California & Minnesota Medicaid Funds Blocked
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. halted the distribution of $1 billion to California and Minnesota, saying "Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn) have opened the floodgates to theft. They dismantled basic program integrity and oversight. We are not sending any more Medicaid dollars out the door to them until we have confidence that they are being spent lawfully and appropriately."
"One example of the fraud we found was in the payments California made to so-called hospices," the Secretary explained. "These are places where the terminally ill go to die. The average time spent in a hospice is 18 days. We found 800 hospices that had no actual patients, but were receiving $6,000 per month per claimed patient for years. We shut them down. Most of the fraudsters are immigrants who were stealing the patient names and case numbers from doctors' offices. We didn't get a single call from a congressman or from a business owner saying, 'you shut down my hospice and all these patients are on the street.' None of them, because they were all crooked and they knew they were crooked."
Kennedy criticized "the Biden administration's lack of honest oversight of Medicaid disbursements. Former HHS Secretary and current Democrat nominee for Governor of California Xavier Becerra, looked the other way while fraud, waste, and abuse exploded. The scammers got paid. The taxpayers got stuck with enormous bills."
Walz called the withholding of funds "unfair. Minnesota has been burdened with the care of hundreds of thousands of Somali immigrants whose native work habits were largely focused on piracy and theft in their home country. They don't understand that their traditional methods of living are illegal in this country. Letting them swindle the government helped divert them from preying on American citizens. Cutting off this government fraud will force these immigrants to target citizens directly and potentially endanger their lives. The Trump Administration's reversal of the Biden Administration's toleration of the fraud is cruel and dangerous."
Newsom characterized the move to cut federal funds as "a recycled political stunt. By raising this issue right ahead of the November elections they hope to boost the chances of their Party's candidates. This attempt to undermine the election system we have worked so hard to implement is dirty politics at its worst. Well, it won't work. We already have millions of ballots stashed. When we figure out how many will be needed as the election night ballots are counted we will count enough of these stashed ballots to ensure Secretary Becerra's victory and enable our Party's rule to continue."
15th Subway Victim this Year
In New York City the total number of individuals pushed onto subway tracks this year has reached 15. The victim in the most recent incident is a 70-year-old woman. Career criminal Zaki Smith was arrested for felony assault. Smith has 14 previous arrests and was on parole after serving four years in Sing Sing prison for a prior felony assault.
Saritha Komatireddy, a Republican candidate for New York State Attorney General, said that "this is the fifteenth time someone was pushed onto the subway tracks this year. A 70-year-old woman was just shoved by a stranger who walked up behind her at a station in Midtown Manhattan. New Yorkers are sick and tired of hearing the same story over and over again: a violent repeat offender commits a crime, is released back onto our streets, ignores the justice system, and then goes on to hurt someone else."
Current State Attorney General Letitia James called Komatireddy's remarks "unnecessarily alarmist. Considering that seven million people live in New York City, 15 victims is a trivial number. The latest person pushed onto the tracks was rescued by others before she was killed by an arriving train. So, it's kind of a 'no harm, no foul' situation as far as I'm concerned and an insufficient reason for unseating the much more experienced incumbent."
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani pointed out that "the woman pushed onto the tracks wasn't wearing a hijab or even covering her hair with a scarf. Her immodesty may have contributed to inciting Mr. Smith to push her. I think that the fact that war criminal Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has been allowed to walk freely in our city is far more concerning."
Cornyn to Block Trump Nominees
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex) says he will block President Trump's diplomatic nominees until he expedites funding for treatment for HIV and AIDS around the world. "The AIDS virus was first identified by American doctors in 1981," the he pointed out. "As such, I think it is our moral obligation to fund the treatment of its African victims who represent the largest and poorest concentration of victims in the world. President Trump should do this because it's the right thing to do, but the only way it seems like you can get the administration's attention on some of these funding issues is by using the leverage to withhold votes on nominees."
The Senator also cited "Trump's endorsement of my primary challenger as a secondary reason for blocking his nominees. I have been a senator for more than 20 years. Trump implied that I might get his endorsement, but at the last minute endorsed my opponent. This 'stab in the back' has motivated me to use my last months in office to do everything I can to avenge his betrayal. He has no one to blame but himself for the damage I will wreak between now and January."
AIDS originated in African chimpanzees and monkeys and made the jump to humans sometime between 1890 and 1920. It is transmitted by the co-mingling of blood with an infected ape or human. Opportunities for transmission to and between humans can occur when butchering an ape or monkey for food, anal sex, or sharing needles to inject narcotics.
Carville Urges Dems to Support Voter ID
Long time Democrat strategist James Carville advised his fellow Party members to "stop fighting photo ID requirements for voting. It's a losing issue. Eighty-five percent of voters support showing a photo ID to vote. Seventy-six percent of Black voters support showing a photo ID to vote. Our Party opposing these huge majorities in favor of a photo ID makes it look like we need cheating to win elections."
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Tex) agreed with Carville, saying "folks are used to showing IDs to board airlines, enter government buildings, and buy alcohol, among other things. They see it as a reasonable requirement and a trivial extra effort to promote public safety. Our Party's strident opposition to requiring a photo ID to vote spreads suspicion that our Party needs to cheat to win elections."
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich) disagreed with Carville, saying "requiring voters to show ID would make it harder for Democrats to win elections. In the 2024 presidential election, Trump won in all but two states that require a photo ID to vote. Kamala won in all the states that do not require a photo ID to vote. It seems clear to me that passing the SAVE Act will hurt our Party's chances in future elections. I love James, but he is wrong on this issue. Democrats need a system where every human being who wants to vote be given as many ballots as he wants."
In California, a voter initiative to require photo ID to be allowed to vote is on November's ballot. The Democrat nominee for governor Xavier Becerra called this initiative that was put on the ballot by gathering signatures, "Trump's effort to rig California's elections by preventing millions of the state's residents from having a voice in who will rule over them for the next four years. I will fight with all of my might to defeat this ballot initiative. If it passes and I'm elected governor, as all the polls predict I will, I'll veto it on day one of my term in office."
