Mortgage program for low-income funded 2nd homes for millionaires

The Department of Agriculture’s Section 502 loan programs help low-income families buy homes with mortgages that don’t require a down payment. But in 2013, an investigation by Reuters found dozens of millionaires took advantage to purchase vacation and rental homes.

Though the millionaires later repaid their loans, the program as a whole covered $500 million in losses from defaults in 2013, or $715 million in today’s money.

That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses.

Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname “Dr. No” by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. Projects that he couldn’t stop, Coburn included in his oversight reports.

Coburn’s Wastebook 2013 included 100 examples of outrageous spending worth nearly $30 billion, including the loans for millionaires.

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com.

Keep reading

SHOCK: German Leftist Rag TAZ Calls for MURDER to Stop AfD From Winning Free Elections

In a stunning display of radical left extremism, the influential German newspaper taz (Die Tageszeitung) has published a column that openly contemplates “forms of resistance – if necessary of a violent nature” against a potential AfD-led state government.

The piece, written by taz editor Jens Uthoff and published August 21, 2026 under the title “Antifaschismus und Militanz: Weckruf zur Wehrhaftigkeit” (“Antifascism and Militancy: A Wake-Up Call for Defensiveness”), comes as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) surges in polls ahead of the September 6 state election in Saxony-Anhalt.

Uthoff writes that executive power in a German state “could soon fall into the hands of the AfD.” Therefore, he declares, “it is imperative to deal with forms of resistance – if necessary of a violent nature.” He frames this as a defensive reaction to a supposed “right-radical coup attempt” rather than left-wing aggression, while carefully denying any “violence romanticism.”

Let’s be crystal clear: the AfD is currently polling between 40 and 43 percent in Saxony-Anhalt – far ahead of the establishment CDU. If voters hand the party a majority or a governing role in free, secret, and general elections, the left’s answer, according to this national newspaper, is to start discussing physical violence.

As the Ostdeutsche Allgemeine (and similar outlets) correctly noted the next day, this is not some fringe blogger ranting. This is a major left-wing editorial voice treating the possibility of citizens voting the “wrong” way as justification for contemplating violence against an elected government.

Keep reading

Israel is sponsoring ads on Ted Cruz’s podcast. Is that legal?

The Israeli government is running advertisements on a popular podcast hosted by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), raising questions about whether the staunchly pro-Israel lawmaker is indirectly receiving campaign funding from a foreign country.

Radio and podcast giant iHeartMedia has syndicated Cruz’s show, “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” since 2022. Because of lobbying-related restrictions, the company cannot legally pay the senator for ad revenue. But, it turns out, that’s not the only way to ensure the money benefits Cruz.

Under an unusual licensing deal, iHeartMedia agreed to donate revenue “associated with (the show’s) advertising sales” to the Truth and Courage PAC, a super PAC dedicated to “ensuring that Ted Cruz is re-elected to the United States Senate.” The company has given at least $1,738,000 of “digital revenue” to the Truth and Courage PAC since 2023, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

The agreement has drawn significant scrutiny from watchdog groups, some of which filed a complaint against Cruz with the FEC alleging he “brazenly violated” laws that bar candidates from receiving corporate donations. Though the senator admitted to having met with representatives from the company to discuss the acquisition of the show, the agency ruled in his favor, finding that there was “no available information to indicate that Cruz solicited, directed, received, transferred, or spent the funds iHeart paid to the PAC.”

“Cruz’s role was limited to hosting the Podcast and he does not appear to have been involved with the decision for iHeart to pay the PAC, meaning that he did not direct or solicit any funds,” the commission found.

The Israeli government-funded ad revenue appears to operate in a similar gray area. The advertisements, which are part of the $7 million “I am Israel” campaign launched in June, are geared toward encouraging Christians to visit the country and see biblical sites for themselves.

“Israel isn’t a destination; it’s a revelation, where every site you’ve studied, every scripture you’ve memorized, every sermon that ever moved you suddenly has an address, a landscape, a heartbeat,” Ben Ferguson, Cruz’s co-host, says in one ad. “This is the trip that changes not just how you see the Holy Land, but how you see everything.”

Ferguson then urges listeners to “start planning your trip today” and tells them to follow “Visit Israel” accounts on social media. The ads do not disclose that Visit Israel is a public-facing entity of the Israeli ministry of tourism.

The campaign appears to exploit a loophole in election financing laws. Candidates and PACs are banned from receiving any funding “directly or indirectly” from foreign nationals, according to the FEC. But Cruz would only run afoul of campaign finance laws if Israel explicitly earmarked its contribution to go to the PAC, said Craig Holman, a leading expert on campaign finance laws and an ethics lobbyist at Public Citizen.

“Assuming there is no formal agreement, then the money is considered iHeartRadio funds, with which it can do as it pleases,” Holman said.

Holman blamed court decisions like Citizens United for opening the path to Cruz’s “surreptitious financial arrangement” with iHeartMedia.

Keep reading

Ro-lling in Dough: Khanna’s Personal Money Machine Kicked Into Overdrive in 2025, Trading $165 Million at Breakneck Pace, New Disclosures Show

Centimillionaire Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.) seized on a banner year for the U.S. stock market in 2025, with the trusts owned by his wife and children trading at a breakneck pace all year. All told, Khanna, who estimated he was worth no more than $78 million when he entered Congress in 2017, now estimates he’s worth as much as $167 million.

Khanna and his family could actually be worth far more. He reported the value of 11 of his family’s assets as being worth more than $1 million with no disclosed ceiling, exemplifying how America’s ultra-rich families manage their money in such a way that congressional reporting requirements often fail to pierce the veil.

The left-wing California congressman—who posted a video on Wednesday saying “people are upset about the cost of living”—filed his 2025 financial disclosure late last week showing his family’s trusts made a staggering 5,402 trades during 244 of the 251 active trading days in 2025, a year in which the S&P 500 notched an above-average 17.9 percent return. In total, Khanna reported a total stock trading volume of up to $165.4 million, which included sales of upward of $70.6 million in stocks, options, ETFs, and hedge funds. It’s a substantial increase from his trading activity in 2024, when he logged 4,665 trades for a total trading volume of $137.2 million, including just shy of $50 million in securities sales.

Khanna filed the disclosure as he crisscrosses the nation advocating for “taxing the billionaires,” as he put it in his Wednesday video. In California—where Khanna represents the country’s wealthiest congressional district—the congressman is backing a statewide ballot initiative to impose a 5 percent wealth tax on billionaires.

Data compiled by the website Rokhanna.Money, which recently digitized the nearly 150 analogue financial disclosure filings Khanna has filed since taking office, lay out the staggering increases in the nine years since Khanna entered Congress on a salary of $174,000. That year, Khanna’s reported net worth ranged between $29 million and $78 million. By the end of 2025, that figure was eclipsed, reaching somewhere between $69 million and $167 million.

Almost all of Khanna’s wealth comes from his in-laws in Ohio who made a fortune in auto parts. The Khanna fortune sits in trusts controlled by Khanna’s father-in-law, Monte Ahuja, that benefit his wife and two children. The trusts include some so-called irrevocable trusts that could shield them from future inheritance taxes.

Khanna insists he has “zero say” and “zero knowledge” of the trades made in his family’s trusts, which he said were set up by Ahuja and are professionally managed. Khanna has criticized members of Congress who trade stocks while in office, claiming they are causing a “crisis of confidence right now in our democracy.”

Members of Congress report their assets in wide valuation ranges, making it impossible to determine Khanna’s exact net worth. At first glance, the numbers suggest Khanna’s net worth dropped in 2025. He reported that the value of his assets ranged from $99 million to $315 million in 2024, whereas in 2025 his assets clocked in at somewhere between $69 million and $167 million.

But 2025 marked another year of exemplary growth in the U.S. stock market, and the wide range of Khanna’s reported assets in both 2024 and 2025 leaves open the likely possibility that his family’s professionally managed fortune grew substantially during the year.

Khanna’s salary has been frozen at $174,000 for years (the House has not given its members a raise since 2008) and his wife, Ritu Ahuja Khanna, is not believed to have had a job beyond board memberships and volunteering for many years. But the Khannas earned up to $10.8 million in dividends and business distributions from their investments in 2025, according to the congressman’s latest disclosure. It’s a staggering amount of purely passive income, suggesting that the Khannas enjoy generational wealth.

The wealth Khanna has accumulated while in office has enabled him to live the sort of oligarchic lifestyle he denounces on the campaign trail. His two young children, for example, are the beneficiaries of trusts that own large ownership shares in three private golf clubs in Ohio where membership initiation fees run upward of $45,000, the Washington Free Beacon reported. As they have in previous years, those golf courses delivered upward of $2 million in unearned income for Khanna’s children in 2025, according to his financial disclosure. Khanna’s children also own a significant stake in a $65 billion wealth management firm as well as investments in hedge funds that focus on distressed debt, of which Khanna has been critical.

Meanwhile, Khanna is in the process of selling his $6 million, 8,000-square-foot luxury Washington, D.C., home equipped with a four-story elevator and two laundry rooms with marble countertops as his family is set to move into an even larger, more expensive custom-built house a few miles away in Northern Virginia, the Free Beacon reported. Ahuja Khanna purchased a luxury Range Rover SUV in October 2024 for $190,000 (which exceeds Khanna’s entire annual salary). Ahuja Khanna alleged in a lawsuit filed in federal court within a year of purchasing the vehicle that it was a lemon. Court records show she settled with Jaguar Land Rover of North America for an undisclosed sum in October.

As his family prepares for their move to a $9 million house in Virginia, Khanna has been pushing hard for the California billionaires’ tax. Khanna proposed on Saturday that California billionaires who are cash poor should be allowed to pay their California wealth tax by pledging shares of their companies to the state government for a period of 10 years, at the end of which the government seizes control of the shares if the loan isn’t repaid in full.

Keep reading

Robot smashes Usain Bolt’s 100-meter dash world record in opening heat of World Humanoid Games

Usain Bolt, meet Lightning bolt.

A robot named Lightning just ran at the 100 meter dash in 9.32 seconds, shattering human sprinter Usain Bolt’s record.

The superhumanoid feat went down during a test run at the second World Humanoid Robot Games, which kicked off Saturday in Beijing, China, the Guardian reported.

Developed by Chinese smartphone manufacturer Honor, Lightning bolted down the track at a blistering 14.5 meters per second (around 32mph), as seen in a viral clip.

In doing so, the hot-to-trot bot eclipsed the previous World Record of 9.58 seconds set by the Bolt during his record-breaking 100-meter sprint in Berlin, Germany 2009.

During that run, the Jamaican sprinting sensation achieved a top speed of over 27mph — the fastest ever clocked by a biped until now.

Keep reading

IT’S OFFICIAL: California Governor Gavin Newsom Signs “Stop Nick Shirley Act” into Law – Journalists Can Now Be FINED and JAILED for Uncovering Democrat Fraud

The formerly great state of California took a giant step toward becoming a complete leftist dictatorship with a new law that completely destroys the 1st Amendment.

As The New York Post reported, Governor Gavin Newsom officially signed the “Stop Nick Shirley Act” into law on Saturday. This comes just days after a leftist operative interrupted an interview the independent journalist was conducting at the State Capitol and launched a disgusting and bizarre personal attack against him.

The legislation, which officially takes effect on October 1, 2027, passed the Senate on Tuesday and cleared the state Assembly on Wednesday.

The “Stop Nick Shirley Act” was introduced by Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, who is married to California’s far-left Attorney General, Rob Bonta. AB 2624 claims to expand California’s “Safe at Home” confidentiality program to safeguard “immigration support service providers” from harassment.

But in reality, this is a disgusting Democrat power grab designed to silence brave conservative citizen journalists like Shirley who expose the rampant fraud bleeding American taxpayers dry in government-funded immigrant service centers.

For example, Shirley has exposed over $110 million in alleged Somali-run daycare fraud in Minnesota — empty “learning centers” billing taxpayers while no children were present.

He then followed up with a shocking exposé on California daycare and hospice fraud schemes. This included ghost operations in Los Angeles tied to massive looting of Medi-Cal and Medicare.

Keep reading

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Detroit Public Schools Now Offering Students Cash Prizes Just for Showing Up

Public schools in the city of Detroit are now rewarding students for attendance with cash prizes and gift cards. Apparently, no one has told the students that going to school and studying hard is in their best interests and acts as its own reward.

Even parents can get in on the action if their children have good attendance records.

How did we come to this in America? Why are we even bothering with public schools at this point?

FOX News reports:

Detroit schools offer students up to $1,000 for perfect attendance as program expands

Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) paid students up to $1,000 for perfect attendance and is expanding the incentive program to middle schoolers after district officials say it successfully reduced chronic absenteeism.

Now in its second year, the Perfect Attendance Pays initiative targets the winter months — from Jan. 5 to March 20 — when attendance historically dips across the district.

“DPSCD is continuing the Perfect Attendance Pays initiative for the 2026–27 school year for high school students and expanding it to include middle school students,” a district spokesperson told Fox News Digital Friday.

“At the middle school level, parents of eligible students with perfect attendance during each five-day cycle will receive a $50 gift card.”

District officials clarified that the financial incentives are not funded by taxpayers or standard state educational aid.

“The incentive is funded through interest generated through district funds awaiting to be used for facility projects. Federal and state revenue is not used to fund the incentive, nor is the incentive offered on fall or spring count days,” the spokesperson added.

Keep reading

Privileged NYC City Socialist with a VERY Fitting Nickname Gets Dunked On After Posting This Condescending Message on Social Media

A champagne Democrat socialist (DSA) with an incredibly appropriate nickname is getting dragged after posting a quite telling message on social media.

NYC resident Grace Ryan, a 25-year-old chocolate heiress from Ohio who graduated from NYU this spring, went on X last week to defend recent criticism she has received for being a rich girl cheering on socialism.

“Everyone’s trying to dunk on me for being a progressive from a privileged background but like have yall never heard of noblesse oblige?” Ryan wrote. “I have a moral obligation to use my advantages to help those who are struggling.”

Most Americans, of course, have not. And not surprisingly, X roasted her all over again for this ultra-condescending post.

One fact they continuously pointed out was that Ryan lives in a rent-stabilized department despite her family’s wealth.

As The New York Post notes, the idea of “noblesse oblige” lets the rich keep their fortunes as long as they share a small portion of it. But the DSA advocates for a classless society, as Karl Marx did, a goal Ryan clearly does not believe in advancing.

Ryan, who has nicknamed herself “Lulu Lenin,” lives up to her nickname so well that she could pose as the poster child for champagne socialism in a GOP ad.

Her rich daddy is even a registered Republican!

Keep reading

Democrats and CNN Lose it After Pete Hegseth Utters This So-Called ‘Transphobic Slur’ at the Iowa State Fair

War Secretary Pete Hegseth drove the left insane earlier this week after using a politically incorrect term to describe transgender individuals.

As Iowa Public Radio reported, Hegseth appeared at the Iowa State Fair on Wednesday to defend the Department of War’s $1.5 trillion budget request and to support Rep. Zach Nunn, who is facing a difficult re-election fight.

Hegseth later tried to fire up fairgoers with some colorful language referencing the department’s return to fighting bad guys rather than pushing DEI garbage.

“We’re restoring the warrior ethos inside our department because that matters,” Hegseth told fairgoers.

“At the Department of War, we do training — not trannies,” he added.

Upon hearing this remark, CNN’s Jake Tapper was disgusted.

“Calling transgender people trannies, that’s obviously a slur,” Tapper fumed. “Treat people with dignity.”

U.S Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Raphael Warnock (D-GA) also flipped out, with both calling for Hegseth’s termination.

Keep reading

Guess Who’s Getting Purged? How Chinese Citizens Turn Fear Into a Black Market

If you’ve ever wanted to know what Chinese political paranoia looks like in action, congratulations! The CCP just handed us the perfect specimen.

Turns out, Xi Jinping’s ongoing purge of senior officials has gotten so intense, so incomprehensible, and so secretive, that an actual underground market has emerged.

Chinese citizens are now literally paying money to access what appear to be leaked details about which officials are under investigation. Shadowy online groups claim to have insider information on the next wave of purges.

According to Bloomberg, authorities are playing whack-a-mole trying to shut these leaky groups down. But they can’t because the demand is too high. This is the price of the CCP making itself a total black box.

The purge market is just the symptom. The disease is that the CCP created a system with no stability, no clear rules, and no way to know if tomorrow you’ll be promoted or investigated. So citizens and lower-ranking officials are doing the rational thing: trying to buy information to stay ahead of the knife. Or maybe they’re just betting for money, like Polymarket for General Hostility.

This also reveals something much darker about CCP governance. It’s not like these are leaks from innocent whistleblowers. These are just corrupt people trying to navigate a corrupt system. Can they be trusted to predict what’s coming next? Buyers hope so.

Keep reading