Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

Nebraska plans to become the first state in the nation to implement work requirements for certain Medicaid recipients, with Gov. Jim Pillen and federal health officials announcing an accelerated rollout under provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB).

At a news conference earlier this week, Pillen said the state has formally notified the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) of its intent to require Medicaid expansion enrollees to meet work or community engagement standards beginning May 1, 2026—well ahead of the federal compliance deadline.

The event was also attended by Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services CEO Steve Corsi, and remotely by CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz.

Under the new rules, able-bodied adults aged 19 to 64 enrolled through Medicaid expansion will be required to complete at least 80 hours per month of employment, education, job training, community service, or other qualifying activities to maintain coverage, unless they qualify for an exemption.

“These requirements will help Nebraskans achieve greater self-sufficiency through employment and other meaningful activities,” Pillen said.

“Working not only provides purpose but helps people become active, productive members of their communities.”

Pillen added that Nebraska will be ready to move forward with the work requirements well before the federally mandated start date of Jan. 1, 2027.

His office said that work requirements are associated with greater success in finding better-paid work and more stable incomes over time, and that higher employment rates are linked to lower crime rates. Children in working households also tend to have improved educational outcomes and stronger routines.

Federal Law Mandates Medicaid Work Rules

The work requirements stem from the OBBB Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4. The bill mandates work or community engagement conditions for most adults covered through Medicaid expansion nationwide. While it directs states to implement the requirements by the end of 2026, states may move sooner, as Nebraska now plans to do.

Oz, who joined the conference by video, praised Nebraska for acting quickly.

“Nebraska is leading the way as the first state to launch its community engagement requirements, and we congratulate Governor Pillen and his team for their commitment to helping more Nebraskans move toward greater independence and opportunity,” he said.

“CMS will be working together with Nebraska and its 50 counterparts to ensure every program is implemented smoothly, responsibly, and in compliance with federal law.”

According to state officials, the policy will apply only to the Medicaid expansion population—low-income adults earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level—while leaving traditional Medicaid groups unaffected. Children, pregnant women, seniors, and people who are blind or disabled are excluded from the requirement.

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services estimates that around 350,000 residents are enrolled in Medicaid, with Pillen saying that some 30,000 Nebraskans will be subject to the new work requirement once it is implemented.

Critics contend that the accelerated timeline could strain Nebraska’s eligibility system and lead to coverage losses among people who qualify for exemptions but struggle with paperwork or verification.

“We have seen in other states that when Medicaid work requirements are implemented too quickly, like what Nebraska is proposing here, thousands of people who are eligible for the program unnecessarily lose coverage and millions of state dollars are wasted on ineffective administrative costs,” Nebraska Appleseed Health Care Access program director Sarah Maresh said in a statement.

“We know a vast majority of Nebraskans subject to these requirements work or meet an exemption to work requirements, but rushing to implement work requirements will cause them to lose coverage anyway.”

The Congressional Budget Office projected in June that 4.8 million able-bodied adults would lose Medicaid coverage by 2034 for failing to meet new work requirements under the OBBB.

Potentially on the cusp of another regime change war, last night ZeroHedge collaborated with The Matt Gaetz show to host a pointed debate on how Trump should handle the evil and corrupt Maduro regime—a familiar Washington storyline now resurfacing amid renewed sanctions pressure, significant U.S. military maneuvers, and Beltway think tank consensus.

The debate featured Curt Mills, Executive Director of The American Conservative, and Venezuelan opposition figure Emmanuel Rincon, moderated by former Congressman Matt Gaetz.

We strongly recommend the full hour-long debate, but here the highlights for those short of time:

The Venezuelan Chalabi

Mills warned that Washington is once again falling for a familiar con, comparing the case for regime change in Venezuela to the pre-Iraq War fantasy sold by exiles promising instant democracy if only the U.S. removes the “bad man” at the top.

“I suppose I’m debating the Venezuelan Ahmed Chalabi,” Mills said, noting that diaspora groups routinely make sweeping claims about what “the people on the street” believe and what the country will supposedly look like “the day after,” all while assuming they and their allies would be handed power.

The truth, he argued, is simpler and more damning: “We don’t know. And this is not the U.S.’s business.”

Context: Ahmed Chalabi—a wealthy Iraqi exile—was a pivotal figure in selling the Iraq War to U.S. neoconservatives, largely by feeding them what they most wanted to believe: that toppling Saddam would quickly yield a secular, pro-Western Iraqi democracy that would also normalize ties with Israel. Chalabi’s circle also supplied “crucial intelligence” about Iraqi weaponry that “almost all… turned out to be false,” helping justify the invasion and underpin the “liberators” fantasy.

Mills also took aim at the security rationale behind intervention, arguing that regime change is a wildly inefficient response to crime or drugs.

“The U.S. does not need to stop all crime everywhere,” he said, adding that protecting Americans can be achieved far more effectively through border enforcement and cooperation with law enforcement than through a war.

The real danger, he cautioned, is strategic self-harm: Venezuela risks becoming “the American Ukraine,” a war of choice that bogs the U.S. down and consumes an entire presidency.

pic.twitter.com/vLsmz47BK8

— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) December 20, 2025

Drug-Busting, Not Regime Change

The exchange turned on whether regime change could be sold as something short of war.

Emmanuel Rincon insisted that it could, arguing, “You’re not going to war against Venezuela. You are going to war against a drug cartel. It’s not the same.”

In Rincon’s telling, the scenario would not involve Venezuela’s military at all:

“You’re not going to have all the military of Venezuela going into a war with the United States. That is not going to happen.”

Mills dismissed that framing as semantic evasion.

“Like in World War II, they could argue that we weren’t going to war with Germany—we were going to war with the Nazi regime, with the SS,” he said. “But of course we’re going to war with Germany.”

Stripping away the euphemisms, Mills argued the same logic applies in Caracas:

“We would be going to war with Venezuela—the people that run Venezuela today.” adding:

“Maduro can get the fuck out…”

pic.twitter.com/XQb07DjUPX

— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) December 20, 2025

Watch the full debate below because – while Tucker v Ben Shapiro drama may be stealing the show right now – how this Venezuela debate pans out within the Trump admin could put lives on the line… and very soon.

https://t.co/Uc14RFJEhY

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 20, 2025

Via The Cradle

US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have presented a $112 billion reconstruction plan to Gulf officials to build a “high-tech metropolis” atop the remains of Gaza, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The 32-page PowerPoint presentation labeled “sensitive” and titled “Project Sunrise” was developed over 45 days and reportedly presented to officials from Qatar, UAE, Egypt, and Turkiye. 

The plan envisions turning the Gaza Strip into a “high-tech metropolis” over the next two decades with four phases of reconstruction beginning in southern Gaza. It also calls for turning Rafah into Gaza’s new “administrative center,” housing over 500,000 residents.

However, the plan does not specify where two million Palestinians would be sheltered during the reconstruction period. Israel’s blockade of shelter materials has left Palestinians sheltering in bombed-out buildings and tattered tents.

In early December, a severe winter storm caused over a dozen fatalities, including three infants who succumbed to exposure, and led to the collapse of several buildings. About 95 percent of Gaza’s tent camps have flooded due to the heavy rain.

Witkoff and Kushner’s reconstruction plan also proposes monetizing 70 percent of Gaza’s coastline beginning in year ten of the project, a move officials hope would generate over “$55 billion in long-run investment returns for prospective investors.”

Both Witkoff and Kushner come from prominent Jewish real estate families rooted in New York’s property sector, with careers built around large-scale, high-value developments and deep financial ties to Gulf sovereign wealth funds.

According to the proposal, the US would provide $60 billion in grants and loan guarantees to back new debt, with expectations that the project would become self-financing as local industry and the broader economy recover. The World Bank would also have a role in the project.

The proposal is contingent on Hamas demilitarizing and decommissioning all weapons and tunnels. This precondition is highlighted in bold red type on the second page of the slide deck.

Hamas officials recently offered to “bury” the group’s weapons and hand over power to a Palestinian governing body.

President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated demo for ‘Trump Gaza’ on Truth Social. The video depicts his “Riviera Plan” come to life. It involves the forced removal of the indigenous Palestinian population, U.S. ownership, and development of the land for “world people.” pic.twitter.com/j9mWl8muHD

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) February 26, 2025

However, Israel has blocked those efforts and refused the participation of nearly all Palestinian technocrats and bureaucrats who would be suited to govern Gaza.

Earlier this year, Trump proposed permanently relocating Gaza’s Palestinian residents to transform the strip into a “Riviera of the Middle East,” a plan rejected by several countries but welcomed by Israel’s government.

For months, Democrats have tried to weaponize the delayed release of the Epstein files against President Donald Trump, after Trump got all weird about releasing the files in February. In recent weeks, House Dems selectively leaked materials to suggest the delay meant Trump had something to hide, even though none of the photos or emails implicated him in Epstein’s sex-trafficking (something the NY Times even admitted). And after enormous bipartisan pressure spearheaded by Rep. Thomas Massie and MTG, Trump finally signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law – requiring the release of ‘all’ the Epstein files no later than Friday. And while the DOJ only released ‘about half’ of what they were supposed to, they did offer a deeper peek into what was going on behind the scenes.

The first tranche of DOJ files released Friday include thousands of pages of material on Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, along with photos featuring high-profile figures such as Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Mick Jagger, Kevin Spacey, Chris Tucker, Sarah Ferguson, Prince Andrew, and Bill Gates.

While no major bombshells have surfaced yet, former President Bill Clinton is facing renewed scrutiny because of some of the photos in the latest release: him posing with Epstein in matching shirts, chatting up a dancer, and lounging on what appears to be a plane with a redacted woman on his lap. Clinton also appears at a dinner table with Mick Jagger, Epstein, and Maxwell.

One standout image captures Clinton in a pool or hot tub with an unidentified woman whose face the DOJ blacked out, indicating that the individual is a victim and/or underage, which was allowed by the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

Mr. Clinton is one of the few people whose faces were not redacted, along with Mr. Epstein himself and Ms. Maxwell. In posts on X after the release, a White House spokeswoman repeatedly pointed out photos of Mr. Clinton and argued that the news media did not want to focus on the images.

“Here is Bill Clinton in a hot tub next to someone whose identity has been redacted. Per the Epstein Files Transparency Act, DOJ was specifically instructed only to redact the faces of victims and/or minors. Time for the media to start asking real questions,” White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson wrote on her personal X account.

Meanwhile, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are also seeking to force Bill and Hillary to give in-person depositions in their own investigation. On social media, Trump has claimed without evidence that Clinton and other Democrats spent “spent large portions of their life with Epstein, and on his ‘Island.’”

Unsurprisingly, the Clinton camp wasn’t happy about the latest drop. Angel Ureña, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, posted an angry statement attacking the release on X. “The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton. This is about shielding themselves from what comes next, or from what they’ll try and hide forever. So they can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton. Never has, never will be. Even Susie Wiles said Donald Trump was wrong about Bill Clinton,” Ureña wrote. ”There are two types of people here. The first group knew nothing and cut Epstein off before his crimes came to light. The second group continued relationships with him after. We’re in the first. No amount of stalling by people in the second group will change that.”

Ureña concluded, “Everyone, especially MAGA, expects answers, not scapegoats.”

Clinton’s ties to Epstein have been well documented – having moved in the same elite circles as far back as the early 1990s, leaving behind a trail of photos over the years. Epstein and Maxwell visited the Clinton White House multiple times, and Maxwell later appeared at Chelsea Clinton’s 2010 wedding.

Clinton also flew on Epstein’s jet in the early 2000s for trips his team says were connected to Clinton Foundation work in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Clinton faces no criminal charges related to Epstein, and his representatives insist he did not know about Epstein’s crimes.

And of course, the MSM is pissed!

“The images and documents have been released without context or background information,” the New York Times writes. “It is unclear which photographs might have been taken by Mr. Epstein and which might have been sent to or acquired by him, or where many of them were taken. Justice Department officials have not said how they selected the particular tranche of documents that were released on Friday.”

Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA,

An attorney for Fulton County, Georgia admitted earlier this month that the county accepted roughly 315,000 early votes that were not lawfully certified in the 2020 presidential election. 

Attorney Ann Brumbaugh made the admission while representing the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections at a Dec. 9 hearing before the Georgia State Election Board, according to Wednesday’s reporting by The Federalist. 

The SEB hearing pertained to a complaint filed by election integrity activist David Cross, who accuses Fulton County of having violated Georgia law by counting early votes that were not properly signed off by election workers. 

As quoted by The Federalist, Brumbaugh told the board that Fulton County does “not dispute that the tapes were not signed.” 

She added, “It was a violation of the rule. We, since 2020, again, we have new leadership and a new building and a new board and a new standard operating procedures. And since then the training has been enhanced. … But … we don’t dispute the allegation from the 2020 election.” 

According to The Federalist: 

“Georgia’s Secretary of State Office investigated the alleged failure to sign tabluation [sic] tapes and ‘substantiated’ the findings that Fulton County ‘violated Official Election Record Document Processes when it was discovered that thirty-six (36) out of thirty-seven (37) Advanced Voting Precincts in Fulton County, Georgia failed to sign the Tabulation Tapes as required [by statute],’ according to a 2024 investigation summary. In addition to probing the unsigned tabulation tapes, the investigation also found that officials at 32 polling sites failed to verify their zero tapes.” 

The issue, as detailed by the outlet, is that Georgia statute orders election officials to print three “closing tapes” toward the end of each voting day.  

Doing so allows officials to officially end counting for the day and avoid votes from the previous day being overcounted. 

“These signed tapes are the sole legal certification that the reported totals are authentic,” Cross said during the SEB hearing.

“Fulton County produced zero signed tabulator tapes in early voting.” 

Cross reportedly uncovered the discrepancy through open records requests that cost him $15,800.  

“These are not clerical errors. They are catastrophic breaks in chain of custody and certification,” Cross said.

“Because no tape was ever legally certified, Fulton County had no lawful authority to certify its advanced voting results to the secretary of state. Yet it did. And Secretary Raffensperger accepted and folded those uncertified numbers into Georgia’s official total without questioning them. This is not partisan. This is statutory. This is the law. When the law demands three signatures on tabulator tapes and the county fails to follow the rules, those 315,000 votes are, by definition, uncertified.” 

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) received more than 220,000 applications for more than 10,000 open positions at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), ICE said in a statement on Dec. 18.

DHS has officially hired 11,751 law enforcement officers, attorneys, criminal investigators, and mission support staff, the agency said. This is the “most successful federal law enforcement agency recruitment campaign in American history,” the agency said.

DHS launched the ICE “Defend the Homeland” recruitment drive on July 29. The recruitment effort is backed by funding from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB), signed into law by President Donald Trump in July, which allocates $170 billion to border security and immigration enforcement initiatives.

OBBB had granted ICE $76.5 billion, of which $30 billion was to be used to hire 10,000 additional staff members.

In a Dec. 18 post on X, ICE said it hit its goal of hiring more than 10,000 personnel in less than a year.

ICE Deputy Director Madison D. Sheahan praised the OBBB for providing the agency with necessary resources to enforce immigration law “as it’s been written and codified by Congress.”

“The president and Secretary Noem set a goal, and we exceeded it, but that doesn’t mean we’re done. We continue to call on American patriots to serve the homeland because we know that there’s still more work to do—and we will not stop until every community in this nation is safe,” Sheahan said, referring to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

ICE said it was offering “unparalleled” incentives to recruits, including a signing bonus of up to $50,000, up to $60,000 in student loan repayment, and an attractive benefits package that includes health insurance, paid federal holidays, and a retirement plan.

Meanwhile, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced new recruitment and retention incentives on Dec. 18 to attract skilled individuals to key law enforcement positions in the agency.

CBP is offering new border patrol agents up to $60,000 in incentives, with current agents eligible for up to $50,000 in retention incentives, the agency said.

New Air and Marine agents can become eligible for up to $10,000 in signing bonuses once they complete academy training. Both new and current agents are also eligible for retention incentives of up to 25 percent of their salary.

For new CBP officers in the Office of Field Operations who sign up for hard-to-fill and most difficult-to-fill locations, incentives of up to $60,000 are being offered. Experienced supervisors and officers eligible to retire in certain locations also may qualify for up to $60,000 in retention incentives.

“CBP is committed to recruiting and retaining top talent for our critical mission,” CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott said.

“By offering competitive incentives, we are investing in skilled professionals who will help secure America’s borders and advance national security.”

The strong recruitment numbers come despite immigration enforcement officers facing unprecedented violence against them. On Dec. 12, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said that officers were facing an 8,000 percent increase in death threats along with a 1,150 percent increase in assaults.

Federal Immigration Enforcement

Democrats have criticized ICE and CBP for their part in federal immigration enforcement.

This month, a group of Democratic senators introduced the “Accountability for Federal Law Enforcement Act,” which seeks to grant individuals the right to sue law enforcement agencies and officers in civil court for any constitutional or civil violations, according to a Dec. 15 statement from the office of Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.)

This right to sue will be made available to all individuals in the United States “regardless of citizenship,” it said.

“For months, ICE and CBP officers have terrorized communities across the country, deploying violent and excessive tactics against immigrants, U.S. citizens, journalists, and bystanders alike with no accountability,” Padilla said.

“These abuses of individuals’ constitutional rights without consequence shatter public trust and stoke fear among hardworking members of our communities.”

DHS says ICE arrests target illegal immigrants with a history of criminal activities and has recently launched a website to boost transparency regarding the arrests.

DHS operates the website, “Worst of the Worst,” which allows users to search, based on location, for criminal illegal immigrants who have been arrested and removed from communities. On Dec. 18, the agency said it had added another 5,000 criminal illegal immigrants to the growing list of 15,000 profiles on the website.

“This new update represents just a small sample of the total number of arrests we’ve made—70 percent of ICE arrests are of criminal illegal aliens that have been charged or convicted of a crime in the United States,” McLaughlin said.

The chart below is a fascinating snapshot of the last 75 years in the demise of the American empire.

As The Burning Platform’s Jim Quinn explains in his no-nonsense manner, there are currently 164 million people employed in America. About 34 million of those are employed part-time.

When you understand the working age population is 275 million and your friendly number fudgers at the BLS declare 103 million of them NOT IN THE LABOR FORCE, and hysterically declaring only 7.8 million Americans are unemployed, you understand what a fraudulent economy we have.

The reported 4.6% unemployment rate is complete and utter bullshit. In reality, it is north of 20%.

Welcome to the golden age…

• The percentage of total jobs in the Education and Health Services sector has grown from 4.8% in 1950 to 17.8% today. Wow!! We must be the smartest, healthiest nation on earth. Not quite. With 28 million teachers, doctors, nurses, and mostly administrators (aka overhead), our education system matriculates millions of barely functional idiots into society every year. Meanwhile, as a country, we are sickly, fat, lazy, dependent upon Big Pharma drugs, and spend more on healthcare than any country on earth. To quote the immortal Dean Wormer,  “Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”

• Proof we have become a non-productive, debt dependent, government dependent, shadow of our former industrial powerhouse is the decline in the percentage of manufacturing jobs from 30.2% in 1950 to 8.0% today. We borrow and consume, when we used to invest and build. Trump can threaten, tariff the world, and make bullshit announcements about manufacturing jobs coming back, but they are not coming back. Any new manufacturing plants will be operated by robotics.

• Even though the percentage of government employees (aka parasites) has remained relatively steady since 1950, we are stuck with 24 million blood suckers who contribute nothing to the country’s productivity. The average working schmuck has to pay outrageously high taxes to pay the bloated salaries and pensions of these government freeloaders.

• And now some bad news for the formerly well paid workers in the Professional & Business Services sector, which had grown from 6.6% of total jobs in 1950 to 14.1% today. ChatGPT and the avalanche of AI tools are eliminating jobs in these sectors at hyperbolic speed. These are the same assholes who used to tell blue collar workers to “learn to code”. Well, now the plumbers, electricians, and construction workers can recommend they learn to be fry cooks at McDonalds, but too late, robots are taking those jobs.

The relatively stable employment situation over the last few years has been the only thing keeping this ship of fools from sinking.

But, the increase in the fraudulent unemployment rate from 4.0% when Trump took office to 4.6% today shows the ship is taking on water and it won’t be long before millions are drowning under the waves of debt, delusion, and dumb decisions.

Many analysts agree that the last round of fighting between Israel and Iran last June was not the final conflict the two regional powers will face.

Despite President Trump having declared that the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program had been completely obliterated in the US knock-out strikes against three nuclear facilities which came at the end of the 12-day war, Israel suspects the Iranians are still conducting nuclear development activity in secret, and are busy reconstituting and expanding their ballistic missile arsenal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to visit the United States yet again, from December 28 to January 4, and will meet with President Trump at the Mar-a-Lago estate. Netanyahu will reportedly lobby the president to take more military action against Tehran.

NBC reports Saturday, “Israeli officials have grown increasingly concerned that Iran is expanding production of its ballistic missile program, which was damaged by Israeli military strikes earlier this year, and are preparing to brief President Donald Trump about options for attacking it again, according to a person with direct knowledge of the plans and four former U.S. officials briefed on the plans.”

“Israeli officials also are concerned that Iran is reconstituting nuclear enrichment sites the U.S. bombed in June, the sources said,” the report continues. “But, they added, the officials view Iran’s efforts to rebuild facilities where they produce the ballistic missiles and to repair its crippled air defense systems as more immediate concerns.”

But the timing of potential new Pentagon action against Iran couldn’t be worse, given the concentration of American military assets currently in the southern Caribbean at a moment the US is threating regime change actions against Venezuela’s President Maduro and cartels in Latin America.

The USS Gerald R. Ford carrier group was even recently moved from the Mediterranean, where it was closer to the Middle East and CENTCOM region, to join operations threatening Venezuela in the Caribbean.

However, the Pentagon has just this week engaged in new ‘counter ISIS’ strikes in Syria, and so presumably would have enough or limited support assets in the region if it chose to assist with some new Israeli anti-Iran operation.

Still, all of these unprovoked attacks on foreign powers and adventurism abroad could grow increasingly unpopular with the American people, and certainly there’s a large chunk of the MAGA base which is dead set against the US entering new wars and conflicts, also at a time the Ukraine proxy war shows no signs of slowing.

The Trump administration is still standing by its assessment that Iran’s nuclear capabilities have been destroyed. “The International Atomic Energy Agency and Iranian government corroborated the United States government’s assessment that Operation Midnight Hammer totally obliterated Iran’s nuclear capabilities,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly has said in a statement.

There’s widespread acknowledgement that Iran’s ballistic missile capability is among the most advanced in the broader region, and that it did real damage against Israel in the June war:

Iran has not just developed one of the most advanced ICBMs in the world
(New video on the Qaem ICBM has just been released on the DDD YT-Channel)

➡️ Israeli sources now claim that Iran was close to mastering what no other country has ever masted:
Purse-Fusion nuclear weapons… https://t.co/qvq1nnLW46 pic.twitter.com/bUrnOIvB0X

— Patarames (@Pataramesh) December 20, 2025

She further warned: “As President Trump has said, if Iran pursued a nuclear weapon, that site would be attacked and would be wiped out before they even got close.” So while Trump might be open to mulling new action, the official US stance is that there’s no need to at this point.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

The FBI sounded the alarm on Dec. 17 regarding the risks associated with sports gambling as its popularity continues to gain steam across the United States.

The law enforcement bureau noted that 39 states and the District of Columbia have legalized some variant of sports betting, but it said that “illegal sportsbooks and illegal online gaming sites” are still widespread.

Some $673.6 billion is wagered each year by Americans via illegal or unregulated gambling markets, the FBI said, citing data from the American Gambling Association.

“Individuals engaged in illegal gambling risk funding organized crime activity and becoming vulnerable to violence, extortion, and fraud,” the FBI said in its bulletin released on Wednesday, adding that it is working to target “organized crime and illegal gambling operations.”

Some gambling sites operated in other countries have advertisements that target Americans and seek to obscure their respective countries of origin, the agency said. These offshore sites do not follow the same legal regulations as licensed sports books in the United States, it added.

Furthermore, the bureau said that the gambling profits gained by these organized crime groups can fund human trafficking, drug smuggling, and weapon smuggling activities.

“Unregulated sportsbooks and offshore gambling websites put U.S. consumers at risk of losing their money and earnings,” the FBI warned.

“Illegal betting can also lead bettors to other criminal activity, such as tax evasion and money laundering, due to the illicit nature of the financial gains. It is each bettor’s responsibility to play with a licensed and regulated sportsbook operator.”

It was more than a month ago that several high-profile figures, current and former NBA players—such as Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier—and coaches, were charged in illegal sports betting and money laundering schemes, prosecutors have said.

In late October, former NBA star and Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups was also charged in an alleged scheme to rig illegal poker games, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said.

Rozier pleaded not guilty earlier this month to wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges stemming from accusations that he helped some friends win bets that revolved around his statistical performance in a game played in March 2023.

Billups also pleaded not guilty last month to charges related to a separate scheme to fix high-stakes, Mafia-backed poker games.

In Major League Baseball, Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz were arrested in November, the DOJ said.

The pair was accused of gambling on individual pitches that they threw in MLB games.

A poll from NBC News released on Dec. 17 found that 70 percent of Americans believe that the rise of sports betting is damaging the integrity of games or could cause games to be rigged.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said on Dec. 16 that the league is taking the cases seriously, stating that “if this game isn’t viewed as being honest and the competition being on the level and at the highest integrity, over time we will lose our fan base.”

Update (1244ET): The DOJ released three new folders of Epstein files on Saturday. Folder #5 mostly contains what appear to be hard drives and media from both Epstein’s lockup at the NY Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) and his property. 

Folder #6 is mostly court filings related to Epstein and Maxwell’s cases. 

Folder #7 contains information from Epstein’s 2007 prosecution. 

We will update this post if anything of import emerges… Also, since the DOJ placed everything in a PDF file that makes it difficult to navigate, you can browse the first tranche of Epstein files here.

Of note, 680 pages of yesterday’s release were entirely redacted. 

*  *  *

Update (1756ET): What were you expecting? 

The ‘long awaited’ Epstein files were released a few hours ago by the DOJ, as required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act. 

TL;DR – A solid collection of new pictures and files with massive redactions throughout, and no bombshells yet.

Click into Nick Monroe’s thread of interesting shit if you’re curious:

UGH fine. I have the day off from work so I might as well take the time to look at whatever Epstein files drop today.

(*And if I get the hankering for it, I’ll look over the other recent stuff that came out already.) https://t.co/vEbIblfHRK

— Nick Monroe (@lobsterlooker) December 19, 2025

A few items we also noticed which might be in Nick’s thread;

Bill Clinton:

Trading station or CCTV monitoring station?

Recording and networking equipment:

Closer shot of hard drives and other recovered media:

David Copperfield making Ghislaine’s tits disappear:

Oh:

Honeypot of the year shirt?

And yet…

*  *  *

The Department of Justice will miss today’s deadline to release the ‘full’ Epstein files to Congress as required under new legislation Trump signed into law last month. 

Instead, the Justice Department will release “several hundred thousand” documents today, “and then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News, citing the need to redact any names or identifying information about witnesses.

“So today is the 30 days when I expect that we’re going to release several hundred thousand documents today. And those documents will come in in all different forms, photographs and other materials associated with, with all of the investigations into, into Mr. Epstein,” Blanche said.

“What we’re doing is we are looking at every single piece of paper that we are going to produce, making sure that every victim, their name, their identity, their story, to the extent it needs to be protected, is completely protected. And so I expect that we’re going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks. So today, several hundred thousand and then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more.”

U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche: “Today is the 30 days and I expect we’re going to release several hundred thousand [Epstein]documents today, and those documents will come in all different forms — photographs and other materials… just so everybody appreciates —… pic.twitter.com/JM22FXELTx

— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) December 19, 2025

Rep Thomas Massie, who was part of a bipartisan duo that pushed to force a vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, reminded everyone that today’s the day for all records to be released.

pic.twitter.com/GjZIlCAUyJ

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 19, 2025

On Thursday Massie made a video about today’s deadline, making it clear that there is no ambiguity within the law. 

“This is a very unique situation. … This is a case where the president who appointed the attorney general and for whom the attorney general works has signed the law and the ink is not even dry yet on his signature on this law,” Massie said, adding “There’s nothing subject to interpretation.”

Our Epstein Files Transparency Act is now law. It establishes a December 19 deadline for the Attorney General to release the Epstein files.

In this video, I’ll tell you what to expect in advance of tomorrow’s statutory disclosure deadline. pic.twitter.com/7aD7q1kyLC

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 18, 2025

Meanwhile, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee continue to release new batches of Epstein photos.

#EpsteinFiles 😳 pic.twitter.com/N6sCs5nLta

— swanaamdhanya (@swanaamdhaanya) December 19, 2025

“Oversight Democrats will continue to release photographs and documents from the Epstein estate to provide transparency for the American people,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) said in a statement. ” As we approach the deadline for the Epstein Files Transparency Act, these new images raise more questions about what exactly the Department of Justice has in its possession. We must end this White House cover-up, and the DOJ must release the Epstein files now.”

The photos show several images where women’s body parts have quotes from the book “Lolita” written on them. 

“She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock,” one quote reads. 

As ABC News notes further:

There are several images of passports and ID cards for women from Ukraine, the Russian Federation, South Africa, Italy, the Czech Republic and Lithuania. All identifying information has been redacted from the photos. After Epstein’s 2006 arrest and jail sentence in Florida for solicitation of a minor, he was alleged to have turned his focus to recruiting young women from Eastern European countries.

A screenshot released Thursday of a text message chat — whose participants are not revealed — seems to involve a discussion about recruiting an 18-year-old woman to meet Epstein.

“I will send u girls now,” the message says.  “Maybe someone will be good for J?”

Interestingly, in the world’s most buried lede – the NY Times admits that there’s no evidence that Donald Trump participated in Epstein’s sex trafficking. 

Kind of “burying the lede” here pic.twitter.com/jhgR1nmtPo

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) December 18, 2025