Category: Just Desserts

Tim Walz drops out of Minnesota governor’s race amid fraud scandal

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has ended his reelection bid amid mounting pressure over a fraud scandal that has engulfed his administration in recent weeks.

The move comes days after a handful of Republican state lawmakers asked Walz to leave office, citing reports from a U.S. Attorney that, since 2018, at least half of the $18 billion paid through Minnesota’s 14 Medicaid waiver programs could be fraudulent, and after Republicans in Congress called on Walz to testify about his failure to address the crisis.

Walz, the former vice presidential candidate on Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign, cited the growing pressure as one of the reasons for his decision to leave the race, though he pushed back on claims that he has not adequately attempted to curb the crisis.

“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,” he said.

“So I’ve decided to step out of the race and let others worry about the election while I focus on the work,” Walz continued in the statement.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, head of the Democratic Governor’s association, commended Walz’ leadership and reasserted his confidence that, “no matter who decides to run,” Democrats would win the state in the 2026 governor’s race. The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan group that analyzes state, federal and presidential elections, labels the Minnesota race as “likely Democrat.”

Walz has scheduled a news conference Jan. 5 at 1 p.m. ET to address his decision.

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Trump admin halts all childcare payments to Minnesota after massive fraud allegations: ‘We have turned off the money spigot.’

The Trump administration is freezing all childcare payments to Minnesota and demanding a comprehensive audit of the state’s day care centers as a mushrooming billion-dollar fraud scandal engulfs the state’s human services department.

“We have frozen all child care payments to the state of Minnesota,” Deputy Health and Human Services Secretary Jim O’Neill wrote on X Tuesday afternoon, days after a viral video investigating alleged fraud at day care centers in the state drew national attention.

Minnesota has received $185 million in childcare payments from the Trump administration this year, according to Alex Adams, assistant secretary of HHS’ Administration for Children and Families.

The “funds will be released only when states prove they are being spent legitimately,” the HHS secretary said.

O’Neill said Minnesota has “funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to fraudulent daycares across Minnesota over the past decade,” and outlined three actions the department has taken in an attempt to cut off the flow of exploitable funds.

Millions of taxpayer dollars have gone to facilities like the “Quality Learing Center” which is at the center of fraud allegations.LP Media for NY Post

The first action will impose the requirement for “a receipt or photo evidence” for any payments made to states through the US Administration for Children & Families (ACF).O’Neill said he has “demanded” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz conduct a “comprehensive audit” of the centers highlighted.

“This includes attendance records, licenses, complaints, investigations, and inspections,” he writes.

He specifically cited YouTuber Nick Shirley’s video published on Friday, in which he visited day care centers across Minneapolis receiving millions in state funds that appeared to be closed or out of operation.

Third, HHS has launched a hotline and email address dedicated to reporting fraud at childcare.gov.

Here’s the latest on the Minnesota fraud scheme:

“Whether you are a parent, provider, or member of the general public, we want to hear from you,” he said.

“We have turned off the money spigot and we are finding the fraud.”

So far at least $1 billion in fraud has been confirmed by authorities, and 92 people have been charged, 82 of whom are Somali immigrants, according to the US Attorney’s office, which warned the number could be as high as $9 billion.

NC county dissolves library board after vote to keep kids transgender-themed picture book. 

A library board of trustees in North Carolina has been dissolved after the board voted to keep a picture book about a transgender boy.

On Dec. 8, the Randolph County commissioners voted 3-2 to remove the Randolph County Public Library’s board of trustees.

The library’s board voted 5-2 in October to keep “Call Me Max,” a book about a transgender boy, on the shelves.

Part of the book’s second chapter reads, “On the first day of school, the teacher called out our names. ‘Emory?’ ‘Here!’ ‘Stella?’ ‘Me!’”

“I raised my hand when she got to my name,” the child, who wants to be called “Max,” muses. “She looked at me. And then at the list of names. And then back at me again.”

The child says, “I wondered if she thought my name didn’t make sense for me. I felt that way too.”

“Can you call me Max?” the child in the book asks. “Max is the boy in my favorite book. She nodded and wrote it down. (I won’t tell you what my old name was. That’s private.)”

“Call Me Max” is authored by trans writer Kyle Lukoff, and the Amazon description of the book calls it “a sweet and age-appropriate introduction to what it means to be transgender.”

The Randolph County Public Library and the Randolph County commissioners did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Like that ‘not a cartel per se’ matters

US labels Maduro-tied Cartel de los Soles as a terror organization. It’s not a cartel per se

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration has ramped up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by designating the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization. But the entity that the U.S. government alleges is led by Maduro is not a cartel per se.

The designation, published Monday in the Federal Register, is the latest measure in the Trump administration’s escalating campaign to combat drug trafficking into the U.S. In previewing the step about a week ago, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Cartel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns, of being “responsible for terrorist violence” in the Western Hemisphere.

The move comes as Trump evaluates whether to take military action against Venezuela, which he has not ruled out despite bringing up the possibility of talks with Maduro. Land strikes or other actions would be a major expansion of the monthslong operation that has included a massive military buildup in the Caribbean Sea and striking boats accused of trafficking drugs, killing more than 80 people.

Venezuelans began using the term Cartel de los Soles in the 1990s to refer to high-ranking military officers who had grown rich from drug-running. As corruption expanded nationwide, first under the late President Hugo Chávez and then under Maduro, its use loosely expanded to police and government officials as well as activities like illegal mining and fuel trafficking. The “suns” in the name refer to the epaulettes affixed to the uniforms of high-ranking military officers.

The umbrella term was elevated to a Maduro-led drug-trafficking organization in 2020, when the U.S. Justice Department in Trump’s first term announced the indictment of Venezuela’s leader and his inner circle on narcoterrorism and other charges.

“It is not a group,” said Adam Isaacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America organization. “It’s not like a group that people would ever identify themselves as members. They don’t have regular meetings. They don’t have a hierarchy.”

Maduro’s government in a statement Monday categorically denied the existence of the cartel, describing the Trump administration’s accusation as a “ridiculous fabrication” meant to “justify an illegitimate and illegal intervention against Venezuela.”

Up until this year, the label of foreign terrorist organization had been reserved for groups like the Islamic State or al-Qaida that use violence for political ends. The Trump administration applied it in February to eight Latin American criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking, migrant smuggling and other activities.

The administration blames such designated groups for operating the boats it is striking but rarely identifies the organizations and has not provided any evidence. It says the attacks , which began off the coast of Venezuela and later expanded to the eastern Pacific Ocean, are meant to stop narcotics from flowing to American cities.

But many — including Maduro himself — see the military moves as an effort to end the ruling party’s 26-year hold on power.

Since the arrival of U.S. military vessels and troops to the Caribbean months ago, Venezuela’s U.S.-backed political opposition also has reignited its perennial promise of removing Maduro from office, fueling speculation over the purpose of what the Trump administration has called a counterdrug operation.

 

Trump Cuts Off Tax Money Pipeline to Gun Control Groups

There’s little that is as upsetting as seeing your tax dollars spent on something you are morally opposed to with every fiber of your being. It’s especially upsetting when that something is an attack on one of our basic civil liberties that’s expressly protected by the United States Constitution.

However, as we found out earlier this year, our tax money was ending up in the bank accounts of various gun control groups, thus we were being forced to fund the effort to strip us of our God-given right to keep and bear arms.

Much of that funding was cut off already, but not all of it.

As the NRA-ILA notes, though, President Trump has cut off even more.

The loss of funding resulted in a lawsuit against the Trump administration brought by five non-profit entities, lead by the progressive Vera Institute of Justice, alleging the cuts were unconstitutional, illegal, and arbitrary and capricious. In July, an Obama-appointed judge of the federal district court for the District of Columbia denied injunctive relief and granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss, ruling that the plaintiffs failed to show the court had jurisdiction over their arbitrary and capricious claim and failed “to demonstrate a violation of any constitutional right or protection.”

The other shoe on these grants has just dropped.

The Trump administration has reportedly retooled the eligibility criteria and focus for these grants going forward. Eligibility to apply for an estimated $34 million in grant money has changed to exclude community-based organizations and non-profit applicants.

The focus is more explicitly on “supporting law enforcement efforts to reduce violent crime and improv[ing] police-community relations” through law enforcement officer and related personnel hiring, equipment purchases that specifically support violence prevention and intervention, youth violence intervention programs, and generally by “increasing the capacity of local government, law enforcement, and the criminal justice system to coordinate comprehensive crime reduction strategies.”…

A look through the archived list of past federal grant recipients (FY 2022 and FY 2023) shows that many of the previous CVIPI grantees have also been funded by Everytown Support Fund’s Community Safety Fund. A very cursory examination of the archived list also reveals a few grant recipients with clear anti-Second Amendment, pro-gun control elements.

Let’s understand that no matter what a program accomplishes with regard to reducing violent crime, if they don’t support gun control, Everytown isn’t backing them. I don’t care what they might claim in that regard; that’s just the simple truth. They’re an anti-Second Amendment organization, and they only support their fellow travelers.

But by changing the criteria like they did, the DOJ has cut off funding that might not explicitly go toward gun control, but would free up other revenue for those purposes. Something else I don’t care about is the claim that the money wasn’t for anti-gun activities, because money is fungible and a dollar in is a dollar in. They only promise not to use X amount for anti-gun efforts.

While gun control organizations are trying to frame this as killing efforts to prevent so-called gun violence, the reality is that there’s little evidence these efforts did a damn thing. Plus, if Everytown and its buddies are that bothered, they’re free to issue their own grants. I’m sure Michael Bloomberg has a spare $34 million lying around.

Why should we, the American people, be on the hook for something that doesn’t seem to do much?

Gov’t. Grant Money for ‘Gun Violence Prevention’ Withheld from Non-Profits

By Dave Workman

The Guardian is reporting that the Trump administration is this year cutting off government grants for so-called “gun violence prevention” programs to certain non-profit groups which the grants were reportedly built around.

While the news agency didn’t specifically say so, there have been concerns within the Second Amendment community that public funds were being utilized by some groups to push a gun control agenda. Essentially, gun owners—as taxpayers—were helping to fund efforts which ultimately were aimed at eroding their Second Amendment rights. At least, that’s the concern.

According to The Guardian, “The Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (CVIPI), was created in 2022, to support groups working in rural and urban communities struggling to address violence and fund research studying the programs’ efficacy.”

But following Donald Trunmp’s return to the White House, these “community-based organizations” were allowed to apply for grant funds. Now, those monies are limited to city, county and tribal governments, and the new goal of the program is to “support law enforcement efforts to reduce violent crime and improve police-community relations.”

As noted by The Guardian, when Trump returned to office in January, he immediately dismantled Joe Biden’s White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which was a thinly-veiled “in-house” gun control effort. Instead, Trump nominated Pam Bondi to the office of Attorney General, and she has subsequently led the Justice Department in a full 180-degree shift from gun control to Second Amendment protection. The DOJ, with Harmeet Dhillon as U.S. assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights essentially leading the charge, has gone after the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for dragging its feet in the issuance of carry permits, holding up the process for up to two years.

Dhillon has also argued against the semi-auto ban in Illinois before the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Earlier this year, the Guardian noted that the Justice Department cut more than $800 million in grants that would have gone to “organizations that prevent and respond to gun violence, sexual assault and hate crimes” and other groups.

Trump Administration Cuts Flow of Tax Dollars Funneled to Leftist Gun Control Orgs and NGOs.

The Trump administration has released solicitations for a grant program meant to stop gun violence in underserved communities. But this year, the non-profits the grant was built around are disqualified from applying, according to an application notice released by the Department of Justice (DoJ) in September.

The Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (CVIPI), was created in 2022, to support groups working in rural and urban communities struggling to address violence and fund research studying the programs’ efficacy.

The pioneering program was born out of a recognition by the Biden administration that such community-centered programs were among the most successful tools in combating the US’ deep-rooted gun violence problem, and had played a crucial role in helping reduce homicides in major US cities.

Before Trump’s inauguration, community-based organizations, non-profits and local and state governments were eligible to apply for the grant. Now, only city, county and tribal governments are allowed. And the stated goal of the program has been changed from “comprehensive, community-based prevention” to “supports law enforcement efforts to reduce violent crime and improve police-community relations”.

Since 2022, the federal government has awarded more than $300m to over 120 non-profits, city and county governments and research institutions through the initiative, according to an archived list of grant recipients.

The department of justice, which oversees CVIPI, did not respond to a request for comment.

The changes at CVIPI are the latest in the Trump administration’s heel-turn from the Biden administration’s approach to gun violence prevention, which positioned Black and Latino-led groups working to address violence as legitimate solutions to crime in the nation’s hardest hit locales. Shortly after his inauguration, Trump dismantled the White House office of gun violence prevention, and in March his administration removed the former surgeon general Vivek Murthy’s advisory on gun violence as a public health issue from the US Department of Health and Human Services’ website.

— Abené Clayton in Gun violence prevention groups disqualified from grants built around their work

 

Lord Rothschild: Trump Is Threatening To Destroy The New World Order

Lord Rothschild has warned that President Donald Trump threatens to destroy the New World Order and “must be stopped at all costs.”

Rothschild family-owned magazine, The Economist, branded Trump a “present danger” to the “New World Order” and admitted that the globalist elitists that formed it are “spinning in their graves.”

“Perhaps the greatest danger at present is the incumbency of an American president who despises international norms, who disparages free trade and who continually flirts with abandoning America’s essential role in maintaining the global legal order,” writes The Economist.

Infowars.com reports:  Despite listing off legitimate threats like jihadism and terrorism, Communist Chinese expansion, and North Korean hostility, an article published by The Economist names Trump as the biggest threat to the “liberal” New World Order.

Iran’s Quds Force Commander Esmail Qaani killed in Israeli strike, reports say. Who was he?

Esmail Qaani took command of Iran’s Quds Force after the assassination of his predecessor, Qasem Soleimani, in a US drone strike in 2020

The Quds Force is an elite branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) responsible for extraterritorial military operations and supporting proxy groups across the Middle East.

Qaani began his military career during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, leading several brigades before becoming deputy commander of the Quds Force in 1997, serving under Soleimani. Unlike Soleimani, who was often seen on the frontlines with Tehran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria, Qaani has maintained a lower profile, conducting meetings privately and away from public view. His leadership has coincided with increased Israeli airstrikes against Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah and other paramilitary groups.

In October 2024, Qaani was reported missing after Israeli airstrikes targeted the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh. He had travelled to Lebanon following the death of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike in late September. The attack also targeted Hashem Safieddine, Nasrallah’s presumed successor, who has also been unreachable since.

“Moments ago, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival”
– Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

IAF launches major strike on Iran and its nuclear program; PM: A decisive point in our history

Iran has been secretly advancing a plan for the “technological advancement of all parts of the development of a nuclear weapon,” the Israeli military says, after launching strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Reported to have been killed, so far:

Mohammad Bagherim, Chief of the Iranian military
Gholam Ali Rashid, Deputy Chief of the Iranian military
Hossein Salami, Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
Ali Shamkhani, reported to be Supreme Leader Khamenei’s right hand man
Mohammad Tehranchi, President, Azad University, theoretical physicist.
Fereydoon Abbasi, former head, Atomic Energy Organization & MP.

Strikes reported on:

The D2O (heavy water) manufacturing facility in Arak.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps HQ in Tehran
The Natanz uranium enrichment facility in Isfahan