Tag: taxes

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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‘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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“Robin Hood In Reverse”: The Pentagon Is Stealing From the Working Poor to Pay for War and Enrich Contractors

In an era of high prices for fuel, food, and housing, an extra $4,000 could make a lifesaving difference for many families. But instead, that’s what the average household had to shell out for the Pentagon last year.

That’s right: The average US taxpayer in 2025 had over $4,000 taken out of their paychecks to fund the Pentagon, according to the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. In the coming years, that amount is set to rise as Congress considers a $1.5 trillion war budget for 2027.

For the growing number of working poor in the United States, that money can mean the difference between making rent or falling behind, or between being able to afford an emergency trip to the doctor or going without care.

Money directed to the Pentagon represents nothing but betrayal for many Americans. A large majority oppose our wars, especially the latest conflict in Iran. And roughly half of the Pentagon’s budget flows to for-profit contractors, fueling the billionaire (and now even trillionaire) class.

Take SpaceX, one of many companies built on government contracts funded by taxpayer dollars. Elon Musk’s company would not exist without US taxpayers. As early Tesla investor Ross Gerber put it, “There would not be (Tesla and SpaceX) if it weren’t for the government.”

Early investments and contracts from the US government helped propel SpaceX to success, while continued awards from the Pentagon provided the stable revenue that made the government one of Musk’s largest customers. The company is now valued at more than $1 trillion. Private investors alone did not make Musk a trillionaire—taxpayers across the United States did.

But Musk isn’t the only person who made himself rich off the backs of American workers.

Lockheed Martin receives over 70% of its revenue from US government contracts. The numbers for Raytheon and General Dynamics are similar. These military contractors simply would not exist without the taxpayers—and a new $1.5 trillion budget would send hundreds of billions of dollars more to people who already have more than most Americans could even conceptualize.

At the same time, while taxpayers are subsidizing the military-industrial complex, the jobs those industries are allegedly providing are in decline, with the war industry creating over 2 million fewer jobs than it did 40 years ago.

Worse still, under the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” Republicans passed a year ago, the money for these ever-rising Pentagon budgets comes directly from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid, and other programs that help Americans make ends meet.

Under those cuts, millions of Americans—including children—have lost SNAP benefits already. And that’s impacting not just families but the farmers who helped feed them.

SNAP benefits were “guaranteed money in the pockets of farmers,” said Reese Amxy, a policy organizer at the Illinois Stewardship Alliance. But 150,000 people in the state have already lost eligibility.

It’s not just Illinois. Arizona has seen the steepest decline, with 50% of recipients—nearly half a million—already losing benefits. Louisiana (21%), Florida (20%), Oklahoma (16%), Virginia (16%), Texas (14%), Wyoming (13%), and Arkansas (12%) round out the rest of the hardest hit states so far.

Yet the person who lost SNAP and the farmer who lost their income alike will be asked to foot the bill for the $1.5 trillion war budget. This is Robin Hood in reverse. Worse still, the weapons those taxes buy are often to use to kill children like ours in Gaza and Iran.

The weapons and tech CEOs that would benefit from the massive war budget, and the politicians bought off by them, seek to keep this cycle going next year at an even grander scale. Americans need to demand their lawmakers say no more Pentagon spending—and invest in the things that actually keep our communities safe instead.

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Musk’s Unrealistic Future View is a New World Communist Vision

Elon Musk’s reasoning that AI and robots will make work optional is based on a core economic absurd argument: AI and robotics will create such an abundance of goods and services that the very concepts of work and money become largely obsolete. However, this vision also faces significant challenges and raises complex questions about the human desire for purpose. I was doing research in the Firestone Library at Princeton University. I became friends with one professor who had known Einstein.

He asked me what I was so intensely researching. I explained that I was trying to ascertain why all governments rise and then crash and burn throughout the centuries. He then said to me that I reminded him of Einstein. I was taken back. I said I was no Einstein. He then explained to me to me that the subject matter did not matter. It was curiosity that was the mother of all discovery. Without someone being curious, human society would stagnate.

During the late 1970s, I went through Check-Point-Charlie into East Germany. I wanted to see what Communism was all about and why they needed a wall to prevent people from fleeing. Those words from that professor suddenly rang true. The government feared individualism and curiosity. Because of that, the Russian economy could never compete with Capitalism because it suppressed the very essence of how human society advances. It requires that curiosity to make innovations that expands the economy and raises the standard of living.

Musk’s argument is rooted in what he sees as the logic of productivity and deflation. His reasoning can be broken down as follows.

  1. The core idea is that AI and robots will be capable of performing nearly all physical and cognitive labor at near-zero marginal cost . This would lead to a massive surge in the production of goods and services. However, it would be like Communism lacking that curiosity and this would suppress any advancement.
  2. The resulting supply would vastly outpace the available money supply, causing the prices of everything from food and housing to healthcare and education to plummet towards zero . For example, current productivity might see one worker produce 100 units per day, while one AI could produce 10,000, fundamentally breaking the link between work and survival.

In this state of “post-scarcity,” money, which Musk describes as an “information system for labor allocation,” would lose its purpose. If you can have anything you want without needing to direct someone else’s labor, he assumes that the currency system collapses. He has stated, “I think money will stop being relevant at some point in the future.”

To manage this transition, Musk proposes a “universal high income” (UHI), which goes beyond a basic safety net to ensure a comfortable life for everyone, funded by the massive surplus generated by AI and robots.

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Dr. Oz claims NY Medicaid program is being ripped off by Chinese crime syndicate

Federal Medicaid czar Dr. Mehmet Oz said New York’s overblown $110 billion spending on medical bills is sickening — as he claimed Chinese crime syndicates are ripping off the Empire State.

The TV doctor-turned-Trump administration official, blasted New York’s Medicaid program as rife with fraud in an interview Sunday as he outlined an alleged scheme that included millions of dollars in fraudulent medical bills.

“Social safety net programs are being defrauded. They’re being hurt oftentimes by foreign governments or foreign-run criminal syndicate organizations,” Oz, administrator of the US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said Sunday on 77 WABC ‘s the “Cats Roundtable” program.

Oz recently toured Flushing, Queens where a cluster of 64 social adult care centers operate — mostly serving ethnic Chinese and Korean senior citizens. Officials claim the center and pharmacies have generated massive amounts of questionable bills to Medicaid, a public insurance program intended to help the needy.

The social centers arguably shouldn’t be propped up by taxpayers, Oz said. The federal government covers more than half of Medicaid’s costs, with the state and local governments covering the rest.

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Education Secretary Spent £500,000 of Taxpayers’ Money Trying to Scrap University Free Speech Laws

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has run up a bill of more than £500,000 in taxpayers’ money attempting to block free speech protections for university academics. The High Court has ordered the Government to pay the Free Speech Union’s legal costs of £353,748 after it successfully resisted her bid to scrap the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. The Mail has the story:

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has spent more than £500,000 of taxpayers’ money trying to water down laws which protect free speech in universities, it was revealed last night.

Ms Phillipson embarked on the legal battle after trying to dilute Tory legislation which put a duty on universities and student unions to actively promote, as well as protect, free speech on campuses, describing it as a “Tory hate speech charter”.

A free speech watchdog allows universities to be fined up to 2% of their income for censoring academics.

The laws came after university staff were hounded out of their jobs for expressing their opinions.

They included Professor Kathleen Stock, who resigned from Sussex University in 2021 after harassment and protests by trans activists, saying she felt pressure to “self-censor” her work.

The philosophy lecturer, who believes single-sex spaces are necessary in places such as prisons and public toilets, was accused by students of making trans people feel “unsafe”.

Ms Phillipson’s move to block the laws was successfully opposed by the Free Speech Union (FSU), run by Tory peer Toby Young.

Now the High Court has ruled that the Government should pay the FSU’s costs of £353,748, which takes the total bill to more than £500,000 when its own legal costs are included.

Within weeks of Labour entering office in July 2024, Ms Phillipson declared that she would revoke the planned introduction of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, which had been passed in 2023.

Internal documents, disclosed during the litigation, revealed that officials had been instructed before the election to have a statutory instrument ready to pause the Act “on ‘day one’”, and that the Secretary of State did “not wish to implement the Act, at least in full”.

But in January 2025, nine days before the case was due to be heard, Ms Phillipson capitulated and told Parliament that the majority of the Act’s provisions would be enacted after all.

At that point, the FSU offered to withdraw its claim in return for a fixed costs payment of £84,000.

The Government refused, offering instead a “drop hands” settlement under which the FSU, having won in substance, would recover nothing. Since then, the costs have spiralled as expensive KCs wrangled over the details.

Lord Young of Acton, general secretary of the FSU, said: “The significance of this judicial decision is that it confirms our view and the view of our lawyers that we won this case and the Education Secretary lost – costs are awarded to the winners, with the losers having to pay.”

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DHS Issues Funding Warning To States That Don’t Purge Voter Rolls

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Friday said that states that do not purge their voter rolls of potentially ineligible voters and noncitizens could lose funding.

It came as he said the DHS has identified more than 250,000 noncitizens who were illegally on voter registration rolls in four states: California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Nevada.

“We know Iran hacked state voter files and attempted to compromise our systems where military members used to vote,” he said, adding that DHS “security enhancements” will be mandatory.

“If these states want a grant, and they want to be reimbursed to run federal elections, they’re going to have to implement security measures.”

Voting systems have to be secured, and voter registration lists need to be “scrubbed,” Mullin said.

“We need to make sure that individuals that are legally able to vote are voting,” he said.

When a staff member discovered the relationship with the prospective defendant, Johnston fired the employee, according to Hanaway.

“President Trump is correct when he said that election security is national security … this is just exposing what took place and to make sure it never happens again.

“And there’s some really easy steps that can be taken to secure our elections, and it shouldn’t be a partisan issue.”

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REPORT: Champagne Socialist Ilhan Omar Spent Thousands in Campaign Cash on Luxury Hotels in Recent Months

Far left Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar is facing new scrutiny after it was revealed that her campaign spent thousands of dollars on luxury hotels from April to June of this year.

Isn’t it odd that Omar is often in the news for scandals related to her finances?

Also, have you noticed that like her far left pals AOC and Bernie Sanders, she rails against the ‘rich’ while enjoying the finer things in life? It’s just so typical for the left.

FOX News reports:

Squad Dem in the hot seat after spending spree at luxury hotels: ‘Champagne socialist’

A far-left “Squad” Democrat is facing scrutiny after spending thousands of dollars in donor cash at lavish hotels nearly 2,000 miles away from her home district, a Fox News Digital review of FEC records found.

“Squad” Rep. Ilhan Omar’s, D-Minn., campaign dropped over $6K on high-end hotels and private transportation between April and June, including payments to a Ritz-Carlton resort in Palm Springs, a hotel with sweeping views from the Hollywood Sign to downtown Los Angeles, and a luxury stay in the heart of Times Square, the congresswoman’s latest financial filings show.

The payments, covering April 1 through June 30, included $2,131.90 to W New York in Times Square, $1,613.23 to The Godfrey Hotel Hollywood, $1,143 to Blacklane Transportation, $926.80 to Ace Hotel & Swim Club Palm Springs and $682.41 to the Ritz-Carlton Rancho Mirage, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings.

Overall, the campaign reported more than $28,000 in travel expenses and more than $23,000 in food, beverage and catering expenses during the three-month filing period.

The Ritz-Carlton Rancho Mirage bills itself as a luxury Palm Springs resort overlooking the Coachella Valley and San Jacinto Mountains, with an exclusive Club Lounge, dedicated concierge service, spa, salon, fitness center, main pool, adults-only Vista Pool and whirlpool.

Does this make Omar part of the ‘oligarchy’ that Bernie is always railing about?

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Bulgaria Refuses to Fund Zelensky’s Endless War

Bulgaria has now become the latest country to step away from Europe’s proxy war with Russia. Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev announced that his country is withdrawing from the Western-backed “Coalition of the Willing,” making it clear that Bulgaria will no longer participate in initiatives centered on providing continued military and financial assistance to Ukraine. Instead, Radev declared, “The solution to this conflict is not in prolonging it by military means, but in a strong diplomatic mission that will finally put an end to the escalation.”

I have said from the beginning that this war could never be won on the battlefield. Politicians sold the public the fantasy that Russia would collapse under sanctions, that Putin would be overthrown, or that Ukraine would somehow achieve total military victory if only another weapons package were approved. Four years later, none of those predictions materialized. Instead, Europe has spent hundreds of billions financing a war that has devastated Ukraine while simultaneously damaging its own economy.

What Bulgaria understands is something Brussels still refuses to admit. Every euro sent to Ukraine is borrowed money. Europe is already drowning in sovereign debt while governments are increasing military spending to levels not seen since the Cold War. They continue talking about rebuilding armies, expanding missile production, and preparing for conflict with Russia while their own economies stagnate. At some point voters begin asking why there is always money for war but never enough to lower taxes, repair infrastructure, or reduce the soaring cost of living.

This is exactly what our computer has been warning would happen. Wars are never lost simply because one army wins a battle. They collapse because the coalition financing the war begins to disintegrate. Every alliance eventually reaches a breaking point when the economic burden becomes greater than the political benefit. Bulgaria is unlikely to be the last country to reconsider its position.

The establishment immediately labels anyone seeking negotiations as “pro-Russian.” That has become the standard response whenever someone questions the wisdom of endless war. Radev rejected that characterization by arguing that diplomacy, not continued military escalation, offers the only realistic path to ending the conflict. His position reflects a growing reality across Europe that endless military aid has failed to produce the decisive victory repeatedly promised to taxpayers.

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US Embassy Offers Large Cash Sums For Groups In Lebanon To Promote America’s Image

The US Embassy in Lebanon announced that the State Department is offering grants of up to $250,000 to groups that help promote American propaganda. 

“The US Embassy in Beirut is opening a new Notice of Funding Opportunity for 2026,” a statement published this week explained. “We’re looking for partners to implement programs that strengthen ties between the US and Lebanon, with a focus on highlighting US-led peace and stabilization efforts, and advancing digital literacy to help people identify and push back on false, adversarial narratives.“

The State Department website says the program is expected to award $500,000 to at least two groups to promote US propaganda in Lebanon.

It adds that the program’s goal is to “strengthen local public understanding of US-led peace and stabilization efforts, and its role as a partner committed to security, economic opportunity, and responsible regional leadership.”

Washington is attempting to broker a peace agreement between Tel Aviv and Beirut. However, Israel is at war with Hezbollah, a non-state military that operates outside of the control of the Lebanese government. 

While Beirut and Tel Aviv inked a deal last month, Hezbollah rejected the agreement because it allowed the IDF to occupy Lebanon until the militia is dismantled. 

According to some of the latest from The Associated Press:

After two days of U.S.-mediated talks in Rome, Lebanon and Israel took steps toward implementing “pilot zones” in southern Lebanon where Israeli forces would withdraw and turn over control to the Lebanese army, the U.S. State Department said Wednesday.

The latest Israel-Hezbollah war began when the Lebanese militant group fired rockets into Israel days after Israel and the U.S. launched their war on Iran on Feb. 28. Israel invaded Lebanon and has since occupied a large swathe of the country’s south. Hezbollah has been vehemently opposed to the direct Lebanon-Israel talks.

The attempt to negotiate a peace agreement between Tel Aviv and Beirut is making it more difficult for President Donald Trump to end the war against Iran.

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