More Iran War spin cycle, Ukraine hits more oil refineries and Wildberries, more welfare state fraud, more Fauci follies, more Democrats behaving badly, and one anime lover does something really, really stupid.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
(Note: Somehow an unfinished version of this got published and one of Bluehost’s little timeouts temporarily prevented me from unpublishing it…)
I should have a link on Iran here, but as far as I can tell it’s the same cycle: 1. Iran attacks neighbors or a ship transiting the Strait of Hormuz, 2. U.S. pounds the snot out of them, 3. President Trump announces we’re close to a deal with Iran, 4. Iran announces usual lies (deal gives them complete control over the strait, U.S. promises to hand them a big pile of money, President Trump promises to pray to Mecca five times a day, etc.). Set spin cycle to repeat next week.
Why go to war with Iran now? When we have so many problems to solve — still — at home, and with the midterms looming?
If you just said “Because Israel” go and sit down. No, sit ALL THE WAY DOWN. And stay there, quietly, while the adults talk. You’ve been sold a fable by people who would love to split up that alliance in order to destroy both countries piecemeal. And yes, a lot of the people in this country you trust are in the pay of those people or alternately truly vulnerable to manipulation.
Yes, Israel is at war and has been at war. Not out of some desire of being a local hegemon — after all, they gave back a lot of territory in the early 2000s in the hope of buying peace for their people for all the good it did them — but because they would like to survive. And even then, they were soft-handed to the point of insanity until they got the wake up call of 10/7. Not responding to that wake up call would have been suicidal. Apparently they are not that. This makes them neither an evil scheming nation nor manipulators of US politics. Go sit all the way down, and think shame you allowed the likes of China and Russia and dissatisfied Arab elements (now their leadership is becoming marginally saner) to manipulate you.
However, our war with Iran has nothing to do with Israel except insofar as Israel has provided able support in it, taking down the “Hamas fighters” Iran would have sent against us when we moved against Iran.
And if you think that Trump just up one morning and decided to go to war with Iran because he’s just that crazy, you have the president completely wrong. He had a public persona that is a little unpredictable. This I think is intentional just as I think Reagan’s “the bombing will now begin” was “accidentally open mike.” If you believe that, I have some bridges to sell you. They might be underwater, but great property.
Trump’s philosophy of government is “Make money, not war.” And I don’t mean making money for himself, though setting the US as the leader of the economic world definitely will end up in his children and grandchildren being richer. And ours too, think on. What I mean is that he uses money the way other presidents used war. He makes it profitable to be on good terms with the US, rather than beating people into not hurting us. By and large, it works.
Until you come to something like Iran. An “Islamic Republic” established with heavy propping by the USSR and still used as a proxy by Russia (and China. And every bad actor who wanted to use them.)
None of which would be an immediate problem, necessitating war. The world is full of crazy little countries, armed to the teeth and with evil intentions towards everyone starting with their own people.
Except for three things: 1- Iran’s evil intent is real and proactive. They declared war on us (And yes, Israel, but remember Israel is “little Satan” to our “Big Satan.”) They’re not just squatting on their territory, murdering their own people and muttering “touch me and you’ll die.” They actively want to eliminate us. (And Israel, but honestly, mostly us.) They believe a final, massive war, will bring about their end times and paradise for the faithful. And they are, yes, sincerely religious. At least the leadership. 2-They either had a nuke, or were very close to having one, and as we have learned through their bombing every one and their cousins, they actually and for real had delivery means. To the US? who knows? And anyway, with a nuke and open borders, there are many means of delivery. 3- Pallets of cash given to them by Obama, which greatly accelerated the nuclear program. Which we supposedly have maybe thoroughly degraded. Maybe. Apparently the terrain and capacity of the Iranians…. it’s difficult to ascertain that, or to be sure they won’t be up to their games next week absent thorough regime change.
In other words, our war with Iran right now is very simple: Because the enemy gets a vote. And so do others who would love to be the enemy if we give them an opening and who are now at BEST “adversaries”.
Because if we give in to the “peace at all costs” people we’ll likely go back in a year or two. And if two who knows who’ll be in charge or what they’ll use “war time emergency” to do. Remember the covidiocy?
Now imagine that we have Kamala, or G-d forbid AOC in charge when Iran hits NYC or Chicago, or Denver, or any of our big cities. Or three or four of them.
Imagine millions dead, and the US suddenly on a war footing. Imagine what a “Democratic socialist” would do in an environment 10 times what the post 9/11 fervor was, when speaking out against war is political and perhaps physical suicide. Or, you know, you don’t have to imagine. Go and study the unvarnished presidencies of Woodrow Wilson or FDR and you’ll KNOW.
Beyond the fact that China is running out of time to make with aggression. Their demographics don’t support a long wait to go to war with us. They must do it soon. But to do it now would be suicide. To do it after Iran hits us with a nuke and we’re in disarray (particularly, if G-d forbid we have a Democrat in charge.) … golden opportunity. (And don’t tell me there’s no chance of a democrat in 2028. The right is riven by discord being sown by enemies domestic and foreign, and a lot of duckies on the right fall for it every single time.)
THAT is why we are at war with Iran now. And why Trump is doing it (he said he couldn’t risk a president he couldn’t be sure of facing this, remember?) right now, regardless of political price. Because undoing the damage that Obama wrought is essential if we are to thrive or even — just — to survive as a nation.
The DOJ Fraud Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office, and Pennsylvania Attorney General today announced criminal charges against 19 defendants, including owners and employees of home care companies, for their alleged participation in various fraud schemes involving over four million dollars in claims to Medicare and Medicaid.
The Pennsylvania Attorney General also announced a plea agreement involving the final defendant in a previously-charged 21 defendant case involving over $1.7 million in claims.
Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, U.S. Attorney David Metcalf for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and senior federal and state officials hold a press conference announcing a significant health care fraud takedown and a new Anti-Fraud Initiative in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Commie Jihadi wins. “Abdul El-Sayed Wins Michigan Democratic Senate Primary. With 99% of the votes counted, El-Sayed defeated Haley Stevens 48.5% to 47.5% (14,893 votes).”
The Associated Press called the Michigan Democratic primary for socialist and anti-Israel candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
With 99% of the votes counted, El-Sayed defeated Haley Stevens 48.5% to 47.5% (14,893 votes).
El-Sayed’s victory is a major defeat for the Democratic establishment.
Members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) or endorsed by the socialists have won House primaries in Colorado and New York. Most Democrats brushed aside concerns that the socialists have started taking over the party despite those victories.
Will the Democrat party change its position now that El-Sayed won a statewide primary?
El-Sayed loves to hang out with far-left streamer Hasan Piker, who thinks America deserved 9/11.
The socialist claimed he never said he wanted to defund the police, but CNN dug up a 2020 interview where he said, “I believe we do need to defund the police.” People even discovered El-Sayed deleting past social media posts with anti-police rhetoric.
He also holds the usual socialist ideas: High taxes, Medicare for All, abolish ICE, open borders, etc.
Of course, El-Sayed hates Israel and AIPAC. He admitted that he struggles “with the question of whether Israel should exist as a Jewish state.”
El-Sayed wouldn’t say anything about Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death because many Muslims in the state are sad.
Given that this and many other clips of El-Sayed have gone viral since he won the primary earlier this week, it might be dawning on Piker that the Islamic vote in Dearborn isn’t going to be enough to carry a statewide election.
Today on X, he was furious again, but this time in his attempt to backpedal from one of his most infamous statements: that America ‘deserved’ 9/11.
this is unbelievably disingenuous, I'VE personally apologized for the words that i used BACK IN 2019. every candidate i've appeared alongside has done this. we all know this is a cynical way to justify associating the 1st muslim senate candidate with "islamic style terrorism" https://t.co/PqCAgXPJbw
Oh yes, because 2019 was so long ago, and saying that “America deserved 9/11” was so uncontroversial back in those dim, misty days of 2019. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Meta fined $567 million for harming the mental health of kids. And that was just in New Mexico…
“Huge Drone Strike on Petrochemical Plant and Ufa Oil Refinery: Huge Fire. [I]n Nizhnekamsk, Tatarstan, a massive fire is seen in the industrial zone of Nizhnekamskneftekhim after an explosion, probably due to a system overload after a series of UAV attacks on the industrial zone. ”
The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on Thursday advanced a resolution to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress.
The eight-to-five party line vote came in response to Fauci repeatedly invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination at a hearing last week to avoid Republicans’ questions regarding diary entries previously released by the committee. Those documents revealed the former head of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases gave the lab-leak hypothesis for the origin of the coronavirus more credit in private than he did in public at the beginning of the pandemic.
Something is at war with us, us being regular citizens who want things to work and to be left alone. We’re slow to react because we think in terms of nations. Our enemies are mafias that wear governments like a cloak to defeat our eyes and fly our flags to disarm our minds. So I think the way to think about Anthony Fauci sitting there in front of this committee today is we are governed by mafias. He is a made man. I think he’s just clearly a made man. And that means we don’t have the ability to touch him.”
This could get spicy: “Paxton Investigates Financial Ties Behind Childhood Vaccine Recommendations. The attorney general is seeking information about how the nation’s largest pediatric group develops its vaccine guidance.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is investigating how a pediatricians’ association determines its vaccine recommendations and whether financial incentives have influenced its guidance.
Founded in 1930, the American Academy of Pediatrics has helped shape childhood vaccination recommendations nationwide and has worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on its childhood vaccine schedule since 1995.
“If the American Academy of Pediatrics is giving medical guidance that is fueled by financial incentives, we will expose and put an end to this unlawful behavior,” Paxton said.
Earlier this year, Paxton launched investigations into multiple vaccine providers, examining whether they failed to disclose bonuses and other financial benefits tied to the number of vaccines administered.
He also accused pediatricians of denying care based on vaccination status and attaching physicians’ wages or employment to vaccine quotas.
Nearly three years after the October 7 massacre, the Israeli military and security forces continue to hunt down and eliminate the terrorists responsible. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) scored major operational success over the weekend, taking out several senior Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists involved in the attack.
The IDF, supported by the Shin Bet security agency, killed a commander of Hamas’s Nukhba terrorist force who invaded Israel on October 7, 2023. A strike in central Gaza “eliminated the terrorist Abdallah Adnan Taha Abu al-Tayf, a Nukhba commander in Hamas’ military wing,” the IDF announced. “The terrorist infiltrated Israeli territory during the October 7th Massacre. Throughout the war, he actively participated in combat against IDF troops.”
In a separate strike, the “IDF eliminated the terrorist Jalal Tsubeih, a commander in the Daraj Tuffah Battalion of Hamas’ military wing,” the military disclosed in the same statement.
An October 7 hostage taker and commander of Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s (PIJ) Central Gaza Brigade was also killed in a recent Israeli strike, the IDF revealed on Monday.
The slain terrorist, Mahmoud Fatair, kidnapped 19-year-old Rom Braslavski. Rom was tortured and sexually assaulted by PJI terrorists during his long captivity. According to the BBC in November 2025, he “was sexually assaulted during his two years in captivity in Gaza.”
TPPF: “Flock Cameras Are An Assault On Your Constitutional Freedoms.”
Texans have a special way of dealing with infringements on privacy and the freedoms we enjoy.
Unregistered drones surveying our properties out in the sticks? That’s what the 12-gauge home defense system is for. Red light cameras that often prioritize revenue and control over public safety? The Texas legislature passed a law to ban that. Waiting for a glacially slow U.S. Congress to pass a Digital Bill of Rights? Federalism makes clear we had to take matters into our own hands.
Clearly, Texans understand that privacy is a fundamental prerequisite to being free—and that’s on both sides of the aisle. Polling conducted by my organization, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, suggests 9 out of 10 Texans believe as much. So it comes as no surprise that ire over Flock and similar Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) is shared by activists and advocates on both sides of the aisle.
And it also means the Texas Legislature will almost certainly do something about it next session.
ALPRs are not a new concept. Like more than one surveillance program, it began as an effort to combat terrorism, providing a novel method that allowed law enforcement to forego visual inspection and the time-consuming process of obtaining warrants and registration information. American police departments began using rudimentary ALPRs in the 2000s, arguing they “enhance their enforcement and investigative capabilities…[and] expedite the tedious and time-consuming process of comparing vehicle license plates with vehicles of interest.”
Whether unsophisticated ALPRs in the early days were a worthwhile investment is up for debate.
Proponents of Flock will point to the long history of this technology’s existence as reason to not fret over the current political landscape, but I’m not interested in that red herring. The reality is that technological shifts from simple contrast algorithms to advanced AI, pixelated cameras to high resolution photos that can capture clear shots in all conditions, and wide-angle lenses that can capture four or more times the number of lanes and cars as older cameras, have given rise to the narrative of mass surveillance.
To put into plain English, a police force in New York once boasted of capturing the license plates of 10,000 vehicles in a day; whereas a 2020 California state auditor report revealed that Sacramento’s Police Department recorded 24 times that amount, with close to 250,000 photos captured daily.
Proponents will quickly assert that these cameras only capture license plates, vehicle characteristics, distinguishing features (bumper stickers and license plate frames), and time and direction. But much like with brokers harvesting and selling your online data, it is not the individual data point has inherent value. It’s the fact that there is a stunning arsenal of these data-siphoning cameras across the nation, connecting all of those data points to generate a larger, far more invasive picture than a single snapshot in time. And this is precisely why there has been a well-documented cadre of police officers making use of this database to monitor their wives, exes, or random strangers.
As author and researcher Matthew Crawford puts it in reference to digital surveillance writ large, “The appeal, surely lies in not having to do things that we normally do for ourselves. The convenience may be worth the price; that’s for each of us to decide. But to do so with open eyes, one has to understand what the price is.”
If we are relying on an opaque, cherry-picked narrative of what personal information ALPRs can capture, how it is stored, the motive for retaining certain data, and whom it is ultimately sold or transferred to, we can’t possibly be informed enough to know the price of “enhanced safety.” Even worse, none of us even clicked “accept” to the terms of service while driving down I-35. So not only do we not know the price, we have no say in the matter.
“NY Socialist Can’t Pay Rent, Wants to Write State Budget.”
New York Socialist Brian Romero has not yet reached Albany, but he has already launched his first public spending initiative: covering his own rent.
Romero, the Democratic nominee for New York’s 34th Assembly District, launched a GoFundMe asking supporters to cover his rent and groceries while he waits to take office. The campaign sought $2,000 and collected more than $1,000 from 13 donors before disappearing Friday.
The timing was apparently a coincidence. Romero pulled the fundraiser shortly after the New York Post started asking questions.
Romero is not exactly facing a difficult general election. He won 66 percent of the Democratic primary vote, and Republicans did not bother fielding a candidate in a deep-blue Queens district. Once sworn in, he will collect a $142,000 annual salary plus a $203 daily allowance while the Assembly is in session.
But first, socialism needed a little crowdfunding.
“Now, defenders are embracing the prompt injection, too. ‘Context bombing’ tricks hacking agents into shutting down before they can do harm.'”
Prompt injections, the malicious commands attackers embed into content to entice large language models to follow them, have been attackers’ go-to tool for turning AI platforms against their users. A well-phrased command sneaked into an email or calendar invitation is often all it takes to cause the LLM to exfiltrate sensitive data or follow other harmful actions.
Now, defenders are embracing the prompt injection, too.
Researchers from Tracebit on Monday said they found that placing prompt injections alongside passwords, cryptographic keys, and other secrets stored on Amazon Web Services was often all that was needed to shut down attacks from AI hacking agents. The prompts direct the attacking LLM to perform an action forbidden by its guardrails, the safety barriers AI developers erect to prevent it from taking harmful actions. The LLM responds by shutting down.
Examples are a prompt that orders the LLM to provide steps for developing inhalable Anthrax spores, or, in the case of LLMs from Chinese developers, make references to the iconic Tank Man from the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Once the LLM encounters these forbidden commands, it no longer follows its existing commands. The researchers have named the technique context bombing.
Man foolishly threatens Texas Governor Greg Abbott over: A.) Deporting illegal aliens, B.) Eliminating wasteful government programs, or C.) Access to anime.
A Houston man faces a criminal case in Travis County for, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety, threatening the Governor’s Office over a law the man allegedly said prevented him from watching an anime.
Joseph Roy Ozment, 35, faces one third-degree felony count of terroristic threat against a public servant. KXAN has reached out to his court-appointed counsel for comment.
According to an affidavit written by a DPS special agent, Ozment allegedly called the Governor’s Office on the afternoon of July 25. DPS claims Ozment left the following voicemail (KXAN has redacted the profanity in the transcript provided by DPS):
“I don’t know which one of you sons of b—-es passed this motherf—ing bill to get this damn s— blocking my motherf—ing anime, but you whole a– motherf—ers need to unpass this s—. Y’all are f—ing ridiculous with your b—- a–es. My Google account says I’m f—ing over the age of 18, and your dumba– is passing these dumba– laws. I’m a f—ing stab every godd— one of you b—-es. Unlock my f—ing anime.”
The call was made from a cell phone that DPS claimed was registered to Ozment.
The affidavit does not say which anime Ozment tried to watch or how he attempted to watch it.
Most major anime streaming websites, such as Crunchyroll, HIDIVE and Yomi, remain available to access for Texans. KXAN double-checked this Thursday.
While the state legislature has not banned anime, two laws come to mind that could have impeded the caller’s access.
The first is a 2023 state law requiring adult websites to verify the age of any visitor before allowing access to content. In response, several pornographic streaming websites simply blocked all access from devices in Texas.
Another law is Texas’ app store age verification law. It requires a similar age verification process for smartphone users who want to download software from an app store such as Google Play. There’s currently ongoing litigation over the law’s constitutionality, but the law is in effect until that concludes.
In the voicemail, the caller said their Google account says they’re older than 18 years old. That would cover the app store requirements. It wouldn’t apply to pornographic websites, which are required to have users upload their photo ID.
One stands amazed at the stupidity of a man who thinks threatening the Governor will somehow restore his ability to spank his monkey to tentacle porn.
Given the difficulties of illustrating this item with anything remotely tasteful, I’m going with an, ah, “story adjacent image.”
Cambridge academic Jason Arday, accused of plagiarism, has the a record of serial lying that would make Jon Lovitz’s Patholical Liar blush.
Running a single marathon is a great achievement. Running 30 marathons is a spectacular feat. Running 30 marathons in 35 days is something only a world-class athlete could achieve. But running 30 marathons in 35 days, and running the final nine of those marathons with a broken leg – that’s an impossible feat that would require superhuman powers. But that is exactly what Jason Arday has claimed to achieve. But that’s not all, Jason Arday’s incredible feats aren’t just limited to running nearly 240 miles on a fractured leg without medical intervention, he also claimed to have run 600 miles in six days on a treadmill (without any evidence), played both football and snooker at a professional level (a boast that was apparently taken out of context), raised over £5.5 million for charity (but can’t name a single donor), managed to go 15 years with a barely a wink of sleep, and even appeared on the famous television documentary series Seven Up! – which originally premiered a whole 21 years before he was even born. This is the story of Cambridge University’s youngest-ever black professor, who was appointed as Professor of the Sociology of Education in 2023.
Snip.
We are meant to believe that a boy who was completely non-verbal due to autism and global developmental delay until age 11 and who was unable to read or write until 18, then went on to earn a PhD by the age of 29. This means that in just 11 years Jason managed to learn basic literacy and catch up on all those years of missed schooling, complete an undergraduate degree (which typically takes 3 years), complete two separate Master’s degrees (typically taking 1-2 years each), complete a PGCE teacher training qualification (taking 1 year) and then write a 100,000-word PhD dissertation (taking typically 3-4 years). In just over a decade, Jason had not only learnt to read and write, but condensed 12 years of higher education into a near record-breaking period of time that would prove his hyper-accelerated cognitive processing abilities were second to none. And he did it all whilst working multiple jobs and without sleeping
How did multiple UK institutions not detect Arday’s outrageous lies? Simple: Jason Arday is black.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has released its survey of the written policies of 493 colleges and universities and evaluated their compliance with First Amendment standards, which included 21 Texas institutions of higher learning.
Of the 379 four-year public institutions and 114 private institutions, FIRE gave each campus a red, yellow, or green light rating based on how their written regulations on student expression restrict free speech.
Red light institutions have at least one policy that both “clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech or bars public access to its speech-related policies by requiring a university login and password for access.” Nearly a quarter of the private schools evaluated received a red light rating, compared to roughly 10 percent of public universities.
Overall, red light ratings made up 13.2 percent of schools surveyed, down approximately 1.5 percent from last year. Since FIRE’s first report 20 years ago, red light ratings have dropped by 55 percentage points from 68.6 percent in 2006.
Rice University and the University of Texas (UT) at Dallas both received a red light rating for one of their harassment policies.
Snip.
The Texas colleges and universities that received a yellow light rating are:
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.”
Illegal aliens continue raking in welfare benefits, the #SchumerShutdown continues, a look at the Democrats’ foreign paymasters, a jihad attack thwarted, cartels are enslaving American Indians in California in the name of weed, some Joe Rogan interviews, Nasty Nancy bows out, Kill Bill returns to theaters, and Bass Pro Shop Fight Club.
It’s astounding, the things we learn when the money runs out and governments actually have to start prioritizing for a change. As the Schumer Shutdown drags through Week Five with no end in sight, the country’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — aka “food stamps” — ran out of money on Saturday. And given who was taking, it’s a miracle that there was any money left at all.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins reported yesterday that earlier this year, “we told every state to send us their SNAP data so we could make sure illegal immigrants aren’t getting benefits meant for American families. 29 states stepped up. 21 blue states refused — and two SUED US FOR ASKING!”
That’s because we’re spending billions on benefits to illegal aliens.
My guess is that the Center for Immigration Studies — which bills itself as “low-immigrant” yet “pro-immigration” — was being a bit ironic with this headline: Illegal Immigrants To Be Hit Hard As SNAP and WIC Benefits Expire.
The organization’s 2023 analysis of government data showed that “households headed by illegal immigrants make extensive use of the welfare system, particularly food assistance programs.” CIS estimated that 59% of households headed up by an illegal are on one or more welfare programs, whether it’s cash, food assistance, Medicaid, or housing.
Read that again. We’re giving cash, food, healthcare, and housing to people who aren’t even supposed to be here.
Millions of them, in fact. Even though I could have sworn that Democrats insisted up and down that sort of thing never happened. No wonder 21 blue states didn’t want Rollins looking at their books.
Houston, we have a problem. A very expensive problem.
His suggestions: Require proof of citizenship for all welfare benefits, and ban junk food from purchase with EBT.
The Schumer Shutdown continues. Democrats offered a one year ObamaCare extension and Republicans told them to get stuffed. Republicans should counter-offer an extension of the subsidies for American citizens…but none for illegal alien, plus states are required to submit their benefits database so illegal aliens can be kicked off the program and deported. That would make it even more painfully clear Democrats favor illegal aliens over citizens when they refuse…
Foreigners not only are paying to promote liberal causes and by extension liberal candidates but foreigners are running their own candidates. The Squad has a couple of them and Minneapolis is about to get a Somali mayor.
Foreigners are funding the Indian who was born in Uganda and sent to New York City at some point. Now he’ll a jihadist-friendly communist—but if justice prevails, he may end up in prison instead of being in City Hall.
The New York Post reported last week, “Zohran Mamdani was hit with two criminal referrals Tuesday filed by a campaign finance watchdog accusing the lefty socialist of accepting illegal contributions from foreign donors.
“The Coolidge Reagan Foundation filed the referrals—alleging Mamdani may have violated the Federal Election Campaign Act and New York Election Code—with the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office on Tuesday.
“The referrals were filed after The Post reported earlier this month Mamdani’s campaign raked in nearly $13,000 in contributions from at least 170 donors with addresses outside the U.S.—including one from his mother-in-law in Dubai.”
Ed Morrissey:
The Democrat Party has turned into the Globalist Party. Their constituency isn’t American voters; it’s the international cognoscenti, who want an America that submits to the “global community.” That is why Democrat leaders do not adapt their policies and positions to the clear consensus in the American electorate, because they have already adapted to constituencies outside the United States.
That isn’t the only institution orienting itself away from American constituencies, and for the same reason. Over the last several decades, Academia has seen billions of dollars flow into its coffers from places like China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. There too, the money has pushed institutions to indoctrinate students into radical-Left globalist values and agendas. Universities have largely stopped providing foundational Western-civilization values and education in favor of revisionist propaganda about Western imperialism and colonialism. This in turn colors all of the institutions into which radicalized graduates enter and rise within those structures.
Jonah Goldberg, from 2009 (back before Trump broke his brain):
Liberalism has openly yearned to “Europeanize” American social policy for decades. Liberals point to European health-care systems, union rules, tax policies, industrial policy, foreign policy, and even sexual mores, and say: “We need to be more like them.”
This is a very old story. The founders of modern liberalism, led by Woodrow Wilson and the two Roosevelts, were quite open about their effort to adopt a more European approach to political economy. The progressive leader William Allen White said in 1911: “We were parts, one of another, in the United States and Europe. Something was welding us into one social and economic whole with local political variations. It was Stubbs in Kansas, Jaures in Paris, the Social Democrats in Germany, the Socialists in Belgium, and I should say the whole people in Holland, fighting a common cause.”
But it was FDR’s New Deal that truly aimed to “assimilate the American into the ‘European’ political experience,” according to historian Daniel Boorstin.
After years of Democrats telling the American people that former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) was a thriving system, the glaring truth revealed now during the government shutdown is that not only has the ACA resulted in widespread fraud and allegations of kickbacks to insurance companies, the American people are footing the bill for subsidies to hide the fact that Obamacare is broken.
“Everything Obama told us was a complete lie,” E.J. Antoni told John Solomon during a special report on the government shutdown sponsored by the Association of Mature American Citizens.
Antoni, who serves as chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, continued: “When he said, ‘If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.’ No you couldn’t. Obamacare made a lot of those health care plans illegal. He said, ‘If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.’ No, it forced a lot of doctors out of business, and it forced a lot of doctors to no longer take most insurance.”
President Barack Obama repeatedly promised Americans during the rollout of the ACA — commonly known as Obamacare — that “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” a claim intended to reassure Americans about the ACA’s impact on existing healthcare arrangements. However, millions of people lost access to their preferred and established physicians due to narrowed insurance networks and cancellations of plans which did not comply with the law’s new requirements, leading even left-leaning PolitiFact to name it the “Lie of the Year” in 2013.
Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Mich., revealed the latest scandal within Obamacare. Bergman, speaking to Just The News, laid out the timeline for subsidies which were meant to lighten the burden for Americans but when unused, were pocketed by the insurance companies.
Bergman explained that “In 2010, the Democrats passed the Affordable Care Act. Then in 2014, ACA premium tax credits became available, meant to help families earning 100 to 140% of the federal poverty level – that was designed to help those folks. In 2021, through the ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act), Democrats temporarily extended and expanded those subsidies to everyone, regardless of income, for one year. In 2022, the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act), they extended the expansion again, but only through January 1 of 2026.”
Bergman emphasized that the expiration imposed by Democrats implicitly meant that the extension was not meant to be permanent. That extension expires and is what Democrats have shut down the government over. As Bergman puts it, “They’re blaming us, the Republicans, for letting their own temporary extensions expire.”
The largest surprise regarding these subsidies, is that they haven’t been going directly to patients. They’ve been going to insurance companies, according to Bergman. “Insurance companies’ profits right now are up something like 240+ percent. There’s something morally wrong with that. Not only is it shamefully wrong, but morally wrong.”
Bergman did not name any specific insurance companies.
“Millions of these so-called ghost enrollees, people who are technically eligible, but are unaware of it, never use these subsidies. The insurers pocket the difference.”
OpenSecrets reported that in 2012, the health insurance industry donated roughly $9.6 million to Democrats. In 2024, the industry donated almost $40 million to Democrats.
Five people between the ages of 16 and 20 were arrested Friday, CBS News has learned. Authorities say they were inspired by a former member of the Michigan Army National Guard who was arrested in May for allegedly planning an ISIS-inspired attack against a U.S. Army site in suburban Detroit.
(Just a reminder that Detroit suburbs like Dearborn Heights are majority-Muslim.)
The men were inspired by another “Michigan man” who was arrested in May:
Ammar Abdulmajid-Mohamed Said, 19, was accused of providing support for a planned attack on the U.S. Army’s Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command facility at the Detroit Arsenal.
Democrats have been importing unassimilated Muslims into America for, what, 30 year now? 40? Who initiated the plan, and why?
Over 1,500 alleged criminal illegal aliens were arrested during a 10-day operation in Southeast Texas — including documented gang members, a convicted murderer, and over a dozen sexual offenders.
The Houston branch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted the operation between October 22 and 31, arresting a total of 1,505 alleged criminal illegal aliens.
Among the arrests were 17 “documented gang members,” including an alleged Mexican Mafia gang member, who was convicted for raping and impregnating his minor sister and is wanted in Honduras for murder. A suspected MS-13 gang member was also among the arrested, after he “ran inside a local washateria, climbed through the ceiling panels to get on the roof and became wedged in a sign on the side of the building,” before being captured by Houston ICE.
Forty “aggravated felons” were reported as being among the 1,505 arrested, as were 13 sexual predators.
One of the arrested is Vongphachan Phothisome of Laos, who was convicted of sexual exploitation of a child. Similarly, an illegal alien from Honduras, Rony Andy Martinez Lopez, was convicted of “lewd and lascivious acts with a minor and cruelty towards a child.”
A comparable week-long operation conducted by Houston ICE in early September yielded about half the arrests as this October one, with 822 alleged criminal illegal aliens arrested last month.
Native American sovereignty and California’s policies that shield illegal immigrants have allowed Mexican drug cartels to swoop in on tribal lands of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, a confederation of several tribes, the sheriff said.
The valley, known for illegal marijuana grows on tribal lands, is remote and surrounded by forested mountainous terrain. It’s a patchwork of tribal lands and those sold off to private owners years ago.
[Mendocino County Sheriff Matt] Kendall, 56, grew up here in the 1970s. During the drive to Covelo, an isolated town in the valley, he talks about how the times have changed over the decades.
“Back in the ’60s and ’70s, it was a beautiful place—a lot of freedom here,” he said. “When we were kids, we’d be riding our horses and having fun. Every kid in this valley had a horse. We’d go out to the river. All of us had summertime jobs, hauling hay and cutting firewood.”
His nostalgic journey ends abruptly as he passes a burned-out building with murals of missing women on its walls—a stark reminder of the violence that plagues the valley. Other banners along the road display their names and faces, including that of Khadijah Rose Britton, a native American woman who, according to the FBI, was last seen in Covelo being kidnapped at gunpoint in 2018.
Today, Kendall says, “there’s a little bit of farming, and then just tons and tons of marijuana, and pretty much all of it is illegal.”
“We see a lot of Hispanics here when there is no work, no sawmill jobs, no grapes, no vineyards and not much logging. They’re all here taking orders to grow marijuana, and a lot of it’s happening on tribal lands.”
He estimates up to 80 percent of the illegal marijuana in Mendocino County is grown on tribal lands, based on aerial surveillance and satellite imagery revealing a vast network of illegal grow ops.
A blow against tranny madness. “Supreme Court Reinstates Trump Admin Requirement That Passports Reflect Biological Sex.”
Joe Rogan interviews Elon Musk, again. I have not remotely watched all three hours of it, but I don’t rule out posting clips from it in the future.
Speaking of Musk, Telsa shareholders just approved a $1 trillion pay package for him, assuming he hits certain metrics over the next decade. My guess is that’s a whole lot of pie in the sky, even for him…
Speaking of three hour Joe Rogan interviews, he did one with Billy Bob Thorton that just dropped. I’m sure I’ll watch all of that one as well…
Nancy Pelosi announces her retirement. She was able to force the abomination that was ObamaCare over the line, and grab a lot of taxpayer-funded pork for Democrats, but it’s doubtful her terms as Speaker resulted in lasting achievements for Democrats. She was bad, but if another Democrat manages to be Speaker in my lifetime, my default assumption is that they’ll be much, much worse…
A Washington Parish grand jury in Louisiana has indicted Democratic Bogalusa, Louisiana Mayor Tyrin Z. Truong on charges of malfeasance in office, public intimidation, and theft, according to the Bogalusa Daily News.
The indictment is part of what officials describe as an ongoing multi-agency investigation involving federal, state, and local authorities. Prosecutors allege Truong intentionally carried out his official duties unlawfully and knowingly allowed other city employees to ignore theirs. His arraignment is scheduled for November 10, 2025.
According to prosecutors, the case centers on claims that Truong misused Bogalusa taxpayer funds to pay a personal legal debt from a 2023 Louisiana public records lawsuit in which a judge ruled that Truong personally owed attorney fees and penalties after refusing to release public documents.
When the Bogalusa City Council denied his request to use public money, prosecutors say Truong threatened retaliation, vowing to overwhelm council members with records requests. Investigators allege he then pressured a city insurance vendor to issue a check labeled as a “reimbursement,” had it deposited into a city account, and ordered another check for the same amount to be written to himself.
Rookie mistake. Graft pros always have the check written to an intermediary cutout who withdraws the money and pays them in cash…
In 2022, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) announced a plan to give $715 million in taxpayer cash and tax incentives to lure Gotion, a Chinese battery maker, to rural central Michigan. She did it in the midst of a reelection campaign so she could fire off a press release claiming credit for 2,600 “good-paying jobs.”
She didn’t mind the fact that this proposed one-square-mile plant would be located less than 100 miles from an Army and National Guard training facility called Camp Grayling. The real irony is that the U.S. military has been training the Taiwanese military at Camp Graying for years to repel a Chinese invasion. Our governor was going to pay the CCP to operate a plant in the middle of the state. Genius!
Local residents rose up. Yes, of course, because they objected to the possibility of Chinese spies roaming around their community. But also because they resented the way in which the project was unveiled. Elected officials signed nondisclosure agreements with economic development agencies and then said they were legally bound from sharing details with the residents footing the bill.
The more questions citizens had, the more obstinate company, township, and state officials became. Green Charter Township is made up of normal people: farmers, small business owners, and the like. James Chapman, the chief project proponent and former township supervisor, quickly lost his patience in meetings and yelled at the rubes who had the temerity to attend and voice their opinions. They would yell right back. The massive project, shrouded in arrogant secrecy, bitterly divided the small community.
It reached a boiling point when township officials who were supporting the project either resigned or were overwhelmingly recalled. A new board was elected, and they went about doing the due diligence that taxpayers expect elected officials to pursue for such an expensive and disruptive project.
The CCP-linked company sued the new board, driving up massive legal bills for the tiny community. The company didn’t want to wait for environmental approvals, tearing down trees and homes. The community continued fighting, even employing President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance. Trump publicly opposed the project. Vance held a campaign rally across the street.
When they took office in January, they changed former President Joe Biden’s scam electric vehicle mandates, and the whole racket collapsed. It was the beginning of the end for the Gotion project.
Last week, the state of Michigan announced it was withdrawing the promise of $175 million in taxpayer cash, although $50 million had already been delivered. It’s unclear whether taxpayers will receive an accounting of where that money went.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Voting fraud alert. “North Carolina Republicans say texts show that local Democrats are paying for people’s votes.”
The North Carolina Republican Party referred an alleged vote-buying scheme to the State Board of Elections for investigation on Friday, claiming that a voter had been offered $100 to vote for Democratic candidates in the Wilmington City Council election.
‘This is a troubling allegation and an egregious affront to our democracy and an attempt to buy votes in exchange for cash,’ NC GOP Chair Jason Simmons said in a press conference. ‘The North Carolina Republican Party stands committed and steadfast in its determination for free, fair and transparent elections.’
“FAA Orders Flight Cuts at Texas Airports as Democrat-Led Shutdown Deepens. The FAA will cut flights by 10 percent at 40 of the nation’s top airports due to staffing shortages among air traffic controllers.”
The Department of Energy (DOE) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recently signed Addendum No. 9 to their 2019 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), paving the way for faster follow-on licensing of advanced nuclear reactors and nuclear fuel technologies.
This agreement, signed Oct 24th and effective immediately, comes as major concerns have been raised by reactor development companies and industry observers regarding the double work that may be required of developers when they bring their tested products over to the NRC. Demand for clean, reliable energy by data centers and major industrial companies has created a stronger need for change in the path to reactor design commercialization, with companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon signing long-term offtake agreements with reactor operators Constellation, NextEra, and Talen.
The addition to the MOU comes from the directives out of Trump’s executive orders signed back in May of this year. From section 5.d of the executive order “Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission”:
“Establish an expedited pathway to approve reactor designs that the DOD or the DOE have tested and that have demonstrated the ability to function safely. NRC review of such designs shall focus solely on risks that may arise from new applications permitted by NRC licensure, rather than revisiting risks that have already been addressed in the DOE or DOD processes.”
Surprisingly, the DOE and NRC took the executive order one step further and included a streamlined licensing process for nuclear fuel facilities as well. It becomes less surprising when we remember the current administration has highlighted multiple times the desire to reduce the reliance on foreign nuclear fuel supplies. Even with the Russian uranium import ban, the US is still importing over a fifth of the required enriched uranium from Russia through last year. The US government is looking to expand the domestic capacity of every step in the fuel chain as quickly as possible.
Faster, please.
“Top 20 Theories on Why the EU Committed Cultural Suicide.” They’re not mutually exclusive. And the piece needs an entry for cultural relativism/Frankfurt School and a Gramscian “war of position” against civil society.
Digital media hasn’t become the antidote to television. Digital media, empowered by the serum of algorithmic feeds, has become super-television: more images, more videos, more isolation. Home-alone time has surged as our devices have become more bottomless feeds of video content. Rather than escape the solitude crisis that Putnam described in the 1990s, we now seem to be more on our own. (Not to mention: meaner and stupider, too.)
It would be rash to blame our berserk political moment entirely on short-form video, but it would be careless to forget that some people really did try to warn us that this was coming. In Amusing Ourselves to Death1, Neil Postman wrote that “each medium, like language itself, makes possible a unique mode of discourse by providing a new orientation for thought, for expression, for sensibility.” Television speaks to us in a particular dialect, Postman argued. When everything turns into television, every form of communication starts to adopt television’s values: immediacy, emotion, spectacle, brevity. In the glow of a local news program, or an outraged news feed, the viewer bathes in a vat of their own cortisol. When everything is urgent, nothing is truly important. Politics becomes theater. Science becomes storytelling. News becomes performance. The result, Postman warned, is a society that forgets how to think in paragraphs, and learns instead to think in scenes.
Snip.
Short-form video is indistinguishable from what today’s youth consider the definition of American success. For five straight years, Gen Z has told pollsters that the thing they most want to be when they grow up is an “influencer.”
When literally everything becomes television, what disappears is not something so broad as intelligence (although that seems to be going, too) but something harder to put into words, and even harder to prove the value of. It’s something like inwardness. The capacity for solitude, for sustained attention, for meaning that penetrates inward rather than swipes away at the tip of a finger: These virtues feel out of step with a world where every medium is the same medium and everything in life converges to the value system of the same thing, which is television.
I’m not free from guilt myself. I only turn on my TV one day a week, but I watch waaaaaaay too much YouTube. (Previously.) (Hat tip: Greg Ellifritz via Dwight.)
GM to iPhone users: Drop dead. “General Motors is dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto support across all of its brands—Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC.”
“Microsoft just revealed that OpenAI lost more than $11.5B last quarter.” “If Microsoft owns 27 percent of OpenAI, it stands to reason under equity accounting that it bears 27 percent of OpenAI’s losses. Microsoft’s admission that it shaved $3.1 billion off its net income to account for its share of OpenAI losses therefore suggests OpenAI lost about $11.5 billion during the quarter.”
“Quentin Tarantino’s KILL BILL: THE WHOLE BLOODY AFFAIR unites Volume 1 and Volume 2 into a single, unrated epic—presented exactly as he intended, complete with a new, never-before-seen anime sequence.”
Coming to theaters in December. If I wasn’t in financial turtle mode, I’d probably go out and see it…
