking, and amphetamine possession, according to the statement.
Jose Manuel Perfecto Hernandez Corrales, from Mexico, was convicted of possession of stolen property and attempting to import methamphetamine into the United States, it said.
Yonic Telles-Sosa, from Mexico, has been previously removed from the United States on five occasions. He received a final order of removal in 2013 and has been convicted three times of knowingly and unlawfully entering the United States, robbery, marijuana possession, and aggravated sexual assault of a child, it said.
Mohamed Chekchekani, from Kenya, was convicted of facilitating interstate commerce in aid of a racketeering enterprise, larceny, stolen property, and drug possession, it continued.
A Wisconsin judge who helped an illegal immigrant flee federal immigration enforcement officials was found guilty of obstruction by a jury on Thursday, after six hours of deliberation.
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan was previously charged with felony obstruction and concealing an individual to prevent arrest, a misdemeanor charge, after she ushered a Mexican illegal immigrant, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, away from federal agents, according to the criminal complaint.
The jury convicted Dugan of the felony obstruction charge, but dropped the misdemeanor. Dugan could serve up to five years in prison, although her sentencing has not been scheduled yet.
Hopefully leftwing judges will learn the lesson that the law can’t be waived because it hurts their precious feel-feels, but I think it will take a lot more felnoy convictions for thqat idea to stick.
In September then-Acting United States Attorney Joe Thompson sent up one of his red flags about Minnesota’s massive public-programs fraud committed by an almost exclusively Somali cast of perpetrators, The Star Tribune reported Thompson’s shout-out to the state powers-that-be:
“Let’s be honest, you can see it,” he said. “You see all the types of health care companies all over the place. Why are there adult day cares all over the city? What the hell is an adult day care?”
The era of denial needs to end. “I think people didn’t want it to be true, seeing this level of fraud. It was an uncomfortable truth,” Thompson said, adding that it “didn’t match our self-image” of good government.
Two months later Minnesota Department of Human Service Temporary Commissioner Shireen Gandhi has “issue[d] a temporay adult day care licensing moratorium” (letter here). She’s temporary. The moratorium is temporary. It’s a sort of bombing pause in one of Minnesota’s 14 “waivered” Medicaid programs that Thompson has called out.
“President Trump on Thursday signed an executive order aimed at reclassifying marijuana to be a schedule three, rather than a schedule one, controlled substance in order to create new research opportunities.” One does not need to be a user or booster of marijuana to believe that this reclassification is long overdue. Clearly marijuana is not as dangerous as heroin, nor is it more dangerous than fentanyl (schedule 2). As I’ve argued before, federal marijuana prohibition is unconstitutional under the Tenth Amendment, especially when it comes to people growing and consuming their own marijuana, as it rests on a tendentiously expansive reading to the commerce clause in Wickard vs. Filburn.
“OCC Says 9 Big Banks Took Part In ‘Inappropriate’ Debanking Practices.”
According to Bloomberg, the banks involved are accused of restricting access to firms in numerous sectors, including oil and gas exploration, coal mining, firearms, private prisons, payday lending, tobacco and e-cigarette manufacturers, adult entertainment, political action committees and digital assets.
The OCC said that many of the banks had publicly disclosed their policies, which were often tied to environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals.
All should have to answer for their illegal, unconstitutional participation in Operation Choke Point.
“Valero’s Billion-Dollar Exit: Newsom’s Regulations Fuel California’s Gas Crisis. Valero’s $1.1 billion Benicia refinery exit by April 2026, driven by Newsom’s regulations, threatens 8.6% of California’s gasoline supply, job losses, and $1.21-per-gallon hikes. Economists warn of shortages and $8 spikes amid Phillips 66’s parallel closure.”
California’s energy sector is reeling from Valero Energy Corp.’s decision to shutter its Benicia refinery by April 2026, a move that underscores the mounting toll of stringent state regulations on the industry’s viability. The Texas-based refiner announced it would absorb a staggering $1.1 billion write-down rather than navigate Governor Gavin Newsom’s escalating mandates, citing prohibitive costs and regulatory pressures. This closure eliminates 8.6% of the state’s gasoline production capacity overnight, threatening severe supply disruptions and price surges for drivers already burdened by the nation’s highest fuel costs.
The Benicia facility, processing 145,000 barrels of crude oil daily into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and asphalt, has been a cornerstone of Solano County’s economy since Valero acquired it in 2000. Its impending idling will axe 400 direct jobs and 200 contractor positions, while slashing 17% of Benicia’s municipal budget. Local leaders, including City Manager Mario Guiliani, expressed shock, likening the blow to the devastating Mare Island naval shipyard closure in nearby Vallejo.
More Blue State self-inflicted wounds.
Not just Minnesota: Haitians in Massachusetts managed to run $7 million Food Stamp fraud ring out of a tiny store. “Apparently, they traded SNAP benefits for cash, sometimes pulling in upwards of $500,000 per month. The scammers are Antonio Bonheur and Saul Alisme, both migrants from Haiti.”
“Gartner Group is the largest IT trend analysis firm, used by essentially all large corporations. They just recommended blocking the installation and use of AI browsers.” No doubt they were depending on research from the No Duh Foundation.
The 33-page legal filing accuses the BBC of making “a false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President Trump … that was fabricated and aired by the Defendants one week before the 2024 Presidential Election in a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence the Election’s outcome to President Trump’s detriment.”
The BBC aired an episode titled “Donald Trump: A Second Chance?” on Oct. 28, 2024—one week before the presidential election.
The suit claims that in its episode, produced by “Panorama,“ the BBC ”intentionally and maliciously sought to fully mislead its viewers“ by ”splicing together” clips of remarks that Trump made ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol breach.
It asks for $10 billion in damages, citing the value of Trump’s personal brand and “the injury to President Trump’s business and personal reputation inflicted by these Defendants, and their efforts to falsely, maliciously, and defamatorily portray President Trump as a violent insurrectionist.”
The legal action was expected, coming hours after Trump announced from the White House on Dec. 15 that he planned to imminently file a lawsuit over the alleged defamatory edits.
“Literally, they put words in my mouth. They had me saying things that I never said coming out. I guess they used AI or something,” Trump said from the Oval Office on Monday.
The edits at issue center around remarks Trump made to his supporters at the Ellipse in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.
In the BBC program, editors spliced together two clips from the speech, creating the impression that Trump had said, “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you and we fight, we fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore.”
In reality, the clips came from separate portions of the speech, including one in which Trump said, “We’re going to walk down, and I’ll be with you … we’re gonna walk down to the Capitol,” and another 54 minutes later, in which he said, “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Girlboss has meltdown on Tik-Tok about being alone despite all her high achieving. Asmongold has the perfect advice for her: “You should go to a Warhammer 40K convention.”
Hollywood director Rob Reiner and his wife were evidently murdered by their own drug-addict son. Certainly he was a leftist TDS sufferer, but the vast majority of Hollywood directors will never direct films as great as This Is Spinal Tap or The Princess Bride.
WNBA players authorize a strike. It’s like the setup for a Bill Burr punchline. Do the players really want to give the NBA to just pull the plug on their money-losing league?
ObamaCare bites the dust, Eurocensors try grind Twitter under its bootheel, a lot of Ukrainian drone and missile strikes, Keir Starmer’s fingerprints are all over lots of censorship efforts, some homegrown Austin fraud, and the history of human occupation of north America just got a radical update.
On Thursday afternoon, the Senate rejected extending Obamacare subsidies, refusing to let taxpayers mask the skyrocketing costs of health insurance premiums caused by Barack Obama’s 2010 signature legislation.
“Senators rejected a Democratic bill to extend the subsidies for three years and a Republican alternative that would have created new health savings accounts — an unceremonious end to a monthslong effort by Democrats to prevent the COVID-19-era subsidies from expiring on Jan. 1,” the Associated Press reported. “Ahead of the votes, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York warned Republicans that if they did not vote to extend the tax credits, ‘there won’t be another chance to act,’ before premiums rise for many people who buy insurance off the ACA marketplaces.”
Just a reminder that Schumer and the Democrats got absolutely nothing from their shutdown stunt. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Europe is ramping up its war on free speech by targeting X with fines for not submitting itself to censorship regulations demanded by the European Union.
The EU levied a fine of $140 million against X, the first-ever penalty under Europe’s Digital Services Act. Europe decided that the website’s blue checkmark symbol is misleading, that it won’t give Europe access to data that will help it investigate free speech on the platform, and that it does not have a proper catalog of the ads available on the platform for Europe to examine.
This has been part of a two-year pressure campaign against X, as Europe does not believe in free speech, and X CEO Elon Musk has reduced the level of censorship on the platform. Europeans can claim that this isn’t about free speech but “transparency” all they want, but the 2023 investigation opened into X was focused on “disinformation” and “illegal content.” Now, Europe wants access to a list of X’s advertisers, wants its “researchers” to have access to the website’s algorithm to scrutinize “algorithmic bias” and “hate speech,” and to alter how the website runs with respect to its blue checkmark system.
“Note the Soros connection. As Mike Benz has repeatedly highlighted, the co-mingling of Soros and the Blob is real.”
Revelations that aren’t even shocking anymore: “Black Lives Matter Director Spent Millions in Donations on Homes, Shopping, Vacations, Indictment Alleges.”
Oklahoma City Black Lives Matter Executive Director Tashella Sheri Amore Dickerson has been charged with 20 counts of wire fraud and five counts of money laundering after allegedly spending millions in donations on personal indulgences.
Dickerson took over as the director of Black Lives Matter OKC (BLMOCK) in 2016 and since 2020 has raised more than $5.6 million for what donors believed was a national bail fund. The bail fund was also supplemented by grants through the Community Justice Exchange, Massachusetts Bail Fund, and Minnesota Freedom Fund.
The indictment alleges that from June 2020 to October 2025, Dickerson used at least $3.15 million in bail fund donations and grant money to supplement her lifestyle. Dickerson allegedly embezzled the funds to pay for personal shopping sprees, $50,000 in food and grocery delivery, trips to Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, as well as a personal vehicle and six Oklahoma City properties registered in her name.
The indictment explains that Dickerson allegedly used interstate wire communications to send false reports to Alliance for Global Justice, a fiscal sponsor to BLMOCK, which only permitted the group to use its funds in ways compliant with its 501(c)3 nonprofit status. Dickerson, however, did not disclose how she was allegedly using the funds for personal gain.
If convicted, Dickerson faces up to 20 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine per count of wire fraud. For each count of money laundering, she faces ten years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, or twice the amount of criminally derived property.
So was there any #BlackLivesMatter director who wasn’t using donated money as their personal piggy bank?
The scientific journal Nature has retracted a paper published in April 2024 that overestimated the economic effects of climate change and influenced central banks worldwide to create risk management scenarios.
The article predicted a 62% drop in worldwide economic output by 2100 if carbon emissions were to continue without reduction.
On Wednesday, the three scientists who worked on the study retracted it, citing “substantial” issues with the paper.
The climate study’s findings were undermined by an article published by a separate team of economists earlier this year in Nature, calling into question problems with the data for Uzbekistan that skewed the climate study’s conclusions.
According to the New York Post, if the numbers for the Central Asian nation were excluded from the data set, the projected economic decline of 62% would actually be a far less catastrophic 23%.
The problem is that the faulty numbers, which was nearly 3 times typical estimates, had generated headlines and excitement among policymakers around the world including the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Bank.
The study was also used last year, to model the expected impact of climate change by the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS).
The NGFS is a worldwide network of central banks and financial supervisors with more than 150 members across nearly 90 countries.
Members of the NGFS include the People’s Bank of China, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England – and, until earlier this year, the Federal Reserve.
The climate study’s authors, Maximilian Kotz, Anders Levermann and Leonie Wenz of the Potsdam Institute in Germany, reviewed and amended their paper over the summer in light of the discrepancy and the retracted the study after acknowledging that their errors were “too substantial for a correction.”
“Oopsie! Sorry to make you destroy your economy over nothing!”
“Clandestine Campaign To Defund ZeroHedge, The Federalist & Breitbart Traced To Kier Starmer Operation.”
Very early into the COVID-19 pandemic, ZeroHedge suggested that a little-known Chinese lab in Wuhan might know something about the novel coronavirus sweeping the globe. As a result, and as you know, we were subject to an intense demonetization / deplatforming campaign that included getting kicked off of Twitter, PayPal, Facebook and other platforms, dropped by our advertisers, and targeted by MSM hit pieces which colluded with foreign ‘watchdogs’ to inflict maximum damage.
These same groups also targeted outlets including The Federalist and Breitbart over various reporting, which suffered similar fates.
Now, thanks to a new book by investigative journalist Paul Holden that builds on reporting by Matt Taibbi, Paul Thacker and others, we learn that the origin of these campaigns, launched years before the pandemic, was none other than UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer’s political machine, which began targeting left-wing outlets speaking critically of Starmer such as The Canary, and then went after conservative outlets in America – just in time for the 2020 US election.
Documents and internal accounts, many drawn from newly disclosed materials, reveal a coordinated project that operated behind a veil of anonymity, misdirection, and unreported political financing.
This murky operation known as the Stop Funding Fake News (SFFN) was launched and resourced through a think tank, Labour Together, that would later be fined for failing to declare £739,000 in donations between 2018 and 2020. Said funds helped underpin this clandestine anti-media strategy which affected news outlets from the UK to the United States.
At the center of the effort was Morgan McSweeney, a political strategist who has since become Starmer’s chief of staff and, according to public commentary by prominent journalists, one of the most powerful unelected figures in the modern Labour Party.
The newly disclosed materials reveal that SFFN was not in fact some grassroots, anonymous activist collective it claimed to be, but a political weapon forged by senior Labour figures and funded by millionaire donors, including individuals active in pro-Israel political advocacy.
The goal: destabilize independent media ecosystems aligned with Labour’s left under Jeremy Corbyn, elevate Starmer’s leadership bid, and delegitimize outlets – domestic and foreign – that threatened the faction’s consolidation of power.
Publicly, SFFN claimed to be run by anonymous activists. Privately, it was shaped by McSweeney and operated from the same small office suite in South London that housed Labour Together.
SFFN ultimately migrated under the umbrella of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), an organization that grew out of a corporate shell once controlled solely by McSweeney.
British political operative and CCDH head Imran Ahmed
CCDH would later present SFFN as one of its signature initiatives.
Three Fronts of a Political Offensive
The documents reported by Holden reveal a three-part strategy that reshaped the British political landscape – and reverberated into U.S. media and politics. In a nutshell, this is how the sausage was made:
Destabilizing Jeremy Corbyn’s Leadership
SFFN’s narrative interventions were designed to amplify an “antisemitism crisis” that dogged Corbyn, boosting controversies and legitimizing a media ecosystem hostile to Labour’s left. This influence work aligned directly with the political interests of the centrist faction preparing for a post-Corbyn future.
Engineering Starmer’s Rise
Labour Together later claimed credit for helping deliver Starmer’s 2020 leadership victory, with McSweeney acting as his campaign chief. After Starmer won the July 2024 general election, McSweeney formally became chief of staff, solidifying the faction’s institutional dominance.
Silencing Dissenting Media
SFFN’s most aggressive project was an astroturf campaign against media outlets perceived as ideological threats. Targets spanned both the left (such as The Canary and Evolve Politics) and the right, as noted above.
In each case, the tactic was the same: identify advertisers appearing on targeted sites, publicly shame them through social media threads, and provide tools – including downloadable blocklists – to automatically exclude those outlets from programmatic advertising networks. The effort succeeded in devastating the business model of some targets; others survived but saw sustained pressure.
Corbyn is a dirty commie fossil who would have been a disaster as PM, but it looks like Starmer is a far nastier piece of work.
More UK rape gang coverup: “A former Metropolitan Police officer was accused of being involved in a London paedophile ring while serving with the force, but the case was ‘brushed under the carpet’ and ‘covered up,’ an LBC investigation has discovered.”
The Met launched a criminal investigation at the time into the allegations made by one of the complainants. She said the officer had abused her multiple times as a child and shared her with other “important men” at a hotel in Park Lane in central London. LBC understands the other men included an MP and a judge.
The victim also claimed that the officer targeted other “pretty girls” who were in the care system over several years.
LBC can reveal the officer was allowed to retire as a Custody Sergeant while under investigation. In 2012, officers under criminal investigation could only retire with permission from a senior officer.
LBC used to be London Broadcasting Company. (Hat tip: Instapundit.”)
The U.S. seized a large oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela as it traveled to Cuba.
“As you probably know, we’ve just seized a tanker on the coasts of Venezuela, large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually, and other things are happening, so you’ll be seeing that later, and you’ll be talking about that later with some other people,” President Donald Trump said at the White House.
President Trump: “As you probably know, we just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela — a large tanker, very large.” pic.twitter.com/I51NenxoIP
— CSPAN (@cspan) December 10, 2025
One reporter asked Trump what would happen to all the oil.
“We keep it, I guess,” responded Trump.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said the FBI, DHS, and the Coast Guard, with help from the Defense Department, executed the search warrant:
Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran. For multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations. This seizure, completed off the coast of Venezuela, was conducted safely and securely—and our investigation alongside the Department of Homeland Security to prevent the transport of sanctioned oil continues.
Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran. For multiple… pic.twitter.com/dNr0oAGl5x
— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) December 10, 2025
The U.S. placed sanctions on Venezuela’s oil company years ago.
More blue city fraud: “Austin Energy employee allegedly paid $980K to ‘fictitious vendors,’ city auditor says.”
The Austin City Auditor’s Office released a report Tuesday accusing a local couple, both of whom previously worked for the city, of defrauding the city for approximately $980,000 by sending payments to allegedly fictitious businesses.
The report focuses on the alleged actions of Mark Ybarra, who worked as a facility service specialist for Austin Energy. He was issued a city credit card by his superiors for the procurement of necessary tools and materials, the audit said.
According to the report, he used the card to “pay fictitious vendors approximately $980,000 and fraudulently reported these transactions in City records.”
“The falsified invoices he submitted were ultimately discovered by his management in Austin Energy. Some of the fictitious vendors used contact information like addresses that connected them to relatives of Mark Ybarra, or Mark himself,” reads an email to KXAN from the auditor’s office.
According to the city auditor’s report, Ybarra allegedly made payments to 22 fictitious businesses using the card. He resigned from his job in October 2023.
A grand jury indicted Ybarra on Aug. 23. He now faces a felony charge of theft greater than $300,000.
His wife, former Austin Watershed Protection employee Ambrosia Ybarra, “refused to answer questions” from city auditors. She was indicted on Sept. 15 and charged with felony theft between $150,000 and $300,000. She resigned from her job in November, the report states.
Paramount looks at the proposed Netflix-Warner Brothers merger and says “not so fast.”
Paramount Skydance has made another offer to buy Warner Bros Discovery as it seeks to trump a rival plan from Netflix to buy the company’s studio and streaming networks.
Paramount, which is backed by the billionaire Ellison family, said it was making a direct offer to shareholders of $30 (£22.50) per share to scoop up the whole of Warner Bros, including its traditional television networks.
It said its proposal was a “superior alternative” to Netflix’s, delivering more cash upfront to shareholders and greater prospect of approval by regulators.
I don’t think either of them have the best interests of movie viewers at heart…
Speaking of Netflix, remember Carl Rinsch, the director hired to produce a science fiction TV show who instead took the money and plowed it into cryptocurrency? Guilty on all counts.
“Hundreds of Porsches in Russia were rendered immobile last week, raising speculation of a hack, but the German carmaker tells The Register that its vehicles are secure. According to reports, local dealership chain Rolf traced the problem to a loss of satellite connectivity to their Vehicle Tracking Systems (VTS). This meant the systems thought a theft attempt was in progress, triggering the vehicle’s engine immobilizer. Porsche HQ was unable to help or diagnose the nature of the problem.”
Draw Mohammed winner Bosch Fawstin write to say that Patreon has frozen his account and gives different answers as to why. If anyone has a good contact there you might drop him a line. He also put up a PayPal link for donations.
Scottish comedian and actor Stanley Baxter, who also served the British Army in Burma during World War II, has died at age 99. (Previously.)
Following hot on the heels of Thanksgiving travel and the final push to put out a new Lame Excuse Books catalog next week, this is going to be a somewhat briefer LinkSwarm.
This week: The Supreme Court greenlights the Texas redistricting map, a whole lot of support behind Trump Accounts, more Tim Walz corruption in Minnesota, the January 6 pipeline bomber turns out to be a black anti-Trump radical, more Ukrainian missile and drone strikes on Russian infrastructure, another pedo teacher exposed, Netflix buys Warner Brothers, and a tsunami of horrifying sequels barrels towards movie screens. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Texas’ newly redistricted congressional map will remain in effect for the 2026 primary after the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday approved a stay of a lower court panel’s ruling against the new lines.
The State of Texas had applied for a stay of that ruling by the El Paso-based federal judicial panel that came down last month, which declared that legislators illegally considered racial factors in the redraw. The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) then appealed that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, citing many of the fiery arguments made by the panel’s lone dissenter, Judge Jerry Smith.
Before Thanksgiving, Justice Samuel Alito issued a temporary stay of the ruling, pending further consideration by the full court.
Now that stay has been made permanent, pending a full appeal later on, in a 6 to 3 ruling by the court along ideological lines. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch penned a concurring opinion.
“First, the dissent does not dispute—because it is indisputable—that the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple,” the trio wrote.
“Thus, when the asserted reason for a map is political, it is critical for challengers to produce an alternative map that serves the State’s allegedly partisan aim just as well as the map the State adopted. Id., at 34; Easley v. Cromartie, 532 U. S. 234, 258 (2001). Although respondents’ experts could have easily produced such a map if that were possible, they did not, giving rise to a strong inference that the State’s map was indeed based on partisanship, not race.”
They concluded, “Neither the duration of the District Court’s hearing nor the length of its majority opinion provides an excuse for failing to apply the correct legal standards as set out clearly in our case law.”
Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
The one-party rule of ‘Democratic Kings’ in Maryland continues to reveal an optically displeasing truth about these leftist activists masquerading as competent politicians, who are anything but, and their epic mismanagement of state finances has only occurred because of limited oversight into their radical agendas.
Fox Baltimore reports that a state legislative audit uncovered major concerns about the oversight of billions of dollars spent by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore and his rudderless leftist allies in Annapolis, who champion everything from failed climate-crisis policies to wokeism to gender identity agendas to social justice and criminal justice reforms, as well as protecting illegal aliens (new voter base) – this is anything but ‘Maryland First’…
“Most recently, a state audit revealed 42 state offices spent a total of $8.5 billion last year with minimal oversight. That audit came on the heels of a State Highway Administration audit detailing $360 million in unauthorized spending for federal projects, and a separate Social Services Administration audit revealing a lack of protections for foster care children in Maryland,” Fox Baltimore wrote in a report.
Taxpayers Protection Alliance president David Williams told Fox Baltimore journalist Jeff Abell, “It’s a problem that almost $9 billion is going to these entities and we just don’t know where the money is going.”
Williams expressed serious concerns over the findings, pointing out, “This is supposed to be a system of checks and balances. We know the checks have gone out but there are no balances to be sure the money is being spent wisely.”
He called for increased oversight, saying, “If you’re receiving taxpayer money, there has to be full accountability, and this is billions of dollars we’re talking about.”
The lack of oversight in Maryland comes as no surprise, given that the state suffers from a disastrous one-party rule of far-left Democrats who care more about upholding the globalist framework of climate-crisis and illegal alien policies.
Moore’s photo next to dark-money-funded NGO emperor Alex Soros makes it all the more clear why he and Maryland Democrats operate with a globalist framework in the first place.
The result of one-party rule has been a ballooning deficit, soaring taxes, a credit rating downgrade, and a continued large-scale exodus of residents fleeing to red states as Maryland quickly loses its charm and is on track to transform into the next “Illinois 2.0.” On top of the financial failures, power grid mismanagement has collided with surging data center demand, sending power bills through the roof.
It’s not a mystery where it went. It disappeared into the pockets of radical leftwing activists and NGOs.
An unlikely bipartisan Senate duo is spearheading a push for employers to donate to the new “Trump accounts” created under the GOP’s “big, beautiful” reconciliation package last summer.
Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Cory Booker, D-N.J., teamed up on a letter sent to Fortune 1000 CEOs on Monday encouraging their companies to contribute to the new investment accounts created for young children. Dell CEO Michael Dell and his wife, Susan, pledged a $6.25 billion donation to the accounts Tuesday that earned them a White House appearance with President Donald Trump.
The savings accounts, which are funded with after-tax contributions, were dubbed “Trump accounts” under the budget reconciliation law. The government will contribute $1,000 to the accounts for babies born this year through the end of Trump’s term.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the provision would cost $15 billion over 10 years. The Dell donation would expand the program to reach children who wouldn’t qualify for the federal contribution.
“These tax-advantaged accounts ensure that every American child is an immediate shareholder in America’s largest companies and will experience the miracle of compound growth through their lifetime,” Cruz and Booker wrote in their letter seeking corporate contributions.
Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick “Backs Trump’s Baby Investment Plan, Wants To Double It in Texas. Under the proposal, Texas newborns would receive an additional $1,000 from the state treasury at birth.”
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says Texas should create its own version of President Donald Trump’s new child investment accounts, announcing that the state should provide every Texas newborn with an additional $1,000 in publicly funded, long-term savings beginning in 2027.
The initiative mirrors and expands upon the federal Trump Accounts program created under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, which seeds every American newborn’s account with $1,000 that cannot be accessed until adulthood and grows through investment in a broad U.S. stock-market index. The accounts are intended to accumulate wealth from birth and teach families and children long-term financial planning.
In a post on X, Patrick said he “loves” Trump’s idea to invest $1,000 at birth that “cannot be spent until age 18 and must be used for education or other qualifying expenses,” and he applauded Texans Michael and Susan Dell for contributing $6.25 billion to help launch the federal program.
“If I see a great idea from the President that helps Texans, my first question is always, ‘why not do it in Texas, too?’” wrote Patrick.
He noted that about 400,000 babies are born each year in Texas and said that one of his top priorities for the 2027 legislative session will be passing what he calls the “New Little Texan Savings Fund.” Under the proposal, Texas newborns would receive an additional $1,000 from the state treasury at birth, invested in the S&P 500 in alignment with the federal program. Combined with Trump Accounts, Patrick says Texas children would receive a total of $2,000 in initial investment capital, not including voluntary family contributions.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says he’ll withhold $30.4 million from Minnesota, after a review found nearly one-third of driver’s licenses in the state were issued illegally.
In a letter on Monday, Duffy warned Minnesota officials that more than $30 million in federal highway funds may be withheld unless the state revokes any commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) that should not have been issued and addresses deficiencies in the state’s commercial driver’s license program.
According to KTSP TV, Secretary Duffy alleged that one-third of Minnesota’s non-domiciled CDLs reviewed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) were issued illegally.
Minnesota will have 30 days to revoke the illegally-issued licenses or face the loss of funding.
Secretary Duffy noted that, “Minnesota failed to follow the law and illegally doled out trucking licenses to unsafe, unqualified non-citizens — endangering American families on the road. That abuse stops now under the Trump Administration.”
“The Department will withhold funding if Minnesota continues this reckless behavior that puts non-citizens gaming the system ahead of the safety of Americans,” Duffy added.
Over 400 employees of the Minnesota Department of Human Services are accusing Governor Tim Walz (D) of failing to act on warnings of widespread fraud and of retaliating against whistleblowers.
The accusations come as federal probes are examining the theft of more than a billion dollars from programs like child nutrition, Medicaid, and housing aid and as federal prosecutors announced charges against a 78th defendant in the theft of $250 million from Feeding Our Future child nutrition program.
In a post on X, the Minnesota DHS group called out Walz for ignoring what the group called “a pattern of ignored warnings, threats to whistleblowers, and unqualified appointees prioritizing image over fixes.”
In their post, the Minnesota DHS group explains that, contrary to popular belief, they aren’t a political group but have been continually disappointed in the lack of response they’ve received as well as the governor’s response to those who have pointed out the fraud.
“We let Tim Walz know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud but no, we got the opposite response. Tim Walz systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression, and did his best to discredit fraud reports,” the group wrote.
In addition to retaliating against whistleblowers, the group claims, “Tim Walz disempowered the Office of the Legislative Auditor, allowing agencies to disregard their audit findings and guidance.”
Snip.
In their post on X, the group states that Walz is “100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota” and calls for taking the next step of bringing in “external auditors and new leadership.”
– a young black guy – radical anti-Trump activist – sued Trump & ICE & DHS – extreme racial justice advocate – works at his family bail bonds company that frees criminal aliens from ICE custody
Ukraine drone struck FSB headquarters in Chechnya and Livny oil depot in Oryol. The simmering resentment of Russia in Chechnya never went away, so killing a whole bunch of FSB goons isn’t going to help Russia keep a lid on the place.
“Reports say that four military-type quadcopter drones buzzed the flightpath of President Zelensky’s aircraft as it arrived at Dublin Airport on Monday and then went to buzz an Irish Navy ship. This is likely Russian drones and suggests an intelligence leak.” They also buzzed an Irish naval ship, which did jack squat about them because “the ship didn’t have air radar capabilities,” which suggests that either the ship was really small, or the Irish Navy is absolutely useless in a real shooting war. (They also say that the ship was only armed with machine guns, when they’re also supposed to carry 20mm Rheinmetall autocannons.)
“Caleb Elliott was initially arrested on October 3 and is currently in custody on charges of recording and photographing students nude in the locker room at Moore Middle School. The victim count is currently around 40 students. There have been allegations that Elliott was transferred to Moore Middle School following inappropriate behavior at a previous school, had a relationship with a student, and placed cameras inside of the locker room.”
“2025: The Year Late-Night TV Collapsed.”
As Hollywood continues to contract on several fronts, late-night shows are not as sustainable as in the past.
Colbert found that out the hard way in July. CBS announced Colbert’s “Late Show” gig will end in May of 2026. Even more dramatic? No one is slated to replace him. “The Late Show” will end as Colbert signs off.
The shocking part? Reports said the show was costing CBS roughly $40 million a year. Why would any business take that kind of a fiscal drubbing in the first place?
That came on the heels of “The Tonight Show” shrinking from five nights a week to four, “Late Night with Seth Meyers” losing his house band and several late-nighters losing their gigs.
Period.
Think Samantha Bee, Desus & Mero, Trevor Noah, James Corden and Amber Ruffin.
That, plus news that late-night TV revenues have plunged in recent years (along with their audiences), suggested Jimmy Kimmel’s prediction might come true faster than he anticipated.
Late-night TV has much less than 10 years left. This year proved it.
Kimmel nearly took his own show down. The far-Left host suggested Charlie Kirk’s killer was part of the MAGA movement without evidence or a shred of logic.
ABC/Disney sent him the bench for a week before he returned sans apology. He cried, again, but not for misleading viewers.
The Hollywood Left and the media rallied on Kimmel’s behalf, and he returned to the show to spread more misinformation.
Meanwhile, Fox News’ “Gutfeld” continued to out perform the competition on a smaller budget (and, admittedly, an earlier time schedule). That proves there’s a market for a right-leaning audiences ignored, or insulted, by the current late-night landscape.
The future doesn’t look bright for the late-night survivors. Kimmel’s contract ends in May, but he’ll likely sign a new deal before then. ABC proved it couldn’t force Kimmel to apologize for spewing misinformation, and Hollywood would rise up, en masse, anew if ABC/Disney let Kimmel walk.
Does it matter if “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” might be losing money a la Colbert? It’s clear money isn’t the deciding factor anymore given what CBS endured for far too long.
It doesn’t ultimately matter. The late-night talkers showed their cards in 2025. They’re all parts of the DNC at this point, sometimes literally.
Netflix is buying Warner Brothers for $87 billion. To quote the press release:
This acquisition brings together two pioneering entertainment businesses, combining Netflix’s innovation, global reach and best-in-class streaming service with Warner Bros.’ century-long legacy of world-class storytelling. Beloved franchises, shows and movies such as The Big Bang Theory, The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, The Wizard of Oz and the DC Universe will join Netflix’s extensive portfolio including Wednesday, Money Heist, Bridgerton, Adolescence and Extraction, creating an extraordinary entertainment offering for audiences worldwide.
“Our mission has always been to entertain the world,” said Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix. “By combining Warner Bros.’ incredible library of shows and movies—from timeless classics like Casablanca and Citizen Kane to modern favorites like Harry Potter and Friends—with our culture-defining titles like Stranger Things, KPop Demon Hunters and Squid Game, we’ll be able to do that even better. Together, we can give audiences more of what they love and help define the next century of storytelling.”
I’m sure the Bugs Bunney-KPop Demon Hunters crossover will be lit…
A company that provides a controversial surveillance technology to both private and public entities throughout Texas was found to have been operating under an expired state license, amid state and federal lawmakers calling for greater scrutiny of the company over privacy and security concerns.
Flock Safety, Inc. installs automatic license plate readers (ALPR) that capture the license plate number and location of each vehicle that passes by. Police can then compare the data in relation to stolen vehicles, missing persons, or other crimes, and law enforcement has successfully used the technology to solve cases.
Flock’s high-resolution cameras create a detailed file that includes other markers on each vehicle, including bumper stickers. The company’s cloud-based system also connects with ALPR data from jurisdictions across the nation in real time, allowing users to map vehicle movement.
After receiving complaints last year that Flock had been installing and operating ALPR cameras on private properties without a license since 2021, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) sent the company a cease and desist order in September 2024. Despite documented violations, DPS granted Flock a license for private operations, but that license expired on September 30, 2025.
More AI vulnerabilities to worry about. “Researchers at Icaro Lab, a collaboration between Sapienza University in Rome and the DexAI think tank, have discovered that AI models from OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic can leak illicit content across various subjects when instructions are given in poetic form. The illegal content ranges from making nuclear weapons, creating child exploitation material, and developing malware.”
Shall I compare thee to a Teller-Ulam Implosion Core?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate
Critical Drinker tours Estonia. Consider this your periodic reminder that communism sucks and that just about everything they build looks soul-crushingly ugly.
Science, not settled. A whole lot of cracks in what was thought to be settled cosmology have recently appeared, and the uncertainty may result in a revolution in our understanding of the universe, but no one knows what it is yet.
Architect Frank Gehry dead at 96. Never cared for his work, so this is just an excuse to haul out this classic Onion bit from back when they were funny: “Frank Gehry No Longer Allowed To Make Sandwiches For Grandkids.”
Adam Savage geeks out over Paramount archive storage, including a ton of weird dead media formats.
Red Letter Media has a terrifying look at all the sequels, prequels and expanded universe movies coming down the pike. The frightening thing is that some are fake, but I’m not sure any are actually off the table for Hollywood. Honestly, I think I could write Bag of Sugar: The Movie. See, first we change the name to Too Sweet. An evil corporate executive wants to destroy the magic bag of sugar that’s been in the family-owned sugar business for generations…
Minnesota just provided an example of how wild and expensive welfare state fraud can metastasize in Democrat-run states where leftwing officials either turn a blind eye to it in the name of “social justice,” or actively facilitate it for vote buying and to participate in the graft. So naturally, the Trump Administration wants to validate the data used by state on providing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to weed out the fraud and abuse, by illegal aliens or otherwise. And, just as naturally, blue states are balking.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins says she will be moving to stop federal funding to 21 non-compliant states that have refused to provide data from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
In February, the Trump administration had asked all states to provide their SNAP data to the federal government as part of the administration’s efforts to root out waste and fraud in the welfare program.
29 mostly Republican-led states provided the data and revealed 500,000 cases of duplicate benefits as well as 186,000 deceased individuals’ Social Security numbers in use.
But 21 mostly Democrat-led states, including California, Minnesota and New York, have dug in their heels and refused to provide the information, citing concerns over privacy.
Secretary Rollins told reporters that if a state refuses to share data on criminal use of SNAP benefits, “it won’t get a dollar of federal SNAP administrative funding.”
Snip.
Speaking at a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, Rollins said, “We asked for all the states for the first time to turn over their data to the federal government to let the USDA partner with them to root out this fraud, to make sure that those who really need food stamps are getting them, but also to ensure that the American taxpayer is protected.”
Rollins accused former president Joe Biden of trying to “buy an election” by ramping up food stamp funding by 40% last year.
Roughly 42 million recipients currently use SNAP benefits to help buy their groceries, at an annual cost to taxpayers of nearly $100 billion a year.
Democrat-run states evidently find it an unthinkable affront to screen the welfare roles for fraud.
One of those blue states that don’t want to see their precious illegal aliens kicked off the government teat is Oregon.
It was one of the key debates that led to the longest government shutdown in US history: The Trump Administration wanted to close the loopholes that allowed non-citizens access to government subsidies like ACA healthcare and free food through SNAP.
Democrats claimed that “illegal migrants” don’t have access to such programs.
Yet, the Democrats were willing to drag out the government shutdown for 35 days just to stop Trump from implementing cuts that would apparently affect no one.
Why?
Because leftists are liars.
If they are not telling a direct lie, they are lying by omission or by using semantics and carefully crafted language so that if they get caught they can say “That’s not what we meant…” ‘
When Republicans moved to block subsidies for migrants this included the millions of asylum seekers that entered the US illegally and then took advantage of Joe Biden’s lax policies, including “catch and release.”
Democrats, however, categorize asylum seekers as residing in the US “legally”.
It’s a dishonest way to bypass the debate and pretend as if Trump is living in a fantasy land.
Snip.
After months of Democrats asserting that “illegal” non-citizens don’t receive government subsidies, Oregon is suing the Trump administration over changes to the nation’s food assistance program, arguing that new federal guidance unlawfully blocks certain groups of “legal” immigrants from accessing food aid. When Democrats mention “legal immigrants” they are referring to all asylum seekers.
In other words: The Biden Administrations illegal decision to let millions of illegal aliens flood into the country means they can wave a wand and declare those millions of illegal aliens “legal asylum seekers” so they can be illegally subsidized and taxpaying American citizens can go pound sand.
Twenty-one other states joined Oregon in filing the lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in Eugene, arguing that the U.S. Department of Agriculture overstepped its authority when it issued an Oct. 31 memo telling states to cut off benefits for people who have long been eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
The dispute centers on changes Congress made in July through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which limited SNAP eligibility for certain noncitizens in temporary immigration categories.
Snip.
Their definition of “legal” non-citizens, however, is irrelevant. The federal government has broad authority to determine who is here legally and who gets access to federal subsidies including SNAP. Migrant aliens who flooded into the US during the Biden regime and took advantage of wide open asylum policies do not necessarily qualify.
Furthermore, there needs to be a national discussion about who should be allowed access to American taxpayer dollars. Progressives exploit subsidies as a way to lure migrants to the US and buy their votes once they become naturalized. The Democrat agenda is clearly to upend the demographics of the country in their favor. Why would native born Americans allow their money to be used against them as a means to steal their country from them?
No migrants, legal or illegal, should ever qualify for government subsidies. If they can’t support themselves, they should not be traveling to the US in the first place. At the very least, there needs to be a set moratorium on immigrant applications for benefits; perhaps 5-10 years after they gain residency. This would weed out any parasites looking to feed on the American system rather than contribute and assimilate.
Elected Democrats obviously feel otherwise. Or as this cartoon tweet linked by Instapundit put it:
Feeling that they’re keys both to raking off graft and rigging elections, Democrats would rather risk losing federal funding for SNAP recipients than let their precious illegal aliens get kicked off the government teat.
Why shouldn’t taxpaying American citizens conclude that Democrats love illegal aliens far more than them when all the evidence suggests it’s so?
Democrats seem to love welfare fraud and being soft on jihad, so it shouldn’t be a surprise when a story combines the two.
Minnesota is drowning in fraud. Billions in taxpayer dollars have been stolen during the administration of Governor Tim Walz alone. Democratic state officials, overseeing one of the most generous welfare regimes in the country, are asleep at the switch. And the media, duty-bound by progressive pieties, refuse to connect the dots.
In many cases, the fraud has allegedly been perpetrated by members of Minnesota’s sizeable Somali community. Federal counterterrorism sources confirm that millions of dollars in stolen funds have been sent back to Somalia, where they ultimately landed in the hands of the terror group Al-Shabaab.
As one confidential source put it: “The largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer.”
Our investigation shows what happens when a tribal mindset meets a bleeding-heart bureaucracy, when imported clan loyalties collide with a political class too timid to offend, and when accusations of racism are cynically deployed to shield criminal behavior. The predictable result is graft, with taxpayers left to foot the bill.
If you were to design a welfare program to facilitate fraud, it would probably look a lot like Minnesota’s Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services program. The HSS program, the first of its kind in the country, was launched with a noble goal: to help seniors, addicts, the disabled, and the mentally ill secure housing.
Those may have been its stated goals, but I assume the real goals were to line the pockets of leftwing activists and the homeless industrial complex.
It was designed with “low barriers to entry” and “minimal requirements for reimbursement.” Nonetheless, before the program went live in 2020, officials pegged its annual estimated price tag at $2.6 million.
Costs quickly spiraled out of control. In 2021, the program paid out more than $21 million in claims. In the following years, annual costs shot up to $42 million, then $74 million, then $104 million. During the first six months of 2025, payouts totaled $61 million.
On August 1, Minnesota’s Department of Human Services moved to scrap the HSS program, noting that payment to 77 housing-stabilization providers had been terminated this year due to “credible allegations of fraud.” Joe Thompson, then the Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota, went even further, stating that the “vast majority” of the HSS program was fraudulent.
On September 18, Thompson announced criminal indictments for HSS fraud against Moktar Hassan Aden, Mustafa Dayib Ali, Khalid Ahmed Dayib, Abdifitah Mohamud Mohamed, Christopher Adesoji Falade, Emmanuel Oluwademilade Falade, Asad Ahmed Adow, and Anwar Ahmed Adow—six of whom, according a U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesperson, are members of Minnesota’s Somali community.
Imagine my shock.
Thompson made clear that this is just the first round of charges for HSS fraud that his office will be prosecuting.
“Most of these cases, unlike a lot of Medicare fraud and Medicaid fraud cases nationally, aren’t just overbilling,” Thompson said at a press conference announcing the indictments. “These are often just purely fictitious companies solely created to defraud the system, and that’s unique in the extent to which we have that here in Minnesota.”
Thompson said many firms enrolled in the program “operated out of dilapidated storefronts or rundown office buildings.” The perpetrators often targeted people recently released from rehab, signing them up for Medicaid services they had no intention of providing. He noted many owners of companies engaged in HSS fraud had “other companies through which they billed other Medicaid programs, such as the EIDBI autism program, the . . . Adult Rehabilitative Mental Health Services program, the . . . Integrated Community Support program, the Community Access for Disability Inclusion . . . program, PCA services, and other Medicaid-waivered services.”
Nothing says “social justice” quite like stealing from the retarded.
“What we see are schemes stacked upon schemes, draining resources meant for those in need. It feels never ending,” Thompson said. “I have spent my career as a fraud prosecutor and the depth of the fraud in Minnesota takes my breath away.”
On September 18, the same day that the HSS fraud charges were announced, the U.S. Attorney’s Office reported that a man named Abdullahe Nur Jesow had become the 56th defendant to plead guilty in the $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud scheme.
56 is not a pokey little gang. That’s quite organized crime.
Founded in 2016, Feeding Our Future was a small Minnesota nonprofit that sponsored daycares and after-school programs to enroll in the Federal Child Nutrition Program. The organizations that Feeding Our Future sponsored were primarily owned and operated by members of Minnesota’s Somali community, according to two former state officials with connections to law enforcement.
In 2019, Feeding Our Future received $3.4 million in federal funding disbursed by the state. In the months after the Covid-19 pandemic began, however, the nonprofit rapidly increased its number of sponsored sites. Using fake meal counts, doctored attendance records, and fabricated invoices, the perpetrators of the fraud ring claimed to be serving thousands of meals a day, seven days a week, to underprivileged children. In 2021, Feeding Our Future received nearly $200 million in funding.
In reality, the money was being used to fund lavish lifestyles, purchase luxury vehicles, and buy real estate in the United States, Turkey, and Kenya. In 2020, Minnesota officials raised concerns about the nonprofit’s rapid expansion. In response, the group filed a lawsuit alleging racial discrimination related to outstanding site applications, noting that Feeding Our Future “caters to . . . foreign nationals.”
Dear Sirs: Please see me previous comments RE: shock. Yours in haste…
“That’s the standard operating playbook for that cohort: when in doubt, claim racism, claim bias,” says David Gaither, a former Minnesota state senator and a nonprofit leader. “Even if the facts don’t point to that, it allows for many folks in the middle, or on the center-Left, to stay silent.”
Gaither believes the mainstream media, alongside Minnesota’s Democratic establishment, have long turned a blind eye to fraud within the Somali community. This, in turn, allowed the problem to metastasize. “The media does not want to put a light on this,” Gaither said. “And if you’re a politician, it’s a significant disadvantage for you to alienate the Somali community. If you don’t win the Somali community, you can’t win Minneapolis. And if you don’t win Minneapolis, you can’t win the state. End of story.”
Why, a cynical man might think that capability was the entire reason Somalis were imported into Minneapolis in the first place.
Or just one with a working brain.
The fraudsters have leveraged their growing political influence to cultivate close ties with Minnesota’s elected officials. Several individuals involved in the Feeding Our Future scheme donated to, or appeared publicly with, Ilhan Omar, the Somali-born congresswoman from Minneapolis. Omar’s deputy district director, Ali Isse, advocated on behalf of Feeding Our Future. Omar Fateh, a former state senator who recently ran for Minneapolis mayor, lobbied Governor Tim Walz in support of the program. And one of the accused, Abdi Nur Salah, served as a senior aide to Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey.
Let me put on the third movie in the Shock trilogy, Revenge of the Shock.
Just days later, on September 24, U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson announced his office’s first indictment in yet another fraud case. This time, the scheme involved federally funded autism services for children.
The accused is a woman named Asha Farhan Hassan, a member of Minnesota’s Somali community, who has also been charged in the Feeding Our Future scam. She’s alleged to have played a role in a $14 million fraud scheme perpetrated against Minnesota’s Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention program.
Hassan and her co-conspirators “approached parents in the Somali community” and recruited their children into autism therapy services. It didn’t matter, prosecutors suggested, if a child did not have an autism diagnosis: Hassan would facilitate a fraudulent one.
In a press release announcing the indictment, the U.S. Attorney’s Office made clear that the alleged autism fraud scheme extended to a wide network of people. “To drive up enrollment, Hassan and her partners paid monthly cash kickback payments to the parents of children who enrolled,” the release reads. “These kickback payments ranged from approximately $300 to $1500 per month, per child. The amount of these payments was contingent on the services DHS authorized a child to receive—the higher the authorization amount, the higher the kickback. Often, parents threatened to leave . . . and take their children to other autism centers if they did not get paid higher kickbacks.”
Much like with the HSS program, autism claims to Medicaid in Minnesota have skyrocketed in recent years—from $3 million in 2018 to $54 million in 2019, $77 million in 2020, $183 million 2021, $279 million in 2022, and $399 million in 2023. Meantime, the number of autism providers in the state spiked from 41 to 328 over the same period, with many in the Somali community establishing their own autism treatment centers, citing the need for “culturally appropriate programming.” By the time the fraud scheme was exposed, one in 16 Somali four-year-olds in the state had reportedly been diagnosed with autism—a rate more than triple the state average.
Why it’s almost like Democrats set up welfare programs knowing they’ll be abused, and, in return, the groups abusing those programs continue voting for Democrats.
Democrat attempts to link Trump to Jeffrey Epstein backfire big-time, more illegal alien felons get deported, more Democrats committing fraud, more DOGE-discovered spending insanity, Letterman inducts Zevon, and the weirdest White House love-in ever.
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins has said the department will “completely deconstruct” the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in an effort to remove fraud and corruption from the program.
The USDA told Newsweek: “Secretary Rollins wants to ensure the fraud, waste, and incessant abuse of SNAP ends. Rates of fraud were only previously assumed, and President Trump is doing something about it. Using standard recertification processes for households is a part of that work. As well as ongoing analysis of state data, further regulatory work, and improved collaboration with states.”
SNAP supports about 42 million low-income Americans nationwide by helping them cover the costs of groceries each month.
The program came into the spotlight during the recent government shutdown—the longest in U.S. history—when many did not receive their benefits as scheduled in November.
Rollins’ comment also comes amid the government’s announcement of two major changes to the program: Work requirement provisions brought in by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could see millions removed from the program, and recipients could be required to reapply for the benefits so that those no longer deemed eligible can be removed from the program.
In an interview with Fox Business’ Larry Kudlow on Tuesday, Rollins said early data already showed that “186,000 dead people are receiving SNAP benefits,” while another 500,000 people are receiving the benefits in more than one state.
USDA data indicates that more than 226,000 fraudulent benefit claims and 691,000 fraudulent transactions received approval in the first quarter of 2025, Fox Business reported.
Fraudulent transactions refer to when SNAP-receiving households do not authorize claims because of card cloning or various kinds of electronic theft.
These fraudulent claims and transactions cost the government more than $102 million in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, higher than the $69.4 million figure in the previous quarter and $31.9 million during the same period last year, the USDA data shows.
As a result of these issues, Rollins said the department had made “hundreds of arrests” in regard to fraudulent claims for SNAP benefits.
She also said the recent crackdown on SNAP benefit fraud and eligibility was “an unintended consequence of the Democrats shutting the government down for 43 days,” adding that it “shined this very bright light on one of their pet programs and now has given us a platform to completely deconstruct the program.”
Sounds like a whole lot of fraudsters are going to get snapped off SNAP, thanks to the #SchumerShutdown.
Welcome to Unintended Consequences Theater. I’m your host, Leonard Pinth-Garnell…
“The U.S. economy roared ahead in September 2025, shattering expectations with the creation of 119,000 jobs — more than double what economists predicted.” I can hardly wait for all this job creation to get to me…
“Jeffrey Epstein was texting sitting members of Congress, Democrat non-voting delegate Stacy Plaskett specifically, and directing the questioning during a congressional investigation of Donald Trump.” Doesn’t exactly seem like Trump and Epstein were best buddies, does it?
Desperate to tie President Donald Trump to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Democrats are ignoring their own ties shown in newly published documents to the deceased registered sex offender.
One email in the more than 20,000 documents obtained from the Epstein estate and released publicly by the House Oversight Committee shows that a consulting firm working for now-House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, shortly after he was first elected to Congress in 2012, solicited Epstein for a donation. This came long after Trump barred Epstein from his Florida estate in 2007, when he said he cut ties with the financier.
“Dear Jeffrey – We are thrilled to announce that we are working with Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, one of the rising stars in the New York Congressional delegation,” a team at Dynamic SRG, a political fundraising and public affairs firm, wrote to Epstein in a May 2013 email.
“Sometimes referred to as ‘Brooklyn’s Barack’, he is a staunch supporter of President Obama and a progressive voice for the people of New York City,” the firm said, touting Jeffries in the email. Jeffries’ name is listed on Dynamic SRG in a database of “selected current and former clients.”
Nowadays people refer to Jeffries as “TEMU Obama.”
The email came roughly five years after Epstein became a registered sex offender in Florida and pleaded guilty to state prostitution crimes related to his alleged involvement with underage girls. He avoided federal charges through striking the controversial deal and served only 13 months in state prison.
The Democrats love money a whole lot more than they hate sex offenders.
#4 – $254 million in unemployment benefits for toddlers under five. If your preschooler is filing claims, we may have bigger issues than fraud.
#3 – The DOD built an HR IT system that ran 780% over budget at a casual $280 million.
Somewhere, a contracting executive is laughing on his yacht that just docked in the Greek islands.
#2 – HUD “misplaced” $1.9 billion. Misplaced! As if money that could pave a small state just slipped behind the couch cushions.
#1 – And the grand champion: $516 billion spent on 1,264 expired, defunct, fossilized government programs. Half a trillion dollars shoveled into the graveyard of bureaucracy. No wonder the Uniparty attacked DOGE so fervently.
Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.) was hit with a federal indictment Wednesday, accusing her of stealing $5 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds to support her 2021 congressional campaign.
Cherfilus-McCormick, who has been under investigation by the House Ethics Committee since December 2023, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Miami and faces up to 53 years in prison if convicted.
Snip.
The Justice Department alleges that Cherfilus-McCormick, 46, and several co-defendants, including her brother, Edwin Cherfilus, 51, “conspired to steal” an overpayment of $5 million in FEMA funds their family health care company received in July 2021 as part of a COVID-19 vaccination staffing contract.
The defendants allegedly routed the funds “through multiple accounts to disguise its source” and used “a substantial portion of the misappropriated funds … as candidate contributions” to Cherfilus-McCormick’s 2021 congressional campaign.
Cherfilus-McCormick and another co-defendant, Nadege Leblanc, 46, further schemed to utilize “straw donors” to contribute the stolen money to the Florida Democrat’s campaign, according to prosecutors.
The congresswoman and her tax preparer, David K. Spencer, 41, are also charged with conspiring to file a false federal tax return for allegedly falsely marking political spending and other personal expenses as business deductions — and inflating Cherfilus-McCormick’s charitable contributions to ease her tax obligations.
As Democrats continue to demonize and vilify the nation’s law enforcement officers, the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers keep protecting communities from violent criminal illegal immigrants. Once again, DHS and ICE collaborated to remove some of the “worst of the worst” illegally residing in the United States.
While Democrats, and their accomplices in the legacy media, regularly promote narratives denigrating illegal immigration enforcement operations, the fact is, as DHS has regularly highlighted, “70% of ICE arrests are of illegal aliens convicted or charged with a crime in the U.S.” And while Democrats insist on prioritizing the safety of the criminal class over the welfare of the innocent, DHS and ICE continue to protect Americans from bad people.
These bad people include illegal immigrants convicted of manslaughter, murder, and lewd acts with minors. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin commented on these violent people when speaking to the Washington Examiner.
Snip.
Andres Mendoza-Salomon is an illegal immigrant who was living in the U.S. Previously, he was convicted of “lewd act with a child under 14, contact with a minor – sexual intent, harmful matter to seduce minor, and indecent exposure in Ventura, California,” according to DHS. These are disgusting actions by a dangerous individual. The local community is better with him after ICE’s involvement. But you won’t see Mendoza-Salomon’s picture on legacy media news reports.
Snip.
Oscar Arturo Sanchez-Mondragon was also arrested by ICE on Monday. He is an illegal immigrant from Mexico who was convicted of “manslaughter in the second degree and tampering with physical evidence in Boone County, Kentucky,” according to DHS. He was free to roam within the U.S. and put innocent lives in danger. ICE ensured that he would no longer be a threat to any community.
ICE arrested an illegal immigrant from El Salvador with a particularly violent history, as well. Miguel Antonio Urias-Argueta had a rap sheet that featured convictions for “criminal possession of a weapon, criminal use of a firearm, attempted assault, and attempted murder in Nassau County, New York,” DHS reported. He’s the kind of illegal immigrant who presents a distinct danger to those around him, based on his criminal record. ICE ensured he would no longer be a threat and arrested him. Unfortunately, once again, no Democrats or members of the media will mention ICE’s arrest of Urias-Argueta, or that communities are safer because of their enforcement operations.
The agency’s other arrests on Monday included an illegal immigrant from Mexico who caused the “death of another by driving a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol in Sparks, Nevada,” DHS said. Higinio Rodriguez-Ramirez is in the country illegally, also from Mexico, and was convicted of “burglary of a habitation in Johnson County, Texas,” according to DHS.
A wealthy Plymouth, Michigan couple has landed in federal court, accused of hiring more than 200 undocumented immigrants to work at their national plumbing business over the years, and housing many of them in run-down motels and houses — all while they raked in $74 million in revenue, according to a new court filing in New York.
That’s where Moises and Raquel Orduna-Rios are facing federal charges, including money laundering, following a five-year investigation that started with federal agents spotting one of the couple’s company vans outside a motel in Amherst, New York. The agents also encountered — and arrested — a small group of undocumented immigrants, who explained the van belonged to their ‘boss,’ court records show.
This operation took place in Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, and New York where the charges are being filed.
That boss was 36-year-old Moises Orduna-Rios, president of Michigan-based Orduna Plumbing Inc., which also has operations in New York, North Carolina and Ohio. He was arrested on Tuesday, Nov. 18, after years of being monitored by federal agents who kept close tabs on his company vans, financial transactions, communications and his illegal workers who made $800-$1,500 per week, and in some cases had their living expenses covered.
“Legislation To Fast-Track Removal of Criminal Aliens Heads to US House Floor. The bill would address loopholes enabling the abuse of asylum protections and make the removal of convicted violent criminal aliens mandatory.”
U.S. Rep. Brandon Gill’s Expedited Removal of Criminal Aliens Act passed through a review by the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and now moves to the House floor for further action.
The Texas Republican’s legislation, H.R.5713, would strengthen President Trump’s border security plan by allowing law enforcement to remove violent criminal aliens quickly.
“For far too long, Democrat leaders have allowed illegal aliens to get away with unspeakable crimes on our soil, turning a blind eye to the suffering American families who call this land home,” said Gill. “It’s time to empower our brave men and women in law enforcement to get foreign bad actors out of our country quickly, before they have a chance to cause more pain.”
The proposed legislation would stop abuses of protections meant for asylum seekers. The bill would also give law enforcement stronger removal authority over violent criminal aliens, making “detention and expedited removal of gang members, terrorists, and individuals convicted of violent crimes or crimes against vulnerable groups” mandatory.
Currently, removal proceedings can take years of litigation and lengthy appeals, even after a foreign national has been convicted of a serious crime that warrants removal from the United States. The new legislation would fast-track the removal process for criminal illegal aliens.
Speaking about the bill in a post on X, Gill said it “gives law enforcement the authority to swiftly remove violent criminal aliens and protect American communities.”
Similar proposed legislation by U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls (R–Richmond) cleared a House Judiciary Committee review on Tuesday. Nehl’s bill, H.R. 4711, the Rapid Expulsion of Migrant Offenders who Violate and Evade (REMOVE) Act, would require removal proceedings to conclude within 15 days.
“The Biden Administration let millions upon millions of illegal aliens into our country who wreaked havoc on our communities and drained public resources,” said Nehls.
The new Texas congressional map passed by the Legislature this summer, intended to gain five seats for Republicans, constitutes a racial gerrymander according to an El Paso federal court, which enjoined the state from enforcing it for the 2026 midterms.
The long-awaited ruling came on Tuesday after a couple of weeks of anxious speculation from both sides; the filing period for the midterms began on November 8 and ends on December 8.
“The public perception of this case is that it’s about politics. To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map. But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map,” Judge Jeffrey Brown of the El Paso court’s three-judge panel wrote.
“For the reasons explained below, the Court PRELIMINARILY ENJOINS the State from using the 2025 Map. The Court ORDERS that the 2026 congressional election in Texas shall proceed under the map that the Texas Legislature enacted in 2021.”
But: “U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jerry Smith issued a scathing dissent Wednesday against the federal judicial panel ruling that blocked Texas’ new congressional map from going into effect for 2026, calling it ‘the most outrageous conduct by a judge that [he has] ever encountered in a case in which [he has] been involved.'”
On November 7, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Andriy Sybiha released a statement on X stating that at least 1,436 citizens from 36 African countries have been duped into participating in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Hailing from impoverished circumstances in their home countries in Africa, many young men look at Russia as an accessible country to secure economic opportunity. Some arrive to study in Russian universities. Others scour for employment that will allow them to work without documents, but mostly all are convinced that signing a contract in Russian will award them a comfortable salary that can be used to support their families back home. Signing a contract, Mr. Sybiha warns, is equivalent to signing a death sentence.
According to reports in the LA Times, recruits are promised a monthly pay ranging between $2,500 to $3,500, nearly ten times the average in a country like Cameroon. But when these men go missing or are killed, Russian authorities hardly share any information with the bereaved families, including the bodies of the fallen or their earnings.
Ukraine on Monday signed a letter of intent to buy up to 100 Rafale warplanes, drones, air defense systems and other key equipment from France over the next 10 years, as part of efforts to strengthen the country’s long-term security.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who signed the document with French President Emmanuel Macron, called it “a historic deal” at a joint news conference at the Elysée presidential palace. The letter is a preliminary commitment of Ukraine stating its interest in buying a series of French defense equipment.
Snip.
The Rafale is France’s most advanced fighter jet, a high-tech, delta-winged, multi-role warplane known for its maneuverability and efficiency. It has been deployed in the country’s foreign military operations including in the Middle East and Africa, and comes at a cost estimated at over $100 million per aircraft.
“Preliminary commitment” is a long way from “fighters in the air.”
A federal grand jury indicted nine alleged “North Texas Antifa Cell operatives” last week on charges including rioting, providing material support to terrorists, and attempted murder in connection with the July 4 attack on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Alvarado.
Seven additional individuals were also charged with providing material support.
“This is the first indictment in the country against a group of violent Antifa cell members,” Acting U.S. Attorney Nancy E. Larson stated. “The charges the Grand Jury has leveled against these defendants, including material support for terrorists, address the vicious attack perpetrated by an anti-ICE, anti-law enforcement, anti-government, anarchist group.”
Yesterday’s twelve-count indictment charges Cameron Arnold, a/k/a Autumn Hill, Zachary Evetts, Benjamin Song, Savanna Batten, Bradford Morris, a/k/a Meagan Morris, Maricela Rueda, Elizabeth Soto, Ines Soto, and Daniel Rolando Sanchez-Estrada with multiple offenses for their roles related to the Prairieland attack.
Snip.
The nine individuals indicted yesterday are charged with the following offenses:
Riot, with the intent to commit an act of violence, involving conduct such as shooting and throwing fireworks and explosives, slashing tires on a government vehicle, spraying graffiti on property and vehicles, destroying a closed circuit camera, shooting at officers, and dressing in black bloc.
Defendants charged: Cameron Arnold, Zachary Evetts, Benjamin Song, Savanna Batten, Bradford Morris, Maricela Rueda, Elizabeth Soto, Ines Soto
Providing Material Support to Terrorists, including property, services, training, communications equipment, weapons, explosives, personnel (including themselves), and transportation.
Defendants charged: Arnold, Evetts, Song, Batten, Morris, Rueda, E. Soto, and I. Soto
Conspiracy to Use and Carry an Explosive, and Using and Carrying an Explosive, during a riot.
Defendants charged: Arnold, Evetts, Song, Batten, Morris, Rueda, E. Soto, and I. Soto
Attempted Murder of Officers and Employees of the United States, involving the unlawful attempt to kill with malice aforethought Correctional Officers-1 and 2, and an Alvarado Police Officer.
Defendants charged: Song, Arnold, Evetts, Morris, and Rueda
Discharging a Firearm During, and in Relation to, and in Furtherance of a Crime of Violence, i.e., the attempted murder of two correctional officers and an Alvarado Police Officer.
Defendants charged: Song, Arnold, Evetts, Morris, and Rueda
Corruptly Concealing a Document or Record, by transporting a box containing numerous Antifa materials, such as insurrection planning, anti-law enforcement, anti-government, and anti-immigration enforcement documents and propaganda from Sanchez Estrada’s residence to a location in Denton, Texas, intending to conceal the box’s contents and impair its availability for use in a federal grand jury and federal criminal proceeding.
Defendant charged: Daniel Rolando Sanchez Estrada
Conspiracy to Conceal Documents and other objects that would implicate Maricela Rueda in the riot and shooting at the Prairieland facility.
Defendants charged: Sanchez Estrada and Maricela Rueda
If convicted, Song, Arnold, Evetts, Morris, and Rueda each face a minimum penalty of ten years in federal prison and a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Batten, Elizabeth Soto, and Ines Soto each face a sentence ranging from a minimum of ten years up to fifty years in federal prison. Sanchez Estrada faces up to 20 years in federal prison on each count.
China remains infuriated by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s statement last week that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would threaten Japan‘s “survival” and would thus justify military engagement to defend Taiwan.
This is an entirely logical assertion by the new prime minister. A Chinese conquest of Taiwan would result in Beijing’s dominance of trade flows in the western Pacific and its militarily encirclement of Japan’s southern outlying islands. Beijing would be able to leverage this military power to demand political concessions that fundamentally diminished Japan’s democratic sovereignty. In turn, the United States should be grateful to Takaichi. Her leadership here stands in stark contrast to that of other regional leaders such as South Korea’s Lee Jae Myung.
It is partly due to this broadcasting of support for the U.S. that Beijing’s fury with Takaichi remains incandescent.
If China doesn’t want to fight Japan, maybe they should refrain from invading Taiwan.
Never underestimate President Trump’s ability to do the unexpected. Commie New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani met with Trump in the White House…and it turned into something of a love-in:
While his hard-left fellow-travelers now denounce Mamdani for meeting with Trump?
No matter who is running things, Palestinians seem to love terrorism more than life. “Palestinian Authority Paid Terrorists $214M This Year, Major Increase From 2024.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Giant pile of waste mysteriously appears in the English countryside. I’m not saying it’s necessarily unassimiliated Muslim immigrants doing it (I’m sure the UK has plenty of English litterbugs), I’m just suggesting that’s the way I would bet…
After long denying that Houston had been cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Mayor John Whitmire has now admitted that the Houston Police Department has been cooperating with the federal agency, though he noted that it was the bare minimum.
The comments came at a conference hosted by former Kemah Mayor Bill King. During an interview with Whitmire, King mentioned a New York Times profile written last month.
In that article, Whitmire essentially said that, unlike the mayors of other big cities, such as Chicago or Los Angeles—where leaders constantly challenge Trump and his policies, especially on immigration—he prefers to keep a lower profile and focus on his job as mayor. Whitmire noted, “I don’t respond to Trump — that could be counterproductive. Do I have personal views? Sure, and they’re strong, but why do you want to challenge him?”
On Saturday, Whitmire highlighted this position yet again, stating a certain level of cooperation with the administration was crucial to keeping Houston from becoming a military zone. “I’m not going to say that we’re not cooperating with ICE, because that’s frankly not true,” he said. He continued by pointing out that, even if he tried to get ICE out of Houston’s public spaces, the result would likely be 500 more officers from the Trump administration in response.
Not to mention that it’s a matter of obeying federal law.
Sarah Hoyt thinks talk of an inevitable “civil war” are overblown.
This is why I don’t get spooked at things like ante-fa. Because I was spooked, then I poked around and saw that they only operated in areas where the authorities were on their side. And even then, they couldn’t spread thinner than 3 cities or so at a time. This tells you it’s no groundswell movement. Heck, it’s not even as big as the fairly manufactured unrest of the 70s. Because of the way that the news and media worked back then, the people on the street seemed to feel more sympathy for the 70s bs than anyone does now. (No. I don’t know if that was true or the fact that the media and news of the time lent themselves to manipulating the history of the period, as well.)
Or the reason I didn’t lose all hope in people over the Covidiocy. Yeah, I know. It sure did seem like everyone was onboard. Only we drove if not quite coast to coast close enough, which allowed us to see how widely the nonsense was ignored, and how p*ssed people were on it. After all, it’s very easy to think everyone is onboard with it when places like Twitter and Facebook were censoring any posts questioning it. (At the order of the administration — bah. What DDR bullsh*t.)
This is the reason I know the groyper bs isn’t taking hold pretty much anywhere except with the extremely online showing how extremely online they are and edgy. And bots. And foreigners. And foreign bots. Because the general attitudes on the street haven’t changed.
The only people I see talking about “groypers” and Nick Fuentes are either leftwing media, leftwing activists, or gadfly figures headed toward the exit gates from conservatism like Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens.
“JD Vance Convicted Of Threatening To Kill JD Vance.” “67-year-old James Donald Vance Jr. is also convicted of threatening President Donald Trump and one of Trump’s children.”
Speaking of nomengangers, Texas Democrat Representative Jasmine Crockett accused EPA head Lee Zeldin of taking money from Jeffrey Epstein. It was a different Jeffrey Epstein.
Natalie Greene, 26, was arrested Wednesday and charged with masterminding the violent bogus ambush at Egg Harbor Township Nature Reserve on the night of July 23, the US Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey announced.
Prosecutors said the accused fraudster claimed three gun-wielding men approached her and a friend on the trail around 10:36 p.m. before threatening to shoot her and striking her in the head.
An actual Republican hate crime hoax! That leaves the Hate Crime Hoax tally at (counts) I think 20 Democrats to 1 Republican, but I might be multi-counting Jussie Smollett coverage in various LinkSwarms…
Federal Department of Justice (DOJ) officials announced charges against 21 alleged members of a violent criminal street gang known as “Kiccdoe” in Arlington.
The group has been charged with racketeering, murder, drug trafficking, and gun crimes, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Nancy Larson announced in a press release last week.
As of Friday, November 7, all 21 were in custody.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Arlington Police Department began investigating “Kiccdoe” in April 2024 after one of its members was shot and killed on a high school campus in Arlington. After the murder, several retaliatory shootings between “Kiccdoe” members and other Arlington gang members allegedly took place.
“Kiccdoe” began on the east side of Arlington. Its members use words and symbols such as “kiccdoe,” “KDN” for Kiccdoe Nation, “6,” or “600,” including on their clothes, to demonstrate their association with the gang, court documents stated.
Members also allegedly produced and distributed songs and videos about their gang activities and crimes.
Yes, that’s a super-smart way to avoid being caught. What could possibly go wrong? The Feds never would have had to work the tax evasion angle if Al Capone had put out a rap video bragging about his illegal booze empire.
In order to join or remain in good standing in the gang, its members would have to commit violent acts referred to as “stripes,” the court documents stated. The federal complaint alleged that these crimes included murders, robberies, assaults with dangerous weapons, sales of illegal drugs, and continuing threats of violence.
The violent offenses took place from early 2022 through this year, the DOJ said.
The alleged gang members range in age from 18 to 22, and many are charged with more than one offense.
For example, Isaiah Wiley of Dallas is charged with conspiracy to commit murder, assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering, conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.
Despite promising job numbers, the Biden Recession is still with us: “Nearly a third of U.S. job postings don’t result in an actual hire, creating a ‘ghost job economy‘ with millions of roles that never materialize.”
This hero dog was shot by burglars while trying to protect his home. After three successful surgeries, he was discharged like this nearly 2 months later. pic.twitter.com/ExW5LjOt2J
