Despite the best efforts of Democrats, both Texas and the federal government have made vast strides in securing the border the Biden Administration intentionally left wide open, with border crossing by illegal aliens at record lows. But much work remains to to be done to clean up the immigration mess Democrats made, so here are some recent immigration policy tidbits from Texas.
Gov. Greg Abbott announced a temporary pause on all H-1B visa applications for public universities and state agencies on Tuesday.
The pause is set to last until the Texas Legislature addresses the matter when it reconvenes in January 2027.
Abbott stated that the freeze “will provide time for the Texas Legislature to establish statutory guardrails for future employment practices regarding federal visa holders in state government, for the U.S. Congress to modify federal law, and for the Trump Administration to implement reforms aimed at eliminating abuse of this visa program.”
The H-1B visa program allows entities to hire ”nonimmigrant aliens as workers” in specialized occupations. It authorizes temporary employment of these individuals for employers who otherwise cannot obtain the needed skillset from the U.S. workforce.
In his letter announcing the pause, Abbott explained that “the federal H-1B visa program was created to supplement the United States’ workforce — not to replace it. Evidence suggests that bad actors have exploited this program by failing to make good-faith efforts to recruit qualified U.S. workers before seeking to use foreign labor.”
“In the most egregious schemes, employers have even fired American workers and replaced them with H-1B employees, often at lower wages.”
Before spelling out the details of the freeze, Abbott added, “State government must lead by example and ensure that employment opportunities — particularly those funded with taxpayer dollars — are filled by Texans first.”
I’m with Abbott on state agencies. I can’t conceive of any position that can’t be filled by a Texas instead of a foreign national. It’s a big state!
As for universities, I can see a few situations where hiring an H-1B might be justifiable. Say, you’re creating a center for superconducting and the third greatest superconducting physicist in the world is Japanese. (Not Chinese. No matter how smart he is, he’ll steal all your data and send it straight to Beijing.) But H-1B visa programs have been abused for so long that a temporary ban is probably a good idea until those guardrails can be put into place.
His first point in the directive is that no Texas agency controlled by a governor-appointed head or a “public institution of higher education” will, without the permission of the Texas Workforce Commission, be allowed to file any new petition to sponsor “nonimmigrant worker under the federal H-1B visa program until the end of the Texas Legislature’s 90th Regular Session on May 31, 2027.”
Abbott’s second point directs state agencies with heads appointed by the governor, along with public institutions of higher education, to, “by March 27, 2026, provide the Texas Workforce Commission with a report.”
The report mentioned will include items related to visa quantity and details about visa-holders, including but not limited to “how many new and renewal petitions the entity submitted for H-1B visas in 2025,” “The countries of origin of all H-1B visa holders the entity currently sponsors,” and “Documentation demonstrating efforts to provide qualified Texas candidates with a reasonable opportunity to apply for each position fill.”
Trust, but verify.
And here’s a video from Texas Scorecard’s Sara Gonzales on H-1B abuse:
“There should be a moratorium on legal immigration.”
“How long should it be?…However long it takes.”
“it is it is of no consequence to me how people across the world feel about [a moratorium].”
“This is supposed to be, like, super skilled, you know, postgraduate engineers, like the brightest minds, supposed to be the brightest of the brightest minds, engineering, doctors, uh the best of the best. That is what the H1-B visa is supposed to be for.”
She points people to https://guestworkervisas.com to look at who is applying for H1-B visas. In Texas, I would not have guessed that “Cognizant Technology Solutions” would be hiring submitting more H1-B applications than Tesla, Oracle, Schwab, AT&T and HPE combined. Other questions: Why did Dallas ISD file for 372 H1-B visas last year? “Middle school math teacher $62,000 a year. We only need someone from India. Nobody else can fill that spot.”
Bilingual requirements are another part of the scam.
Related to Gov. Abbott’s application pause, UT Southwestern Medical Center ranks 10th on the list, and Texas A&M, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, The University of Texas at Austin, and Baylor College of Medicine all rank in the top 20.
Etc.
More good news from the Southern District of Texas, where a naturalized pedophile sex offender had their citizenship revoked.
A U.S. citizen born in Mexico and naturalized in 2010 has had his citizenship revoked after it was discovered he committed a child sexual assault prior to his naturalization and concealed it on his citizenship application.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in McAllen granted an order on January 22 revoking the citizenship of Carlos Noe Gallegos.
“American citizenship is a privilege that this child-abusing monster never should have been able to attain,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a press release about the case. “We will continue ensuring that anyone who conceals such conduct while obtaining naturalization is found out and stripped of their citizenship.”
Gallegos married a U.S. citizen in December 2001 and about four years later was granted permanent legal resident status. He applied for citizenship in 2009. In answer to a question on his citizenship application about whether he had ever committed a crime for which he had not been arrested, Gallegos answered no.
He was naturalized as a citizen in 2010.
In 2016, the State of Texas indicted Gallegos on two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child, a crime that it alleged took place in 2007. Gallego pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to six years of community supervision.
The judge revoked Gallegos’ citizenship under 8 U.S.C. § 1451(a), which allows for the revocation when the “certificate of naturalization [was] illegally procured … by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.”
In this case, the government argued that Gallegos was ineligible for citizenship at the time he obtained it because, within five years of filing his application, he had committed a crime of moral turpitude and that crime adversely reflected on his moral character.
Naturalization is a privilege, not a right. Foreign-born sex offenders should be stripped of their naturalization and deported, no matter how hard Democrats fight to keep them in the country.
It’s going to take years to clean up the problems that Democrats imported into America, but progress is being made…
The Apple Weather app is finally catching up with the National Weather Service and, holy crap, things are not looking good:
Austin Weather forecast 1/23/26
Yeah, it’s going to get above freezing, so the city will run again, but I’ve got to keep my plants inside for a week or more. Any any potential power loss is really gonna suck. Here’s that Austin energy outage map again.
My own 401K travails and money woes continue. I did receive the money I tried to transfer to my checking account in December. But I had only split it up to get half of it into 2025 for tax purposes. I was also going to have to transfer more more into my bank account this month to cover my property taxes. They assured me would only take a day to transfer funds after my IRA got set up. Surprise! It might be a day for most people, but because my phone doesn’t receive text messages, I had to request they send me a check, which is going to take 15 days. (Funny how they seem to be able to transfer money in instantaneously, but you have to jump through hoops to get your own money in 2+ weeks.) Yesterday, I had to sell some silver rounds to cover the last bit of property taxes and living expenses for two weeks (including a vet appointment for my two dogs). Fortunately, silver is at at an all-time high. I sold mine when it was just under $100 an ounce, and now it’s over $103.
Oh, yeah, some other stuff happened this week: More Minnesota fraud, more California fraud, Don Lemon joins the KKK (as a subject of federal scrutiny), more commie ties for left wing agitators, more of Russia’s shadow fleet comes a cropper, and William Shatner eats cereal.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Just like we already knew: “California: Newsom’s ‘National Model’ for Homeless Wracked by Fraud.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom has made reducing the homelessness crisis in California a top priority, saying the scale of the state’s efforts is “unprecedented” and calling for the continued expansion of his signature effort – Project Homekey – that has already cost $3.75 billion.
But in a state with more than 181,000 homeless individuals, or about one-third of the U.S. total, Homekey has been marred by failures and scandals, including a lack of government oversight and accountability as well as a federal investigation into allegations of fraud in Los Angeles.
Lack of government oversight isn’t a bug for Governor Hairgel, it’s a feature.
Newsom, who appears to be preparing for a presidential bid in 2028, could make Homekey, which he calls a “national model,” a talking point in his campaign. The state claims the program has created almost 16,000 permanent housing units that will serve over 175,000 people. But since the state doesn’t track outcomes – whether people placed in housing saw their lives improve or if they returned to the streets – the program’s effectiveness is unclear, according to a critical 2024 state auditor’s report.
“[Our budget] is bloated with homeless spending, a bottomless pit and taxpayer boondoggle that doubles down on failure year after year,” the Republican-turned-Democrat Los Angeles Councilwoman Traci Park said at a meeting in May. “Hundreds of millions of dollars on bridge homes and Homekeys and interim housing sites, and no one can even tell us which ones are operational.”
What is clear is that homelessness in California has skyrocketed in the five years Homekey has been in place, growing by more than 20%, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. That’s an increase of some 36,000 people between 2019 and 2024.
Homekey has been touted by officials as a more cost-effective way to house the homeless. By hiring developers to convert excess motel and hotel rooms and other existing structures into permanent housing, the costs are two to three times lower than building new units, according to the auditor’s report.
But with huge contracts available to developers and very little oversight of their activities, some of that cost savings was lost to fraud, according to federal prosecutors. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California launched a fraud and corruption task force to find out where the money went, and in October filed criminal charges involving two developers who allegedly defrauded the system.
My guess is that not a single leftwing activist in California will be indicted by the state government for their own role in the fraud…
The videos coming out of Minneapolis, of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers apprehending illegal immigrants in the streets while having to fight off aggressive and sometimes violent anti-ICE activists, are the predictable result of a Democrat strategy that amounts to nullification.
I mean nullification in the historical sense, like the Nullification Crisis of 1832 when South Carolina declared federal tariffs to be null and void within the boundaries of the state, and President Andrew Jackson threatened to send in the U.S. Army to enforce federal law.
What the Democrats of South Carolina did back then is essentially what the Democrats of Minneapolis are doing today, fomenting a 21st century nullification crisis by making it nearly impossible to enforce federal immigration law in the territory under their jurisdiction. Trump, who has ordered 1,500 active duty troops stationed in Alaska to prepare for a possible deployment to Minnesota, is well within his rights (and within historical precedent) to respond in the same vein as Jackson did to what amounts to a nullification crisis.
Indeed, the whole point of so-called sanctuary laws is to make it difficult or impossible to enforce federal immigration laws — to nullify them. Sanctuary policies like the ones operative in Minneapolis (and many other Democrat-controlled cities) prohibit state and local law enforcement from working with federal immigration authorities.
Under normal circumstances, when an illegal immigrant commits a crime the local authorities notify federal immigration officials before the offender is released, so that ICE can take custody and begin the process of deportation. The handover occurs between law enforcement agencies in a controlled, orderly, safe manner.
But in places where Democrat lawmakers have created sanctuary jurisdictions, local law enforcement is barred from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement in this way. Instead of handing over illegal immigrants to ICE, the police simply release them. That means ICE agents have to go out into the community, into neighborhoods and businesses, to track down and arrest illegal immigrant criminals wherever they might be.
This is obviously a much more volatile and dangerous way to enforce federal immigration law. And in Minneapolis, it’s even more volatile and dangerous thanks to anti-ICE activists and vigilante mobs attempting to disrupt, impede, and in some cases attack ICE agents. Indeed, it’s a recipe for violent clashes between ICE and anti-ICE mobs. A cynic might say that’s the entire point, to make federal immigration enforcement as chaotic and tense as possible in hopes of exactly the kind of confrontations that led to the death of Renee Good, the woman who was fatally shot earlier this month when she tried to ram an ICE agent with her vehicle.
The goal of fomenting such mayhem is straightforward: to thwart the enforcement of federal immigration law. Keep in mind, ICE is not doing anything beyond the scope of federal law in Minneapolis. It is not exercising any new or novel powers not authorized under federal statute. As Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander in charge in Minneapolis said at a press conference this week, the operations and tactics of Border Patrol and ICE agents in the city are “born out of necessity” but are nevertheless “legal, ethical, and moral.”
“Our operations are lawful. They’re targeted. They’re focused on individuals who pose a serious threat to this community. They are not random and they are not political,” he said. The “necessity” Bovino refers to is that which has arisen as a direct result of Democrat sanctuary policies. Ordinarily, we wouldn’t see the very public, visible ICE operations now underway in Minneapolis and other sanctuary cities simply because criminal illegal aliens would be transferred to federal custody by local law enforcement.
But that’s not happening because Democrats don’t like federal immigration laws. Since they don’t have the political power to change them, they have decided, like Democrats in South Carolina in the 1830s, simply to declare them null and void in their territory.
I would suggest Minnesota Democrats should reconsider before Trump decides to do to Minneapolis what Sherman did to Savannah in 1864, but knowing Minneapolis, all he probably needs to do is hand out gasoline and matches to the #BlackLivesMatter/Somali set and let them burn it down themselves…
A collection of far-left activist groups — including the Democratic Socialists of America, major labor unions, explicitly Communist groups, and a CCP-linked protest network — have all organized a strike scheduled for Friday which aims to “shut down” schools and businesses statewide in Minnesota in an effort to push ICE out.
The planned shutdown was announced early last week — “ICE Out of MN: Day of Truth and Freedom” — include plans for a large-scale march in Minneapolis and a day of “no work, no school, no shopping.”
The radical Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), the left-wing BreakThrough News media outlet, and the Manhattan-based Marxist revolutionary People’s Forum are all involved in either promoting or organizing the Minnesota shutdown effort. Just the News previously reported on how these and other radical activist groups have leadership links or financial ties to a funding network backed by wealthy businessman and self-avowed communist Neville Singham.
The GOP-led House Oversight Committee voted this month to subpoena Singham for information about this sprawling activist network. The Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the Revolutionary Communists of America, and the Twin Cities chapter of the Communist Party USA — all avowedly Marxist groups — are also listed as co-sponsors of the Friday protest.
The DSA — which helped propel Zohran Mamdani to Gracie Mansion in NYC — including the national organization and the local Minnesota chapter — are listed as backing the anti-ICE effort scheduled for Friday.
Major labor unions such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) are listed as co-hosts of the shutdown effort, while the United Auto Workers (UAW) also endorsed the strike.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson that former CNN host Don Lemon has been put “on notice” by the Justice Department and could face charges under federal civil-rights laws, including the Ku Klux Klan Act, for his role in storming a church service in Minnesota. Lemon allegedly joined a far-left mob that was on the hunt for a pro-ICE pastor at a St. Paul church.
“The Klan Act is one of the most important federal civil rights statutes. Its a law that makes it illegal to terrorize and violate the civil rights of citizens. Whenever people conspire to do this, the Klan Act can be used,” Dhillon told Johnson.
Dhillon continued, “Everyone in the protest community needs to know that the fullest force of the federal government is going to come down and prevent this from happening and put people away for a long time.”
“There is zero tolerance for this kind of illegal behavior and we will not stand for it,” she emphasized.
Johnson wrote on X, “DOJ confirms Don Lemon has zero ‘journalism’ protections against FACE Act violations. Lemon was fully aware of the violations and may face KKK Act conspiracy charges.”
But others got indicted. “FBI Arrests Left-Wing Activist Who Led Mob of Protesters into Minnesota Church.”
Federal authorities have arrested the woman who led an anti-ICE mob into a Minnesota church last week.
Nekima Levy Armstrong is facing charges related to violating the FACE Act, which prohibits interfering with the exercise of religion at a place of worship.
Minutes ago at my direction, HSI and FBI agents executed an arrest in Minnesota. So far, we have arrested Nekima Levy Armstrong, who allegedly played a key role in organizing the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in a post on X.
“We will share more updates as they become available. Listen loud and clear: WE DO NOT TOLERATE ATTACKS ON PLACES OF WORSHIP,” she added.
Armstrong led a group into the Cities Church in St. Paul on Sunday, believing that one of the church’s pastors works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Dozens of demonstrators interrupted the service shouting, “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good.”
Armstrong is a civil rights lawyer and “scholar-activist,” according to her website. She previously played a key role in organizing boycotts against Target over its decision to walk back its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, according to Fox News.
Homeland Security Secretary Krisit Noem announced on Monday that immigration officers have arrested more than 10,000 illegal immigrants in Minnesota.
“PEACE AND PUBLIC SAFETY IN MINNEAPOLIS!” Noem exclaimed in a post to X. “We have arrested over 10,000 criminal illegal aliens who were killing Americans, hurting children and reigning terror in Minneapolis because Tim Walz and Jacob Frey refuse to protect their own people and instead protect criminals.”
The figure includes about 3,000 “criminal illegal aliens” arrested by federal authorities in just the last six weeks, the secretary said.
Snip.
“There is MASSIVE Fraud in Minneapolis, at least $19 billion and that’s just the tip of iceberg,” Noem asserted in the same post. “Our Homeland Security Investigators are on the ground in Minneapolis conducting wide scale investigations to get justice for the American people who have been robbed blind.”
Indeed.
“Abbott Offers State Assistance to HUD for Fraud Identification Program. HUD Secretary Turner identified $5 billion in potentially erroneous payments.”
Gov. Greg Abbott has volunteered Texas assistance to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in identifying fraud in federal housing programs after the agency identified at least $5 billion in potentially erroneous payments last year.
According to a letter sent to HUD Secretary Scott Turner on Monday, Abbott offered state participation in a pilot fraud identification program through the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA).
“We will gladly work with you to develop fraud-prevention measures that ensure federal taxpayer funds, like those in the rental-based assistance programs, are not taken advantage of by bad actors,” wrote Abbott.
Turner, a former Texas state representative who was appointed by President Donald Trump to head HUD last year, published a financial analysis of the agency that warned of fraud and a lack of internal controls.
Using AI, HUD reported finding more than 30,000 deceased persons either actively enrolled in a rental assistance program or who had received assistance after they died.
Turner’s financial report also warned that his staff had identified examples of non-compliance with standards of internal controls under the Biden administration.
“The reviews determined that under the prior Administration, HUD experienced a deterioration in financial controls and governance and identified a material weakness affecting internal controls and financial governance across multiple program offices.”
Multiple federal agencies launched or extended investigations in Minnesota after new revelations of widespread fraud in the state last month. Last week, Abbott directed the Texas Workforce Commission and the Health and Human Services Commission to investigate potential childcare fraud in Texas.
A member of the violent Latin Kings gang was arrested after allegedly stealing government property from an FBI vehicle vandalized during unrest in Minneapolis Wednesday night, federal authorities said.
Fox News confirmed that Raul Gutierrez, 33, was arrested Thursday in a joint operation involving the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
The FBI said multiple government vehicles were vandalized and broken into Wednesday night in Minneapolis while agents were responding to a reported assault on a federal officer, adding that federal property was stolen from inside the vehicles.
“One individual who allegedly stole federal government property out of an FBI vehicle in Minneapolis last night has been arrested,” FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on X, adding that the suspect was a member of the Latin Kings gang with a violent criminal history. “FBI personnel are continuing to pursue other subjects involved. There will be more arrests.”
Is their any doubt the left will treat this gang banger scumbag as a hero?
A few weeks ago, I noted that California was losing over $160 million due to improper management of its commercial driver’s license program.
And well, Governor Gavin Newsom asserted his current budget would only have a $2 billion deficit, the state’s shortfall is actually estimated to be over $17 billion according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
The budget reports a $2.9 billion deficit, described as a “modest shortfall” by Department of Finance staff. This estimate differs markedly from the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) projection of a $17.6 billion deficit—a gap of $14.7 billion. According to department staff, the governor’s proposal incorporates $31.5 billion in additional revenues not included in the LAO forecast and excludes the risk of a stock market downturn that the LAO elected to factor into its analysis. Overall, the state budget totals $348.9 billion, including $248.3 billion in General Fund expenditures and $23 billion in total reserves.
Now, the gap may even widen.
California is facing federal demands to repay more than $1 billion in Medicaid funds that Dr. Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), says were improperly used for health care for illegal aliens.
The Trump administration is planning to claw back over $1 billion in federal Medicaid dollars it says are being spent by blue states on healthcare for illegal immigrants, including some with violent criminal records for murder and rape.
A preliminary audit by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that, over the last few years, mostly during 2024 and 2025, California; Washington, D.C.; Illinois; Washington; Colorado; and Oregon improperly spent a combined $1,351,204,127 in federal Medicaid funds to help pay for healthcare for illegal immigrants.
While federal Medicaid dollars are supposed to be prohibited broadly from being used to cover healthcare for illegal immigrants, they can be used by states for emergency treatment regardless of a patient’s citizenship or immigration status.
While 5 other states were also investigated for illegal alien-oriented Medicaid abuses, California was by far the most egregious.
Virginians asked for it, and if the flurry of bills introduced in the 72 hours since Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s inauguration pass — and with a Democratic supermajority, they likely will — residents of the Old Dominion are going to get it “good and hard.” If enacted, these proposals would raise taxes substantially, shorten sentences for violent criminals, and erode election integrity statewide.
Virginia voters delivered Spanberger a landslide victory in November over her Republican opponent, then–Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears. Despite presenting herself as a moderate during the campaign, Spanberger’s congressional voting record — nearly 100% aligned with the Democrats’ progressive agenda — suggested her governance would be anything but.
Let’s start with the tax increases: HB979 would create two new tax brackets. Currently, Virginians are taxed at 5.75% for all income over $17,000. If this bill passes, residents earning between $600,000 and $1 million will be taxed at 8%, and those earning over $1 million will pay 10%.
Before anyone argues that these taxpayers can well afford it, remember that this group includes farmers, small businesses, and sole proprietors — many of whom are about to be “crushed” by the impact.
The advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform sounded the alarm on the proposed new taxes in a piece titled Democrats Pounce On Virginia Taxpayers. ATF noted, “Under unified Democrat control, Virginia is poised to become a tax-hiking outlier in a region full of states that are phasing out their income taxes.”
The article highlights some of the most shocking tax proposals now being advanced by state Democrats.
HB 378 – Imposes a 3.8% net investment income tax on individuals, trusts, and estates beginning in taxable year 2027. If enacted, HB 378 would raise VA’s top marginal income tax rate on portfolio and passive income to 9.55%.
HB 900 – Authorizes sales tax hikes in various transportation districts, imposes a new tax on each and every retail delivery in Northern Virginia (Amazon, Uber Eats, FedEx, UPS, etc.), similar to the one imposed in Minnesota by Gov. Tim Walz (D).
HB 919 – Imposes a firearm and ammunition tax equal to 11% percent of the gross receipts from the retail sale of any firearm or ammunition by a dealer in firearms, firearms manufacturer, or ammunition vendor, as such terms are defined in the bill.
HB 978 – Extends the retail sales and use tax to dry cleaning, landscaping, and other previously exempt services.
Democrats now control the legislature and Governor’s office in Virginia.
Here are just a few of the bills they’ve introduced
– New 4.3% sales tax on Uber Eats, Amazon, etc deliveries.
– New sales tax on admissions to a wide variety of businesses.
– Create two new higher tax…
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 19, 2026
NEW retail and sales taxes coming to Virginia introduced by Virginia Democrats in a single bill:
“Levies the retail sales and use tax on the following services: admissions; charges for recreation, fitness, or sports facilities; nonmedical personal services or counseling; dry… pic.twitter.com/ki96Ngpj6T
— NOVA Campaigns (@NoVA_Campaigns) January 19, 2026
This legislative blitz has something for everyone — including convicted criminals in the state.
HB863 would “eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing for rape, manslaughter, assaulting a law enforcement officer, possession and distribution of child pornography, and all repeat violent felonies.”
Funny how Democrats are now objectively and reflexively pro-rape…
Here at Davos, I’ve heard numerous versions of this sentiment: “We Europeans/Canadians stood up to Trump and forced him to retreat. This is a major victory for the rules-based international order.”
This is a very wrong take. The reality is that Trump won Davos, hands down. And not only did he win it; he owned it. I have never before seen a single individual so completely dominate this vast bazaar of the powerful, the wealthy, the famous, and the self-important.
Snip.
Davos Man—I should say Davos Person—worries a lot more about such things than he—they—used to. The latest edition of the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report, which is based on surveys of business executives and academics, ranks “geoeconomic confrontation” and “state-based armed conflict” as the No. 1 and No. 2 risks most “likely to present a material crisis on a global scale in 2026.” On a two-year time horizon, geoeconomic confrontation remains top of the list. Asked to characterize “the global political environment for cooperation on risks in the next decade,” 68 percent of respondents picked a “multipolar or fragmented order in which middle and great powers contest, set, and enforce regional rules and norms.”
All of this is just a series of Davosy euphemisms for the one big risk that Davos Person fears above all others: Donald Trump. This is funny when you consider last year’s mood, which—in the wake of Trump’s reelection—was very bullish about the United States under Trump 2.0. “Almost everyone at Davos is long U.S., short EU,” I wrote in these pages this time last year. “The new Davos consensus is that Europe cannot get its economic act together and never will, whereas America is rocking and rolling, and if you don’t own the big U.S. tech stocks, then the FOMO may kill you.”
My long-standing contrarian rule is that the Davos consensus is always wrong. In last year’s case, I added, Davos Person should be very careful what they wished for. Sure enough, in 2025 European stocks outperformed U.S. stocks. And, of course, Trump 2.0 has turned out to be every good European’s worst nightmare.
In the run-up to Davos 2026, Trump did his utmost to wind up Europe’s elite, not to mention Canada’s. On social media and in interviews, he insisted that he was determined to get Greenland for the United States. “Greenland has to be acquired,” he wrote on the eve of his arrival in Switzerland. “Denmark and its European allies have to DO THE RIGHT THING.” He did not rule out military action. He threatened to impose new 10 percent tariffs on all countries that resisted. And he posted memes of maps of Denmark (and Canada) cloaked in the Stars and Stripes and an AI-generated image of himself planting an American flag on “Greenland—U.S. Territory Est. 2026.”
To stoke up the crowd ahead of the president’s arrival, Trump’s cabinet members chimed in. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s anti-European trash-talking so enraged the president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, that she stormed out of a Davos dinner. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent drolly wondered if European leaders might unleash their “most forceful weapon,” the “dreaded European working group.”
Snip.
This was vintage Trump, part real-estate pitch, part reality TV. “All we’re asking for is to get Greenland,” he riffed, “including right, title, and ownership, because you need the ownership to defend it. You can’t defend it on a lease. Legally, it’s not defensible that way, totally. And number two, psychologically, who the hell wants to defend a license agreement or a lease[?]”
As for the haters, “Canada lives because of the United States,” Trump declared. “Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.” And: “Here’s the story, Emmanuel. The answer is you’re going to do it. You’re going to do it fast. And if you don’t, I’m putting a 25 percent tariff on everything that you sell into the United States. And a 100 percent tariff on your wines and champagnes.”
Except that, almost as an aside, Trump then called the whole Greenland thing off. “We never ask for anything [from NATO],” he rambled, “and we never got anything. We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force where we would be, frankly, unstoppable. But I won’t do that. Okay? Now everyone’s saying, ‘Oh good.’ That’s probably the biggest statement I made because people thought I would use force. I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”
Later that evening, following a “very productive meeting” with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte, Trump announced on Truth Social that he would not impose the additional tariffs on European countries he had threatened. He and Rutte had “formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region.”
Snip.
The problem with all of this is the premise that Trump ever seriously meant to annex Greenland or to impose new tariffs on the Europeans. Why would he when a) the United States already enjoys (under a 1951 treaty with Denmark and a 2004 agreement with Greenland) all the military access to the frigid island it could every possibly need, while the Danes pay for the heavily subsidized inhabitants of the island; and b) Trump means what he says on Truth Social only about half the time, according to The Wall Street Journal’s recent analysis of 2,700 substantive Truth posts. I’ll say it again: Half the time he’s bluffing. And it was the same when he was on Twitter in series one.
Snip.
Ten years ago, Europeans made the mistake of taking Trump neither seriously nor literally. Now they make the opposite mistake of treating him both seriously and literally. But, as Saleno Zito explained nearly 10 years ago, the correct approach is to take him seriously but not literally. The fact that Trump carries out only around half the threats he makes on social media is a feature, not a bug—and it’s certainly not a sign of weakness. It is a deliberate tactic designed to leave counterparties uncertain. On this occasion, Trump was bluffing, and the administration never had the remotest intention of imposing new tariffs on Europe, much less taking military action to annex Greenland.
So Trump asked for the moon, threatened to disastrous sanctions on his negotiating counterparts, and then settled for what he actually wanted all along.
Cue the tiny violins: “Eric Swalwell Could Be Ineligible for Governor or Face Jail Time.”
Eric Swalwell’s political ambitions just hit a major snag. Swalwell, most famous for public flatulence and bedding a Chinese spy, wants to be the next governor of California, but he is now the target of a court challenge that could blow his entire gubernatorial campaign out of the water before it even gets started.
The accusation? He doesn’t actually live in the state he wants to govern.
Conservative activist and filmmaker Joel Gilbert dropped a legal bomb on January 8, filing a petition in Sacramento Superior Court arguing that Swalwell is constitutionally barred from seeking the governor’s office.
Gilbert has a strong case.
California’s constitution requires gubernatorial candidates to live in the state for five years before the election. Gilbert says Swalwell has been living in Washington, D.C., not California, which makes him legally ineligible to run for office.
“Swalwell is ineligible to run for governor of California because the California constitution requires that a candidate live in the state for five years before an election,” Gilbert told PJ Media. “Swalwall has no home address in California; that’s why he committed perjury on his candidate statement form 501 by providing his attorney’s office for his home address. Swalwell has a sworn Deed of Trust on his Washington, D.C. home where he declared that location as his primary residence.”
The complaint gets more interesting from there.
Public records searches allegedly show that Swalwell has no ownership or lease of any California property — his congressional financial disclosures from 2011 through 2024 back this up, listing zero California real estate holdings. When Swalwell filed his campaign paperwork on December 4, he listed an address on Capitol Mall in Sacramento. The problem is that the address isn’t a residence; it’s the office of his Sacramento lawyer, Greenberg Traurig, located in a high-rise.
Swalwell owns a $1.2 million, six-bedroom home in northeast Washington, D.C., where he lives with his wife, Brittany Watts, and their three kids. Mortgage documents from April 2022 list that D.C. property as his “principal residence.”
There are really only two possibilities here, according to Gilbert: Swalwell either committed mortgage fraud — a serious crime that could result in prison time — or he’s ineligible to run for governor.
New Labor Department filings reveal the National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest teachers’ union, has been channeling millions in taxpayer dollars to far-left political outfits, including Soros-backed networks and shadowy activist groups.
Instead of bolstering education, these funds are propping up anti-American causes, from anti-Israel protests to rigging electoral maps.
The bombshell underscores the deep rot in union leadership, where public money meant for schools is weaponized against conservative values and national security.
The filings, obtained by Fox News Digital, paint a damning picture of misdirected priorities. “The NEA’s last fiscal year report showed it sent $300,000 to the 1630 Fund, the liberal dark money group Fox News has been reporting on extensively, and in most cases exclusively — Tens of thousands of dollars to the (George Soros’) Tides Foundation Network,” according to the report.
These aren’t voluntary donations from union members’ pockets—these are taxpayer dollars funneled through the system. The Tides Foundation has ties to anti-Israel activism, while the Sixteen Thirty Fund operates as a hub for progressive dark money, influencing elections without transparency.
The NEA didn’t stop there, the report notes, adding it “was also involved in several state issues. It backed a campaign to end standardized testing in Massachusetts and fight gerrymandering in Ohio, to the tune of half a million dollars for each of those and it sent hundreds of thousands of additional money to groups committed to racial and education justice movements.”
One of the biggest payouts was a whopping $3.5 million to Education International, a global teachers’ federation where NEA President Becky Pringle serves as vice president. Critics call it a cozy self-dealing arrangement, with American tax dollars flowing offshore to international agendas.
The subpoenas went to the offices of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, according the outlets, including Reuters, the New York Times and Fox News, which cited anonymous sources.
The subpoenas come days after the Department of Justice announced it was launching an investigation into Walz and Frey in connection with a suspected conspiracy to impede federal immigration enforcement in the state.
I am hoping there are also subpoenas in the works for several years of their bank records, to see how much they participated in the Somali fraud…
Over the past several days, it appears that Minneapolis police officers have quietly kind of quit in another way.
From Alpha News:
Around 100 Minneapolis police officers could soon be off duty for weeks to months from an already critically understaffed police department, and just as the city faces a serious public safety crisis with protesters inciting confrontations with the surge of federal agents working in the city.
Multiple sources confided to both Alpha News senior reporter Liz Collin and to Crime Watch Minneapolis that 60 to 100 officers from the Minneapolis Police Department have applied or plan to apply for the state’s new paid leave program. The Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) program was signed into law by Gov. Tim Walz during the 2023 DFL trifecta and went into effect on the first of this year.
This won’t end well: “Japanese Yields Soar To All Time High After PM Takaichi Calls Snap Election Seeking More Spending, Less Taxes.” Doubling down, yet again, on Abenomics, won’t solve Japan’s continuing problems.
New York has finally ended its nearly decade-long campaign to force Catholic nuns and other religious ministries to fund abortions.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty announced on Tuesday that New York agreed to enter into a settlement with their clients after a lengthy court battle over a state abortion mandate that went to the Supreme Court twice. Plaintiffs in the case, Roman Catholic Diocese v. Harris, included a group of Catholic and Anglican nuns, Catholic dioceses, Christian churches, and faith-based social ministries.
“For nearly a decade, New York bureaucrats tried to strong-arm nuns into paying for abortions because they serve all those in need,” said Lori Windham, senior counsel at Becket and an attorney for the religious groups. “At long last, the state has given up its disgraceful campaign. This victory confirms that the government cannot punish religious ministries for living out their faith by serving everyone.”
In a press release, AG James, who had previously worked to shut down the NRA because she disagreed with its politics, announced that she had closed down Betar, a pro-Israel group , for appearing at synagogues to defend them from Muslim mobs, for claiming that “that all devout Muslims ‘hate America’, and for making derogatory remarks about Islam and Gaza.
Did Howard University not cover the unconstitutionality of viewpoint discrimination back when James was obtaining her law degree there? (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Nick Shirley sat down with YouTuber Andrew Callaghan, and caught Callaghan deceptively editing the interview just like the MSM does.
Microslop 365. “Microsoft has invested tens to hundreds of billions of dollars into AI, okay? And so AI is not allowed to be the problem. And so it has to be you.”
This happened late last year, but I don’t recall any coverage at the time. But indictments have just been handed down. “Illegal Alien Indicted for Injuring Three ICE Officers with His Vehicle. The incident allegedly occurred on December 1 in Lewisville.”
An illegal alien from Honduras allegedly injured three federal immigration agents during a traffic stop along Stemmons Freeway, which is Interstate 35, in Lewisville.
For those unfamiliar with the DFW Metroplex, Lewisville is in the north central part of the Metroplex, northeast of the DFW airport and just south of the lake of the same name.
According to the federal indictment, on December 1, 2025, Jerson Lopez-Sanchez was allegedly pulled over as federal immigration agents attempted a traffic stop of his vehicle, which had at least five occupants.
At first, Lopez-Sanchez came to a stop in the 2400 block of South Stemmons Freeway. As federal agents began to approach his car, the suspect allegedly put his car in reverse and rammed into the federal law enforcement vehicle parked behind him. One federal agent, who was partially outside of his vehicle, was injured at that point.
After ramming the vehicle behind his car, Lopez-Sanchez then gained enough space to maneuver around the other vehicles and attempt to flee. The agents began to pursue the suspect with their flashing lights engaged.
One agent positioned his car in such a way as to block an escape route for the suspect. However, instead of stopping, Lopez-Sanchez allegedly accelerated and rammed into the car, injuring two federal agents inside of it.
A third federal law enforcement vehicle pursued Lopez-Sanchez for about 10 minutes before the suspect stopped on a median, and all of the car’s occupants fled by foot. Three of the occupants were ultimately detained with the help of civilians, but Lopez-Sanchez, identified as the owner and driver of the car, remains at large.
Lopez-Sanchez was indicted and charged with three counts of assaulting federal immigration agents in the Eastern District of Texas. A cash reward may be available to a person who provides information that leads to his arrest.
If found guilty, Lopez-Sanchez could face up to 20 years in prison on each count.
To reiterate: Using your car as a battering ram against law enforcement, local or federal, is a felony. Indeed, when used against ICE agents it’s probably multiple felonies, at both the state and federal level. And that’s true whether you’re an illegal alien or a Skittle-haired Karen outraged that potential Democratic voters are being deported.
More Somali fraud in Minneapolis, Democrats have always been at war with Hamas, the Caspian Sea is no longer safe for Russian assets, Texas tops the U-Haul destination list (again), MST3K gets sold, and Scott Adams departs this simulation.
FA phase: “Somali Suitcase Stash: Feds say $130 million moved from Ohio airport to Minnesota on way overseas.”
Federal agents investigating a Somali immigrant operation that moved massive amounts of cash in suitcases from the Minneapolis airport to overseas have uncovered a new leg of the courier journey: the Columbus, Ohio airport.
Homeland Security Department officials told Just the News that Transportation Security Administration officers tracked and flagged about $136 million in bulk cash in outbound luggage at the passenger checkpoints at John Glenn Columbus International Airport since November 2023.
The cash movements were made by U.S. citizens of Somali origin who flew out of the Columbus airport en route to either the airports in Minneapolis or Atlanta, and the couriers always declared the cash as legally required on documents, officials said.
“Typically, when they go to Minneapolis, they drop off the cash and then a subsequent courier travels abroad from Minneapolis to Dubai through Amsterdam,” one official familiar with the investigation told Just the News on Tuesday, speaking only on condition of anonymity.
The officials said they appear to have uncovered a massive cash movement operation that gathered money from multiple Somali immigrant communities in the West, Midwest and South that eventually brought luggage filled with currency to Minneapolis for flights overseas.
Just the News reported exclusively last week that TSA detected nearly $700 million in cash in luggage leaving the Minneapolis airport in 2024 and 2025, frequently headed on a route to Amsterdam and then Dubai where U.S. officials lost the tracking. The TSA agents routinely alerted investigators during the Biden years, but there was little interest in probing the money movements further until President Donald Trump took office last year.
Find Out phase beginning: “Congress moving quickly to investigate cash-in-luggage exodus from U.S. airports. Sen. Rand Paul also revealed that federal agents are probing the massive cash transfers that move through a network centered in the Minneapolis airport.”
Federal agents investigating a Somali immigrant operation that moved massive amounts of cash in suitcases from the Minneapolis airport to overseas have uncovered a new leg of the courier journey: the Columbus, Ohio airport.
Homeland Security Department officials told Just the News that Transportation Security Administration officers tracked and flagged about $136 million in bulk cash in outbound luggage at the passenger checkpoints at John Glenn Columbus International Airport since November 2023.
The cash movements were made by U.S. citizens of Somali origin who flew out of the Columbus airport en route to either the airports in Minneapolis or Atlanta, and the couriers always declared the cash as legally required on documents, officials said.
“Typically, when they go to Minneapolis, they drop off the cash and then a subsequent courier travels abroad from Minneapolis to Dubai through Amsterdam,” one official familiar with the investigation told Just the News on Tuesday, speaking only on condition of anonymity.
The officials said they appear to have uncovered a massive cash movement operation that gathered money from multiple Somali immigrant communities in the West, Midwest and South that eventually brought luggage filled with currency to Minneapolis for flights overseas.
And the fraud isn’t limited to Minnesota: “Two scammers plead guilty to $68M Brooklyn adult day care fraud scheme.”
Two Brooklyn scammers pleaded guilty on Thursday to defrauding a whopping $68 million from the state’s controversial Medicaid home care program by paying health care kickbacks for services they didn’t provide at three Big Apple businesses.
Manal Wasef and Elaine Antao, both 46, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud for referring Medicaid recipients to two Brooklyn social adult day cares and a home health company in exchange for illegal kickbacks and bribes, the US Department of Justice announced on Thursday.
The latest iteration of the Democratic Party’s color-revolution-style operation was on full display in recent days as tensions erupted following the fatal shooting of a left-wing activist by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent during a federal enforcement sweep in Minnesota. This incident demonstrates that the protest industrial complex, funded by left-wing billionaires, has been on standby, waiting for a catalyzing event to ignite mass mobilization.
MSM, the Democratic Party, and left-wing nonprofits are working hard to manufacture another ‘George Floyd’-type protest or riot by omitting key context about the woman shot and killed by an ICE agent. They conveniently left out her social justice “warrior” role in Minneapolis, including her reported involvement with “ICE Watch” and other operations to disrupt ICE raids in the sanctuary city. These details matter because MSM attempted to manufacture an outrage news cycle, while nonprofits create artificial multi-city protests aimed at shifting public opinion on ICE operations nationwide.
More find out: “Trump Threatens To Invoke Insurrection Act As Left-Wing Chaos In Minneapolis Spreads.”
This is a good question: “Why did all the Dems suddenly become anti-Hamas over the weekend?”
Something very weird happened with the Democrats this past weekend.
I first noticed when I saw this post on X from Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois which was, let’s just say, not exactly subtle.
Apropos of apparently nothing, we’re getting a Shabbat Shalom from Pritzker on a random Friday night. That by itself that would be odd, but whatever.
A whole lot of Democrats followed suit in their 180:
Videos like that are a dime a dozen. If you’ve followed the anti-Israel campus protests over the past 2 years, you’ve seen leftwing mobs openly supporting Hamas proudly and loudly. Democrat politicians, meanwhile, have unequivocally supported the Palestinian Authority and Gaza Health Ministry, which are controlled entirely by Hamas. The support was so strong and so unanimous that Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania made headlines for breaking party lines with his support of Israel!
Legal Insurrection on a similarly mysterious flip. “Having Flipped Against Hamas, Dem Pols In Unison Now Back Iranian Protesters.”
Something’s happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear.
We covered how Democrats politicians in unison and contrary to every message they’re sent since the October 7 Massacre, declared that public support for Hamas was unacceptable and antisemitic. We asked, What’s Behind the Democrats’ Sudden Pivot on Hamas and Antisemitism?
The talking points just dropped.
Now they’re condemning Hamas.
The Democrats are pure phonies. pic.twitter.com/TUzc1ocsAJ
— Gina Milan (@ginamilan_) January 10, 2026
I think it’s an election set up, they are going to use the “Woke Right” against Republicans not only in the 2026 midterms, but particularly if JD Vance is the Republican nominee in 2028. His proximity and friendship with Tucker Carlson and the Groypers will be a major Democrat theme, but that can’t work unless Democrats switch gears from their anti-Israel, pro-Hamas — and yes antisemitic — persona.
So they are up so to something. No one believes they had a change of heart.
And now Democrats have come out supporting the protesters in Iran, despite doing everything dating back to Obama to keep the Mullahs in power.
Snip.
Little history on AOC and Iran:
-She condemned Trump for killing top Iranian regime terrorist Qassem Soleimani
-She condemned Trump for blowing up Iran’s nuclear facilities
-She co-sponsored legislation to prevent the U.S. military from taking action against Iran
Did Iran’s check to Soros bounce? Or does Iran’s hyperinflation and currency collapse mean that they can no longer keep paying off useful idiots?
This account from a Venezuelan security guard loyal to Nicolás Maduro is absolutely chilling—and it explains a lot about why the tone across Latin America suddenly changed.
Security Guard: On the day of the operation, we didn’t hear anything coming. We were on guard, but suddenly all our radar systems shut down without any explanation. The next thing we saw were drones, a lot of drones, flying over our positions. We didn’t know how to react.
Interviewer: So what happened next? How was the main attack?
Security Guard: After those drones appeared, some helicopters arrived, but there were very few. I think barely eight helicopters. From those helicopters, soldiers came down, but a very small number. Maybe twenty men. But those men were technologically very advanced. They didn’t look like anything we’ve fought against before.
Interviewer: And then the battle began?
Security Guard: Yes, but it was a massacre. We were hundreds, but we had no chance. They were shooting with such precision and speed… it seemed like each soldier was firing 300 rounds per minute. We couldn’t do anything.
Interviewer: And your own weapons? Didn’t they help?
Security Guard: No help at all. Because it wasn’t just the weapons. At one point, they launched something—I don’t know how to describe it… it was like a very intense sound wave. Suddenly I felt like my head was exploding from the inside. We all started bleeding from the nose. Some were vomiting blood. We fell to the ground, unable to move.
Interviewer: And your comrades? Did they manage to resist?
Security Guard: No, not at all. Those twenty men, without a single casualty, killed hundreds of us. We had no way to compete with their technology, with their weapons. I swear, I’ve never seen anything like it. We couldn’t even stand up after that sonic weapon or whatever it was.
Interviewer: So do you think the rest of the region should think twice before confronting the Americans?
Security Guard: Without a doubt. I’m sending a warning to anyone who thinks they can fight the United States. They have no idea what they’re capable of. After what I saw, I never want to be on the other side of that again. They’re not to be messed with.
Interviewer: And now that Trump has said Mexico is on the list, do you think the situation will change in Latin America?
Security Guard: Definitely. Everyone is already talking about this. No one wants to go through what we went through. Now everyone thinks twice. What happened here is going to change a lot of things, not just in Venezuela but throughout the region.
Judicial Watch sued in 2025 to clean up Oregon’s voter rolls.
Confirmed by Portland’s Willamette Week, Secretary of State Tobias Read is now cleaning up those records, and the scope of the clean-up is HUGE.
That process could lead to the cancellation of as many as 800,000 registrations. That’s the number of voters Read says are currently classified as ‘inactive’ on the voter rolls. To be clear, inactive voters do not receive ballots, but their names remain on the rolls.
The cleanup comes as Oregon’s first-in-the-nation vote-by-mail system is under intense scrutiny. President Donald Trump, who blamed mail-in ballots, among other bogeymen, for his defeat in 2020, has amplified historical criticism of Oregon’s system.
There’s nuance here. Essentially, because these voters haven’t cast a ballot in a certain number of years, they no longer get a handy-dandy mail-in ballot sent directly to their home.
That doesn’t mean, however, that they can’t vote, or that they haven’t been involved in some level of electoral shenanigans.
There are reportedly 167,000 people who haven’t voted since 2017 and will be taken off the rolls beginning this month. Another 640,000 are classified as inactive and will be reviewed after that.
Remember that in 2024 President Trump only lost Oregon by some 320,000 votes…
For the first time in 50 years, the U.S. experienced negative net migration in 2025 because of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal border crossings and heightened deportation efforts, an enormous victory for the White House as it faces renewed backlash against its heavy-handed enforcement tactics.
The U.S. had net migration of -10,000 to -295,000 due to a combination of deportations, self-exits, and a significant drop in illegal immigration resulting from increased border security measures, according to a new Brookings Institution analysis. Those numbers represent a significant victory for President Trump, whose successful campaign focused primarily on his vow to reverse the record illegal immigration numbers facilitated by President Biden’s lax border policies.
Brookings observes a decline in green cards issued, refugee inflows, temporary visas, paroles and notices to appear, and entries without encountering a border official in 2025 due to the Trump administration’s stricter approach. Those trends will likely continue in 2026 as the administration tightens green card eligibility, further limits visa issuances, and continues to reject applications for asylum or refugee status.
The State Department announced Wednesday that it would pause immigrant visa processing from 75 countries “whose migrants take welfare from the American people at unacceptable rates,” the latest in a series of moves designed to decrease immigration from impoverished countries.
Funny what you can do when you actually obey the law and implement the desires of actual citizens rather than Democrat Party elites…
President Donald Trump put another dent in the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) movement, withdrawing the United States from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and 65 other international organizations dedicated to climate and social justice.
Trump’s order caps a recent trend in which many corporations have also canceled their decades-long commitments to left-wing global alliances, undermining what had been a highly influential worldwide movement that once included the world’s largest nations and companies.
According to a White House statement, Trump’s Jan. 7 executive order directs “all Executive Departments and Agencies to cease participating in and funding 35 non-United Nations (UN) organizations and 31 UN entities that operate contrary to U.S. national interests, security, economic prosperity, or sovereignty.”
On Jan. 8, the U.S. Treasury Department announced it would no longer provide funding to the Global Climate Fund, which financed many of the U.N.’s climate initiatives. The United States originally joined more than 190 other nations in the UNFCCC in 1992, when the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty.
This was followed by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, in which countries committed to CO2 limits and reduction targets, and the 2015 Paris Agreement, which accelerated national governments’ commitments and spending to reduce global temperatures. The U.S. Senate did not ratify either of these subsequent accords.
Thereafter, a number of net-zero corporate alliances emerged to align the private sector with climate initiatives. At its peak, this network included financial and corporate alliances, such as the Net Zero Banking Alliance, the Net Zero Insurance Alliance, the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, and others.
These alliances operated under the umbrella of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, a U.N.-backed multi-trillion-dollar coalition. The Glasgow Alliance focused on financial institutions because they were not only financiers but also dominant shareholders of publicly traded corporations, and thus a critical means of leverage over the private sector.
Net Zero Asset Managers members, for example, included BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, the world’s largest asset managers. These three firms alone are collectively the largest shareholders in more than 40 percent of publicly traded U.S. firms, and 88 percent of the S&P 500, according to a study by George Mason University business professors Sebahattin Demirkan and Ted Polat.
Over the past several years, however, members have begun to exit these organizations amid a conservative backlash and allegations of conflicts of interest and collusion. Much of this backlash occurred in conservative U.S. states, where Republican lawmakers, treasurers, and attorneys general launched boycotts and antitrust investigations of banks and fund managers accused of colluding against oil, gas, and coal companies and of violating their fiduciary duties to investors.
Vanguard quit Net Zero Asset Managers in 2022, and BlackRock quit in January 2025, after which the initiative announced it was suspending activities. In 2023, half of the Net Zero Insurance Alliance’s members quit en masse, facing risks of antitrust prosecution.
“Huge Missile/Drone Strike on Atlant Aero Drone Factory in Taganrog.” “This has been hit twice before.”
They hit the Nevinnomyssk Azot chemical plant with drones, and it’s been hit before. “It has the only units in Russia for the production of methylacetate and high purity acetic acid.”
Ukraine attacks four tankers with drones in the Black Sea. One wonder how much of Russia’s shadow fleet is even left…
Cargo ship Rona, possibly carrying weapons from Iran to Russia, sinks in the Caspian Sea. Looking at that rust bucket, you can well believe it sank without any help from Ukraine. Also, shouldn’t the mullahs be saving those weapons to use on their own people?
Despite breathless headlines warning of a robot takeover in the workforce, a new research briefing from Oxford Economics casts doubt on the narrative that artificial intelligence is currently causing mass unemployment. According to the firm’s analysis, “firms don’t appear to be replacing workers with AI on a significant scale,” suggesting instead that companies may be using the technology as a cover for routine headcount reductions.
In a January 7 report, the research firm argued that, while anecdotal evidence of job displacement exists, the macroeconomic data does not support the idea of a structural shift in employment caused by automation. Instead, it points to a more cynical corporate strategy: “We suspect some firms are trying to dress up layoffs as a good news story rather than bad news, such as past over-hiring.”
he primary motivation for this rebranding of job cuts appears to be investor relations. The report notes that attributing staff reductions to AI adoption “conveys a more positive message to investors” than admitting to traditional business failures, such as weak consumer demand or “excessive hiring in the past.” By framing layoffs as a technological pivot, companies can present themselves as forward-thinking innovators rather than businesses struggling with cyclical downturns.
In a recent interview, Wharton management professor Peter Cappelli told Fortune that he’s seen research about how, because markets typically celebrate news of job cuts, firms announce “phantom layoffs” that never actually occur. Companies were arbitraging the positive stock-market reaction to the news of a potential layoff, but “a few decades ago, the market stopped going up because [investors] started to realize that companies were not actually even doing the layoffs that they said they were going to do.”
When asked about the supposed link between AI and layoffs, Cappelli urged people to look closely at announcements. “The headline is, ‘It’s because of AI,’ but if you read what they actually say, they say, ‘We expect that AI will cover this work.’ Hadn’t done it. They’re just hoping. And they’re saying it because that’s what they think investors want to hear.”
“Trump greenlights Bill proposing 500% tariff over Russia oil trade. US Senator Lindsey Graham said the Russia sanctions bill will allow US President Donald Trump to punish countries that ‘buy cheap Russian oil, fueling Putin’s war machine.'” This seems aimed at India in particular.
The struggle over control of information, censorship, and economic dominance in the digital space is increasingly becoming a fundamental civilizational question. That the European Union now sees not only the EU Commission but also national governments and security apparatuses siding with information diktats, against the fundamental principle of free speech, sends a dangerous signal to the world. The EU has effectively withdrawn from the circle of freedom-oriented state actors.
Into this picture fits a recent report from Italy. A tweet by the founder and CEO of the internet infrastructure provider Cloudflare, Matthew Prince, has caused a stir.
Yesterday a quasi-judicial body in Italy fined @Cloudflare $17 million for failing to go along with their scheme to censor the Internet. The scheme, which even the EU has called concerning, required us within a mere 30 minutes of notification to fully censor from the Internet any… pic.twitter.com/qZf9UKEAY5
Prince reports that Cloudflare has been hit with a $17 million fine by a — as he calls it — clandestine cabal in Italy. The accusation: Cloudflare refused to participate in an Italian censorship mechanism at the behest of this group.
Specifically, this concerns a system controlled by the Italian media authority AGCOM (Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni) called the “Piracy Shield.” This blocking system is officially aimed at combating illegal sports and media streaming services. The main targets are the economic interests of major players such as Italy’s Serie A football league, Sky Italia, DAZN, Mediaset, and other large European media and rights corporations.
Private actors, comparable to the so-called “Trusted Flaggers” now familiar in Germany, operate on behalf of the Italian media sector within this system. They report websites, IP addresses, or suspicious domains to the Piracy Shield. The authority then compels internet service providers and infrastructure operators like Cloudflare to implement the corresponding blocks within just 30 minutes. Every advertising minute counts; piracy is indeed a dangerously significant economic factor. The question is: How do states and affected companies enforce copyright? Do they operate under the rule of law and avoid collateral damage, such as backdoor state censorship?
According to Prince, all of this happens without a judicial order or prior review, bypassing due legal process entirely. The measures affect not only allegedly illegal content but also deeply intrude into the technical infrastructure of the internet.
“A middle school band director in the Abilene Independent School District has been busted for possessing child sexual abuse material. Lance Carl Mosley was arrested and charged with possession of child pornography.”
“U-Haul Growth Index: Texas Back on Top as No. 1 Growth State of 2025. Florida ranks 2nd for net gain of one-way customers; California last for sixth year in a row.” (Hat tip: Ted Cruz on Facebook.)
Life in deep blue Seattle: “McDonald’s rolls out store ‘no door’ policy – and bans ALL diners from eating in…The McDonald’s restaurant is located in downtown Seattle and it has been nicknamed ‘McStabby’s.’ And, it is situated in an area that has been plagued with crime in recent years.” This is your city on Democrats…
Yes, Democrats are totally rational: “Nebraska Democrat, best known for filibustering trans surgery ban, rips down America 250 exhibits at Capitol.”
Cartoonist, author and political commentator Scott Adams died Tuesday after a battle with prostate cancer. He was 68.
His ex-wife and caregiver, Shelly, made the announcement on Adams’ livestream Tuesday morning.
“Unfortunately, this isn’t good news,” Shelly said. “Of course, he waited ’til just before the show started, but he’s not with us anymore.”
Shelly read aloud a “final message” that Adams “wanted to say” on the livestream.
“If you’re reading this, things did not go well for me,” the message began. “I have a few things to say before I go. My body fell before my brain. I am of sound mind as I write this January 1, 2026.”
After speaking about Christianity, Adams’ message said, “For the first part of my life, I was focused on making myself a worthy husband and parent as a way to find meaning. That worked — but marriages don’t always last forever, and mine ended in a highly amicable way. I’m grateful for those years and the people I came to call my family.”
Snip.
In his last decade and a half, however, Adams achieved wide influence through his business advice and political analysis.
His 2013 best seller, “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big,” is one of the most influential and entertaining business books of recent years.
In it, Adams introduced the concept of using systems, rather than goals, to achieve success in life. He also advised readers to accumulate skills — a “talent stack” — rather than traditional credentials.
In 2015, Adams began commenting on politics after observing the first Republican presidential primary debate. When then-candidate Donald Trump responded to a moderator’s question that accused him of mistreating women by interjecting, “Only Rosie O’Donnell,” Adams took notice.
A trained hypnotist, Adams predicted that Trump, then a huge underdog, would win the nomination — and the presidency.
Adams drew ridicule for his bold claim. But he looked increasingly prescient as Trump dispensed with his opponents, the Republican establishment and — eventually — Hillary Clinton.
Adams used what he called the “persuasion filter”: Rather than judging whether political rhetoric was true or false, he simply evaluated it based on whether it was persuasive.
Snip.
While he excelled at explaining Trump’s tactics to a growing audience of Trump-supporting fans, Adams was also interested in explaining how Democrats, and the left-leaning media, interpreted events.
He explained that the country was often watching “two movies on one screen,” and argued — with great empathy for his opponents — that voters who felt genuinely frightened by Trump’s ascent had been led into an emotional cul-de-sac by cynical leaders.
Snip.
While he excelled at explaining Trump’s tactics to a growing audience of Trump-supporting fans, Adams was also interested in explaining how Democrats, and the left-leaning media, interpreted events.
He explained that the country was often watching “two movies on one screen,” and argued — with great empathy for his opponents — that voters who felt genuinely frightened by Trump’s ascent had been led into an emotional cul-de-sac by cynical leaders.
Leftists suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome forget just how funny and influential Dilbert was, and would have done much better listening to Adams’ explanation of how Trump works than their continuing full bore freakout. But that wouldn’t let them assuage their wounded ego with the certainty that they’re simply smarter and better people than Trump and his his deplorable followers in JesusLand…
Radial Entertainment, the entertainment company formed from the merger of Shout! Studios and FilmRise, has obtained full ownership over the “Mystery Science Theater 3000” brand from creator Joel Hodgson’s Alternaversal.
“MST3K” had been jointly owned by Alternaversal and Shout! Studios since late 2015. Radial’s purchase includes all brand assets and intellectual property and follows nearly two decades of Shout!’s multichannel distribution of “MST3K” content. The amount of the final buyout was undisclosed.
Also: “Hodgson will remain involved with the property as brand ambassador and consultant.”
I hope they can keep it going and not screw it up…
New woke Star trek is such garbage people won’t even watch it for free. “Paramount only hit 1,300 live viewers during free YouTube premiere.”
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?
Judging from their actions in other states, leftwing activists seem to think they can protect illegal alien criminals from deportation by yelling, screaming and assaulting federal law enforcement officers. While that tactic might produce some success in blue cities in blue states that turn a blind eye to leftwing crime, that sort of law-breaking doesn’t fly in Texas.
A protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) moved through downtown Austin without a city permit Saturday night, leading to multiple arrests by law enforcement.
The protest was part of a wave that began after the fatal shooting of Minnesota woman, Renee Nicole Macklin Good, 37, by an ICE Deportation Officer in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.
The demonstration, organized by the group Dare to Struggle Austin, began around 6:30 p.m. Saturday outside the J.J. Pickle Federal Building, located on East 8th Street.
Dare to Struggle is one of those astroturf pro-illegal alien, anti-law enforcement organizations that seems to have sprung up overnight. Not much information online about their funding sources, but what are the odds that Soros or Singham orgs are bankrolling them?
“We were out there [Saturday] night to demand justice for Renee Good,” said Emi, a member of Dare to Struggle Austin.”
Good got justice. She tried to run over a federal agent and was killed in self defense.
The protesters blocked 8th Street around 6:30 p.m. Saturday. Austin Police Department (APD) and Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) officers arrived shortly after. Around, 6:45 p.m., DPS issued several loudspeaker warnings instructing protesters to leave the roadway or “force will be used.”
For nearly two hours, protesters marched through several downtown streets, blocking traffic as they moved. Emi said the group intentionally did not coordinate with law enforcement beforehand, adding that blocking streets was necessary “to challenge the system.”
“We believe it is right to rebel against a system that incarcerates people, puts them in detention centers, and tears families apart,” Emi said.
Translation: Our right to virtue signal trumps your right to use public streets.
Austin Police Association (APA) President Michael Bullock said Sunday that although people have a right to protest, public demonstrations must still operate within legal limits.
“The First Amendment is an inviolate right that people have and that we are here to safeguard,” Bullock said. “But that doesn’t mean you can trample on other people’s rights or impede traffic, take over roadways, or commit other criminal acts — that is not a First Amendment right.”
Indeed.
When the protest returned to the Pickle Building around 7:30 p.m., DPS sprayed a chemical irritant at the protesters. Many left the area shortly after.
Pepper spray!
Pepper spray!
Pepper spray makes us go away!
Multiple arrests were then made by APD and DPS officers. APD said it expects to have updated numbers available Monday.
Even though Austin is a deep blue city, the close scrutiny it receives as the capital city of a very red state means that it can’t get away with letting lawbreaking slide the way it does else, a point driven home by Texas governor Greg Abbott:
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.
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.)
