Tag: corruption

Paraguay Ousts Its President As His Daughter’s “Tax The Poor” Shirt Goes Viral

Paraguay’s Senate voted unanimously on Friday to remove President Santiago Peña over the collapse of Ueno Bank, a day after a photo of his 20-year-old daughter in a “Tax the Poor” T-shirt spread across X.

All 44 senators present convicted Peña of misconduct in office, the AP reported. The verdict bars him from the lifetime Senate seat Paraguay’s constitution gives former presidents, along with the immunity that comes with it. He had offered to resign Thursday, and opposition senators argued that accepting the resignation would have kept him eligible for the seat. Congress never voted on it.

Regulators seized Ueno, a digital lender with nearly 3 million customers, before dawn Tuesday and froze their savings, as we reported. Lawmakers accused Peña of using his influence to steer hundreds of millions of dollars in public money into the bank while regulators overlooked risky lending to insiders. He denies wrongdoing.

The Photo

The photo is a mirror selfie of Costanza Peña in a white T-shirt printed with “T.T.P” and “Est. 1969” above the slogan, IBTimes UK reported. SDP Noticias reported that she posted it to her private Instagram account; neither outlet said when. It began circulating on X on Thursday, the day her father offered to resign. She has not responded publicly.

An Internship At A Vázquez Company

Costanza Peña studies financial economics and history at Columbia University, according to SDP Noticias. She interned from February to June 2024 at Itti Saeca, a state supplier whose main shareholder is Grupo Vázquez, the group that owns Ueno, ABC Color reported in January. Her father was still a business partner of Grupo Vázquez and Itti in Ueno Holding at the time, the paper said. SDP Noticias reported that the LinkedIn profile listing the internship has since been deleted.

The same ABC Color report ran her photos from a yacht in Cabo San Lucas at the end of 2025 alongside Peña’s advice that people choose public education to save money. Prosecutors searched Itti’s offices on Thursday as part of the Ueno investigation, ABC Color reported. She has not been accused of wrongdoing.

The impeachment case cited Peña’s stake in Ueno’s holding company, which he sold last year, and his appointment of a former Ueno executive to run the central bank, along with public pension deposits at the bank above legal limits, according to the AP. Ueno has said Peña was never a shareholder in the bank itself.

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Biden-Released Armed Venezuelan Illegal Alien Busted near White House with Multiple Firearms

United States Secret Service (USSS) officers thwarted a potential tragedy near the White House on Thursday evening, arresting an illegal alien from Venezuela who was heavily armed and openly declared his intent to assassinate President Donald Trump. The man, who was captured and released by the Biden administration along the Texas border in 2024, was allegedly in possession of multiple firearms and ammunition.

Secret Service officers working on Constitution Avenue in Washington observed a suspicious man near the White House, according to a statement the U.S. Department of Homeland Security provided to Breitbart News. DHS officials identified the man as Ronny Yordrix Guanipa Chrinos, a 22-year-old Venezuelan national who illegally entered the U.S. during the Biden Border Crisis in March 2024.

Officials said Chrinos was behaving suspiciously in a vehicle parked near the White House. When officers approached and confronted Chrinos, he made a chilling confession: he claimed he was hearing voices in his head instructing him to travel to the nation’s capital to murder President Trump, officials stated.

Officers searched the Venezuelan illegal alien’s vehicle and found a rolling arsenal of firearms and ammunition, the DHS statement revealed. The officers seized three firearms, including an AR-15-style rifle, a Mac-10, and a Glock 43X pistol, along with dozens of rounds of live ammunition. Authorities quickly confirmed the vehicle itself had been reported stolen.

Officials stated that Chrinos entered the United States by illegally crossing the Mexican border into Texas between ports of entry in March 2024. He was one of nearly 8,000 Venezuelan nationals arrested in the five Texas-based Border Patrol sectors that month, according to the CBP Nationwide Encounters report.

At that time, the catch-and-release policies of the Biden administration led to the release of Chrinos and most of the 8,100 other Venezuelan illegal aliens who crossed the U.S. southern border that month. Many of those were members of the hyperviolent Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang that was subsequently designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the Trump administration.

“Thanks to our brave Secret Service officers, this illegal alien with three firearms in his vehicle was arrested near the White House before he could harm anyone,” said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. “On top of threatening President Trump, he is an illegal alien from Venezuela who had no business being in our country in the first place.”

Chrinos has been charged with:

  • Carrying a rifle outside a home or business
  • Three counts of unlawful transportation of a firearm
  • Three counts of possessing an unregistered firearm
  • Three counts of possessing unregistered ammunition
  • Possession of certain dangerous weapons
  • Carrying a pistol without a license
  • Unauthorized use of a motor vehicle
  • Theft and receiving stolen property

Secret Service Director Sean Curran highlighted the escalating danger facing protective details in the current political climate.

“This is the latest example of Secret Service personnel relying on extensive training and experience to deescalate a volatile situation that posed an imminent threat to our protectees and other Americans,” Director Curran said. “This incident reflects the heightened threat environment in which we operate, as well as the continued number of armed individuals who are drawn to the White House complex.”

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Rule Of Law Is Quietly Eroding Across Europe, Even In The Nordics

Rule-of-law scores fell in 26 of the 40 European countries with comparable data between 2021 and 2026, and the four Nordic leaders were among them: Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden each lost ground, according to a Visual Capitalist ranking built on the World Justice Project’s latest index.

It is not only a European problem. The WJP’s 2026 index, released October 21, covers 143 countries and found declines outnumbering improvements for the ninth straight year, 62% to 38%. The group said the drop in its measure of constraints on government powers was driven by weaker non-governmental checks, and that judicial limits on government power fell in 63% of countries.

Inside Europe, Russia fell 0.062 points to 0.401, the steepest drop on the continent, followed by Georgia (0.036), Serbia (0.032) and Belarus (0.031). Latvia (up 0.031) and Lithuania (up 0.028) improved the most. Germany slipped 0.010 to 0.830, France 0.004 to 0.716 and the UK 0.007 to 0.778.

Using the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index 2026, this visualization by The European Correspondent (via Visual Capitalist) ranks 41 European countries and tracks changes in their scores since 2021.

Denmark leads with a score of 0.898, followed by Norway (0.890) and Finland (0.870). Beyond the Nordic countries, Luxembourg, Germany, and Ireland round out Europe’s top seven.

Notably, Ireland and Estonia are among the few countries near the top of the ranking to have improved since 2021.

Why Are Checks on Government Power Weakening?

A strong rule of law depends on independent courts, enforceable rights, and effective limits on government authority. When these safeguards weaken, political leaders face fewer constraints on how they exercise power.

According to Liberties’ 2026 Rule of Law Report, political interference in courts, weakened oversight, and fast-track legislation are undermining these protections. The organization highlighted Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, and Slovakia as particularly concerning cases.

Independent journalism also plays an important role in holding governments accountable, making press freedom another critical institutional safeguard.

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Kellie-Jay Keen charged under Communications Act over ‘grossly offensive’ X post about Islam

Kellie-Jay Keen, the British women’s rights campaigner also known as Posie Parker, says she has been charged by the Metropolitan Police under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 over a post she made on X between June 23 and June 25. She is due to enter a plea at Westminster Magistrates’ Court at 10 a.m. on December 4.

Keen announced the charge in a video on October 30. Reading the charge sheet, she said she was accused of having, “between the 23rd and the 25th of June, sent by means of public electronic communications network, a message that was grossly offensive.”

Section 127(1) covers a message “that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character.” The maximum penalty is six months in prison, a fine, or both.

Keen has not said which post is charged. In August she recorded a call, reported by the free speech and privacy site Reclaim The Net, in which a Met officer read three of her June posts back to her.

One, posted over a video purporting to show Muslims in Manchester, read “There’s nothing about this scene that doesn’t scream backward regressive sub normal culture.” Another, over a clip of Baroness Warsi, read “No one needs foreign money to understand the threat Islam poses to every last one of us.”

Asked who the offence was against, the officer said “somebody who’s read those tweets has taken offense to them and made the report.” He said the case had gone to the Crown Prosecution Service “for early advice.”

Before a voluntary police interview in September, she wrote on her Substack, “We do not have a blasphemy law in this country, and we should be extremely wary of recreating one through public order or communications offences.”

The Free Speech Union, a British group that defends people punished for their speech, is defending her. “In a free society, no religion or cultural practice should be immune from criticism,” it said, as quoted by Reclaim The Net.

The writer Paul Embery, in a post dated November 3, said Keen is asking supporters to gather outside the court.

The charge is an accusation, not a finding.

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Americans Lost Key Medical Freedom Rights During Pandemic, as Courts Quietly Dismantled Constitution

During the pandemic, government officials and the courts quietly dismantled the U.S. Constitution, stripping Americans of key constitutional protections, according to Florida resident Brian Ward.

In a 29-page letter to Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.), Ward said that through a series of legal rulings and government actions related to COVID-19 mandates, Americans may have lost the ability to refuse medical interventions, protect their private biomedical information and seek justice when their rights are violated.

Ward accused the courts of nullifying one of the Constitution’s most fundamental protections — the right to due process — and modifying the Constitution without a formal amendment.

Ward’s accusations stem in part from a lawsuit he filed in July 2025 against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and then-FDA Commissioner Martin Makary.

Ward challenged 21 C.F.R. Section 50.22, an FDA rule that allows certain clinical investigations to proceed without participants’ informed consent. He argued that the rule violated his constitutional rights to bodily autonomy and due process and his right to be free from involuntary servitude.

The court dismissed the lawsuit, finding that Ward lacked standing to bring the claims.

On a recent episode of the “DarkHorse Podcast,” hosts Bret Weinstein, Ph.D., and Heather Heying, Ph.D., discussed Ward’s argument and why its implications extend far beyond COVID-19 or vaccine mandates.

“What Mr. Ward is advancing here is a very exhaustive discussion of the way in which our rights have been substantially altered,” Weinstein said. “He argues that, effectively, the Constitution is modified without the process that is supposed to be required to modify the Constitution.”

At the center of Ward’s argument is the due process clauses of the Fifth and 14th Amendments, which protect Americans from government actions that deprive them of life, liberty or property without due process of law.

Weinstein explained the principle in simple terms: “The upshot is that they can’t just take stuff from you.”

In his letter, Ward argues that court rulings have eroded that protection, allowing government officials to override individual rights while leaving people with little recourse. Ward copied Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and others on the letter addressed to Moody.

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The Politics of Denial: When Americans Stop Seeing the Warning Signs

“You see them on the street. You watch them on TV. You might even vote for one this fall. You think they’re people just like you. You’re wrong. Dead wrong.” — They Live

The spectacle of public executions. Deadly military strikes on foreign countries. Innocent civilian lives lost to war. Aggressive ICE raids. Government officials accused of using their powers to intimidate political opponents. Public office increasingly entangled with private financial interests.  Government leaders who glorify violence, spew hatred, stir up racial prejudice, provoke civil unrest, and stoke discontent.

This is what it looks like when a nation loses its way.

When cruelty is mistaken for courage, vengeance for justice, and the taking of human life for a demonstration of strength.

When government officials tell you not to believe your own eyes and ears about the state of the world around you, when they insist that the truth is a lie and the lie is truth, you’ve stumbled into a dystopian reality in which, as John Lennon rightly concluded, the government is “being run by maniacs for maniacal ends.”

When so-called Christians and self-professed defenders of morality insist that we must accept the lesser of two evils based on exaggerated fears of what might happen if their political opponents gain power, rather than confront the abuses unfolding before our eyes, remember this: the lesser of two evils is still evil.

This is not simply about Donald Trump.

The machinery of the American police state has been assembled over decades, under Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Presidents have expanded executive authority, waged undeclared wars, authorized drone killings, built surveillance networks, militarized domestic policing, and invoked national security to justify extraordinary powers.

What makes the present moment so troubling is the extent to which the public is encouraged to accept increasingly aggressive exercises of government power as necessary demonstrations of strength and resolve.

The Constitution was never intended to protect only the innocent, the popular, the patriotic, or the politically acceptable. Its restraints on government power matter most when the government is dealing with people whom society has already condemned.

Yet what happens when the public becomes so accustomed to government overreach, corruption and brutality that it no longer recognizes them as warning signs? What becomes of a constitutional republic when its leaders and citizens stop asking whether government actions are lawful, justified or necessary, and concern themselves only with whether those actions punish their enemies, advance their political interests or preserve their sense of security?

We are witnessing a political culture in which demanding due process for an accused criminal is treated as defending criminality, questioning a military strike is equated with sympathy for the enemy, and opposing government cruelty is portrayed as weakness.

The government doesn’t have to abolish the Constitution outright when it can persuade the public that certain people should no longer be entitled to its protections.

That is how constitutional rights cease to be rights at all and become privileges granted or withdrawn at the government’s discretion.

And that is how a population becomes conditioned to accept the unacceptable.

We’re living in two worlds.

There’s the world we see—or are made to see—and then there’s the one we sense and occasionally catch a glimpse of, which bears little resemblance to the propaganda-driven reality manufactured by those in power and amplified through an increasingly fragmented media landscape.

Indeed, what most Americans perceive as life in America—privileged, progressive and free—is a far cry from the reality of a nation where economic inequality persists, government power continues to expand, and freedom is increasingly subjected to the demands of surveillance, security and control.

All is not as it seems.

Monsters with human faces walk among us.

Some of them wield extraordinary government power.

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Charges dropped against Pinellas deputy who ran 381 ALPR inquiries on woman

Prosecutors say they are dropping charges against a disgraced Pinellas County deputy after they found that Florida law does not support criminal charges for his reported conduct.

In a September press conference, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said Karl Gwynne, 57, used the agency’s automated license plate reader database to run 381 searches for one license plate, 207 of which were made while off duty.

The vehicle was registered to a 35-year-old woman whom Gwynne arrested in 2010 and had reconnected with through social media in 2024. Gwynne initially told detectives he repeatedly searched her license plate for official purposes, but eventually admitted that she had rejected his romantic advances.

Gwynne was arrested and charged with official misconduct and four counts of accessing a computer network or electronic device without authority.

However, the State Attorney’s Office for the Sixth Judicial Circuit filed a No Information on Oct. 30, saying the current Florida Statutory provisions do not address Gwynne’s reported conduct.

According to the Florida Senate’s website, a person commits an offense against users of electronic devices without authorization when they access the device knowing it is unauthorized, or their manner of use exceeds authorization.

The court document said the state attorney’s office will seek to have the legislature “correct this situation” in the next legislative session, which is scheduled to begin in 2027.

In a Thursday press conference announcing the arrest of a deputy who allegedly used official systems to track his estranged wife, Gualtieri commented on the recent developments in Gwynne’s case.

The sheriff said he was working with the state attorney’s office on Gwynne’s case, noting “disagreements about interpreting the elements of the statute,” but saying he believed they could work through it.

“They filed that No Information last Friday on Gwynne; I wouldn’t have arrested Scott today unless I knew that the elements had been established,” Gualtieri told reporters.

The sheriff also said the state attorney’s office could charge Gwynne a second time.

“Just because they filed a No Information doesn’t mean that they can’t file an Information,” Gualtieri said. “They’re looking at it, and I’m comfortable that it’ll get to the right place.”

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Ex-School Board President Indicted In Alleged $1.3 Million Kickback Over $2.7 Million COVID-Funded Air Purifier Deal

A federal grand jury in Chicago has indicted Annette Johnson, the former president of the East Aurora School District 131 Board of Education, on charges that she entered the district into a $2.7 million air purifier purchase in 2021 in exchange for a $1.3 million payment. Johnson, 63, of Aurora, faces two counts of honest services mail fraud and one count of honest services wire fraud, each punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois said. She remains a member of the board.

Prosecutors say that Johnson, then board president, voted for the purchase, and that the district paid for the purifiers with COVID-era federal grant money. Unbeknownst to the other board members, they say, Johnson and the vendor had agreed that the vendor would pay more than $1 million of the sale proceeds to a company owned by her boyfriend, where she served as chief financial officer.

Within days of a board vote in which Johnson participated and approved payment, prosecutors say, the vendor mailed a $1.3 million check labeled “commission” to that company. Later, she allegedly pushed the board to approve a $201,077 payment to the vendor in 2023 for an “extended warranty” on the purifiers. The US Attorney’s office does not name the vendor nor the company in the complaint, and Johnson was the only person indicted.

The indictment also accuses Johnson of failing to list $7,500 paid to her in 2021 by a company involved in the deal on her statement of economic interests. Johnson said in a statement Monday that she recognizes the gravity of the allegations. “I maintain my innocence of the criminal charges brought against me, and I intend to vigorously defend myself through the judicial process,” she said, according to the Sun-Times.

Aurora Mayor John Laesch told the Sun-Times that a whistleblower approached him in 2024 and that district records show eight companies with purported ties to Johnson received $43.1 million from the district between 2018 and 2023, which he says he gave to prosecutors. He has called on her to resign, the paper reported. The $43.1 million figure is Laesch’s claim, not an allegation in the indictment.

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Knives Out: Hegseth’s Wife Reportedly Paid By Trump-Connected Firm That Also Worked For Lockheed

Jennifer Hegseth, the wife of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, was paid last year by Watchtower Strategy, a Trump-connected Washington consulting firm that counted Lockheed Martin as a client the same year, according to Hegseth’s annual financial disclosure report, as Politico‘s Daniel Lippman first reported on Wednesday.

The disclosure lists her consulting work for the firm but not how much she was paid, according to Politico. Jennifer Hegseth, a former longtime Fox News producer, is the daughter of a late Lockheed Martin executive.

Watchtower was founded in January 2025 and sells strategic advice, advocacy and communications work. Its roster includes former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Republican operatives Jeff Miller, Arthur Schwartz, Dan Conston and Brian O. Walsh. Lockheed was a Watchtower client last year, according to POLITICO Influence; asked whether it still is, a Lockheed spokesperson didn’t answer directly, saying only that the company routinely works with a number of firms.

Watchtower says she was hired for her TV contacts, not her husband’s job. A spokesperson said she helped the firm navigate conservative TV media and “has not interfaced with any clients nor does she provide any advice to Watchtower on defense matters.” The firm declined to say whether she still works there.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the Hegseths are “in full compliance with all ethics laws and regulations.” Jennifer Hegseth didn’t respond to Politico’s request for comment. She has been an unusually visible Pentagon spouse, and accompanied her husband to meetings with Republican senators during his confirmation fight.

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who sat on the House Armed Services Committee and was Trump’s first pick for attorney general in 2024, wasn’t buying it.

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‘You’ll Be Killed… Snake’: Ilhan Omar’s Somali Backers Using Death Threats and Street Attacks to Silence Critics Who Speak About Her Secrets, According to New Report

A campaign of intimidation inside Minnesota’s tight-knit Somali community is using online death threats, physical assaultsS, and pressure campaigns to stop people from talking about Rep. Ilhan Omar’s past, according to a new report published on Tuesday.

Sources told the New York Post that people who have questioned Omar’s background, her 2009 marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, or her personal life have been assaulted in Minneapolis and Kenya, bombarded with daily death wishes, and warned they will be killed if they continue speaking out.

The paper states the protective network is not officially connected to Omar and it is unclear whether she is personally aware of the actions. Her office did not respond to a request for comment.

One man who spoke critically about Omar said he was jumped by roughly 15 people outside a Kenyan restaurant in Minneapolis, pepper-sprayed, thrown to the ground, and left with a concussion plus multiple cuts and bruises.

“I got jumped by 15 people and was pepper-sprayed,” the man, who was not named, told The Post.

“After that I don’t really remember what happened. All I know is I was thrown to the ground and had so many punches and kicks thrown at me.”

He told The Post he believes a popular Somali TikTok personality set followers on him by sharing his location after calling him a “fool” and threatening to “punch him in the face.”

“I was attacked because of this man. He set his followers on me after sharing my location,”‘ he said.

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