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Some are estimating that more than half of federal income tax revenues are devoured by fraud. This should not come as a shock. A massive government that funds everything from small businesses to health care to child care to housing is a rich target for thieves. Sharply reducing its size would limit the opportunities to steal from taxpayers.
Bandits have been defrauding of the U.S. government on such a colossal scale that even the legacy media has had to cover it, at least somewhat. The Minnesota Somalis looting the public fisc blew the lid so high that now smart folks are finding institutionalized fraud far, wide, high and low.
Exit Walz, stage Biden?
replies
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has called a press conference at 11:00 a.m. (Central) this morning. He has not specified the subject. Those usually in the know speculate that he will announce the abandonment of his campaign for reelection to a third term despite the stellar job he has done, at least by his own lights.
Walz is guilty of an old-fashioned kind of political corruption magnified to the nth degree by an absurdly creative welfare state. He has compiled the worst record of any governor in the history of Minnesota. It has surpassed his ability to talk his way out of it in his accusomed Joe Isuzu style. He should ride
My family plays a regular Dungeons & Dragons game, which I’ve referenced before in A Knight’s Tale. For those who have never played, D&D is essentially a shared story constrained by rules, terrific fun for people who enjoy storytelling. In our game, we kept running into cultists devoted to Orcus, a demon king.
Eventually, it became clear that something more ambitious was going on. These cultists were not merely serving a powerful demon. They were advancing his attempt to become something more. Alongside Orcus the demon existed Orcus the Roman god, a judge of the dead associated with oaths, punishment, and the underworld. By infiltrating temples meant for the god,
In The Mandalorian series, which was pretty good when Gina Carano was in it and the only Star Wars spin off I managed to really get into (it helped that Pedro Pascal was just a suit of armour) The Mandalorian has a repeated catch phrase that sums up the ethos of his people:
This is the Way.
It means there’s a right way of doing things, an honourable way of doing things, a right and competent way of doing things. The measure of a people is found in the degree to which they apply a code and the strength they show in holding to it.
Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is real, and it's infected the Democratic Party in ways that defy all understanding. One of the most TDS-afflicted Democrats is Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, who hasn't met an illegal immigrant he didn't want to have margaritas with, but who has scant time for the victims of Biden's open-borders policies, including Maryland mom Rachel Morin, who was raped and murdered by an illegal immigrant named Victor Martinez-Hernandez.
Like most of his fellow Democrats, Van Hollen is upset his communist comrade in Venezuela was deposed and captured by President Trump. Van Hollen issued a statement on X about it earlier on Saturday.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s newly appointed tenant advocate called to “seize private property” and blasted home ownership as a “weapon of white supremacy” in a series of pro-communist social media posts.
Cea Weaver, Mamdani’s new director of the city Office to Protect Tenants, made the statements and urged her followers to elect more communists in several lecturing posts on her now-deleted X account that were unearthed by internet sleuths. “Seize private property!” she said on June 13, 2018. She later doubled down on that in a mini-manifesto on August 2019.
Tantrums, Tarmac Cash, Trump Boycotts,
and a French-Fried Clooney: RedState's
Week in Review replies
and a French-Fried Clooney: RedState's
Week in Review replies
Welcome to the RedState Weekly Briefing — where we take a quick look at the week’s most viewed stories in case you missed any of them. What do you suppose caught people's attention as we moved past the holiday lull? Grab a cup of coffee (or something stronger if you're so inclined), and sit down with this 21st Century Weekend Edition of your favorite (online) publication. Now, if Walz had any sense, his response should have been, "Thank you for the help, we will do everything we can to comply and help ensure that any fraud is stopped." He would take responsibility and say he's going to clean things up.
In a panic over the United States arresting Nicolás Maduro this weekend, Colombia's President Gustavo Petro and Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called an emergency meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) on Sunday, with the support of Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum.
For those who don't know, CELAC is an alternative to the Organization of American States (OAS) that includes 33 countries from the Caribbean and Latin America. Unlike OAS, it excludes the United States and Canada, citing a desire for regional autonomy.
Petro, Lula, and Sheinbaum had the idea that they were going to issue a CELAC communiqué
After Maduro, who’s next? Trump spurs
speculation about his plans for Greenland,
Cuba and Colombia replies
speculation about his plans for Greenland,
Cuba and Colombia replies
A day after the audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela, President Donald Trump on Sunday renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests and threatened military action on Colombia for facilitating the global sale of cocaine, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”
The comments from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the ouster of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro underscore that the U.S. administration is serious about taking a more expansive role in the Western Hemisphere.
With thinly veiled threats,
Khamenei Preparing to Flee
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The London Times reports that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is making plans to flee to Russia if protests against his misrule continue:
Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has a back-up plan to flee the country should his security forces fail to suppress protests or desert, according to an intelligence report shared with The Times.
Khamenei, 86, plans to escape Tehran with a close circle of up to 20 aides and family, should he see that the army and security called on to quell the unrest are deserting, defecting or failing to follow orders.
Which is how unpopular dictatorships collapse.
Elon Musk shared a photo of himself dining with President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump, adding that “2026 is going to be amazing.”
“Had a lovely dinner last night with @POTUS and @FLOTUS,” Musk wrote in a post on X on Sunday. “2026 is going to be amazing!”
Musk’s post included a photo of himself sitting at a table with the president and the first lady. Breitbart News’s Nick Gilbertson reported in September that Trump and Musk were seen sitting together and shaking hands at a tribute service for Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk, after Kirk was assassinated.
The moment between Trump and Musk
The Washington Post editorial board on Saturday broke with the predictable Democrat response of condemning President Donald Trump’s capture of embattled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife Celia Flores and called the military operation “a major victory for American interests.”
In an editorial titled “Justice in Venezuela,” the board wrote:
Millions of people around the world, most of all in Venezuela, are celebrating the downfall of the dictator Nicolás Maduro. President Donald Trump’s decision to capture him on Saturday was one of the boldest moves a president has made in years, and the operation was an unquestionable tactical success. The next step is ensuring
It was hardly necessary to consult the Delphic Oracle to know that every Democrat within reach of a microphone would denounce President Trump’s military action against Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. It was, however, surprising to discover how ignorant the Democrats are about the President’s authority to deploy military forces. Saturday morning, for example, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) brayed, “The Trump administration has not sought congressional authorization for the use of military force and has failed to properly notify Congress in advance of the operation in Venezuela.” Jeffries is evidently unaware of the War Powers Resolution of 1973 (WPR).
Whoops: Schumer's 'Open Mouth, Insert
Foot' Moment as Dems' Hypocrisy Hits Hyper
Drive on Venezuela replies
Foot' Moment as Dems' Hypocrisy Hits Hyper
Drive on Venezuela replies
Democrats have been losing their minds over President Donald Trump's actions in Venezuela to capture and arrest the dictator Nicolás Maduro, who was wanted in the United States and had been under indictment for five years.
We saw Democrats calling it illegal and claiming that Trump needed Congressional approval to effect Maduro's arrest. Their hypocrisy is something else. Do they recall how many civilians Barack Obama in foreign countries reportedly took out with his drone actions, which led to some referring to him as the Droner-in-Chief?
Obama embraced the US drone programme, overseeing more strikes in his first year than Bush carried out during his entire presidency.
Nicolás Maduro will be exchanging the trappings of power in Venezuela for an orange jumpsuit in New York.
President Trump capped an extraordinary pressure campaign against the Venezuelan leader with an audacious, technically proficient snatch-and-grab operation in the predawn hours.
That Trump pulled the trigger after months of what many believed was a gigantic bluff sends a message about the seriousness of his threats that will be duly noted from Havana to Tehran. The leaders of Mexican drug cartels, in particular, have to be anxious about their own futures
It’s been over a year now since her humiliating loss to President Donald Trump, yet for some reason, Kamala Harris still hasn’t figured out that she’s a joke and should fade away into the sunset rather than subject herself to future embarrassment for opening her mouth.
Like many other Democrats who have decided that opposing the capture of a dictator is the hill they want to die on, Kamala took to X on Saturday to condemn Donald Trump's successful military operation that captured Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
I guess she’s still on the DNC email list for the latest talking points. "Donald Trump’s actions in Venezuela do not
A Brooklyn Park man has pleaded guilty in Hennepin County District Court to theft by false representation for defrauding the Medicaid program of nearly $200,000 while working at a Minneapolis physical therapy business. However, the plea deal calls for no prison time and grants him over 160 years to pay restitution. (snip) The plea agreement calls for a stay-of-imposition of the felony sentence, meaning no prison time, and the conviction level will drop to a misdemeanor upon successful completion of five years' probation.
DHS encourages Venezuelans in the US to
go home ‘to the country they love’
now that Maduro is gone replies
go home ‘to the country they love’
now that Maduro is gone replies
The Department of Homeland Security pushed back Thursday against claims that Venezuelan migrants are being encouraged to apply for refugee status in the United States, stating instead that hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans can now return home following major policy changes under President Donald Trump.
The clarification came after an online post by Leading Report claimed that Venezuelans could apply to become refugees in the US, citing remarks attributed to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. DHS publicly rejected that characterization, calling it inaccurate.
“This is not what Secretary Noem said,” DHS wrote in a statement posted to X. “President Trump is bringing stability to Venezuela and bringing to justice an illegitimate narco-terrorist dictator
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is fundraising in protest of the Trump administration’s capture of Venezuela’s illegitimate socialist dictator, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores.
“Another day, another unconstitutional war from Trump, who thinks the Constitution is a suggestion,” an email from the DNC reads, per Town Hall. “Congress has war powers — but Republican cowards are hiding under their desks while Trump orders an unauthorized attack against Venezuela. Trump promised peace, but has delivered chaos.”
“The most important thing we can do is elect more Democrats who will check this administration’s power,” the email continues.
A large part of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s security team was killed during Saturday’s US operation, the country’s Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said Sunday, Anadolu reports.
In a televised speech, Padrino accused the US military personnel who carried out operation of “cold-bloodedly murdering a large part of (Maduro’s) security team, soldiers, and innocent citizens.”
He did not give further details about the number of victims.
Padrino also called Maduro the country’s “authentic and legitimate leader.”
His remarks came a day after President Donald Trump said US military action on Saturday resulted in the capture of Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, pledging to assert American control
It is no secret that the Democrats, and many Republicans!, aggressively blocked President Trump’s desire to protect the American people and build a border wall on the southern border with Mexico during his first term. Democrat attempts to block the wall in spite of significant evidence that it was obviously needed indicated there was an unknown reason for their defiance.
In May of 2016, US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi visited the President of Mexico along with other Congressmen, including little known Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke. Pelosi stated about the meetings – It is not clear what the discussions all entailed but after this visit, the Mexican President
Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, who was sworn in on Saturday, is not the country’s legitimate leader, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said. Rubio spoke with Rodriguez — the country’s vice president — after the US conducted a daring military operation to capture the former Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro. However, he suggested the US will not support her staying in power. He called for elections to determine the next leader of the beleaguered South American country.
President Trump and other top officials were caught watching the Venezuelan raid in real-time. Obama watching the bin Laden raid in the Situation Room was a similar moment and photo op. But someone was missing in the Trump photos: Vice President JD Vance. Where was he?[snip] Vance was kept away because the administration was becoming uneasy about having both men in the exact location, given the security conditions. It was a designated survivor scenario. Vance was involved with the raid:
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service has stepped in to offer free broadband access across Venezuela until February 3, 2026, aiming to maintain vital connectivity for citizens amid unprecedented political chaos triggered by a US military strike that captured former President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The announcement, which was posted on X by Starlink, stated, “Starlink is providing free broadband service to the people of Venezuela through February 3, ensuring continued connectivity.” Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO, reposted the message with strong endorsement: “In support of the people of Venezuela.”