Authored by James Varney via RealClearInvestigations,

On the campaign trail, Vice President JD Vance repeatedly chastised the Biden administration for allegedly losing track of some 320,000 minors who had crossed the border unaccompanied. “Our government, under the policies of Kamala Harris, has lost thousands of innocent children to sex trafficking, to drug trafficking, to human trafficking,” Vance said.

One year later, the fate of most of those children remains unknown. While the Trump administration has all but stopped the crush of migrants that occurred during Biden’s term, neither the government nor the nonprofits that were largely responsible for resettling this vulnerable population of unaccompanied minors have been able to tell RealClearInvestigations where they are living.

Experts say it’s likely that the overwhelming majority of unaccompanied minors remain off the grid because their parents, guardians, and caregivers do not want to draw the attention of immigration authorities. But they also acknowledge the likelihood that some of the migrant minors have been picked up by human traffickers and forced into exploitative labor and sexual roles – a criminal trend that’s on the rise in the U.S. 

This story has been forgotten as politicians and the media have turned their attention away from immigration after Trump virtually closed the southern border. But the recent shooting of two members of the National Guard in Washington, D.C., by an Afghan refugee who had collaborated with the U.S. special forces has brought the issue of a broken immigration system back to the forefront. 

Nearly half a million unaccompanied minors under the age of 18 were apprehended at the border between 2021 and 2024, overwhelming the immigration system. Taxpayers spent more than $23 billion on a network of government agencies, construction companies, and nonprofits charged with finding them a safe place to live while sponsors were sought. 

Now the entities that took the money are unwilling to address the whereabouts of the minors. Nor are they forthcoming about how they spent – or misspent – the funding that was supposed to avoid the very problem the nation faces of missing migrant children.

“They don’t want to talk about it,” said Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies. “Those groups are the very ones that were pressing to release the unaccompanied kids faster.” 

The Biden Migrant Surge

The problem of unaccompanied minors began when Joe Biden took office and embraced more lax policies at the border.  During Trump’s first term, an average of 43,707 minors annually crossed the border alone; the figure dropped to 15,381 when the pandemic emerged in 2020. In 2021, however, that figure skyrocketed to 122,731, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In 2022, the number hit an all-time high of 128,904 before tapering off to 98,356 in 2024. These numbers represent the unaccompanied minors that were encountered by U.S. officials and do not include “gotaways,” so the actual total is significantly higher.

All told, the average annual number of unaccompanied children coming to the U.S. under Biden was nearly double the highest single prior year of 2019, ICE figures show. More than half of those who came each year since 2019 were 16 years old or younger, with nearly a quarter aged 12 or younger. 

This year, monthly data indicates the problem of newly arriving unaccompanied minors has virtually disappeared. In October, the average number of “children in care” was 2,244.

“Sealing the border had made a huge difference,” said Laura Lederer, a former senior advisor on trafficking in persons for the State Department. “Stopping illegal immigration is essentially a human trafficking prevention program.”

Rise in Human Trafficking

For undocumented minors already in the U.S., they are at risk of falling victim to predators who can take advantage of their separation from family and caregivers. Recent press accounts have described horror stories, with minors allegedly exploited from North Carolina to Los Angeles. Precise figures on victims of sexual trafficking or forced labor are impossible to find because the illegal operations are underground.

“For everyone we know about, there could be two, three, or even four times more,” said Lederer, a leading American researcher on human trafficking. 

The process of illegal immigration, which has been a cash cow for smuggling organizations, also claims victims. Minors may fall prey to groomers or recruiters and be forced to function as lookouts, guides, or spies, according to the Department of Defense’s Combating Trafficking in Persons unit.

Even federal agencies involved in finding minors are tight-lipped about their operations. In recent weeks, a Memphis Safe Task Force, led by the U.S. Marshals Service and including teams from ICE and Customs and Border Protection, has rescued 116 juveniles. How many of those were unaccompanied minor border crossers is unclear. The U.S. Marshals Service did not respond to questions.

Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley has been following the issue for years. Federal whistleblowers at his hearings have described a haphazard system for caring for unaccompanied minors, in which information is not shared among federal agencies, contractors, and law enforcement. Last year, Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) whistleblowers said that contractors would release minors to sketchy, unverified partners, suspicious strip-mall businesses, and, in one Michigan case, in an open field.

Prompted by those reports, Grassley sent referrals to the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regarding potentially criminal behavior by more than “100 suspicious sponsors” last year. But the Biden-Harris administration failed to fully respond to two-thirds of the subpoenas issued by law enforcement. In the last four years, there were more than 65,000 reports of possible illegal acts ignored or dismissed, of which roughly 7,300, or 13%, involved human trafficking, according to an Inspector General’s report.

The Trump administration claims it has processed some 28% of the backlog, leading to 36 investigations accepted for prosecution, seven indictments, 25 arrest warrants, 11 arrests, and three convictions.

Blaming the Problem on Paperwork

When Vance spoke about the exploitation of unaccompanied minors in the October 2024 vice-presidential debate, he took his 300,000 figure from a recent report from the DHS’s Inspector General. Within hours, left-wing groups and press outlets sprang to the Biden administration’s defense, downplaying the severity of the situation and insisting the huge number “lacked context.”

Some pro-immigration groups said it was merely “a missing paperwork problem,” according to the Acacia Center for Justice’s Unaccompanied Children Program. It was a “premature” conclusion that they were lost, said the American Immigration Council, while the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights said they were not “effectively lost.”

RCI reached out to all three of those groups repeatedly, asking how they assessed the current situation with unaccompanied minors and whether it has improved under Trump. Only the Acacia Center responded, and then only to repeat its point about paperwork.

“This figure stems from gaps in ICE paperwork, not actual disappearances,” the center’s Deputy Chief of Programs Michael Corradini said. “Many children were never issued Notices to Appear in immigration court, so their absence from court records does not mean they are missing.”

But Vance’s total was not inaccurate, according to the inspector general’s report. It found that, in addition to the 32,000 cases in which no address was given for where the minor went, there were another 43,000 cases where the minor failed to respond to a summons to immigration court, and 233,000 cases where neither addresses nor phone numbers received a response. In other words, more than 300,000.

The $23 Billion Network that Flopped

Since the DHS was created, most of the unaccompanied minors have been handled by the ORR. That agency, in turn, will release the minor to a sponsor, and it is at this point that the government often loses touch with the immigrant, several experts told RCI.

Neither ORR nor those agencies above it – the Administration for Children and Families and the Department of Health & Human Services – responded to multiple requests for comment.

Through ORR, taxpayers spent $23.1 billion on unaccompanied minor-related grants and contracts during Biden’s term, according to usaspending.gov. The office relies on a sprawling network to house the migrant minors and put them together with sponsors. Contracts and grants related to unaccompanied minors comprise the biggest chunk of the office’s spending each year, accounting for more than 91% in FY2021. 

Construction companies like Rapid Deployment Inc., of Mobile, Ala., were paid at least $3.5 billion, and nearly $200 million went to the defense contractor General Dynamics of Connecticut. Much of the funding went to nonprofits, religious charities, and non-governmental organizations that operate foster homes and release the minors to sponsors. Consulting companies, lawyers, and universities also benefited.

Despite the big outlays of money, it seems no group of officials kept tabs on the minors. 

Congress has identified some misspending in the program. North Carolina Republican Rep. Dan Bishop said last November that more than $100 million was obligated, and nearly $40 million spent, for an unaccompanied minor home in Greensboro, N.C., that never housed anyone.

At least one major vendor, Southwest Key Programs Inc. in Texas, has been sued for mistreatment of minors. As the largest housing provider for unaccompanied children, the group received at least $2 billion over just three years, from FY2021 to FY2023, according to government records. Last summer, the Justice Department sued Southwest Key, alleging that for years “multiple Southwest Key employees subjected unaccompanied children in their care to repeated and unwelcome sexual abuse, harassment, and misconduct and a hostile housing environment, including severe sexual abuse and rape.”

Federal tax returns for some of these nonprofits show that the ORR contracts and grants proved very lucrative. Southwest Key, for example, went from reporting revenues of $417.8 million in 2020 to more than $900 million in 2023 and 2024. In those last two years, the Austin-based nonprofit’s CEO, Anselmo Villarreal, was paid more than $1.1 million, while dozens of top executives received annual pay packages ranging from $250,000 to $700,000. In those same two years, Southwest Key spent 76% of its nearly $1 billion in revenue on “salaries, other compensation and benefits,” according to tax returns collected by ProPublica.

Endeavors, a San Antonio-based nonprofit, was paid more than $2 billion, including a $1.3 billion contract in FY2022, and at least $720 million in the other three years of Biden’s term. According to an audit, the nonprofit had minuscule revenues from 2011 to 2020. In 2020, when the nonprofit reported $52.5 million in revenue, it had 10 executives making six figures, topped by CEO Jon Allman at $317,301. In 2023, those in the Endeavors’ C-suite fared even better, with CEO Charles H. Fulghum pulling down $638,472 and three other executives making between $390,000 and $493,000, tax records show.

Another San Antonio nonprofit, Compass Connections, grew exponentially through unaccompanied minor-related government deals worth nearly $700 million. Compass reported less than $300,000 in revenue for the years 2019 to 2021. Then Compass caught fire, reporting $192 million in revenue in 2023 and $434 million the following year. In 2023, its Chairman Kevin Dinnin received more than $1.3 million in compensation from Compass and related organizations, tax records show.

Southwest Key, Endeavors, and Compass didn’t respond to requests for comment on the services they provided. Other groups that received much smaller sums, such as the Vera Institute for Justice and the Los Angeles County Fair Association, also declined to reveal anything about how they helped the undocumented minors. 

This prodigious spending appears to have come to a halt in FY2025, which ended last month. In that year, the ORR spent $51.9 million.

Sen. Grassley has also been stonewalled by these same groups when he sought information on their services, according to his office. Concerned about possible waste and fraud, Grassley wrote to two dozen contractors twice in 2024, and while some did not respond at all, those that did “provided incomplete and obstructive responses.”

“It really is horrific, what’s been going on,” said Lederer, the former government advisor. “Unfortunately, we usually only learn about it when a child is rescued or is hurt badly. The people that facilitated all this have circled the wagons about what went very, very wrong.”

The fact that Syria’s head of state got his start working for ISIS, and was a founding member of Syrian al-Qaeda, continues to produce embarrassing headlines. 

One full year after former president Bashar al-Assad was overthrown and fled to Moscow, Canada has very belatedly removed President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s militia group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, according to a Friday statement from the country’s Foreign Ministry. As part of the new action, Syria has also been removed from its list of state sponsors of terrorism (a list the country had been on over many years of the Assad government).

Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, founded and for years headed up the terror group HTS in Idlib province. HTS is the group that took control of Damascus after the collapse of the Syrian army in December 2024.

“Following extensive review, the Government of Canada has removed Syria from Canada’s List of Foreign State Supporters of Terrorism under the State Immunity Act, as well as removed Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from the List of Terrorist Entities under the Canadian Criminal Code,” the ministry said.

The US was the first to act, having lifted a $10 million bounty on Sharaa within the months after he seized power, followed by a full US delisting.

The Canadian foreign ministry further said that the decision was “not taken lightly.” It stated, “These measures are in line with recent decisions taken by our allies, including the United Kingdom and the United States, and follow the efforts by the Syrian transitional government to advance Syria’s stability, build an inclusive and secure future for its citizens, and work alongside global partners to reinforce regional stability and counter terrorism.”

So Canada seems to be admitting that HTS is indeed linked to al-Qaeda, and was properly designated in years past as a terror group, but that now it is merely going along with its allies the UK and US which removed the legal designation earlier.

The ministry still sought to stress that Canada “remains committed … to counter global security threats, such as those posed by Al-Qaeda” and ISIS (Daesh).

President Sharaa and his HTS fighters – many which now fill up top government positions – have lately been trying to make a show of ‘counter ISIS missions’. However, it is Alawite, Christian, and Druze communities which have suffered repeat attacks by Sharaa’s Islamist forces in recent months. 

Western countries have moved to normalize HTS, but nothing fundamentally has changed in their hardline Islamist ideology…

Video footage shows journalist James Longman advising rebels in Damascus, Syria, about the ISIS logo on their uniforms.

One of the rebels attempts to explain that the emblem does not represent ISIS, while the man wearing it is seen quickly removing the symbol. pic.twitter.com/qhZpkJiozJ

— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) December 16, 2024

Various reports have also noted that in some cases HTS members sport ISIS patches, and do little to try and hide it. Still, mainstream outlets like CNN haven’t covered this much, and have by and large ‘moved on’ from coverage of Syria, now with Assad out of the way – as the Western powers had long sought in fueling the proxy war for regime change.

Via The Cradle

Over the past four years, the Ukrainian government “systematically sabotaged” oversight of the country’s state-owned companies and weapons procurement processes, “allowing graft to flourish,” a freshly published New York Times investigation has revealed.

The investigation details how the government of Volodymyr Zelensky sidelined outside experts from the US and EU serving on advisory boards responsible for monitoring spending, appointing executives, and preventing corruption.

“President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration has stacked boards with loyalists, left seats empty, or stalled them from being set up at all. Leaders in Kiev even rewrote company charters to limit oversight, keeping the government in control and allowing hundreds of millions of dollars to be spent without outsiders poking around,” the NYT report says.

The investigation was published amid a corruption scandal centering on close associates of the Ukrainian president. Anti-corruption authorities have accused members of Zelensky’s inner circle of embezzling $100 million from the state-owned nuclear power company, Energoatom.

“Mr. Zelensky’s administration has blamed Energoatom’s supervisory board for failing to stop the corruption. But it was Mr. Zelensky’s government itself that neutered Energoatom’s supervisory board,” the NYT writes.

The investigation also found that Zelensky sidelined the supervisory boards of the state-owned electricity company Ukrenergo and Ukraine’s Defense Procurement Agency.

European leaders have justified funneling billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to Ukraine despite knowledge of the systematic corruption and theft plaguing the country. “We do care about good governance, but we have to accept that risk,” said Christian Syse, the special envoy to Ukraine from Norway.

Detective Ruslan Magamedrasulov from the NABU, who was jailed in July due to accusations by the SBU of attempting to sell technical info to Russia, has been released.

Today, during the appeal hearing, the judge ruled to free the NABU detective from custody without any preventive… pic.twitter.com/9LOCV8NqKy

— Clash Report (@clashreport) December 3, 2025

“Because it’s war. Because it’s in our own interest to help Ukraine financially. Because Ukraine is defending Europe from Russian attacks,” he added.

Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, resigned late last month amid the Energoatom corruption scandal and just hours after police raided his home. Ukrainska Pravda reported that he had left for Israel, of which he is a citizen, just hours before the raid.

Yermak is widely considered the second-most-powerful official in the country, with influence over domestic politics, military issues, and foreign policy, Axios noted.

For everyone who still believes the bedtime stories that Zelensky and Yermak have nothing to do with top-level corruption in the energy and defense sectors — you might want to read the latest interview with NABU detective Ruslan Magamedrasulov.

Zelensky’s loyal attack dogs… pic.twitter.com/oZvNMSjpyy

— Marta Havryshko (@HavryshkoMarta) November 19, 2025

Businessman Timur Mindich, who co-founded the entertainment company Kvartal 95 with Zelensky, allegedly led the embezzlement scheme. Mindich also escaped to Israel, where he enjoys citizenship, hours before a separate raid on his luxury apartment by police from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU).

“Timur had an apartment with golden toilets that was in the same building as Zelensky’s,” a former Ukrainian government official told Fox News.

While the U.S. ended federal Prohibition in 1933, local restrictions on alcohol still persist across the country to this day.

As Visual Capitalist shows in the map below, based on work by Wikipedia user Mr. Matté, many counties remain “dry,” banning the sale of alcohol entirely, or “moist,” allowing only limited sales.

Where Alcohol is Still Restricted

The data, crowdsourced from local government sites and media reports, reveals that alcohol restrictions are concentrated in the South, particularly in states like Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

Arkansas stands out the most in the map above, with a patchwork of red and orange counties indicating either total bans or partial restrictions on alcohol sales. In fact, the state has long struggled with outdated liquor laws, where even grocery stores in “moist” counties may be prohibited from selling wine or spirits.

Alcohol Status: It’s Complicated

Here’s what the terminology means:

• Dry county: No alcohol sales allowed by law

• Moist county: Alcohol sales are partially restricted (e.g. allowed in restaurants but not in stores)

• Wet county: Alcohol can be sold without county-level restriction

Even within “wet” counties, individual towns may choose to remain dry, and in “dry” counties, specific towns or establishments can apply for exemptions, creating a legal maze for consumers and businesses alike.

Declining Dryness Over Time

According to the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association, the number of dry counties has dropped significantly since the mid-20th century. In Texas, for example, only three dry counties remain.

Nonetheless, the persistence of these regulations reflects longstanding cultural attitudes and the influence of local referenda. While national consumption of spirits is rising, especially in certain states, the map shows that alcohol availability is still very much a local matter.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Americans are spending less on spirits…besides tequila on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Authored by Michael T. Flynn LTG USA (RET),

The American people have just taken their first full breath after surviving an attempt to smother the Republic through a Marxist-inspired cultural campaign carried out largely through the administrative state, media, academia, and politicized elements of the national security bureaucracy. Most citizens did not fully perceive it while it was happening. Many in the intelligence community either passively accepted it or actively furthered it. The architects of this project are not finished, but their effort has been damaged and delayed. It is only by the grace of God that the country has endured to this point.

The American version of the cultural revolution is distinct from the Maoist model that ravaged China in the twentieth century. It did not coalesce around a single charismatic revolutionary figure. Instead, it spread along the arteries of bureaucracy, higher education, corporate structures, and activist networks. The long march through the institutions, as described by Antonio Gramsci, became the operational template. Rather than Red Guards filling the streets under the orders of an identifiable supreme leader, the United States experienced a coordinated convergence of agencies, NGOs, foundations, media outlets, and activist fronts, all advancing the same ideological project under different labels.

Because federal agencies differ widely in size, mission, culture, and internal resistance, this revolution unfolded unevenly. It never achieved total dominance in a single decisive stroke. Instead, it advanced by fragmentary gains and suffered fragmentary defeats. Wherever the ideological project captured an HR department, a training pipeline, a public school system, or a central media platform, it encountered resistance in state governments, independent media, individual courts, and networks of citizens who refused to comply. This piecemeal quality of implementation slowed the collapse and gave the American people time to see what was happening and respond.

Even as these battles played out in public, darker currents moved beneath the surface. We now assess that thousands of religious and conservative federal employees were quietly identified and referred to a little-known federal entity, the Pre-Trial Services Agency. Accounts and initial documentation indicate that this agency may have been used to catalog individuals solely on the basis of ideology and religious conviction, under the pretext of January 6, and vaccine-related non-compliance. The intention appears to have been not only administrative removal but also potential criminalization. This matter demands immediate, transparent investigation by any future administration that claims to be serious about the rule of law.

To understand the broader context, it is necessary to define what we mean by the concept of the welfare state. We are not merely describing traditional social programs. We refer instead to a constellation of fully funded professional activist groups that present themselves as separate causes but in reality form a single revolutionary bloc. Over the last decade, organizations under the banners of antifascism, racial justice, radical feminism, abortion on demand, certain LGBTQ plus factions, environmental extremism, and gun control advocacy have shown remarkable cohesion. They share donors, staff, narrative frameworks, and street-level tactics. Their membership overlaps. Their messaging is synchronized. They rapidly support one another’s campaigns and protests.

These groups present themselves as grassroots movements. In reality, they function much more like a professionalized revolutionary caste. Their core is composed not of ordinary citizens but of trained activists who treat agitation as a full-time occupation. They are funded through a mix of private foundations, wealthy donors, and, in some cases, federal and state resources. They serve as the street and digital arm of a broader ideological project whose goal is not reform but transformation. They are bound together by a worldview that is explicitly revolutionary and implicitly Marxist, even if many of their foot soldiers do not use that language.

Within this structure, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion plays a central role. DEI is not a harmless corporate fad. It is a cultural and psychological weapon system. In practice, DEI training and enforcement operate as a mechanism for behavioral conditioning, using guilt, struggle sessions, and the constant threat of social or professional punishment to bring individuals into line. The language of microaggressions, privilege, and systemic bias functions as a soft form of ideological policing. It compels people to monitor their speech, second-guess their instincts, and submit to an ever-expanding set of forbidden words and mandatory rituals.

This is not inclusion. It is coerced conformity disguised as virtue. The outcomes within institutions are fear, silence, and self-censorship. People learn quickly that specific questions cannot be asked, certain facts cannot be stated, and certain perspectives cannot be acknowledged without risking their careers. This is not an accidental side effect. It is the point. If you can compel people to lie about obvious realities in public, you own them. DEI is therefore best understood as a domestic application of political reeducation, aligned with Marxist and neo-Marxist approaches to cultural change.

Red washing is the term we use for the systematic erasure of material that exposes Marxism’s history, tactics, and consequences. When civics and traditional American history are removed from curricula and replaced with grievance narratives, the ground is prepared for a new ideology. When the record of socialist atrocities is buried or dismissed, whole generations lose the ability to recognize patterns that their grandparents would have seen immediately. This did not happen accidentally. Higher education, media, and entertainment became primary targets for this rewriting of memory.

By 2020, the United States had been subjected to decades of this cultural reshaping. The country entered that year already weakened and divided. The combined impact of a global pandemic, a Chinese Communist Party information campaign, and unprecedented civil unrest brought the country to a state of exhaustion. Law enforcement was undermanned and demoralized. The medical system was stretched to the limit. Schools at every level were shuttered or reduced to screens. The basic functions that distinguish a first-world nation were placed under siege.

These conditions were ideal for revolutionary actors who understood the Bolshevik concept of the spark. In Mao’s China, youth brigades became instruments of chaos once police authority had been stripped and traditional structures weakened. In the United States, policies calling for the defunding and delegitimizing of police, combined with political protection for rioters, produced something similar in spirit. The rolling riots of 2020 were not a spontaneous eruption. They were a conditioning phase, designed to hollow out public confidence, normalize political violence from the left, and set the emotional stage for a more targeted crisis.

That crisis came on January 6. Here, the doctrine of moderated violence is essential to understand. This tactic seeks to provoke an adversary into a desperate or unwise act that can then be weaponized to justify a crackdown. For a year, Americans watched their cities burn and were told it was mostly peaceful. Then, in a single day, a protest on Capitol grounds was framed as an insurrection, an existential threat to “democracy,” and the moral foundation for a years-long campaign of arrests, surveillance, and persecution. The left’s riots stopped instantly. The narrative flipped overnight. That abrupt shift reveals design, not coincidence.

January 6 was the planned inflection point that allowed the bureaucratic and activist alliance to declare open season on conservative and religious Americans. It became the lens through which all dissent could be labeled dangerous and disloyal. The people who entered the Capitol that day, many of them peaceful and bewildered, became the pretext for a broader project aimed at remaking the national security apparatus from within.

What came next moved beyond street-level activism or cultural capture. It entered the bloodstream of the national security state. The aftermath of January 6, the collapse of Afghanistan, and the federal vaccine mandates combined into an unprecedented attempt to remake the federal workforce through coercion, intimidation, and ideological purification. Inside the CIA and across the national security apparatus, the internal revolution reached its apex and then began to fracture under its own contradictions.

Societal collapse is never a singular event. It is a process.

*   *   * 

The search term “color revolution” has been catapulted into the mainstream. Google Search Trends shows the term has soared to the highest levels since the Marxist BLM rioters began burning city blocks across Democratic-run metro areas in 2020.

Last month, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn told Alex Jones that the Trump administration must address the nation about what he called a sinister regime-change plot, one operating through billionaire-funded NGOs. 

Breaking! General Flynn Calls On President Trump To Immediately Address The Nation Concerning The Color Revolution Being Fomented By The Seditious 6 And The CIA As He Lays Out The String Of Illegal Investigations And Law-fare That The Leftist Have Engaged In Since DJT’s Historic… pic.twitter.com/HYeXQwCNim

— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) November 26, 2025

“People need to understand that if this operation succeeds, things will move quickly – Trump would be removed from the scene almost immediately. Elite defection isn’t an early warning sign of an overthrow; it’s the final stage before one,” DataRepublican recently warned, adding, “This is why the ‘Seditious Six’ must face the most severe penalties the law allows.”

To sum up, for the first time, the American people are beginning to learn about the regime-change efforts that Democrats and their billionaire-funded NGO network have been pursuing over the past decade. It amounts to nothing but a color revolution. Time for reforms, especially across the nonprofit world. 

Authored by Savannah Hulsey Pointer via The Epoch Times,

The federal government said it would withhold Supplemental Nutrition Aid Program (SNAP) funds for states that do not report user data. 

The news came from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins earlier this week, following months of requests and investigations into instances of fraud within the program. 

Here’s what to know about the change to the nutrition program.

The Announcement 

Rollins made the announcement on Dec. 2 during a White House cabinet meeting, saying that states that have not complied with the federal request have only a few days to fix the issue.

The USDA secretary said the administration “has begun and will begin to stop moving federal funds into those states” next week ”until they comply.“

According to Rollins, 29 Republican-leaning states have already provided SNAP data to her department. However, 21 ”blue states continue to say no” to the federal request. 

The federal response to the lack of cooperation comes months after an early May request by the administering department, calling on states to hand over data detailing how and to whom the taxpayer funds are distributed.

The USDA noted that the intent behind the request was to ensure that no fraud or abuse existed in the program, frequently referenced as food stamps. 

“President Trump is rightfully requiring the federal government to have access to all programs it funds,” said Rollins, “and SNAP is no exception. For years, this program has been on autopilot, with no USDA insight into real-time data. The Department is focused on appropriate and lawful participation in SNAP, and today’s request is one of many steps to ensure SNAP is preserved for only those eligible.”

Of the 28 states that have sent the data, all except for North Carolina have Republican governors.

Billions at Stake 

SNAP costs federal taxpayers around $100 billion per year, $94 billion of which goes to actual food benefits, and the rest is spent on administrative costs.

Administrative costs are currently shared by federal and state governments, with states covering roughly half of SNAP’s administrative expenses. That share is set to shrink soon, as the federal government plans to reduce the state contribution to 25 percent.

How much each state receives varies, as does the portion of the fund that goes to administrative costs. The state of California alone received more than $1.2 billion for SNAP administration fees, which was around 10 percent of it’s total SNAP funding allocation. 

Florida received $84 million for administration alone, which was just over 1 percent of it’s total SNAP funding. However, Wyoming received less than $9 million for administration fees, which was 12 percent of its SNAP dollars received. 

This means that in addition to the loss of nutrition support funding, billions that go to state administration fees will be lost for those states that refuse transparency requests from the Trump administration. 

The administration will likely face legal hiccups, as the attorneys general from 21 states have already been the subject of a lawsuit over concerns that the states allegedly illegally blocked the authorized food aid to certain legal immigrants.

Current Fraud 

Since the beginning of the USDA information gathering in May, there have been more than 120 individuals arrested for food stamp fraud, according to the agency’s report last month.

The USDA worked with the Office of the Inspector General, which has resulted in 63 convictions and fines and fees exceeding $16.5 million.

This is due to data from 29 states alone, which found that more than 180,000 deceased individuals were receiving food stamps, and another 500,000 people were getting twice as much as they should have been.

“We believe there’s even more fraud and abuse,” Rollins said following news of the fraud discovery.

She later added that “we have to make sure for those who really need this benefit that we are able to make sure that it’s going to the right people,” and promised “structural changes” to the program. 

The audit has led to the removal of 700,000 individuals from the SNAP program already.

According to research from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, overpayment rates climbed from 2 percent in 2012 to more than 10 percent in 2023.

“The levels of waste, fraud, and abuse in federal programs have never been higher,” the report reads. “Although these types of avoidable inefficiencies have always been too high, they have recently surged with the unusual degree of federal spending brought on by the global pandemic.”

That upward trend appears to have continued, as a June 2024 report from the USDA found that almost 12 percent, or around $10.5 billion, of SNAP payments were found to be improper.

During a recent interview with Fox News, Rollins mentioned one individual who was found to be receiving benefits in six different states. 

“It is time to drastically reform this program, so that we can make sure those who are truly needy, truly vulnerable, are getting what they need, and the rest of the corruption goes away, and we can serve the American taxpayer,” she said.

What SNAP Does

On average,  SNAP recipients receive around $177 a month in benefits that are delivered on an electronic card. About 42 million Americans spend that money on food items in participating stores.

President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed this summer,  imposed new requirements for SNAP eligibility, including removing the eligibility for certain groups of immigrants.

In November, Rollins announced that app recipients of the program would need to meet reapplication requirements in efforts to “clean up” the food assistance program.

SNAP’s purpose is to raise the nutritional intake of low-income individuals by increasing their ability to purchase healthy food. Participants in the SNAP program have been found to have improved health outcomes, including reduced food insecurity and lower risk of heart disease and obesity.

“We really want to make sure those who are receiving this supplemental nutrition benefit—it was never meant for the long term—are really those who need it,” Rollins said in a recent interview.

“Whatever that reapplication looks like again, we’re working on that right now, but it won’t be too onerous. And for the families that really need it, we’ll make sure that they’re going to get it.”

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

California Governor Gavin Newsom is dishing out advice to his fellow Democrats: pretend to be normal while he plots a White House run.

Newsom, who’s been eyeing a 2028 presidential bid after loser Kamala Harris’ electoral wipeout, took to the stage at The New York Times DealBook Summit in New York City, urging his party to ditch the judgmental elitism that’s alienated everyday Americans.

“I think there’s a broader narrative that [Democrats] ought to address, that is, we have to be more culturally normal,” Newsom said, adding “We have to be a little less judgmental.”

Gavin Newsom: Democrats need to be more “culturally normal.”

Maybe start by not sitting like that ever again. pic.twitter.com/sWVZtap94Q

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) December 4, 2025

The only time I’ve ever seen a man’s ankle bent that way is during a football game and they usually don’t show the replay in a gruesome situation like that.

— Scott Lame (@dimeday128) December 4, 2025

He went on to stress the need for Democrats to grasp “the importance and power of the border, substantively and politically,” acknowledging how open borders and lax enforcement have fueled voter backlash.

In the same breath, Newsom unleashed on Fox News, comparing it to Soviet-era propaganda, saying “You got Pravda, the primetime lineup at Fox, just going on and on [in defense of Trump].”

He then slammed Trump as a “man-child,” declaring that the the President “called someone the ‘R word’ or piggy, and somehow it’s just ‘Trump being Trump.’ Nothing normal about this… It’s unbecoming to the president of the United States.”

Newsom then explained his own Trump-mimicking social media account antics were “approved” by him to “wake everybody up” to the “normalization of deviancy.” He accused Fox of criticizing his posts but never uttering a “damn word” about Trump’s rants.

The comments come as Newsom warns that Trump is “trying to wreck this country,” a claim that rings hollow given California’s ongoing crises under his watch, from rampant homelessness and crime to devastating wildfires that have scorched communities like the Pacific Palisades.

A Berkeley poll earlier this year found 54% of registered voters believe Newsom prioritizes his presidential ambitions over fixing the state’s problems, with only 26% saying he’s focused on governance.

X users mocked Newsom’s call for Democrats to feign “normalcy,” highlighting the irony of a governor whose policies have driven businesses and residents out of California in droves.

He doesn’t really believe it. He just wants certain voters to believe it.

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) December 4, 2025

Newsom lectures on being “culturally normal” while his policies wreck California’s economy and border security. Trump’s America doesn’t need lectures, we deliver results and put citizens first.

— Dangerous Thoughts (@DangerousThinkg) December 4, 2025

“We have to be a little more culturally normal.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to throw open the California border and pump 8 year old boys full of estrogen.”

— Unimpressed Buffalo (@unimpressedbufl) December 4, 2025

“we should be more culturally normal” pic.twitter.com/8SndadJ3BN

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) December 4, 2025

This isn’t the first time Newsom’s slimy posturing has drawn fire. Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna recently blasted the governor for his online antics during an appearance on the PBD Podcast.

Host Patrick Bet-David noted, “You’re either a great troll or you’re trying to be. Like Newsom is dying to be Trump, but he’s not. Newsom is trying to be Trump. Newsom’s not Trump, right? Nowhere near him. But everything he does, he’s trying to be — the Trump of the left.”

Luna recounted a joke she made on a Comedy Central show: “I was on a show recently. I think it was on Comedy Central, it was like an evening talk show. And they’re talking about the ‘No Kings’ protests and I made a joke and I was like, ‘Well if you’re talking about Gavin Newsom it would be the ‘No Queens’ protest.’”

When asked if it was homophobic, she replied, “No he [Newsom] just has feminine tendencies, and it’s totally true. I don’t know, like — he bitches on the internet all the time. It’s like what are you doing, Gavin? You know, you have fires in the Palisades — what’s going on?”

Bet-David agreed, calling Newsom’s vibe “metro.”

Adding fuel to the fire, actress Halle Berry stunned the DealBook crowd earlier that day by slamming Newsom for vetoing a menopause care bill twice, questioning his fitness for higher office.

“Back in my great state of California, my very own governor, Gavin Newsom, has vetoed our menopause bill, not one, but 2 years in a row! But that’s OK, because he’s not GOING to be governor forever!” Berry urged.

She continued, “With the way he’s overlooked women, half the population, by devaluing us in midlife, he probably should not be our next president either! Just saying!”

Berry rallied the audience, stressing “I need every woman in this country to fight with me. But the truth is, the fight isn’t just for us women. We need men too. We need all of the leaders, every single one of you in this room. This fight needs you.”

? HOLY CRAP! Actress Halle Berry went OFF on Gavin Newsom to the NYT crowd, the whole room was shocked

“With the way he’s overlooked women, half the population, by devaluing us in midlife, he probably should not be our next president either! Just saying!” ?

“My own Gov. Gavin… pic.twitter.com/SqJqDBjX8p

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) December 4, 2025

The Menopause Care Equity Act aimed to boost research and education on women’s health, but Newsom vetoed it citing potential cost hikes for working women. Berry’s raw callout drew gasps, underscoring how even Hollywood elites are turning on him amid whispers of his 2028 aspirations.

Newsom’s “normalcy” sermon exposes the Democrats’ desperation after years of pushing radical agendas on gender ideology, unchecked immigration, and climate hysteria that have alienated the heartland. 

If this is their comeback strategy—masking extremism while California burns—good luck selling that to voters who’ve had enough of the chaos. Trump’s policies are winning because they’re grounded in reality, not performative tweaks.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Hedge fund manager Ken Griffin is on the verge of dumping his final piece of real estate in crime-ridden, far-left–controlled Chicago, and he hasn’t looked back since moving Citadel’s global headquarters to Miami.

Bloomberg reports that Griffin’s penthouse at 800 N. Michigan Avenue, located in Park Tower, one of the premier luxury residential buildings along Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, is under contract for $12.5 million. The price reflects a $3.25 million cut from July, yet remains well above the $6.9 million he paid during the Dot-Com bubble.

The sale of the penthouse marks the end of Griffin’s holdings in a city plagued by crime, failed progressive policies, high taxes, and a political environment unfriendly to thriving businesses.

BBG added more color:

At another building, Griffin sold two condos to his longtime political rival, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, who bought them for a combined $19 million in late 2024. Griffin has a net worth of more than $48 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Citadel maintains a downsized office in Chicago after moving from its namesake tower at 131 S. Dearborn that once served as the firm’s headquarters.

“We’ve gone from probably 1,300 people in Chicago to a few hundred. From being the primary tenant of one of the largest skyscrapers to I think we’ll be down to 2 floors in a year,” Griffin recently said.

WOW: Citadel CEO Ken Griffin reveals one of America’s largest hedge funds has fled Chicago over crime, even though Democratic leaders claim everything is under control.

“We’ve gone from probably 1,300 people in Chicago to a few hundred. From being the primary tenant of one of… pic.twitter.com/g1tkBCUlMN

— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) October 10, 2025

In 2021, Griffin compared Chicago to Afghanistan “on a good day.”

Meanwhile, Citadel is thriving in South Florida and is set to build a $2.5 billion tower for its Miami headquarters.

Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times,

A Texas law allowing ivermectin to be sold over the counter went into effect Dec. 4, but rollout appears slow as pharmacies wrestle with how to proceed.

House Bill 25, signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in August, allows pharmacies to sell the antiviral drug without a prescription.

Ivermectin gained popularity for off-label use during the COVID-19 pandemic, which influenced support and criticism of the measure. The drug was discovered in the 1970s and developed to treat parasites in humans and animals, and has been studied for its cancer-fighting properties.

Medical freedom advocates supported the bill, but others, such as the Texas Medical Association, worried about health risks to patients.

“Removing clinical involvement is a risk to patient safety,” the group said on its website.

The law indicates a pharmacy may dispense the drug “in accordance with any written standardized procedures or protocols issued by the Texas State Board of Pharmacy, including, if required, providing the person with instructions on the proper use of ivermectin.”

Tyler RX Pharmacy indicated it would eventually dispense ivermectin without a prescription, but said the protocols for doing so haven’t been finalized yet.

“The law states to follow the state Board of Pharmacy guidelines, but there are no guidelines in place yet,” the store’s pharmacist, Katelin Nuon, told The Epoch Times.

At Cody Pharmacy in Sulfur Springs, Texas, the store manager said they didn’t have ivermectin available yet because the law just went into effect, but advised checking back next week.

However, Republican state Sen. Bob Hall, who sponsored a companion bill in the Texas Senate, told The Epoch Times that pharmacies could sell ivermectin even if the pharmacy guidelines were not in place.

“There is nothing in the bill that requires the pharmacy board to do anything,” he said. “We’re checking with the pharmacy board to see if there is something buried in their rules that preempts this changeover.”

The Texas State Board of Pharmacy did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.

Hall said he has received calls from constituents complaining that their local pharmacies claim they can’t sell ivermectin.

Despite this, Hall believes that independent pharmacies will take the lead in offering the drug to the public. He noted that some outlets have told him they intend to mail it to consumers if needed.

Hall said he has not received information that large retail pharmacies intend to sell the drug over the counter.

Texas is one of five states to legalize the sale of the drug without a prescription. The others are Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, and Tennessee.