Saturday, June 27, 2026
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Eight North Carolina women pleaded guilty in a $25 million Covid fraud scheme.
And as they say, your name is your destiny.
Two of the defendants are named “Leach” and “Swindell.”
According to federal prosecutors a Robeson County woman who owned a tax return preparation business conspired with others to prepare false tax returns claiming fraudulent refunds based on Covid tax credits.
Seven other co-conspirators were arrested and charged for preparing federal tax returns for clients. Per the DOJ:A Robeson County woman who was the owner of a North Carolina tax return preparation business pleaded guilty to conspiring to prepare false returns claiming fraudulent refunds based on COVID-19 tax credits,
Dispatches from My Coma
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As readers may recall, in recent years, after announcing a rare bit of activity from yours truly, I have generally observed that I am engaging in such against the advice of my doctors. So it was that I spent over a month in Ukraine, venturing hither and yon and trying to stay one step ahead of the bombs and drones. I was thinking, since that went so well, I'd rest up for a few weeks and maybe head to the Persian Gulf. Alas, that will not now be happening.
The decisive primary sweep by NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s left-wing comrades gave Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez such an ego boost that Democratic insiders predict it could spur a White House bid in 2028.
The “Squad’s” queen bee may ditch her long-anticipated plot to unseat Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for bigger game after three radical Mamdani-backed insurgents running for House seats on Tuesday defeated old-guard Dems, pushing the party even further left, the insiders said.
“New York’s clean sweep was a political earthquake that shows voters generally want to shake up the system,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.
Do you realize how crushing these 2 Supreme
Court rulings are for the Left’s sabotage machine? replies
Court rulings are for the Left’s sabotage machine? replies
The formula was sinister and simple. Trump announces a new immigration policy. That cues progressive activist groups to race to court and file a lawsuit. A friendly federal activist judge somewhere in California, Hawaii, or D.C. slaps an injunction on the policy, and just like that, everything grinds to a screeching halt. The left is hoping that months drag on and turn into years, letting the lawsuits pile up, and hopefully the policy dies a slow, lonely death before the American people ever get to see if it works.
This was the Left’s weaponized political strategy, and for a while, it worked. It stalled Trump’s agenda
Multiple countries have proposed ‘digital service taxes’ which are taxes on the domestic use of American tech platforms like META, Twitter, Amazon etc. EU countries are planning to tax U.S. based tech platforms for the revenues generated by operations within EU countries.
President Trump announces retaliatory action via reciprocity taxes, in essence leveraging the entirety of the U.S. consumer market, if the EU proceed with this new tax revenue scheme against U.S. companies. Canada was on the cusp of a digital services tax last year when Trump made a similar announcement forcing Canada to abandon the plan.
The Democratic Socialists of America have adopted a strategy to exploit the Democratic Party’s ballot access to boost their own candidates at the expense of incumbents, a plan which achieved remarkable success in New York City this week.
The victory of two DSA-backed candidates and one former member delivered a shock to the Democratic Party establishment, which has begun to call for better policing of the party’s primaries against candidates who are only seeking to exploit it, not join it.
“I say this with no ill will or animosity: if you hate the Democratic Party, then please don’t run for our nomination,”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is pointedly warning leftist nonprofits engaged in fraud, violence, improper politics, foreign collusion or terrorism that they could face penalties far more severe than just losing their tax-exempt status, including criminal prosecutions of their officers and trustees and the forfeiture of their financial assets.
"Nonprofit status is a privilege," Bessent said Friday night in a wide-ranging interview on the Just the News, No Noise television show. "It is a privilege, the right to be exempt from paying taxes, being able to take donations that are tax-deductible, and have private citizens apply that against their taxes.
In a video message, Mamdani criticized the 6-3 decision from the Supreme Court, stating that it “is putting so many people’s lives in jeopardy,” adding that New Yorkers stand “in solidarity with all of those who are concerned” by the ruling.
In his video message, Mamdani also stated that it was “cruel” to have “people who frankly taught the world about freedom, have their own freedom be put in jeopardy,” the New York Post reported.
“Many of you know, this is a city of eight and a half million people, more than three million of us were born elsewhere —
California's lunatic "wealth tax," it seems, is to be on the 2026 ballot. It's one of the dumbest ideas in the history of taxation, advocated and planned by some of the most economically ignorant people to ever turn oxygen into CO2, which doesn't mean plenty of lefties won't vote for it. The once-Golden State's impeccably coiffed Governor Gavin Newsom, with a note of panic in his virtual voice, wants Californians to know he's voting "no," and why he wants them to vote against the measure as well. It's a little late to be worried about that now; this has been a key part of the Great Sorting,
Rahm Emanuel knows his way around Democrat politics. He was chief of staff in the Obama White House and served as mayor of Chicago. During a recent appearance on CNN, he spoke about the DSA victories in New York City this week and he made a very good point.
These wins didn’t really help the Democrats to grow. They only took blue seats and made them darker blue.
There are plenty of reasons for conservatives to dislike Rahm Emanuel, but he is exactly right about this.
Did Angela Merkel Work for the Stasi? Officially, no.... She has repeatedly stated that she refused recruitment attempts, notably in the late 1970s when applying for an academic position.
Unofficially, however, the extreme and ongoing protection of her Stasi-related files raises legitimate and troubling questions. In March 2026, the Berlin Administrative Court upheld the Federal Archives' refusal to grant access to any documents concerning her, even to researchers. This decision shields one of modern Europe's most consequential leaders from full historical scrutiny -- decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
By statute, the approval process of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is to determine the safety and effectiveness of a new drug. If both requirements are met, the new drug is approved. The process usually takes roughly a decade.
Most people would reasonably assume the lengthy approval process is due to the need to prove a new drug is safe for use by patients. But the years-long lag between a drug’s submission for approval and its arrival on the market often stems from the process of assessing its effectiveness.
The easiest way to think about it is this: determining safety protects patients; determining effectiveness protects consumers.
Though a Virginia judge has granted an injunction blocking the state police from enforcing the gun and magazine ban that's set to take effect on July 1, a spokesperson for Virginia Attorney General Jay "Two Bullets" Jones says the injunction doesn't stop local prosecutors and police from enforcing the law. More than a dozen Commonwealth's Attorneys have publicly stated they have no plans to do so, and that was before a judge in Lancaster County granted a motion for an injunction in Crump v. Katz on Thursday afternoon.
We're also still awaiting a decision from a judge in Washington County, Virginia, where the NRA and Virginia Shooting Sports Association,
The UK paid nearly £1,400 per megawatt hour – about 17 times the normal prices – on Wednesday evening to obtain emergency supplies from the Continent in a move set to add £11 million to bills.
National Energy Systems Operator (Neso), which balances daily electricity supply and demand, paid the sky-high prices after a shortfall in energy generated from domestic solar and gas-fired power stations left the UK scrambling for supplies.
The situation meant Neso was forced to obtain a special dispensation from its EU counterparts to buy the power. The EU has limited sales to the UK because of the effect on the Continent’s own electricity supplies.
Rental prices for the 46 million Americans who rent their homes are finally reversing, and there’s speculation President Donald Trump’s border security and deportation policies are a driving factor. With over three million illegal aliens either voluntarily leaving the country or deported since President Trump took office according to the Department of Homeland Security, rental homes are freeing up for U.S. citizens across major metro areas.
According to the latest Apartment List National Rent Report released May 27, rental prices are down 1.5 percent nationally compared to one year ago. This is the lowest year over year rent increase since 2017.
While Americans were firing up grills and welcoming the start of summer over Memorial Day weekend, a quiet bombshell dropped half a world away that has reshaped the global artificial intelligence (AI) race. Chinese tech giant Huawei has announced a massive breakthrough in its semiconductor capabilities. This should serve as a stark wake-up call. This fall, Huawei will be releasing new smartphone chips to compete against US tech firms using a new engineering technique known as “LogicFolding.” This innovation redesigns the bottom layer of semiconductors to shorten the distance data must travel between components,
Trojan Horse Politicians
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There’s a particular dangerous breed of dishonest Democrat politician who speaks in moderate terms to get elected, only to govern as a radical.
America is threatened not only by its openly radical elements, but by politicians who present themselves as reasonable moderates while advancing policies that steadily undermine the foundations of American capitalism and constitutional government.
I want America to survive as the exceptional country I grew up in. That requires us to confront an uncomfortable reality.
Every day, Americans are told that the greatest threats to our future come from foreign adversaries, economic competition, or political polarization.
So my site access has been restored but my WiFi access continues to be spotty as my ocean-going continues, but it did prompt the first graphic in this week’s gallery by the producers of the Ricochet podcast, where I ended up being a mostly silent spectator this week between 10-second bursts of connection, which was about all I needed for my very few five-second bursts of lucidity.
Meanwhile, I still haven’t been able to restore my old hijacked Twitter account, so I have launched a new one: @RealStevenHayward. Follow if you’re into the whole social media thing. I think I’ll be more like that RealOtherGuy and do more polemic entries than
A Utah judge in the case against the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk ruled Friday to hold a prosecutor in civil contempt for violating a pretrial publicity order but opted to leave the death penalty in place as a possible outcome in the murder trial.
The defense’s contempt motion stemmed from comments prosecutor Christopher Ballard, also a spokesperson for the Utah County Attorney’s Office, made to media outlets this spring about an inconclusive ballistics report mentioned in a defense filing.
While trying to clarify the results of the report to reporters, Ballard also referenced the strength of the state’s case against Tyler Robinson – statements the judge on Friday
The Southern United States is growing population-wise at break-neck speed, while other areas have not experienced such a boom.
Every age group in the southern portion of the country grew faster than any other region over the course of several years, Vintage 2025 estimates showed, per the U.S. Census Bureau’s announcement Thursday:
New data released today for all counties in the United States and Puerto Rico provide a closer look at what age groups were driving the growth of U.S. counties across different stages of life: childhood (0-17), young adulthood and higher education (18-24), early work and family-building years (25-44), midlife (45-64), and retirement (65 and older).
Hundreds of commenters are taking part in the debate over whether DACA recipients should be allowed to receive a CDL directly to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Earlier this month, FMCSA published an exemption request related to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients. Jenifer Sanchez Vilchis, a DACA recipient from California, seeks an immediate, temporary exemption allowing states to issue Class B CDLs to DACA holders. FMCSA gave the public 30 days to comment on the exemption request. Under the rule, an Employment Authorization Document would no longer be enough to obtain a non-domiciled CDL. Additionally, asylum seekers, asylees, refugees and DACA recipients would be ineligible.
On June 23, DHS announced it was seeking to impose fines of $255,232 against Vinod Doddamani, an immigration lawyer operating “a nationwide practice in which he mostly represents Indian nationals”, for allegedly filing “false asylum claims on behalf of his clients”. The basis of that action isn’t mentioned, but it appears the department is dusting off section 274C of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), a little-used civil (not criminal) provision that can result in not-insignificant money penalties for certain immigration-related fraud offenses. Practitioners should take notice — as should applicants.
Former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger announced the launch of a new political action committee aimed at supporting Democrats willing to challenge Republicans he accuses of putting “loyalty to President Donald Trump ahead of loyalty to America.”
Kinzinger, who served as one of two Republicans on the now-defunct January 6 Select Committee, endorsed former President Joe Biden and later former Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential election. In an ad announcing the launch of Back the Bold PAC, he said, “Washington has failed to hold itself accountable to the American people.”
“Trust me, I lived it,” Kinzinger says in the ad. “Too many politicians are afraid to tell the truth,
Pennsylvania joined several other states in declining to participate in the Great American State Fair on the National Mall in Washington, DC, claiming that it was because of “the high cost to taxpayers” and being unable to find businesses willing to “sponsor the booth.”
In a statement to the Hill, a spokesperson from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development cited those reasons, adding that the state “will not be a participant in the Great American State Fair.”
Pennsylvania opting out of participating in the Great American State Fair, which began on June 25 and goes until July 10, comes as other Democrat-governed states such as Maine, Massachusetts, Washington, Illinois, Oregon,