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House Narrowly Passes $1.15 Trillion Defense Bill That Integrates US Military Tech & Supply Chains With Israel

The House passed the Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act on Wednesday by a 216-212 vote, sending the $1.15 trillion measure to the Senate after one of the most partisan House votes in the must-pass bill’s recent history. Only six Democrats supported it, while seven Republicans voted no.

Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers praised a topline that he said finally “accounts for the true cost of American deterrence.” The authorization is a centerpiece of President Trump’s push to raise total defense spending to $1.5 trillion in fiscal 2027. Democrats opposed the measure over the unauthorized war with Iran – which has flared again since the collapse of a memorandum of understanding intended to open peace talks – as well as the attachment of the SAVE America Act’s mail-voting restrictions and voter-ID requirements. They also objected to a price tag they argue would be financed through cuts to domestic programs.

The amendment votes exposed the chamber’s other fault lines. Rep. Eli Crane’s proposal to halt nearly all military aid to Ukraine was defeated 76-350, while Rep. Lauren Boebert’s attempt to codify the ban on transgender military service failed 212-217. The House nevertheless adopted two amendments from Rep. Nancy Mace restricting gender-related care through the military’s TRICARE health system and barring transgender athletes from girls’ sports at Defense Department-run schools.

Opposition also came from lawmakers objecting to the bill’s US-Israel defense-industrial integration provisions. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among the Democrats who cited Section 219, while Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna had announced that they would oppose final passage on the same grounds. The provision remained intact after the Rules Committee declined to permit a floor vote on their amendment to remove it.

The bill now heads to the Senate, where the companion measure, S. 4784, is already stalled. On July 14, the Senate rejected cloture on the motion to proceed, 50-46, after Democrats opposed advancing the bill in protest of the Iran war. With the House scheduled to leave Friday for a recess lasting through the end of August, any eventual conference negotiations are likely to be pushed into the fall.

A separate party-line effort to authorize $60 billion in new war-related spending also remains far short of the $350 billion the Pentagon originally sought.

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HORROR: Whistleblower says Native Americans were drugged, locked in fake rehab houses so criminals could steal billions from Medicaid – up to 2,000 dead or missing

A massive Medicaid fraud scheme in Arizona has left up to 2,000 Native Americans feared dead or missing, with whistleblowers and attorneys sounding the alarm that the nightmare is still ongoing.

New whistleblower allegations claim vulnerable Native Americans were allegedly lured into white vans with promises of treatment, then plied with fentanyl, methamphetamine, alcohol, and other drugs before being imprisoned inside fake behavioral health homes where operators allegedly billed Medicaid for months of fraudulent “treatment.”

Arizona officials have previously estimated the fraud exceeded $2.5 to $2.8 billion, while the latest whistleblower allegations contend the broader network may have generated up to $12 billion in fraudulent Medicaid claims over time.

Even more chilling, as many as 2,000 Native Americans may be dead or missing as a result of the sprawling scheme, according to NewsNation Now.

Arizona officials knew about the fraud as far back as 2019, according to the lawsuit.

The news outlet reported:

A Navajo advocate who has blown the whistle on fraudulent “sober living” homes in Arizona says she began shining a light on the Medicaid scam targeting Native Americans after her own cousin was kidnapped by operators who plied her relative with drugs and alcohol.

“They told her she would go to Phoenix for the day and (they would) take her home. All throughout the ride they gave her alcohol,” Reva Stewart told “Jesse Weber Live” on Friday.

She said the people who took her cousin demanded personal information from her as they tried to persuade her to stay at a residence. When her cousin refused, Stewart said, they gave her a fentanyl pill and “told her that she would have to find her way home.”

When Stewart learned of her relative’s ordeal, she realized there was a connection between other missing Native Americans and white vans that were observed cruising around tribal communities.

A civil lawsuit against the Arizona government says state officials enabled what essentially was a plot to divert as many as 7,000 Native Americans to fake sober living homes in Phoenix.

Operators allegedly charged billions in Medicaid services that were not provided as handlers plied residents with drugs. An estimated 2,000 victims are still missing, attorneys have said.

During a recent interview, Stewart detailed the ongoing lawsuit and whistleblower testimony, describing conditions that resemble human trafficking more than addiction treatment.

According to whistleblower accounts, recruiters allegedly drove through tribal communities in unmarked white vans looking for vulnerable people struggling with addiction.

Victims were allegedly offered food, shelter, and treatment before being transported to bogus treatment centers.

Once inside, many never received legitimate medical care.

Instead, whistleblowers say patients were deliberately kept addicted because every additional day meant another Medicaid reimbursement.

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UK’s Ofcom Seeks Wider Powers After American Forum Fine Fails

Ofcom wasted months chasing a website it cannot reach, came up empty, and has decided the fix is more power.

Britain’s speech regulator closed its investigation into an American suicide discussion forum this week, admitted it has hit the outer wall of what the Online Safety Act censorship law allows, and used the same announcement to ask the government for tools that reach further.

The forum, which Ofcom will only call an “online suicide forum,” has allegedly been linked with more than 130 deaths in the UK and named in coroners’ reports.

Ofcom fined it £950,000, roughly $1.3 million, under the Act. The forum is based in the United States, holds no assets in Britain, is protected by the First Amendment, and has not paid. So the regulator is holding a penalty against a company it has no clear way to bill.

Ofcom thinks there’s a chance the money is still coming. It says it has “initiated work regarding the pursuit of this debt, as we have done with all companies that have not paid their fines by their deadlines.”

A separate post, cheerfully titled “What happens when a company doesn’t pay a fine,” lays out the plan. For a company with no UK assets, obtaining a judgment debt “is more complex and challenging,” and Ofcom says “it is often necessary to engage with law enforcement agencies and private specialists in other countries to identify individuals and assets against which Ofcom can take action.”

Whether Ofcom recovers a penny “can also depend on whether a court in that country will recognise a UK court judgment, and whether we can identify individuals on whom we can serve proceedings.”

That means, a British regulator wants American help to collect a British censorship fine from Americans, and even Ofcom concedes an American court might throw it straight out.

Ofcom has tried this before. It floated the same approach while chasing a fine against 4chan, a strategy that Preston Byrne, the US lawyer representing both sites, called “legally illiterate.” Byrne was just telling it like it is about the forum case. “Censorship fines are anathema to our Constitution,” he said, adding that “if Ofcom attempts to enforce the fine in a US court, which we do not expect, American law is on our side. As far as we can tell, however, this enforcement action is functionally over.”

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‘Unprecedented cyber incident’: A.I. model goes rogue on its own and runs wild on internet

In what OpenAI creator ChatGPT is calling an “unprecedented cyber incident,” an artificial intelligence software “went rogue” and escaped, gained access to the internet and hacked into a start-up company.

Cybersecurity expert Richard Ford, chief technology officer at Integrity360, told the Daily Mail: “This is the moment many in cybersecurity have been warning about.”

The publication reported an “autonomous agent” was being tested but found vulnerabilities and “managed to escape containment before reaching the internet and breaking into Hugging Face,” a hub for sharing AI models.

It then compromised the hub’s infrastructure.

“Until now, we’ve seen attackers use AI to automate parts of an attack, but this is one of the first public examples of an AI agent independently identifying a weakness, escaping what should have been a secure environment and attempting to compromise another organization,” Ford said. “It also reinforces that AI doesn’t replace the fundamentals of cyber security. The agent exploited a vulnerability in what should have been a secure sandbox, showing that good cyber hygiene, robust access controls and effective guardrails remain essential.”

The report said OpenAI had been testing the software “by setting tasks in a controlled digital testing ground, where internet access was limited.”

However, the code created “an unprecedented cyber incident” in the scenario.

“The company said in a blog post last week that it used Zhipu AI’s GLM-5.2 for the analysis, which also allowed it to keep attacker data and any credentials within its systems,” the report said.

Hugging Face co-founder Thomas Wolf told the publication, “When a frontier model is attacking you and moving laterally inside your infrastructure, defenders need wide access to near-frontier tools within hours or even minutes, rather than being pointed towards a closed-door, vetted application program for model access.”

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said, “We had a significant security incident during evaluation of our models.”

Clément Delangue, of Hugging Face, said, “It’s quite mind-blowing that all of this happened autonomously.”

OpenAI reported the software used stolen credentials and found a previously unknown vulnerability to access Hugging Face servers.

Katie Moussouris, chief executive of Luta Security, warned more breaches are coming.

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Appeals court rejects Biden’s attempt to block release of ghostwriter interview recordings

In a 2-1 decision on Monday, a panel of three judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (DC) Circuit rejected Biden’s effort to stop the Heritage Foundation from obtaining the materials under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

In an unsigned opinion, Judges Sri Srinivasan and Gregory Katsas stated, “We conclude that Biden has not shown a likelihood that the requested materials must be withheld from disclosure.”

“We conclude that any remaining incursion on personal privacy from disclosure of the now-redacted materials likely does not outweigh the public interest in disclosure,” Srinivasan and Katsas continued. “In that regard, although there is generally a substantial privacy interest in not being identified as the target of an investigation that results in no charges … [the] DOJ announced the Special Counsel’s appointment and the purpose of his investigation, and the Special Counsel Report describes at length that Biden was investigated for allegedly retaining and disclosing classified materials.”

They explained that the materials would affect the investigation and the ultimate decision, therefore making them “likely to advance the public interest at stake.”

Judge Florence Pan wrote in her dissent that the D.C. Circuit’s decision “will result in the premature release of Biden’s concededly private conversations.”

“In my view, Biden has shown a substantial privacy interest,” Pan wrote. “The conversations at issue took place in Biden’s home, and the recordings of them were obtained by the government in the course of a criminal investigation that did not lead to an indictment.”

The investigation began in 2022, when the first batch of documents was found at the Penn Biden Center, a Washington think-tank where Biden had an office after serving as vice president. Biden’s attorneys notified the National Archives, which alerted the DOJ, leading to searches that uncovered more classified documents stored in the garage, offices and basement of Biden’s home in Delaware.

U.S. Attorney Robert Hur was appointed as special counsel in 2023 to investigate whether Biden had violated the law. His report concluded that there was evidence that Biden had retained classified documents relating to military and foreign policy, kept notebooks containing writings about national security that included classified information and allegedly disclosed classified information to his ghostwriter while working on his memoir after leaving office.

Biden met multiple times with author Mark Zwonitzer, who ghostwrote his 2017 memoir, “Promise Me, Dad,” after he served as vice president under former President Barack Obama. These discussions later became part of the Justice Department’s investigation into Biden.

Hur later concluded that criminal charges were not warranted against Biden due to the difficulty of proving Biden intentionally violated the law, plausible defenses Biden could have raised about how he came to possess the documents and his cooperation with investigators.

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Feds Flagged Daszak As ‘An Extremely High Person Of Interest’ – Then The FBI Told Them To Stand Down

Customs officers spent three days building a border examination for the man at the center of the COVID origins fight – until Biden’s FBI put a stop to it with a single email. 

On February 2, 2021, a national targeting security specialist at U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s National Targeting Center circulated a referral to colleagues across the agency. The subject was Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, scheduled to land at John F. Kennedy International Airport three days later aboard Qatar Airways flight 701 from Doha, arriving 2:25 p.m. He was returning from the World Health Organization’s mission to Wuhan investigating the origins of SARS-CoV-2.

The referral asked that Daszak be considered for a Tactical Terrorism Response Team examination – a secondary inspection that can include questioning and a review of electronic devices. Which, now we know, never happened.

Senator Rand Paul, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released the underlying records Monday. They show CBP flagged Daszak as “an extremely high person of interest,” built out a formal targeting event, and then stood down two days before his flight at the request of the FBI’s New York Field Office.

What The Targeting Package Says

According to the materials, officers noted Daszak’s affiliation with Zhengli Shi – the WIV virologist known as “Bat Woman” – and that EcoHealth and Daszak had been working with her for more than fifteen years. They listed him as principal investigator on two NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases grants: 1U01AI151797-01, “Understanding Risk of Zoonotic Viruses Emergence in EID Hotspots of Southeast Asia,” and 2R01AI110964-06, “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence,” running June 2014 through June 2024. A search of the latter grant, the officers wrote, returned 19 publications, many authored by Shi – who listed the grant on her own resume despite not appearing as a principal investigator on it.

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GOP Rep. Cory Mills Under Federal Investigation: Report

The Justice Department is currently investigating GOP Rep. Cory Mills, according to ABC News, The Washington Examiner, and MS NOW.

The federal probe is in part over Mills’ finances, ABC News said, citing sources.

“The Department of Justice is conducting a criminal investigation into Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., according to two sources familiar with the matter, adding to the mounting legal and ethical scrutiny facing the embattled congressman,” MS NOW reported.

“The sources didn’t disclose the focus of the DOJ investigation. But a third source told MS NOW at least one person was contacted by the FBI last year about Mills’ finances, allegations of misconduct and individuals in his orbit,” MS NOW

The Washington Examiner reported:

Embattled Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) is under an investigation by the Department of Justice, a source familiar confirmed to the Washington Examiner.

It is unclear why the DOJ is investigating Mills, and the agency did not respond to a request for comment. Mills has been accused of domestic violence, stolen valor, and financial misconduct. Mills has denied any wrongdoing.

The FBI reportedly reached out to at least one person about Mills’s finances last year, according to MS NOW. The Washington Examiner has reached out to Mills for comment.

The nature of the investigation is unclear but Cory Mills is facing allegations of domestic violence, stolen valor and financial crimes.

Earlier this year, GOP Rep. Nancy Mace filed to expel Cory Mills.

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‘I See Dead People’: Treasury Blocks $99 Million In Federal Payments To Deceased Americans

The Treasury Department announced Tuesday morning that it has successfully implemented new safeguards to prevent government payments to dead people in an effort to reduce waste and fraud.

The verification system includes screening 885 million federal payments against expanded death records, effectively auditing payments totaling nearly $2.7 trillion.

It has already flagged and stopped payments totaling roughly $99 million that had been marked to be sent to dead people.

“Treasury has delivered on a key promise of President Trump’s mandate to stop improper payments and fraud before money leaves the Treasury, and strengthen the integrity of the federal payment system,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.

“Together with Vice President Vance’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, this new safeguard addresses a longstanding vulnerability and helps ensure every dollar the federal government spends reaches its intended recipient. Treasury will continue efforts to modernize the federal payment system, strengthen safeguards against fraud and improper payments, and protect taxpayer dollars.”

As Jack Phillips reports for The Epoch Times, while speaking to Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo on July 21, Bessent said his office believes there is “up to $350 million that we can stop before the end of this year” in line with Vice President JD Vance’s anti-fraud task force that was initiated earlier this year.

“This number might be up to $500 billion, which is about 1.66 percent of GDP,“ he added, referring to potentially improper payments that could be blocked.

”So that could go a long way towards paying down the debt, providing more services. And this is just the start.”

In February, Trump signed the “Ending Improper Payments to Deceased People Act,” which authorizes the Treasury Department to access the Social Security death master file to evaluate payments.

Access was initially granted on a temporary, three-year basis through the Consolidated Appropriations Act, signed in 2021, according to the Treasury.

In March, Trump signed an order to establish the Vance-led task force to investigate the federal government’s “vast benefits system for citizens in need that includes housing, food, medical care, cash assistance, and more” while stating that some states have not implemented “basic fraud controls.”

Vance in May said that the fraud task force has located and “exposed billions of dollars in benefits that have been stolen from the American people” in two months.

He cited fraudulent payments sent out through small business loans, Medicaid reimbursements, and COVID-19-related relief programs.

In early 2025, the Elon Musk-associated Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was established to look into fraud, waste, and abuse across the federal government. DOGE recently announced that its mandate ended on July 4.

At one point, DOGE staffers were investigating Social Security payments and records for possible fraud. DOGE’s access was the subject of numerous lawsuits before the Supreme Court ruled in DOGE’s favor last summer. The task force in May 2025 said it performed a “major cleanup” of the agency’s records, finding that 12.3 million people in the system were marked as “deceased.”

The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to an Epoch Times request on Tuesday for additional comment on the figures that Bessent provided.

Bessent added in a statement that the department will “continue efforts to modernize the federal payment system, strengthen safeguards against fraud and improper payments, and protect taxpayer dollars.”

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Democrats Are Fighting A Civil War, And Bernie Sanders Started It

Democrats desperately want to retake the House in November, not just to thwart President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda, but to launch countless investigations under the guise of oversight. However, their most stubborn obstacle to achieving this goal isn’t President Trump or the Republican Party. The biggest obstacle actually sits inside their own party. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has spent this cycle bankrolling primary challengers against sitting Democrats, and the fight has split the party into two camps that can barely stand each other.

Sanders recently announced plans to defeat a sitting House Democrat from North Carolina who belongs to the Congressional Black Caucus. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries called Sanders personally to warn him off interfering in House primaries during a midterm year that could decide control of Congress, CNN reported, citing three Democrats familiar with the previously unreported call. Rep. Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.) sat in on that call and told the outlet that Sanders showed little concern about the warning. The call came just before Rep. Valerie Foushee defeated primary challenger Nida Allam in North Carolina in March. Jeffries later declined to describe the exchange beyond calling it honest.

Sanders sits at the height of his influence in Democratic politics right now, which makes the timing of this civil war particularly inconvenient for a party trying to project unity heading into the fall. The dispute comes down to a simple question: should Democrats run candidates who can actually win swing districts, or candidates who fire up the base and risk losing everyone else? Sanders has chosen one side, and the establishment the other. He has endorsed more than 90 candidates this cycle and helped topple House incumbents in New York City and Colorado. Of the 60 Sanders-backed candidates whose races have concluded, 42 have won, including 10 of 16 federal candidates. Senior Washington Democrats grumble that Sanders is forcing the party to burn money on internal fights instead of saving it for Republicans in November.

Then there’s Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate Sanders backed and defended even after the New York Times reported allegations of abusive behavior toward women. Sanders kept defending him until after allegations of rape surfaced, which Platner has denied. Sanders withdrew his endorsement only then.

Platner’s exit from the race, according to OpenSecrets, put the Democratic Party in a deep financial hole. Platner can’t simply transfer his campaign funds to his replacement, and whoever takes his place will ultimately have to overcome a huge cash disadvantage compared to Sen. Susan Collins.

“Bernie has endorsed some flawed candidates recently,” Rep. Hillary Scholten of Michigan said. “I think it’s really important to look at the judgment that has been exercised. The Graham Platner situation should be a huge warning sign to a lot of voters about what that stamp of approval might mean.”

Michigan is where this rift boiled over this weekend, as Sanders held rallies – joined by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – for Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and House candidate William Lawrence. Asked whether he’s making it harder for Democrats to win in November, the 84-year-old Sanders said no and argued his candidates represent working people rather than wealthy donors. El-Sayed’s support for Medicare for All and his criticism of Israel and AIPAC have made him a progressive favorite. At the same time, the party establishment favors Rep. Haley Stevens as the safer bet against likely GOP nominee former Rep. Mike Rogers. Retiring Sen. Gary Peters had planned to stay neutral in the August 4 primary but endorsed Stevens last week instead.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has made his preference for Stevens clear. However, he avoided direct criticism of Sanders when asked, saying Democrats would settle on a nominee suited to the state. Rep. Ro Khanna compared Sanders’ standing in the party to that of the pope and Barack Obama. Rep. Josh Gottheimer sees something else entirely.

“The DSA, which Bernie’s part of, is trying to hijack the Democratic Party, and what you’re seeing is people don’t want that,” Gottheimer said. “The Democratic Party wants to be the Democratic Party, and he’s trying to use the Democratic Party as a vessel for socialism, and people don’t want socialism.”

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Even CNN is Laughing at Mamdani for Thinking He Has the Authority to Arrest Netanyahu in New York City

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has zero authority to arrest Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and even the Democrat cheerleaders at CNN know it.

During a recent segment where they discussed the topic, legal analyst Elie Honig listed all of the reasons why Mamdani’s claims are utterly false.

He notes that all aspects of foreign policy and diplomacy are handled by the federal government, not local jurisdictions. He also points out that the arrest warrant that Mamdani is referencing in this case is from a body that is not even recognized by the United States.

The other people on the panel laugh along because they know Honig is absolutely right about this.

Partial transcript via the Vigilant Fox:

KEILAR: “Can Mamdani have Netanyahu arrested?”

HONIG: “Absolutely not. It is utterly RIDICULOUS for the mayor of New York City to even suggest that he might have the authority to order the arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu or any visiting foreign head of state.”

“The mayor of New York City has ZERO law enforcement authority. He DOES NOT tell the Manhattan DA, the NYPD, who to arrest, who to indict.”

“So I know the mayor is having his best lawyers look at this right now. Let me save them some time. You DO NOT have the authority to do this.”

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