“Marylanders Are Voting With Their Feet”: Johns Hopkins Finds Blue State Exodus To Persist For Years
A new Johns Hopkins University survey shows that more than half of Baltimore respondents expect to move out of their current neighborhoods within three years, as the one-party-ruled state of Democratic Party queens and kings has failed taxpayers on affordability, law and order, and other basic issues commonly standard in red states.
The Hopkins survey, conducted from September to November 2024, found that 42% of Baltimore City residents want to leave the city entirely. Of those, 27% expect to stay somewhere else in Maryland, while 15% expect to leave the state, according to the Baltimore Sun.
Among the 58% of city residents who plan to remain in Baltimore, only 36% expect to stay in their current neighborhood, while 22% expect to move to another part of the city.
In Baltimore County, the urgency to relocate is also high, but most residents who want to move expect to remain in the county: 66% say they plan to stay.
Every day, I hear from friends, neighbors, and constituents that they are considering or they are actually moving out of Maryland. It’s not just the crushing taxes, unaffordable energy bills, and concerns about public safety; it’s also the failing education system.
Governor Wes Moore is unable to deliver results or give people confidence that he can turn this state around, and so people are voting with their feet and leaving Maryland.
How bad is this exodus in Baltimore?
Well, the population of Baltimore City alone has collapsed 40% from its 1950s level, and deindustrialization, blended with half a century or more of toxic left-wing politics, has transformed parts of the city into an utter economic wasteland.
“There is no question that Governor Moore’s policies on crime, affordability, and government competence make Marylanders want to flee the state,” said Republican Delegate Robin Grammer, a founding member of the Maryland Freedom Caucus from Baltimore County.
Grammer added, “The Maryland Freedom Caucus has put affordability at the center of every fight in Annapolis, from electric bills to the increase in car registration fees. Marylanders are voting with their feet.”
Maryland is likely on track to become the California of the East Coast, as progressive policies over the last half century have epically backfired, unleashing crime and chaos, unaffordability, high taxes, and a deteriorating quality of life.
The end result of this left-wing experiment is a massive population collapse in Baltimore City and negative net domestic migration for the state. The city was once the beating heart of American industrialization, but it has now transformed into an economic wasteland run by unhinged left-wing politicians.
However, there is good news. The remaining residents who are sticking out the looming financial crisis, as well as a worsening power bill crisis, in the state and city are beginning to see these politicians for what they really are: left-wing activists. They are also beginning to understand that the pillaging and corruption must end. Hence, the rise of the Maryland Freedom Caucus.
Notably, Hopkins is considered a left-leaning institution, which makes the survey even more concerning for Maryland’s Democratic leadership. Additionally, the state’s top media outlet, The Baltimore Sun, is leaning more center-right under new ownership, suggesting that left-wing propaganda in print and on the airwaves no longer works. This shift may usher in new, common-sense ideas and welcome a new era of politicians unlike anything the city or central part of the state has seen in generations.
Toyota To Import Taiwan-Built Minivans To Japan Amid Factory Strain
Toyota will start shipping Taiwan-built Noah and Voxy minivans to Japan later this year, marking a rare shift in the company’s production strategy as mounting pressures strain the country’s auto manufacturing sector, according to Nikkei.
Production for the Japanese market is set to begin in October on a dedicated line at Toyota’s plant in northern Taiwan, according to Nikkei. While Japanese automakers have long sold foreign-built vehicles at home, those models were typically intended for overseas markets first. Toyota’s decision to create an offshore production line specifically for Japanese consumers is highly uncommon, particularly for two of its key domestic models.
The move comes as Toyota faces increasing difficulty expanding output inside Japan. Factory utilization is already near its limits, while labor shortages, higher material costs, and tighter compliance requirements have made domestic manufacturing more expensive and less flexible. Delivery delays for popular vehicles have stretched for months — and in some cases more than a year — forcing the automaker to suspend orders periodically as demand outpaces supply.
Nikkei writes that Toyota has committed to maintaining annual domestic production above 3 million vehicles to support employment and preserve Japan’s industrial base. At the same time, however, the company is increasingly relying on overseas operations to ease bottlenecks and reduce operational risk.
The Noah and Voxy are among Toyota’s strongest-selling minivans in Japan, with annual sales typically ranging between 70,000 and 80,000 units. To help meet demand, Toyota plans to build roughly 100,000 vehicles per year in Taiwan, focusing mainly on lower-cost variants. Production in Japan will continue in parallel.
The Taiwan facility already assembles models including the Corolla sedan and Yaris Cross through a local joint venture. For the fiscal year ending March 2026, the plant produced around 120,000 vehicles. Expanding output for Japan-bound minivans is expected to significantly increase overall production volumes.
Building a new automotive production line with annual capacity of 100,000 vehicles can require investments worth tens of billions of yen. Even so, Toyota appears willing to absorb those costs as domestic factories struggle to accommodate additional output. The company currently produces about 14,000 vehicles per day across Japan, leaving little spare capacity.
Pressure on the production system intensified after certification issues uncovered in 2024 prompted Toyota to tighten testing and regulatory oversight procedures, further constraining manufacturing flexibility.
Producing vehicles in Taiwan also introduces new challenges. The yen recently fell to its weakest level against the New Taiwan dollar in more than three decades, raising labor and operating costs for Japanese manufacturers there. Still, Toyota sees offshore production as necessary to stabilize supply and reduce delivery times.
Toyota president Kenta Kon has warned that persistent shortages are unsustainable, calling the situation “abnormal and critical.” The company fears prolonged waits could eventually push customers toward rival automakers.
Toyota is not alone in turning to reverse imports. Industry data shows sales of Japanese-brand vehicles built overseas and sold domestically climbed 19% last year to more than 111,000 units — the highest level in three decades. Honda is also preparing to bring an India-made EV into the Japanese market by fiscal 2028 as automakers increasingly seek lower-cost production bases abroad.
If all politics is local, as former House Speaker Tip O’Neill said in tying politicians’ fortunes to constituents’ pocketbooks, then a voter’s electricity bill is about as local as an issue can get, landing on kitchen tables every month.
With electricity costs spiking for many of the nation’s 133 million households, this local issue could determine whether Republicans retain control of Congress or Democrats seize one or both chambers in November’s midterm elections.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, average residential electricity rates increased nationwide nearly 13 percent from April 2020 to April 2025. Since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, they’ve increased 6 percent.
Electricity prices are expected to increase, on average nationwide, by another 6 percent in 2026, the administration projects, and as much as 40 percent by 2030, warns economic development finance firm ICF.
The reason is simple: supply and demand. The North American Electric Reliability Corp. projected in its 2026 long-term reliability assessment report that electricity demand will increase in the coming decade by 70 percent more than what was estimated in 2024. Many analyses find that overall demand will increase 25 percent by 2030.
The surge is driven by the development of power-hungry data centers, artificial intelligence computing, advanced manufacturing, and “the electrification of everything,” with the average home featuring up to 21 digital devices – all eating electricity all the time.
The solution is also simple: The nation’s 2,896 utility companies must increase the electricity their power plants produce with the most abundant, least expensive energy sources. Meanwhile, the nation’s seven major grid operators must add up to 7,500 miles a year to their 240,000-mile network of high-voltage transmission lines while also upgrading up to 100,000 miles of those live wires, through 2035.
But determining what solutions work best and what long-term investments to make is a complex $1 trillion challenge mired in partisan politics and buried in century-old federal, state, and local regulations.
Not only are utilities and regional transmission operators amping up from a standing start after nearly two decades of inertia, but many are scrambling to keep pace with swelling demand while also building out generation and transmission capacities to meet projected need.
The cost of these capital improvements is showing up in customers’ electricity bills, leading to heightened scrutiny of investment decisions and generation choices, as well as spurring debate about how individual communities want to develop, all while meeting a Trump administration mandate to expand rapidly to win the “AI arms race” with China.
The focus and investment is long overdue, said Robert Bryce, a film producer and author of a widely read Substack on the grid and seven books on energy policies, including, “A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations.”
“Given what we’ve seen in recent months, where both Republicans and Democrats are focusing on power prices, it’s clear that the days of ignoring the electric grid – and its pivotal role in our society – are over,” he told The Epoch Times. “That’s a good thing.”
Bills On The Ballot
Rising electricity, health care, gasoline, and grocery prices are components of the 2026 midterms’ top issue – affordability, as voters question why they’re paying so much for basic needs.
A sampling: Electricity bills were among primary concerns cited by 84 percent of 2,710 nationwide respondents in a January Climate Power survey. Eight of every 10 in a Kaiser Family Foundation poll of 1,426 voters that same month said “affordability” was their top issue, with 22 percent placing electricity just below gasoline and grocery prices. In a March Environmental Defense Fund poll of 1,000 Florida voters, 57 percent said electric bills are stressing household budgets.
Data center development is the lightning rod of this angst. In a January Pew Research Center poll of 8,512 adults, nearly 40 percent blamed data centers for higher utility bills. A February Politico national survey of 2,000 voters found nearly half see energy costs spurred by data centers as a top issue in congressional, state, and local elections.
How campaigns tackle “electricity inflation” will be pivotal in many of November’s 33 U.S. Senate elections, especially in Maine, Michigan, and Ohio races rated as “toss-ups” by Cook Political Reports. Sixteen House campaigns, including 13 seats held by GOP incumbents, are classified as “toss-ups.”
Assuaging voter anger over rising electricity bills will be among defining factors in many of these elections and will determine whether Republicans hold on to their 53-47 Senate majority and 217-212 House advantage.
“I have been writing about politics and energy for three decades,” Bryce said. “I cannot remember another time when so many politicians, from all parts of the political spectrum, are talking about electricity.”
Aron Solomon, chief strategy officer for campaign consultancy Amplify Inc., told The Epoch Times: “This is, honestly, shaping up to be one of the most interesting political issues of the 2026 cycle because electricity bills hit people in a very direct, and profoundly emotional way.
“Voters may not follow every inflation report or Fed decision, but they for sure notice when their monthly power bill suddenly jumps.”
University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs professor Charles Bullock III said electricity bills are ripe targets for Democrats looking to unseat Republicans, who voters will perceive as responsible – fairly or not – for rising rates.
“When we get beyond the primaries and we move into the fall – and I could see this happening for a variety of offices – the Democrat accusing the Republican of not having done something to try to constrain energy costs” will be a standard pitch, he told The Epoch Times.
This tactic already proved itself successful in November 2025 with Democrats citing Republican policies for skyrocketing electricity bills in winning gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, and in two Democrats unseating GOP incumbents in Georgia Public Service Commission races.
Blame Biden
There are well-defined partisan trenches on federal energy policies that voters believe manifest in their electricity bills. Those differences emerge starkly every spring and summer in congressional budget hearings.
The general gist is that Republicans say higher electricity bills are the residual fallout from President Joe Biden’s “green energy” push that funneled billions into renewable energy and regulatory paralysis fostered by interpretative expansions of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, and National Environmental Policy Act that induce litigation, prolong timelines, and add expenses to energy projects, including grid initiatives.
“There are few policy areas where reality asserts itself faster than it does in the field of energy,” Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said during an April 21 hearing on the Department of Energy’s Fiscal Year 2027 spending request.
“During the Biden administration, energy policy shifted away from reliability and toward favored sources, toward favored outcomes, and long, brittle supply chains that begin overseas. They assumed the system would hold together anyway, and it didn’t.”
In Trump’s second term, his administration has tossed aside any “all of the above” pretense to aggressively champion “baseload” oil, gas, and coal production as well as nuclear energy development while rolling back environmental regulations and reviving the nation’s refining and mining industries.
The president has orchestrated a “whole-of-government” focus on energy development, beginning with several day-one executive actions: declaring a national energy emergency, withdrawing from the Paris climate accords, opening Alaska’s “extraordinary resource potential” to development, and pausing federally permitted offshore wind projects he’s derided as boondoggle “wind mills.”
Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum often reiterate that increasing natural gas and coal production and developing emerging nuclear technologies, rather than investing in “intermittent” renewables such as solar and wind, are key to scaling up the grid to accommodate data centers and other large load users. Both have said this is not only as an “affordability” consumer issue, but also as a national security imperative.
Wright has issued at least six emergency orders under the Federal Power Act to require retiring coal-fired power plants remain operable, if not actually operating, to ensure regional grids have capacity to generate electricity during peak demand, such as summer heatwaves and winter storms.
As of 2025, there were 401 coal-fired power plants in the United States, the last one coming online in 2013, according to America’s Power, which advocates on behalf of the nation’s coal-fired power plants. The Energy Information Administration documented in late 2024 that 173 of those units in 33 states were set to close by 2030, a pace accelerated by the Biden administration’s Clean Power Plant 2.0 and Greenhouse Gas rules, which required them to trim emissions by 90 percent or shut down.
Once primary races are settled, when congressional Republicans and candidates face off against Democrats in 2026 general election campaigns, they will claim they inherited rising electricity prices from Biden policies. They will point to actions such as repealing power plant rules, scaling back environmental laws, trimming regulations, streamlining permitting, reinvigorating fossil fuel development, building nuclear reactors, and expanding the nation’s 3.3 million mile natural gas pipeline network as ways to address energy affordability, which, they’re certain to note, is more an issue in Democrat-led states than in GOP-governed states.
Blame Trump
Democrats’ general election campaign pitch will claim the Trump administration and congressional Republicans are directly responsible for spiking electricity bills by ditching support for “all of the above” energy to exclusively favor fossil fuels while pulling the plug on assistance programs and renewable energy investments, especially solar, which has been the largest source of new electricity generation nationwide since 2020.
They point to initiatives adopted the last time Democrats held both chambers: 2021’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and 2022’s CHIPS and Science Act and Inflation Reduction Act, which authorized billions in tax credits, low-interest loans, and grant programs incentivizing private investments in renewable energies, advanced manufacturing, and grid expansion.
Many Inflation Reduction Act initiatives and grants were suspended under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act adopted in partisan votes and signed into law by Trump in July 2025.
In October 2025, the administration canceled, or “clawed back,” $8 billion in Inflation Reduction Act allocations for 223 renewable energy projects, nearly all in Democrat-led states.
“Satisfying a president’s desire for political revenge or intimidation is not a lawful basis for terminating projects that were on track to help reduce soaring electricity prices,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) told Wright during the April 21 hearing.
“These cancellations on a political basis are a blatant betrayal of the communities, the workers, and the businesses counting on those investments to lower their energy costs, and now it is those communities, workers, and businesses who will pay the price regardless of their particular politics.”
Although Congress appropriated $8.8 billion for home energy rebates in 2026 to purchase more energy efficient appliances and for “weatherization” upgrades, the Department of Energy has stalled implementation in nearly 40 states, he said.
“That’s obstruction,” Heinrich said, “and while these cost-saving programs are being obstructed, the department is taking actions that actively raise prices. This [2027] budget reflects the same lack of concern for the real costs facing hard-working families trying to keep the lights on and their vehicles on the road.”
The department’s spending request eliminates the Weatherization Assistance Program, “which saves households, on average, $372 every year,” he said. “It also rescinds another $15.2 billion of [Inflation Reduction Act] funding – congressionally directed funds that are ready to go out the door to support grid reliability and help reduce electricity prices.”
After primaries set November ballots, when Congressional Democrats and candidates square off against Republicans in 2026 general election campaigns, they will pledge to restore these programs, revive defunded projects that boost grid capacity, encourage “all of the above” energies – especially nuclear – while refunding grants that advance renewables, which 65 percent of 3,524 adults surveyed in March 2026 by Pew Research Center said they support, including 44 percent of Republicans.
The DNC Finally Releases Its 2024 Autopsy, And It’s A Total Whitewash
The Democratic National Committee has released its long-awaited “autopsy” of the 2024 presidential election, and it is getting panned from all sides for being evasive, poorly constructed, and conspicuously silent on the two most consequential decisions the party made in 2024.
DNC Chair Ken Martin had been sitting on this report since late last year. He pledged transparency, then reversed course in December, saying he would not release it. The reversal created a slow-motion credibility crisis. NBC News described Martin as having “been pummeled in public for months” over the episode, and last week Kamala Harris herself called for the report to be made public. So Martin released it on Thursday, though not quite on his own terms.
“When I received the report late last year, it wasn’t ready for primetime — not even close — and because no source material was provided, it would have meant starting over,” Martin said in a statement Thursday.
“I could not in good faith put the DNC’s stamp of approval on the report that was produced.”
Martin continued, “After last November’s massive Democratic wins, I didn’t want to create a distraction, but by not putting the report out, I ended up creating an even bigger distraction. For that, I sincerely apologize.”
The document was released in full, but no one seems to be satisfied with it.
NBC News reported that large sections are devoted to “a lengthy recap of modern American political history dating to the 2008 presidential election, historic fundraising and spending data from past elections, and more.” The annotations flagged factual errors, including incorrect election results, and challenged claims that the annotators said were unsupported by evidence.
When the report does engage with 2024, it leans on broad themes like an “inability or unwillingness to listen to all voters” that provided the GOP “with opportunities for advancement at the expense of Democratic growth, evolution, and ability to find common ground with seemingly disparate groups of voters from coast to coast, and the heartland Democrats tend to ignore.” It also claims that Harris failed to make her positions known and didn’t go far enough in attacking Trump, in an apparent attempt to avoid addressing the specific problems with the campaign.
The report also claimed that state parties were underfunded and that Democratic infrastructure was too weak in key battlegrounds. However, that argument doesn’t align with the actual circumstances of the election. Kamala Harris’s campaign raised and spent more than $1 billion, giving her every conceivable resource advantage heading into the election.
Despite the massive war chest, the campaign failed to win a single swing state. Rather than confront why all that money still couldn’t connect with working-class voters in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the report leans heavily on vague complaints about “messaging” while largely ignoring the real problems that doomed her campaign.
CNN Senior Reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere pointed out what the report conspicuously omits. “It does not touch a couple of topics that a lot of people were very interested in, and thought were the reasons for this report not being out,” he said. “There’s nothing about Joe Biden and what happened in the debate. There’s nothing about Kamala Harris getting the nomination without any kind of primary process. And also there is nothing about the way that voters were responding to Gaza and how the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris policies and comments about it were hitting their minds.”
CNN just spent an entire segment proving the DNC autopsy is every bit as bad and evasive as we expected.
“There are a lot of things in that version that are incomplete, uh, and also it does not touch a couple topics that a lot of people were very interested in and thought were… pic.twitter.com/wxbsg5M8XB
“It sounds like we need a malpractice attorney, because we couldn’t even do the autopsy correctly,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) told CNN. “Obviously, it was the Joe Biden issue at the debate. It was the switchover to Kamala without a process. And, at the end of the day, Democrats weren’t talking enough about affordability and the economy.”
Moskowitz added, “We’re too afraid to tell them the truth. They know the truth. They saw the debate. They saw what happened.”
BREAKING: Democrat Rep. Jared Moskowitz is calling the 2024 DNC Autopsy report “malpractice.”
“It sounds like we need a malpractice attorney because we couldn’t even do the autopsy correctly.”
“We got SHELLACKED in the last election. I mean, we lost every single solitary swing… pic.twitter.com/RgRxbpdxVX
— Turning Point Action Rapid Response (@TPARapidRep) May 21, 2026
Former CNN commentator Chris Cillizza also bashed the autopsy.
“I was a BIG advocate for the DNC releasing the 2024 autopsy,” he wrote on X. “Having now read it, I can see now why there was so much resistance within some corners of the party to releasing it. It is an utter disaster. And a failure on virtually every front.”
He expressed his frustration in a video post.
“Takeaway number one: Joe Biden is almost not in this report,” he said. “So it’s 192 pages long. Again, how many times and what section do you believe how much time is devoted to Joe Biden’s advanced age? He was 81 years old in 2024. And the concerns that the public voiced over and over again to pollsters that he was too old to do the job and shouldn’t run again. It’s zero. There is no mention of Biden’s age, the polling on his age, his infirmity physically and mentally that was on display, the hiding of Biden from the public. There’s none of it.”
Cillizza continued, “In fact, I was so surprised that after I kind of scanned through the entire 192-page document, I did a control F, a find, and I searched for Biden’s name because I figured I must have missed that section. No, I didn’t miss that section. The only acknowledgement is this statement. Two sentences. ‘The debate obviously changed many things. The dial testing during the debate demonstrated the weakness of the president’s performance in a post debate survey was scrapped.’ Okay, that’s it. That’s it about the debate, Biden’s age, etc.”
“The debate obviously changed many things. The dial-testing during the debate demonstrated the weakness of the President’s performance, and a post-debate survey was scrapped.” — DNC Autopsy
WHAT? They canceled polling after Biden’s disastrous debate performance? WHY???
“The White House did not position or prepare the Vice President. Had the White House explored and evaluated ways to leverage Kamala Harris earlier in the administration, perhaps it would have improved the President’s standing, and it certainly could have helped prepare her to…
The real autopsy, the one the DNC apparently declined to write, would grapple with candidate quality, a compressed general election timeline, unpopular policies, and the impact of covering up Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and letting him implode on stage with President Trump.
Instead, the party hid behind clichés and generic excuses, ignoring what really went wrong.
In a unanimous landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA) does not protect freight brokers from state-law negligence claims when they carelessly hire unsafe motor carriers.
Landmark win for trucking safety this morning.
The Supreme Court rules UNANIMOUSLY against the broker that helped put the illegal alien who hit Dalilah Coleman on the road.
As a result of this decision, trucking brokers can be liable for negligently giving loads to illegal… https://t.co/0pYntFxiDx
The case, Shawn Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, et al., marks a seismic shift in the trucking industry. For the first time in years, brokers can be held accountable when their profit-driven shortcuts lead to deadly crashes. This is a massive victory for crash victims and the small- to midsize carriers who actually move America’s freight.
American Truckers United (ATU) proudly filed an amicus curiae brief supporting the petitioner, exposing how blanket broker immunity had fueled a dangerous race to the bottom.
“It is implausible that Congress sought to immunize brokers from tort liability when their negligence leads to fatal or injurious motor vehicle crashes,” our brief stated. “Any time the government provides immunity from suit, it picks economic winners and losers… There is no reason to believe Congress chose negligent brokers to be the winners.”
🚨 The Supreme Court will soon rule in a blockbuster case that could impact liability for crashes involving unvetted carriers and truck drivers: Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II and C.H. Robinson. The trucking industry—and especially brokers—is watching very closely.
— American Truckers United (@atutruckers) March 10, 2026
The Broken System That Needed Fixing
For too long, freight brokers have operated with near-total immunity while sitting in the middle of every transaction, pocketing the spread between what shippers pay and what they actually pay carriers.
Their incentive was brutally simple: hire the absolute cheapest truck possible — safety, maintenance, and regulatory compliance be damned.
Resulting in brokerage’s share of the freight market exploding from roughly 6% twenty-five years ago to 29% today. Much of that growth came by flooding the market with cut-rate, often illicit capacity — including non-domiciled foreign drivers operating under lower standards that undercut responsible American operators.
Legacy American carriers shuttered at historic rates. Small fleets filed bankruptcy in droves. Mega-brokers and a handful of giant carriers captured massive new market share. The human cost was measured in wrecked trucks, ruined families, and lives lost on our highways.
A recent viral crash in California involving an illegal alien truck driver from India brought the issue back into sharp focus — and raised the obvious question: Which broker put that truck on the road?
🚨New Fatal Truck Crash in California! 2 people killed! Truck Driver “Manvir Singh” facing several charges including vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, resisting police, and hit and run.
— American Truckers United (@atutruckers) May 20, 2026
And more.
At least four Indian illegal alien truck drivers with CDLs have been arrested for allegedly causing deadly crashes that have killed multiple innocent people in different parts of the country.
Spot truckload rates just hit an all-time record of $3.69 per mile. For the first time since 2022, the American trucker ecosystem is returning to profitability. The playing field is finally leveling.
Videos circulating over the weekend showed foreign drivers suddenly struggling to secure loads — an encouraging early signal that the era of unchecked undercutting may be ending.
It took less than 24 hours for brokers to tighten the belt after the Supreme Court ruled that brokers could be held liable for carrier accidents WOW!
— GRANDPA’s FREE ADVICE (@GOP_is_Gutless) May 16, 2026
What Comes Next
The Supreme Court has restored balance to this critical issue. Congress must now complete the work by promptly passing Dalilah’s Law. This legislation would require the revocation of commercial driver’s licenses held by illegal aliens and ensure that such licenses can never be reissued.
American Truckers United will continue fighting for safer roads, fairer competition, and real relief for asset-based carriers, hardworking American truck drivers, and the families of crash victims.
Turkey Markets Crash After Court Unseats Opposition Head In Latest Erdogan Power Grab
Shortly after we learned that Turkey had sold virtually all of its Treasuries in March to defend the lira after the Iran war broke out, the country was thrown into fresh political turmoil on Thursday when a Turkish court removed the leader of the country’s main opposition party in a landmark ruling that triggered a stock market crash, including one marketwide halt, and could strengthen President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s grip on power while further alienating foreign capital.
The Ankara appeals court annulled the results of the 2023 congress of the Republican People’s Party, known by its Turkish initials CHP, the party’s deputy chairwoman Gul Ciftci told Bloomberg on Thursday. The decision voids the election of Ozgur Ozel as CHP chairman. The party can appeal the ruling.
The decision reinstates the CHP’s previous administration, including former party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who lost a presidential race to Erdogan in 2023. The ruling also effectively cancels all decisions made by the party since the 2023 congress, according to the verdict.
By further hollowing out the political opposition and hampering the CHP’s efforts to secure the release of Imamoglu, Erdogan’s most prominent political rival, the decision eases the president’s ability to tighten his grip on power. Imamoglu has been behind bars since March 2025. Although he’s the CHP’s presidential candidate for elections slated for 2028, he may not be eligible for the ballot due to the cancellation of his university diploma.
Turkish stocks plunged after the court decision, with the benchmark Borsa Istanbul 100 Index closing 6.1% down. The sharp decline triggered a market-wide circuit breaker. Five-year credit default swaps rose 12 basis points to 253 basis points, while the lira was little changed and trading at 45.6133 per US dollar as of 6:09 p.m. Istanbul time although with little reserves left to defend the currency, we expect a painful and sharp devaluation in the coming weeks.
“While the central bank still has enough reserves to maintain the current policy framework, the buffer is wearing thin,” said David Austerweil, emerging-markets deputy portfolio manager at Van Eck Associates Corporation.
The decision paves the way for a comeback by former party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, potentially derailing CHP unity in the run-up to the next presidential elections, which is currently set for 2028 but expected earlier. According to Bloomberg, it may also hamper the party’s efforts to secure the release of jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, Erdogan’s most prominent political rival.
The biggest impact, however, was on the Turkish markets which were already strained by the fallout of the Iran war. As reported earlier, to support the lira, monetary authorities offloaded almost all of the country’s US Treasuries in March.
They have also sold much of the country’s gold reserves, tightened liquidity, made lira funding costlier and asked state-run lenders to intervene in the currency market. The ruling on Thursday will likely put further pressure on Turkish assets and send the lira into a tailspin.
Ironically, the decision came while Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek and Central Bank Governor Fatih Karahan were in London courting investors. Both figures have been trying to attract foreign investment since taking over Turkey’s economic management in 2023. Their efforts were hampered after the arrest of Imamoglu last year, which led to a foreign investor exodus.
Hundreds of CHP figures have been detained since the 2024 elections, including the leaders of large cities. More recently, Erdogan’s regime detained the mayor of Bursa, the country’s fourth-largest city, on charges of corruption and launched a probe against Ankara’s popular mayor, Mansur Yavas, over the alleged misuse of state resources. Like Imamoglu, Yavas is also seen as a potential presidential candidate. Opposition figures have said such charges are politically motivated.
In September, a court removed the CHP’s Istanbul leadership over allegations of corruption and appointed Gursel Tekin – a former Istanbul party chief and ally of Kilicdaroglu – as trustee, another move that unnerved markets and triggered a selloff.
“The decision is an opportunity to unite,” Kilicdaroglu wrote on X after the ruling, having effectively reclaimed the party’s leadership. He had published a video the day before in which he spoke about the need to root out “corruption” within the CHP.
The ruling “will dent further risk appetite for TRY carry trades,” said Guillaume Tresca, an emerging market strategist at Generali Asset Management SpA. “Turkey is a trickier position than before.”
Turkey’s five-year credit default swaps – a barometer of risk sentiment and odds of sovereign default – rose 19 basis points to 261 basis points.
We have never faced anything quite like this. Diesel fuel and fertilizer have become far more expensive as a result of the conflict in the Middle East, and extreme weather is playing havoc with crops all over the planet. Here in the United States, we just experienced the driest first three months of a year in recorded history. No, that isn’t an exaggeration. Now a “Super El Niño” is coming, and that means that drought conditions are going to get even worse in many areas of the world. The “Super El Niño” of 1877-1878 resulted in widespread droughts that killed more than 50 million people, and now we are being warned that the upcoming “Super El Niño” could be even worse. Our farmers have never faced a “perfect storm” of this magnitude, and global food production is going to be way down in the months ahead.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization is publicly warning that a severe global food crisis could strike about 6 months from now if something really dramatic does not happen…
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz could trigger a severe global food price crisis within six to 12 months unless governments act quickly, the Food and Agriculture Organization warned Wednesday.
Decisions now by farmers and governments on fertilizer use, imports, financing and crop choices will determine whether food prices spike later this year or in early 2027, the agency said.
I don’t know what national governments around the world are supposed to do.
They can’t create fertilizer out of thin air.
Thanks to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran, millions of farmers all over the northern hemisphere didn’t get the fertilizer that they needed for the spring planting season.
Food shortages are expected to hit many parts of the world from September or October following a fertilizer production plunge, the U.N. Development Program’s head said on Monday.
“In September, (or) October, many places in the world will have problems of food shortage,” as agricultural production is expected to be much lower following the fertilizer production slump resulting from high oil prices amid Middle East conflicts, UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo said in an interview in Tokyo.
Even if fertilizer is available, many farmers simply cannot afford it.
In fact, one recent survey discovered that 70 percent of U.S. farmers could not afford to buy all of the fertilizer that they needed for the spring planting season because it has become so expensive.
Meanwhile, diesel has become painfully expensive as well.
Virtually all farm equipment runs on diesel, and as I write this article the average price of a gallon of diesel in the U.S. is sitting at about five and a half dollars.
According to AAA, the average price for diesel fuel in California is about $7.43 per gallon, which is $2.36 higher compared to last year. In Fresno, prices are slightly higher.
“In Fresno, you’re paying about $6.06 for a gallon of regular gasoline, but you’re paying $7.48 for a gallon of diesel,” Johnson said.
You may not care about what is happening in California, but you should because California produces more fruit and more vegetables than any other state by a very wide margin.
Drought is another major problem that U.S. farmers are dealing with.
In West Texas, the cracks in the ground caused by endless drought are big enough to swallow an entire human hand…
Scott Irlbeck crouched in a field of stunted wheat plants in a parched stretch of West Texas and slipped his hand into a crack wide enough to swallow it.
Last autumn, Irlbeck planted a crop that barely grew because rain never came. He now hopes his insurance adjuster will declare it a total loss so he will not need to spend money on pricey fuel to harvest it next month.
Coming into this year, the southwestern portion of the nation was experiencing the worst multi-year drought in at least 1,200 years.
And then the first three months of this year were the driest first three months of a year for the entire country ever recorded.
As a result, it is being projected that the winter wheat harvest will be a disaster…
Crop estimates underscore just how bad the situation is. Growers will see their smallest wheat crop in terms of production since 1972, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture; 1.56 billion bushels this year, down 21% from 2025. That’s especially harmful to Kansas, one of the top overall producers of wheat in the U.S.
This year, only 22 million acres of winter wheat will be harvested, and the abandonment rate is above 32 percent…
Only 32.4 million acres (13.1 million hectares) of wheat were planted this year to begin with, and harvested acreage hit just 22 million, marking abandonment, which is when farmers stop tending to a crop before harvesting, at slightly above 32% of this year’s wheat crop, according to USDA estimates.
Just think about those numbers for a moment.
Our farmers simply gave up on nearly a third of this year’s winter wheat crop.
Wow.
Looking ahead, we are being told that the number of acres of wheat that U.S. farmers are planting in the spring will be the fewest “since record keeping began in 1919”…
U.S. growers were poised to plant the fewest acres of wheat since record keeping began in 1919, as high costs for fertilizer, seeds, and equipment have made it difficult to turn a profit.
In 1919, there were 104 million people living in the United States.
Today, there are more than 340 million people living in the United States.
It doesn’t take a math genius to figure out that we are headed for trouble.
A “Super El Niño” may be on its way and could impact weather in the United States and worldwide for the next several months.
El Niño is described by the National Weather Service (NWS) as “a state where the water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean near the equator become abnormally warm.” These warmer waters trigger significant weather pattern changes across the globe.
One expert is warning that there is approximately a 50 percent chance that this “Super El Niño” will be the most powerful ever recorded…
“I would suggest there is roughly a 50 per cent chance of the event becoming the strongest in the historical record right now,” Paul Roundy, a professor of atmospheric science at the University at Albany, in the US, told BBC Science Focus. “A few weeks ago, I was suggesting maybe 20 per cent.”
In a previous article, I discussed the fact that the “Super El Niño” of 1877-1878 caused widespread global famines that resulted in the deaths of 50 million people.
So how many will die during the “Super El Niño” that will begin later this year?
According to the UN, the number of people around the world there were experiencing acute hunger was already at an all-time record high even before the war with Iran started.
Now global hunger is spiking, and when people get really hungry they get really desperate.
For example, just check out what is going on in Afghanistan…
Khwaja Ahmad barely gets out a few words before he starts sobbing.
“We are starving. My older children died, so I need to work to feed my family. But I’m old, so no one wants to give me work,” he says.
When a local bakery near the square opens up, the owner distributes stale bread among the crowd. Within seconds, the loaves have been pulled apart, half a dozen men clutching onto precious pieces.
Abdul Rashid Azimi takes us into his home and brings out two of his children – seven-year-old twins Roqia and Rohila. He holds them close, eager to explain why he’s making unbearable choices.
“I’m willing to sell my daughters,” he weeps. “I’m poor, in debt and helpless.
“I come home from work with parched lips, hungry, thirsty, distressed and confused. My children come to me saying ‘Baba, give us some bread’. But what can I give? Where is the work?”
This is what is already happening.
Six months from now, the level of desperation around the world will be so much worse.
We need the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened as soon as possible, but that simply is not going to happen.
The Iranians are never going to give President Trump what he wants, and they are preparing for the next phase of the war…
Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf claimed Wednesday that the U.S. is looking to “start a new war,” a report said.
“The enemy’s movements, both overt and clandestine, show that despite economic and political pressure, it has not abandoned its military objectives and is seeking to start a new war,” Ghalibaf said in a statement shared by Iranian media, according to The Times of Israel.
“Close monitoring of the situation in the United States reinforces the possibility that they still hope for the surrender of the Iranian nation,” he reportedly added.
The next chapter of this war is not going to look like the last chapter.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned on Wednesday that any new attack on the country would provoke them to spread the war beyond the Middle East, raising the stakes of diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.
In a statement reported by Iranian state media, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a powerful military force that answers directly to the country’s supreme leader, said that if “aggression against Iran is repeated,” it would deliver blows “in places you cannot even imagine.”
The Iranians know that they cannot win the war by fighting symmetrically.
So they are going to use asymmetric tools to get the job done.
And some of those asymmetric tools will not be conventional.
When fighting erupts again, I expect things to get really crazy.
What this means is that the Strait of Hormuz is going to remain closed for a long time, and that is really bad news for farmers all over the globe.
Daily Wire Names New CEO As Audience, Revenue Challenges Mount
The Daily Wire announced Tuesday that CEO Caleb Robinson is stepping down effective immediately and transitioning to a board role while retaining significant ownership in the company. Mike Richards, who joined as President and Chief Content Officer roughly a year ago, has been named the new CEO.
Robinson framed the move as a deliberate shift: “Stepping down as CEO of Daily Wire. Effective immediately, my new title is ‘guy on the board who still owns a lot of the company.’ Pay cut in stress. Raise in the important things.”
Earlier this month, Puck reported that The Daily Wire’s audience is in freefall. Ben Shapiro’s flagship show episodes, which once regularly drew several million viewers, now average around half a million. The company reportedly lost 80,000 YouTube subscribers in 2026 alone, described by analyst Kyle Tharp as “the steepest decline of any major political channel” this year.
A few days later, New York Magazinehighlighted other warning signs, including Daily Wire YouTube videos garnering fewer than 10,000 views days after posting (a sharp contrast to the channel’s more than 3 million subscribers) and mocked comment sections. While acknowledging poor business decisions such as feature films, the Pendragon Cycle fantasy series, and unusual merchandise lines, Barkan argued the deeper issue is the “collapse of Shapiro’s constituency,” particularly among young and Gen-Z conservatives who once drove the company’s growth.
In recent weeks the company carried out layoffs affecting a reported 42 employees – roughly 20 percent of headcount – concentrated at its Nashville production office. A Daily Wire source told Puck that the cuts were a “course correction after years of mismanagement and overhiring,” while attributing part of the audience softening to platform algorithm changes that favor more partisan or conspiratorial content.
Sources close to the company described the cuts as a course correction after years of mismanagement and overhiring, and attributed any audience decline to platform algorithms that prioritize more-partisan or even conspiratorial content. But Ben’s competitors and other industry insiders suspect it has more to do with a “MAGA vibe shift,” and the growing unpopularity of his support for Israel and the war in Iran, among other issues. -Puck
A spokesperson told the outlet that the company had “made a difficult decision to restructure the organization, which included layoffs to a number of teams.”
Internal Tensions and the Pendragon Cycle
Much of the strain traces back several years according to Puck. While the company hit strong revenue growth – Boreing told the outlet in late 2024 it was on pace to exceed $200 million annually – tensions grew between the co-founders over Boreing’s ambitious creative projects.
Central to the rift was The Pendragon Cycle, a seven-episode Arthurian fantasy series. Boreing reportedly secured an eight-figure budget but ultimately spent nearly three times that amount. Sources said both Shapiro and Robinson initially signed off on the project but became disillusioned as costs mounted and Boreing took a leave to focus on it. This contributed to a deeper falling-out.
In late 2024 or early 2025, Robinson pushed to engage SPAC SilverBox Capital to explore strategic options, including a possible exit. Boreing reportedly opposed the move, viewing it as jeopardizing the company’s mission. He stepped down as co-CEO in March 2025, officially to focus on creative projects. According to Puck’s reporting, Shapiro and Boreing largely stopped communicating afterward, aside from a call following the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Reactions from the Right
The Daily Wire’s challenges and Shapiro’s staunch pro-Israel positions have fueled sharp criticism from prominent voices in the populist/America First wing of the conservative movement.
Tucker Carlson has been among the most vocal. On a recent episode of The Megyn Kelly Show, Carlson downplayed Shapiro’s influence amid discussions on the Iran conflict:
“You wonder where the pressure’s coming from… Those are clearly the spokesmen for the coalition applying pressure, but they’re not in themselves powerful figures… Ben Shapiro’s going out of business.”
He further described figures like Shapiro and Mark Levin as occupying “the outer fringe of the outer fringe” with minimal real audience or constituency.
Megyn Kelly has pushed back against Shapiro’s attacks while commenting on the layoffs. She has noted her own show’s stronger performance metrics compared to Shapiro’s and expressed a mix of schadenfreude and detachment. In one recent post, she highlighted her audience numbers dwarfing Shapiro’s.
Candace Owens, who was terminated from The Daily Wire in 2024, has repeatedly mocked the company’s troubles and accused Shapiro of relying on “fake” or purchased views. In a May 15, 2026 post reacting directly to the New York Magazine article, she wrote:
“As if the Ben Shapiro crash out over the New York Magazine article couldn’t get more hilarious… Also Tucker is big in Pakistan? The cope here is beyond exceptional.” (View post)
Owens has tied the decline to Shapiro’s foreign policy stance and past internal conflicts.
As if the Ben Shapiro crash out over the New York Magazine article couldn’t get more hilarious.
Someone fed Ben Shapiro bad intel and he ran to his show to giddily report on it. 😂
To the express contrary, we actually just increased our production staff by 2.
Other America First voices have amplified the “MIGA” (Make Israel Great Again) critique, accusing Shapiro and the Daily Wire of prioritizing Israeli interests over American ones. The New York Magazine piece echoed this sentiment, arguing that Shapiro’s conservatism retains support among Republican elites but is being rejected by the future grassroots of the party – especially younger conservatives who view the Iran conflict as a costly quagmire tied to foreign policy priorities. Posts frequently reference Shapiro’s consistent calls for strong U.S. support for Israel as a key driver of audience alienation.
Ben Shapiro’s @benshapiro Pro Israel Empire Crumbles For America Last Stance
New York Magazine reports that Ben Shapiro’s once-dominant position as the “king of conservative media” has collapsed in 2026.
Shapiro has pushed back forcefully, dismissing critics as part of a “woke right” and insisting the company is executing standard restructuring while expecting a strong advertising year.
Robinson’s departure and Richards’ ascension – the latter bringing extensive experience in scaled television production from Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune – come as the company attempts to stabilize. Daily Wire officials continue to emphasize its large subscriber base, daily content output, and enduring role as a major voice on the right.
The story reflects broader pressures in independent media: the difficulty of scaling personality-driven outlets into entertainment studios, platform volatility, and realignment within conservative audiences following the 2024 election – particularly around foreign policy and Israel.
Whether the latest leadership change and restructuring can reverse the recent audience and momentum losses remains to be seen. The company has not issued further public comment beyond Robinson’s statement as of this writing. Developments are expected to be addressed directly on Daily Wire platforms in the coming days.
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Psst, need anything? We run a tight ship but your support is always appreciated.
The U.S. military command operating in the Western Hemisphere said on May 20 that an aircraft carrier strike group entered the Caribbean Sea, as the Trump administration heaps pressure on the Cuban communist regime.
In a post on X, U.S. Southern Command said that the USS Nimitz is now in the Caribbean and released video footage of the carrier group. Southern Command did not provide more details about why the carrier group traveled to the region.
The Nimitz, it said, “has proven its combat prowess across the globe, ensuring stability and defending democracy from the Taiwan Strait to the Arabian Gulf.”
The Nimitz, commissioned in 1975, carried out joint naval exercises with the Brazilian Navy off the coast of Rio de Janeiro last week, the U.S. Embassy in Brazil said in a May 14 statement.
On May 20, the Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed a criminal indictment against former Cuban leader Raul Castro, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio released a video in Spanish urging Cubans to reject the country’s communist leadership.
According to the DOJ indictment, Castro was indicted in connection with the 1996 downing of civilian planes operated by Miami-based exiles. Castro, now 94, was Cuba’s defense minister when the planes were shot down, killing four people.
The charges against Castro, the brother of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, drew pushback from the country’s current leader, Miguel Diaz-Canel, in a post on X.
“This is a political maneuver, devoid of any legal foundation, aimed solely at padding the fabricated dossier they use to justify the folly of a military aggression against Cuba,” Diaz-Canel wrote.
This year, U.S. President Donald Trump has been ratcheting up talk of regime change in Cuba and said he would potentially initiate a “friendly takeover” of the country if its leadership did not open up its economy to American investment and kick out U.S. adversaries.
When asked what will happen next for the U.S. embargo on Cuba on Wednesday, Trump said, “We’re going to see.” He added that the U.S. government is ready to provide humanitarian assistance to what he described as a failing country.
Trump said that “there won’t be escalation” between the United States and Cuba, adding, “I don’t think there needs to be.”
“Look, the place is falling apart. It’s a mess,” Trump added. “They’ve really lost control of Cuba.”
In Cuba, there is no food, electricity, or energy, Trump said, adding that the U.S. government will have to act to assist the country.
Earlier this month, CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Cuba to meet with the country’s top officials, a visit that came as the country’s energy minister said the island has completely run out of fuel and that its power grid is in a critical state.
In January, the U.S. military launched an operation in Venezuela that captured its president, Nicolas Maduro, an ally of the Cuban regime, and took him to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges.
Since September 2025, the U.S. military has been launching strikes against suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean in what the military calls Operation Southern Spear.
DOJ Probe Widens: Minnesota Daycare Owner Charged, While Convicted Fraudster Gets Nearly 42 Years
A Minneapolis daycare owner has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, adding another case to Minnesota’s widening public-benefits fraud scandal.
Fahima Egeh Mahamud, 50, CEO of Future Leaders Early Learning Center, allegedly submitted more than 13,000 false claims to Minnesota’s Child Care Assistance Program between 2022 and 2025, according to prosecutors. Thousands of those claims required families to make co-payments before the daycare could receive federal reimbursements.
BREAKING: Minneapolis daycare owner featured in Nick Shirley’s video Fahima Egeh Mahamud, CHARGED with wire fraud and conspiracy for allegedly stealing over $4.6 million through false claims to federal and state programs pic.twitter.com/OJ6plcQ7lq
Prosecutors say Mahamud falsely certified that those family co-payments had been collected, allowing her daycare business to receive roughly $4.6 million in improper reimbursements.
The case is not Mahamud’s first encounter with federal fraud investigators. She was separately charged in February with wire fraud over her alleged role in the Feeding Our Future meal-fraud scheme, the sprawling Minnesota case in which federal prosecutors say taxpayer money meant to feed children during the pandemic was diverted through sham meal sites, inflated meal counts, rosters, invoices, and kickback arrangements.
In that earlier case, prosecutors alleged that from December 2020 to July 2021, Mahamud claimed to serve tens of thousands of meals to children each month at the Future Leaders site, when the site allegedly served only a fraction of those meals.
An attorney for Mahamud could not be reached for comment. Mahamud and all other defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court.
A Wider Minnesota Fraud Crackdown
The daycare charge comes as Minnesota faces a widening federal crackdown on alleged fraud across multiple state-administered programs. APreported that, after former Feeding Our Future leader Aimee Bock was sentenced to nearly 42 years in prison, federal authorities announced a new batch of charges against 15 people accused of stealing from social-service programs administered through Minnesota’s state government.
AP said the new cases involve roughly $90 million across seven state-managed Medicaid programs. Those cases include Mahamud, whom AP identified as the former CEO of Future Leaders Early Learning Center. Prosecutors allege her organization was reimbursed about $4.6 million for services tied to people who did not make required co-payments.
🚨 HOLY CRAP! The Trump DOJ has just announced a MASSIVE $90M FRAUD BUST in Tim Walz’s Minnesota, with criminal charges being slapped on 15 defendants
This involves 7 STATE-MANAGED MEDICAID PROGRAMS totally plundered by fraudsters — one program has $0 LEFT! 🤯
The New York Post reported that Justice Department officials described the latest Minnesota charges as involving the two largest Medicaid fraud cases ever brought in the district, including what officials called the “largest autism fraud scheme ever.” According to the Post’s account of the DOJ announcement, prosecutors said the schemes involved fake diagnoses, billing for services that were not provided, and the exploitation of programs intended for vulnerable people.
Autism Program Targeted In Alleged $40 Million Scheme
One of the most explosive allegations involves Minnesota’s Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention program, known as EIDBI, a Medicaid-funded autism services program for children and young people.
FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on X that one alleged scheme was worth more than $40 million and involved kickbacks to parents who fraudulently used autism centers to obtain autism diagnoses for children regardless of medical necessity, followed by billing for services that were not actually provided.
That’s nice and all Kash, but…
Still in congress
Still free
Still has millions of hard earned TAXPAYERS money stolen from our children and grandchildren pic.twitter.com/vR26CqcW2n
That allegation shifts the Minnesota story from ordinary benefits fraud into something much darker: children, disabled patients, and struggling families allegedly being treated as billing instruments inside programs that were supposed to help them.
The Justice Department had already been building toward this moment. In December, federal prosecutors announced additional charges in autism and housing fraud cases, including allegations that a Minnesota autism provider paid cash kickbacks to parents, submitted inflated Medicaid claims, billed for services not actually provided, and obtained millions of dollars from Minnesota’s Department of Human Services and related payors.
Housing And Home-Care Programs Under Scrutiny
Federal prosecutors have also zeroed in on Minnesota’s Housing Stabilization Services program, a Medicaid benefit designed to help people with disabilities, seniors, people with mental illness, and people with substance-use disorders find and maintain housing.
According to the Justice Department, the program had low barriers to entry and minimal records requirements, making it vulnerable to fraud. The program’s costs exploded from an expected $2.6 million annually to more than $21 million in 2021, $42 million in 2022, $74 million in 2023, and $104 million in 2024.
In one housing case, two Pennsylvania men pleaded guilty to traveling repeatedly to Minneapolis to defraud the Housing Stabilization Services program, according to the DOJ. Prosecutors said they stole about $3.5 million for services they falsely claimed to have provided to roughly 230 Medicaid beneficiaries and even used ChatGPT to generate fake client notes when insurers asked for documentation.
Feeding Our Future Casts A Long Shadow
The overlap among these cases is what has made the Minnesota scandal so politically explosive. What began with Feeding Our Future has expanded into child care, housing services, autism therapy, home supports, and other Medicaid-funded programs.
According to AP,Bock’s Feeding Our Future network involved phony distribution sites, fake lists of children supposedly being fed, kickbacks, and lavish spending on international travel, real estate, and luxury vehicles. Bock was convicted last year of conspiracy, fraud, and bribery and sentenced this week to nearly 42 years in prison.
Bock blames Minnesota officials for not catching the fraud, telling CBS: “We relied on the state,” adding that local officials, including Rep. Ilhan Omar, would often visit the meal sites. “We told the state, this site is going to operate at this address, this time, and this number of children. The state would then tell us that’s approved.”
👂🏻👂🏻👂🏻👂🏻👂🏻👂🏻👂🏻👂🏻👂🏻👂🏻
WORTH A LISTEN
Aimee Bock from behind prison is naming names in the Minnesota fraud scandal… which she believes was no surprise to local Democratic leaders. pic.twitter.com/UfrKsvJNjV
The Justice Department has described Feeding Our Future as the single largest COVID-19 fraud scheme in the country. Prosecutors said the scheme stole roughly $250 million from a federal child nutrition program that was supposed to feed children during the pandemic.
Future Leaders Early Learning Center was also one of the Minneapolis daycares referenced or featured in YouTuber Nick Shirley’s viral December video examining possible fraud in the system. The video helped push the issue into national politics and drew attention from federal officials already scrutinizing Minnesota-administered benefits programs.
Washington Freezes Funding And Demands Answers
The fallout has reached Washington. The Department of Health and Human Services announced on Jan. 6 that it had frozen access to certain child care and family-assistance funds for California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York, citing concerns about widespread fraud and misuse of taxpayer dollars in state-administered programs.
According to the HHS announcement, the freeze applied to three programs: the Child Care and Development Fund, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and the Social Services Block Grant.
Minnesota has also faced specific Medicaid funding pressure. AP reported that the Trump administration notified the state it was deferring an additional $91 million in Medicaid funding because of concerns about fraud vulnerabilities in state-run but federally funded social-service programs. That came on top of hundreds of millions of dollars the administration had already withheld earlier this year.
CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said the additional deferral was tied partly to high-risk service categories and partly to concerns about payments for ineligible recipients. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called the move political retaliation, while state officials said they have been taking aggressive action to stop fraud and recover improper payments.
The Oversight Question
The numbers explain why the issue is not going away. Minnesota receives about $185 million in child care funds each year from the Administration for Children and Families, according to HHS officials cited in earlier reporting. The latest cases raise basic questions about how federal money was monitored, how providers were verified, why warning signs were missed, and how alleged fraud was able to spread across so many programs before federal investigators stepped in.
The scandal now appears to be less about one daycare, one nonprofit, or one program than about a broader failure of oversight. Prosecutors are no longer describing isolated cases of paperwork abuse. They are alleging networks of providers, recruiters, shell companies, fake records, kickbacks, inflated claims, and programs designed for children, disabled people, and low-income families being turned into taxpayer-funded revenue streams.
For Minnesota, the political problem is obvious. For taxpayers, the question is simpler: how many more programs were treated this way, and how much money is gone?
