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The Fallout From Corruption: How Did a Florida Mayor Defraud Thousands With a COVID-19 Program?

There’s nothing that bothers me more than when a person is elected to a position of power, but then chooses to abuse that power instead of actually doing something good with it. And that’s the case with Kissimmee, Fla., Mayor Jackie Espinosa, who has reportedly defrauded a large number of people with, of all things, a COVID-19 scheme.

According to this report from ABC News, Espinosa was arrested earlier this week on charges of theft and fraud, with her and family members running some kind of COVID-19 business relief program – under her own administration.

Charges include grand theft, a second-degree felony, as well as an organized scheme to defraud, which is a first-degree felony.

This comes from a case where she reportedly utilized $50,000 in funds through the city’s Business Boost 2.0 program for her own personal use.

“This is the local government equivalent of insider congressional stock trading,” noted Blaise Ingoglia, who serves as Florida’s chief financial officer.

Espinosa has been charged, posting a $70,000 bond and pleading not guilty to the charges.

But the details get more disturbing. According to the report, the money, provided through grant funds in the program, went towards businesses including a dance studio, a diner, and a real estate company, all owned by Espinosa’s family.

“The evidence makes it very clear that there was intent to engage in this conflict of interest that ultimately abused her office to enrich herself,” said Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier in a statement. “Mayor Espinosa demonstrated an intent to create, streamline and simplify, reduce oversight of, and more easily enable a process where by herself and immediate family could apply for and receive city funds to which she was not entitled.”

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Myanmar Army: $476 and Two Sacks of Rice, the Cost of a Conscript’s Life

Burma’s (Myanmar’s) military junta has never disclosed how many people it has conscripted. When it activated the People’s Military Service Law in February 2024, the regime said it would draft 5,000 people per batch, or about 50,000 a year, from a pool of about 13 million eligible citizens. By September 2026, it had reached Batch 28.

The Myanmar Defense and Security Institute (MDSI), a research group founded by defected officers, estimates that more than 130,000 new soldiers have been recruited since the law took effect. The national quota was raised in April to 5,000 recruits weekly.

According to sources close to the regime, only about 631 of the first batch’s 5,155 recruits had been allowed to return home two years after their training began.

The law covers men aged 18 to 35, women aged 18 to 27, and professionals up to age 45. In practice, the burden falls on the poor, because wealthy families that receive a summons can pay poorer young men to serve in their place.

In Hpa-An, the Karen State capital, authorities mainly target casual laborers, masons, shop employees, and commuters. They also target internal migrant workers who fled fighting in the Ayeyarwady, Bago, Magway, and Sagaing regions. In Taunggyi, the Shan State capital, the junta abducted 140 men in a single week in November 2024, most of them drug users who were out at night.

In Mandalay, high school students have been entered into conscription lotteries, and ward administrators have threatened to arrest parents who fail to attend. Since January 2026, the junta has been compiling lists of women aged 18 to 27 in Hsihseng Township, southern Shan State.

The MDSI documented 23 child recruits, some as young as 15, at four training camps. Human Rights Watch reported that the military abducted and forcibly recruited more than 1,000 Rohingya men and boys from Rakhine State.

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Ideology, Intolerance, and Emotional Reactivity Behind Unsupported Claims That Online Words and Images Cause Violence

Over the last decade, politicians, NGOs, and journalists across the West have blamed online speech for real-world political violence. In Australia recently, politicians and others blamed social media for an attack on a left-wing member of parliament, Helen Haines, who was run over by a man in his car. “We’ve got these big US social media companies and their business model, to me, seems pretty incompatible,” said Senator David Pocock after the attack. “That’s something we’ve got to look very hard at as a country and as elected representatives.” Said Bill Shorten, a former Labor leader who now runs the University of Canberra, “I think that some people, through the algorithms of the big tech bros and social media, have been radicalized online.” Mike Burgess, director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), Australia’s FBI, decried a “permissive environment of violence.” And Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police Krissy Barrett said the things politicians said online “does have a direct correlation to what we see in terms of threats and abuse.”

But it was clear within hours that the alleged attacker of the Australian MP was intoxicated and likely mentally ill, and within days it was revealed that he and his family had been friends with her for years. A source close to the investigation said he “was known to police” and that “It is understood he has undergone a mental health assessment.” People online quickly discovered that the alleged attacker had posted regularly about climate change and Gaza and that the head of the Australian Green Party followed him on X. As such, he attacked the member of Parliament closest to his apparent views, which challenges the notion that his politics motivated him. As for Barrett, she declined to give a single example of things people said online resulting in real-world violence.

Correlation is not causation. Killers may have consumed violent media, but so too did practically everyone else in society. It would make sense that would-be killers, who often fantasize about their violence before doing it, would consume more violent content. And so if there is a relationship, it could show the opposite causal direction.

Moreover, relying on the testimony of killers, many of whom suffer from personality disorders or mental illness, is irrational. The man who shot Ronald Reagan said he did so out of an obsession with Jodie Foster in Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver.” Nobody proposed censoring “Taxi Driver,” Scorsese movies, or Foster, and yet politicians and bureaucrats around the world proposed mass online censorship because the Buffalo shooter said he was inspired by Christchurch.

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When Vaccine Injury Research Becomes Political, Patients Disappear

For years, people experiencing serious health problems due to Covid vaccination have asked for something fundamental: rigorous scientific investigation into what happened to them, why it happened, and what might help.

Many have spent years seeking answers through a fragmented healthcare system, encountering clinicians unfamiliar with their symptoms, struggling to access appropriate evaluation, and trying to find researchers willing to investigate their conditions.

Now, the National Institutes of Health has announced a dedicated research effort intended to investigate health problems following vaccination and infection. The October 5 opening of the new Vaccinology and Immunology Center represents a meaningful development in a process that patients have long urged federal institutions to undertake.

Yet once again, much of the public conversation risks becoming about politics rather than the people who need this research.

On October 19, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya and NIAID Acting Director John H. Powers III publicly outlined the center’s objectives. These include examining symptoms and potential biological mechanisms, identifying risk factors, exploring treatment options, and using research findings to inform vaccine safety. NIH anticipates enrolling several hundred participants initially and expects to launch the study before the end of 2026, once the protocol is finalized, IRB approved, etc.

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Visa-centre contracts that began at $29.8 million in 2018 now total $661 million

Six federal contracts for Canada’s overseas visa application centres, awarded in February 2018 with original values totalling $29.8 million, now carry a combined value of $661,123,689, and the amendments disclosed for April to June 2026 alone add up to $62.4 million.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s (IRCC) proactive disclosure lists amendments to all six contracts, numbered 20150140-1 to 20150140-6, each with a delivery date of October 31, 2027. Five are with VF Worldwide Holdings Limited, country of vendor United Arab Emirates, and one with TT Visa Services Ltd of the United Kingdom. The largest, 20150140-2, went from $8,881,211 to $224,689,518, with a $29,492,374.84 amendment disclosed this quarter; 20150140-1 went from $5,416,816 to $159,767,642. The records give no amendment dates and classify the procedure as competitive open bidding. The values are contract ceilings, not payments.

IRCC’s February 23, 2018 release said VF Worldwide Holdings Ltd. won the contract through “a fair, open and transparent process” and that “the initial value of this contract is estimated at $26 M.” VFS Global, headquartered in Dubai and Zurich, is the operating company; its Wikipedia entry puts Blackstone’s stake at about 75 per cent after a 2021 sale by EQT. A 2021 IRCC note for the Committee of the Whole said of TT Services: “They have subcontracted all VAC services to VFS Global.” VAC stands for visa application centre. Applicants pay the centres service fees; the disclosure does not explain how the contract values relate to those fees.

The Globe and Mail reported in 2021 that the Beijing centre was operated for VFS Global by a subcontractor owned through entities of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau. In May 2026, CBC News reported that internal IRCC records showed officials had flagged third-party fraud and security risks at some centres, that VF Worldwide had been awarded more than $725 million in contracts from 2012 to March 2026, and that both contracts expire in October 2027, with a one-year extension option, as a replacement procurement was under way.

The 2018 contracts were awarded under Ahmed Hussen, minister from January 2017 to November 2019. The minister now is Lena Metlege Diab, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship since May 13, 2025; a search for a political donation record in her name found none. The records name no approving official.

Contracts that began at $29.8 million are now worth $661 million, and the latest quarter added $62 million more.

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Translation Reveals Ilhan Omar’s Disturbing Message to Americans: ‘You Will Suffer and Cry in Seething… We Are the Ones Who Rule This Land’

On the surface, a recent video clip of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota appears to be a peek into her peaceful, idyllic existence.

But the soundtrack to the contrived nonchalance of the stroll she and her husband take around a deck in Minnesota is much darker.

Omar is currently the target of a federal investigation into potential immigration fraud, as noted by The Washington Free Beacon, which decided to translate the lyrics of the rap song playing while Omar and husband Tim Mynett gazed into each other’s eyes.

“The almighty has given me strength,” the song says in Somali, according to the English translation the outlet made of the song.

“If I confront you in the afternoon, by evening, I will teach you a lesson and keep you awake throughout the night. Yes, you will suffer and cry in seething. You will scream like a demon,” the song says.

The lyrics carry a message to Americans who have watched the spectacle of a member of Congress facing accusations of fraud concerning her immigration status, her name, her alleged marriage to her brother, and financial irregularities on her disclosures.

“After all, you are not Arabs, So swallow your anger and chew on it,” the song says.

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Who Is Making Billions From the Iran War?

At a campaign rally over the weekend, President Trump dismissed Americans’ concerns over high oil and gas prices, claiming that it’s a small price to pay for the hundreds of billions of dollars “we” are making from these higher prices.

“We’re making a fortune,” he said. “Hundreds of billions of dollars. Trillions of dollars.”

People are paying a little bit more for gas, he explained, but it doesn’t matter because “we” are making so much money.

The question is, “Who is ‘we’?” We know it is not the American people. They are seeing wage stagnation, inflation, and more pain at the pump. An Economist/YouGov poll earlier this month found that inflation and prices are the top concern among Americans by a wide margin. And in second place were jobs and the economy.

The same poll asked Americans how they rate the state of the US economy and in first place – again by a long shot – was “poor.”

If “we” as in the American people were making hundreds of billions of dollars from the war, you would think these would not be their top two concerns.

But we understand what the President meant by “we.” He meant that part of the “private” sector directly or indirectly in bed with the government war machine. From oil companies to weapons manufacturers and everything in between, war and conflict drive up profits in well-connected corporations at the expense of the rest of us.

That is why we are in a constant state of war. Twenty years in Afghanistan and a similar length in Iraq. Endless bombing in places like Somalia. A twelve-year (and counting) proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. Military bases and covert operations across the globe.

And if we find that the largest military budget in the world does not deliver enough actual weapons to win a war? Well, that’s all good too: just double military spending and accuse anyone who objects of not being patriotic!

“Private” companies with enormous political power – many of them revolving doors between government and business – “make so much money” on war, as Trump would say. Whether these wars produce US wins, loses, or stalemates, these corporations in bed with government always win. The money-printing machine makes sure the money cycles into government-favored companies, while campaign contributions are made to the politicians who support the wars.

And if you don’t support the wars? You get the Thomas Massie treatment.

Endless war produces more corporatism, where the private sector does not exist to provide goods to compete in the free market, but to serve political power and strengthen governmental control over the population. Think of it as welfare for the rich at the expense of the poor. The result is tyranny.

This is the very reason our Founders intended to make it as difficult as possible to wage war. As well-educated students of history, they understood how the concentration of war-making power in the hands of one ruler or an oligarchy would impoverish the masses and lead to a moral and financial bankruptcy. They placed war-making power in the “people’s branch” – Congress – hoping that the people would hold their representatives accountable. We have strayed very far from what they intended and if we are to survive, we must reclaim that authority and responsibility.

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Jim Geraghty finds Ilhan Omar age discrepancy in her autobiography

National Review reporter Jim Geraghty has uncovered an age discrepancy based on what Ilhan Omar has said about her age and what she’s written in her book.

Here’s what he said:

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar writes in her memoir, “I was eight years old when civil war broke out in Somalia. One day everything was okay, and the next, there were bullets piercing not only buildings but also people.” While Somalia has suffered several civil wars, the chapter is entitled, “War: 1989-1991, Mogadishu, Somalia.” Mogadishu experienced severe riots in July 1989, including a mass execution that became known as the “Jazeera beach massacre.”

If, in her own words in her own autobiography, Omar was eight when this occurred in 1989, then she was born in 1981, and was 19 years old in the year 2000, when her father purportedly obtained his citizenship, not 1982 as she currently claims.

Red Steeze makes the obvious but important observation:

And there is not a single journalist anywhere interested in looking into these discrepancies. Her entire biography has just been “Trust me.” and that’s been good enough for all of them.

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