Tag: taxes

Former Senior CIA Officer Pleads GUILTY to $194 MILLION Taxpayer Heist — Fake Classified Programs, 298 Gold Bars, Florida Luxury Homes, Rolexes

A former senior CIA officer who held a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information clearance pleaded guilty Tuesday to a scheme that prosecutors say drained approximately $194 million from the federal government, money he converted into gold bars, Florida luxury properties, Rolex watches, and high-end cars.

David J. Rush, 49, of Ashburn, Virginia, admitted the fraud in federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia.

The Justice Department said he fraudulently obtained approximately $193,590,400 by misusing his senior executive-level position and inventing fictitious government authorities, including a fabricated Special Access Program, to pull U.S. funds for his own use.

According to the Department of Justice, Rush reached that trusted post in part by lying about his education and military experience. Once inside, he used the clearance and the authority that came with it to move money that never belonged to him.

The scheme split into two tracks that prosecutors described as the same overarching fraud. Rush directed approximately $145 million in wire transfers that he used to buy luxury real estate, watches, and at least one car. Separately, he obtained gold bars at an approximate cost to the government of $46 million.

Court filings reported by CBS News say he invented a fake classified program to steer the real-estate money through a front company and a holding company he controlled, then bought properties in Palm Beach and Hobe Sound, Florida, that he intended to resell for profit. He also fabricated a separate purported sensitive government activity to justify the gold.

The FBI search of his Virginia home on May 19 recovered 298 gold bars, approximately $2,106,550 in cash, €104,795, and numerous luxury watches.

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Zohran Mamdani Administration Signs Multimillion Dollar Contracts With Vendors for ‘Gender-Affirming’ Care for Minors

The administration of Zohran Mamdani in New York City has just signed contracts worth upwards of $9 million with vendors who will provide ‘gender-affirming care’ to minors, including puberty-blocking drugs.

This issue seriously hurt Democrats in 2024, and they clearly do not care. They simply refuse to let go of it, no matter what the public thinks.

Their activist base won’t allow them to move on.

The New York Post reports:

The Mamdani administration is entering into two contracts totaling $8.9 million to provide “gender-affirming” sex reassignment care to transgender patients under the age of 18.

The move backs a policy the federal Department of Justice has challenged as medically dangerous and illegal.

The city Department of Health identified two vendors — Callen-Lorde and Nonprofit Organization for Philanthropic Initiatives — to provide the services in contracts that run from 2027-29.

“This includes the prescription and administration of puberty-blockers and hormone replacement therapy to all minor patients for whom such services are medically necessary based on the prevailing standards of care,” the DOH said in a public notice.

“Services will be performed by qualified medical providers with current New York State licensure, and will be provided consistent with state laws governing parental consent.”

Critics blasted Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s team, claiming they are trying to circumvent the federal ban on gender care services for minors.

“They’re making an ideological decision instead of a medical decision,” said state Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar.

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Trump’s Other War

As the midterm election draws near, a number of Republicans in tough races are distancing themselves from President Trump’s war. The war is unpopular because it has inflicted economic pain on the already-suffering American people.

No, I am not talking about the Iran War. I am talking about President Trump’s tariff war.

The Tax Foundation estimates that, since he returned to the White House, President Trump has imposed tariffs on about 54 percent of imported goods.

Contrary to the claims of power-hungry politicians and corporatists seeking protection from overseas competitors, the financial burden of tariffs falls on American businesses and consumers, not foreign exporters. Tariffs are a tax on Americans.

President Trump’s tariffs have been estimated to impose an over 800 dollars tax on the average American household this year.

Tariff defenders claim tariffs boost domestic industries, thus strengthening the US economy. The truth is, while tariffs may benefit some industries that have major competition from abroad, tariffs harm American businesses, like farms, that rely on exports for a substantial share of revenue. Additionally, countries often respond to increased tariffs on goods exported to the US by raising tariffs on imports from the US.

High tariffs also hurt businesses that rely on importing raw materials and parts necessary to make their products.

According to a survey of 4,150 registered voters conducted by the Cato Institute and Morning Consult, 74 percent of Americans view tariffs as a factor in the price increases that continue to bedevil American families, while 53 percent of Americans understand that tariffs weaken the US economy.

The survey’s most disheartening result — at least for President Trump and Republicans preparing to face the voters in less than a month — is that 49 percent of Americans say President Trump’s tariffs have made their lives worse.

President Trump launched his tariff war without receiving approval from Congress, even though Article One of the Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power “to lay and collect” taxes. In order to get around the Constitution, President Trump claimed that federal laws giving the president emergency powers give him the authority to impose tariffs and thus increase taxes on the American people.

President Trump’s claim regarding his authority to impose tariffs without authorization from Congress was struck down by the Supreme Court. Then, instead of taking the opportunity the court gave him to end his tariff war, President Trump simply found new justifications to impose tariffs.

One of President Trump’s latest tariff targets is Canada. The Canadian government responded to President Trump’s tariffs by imposing tariffs on US goods. President Trump then responded by forbidding the importation of a long list of Canadian goods. Once again President Trump acted without getting authorization from Congress.

President Trump’s tariffs have raised prices for American consumers, increased production costs for many American businesses that rely on imported materials and goods, and hurt farmers and other export-reliant business.

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Abdul El-Sayed Is Either Lying or Very Stupid

“If you think health care is expensive now, wait till you see how much it costs when it’s free!” said PJ O’Roarke, famously. 

If there’s one thing government is horrible at it is estimating how much things will cost. I don’t recall a single incidence where the official estimates were well under what a program actually cost, though it has to have happened in the thousands of government programs that exist. 

But healthcare is something they are especially awful at estimating. When Medicare was originally passed, the official government estimates of costs had the entire program costing $12 billion a year by 1990. It cost that much in 5 years, in 1990 the program cost about $100 billion. That’s quite a big miss, don’t you think?

That miss, however, did not give the federal government pause or even have them thinking about repeal, “reform” or really changing the program to cut costs at all. It was only 5 years old, it would have been fairly easy to do, or at least much easier. Yet, they did nothing – and by “they” I mean politicians. 

What Abdul El-Sayed is promising is nothing new, Democrats have been pushing for one degree or another of socialized medicine for decades, and every little step they’ve taken – every time they’ve messed with the system to “improve” it has been designed for that very purpose. 

Obamacare was not only destined to fail; it was designed to. The only problem Democrats had was it failed too soon – right from the start – allowing voters to notice their lies and associate the cost increases with the Democrats directly responsible for them. They also noticed the lack of being able to keep their plan and the doctor they liked, not to mention the fact that the $2,500 in premium savings didn’t materialize, it just went in the other direction. 

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Failing San Antonio Public School Hosts Democrat-Backed Anti-ICE Protesters with Vulgar Displays

In yet another chapter of the saga to stop a planned U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in San Antonio, protesters organized by the Bexar County Democrats held a march and rally that began and ended at a local public middle school. Protesters, some carrying signs with vulgar messages, fanned out in front of the campus shouting anti-ICE slogans during the early Saturday morning protest.

The anti-ICE protest, dubbed the “March for Freedom and Justice” and held at Davis Middle School, featured an appearance by U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro (D-TX). Protesters carried multiple signs and included static displays on the campus with vulgar messages.

One static display over a table under a tent read, “Fuck DHS,” while another prominently displayed a large Mexican flag with similar messaging critical of ICE. The rally concluded after San Antonio police officers escorted the group of more than one hundred protesters to the proposed ICE facility and back to the public-school campus.

Breitbart Texas attended the event at the Davis Middle School campus, which is part of the San Antonio Independent School District (SAISD). A request for information from SAISD about the partisan-sponsored anti-ICE event on the Davis campus, which included a voter registration drive, remains unanswered as of press time.

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Trump Admin Cancels $2.2 Billion In Phony Obamacare Enrollments — And Brokers Who Facilitated Them

The Trump administration’s latest action to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in the Obamacare Exchanges entailed disenrolling people from insurance plans — costing taxpayers billions — who couldn’t identify themselves with proper documentation.

It’s the kind of move that would prompt ordinary taxpayers in the heartland to ask: Why didn’t they do that sooner?

Ghost Enrollees

In a fact sheet, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced it had “canceled approximately 315,000 enrollments covering over 760,000 individuals after confirmation that these enrollments were unauthorized.” The action, taken after investigations in coordination with insurance companies, will result in approximately $2.2 billion in Obamacare subsidies being refunded to the federal government.

At the same time, CMS announced it had sent “569 notices of intent to terminate Exchange Agreements to agents and brokers that submitted 2026 applications [for coverage] without identifying applicant information, such as a Social Security number.” It said 66 of those agents and brokers had already been terminated, and more will likely follow as CMS receives responses from the relevant parties.

Questionable Enrollment Persists

CMS also published an interim final rule (i.e., one taking effect immediately) imposing a six-month moratorium on the new registration of brokers and agents, allowing CMS to implement another round of program integrity measures to guard against fraud by agents and brokers. (The moratorium will not apply in states that run their own Exchanges, which set their own rules regarding insurance brokers.) The move caused some pushback from the broker community, which said this punishes the innocent with the guilty since no new broker will be able to register until next February, after the open enrollment period for 2027.

In response, CMS cited data indicating that new agents for the current (i.e., 2026) plan year had significantly higher rates of questionable enrollment — for instance, a 2.8-time higher rate of “unresolved income verification issues,” a 2.7-time higher rate of “missing Social Security numbers,” a 2.6-time higher rate of “unresolved citizenship or immigration status verification issues,” and a 1.4-time higher rate of dual enrollment in Exchange coverage and Medicaid. To CMS, these data points suggest that new brokers may be disproportionately seeking to enroll ineligible individuals primarily for the commissions, and justified the registration moratorium as a preventive measure.

Prior Government Audit

While taking action to prevent fraud is always welcome, did these particular steps come too late? CMS’s latest announcement raises questions about when and why brokers are being terminated or reinstated.

Specifically, an audit released by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) last December addressed this issue. It noted that, in October 2024, CMS “suspended 850 agents and brokers from the federal Marketplace [i.e., Exchange] for reasonable suspicion of fraudulent or abusive conduct related to unauthorized enrollments or unauthorized plan switches. However, in May 2025, CMS officials told us that the agency reinstated all these suspended agents and brokers to better fulfill the agency’s statutory and regulatory procedures.” 

It isn’t clear why CMS reinstated the brokers last May and whether any of the reinstated brokers were among those who received new termination notices over the summer. But the reinstatements came at a time when the federal government continued to struggle with program integrity efforts.

The recent interim final rule noted that in 2025, CMS received approximately 300,000 “complaints attesting to unauthorized enrollments or unauthorized plan switching.” A separate GAO report, released in July, disclosed a total of 299,604 such complaints last year — an increase from 258,424 in 2024. Thankfully, CMS said in the interim final rule that these trends have reversed in 2026. But given the persistence of eligibility fraud through 2025, CMS should make its reasoning behind last year’s broker reinstatements and this year’s subsequent terminations clear — and if it doesn’t, Congress should ask those questions on behalf of the American people.

As last year’s GAO report noted, a total of 19 of 20 fictitious enrollees were able to obtain subsidized coverage from the federal Exchange. Taxpayers should find that unacceptable, and most ordinary Americans would, regardless of political party. It’s why Washington should continue digging into fraud and demanding accountability. We the people deserve no less.

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President Trump Calls for Mandatory Prison Sentences for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security Fraudsters – Says Crooked Politicians Who Cover It Up Must Face Real Consequences

President Donald Trump is calling on Congress to finally put real teeth behind the government’s war on fraud, mandatory prison sentences for criminals caught stealing from Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

In a video released Saturday, Trump demanded legislation establishing mandatory minimum sentences for fraudsters who loot the federal programs millions of Americans depend on.

Under Trump’s proposal, probation would no longer be an option for covered fraud offenses.

“Today, I’m calling on Congress to pass legislation to address fraud in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security programs,” Trump said.

“First, Congress must impose mandatory minimum sentences on fraudsters who steal from critical benefit programs designed to take care of the sick, feed the hungry, care for our children, and protect our senior citizens’ retirements.”

“Under our proposal, probation is no longer an option for the fraudsters. If you steal from the American people, you will go to prison and for a long period of time. And the more you steal, the longer you’ll stay in that prison,” he said. “If you’re a convicted fraudster who gets caught stealing from the American people a second time, your sentence will be doubled.”

Then he went after the politicians.

“Second, Congress must make sure that crooked and corrupt politicians who willfully turn a blind eye to fraud finally face real consequences,” Trump said.

“Under our proposal, if a state or local politician knows about fraud and has the ability to stop it, but does nothing about it, they can be personally liable for the full loss of the American taxpayers’ money that they should have stopped and they should have saved.”

The White House published the president’s announcement Saturday under the title “Minimum Sentences on Fraudsters.”

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Merz Pledges €1.35 Billion More to Ukraine, Vows to Keep Fighting Russia…The War Machine Grinds

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrived in Kyiv on 4 October 2026 by special train, as air-raid sirens and explosions sounded over the capital, and used the trip to lock in another round of weapons, money, and industrial cooperation rather than any concrete path to a ceasefire.

Berlin’s package, as described by German officials to Reuters, is straightforward. Germany will release €1 billion in military aid already budgeted and €350 million for repairs to Ukraine’s energy system, while finalising a joint production deal covering drones and related systems. Merz travelled with Economy Minister Katherina Reiche and executives from defence and energy firms, including companies tied to interceptor drones and longer-range weapons.

The visit was not a diplomatic probe. It was an arms-and-industry mission staged under fire.

Merz’s own framing left little room for de-escalation. “If Russia is not stopped, it will turn its war machine against us sooner or later,” he said on arrival, according to German reporting of the trip. He told President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Ukraine could continue to count on German help. That is the logic of indefinite support: Russian power must be worn down in Ukraine, or it will eventually be turned on Europe, so the flow of interceptors, long-range systems with ranges above 1,000 kilometres, and repair money cannot be allowed to stop.

Winter attacks on power plants are treated as a reason to spend more, not as a reason to force a settlement before the heating season.

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British Government Caught Handing Out Thousands of Hijabs to Illegal Boat Migrants

The British government has handed out more than 1,000 taxpayer-funded hijabs to migrants arriving illegally across the English Channel.

According to internal Home Office figures reported by The Daily Mail, officials distributed 974 of the Islamic head coverings to small-boat migrants, an average of 162 every month between January and June.

At that rate, the total handed out at taxpayer expense is likely in the thousands

“The Government must stop handing out hijabs to illegal immigrants immediately,” Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said.

“It’s an insult to hard-working British taxpayers that they’re funding religious items for people who have broken into our country. It should not be for us to fund someone else’s religious practices.”

Many are also wondering why British taxpayers are paying to promote a symbol of female subservience.

Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott recently came out against hijabs forming part of school uniforms.

“I do not believe the state should be party to an instrument of female suppression,” she said.

The taxpayer-funded clothing is being distributed as Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government refuses to stop the boats despite promises to do so.

More than 19,000 migrants have made the journey so far this year, with hundreds, if not thousands, more arriving every week.

Although overall crossings are down from 2025, boats have become increasingly crowded, carrying an average of 67 people per vessel.

The Home Office defended the practice by claiming it has obligations to provide appropriate basic clothing to migrants in short-term holding facilities.

“All arrivals receive a basic dry clothing pack where required,” a spokesman said. “The items available form part of standard welfare arrangements.”

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Dem Sen. Mark Kelly Says His Solution to Cost of Living Crisis is Raising Taxes

Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly said Sunday that Democrats plan to lower costs for Americans in part by raising taxes on people earning more than $1 million a year.

Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation, the Arizona senator was pressed by host Margaret Brennan to explain his party’s plan for tackling the cost of living.

“Well, we’re going to lower costs for the American people,” Kelly said.

“How?” Brennan asked.

Kelly responded by pointing to legislation he introduced with Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen.

“We’ve got to win the House and, or the Senate. Well- well, how will we do this? I have legislation with Chris Van Hollen. We’ve got to get Republicans on board.”

”It raises taxes for people who make over a million dollars a year in income, and it provides tax cuts for people, individuals, and even couples who make up to about $160,000 a year, that’s some relief.”

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