Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times,

Millions worldwide will watch a crystal ball descend 139 feet down a flagpole in Manhattan’s Time Square as a throng of thousands counts down the last 10 seconds of 2025 and ushers in 2026 in a blizzard of confetti and a cacophony of kazoos, party horns, whistles, and whatever else imaginative noisemakers can stash and carry.

The minute-long ball drop is among the planet’s most viewed annual live events.

At least a billion will see the 12.5-foot diameter, 12,350-pound “Constellation Ball“ with 32,000 LEDs and 5,280 Waterford crystals shimmer, shine, and sink.

Only this year, they’ll see the ball rise again in a blaze of red, white, and blue as 2026 dawns to mark the 250th birthday of the United States and instantly kick off a year of commemorative celebrations across the country.

The Times Square New Year ball drop is glitter, glitz, and a tradition since 1907 so when it comes to ball drops, it’s the premier event.

But face it: Anyone can drop a ball.

Ask Jacksonville Jaguars’ quarterback Trevor Lawrence. His receivers have dropped the ball an NFL-leading 45 times in 2025. It’s been done. Over and over.

So ever-innovative Americans have found all sorts of weird and wonderful things to drop when saying farewell to one year and welcoming the next.

On New Year’s Eve, anchors and shoes will drop—a “whiskey boot” in Prescott, Ariz.; flip-flops in Folly Beach, S.C.—and pants will be run up and down flagpoles, including yellow breeches on Yellow Breeches Creek in Lititz, Pa.

Marine life will be honored with sardines, mossbunkers, lobsters, oysters, conch, carp, red crabs, and blue crabs dropping in coastal towns, including Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen, where “Cosmic Turtle” is set to rise and fall to the occasion like a true hard-shelled urbanite.

There will be birds of all feathers diving into posterity, most commonly eagles, pelicans, and ducks, but in Perry, Ga., a buzzard will wing in the New Year.

Stuffed beavers, bears, goats, a hamster, and a flying pig will be among cherished critters descending to applause with a live possum the honoree in Tallapoosa, Ga. When it comes to, let’s say the most distinctive New Year drops, Georgia and Pennsylvania top the list.

Vegetables and fruits will be frequent fallers. Oranges, blueberries, pineapples, peaches, watermelons, grapes, cherries, strawberries, acorns, mushrooms, lemons, peanuts, olives, lettuce, potatoes, chili peppers, and applies—including apples with arrows shot through them—will take the plunge. There will be pickle drops but the one in Dillsburg, Pa., soberly conducted since 1907, is the best preserved.

Stars, sunbursts, atoms, meteorites, jugs, race cars, hockey pucks, fishing lures, piñatas, ukuleles, guitars, bricks, beer bottles, cannonballs, ping pong balls, golf balls, beach balls, popcorn balls, crayons, kettles, cigars—there’s controversy in Red Lion, Pa., where a lion will defiantly hoist a cigar, but in a parking lot rather than from the municipal building—horseshoes, and gumbo pots will all mark the passage of time and decorum.

Meatballs, sausage, cheese dogs, pretzels, French fries, potato chips, pierogies with kielbasa, tacos, an 80-pound cheese wedge, giant M&Ms, Hershey’s Kisses, lollipops, ice cream cake, doughnuts, a 600-pound moonpie, and tortilla chips will be on the drop menu and, for the 29th year, so will a 150-pound “stick” of bologna in Lebanon, Pa.

Pac-Man, pirates, drag queens—in Key West, pirate drag queens—Las Vegas skydivers in lighted suits, and a Kansas City comedian will be among those who drop as the last seconds of 2025 tick away, as will Jasper The Flea, Lucky The Dead Carp (kiss it for good luck!), Captain Wylie Walleye, Spencer The Stuffed Opossum, Chuck The Chicken, Bob The Shrimp, and Marshall P. Muskrat in top hat and bow tie.

Below are 12 arbitrarily selected towns with distinctive styles in counting down the final fleeting moments of a year.

The 6-foot Bayer aspirin tablet drop Myerstown, Pa., would be included but confirming if that’s happening this year is too much of a headache, and if others are overlooked, someone in marketing dropped the ball.

In Guam, where “America’s Day Begins” 15 hours before the day begins in Times Square, it’s good luck to wear polka dots on New Year’s Eve, and on Cadillac Mountain in Maine, the first place to see a winter sunrise in the continental United States, anyone who sees a snowy owl on New Year’s Eve is destined to have a fortuitous year.

But luck has nothing to do with these local New Year’s drop rituals that drop-kick convention, some for don’t ask, don’t tell reasons lost to antiquity.

— Eastport, Maine: There are two New Year’s Eve drops in the easternmost town in the continental United States as part of The Great Sardine & Maple Leaf Drop. At 11 p.m., an illuminated maple leaf descends to honor neighboring towns across the border in Canada’s Atlantic Time Zone and an hour later, down comes a six-foot sardine that onlookers swarm to kiss for good luck. If smooching a sardine doesn’t appeal, there’s always the DownEast Lobstah Drop an hour away in Machias.

— Key West, Florida: A six-foot queen conch shell will drop 20 feet onto the bar at Sloppy Joe’s during the Key West Conch Drop but whether celebrants notice is always uncertain with all sorts of things dropping elsewhere on Duval Street. There will be plenty of citrus-themed drops across the Sunshine State and kids can pick a brick to drop at Legoland in Winter Haven.

— Unadilla, Georgia: A pig-shaped sign will be lowered in awestruck reverence during the ninth annual “Hog Drop” that includes a BBQ competition, Monster Truck show, dirt bike stunts, fire breathers, racing pigs, chainsaw sculptors, and axe-throwers.

Sure, Atlanta is dropping a big peach, Brunswick has “Bob The Shrimp,” Cornelia the “Little Red Apple,” and Perry has its buzzard, but watching the hog drop in Unadilla is, like, seeing what Georgia is all about.

— Vincennes, Indiana. An 18-foot, 500-pound steel-and-foam watermelon descends 100 feet during the last 60 seconds of the year before hitting the ground and spilling forth a bounty of locally grown watermelon. This isn’t merely some quirky local oddity, this is the National Watermelon Drop—the Super Bowl, World Cup, Nobel Prize of watermelon drops.

— Frederick, Maryland: The 78th annual “Key Drop” on Carroll Creek will commemorate Francis Scott Key, the hometown lawyer who wrote the poem “Defense of Fort McHenry“ that became the United States’ national anthem., ”The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Less than 30 miles away, a giant doughnut will be dunked in Hagerstown to honor Krumpe’s Do-Nuts, a family-owned bakery in business since 1934, because—why not?

— Detroit: The ninth annual “D Burst” will drop at Campus Martius Park to commemorate the Motor City’s renaissance and serve as the finale of a series of celebrations that began with a Christmas tree lighting ceremony on Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, in Naguanee, on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the annual New Year’s Midnight Meatball Drop at Strega Nonna, will likely draw many of the town’s 4,600 residents to enjoy a 50-pound meatball that drops into a massive pot of tomato sauce.

— St. Paul, Minnesota: The Midway Saloon will again orchestrate the New Year’s “Minnesota Bobber Drop” that features the descent of the unchallenged, no doubt, Guinness World Records-certified largest functioning fishing bobber—a seven-foot diameter red-and-white float “big enough to make Paul Bunyan proud.”

— Allentown, Pennsylvania: Downtown Allentown isn’t just dropping hockey pucks, it annually stages “The World’s Largest Puck Drop” on New Year’s Eve, just one of many distinctive celebrations across the Keystone State.

Among notable drops: Mabel The Cow from a silo in Blain; Haydn’s Jug in East Petersburg; a wrench in Mechanicsburg; and “chunks of coal” in several towns.

— Oak Ridge, Tennessee: Celebrate the end of 2025, which marked the 80th anniversary of atomic weaponry that somehow, thus far, hasn’t ended life on Earth, at the “Secret City New Year’s Eve Atomic Ball Drop” in the national lab city where it all began.

— Mobile, Alabama: A Mardi Gras-style parade ends with the descent of a 600-pound MoonPie from RSA Tower in Mobile’s 17th annual “MoonPie Over Mobile“ New Year’s Eve party.

For something more down to earth in ‘Bama, there’s always the Wetumpka Crater “Meteor Drop” and Samson’s “Snuff Drop,” which commemorates “an incident where a train containing a shipment of Rooster-brand snuff [tobacco] was parked at the town’s depot for an extended period of time.” Got to be there to learn the details of this “incident.”

— Plymouth, Wisconsin: Home of “The Big Cheese Drop,” where an 80-pound decorated cheese wedge is dangled and dropped 100 feet from a firetruck ladder.

— Show Low, Arizona: The annual “Show Low Deuce of Clubs Drop” will draw locals and tourists to see a giant playing card lowered from the town’s library to commemorate “the infamous card game that started the town.”

Elsewhere in Arizona, iceberg lettuce will be dropped in Yuma and a pinecone in Flagstaff, and a boot in Prescott.

Weeks after National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent warned that thousands of known and suspected terrorists entered the U.S. during the Biden-Harris regime years of a nation-killing open-border invasion, and days after a U.S. government threat assessment flagged elevated risks from lone wolves and small terror cells potentially targeting ‘special events‘ in New York City and Chicago, the deployment of National Guard troops to New Orleans only suggests officials are responding to credible threats.

Chicago authorities warn NYE celebrations could attract foreign and domestic terrorists.

New Orleans to increase security after FBI foils Antifa-affiliated plot to kill Border Patrol agents. pic.twitter.com/pB34XyhPDn

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) December 27, 2025

A total of 350 Louisiana National Guard soldiers are patrolling Bourbon Street in the French Quarter and other high-value areas across the metro region, one year after a vehicle-ramming terror attack on Bourbon Street killed 14 people.

New Orleans — National Guard troops have been deployed to the French Quarter to provide additional cover for the New Year’s. At the last new year in the same area, a black Muslim ISIS supporter carried out a mass shooting, killing 14. pic.twitter.com/wjjVkbSPbg

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) December 31, 2025

#BREAKING: The National Guard is now in New Orleans ahead of New Year’s Day celebrations. pic.twitter.com/BVyhZZEl45

— Mallory Smith (@mallorysmithtv) December 30, 2025

The deployment follows similar National Guard posturings in Washington and Memphis. Officials note that Guard deployments are merely “routine” in the French Quarter.

“It’s no different than what we’ve seen in the past,’ New Orleans police spokesperson Reese Harper told AP News.

“This is for visibility and really to keep our citizens safe,” Harper said. “It’s another tool in the toolbox and another layer of security.”

Louisiana National Guard spokesperson Lt. Col. Noel Collins said the Guard will support local, state, and federal law enforcement to “enhance capabilities, stabilize the environment, assist in reducing crime, and restore public trust.”

However, our assessment is that the presence of National Guard troops in certain major U.S. cities is less about routine crime suppression and more about a broader terror threat.

Earlier this month, NCTC’s Kent told the House Homeland Security Committee that the agency has identified roughly 18,000 known and suspected terrorists who were allowed to enter the country under the Biden-Harris regime.

.@NCTCKent: “So far, NCTC has identified around 18,000 known and suspected terrorists that the Biden administration let come into our country.” pic.twitter.com/XPrHdKMICK

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) December 11, 2025

It also follows last month’s terror attack in which an Afghan national killed one National Guard member and wounded another just blocks from the White House.

Some may dismiss former CIA targeting officer Sarah Adams as a sensationalist, but her warnings about this terror threat from open borders for the last few years are increasingly becoming more mainstream and widely embraced by Trump officials. 

It’s past time @DHSgov stops playing pretend and finally raises the terrorism threat level in this country. We have more than 10,000 Islamist terrorists on our soil, and they cannot keep looking the other way. They don’t get to pad their stats by slapping the terrorist label on…

— Sarah Adams (@sarahadams) November 27, 2025

Importantly, the threat is not limited to radicalized Islamists or even South American transnational gangs; there is also an emerging threat coming from the radical left, as highlighted in a foiled New Year’s Eve bomb plot by Turtle Island Liberation Front.

Update (1520ET):

Dozens of citizen journalists are combing through public filings and conducting on-the-ground investigations in corrupt Democratic-run cities, aiming to map out the scale of an alleged Somali-linked welfare fraud network. The on-the-ground footage these journalists have posted on X suggests that some daycare operations may be front companies.

The latest revelation centers on a defunct nonprofit, the Somali Education & Resource Center, which Right Angle News Network and others claim operated more than 40 daycare centers in Columbus under its name and received millions of dollars in taxpayer funds each year.

“Over 40 daycare centers in Columbus, Ohio, all opened under the same defunct shell organization, the Somali Education & Resource Center, have been identified as opening and beginning operations on the exact same day, with combined earnings of $14 million in 2024 alone,” the outlet said.

BREAKING – Over 40 daycare centers in Columbus, Ohio, all opened under the same defunct shell organization, the Somali Education & Resource Center, have been identified as opening and beginning operations on the exact same day, with combined earnings of $14 million in 2024 alone. pic.twitter.com/Wr4YFUzP8e

— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) December 31, 2025

And this. 

🚨🚨🚨🚨
How does one CLOSED SOMALIAN shell organization have over 40 “daycares” in Columbus Ohio? How do 40+ BEGIN ON THE SAME EXACT DAY ?
How much funding are they each receiving from the state? Are they “legitimate” childcare centers?!
Not so proud my state would allow… pic.twitter.com/2Kx4NylbsK

— The Coerced Nurse (@thecoercednurse) December 30, 2025

Using publicly available data, we’re able to produce a network map of the Somali Education & Resource Center entity:

“What if I told you our national debt is the tab for the mass looting of the American economy and the mass theft of the American dream?” White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller wrote on X.

X user Arthur MacWaters noted: 

1. Somali immigrants get billions in taxpayer dollars for *free* for fraudulent daycares.

2. In exchange, they fund democratic candidates with the free money. 

3. Democratic politicians (Walz, Omar, etc) ensure fraudulent payments continue. 

Let me get this straight

1. Somali immigrants get billions in taxpayer dollars for *free* for fraudulent daycares

2. in exchange, they fund democratic candidates with the free money

3. democratic politicians (Walz, Omar, etc) ensure fraudulent payments continue

—-

How is… https://t.co/O3oDuntRym pic.twitter.com/c8Mzgtkp6i

— Arthur MacWaters (@ArthurMacwaters) December 28, 2025

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn asked on X: “At what point does the @POTUS put his foot down and stop the drainage of wealth?” 

*   *   * 

Citizen journalists are descending on corrupt, Democratic-run cities this week to investigate taxpayer-subsidized daycare centers, signaling a new form of crowd-driven oversight. Think of it as a localized DOGE-style effort aimed at investigating alleged welfare fraud linked to Somali communities and others who steal from taxpayers.

As we correctly noted on Monday, the so-called “Nick Shirley Effect” appears to be taking hold nationwide, with citizen journalists investigating taxpayer-subsidized daycare operations in Minneapolis, Washington, Ohio, Philadelphia, and other Democratic-run cities.

Citizen journalists like Nick will eventually put mainstream media out of business.

All you need is a camera and the guts to go to the source.

Protect this man. 👇🏽 https://t.co/tqwDS82IRt

— Patrick Bet-David (@patrickbetdavid) December 27, 2025

Initial Democratic Party counter-messaging to combat Shirley’s bombshell report has defaulted to labeling citizen journalists as “white nationalists” or “racists,” but this familiar response from an increasingly unhinged party is losing effectiveness, as on-the-ground reporting reveals countless examples of daycare centers that are either empty or not functioning at expected capacity during peak hours, raising mounting questions over whether some may simply be front companies to extract taxpayer funds.

It’s not “white supremacy” to investigate fraud. This attack no longer works. pic.twitter.com/5JUKtkFfqB

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) December 30, 2025

Pretty much.

By Tuesday, Muckraker founder Anthony Rubin’s investigation into suspicious daycare centers in Columbus, Ohio, went viral.

FIRST SIGNS OF MASSIVE POTENTIAL SOMALI FRAUD IN COLUMBUS, OHIO

The first Somali-affiliated daycare facility that we knocked after landing in Columbus, Ohio today did not answer.

A neighbor across the street told us, “I’ve never seen nobody come out the building or go in the… pic.twitter.com/zywy9lPDMw

— Muckraker.com (@realmuckraker) December 30, 2025

Later in the day, citizen journalists from across the country posted their findings on X:

I went to 4 more Somali childcare locations today.

Two told me they weren’t childcares despite receiving hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars.

One which claimed they weren’t a childcare received over $800,000 since 2023.

It’s all on camera. It will be uncovered. pic.twitter.com/D7aTuaatxK

— Cam Higby 🇺🇸 (@camhigby) December 31, 2025

Seattle Washington – Investigating Somalian Daycares
Somalians Call Police & LIE Saying: “He Has A Gun”💥@iamfreeauditing finds 20 Somalian daycares in a 3 block area of subsidized housing(same style as Lewiston Maine). He goes to 12 and has doors slammed in his face & no… pic.twitter.com/szkfgYU4QM

— TheUnquirer (@unquirer) December 31, 2025

EXPOSED: Alpha News reporters visit autism, adult day care centers as Medicaid fraud concerns mount

Prompted by a flood of tips from readers about facilities that tipsters say do not appear to be providing services, Alpha News reporters Liz Collin and Jenna Gloeb visited more… pic.twitter.com/jdDikiXblX

— Alpha News (@AlphaNews) December 30, 2025

We all need to become citizen journalists. I bet this is going on in almost every state! pic.twitter.com/H3E5C24dvT

— Michelle Maxwell ™ (@MichelleMaxwell) December 31, 2025

🚨SOMALI FRAUD IN WASHINGTON: @choeshow and I spent yesterday investigating Somali daycares in WA.

“Dhagash Childcare” has received over $210,000 just this year. People living at the address claim there has never been a daycare there.

We lay out the facts in this teaser ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/KNkmJfV2Ss

— Cam Higby 🇺🇸 (@camhigby) December 30, 2025

Citizen journalists are now exposing fraud in Democratic run cities across America.

Here’s another phony daycare center in Philadelphia that received $23 million in taxpayer funds. pic.twitter.com/l0XnnImUgx

— Vince Langman (@LangmanVince) December 31, 2025

Meanwhile…

Politicians are literally attempting to use legislation to cover up the fraud, rather than fix it. https://t.co/VXvzhSWffK

— Cam Higby 🇺🇸 (@camhigby) December 31, 2025

What’s clear is that citizen journalists like those mentioned above will put corporate media out of business. Most mainstream media outlets remained silent for days after Shirley’s bombshell investigation into empty Minneapolis daycare centers receiving millions of dollars in taxpayer funds.

I’m not sure the viral critique of Minnesota day cares is totally accurate.
I am certain that *according to the government, there’s no fraud in this government-funded program* is the farthest thing from journalism. https://t.co/cZHGXerblJ

— Tim Carney (@TPCarney) December 31, 2025

A war is coming: it’s mainstream media outlets against citizen journalists…

A decade ago corporate journalists were knocking on the doors of old ladies’ houses and calling them Russian agents for posting memes, but knocking on the door of a business that is ostensibly open to the public is beyond the pale and means you should get killed https://t.co/cY4iAQVE2r

— Confirmed Miscer ⚔️🍁🔫 (@ManDaveJobGood) December 30, 2025

It’s worth noting that the average episode of CBS 60 Minutes draws around 8 to 8.5 million viewers per broadcast in its current season, based on recent Nielsen data. Meanwhile, Shirley’s video has received 131 million views in just a few days.

Breaking the Democratic Party’s propaganda matrix machine, which involves mainstream media outlets and dark-money NGOs, requires a flood of citizen journalists into corrupt Democratic-run cities.

A note from Bill Ackman:

Even assuming there was no fraud, none of this makes sense. How is it that we have been funding billions of dollars of daycare for Somali immigrants in Minnesota 81% of which (according to Gemini) are on welfare? In other words, if mom and dad don’t work, why the need for child care? Perhaps you could say the welfare statistics include some subsidies for working parents, but still in this case, the child care does not appear to be needed as the daycare centers are empty. Furthermore, why is Federal funded childcare provided to recent immigrants on welfare versus long-standing American working families who are not on welfare? How does this make sense?

Even assuming there was no fraud, none of this makes sense.

How is it that we have been funding billions of dollars of daycare for Somali immigrants in Minnesota 81% of which (according to Gemini) are on welfare?

In other words, if mom and dad don’t work, why the need for…

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) December 31, 2025

Is California next? Chicago? Baltimore? Will tech bros fund a grant program to support these citizen journalists? SPAC King Chamath Palihapitiya has pitched the idea.

Authored by Mary Prenon via The Epoch Times,

Almost a year after January’s devastating California wildfires, real estate investors have been buying up nearly 40 percent of the land sold in the areas impacted by the fires.

A Dec. 30 report from Redfin stated that many of these now-empty lots once retained some of the nation’s most expensive homes, before they were reduced to rubble when the fire ripped through over 40,000 acres and destroyed more than 11,000 single-family homes in the Los Angeles suburbs.

A Zillow analysis—also released on Dec. 30—indicates the total residential housing value of the 19,605 homes in the affected regions was $46 billion prior to the fires.

More than 11,000 of those homes were destroyed.

The median home value in Los Angeles suburbs was listed at $1.95 million as of December 2024, prior to the fires.

Zillow’s report shows that for-sale housing supply near the fire zones escalated soon after the fires ended. In addition, new listings within five miles of the fire regions continued to grow from December 2024 to January 2025.

“While home values nearby have dipped a bit, in line with broader Los Angeles trends, the most evident impact was on supply,” Orphe Divounguy, a Zillow senior economist, said in the report.

“The sharp increase in listings just outside the burn zones likely reflects a mix of homeowners accelerating planned sales or owners of second homes deciding to list in response to the sudden shift in local demand.”

According to Redfin, investors were responsible for buying 48 of the 119 lots for sale in the Pacific Palisades area during the third quarter. In nearby Altadena, investors purchased 27 of the 61 lots available, and in Malibu, 19 of the 43 lots for sale were bought by investors.

Redfin’s analysis indicates that many investors made lowball offers for lots in Altadena, where some of the destroyed homes had been built in the 1940s and 1950s. These lots have been selling in the $500,000 to $600,000 range. The report noted that while some owners rejected these offers, others were forced to sell as they lacked the money to rebuild.

By comparison, a typical empty lot sold for $1.6 million in Pacific Palisades, and for $1.3 million in Malibu.

“It’s not uncommon for investors to buy and develop land after natural disasters,” the report stated.

However, while investors have been making inroads in getting vacant land off the market, Redfin agents say there is so much vacant land for sale that much of it remains unsold.

Meanwhile, those homes left standing in the fire zones are attracting offers if they’re reasonably priced, with owners usually handling the ash and smoke damage remediation.

Redfin reported 31 sales of single-family homes in Pacific Palisades during the three months ending Nov. 30, up from a record low of just six in the three months that followed the fires. Altadena agents recorded 58 sales of single-family homes, up from a record low of 26 in the three-month, post-fire period.

Zillow found that median home values within five miles of the fire perimeters fell 1.7 percent from December 2024 through November 2025. Similarly, median home values also dropped by 1.9 percent in the Los Angeles metro area, more than 20 miles from the fires.

Immediately following the fires, the number of new listings within five miles of the fire zones skyrocketed by 194 percent in January 2025, compared with December 2024.

“The most important thing someone looking to buy in this area can do is figure out if they can afford insurance,” the Redfin report stated. “Mortgage lenders in California require homebuyers to have fire coverage, and premiums have gone up by 35% to 50% since the fires.”

Update(1440ET): Al Jazeera is reporting that groups of Iranian protesters have been observed trying to breaking into government buildings, a trend which could grow to various places:

Iranian protesters demonstrating over economic hardship and a plummeting currency attempted to break into a local government building, state media reported, as the unrest continued for a fourth day.

State media reported on Wednesday an organised group of “rioters” attempted to get into the local governorate building in Fasa in the southern province of Fars. Footage broadcast on state media showed a group of people trying to break open the gate of the building.

Conflicting reports say that military members have been involved with standoffs with protesters, or else may even in some places be joining the people in the streets.

There’s much that’s hard to verify, as activists outside the country seek to amplify hard to prove claims amid the fast-moving events on the ground. But there is clear evidence of many chanting in some places slogans calling for the overthrow of the government in Tehran. This is the fourth consecutive night of protests.

#فوری
n this footage, protesters in Shahr-e Kord (Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province, west-central Iran) chant: “Down
with Khamenei!” #قیام_سراسری #اعتراضات_سراسری #مرگ_بر_ستمگر_چه_شاه_باشه_چه_رهبر pic.twitter.com/H1Q0MDOukj

— حسن ناصری (@NasseryHas69834) December 31, 2025

* * *

Various Iranian opposition channels on X, Telegram, and other social media have said ‘live fire’ has been used by Iranian security forces in ongoing crackdown efforts against the tens of thousands of citizen demonstrators who have taken over the streets of several cities and locales of the past days.

Such allegations, especially hurled at elite IRGC forces, are somewhat typical when protest movements have flared up in past years – and there have been prior examples in these of demonstrators and police alike being wounded or killed by gunfire. Live fire by Iranian security forces is a typical early allegation when unrest kicks off like this.

So far this round of anti-government unrest, which began Sunday by shopkeepers in Tehran as the rial has plunged to record lows against the dollar, has witnessed plenty of riot control measures – but no independent confirmation of gunfire on the crowds in the streets. It started when Tehran shopkeepers in the Jomhouri area and near the Grand Bazaar shuttered their stores and has since spread to the college campuses.

One thing is clear – it is growing by the hour as the movement has spread to several other cities on Tuesday, and now after three consecutive days is gong from the shop and business districts to the universities. Regional news sources say protests have hit at least ten universities across the Islamic Republic, including seven in Tehran.

Prior protest movements have really taken off once the youth get involved on a large scale. This current round, largely economically driven, could become the biggest yet – given it is tapping into a multitude of demographics.

With fast-moving protests gaining more steam, things are set for clashes with police and potentially even military operatives, given Iran’s prosecutor general has newly pledged a “decisive response” if protests spiral into violence. State media has quoted the official, Mohammad Movahedi-Azad, as saying that while peaceful protests are legitimate, any attempt to create insecurity would draw a harsh reaction.

But he already pointed the finger at the potential for external interference: “Any attempt to turn economic protests into a tool of insecurity, destruction of public property, or implementation of externally designed scenarios will inevitably be met with a legal, proportionate and decisive response,” warned Movahedi-Azad. This has been a common allegation in past uprisings, and not without precedent.

Protests in Iran continue to spread across several cities on their fourth day, with universities and additional workers’ unions joining the demonstrations. In the southern city of Fasa, initial reports of protestors seizing control of the governor’s building following the retreat… pic.twitter.com/W1Kgy5zaVn

— Ariel Oseran أريئل أوسيران (@ariel_oseran) December 31, 2025

And now the issue of ‘external interference’ or hidden hand is ultra sensitive given that Iran and Israel are still in a tense showdown and de facto state of conflict, going back to the 12-day June war which saw Iranian cities and nuclear sites get pummeled by Israeli and American bombs.

But Israeli intelligence has raised the temperature from the outside, which is at the very least a form of psychological warfare. CBS writes:

His comments came days after the Mossad intelligence agency of Iran’s arch-foe Israel posted on social media that it was “with you on the ground,” in a message to Iranian protesters. Posting on its Persian-language X account, the spy agency encouraged Iranians to “go out into the streets together.“

Of course, the most obvious form of ‘external interference’ remains the years-long US and European sanctions regimen. This has not only brought entire Iranian sectors to their knees – from banking to energy to auto to even commercial aviation – but it appears to be unleashing the kind of societal anger and perhaps eventual instability which was intended in the first place.

Unverified clips like the below have been spreading among opposition voices, particularly ones identifying with the old Iranian Monarchy or else the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK):

BREAKING:

The city of Fasa has fallen into the hands of the Iranian people. They’re chanting “Reza Shah, bless your soul” from inside the governor’s seat of power.

Incredible.

pic.twitter.com/DfQvLfJpxK

— 𝐍𝐢𝐨𝐡 𝐁𝐞𝐫𝐠 ♛ ✡︎ (@NiohBerg) December 31, 2025

This is perhaps why Iranian authorities have already tried to calm the streets by saying they will “listen”:

Since then, videos verified by BBC Persian have shown demonstrations in the cities of Karaj, Hamedan, Qeshm, Malard, Isfahan, Kermanshah, Shiraz and Yazd. Police were also seen using tear gas in an attempt to disperse demonstrators.

The Iranian government said it “recognizes the protests” and would listen “with patience, even if it is confronted with harsh voices”.

Iranian leadership also sees what happened with its ally Assad in Damascus, and how the Ba’ath government’s demise was assured by a full-on sanctions siege of economic strangulation, which was on top of a decade of proxy war.

Social media and western press accounts have floated the phrase “The Final Battle” connected with these protests:

The dawn is breaking in Persia.
​Right now, as we move into 2025, the streets of Iran are witnessing a “final battle” moment. This isn’t just about inflation or the Rial hitting historic lows—it’s about the unbreakable spirit of a people who have reached the point of “nothing to… pic.twitter.com/4QYw0lS1x1

— Afshine Emrani MD FACC (@afshineemrani) December 30, 2025

In parallel, Iranian society post-June war is in a new state of angst, paranoia, and even despair. The country is on a backfoot economically, militarily, its nuclear program decimated or at least set back by years, and there’s eroding trust – especially as authorities have tried and executed dozens for alleged Israeli-links.

As is expected when protests hit Iran, the pre-1979 monarchy in exile joints in the calls for uprising:

My courageous compatriots,

Your presence in the streets across Iran has kindled the flame of a national revolution. The continuation and expansion of your presence, and taking control of the streets, is today our foremost, vital priority.

I call upon the people of Iran to join… https://t.co/6UbEqhhctm

— Reza Pahlavi (@PahlaviReza) December 30, 2025

This has already cast a shadow over these protests, threatening to divide the people in the streets. Already videos have emerged of demonstrators being shouted down by other youth, accusing them of being ‘Mossad infiltrators.’ Likely there could be pro-government ‘counter-protests’ next, as has happened in prior major protest waves.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D., Cal.) will not be outdone again.

Recently, Swalwell was outvoted in Congress by a colleague who had died months earlier. 

Now, he is ensuring that, when it comes to violating the Constitution, no one is even close. This week, Swalwell pledged that, if elected California governor, he will arrest ICE officers and take away their driver’s licences.

On MS NOW’s “All In,” Swalwell was asked by host Jason Johnson:

 “What would you do if you are able to be elected as governor of California? … What would you bring to the table as a governor of California?”

Swalwell responded:

“Well, you have immense powers as governor of California and your responsibility to protect the most vulnerable in the state. So if the president is going to send ICE agents to chase immigrants through the fields where they work, what I’m going to do is make sure that they take off their masks and show their faces, that they show their identification. And if they commit crimes that they’re going to be charged with crimes, if it’s falsely imprisoning people, if it’s kidnapping, if it’s assault battery, they’re going to be held accountable. I also think if the governor has the ability to issue driver’s licenses to people in California, if you’re going to wear a mask and not identify yourself, you’re not going to be eligible to drive a vehicle in California. There’s a lot you can do, but most importantly, you have to go on offense. Otherwise, the most vulnerable in our community will always be on defense.”

Democrats appear to be morphing into predecessors like Gov. George Wallace (D., Ala.), pledging to defy federal authority and bar federal agents from their states. Wallace also reportedly threatened to arrest federal officers (and then later backed down when he was threatened with court action).

In an “age of rage,” the most irate and irrational reigns supreme.

From demanding that any Democratic nominee pledge to demolish the new Trump ballroom to opposing parental rights in schools, Swalwell has struggled to find traction with far-left California voters.

However, he is now promising to violate the Constitution. That did not take long. We do not even have a clear idea of who will be the frontrunners in the election. It is like a game of chicken where Swalwell immediately drives off the cliff before anyone gets into their cars.

Ironically, it is precisely what he has accused Donald Trump of doing: disregarding the Constitution when it suits his political agenda.

In case it matters to anyone left in California, he cannot do this. Seizing federal agents sort of went out of constitutional style after the Civil War. The “immense powers as governor of California” do not include dictating what federal officers can wear on their faces or bodies.

The first tiny barrier to Swalwell’s antebellum policies is the Supremacy Clause, which prevents states from “interfering with or controlling the operations of the Federal Government.” United States v. Washington (2022). Since McCulloch v. Maryland in 1819, the Supreme Court has consistently struck down state laws that impede federal enforcement.

Moreover, immunity under the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, Clause 2) bars criminally charging officials who are properly carrying out their lawful federal duties. For example, in 1890, the Supreme Court ruled In re Neagle that a U.S. Marshal had immunity when a state tried to charge him with murder after he shot and killed an individual attacking a justice.

While the Supreme Court has also stressed that federal immunity does not afford federal employees carte blanche to violate any and all state laws, it has made clear that such state limits must be incidental and nonintrusive. In Johnson v. Maryland (1920), Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes explained:

“It very well may be that, when the United States has not spoken, the subjection to local law would extend to general rules that might affect incidentally the mode of carrying out the employment — as, for instance, a statute or ordinance regulating the mode of turning at the corners of streets. Commonwealth v. Closson, 229 Mass. 329. This might stand on much the same footing as liability under the common law of a state to a person injured by the driver’s negligence. But even the most unquestionable and most universally applicable of state laws, such as those concerning murder, will not be allowed to control the conduct of a marshal of the United States acting under and in pursuance of the laws of the United States. Ex parte Neagle, 135 U. S. 1.”

None of this really matters to Swalwell. He is moving from democrat to demagogue in pledging unconstitutional acts to be sure that no one is farther to the left in the California race. It is the same “politics of contempt” that he has displayed as a member of Congress. Swalwell has always distinguished himself by doing things that few others could stomach, such as mocking a female senator over the death threats that she was receiving from irate liberals.

He also may be right about California voters. While others are struggling to come up with ideas for a state that is facing a crushing debt crisis and top taxpayers fleeing the state, Swalwell is promising chest-pounding theatrics…more jester than governor. He will entertain and distract with measures that will be struck down in courts.

It is the modern equivalent of the Roman games, promising combat with federal officers to thrill the crowd. From California and New York, there is an insatiable appetite for lawfare and disruption. Swalwell will promise chaos and confrontation … and many California voters will love him for it.

The weird saga of the US-sought third tanker off Venezuela which was nearly boarded by US forces before fleeing into the Atlantic continues, after US officials have newly revealed more information.

US attempts to intercept the oil tanker Bella 1 in the Atlantic have been complicated after the ship’s crew painted a Russian flag on its hull. It has avoided and evaded the US Coast Guard for more than ten days after refusing to comply with an interception near Venezuela on December 21.

Reports based on US officials describe that the crew got creative in their evasion efforts, as they’ve added a Russian tricolor to the side of the vessel and so are now claiming it is operating under Russian jurisdiction.

This has created new complications, given Washington had secured a court order authorizing the ship’s seizure due to its alleged involvement in transporting Iranian crude. But now with the newly displayed flag Russian flag, this has made enforcement more difficult under international maritime law.

The tanker was traveling toward Venezuela without any cargo at the time that US Coast Guard forces tried to board it – and then it fled into open sea, after which US assets continued shadowing the ship.

Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, authorities are allowed to board vessels that are flying false flags or lack proper registration – but in the scenario that Russia has officially registered the Bella 1, a forced boarding could risk diplomatic fallout and an international incident.

The tanker in question has been under US Treasury sanctions since 2024, as it has long been accused of transporting Iranian oil on behalf of Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The vessel is owned by Louis Marine Shipholding Enterprises, which is based in Turkey, and most of the crew are believed to be Russian, Indian, and Ukrainian.

The now apparently stymied attempt to apprehend the vessel comes soon on the heels of President Trump having ordered the US military to enforce a two-month “quarantine” of Venezuelan oil, signaling an intensification of gunboat diplomacy aimed at fostering regime instability in Caracas, with potential spillover effects that could ripple across the Caribbean into Cuba.

“While military options still exist, the focus is to first use economic pressure by enforcing sanctions to reach the outcome the White House is looking (for),” a US official told Reuters earlier this month.

The oil tanker Bella 1 is fleeing U.S. forces after the U.S. Coast Guard tried to intercept it in the Caribbean.

During the pursuit, the crew painted a Russian flag on the ship and now claim Russian status.

The tanker is under U.S. sanctions for carrying Iranian oil and was… pic.twitter.com/WOAMA35aRp

— Clash Report (@clashreport) December 30, 2025

“The efforts so far have put tremendous pressure on Maduro, and the belief is that by late January, Venezuela will be facing an economic calamity unless it agrees to make significant concessions to the U.S,” the U.S. official told Reuters.

According to analytics firm Kpler, Caracas has shipped nearly 900,000 barrels per day this year and relies on 400 dark-fleet tankers to transport the crude, much of which is bound for China. 

Authored by Isaac Orr & Tom Pyle via RealClearEnergy,

Americans are anxious about their utility bills – and with good reason. Three quarters of U.S. residents are concerned about their electricity and gas bills rising this year, and 80% feel powerless over how much they are charged for utilities. For nearly two-thirds of U.S. billpayers, simply keeping the lights on has become a growing source of financial stress.

Those concerns are grounded in reality. U.S. electricity prices rose 27% during the Biden administration and another 11% between January and September 2025. Yet despite a national narrative eager to blame President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), the real drivers of high electricity prices are far closer to home.

Electricity affordability is shaped primarily by state policy choices, and states choosing the most expensive path are overwhelmingly blue. So, blue-state residents are experiencing the pain much more than those in red states.

A new report from Always On Energy Research and the Institute for Energy Research finds that 86% of states with electricity prices above the national average voted for Democratic presidential candidates in 2020 and 2024. In contrast, 80% of the 10 states with the lowest electricity prices are reliably red. That’s not a coincidence. Those high prices reflect a consistent pattern of state-level energy policies that dictate emissions reduction targets at the expense of affordability, reliability, and physics. 

States have the exclusive power to decide which resources supply their grids under the Federal Power Act. Governors, legislatures, and public utility commissions – not the White House – decide whether to impose renewable portfolio standards (RPS), enforce Net-Zero mandates, or prematurely retire reliable power plants. Those decisions directly determine how much families and businesses pay for electricity.

Today, 28 states enforce an RPS, requiring a certain percentage of retail electricity sales to come from renewable sources, and 16 states have 100% clean energy standards (CES) or carbon-free mandates. Many of these policies compel utilities to overbuild intermittent generation, such as wind and solar, thereby requiring significant investments in transmission, grid-scale storage, and backup generation to maintain reliability. The result is a higher total system cost, which is passed onto ratepayers in the form of higher electricity rates.

Consider that the U.S. average electricity price between January 2025 and August 2025 was 13.54 cents per kilowatt-hour. Each of the five most expensive states mandates 100% of their electricity come from renewable or carbon-free sources in the coming decades. Eight of the 10 states with the lowest electricity prices voted for the Republican presidential candidate in 2020 and 2024, and seven of the 10 don’t have renewable or carbon-free mandates.  

New York is a prime blue state example, where electricity prices were 58% higher than the national average during the same period. The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) found that New York experienced the second-fastest increase in electricity prices nationwide, with residential customers suffering a 36% increase between 2019 and 2024. PPI points to “the immense capital investment required to transform the grid and specific policy choices that increase the cost of energy production,” as well as the closure of the Indian Point nuclear plant. 

It’s clear that Governor Kathy Hochul knows exactly which policy choices are driving up electricity costs — because she’s scrambling to roll them back. Ms. Hochul has delayed implementation of the state’s cap-and-tax mandates under the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), which includes a substantial renewable energy mandate requiring 70% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% carbon-free energy by 2040.

The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation defended the delay, arguing in court that the regulations would impose “extraordinary and damaging costs upon New Yorkers.” Ms. Hochul has approved two major natural gas pipelines and delayed implementation of the state’s ban on gas stoves in new buildings – a tacit admission that reliability and affordability still matter in New York.

California, however, remains committed to the most expensive path in the country with the fastest rate increase, now double the national average. For years, Governor Gavin Newsom and the California legislature have imposed on ratepayers a carbon-emissions reduction mandate, renewable mandates, solar cost-shifting through net metering, nuclear reactor closures, and EV charging subsidies.

For all of his climate-friendly posturing, Mr. Newsom signed a bill to ramp up oil drilling in Kern County, and his Energy Commission has delayed its plan to penalize refinery profits for five years. These reversals underscore a central truth: ideology will take a back seat to cost and reliability.

There’s a silver lining, however. While states can choose to raise electricity costs for their residents through bad policies, they can also choose to lower costs through good policies. For instance, Florida is the second-largest electricity producer in the country, behind only Texas. Residents require air conditioning for its hot, humid summers and heating in its mild winters. However, Florida delivers electricity at prices 2% below the U.S. average—mainly because it generates 75% of its power from imported natural gas. It has avoided aggressive climate mandates and delivers below-average electricity prices despite frequent hurricanes that require ongoing investment in the grid. 

Louisiana and Kentucky have also invested in wise policies. Louisiana posted the third-lowest electricity rates in the U.S. in 2025, and Kentucky had the lowest rates east of the Mississippi River. Nearly three-quarters of Louisiana’s electricity is generated from natural gas, leveraging its abundant natural gas production and robust pipeline network. Kentucky, similarly, leverages its coal resources to generate 67% of the state’s electricity, with another 26% by natural gas. Neither has pursued aggressive carbon emissions reduction or renewable energy mandates.

Pinning the blame on the federal government and President Trump, as Democrats have been eager to do, ignores the vital role that states play in delivering affordable, reliable electricity. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright recognizes the same, stating on Fox News that “Electricity prices have risen very fast in blue states with restrictive renewable portfolio standards.” 

The Department of Energy and President Trump can set the tone, but they don’t dictate the composition of state grids or the bills consumers receive each month. Those decisions rest squarely with governors, legislators, and regulators. Ultimately, it’s up to the states to prioritize reliable, affordable, dispatchable generation and drive down electricity prices.

High electricity rates aren’t an unavoidable consequence of modern life or federal policy. They are the predictable outcome of state-level choices that ignore reliability, undervalue dispatchable generation, and impose rigid mandates regardless of cost. Americans deserve leaders who recognize that keeping the lights on at a modest price isn’t optional. The states keeping electricity affordable today offer a roadmap for those willing to learn.

Isaac Orr is vice president of research at Always On Energy Research, a nonprofit energy modeling firm.

Tom Pyle is President of the Institute for Energy Research, a nonprofit energy research organization.

Last month Reuters revealed that roughly 10% of Meta’s annual revenue, or $16 billion, comes from advertising scams and banned goods – as the company only bans advertisers when its systems detect a 95% probability of fraud, while charging higher ad fees to suspicious buyers – a system critics describe as “pay to play.”

Data from fraud-reporting firm SafelyHQ shows Facebook is cited in 85% of scam reports that identify a platform, with more than 50,000 verified complaints collected so far, which CEO Patrick Quade suggests an implied victim count in the “tens of millions.”

Now, internal documents reviewed by Reuters indicate that Meta developed tools to both reduce scam advertising, and to limit regulators’ visibility into said ads after governments threatened measures that could severely cripple advertising revenue by forcing the company to reveal the identity of advertisers.

The efforts began last year after Japanese regulators highlighted a surge of scam advertising on Facebook and Instagram. The fraudulent ads included fake investment opportunities and artificial-intelligence-generated celebrity endorsements. Fearing that Japanese authorities might impose strict verification and transparency requirements that would materially affect its advertising business, the company launched an enforcement push aimed at reducing the number of fraudulent ads. At the same time, the documents show, the company focused on how those ads appeared to regulators.

The Ad Library and “Prevalence Perception”

Meta’s remedy centered on its ‘Ad Library,’ a public database designed to allow users to search for ads running on Facebook and Instagram. Meta employees realized Japanese regulators were using keyword searches in the library as a simple measure of the company’s effectiveness at tackling scams.

To improve performance on that measure, Meta staff identified the keywords and celebrity names most frequently used by Japanese Ad Library users. They then repeatedly ran those searches themselves, deleting ads that appeared fraudulent from both the Ad Library and Meta’s platforms.

Internally, the documents describe this work as managing the “prevalence perception” of scams. The stated objective was to make problematic content “not findable” for “regulators, investigators and journalists.”

The tactic produced rapid results. Within weeks, Meta staff reported finding fewer than 100 scam ads in a week, followed by several consecutive days in which searches returned none. A Japanese legislator publicly praised the apparent improvement, and Japan ultimately did not impose the advertiser-verification rules Meta had feared.

From Local Response to Global Strategy

Given their success in dealing with Japan, Meta incorporated the approach into what internal documents describe as a “general global playbook” for responding to regulatory scrutiny worldwide. The same techniques – scrubbing Ad Library search results and reducing the discoverability of scams – were later deployed in markets including the United States, Europe, India, Australia, Brazil and Thailand.

This was all part of a broader strategy for delaying or weakening regulatory action, according to the report – with the playbook guiding Meta officials to offer voluntary measures, requesting time to assess their impact, and resisting universal advertiser verification unless laws leave no alternative.

Former Meta fraud investigator Sandeep Abraham, who left the company in 2023, said the approach distorts the transparency the Ad Library was meant to provide. Rather than offering an accurate view of advertising on Meta’s platforms, he said, it presents a curated picture optimized for regulatory review. Abraham described the tactic as “regulatory theater.”

Meta disputes that characterization. Company spokesman Andy Stone told Reuters that removing scam ads from the Ad Library is not misleading because the ads are removed from Meta’s systems overall. Fewer scams appearing in the library, he said, indicate fewer scams on the platform.

“To suggest otherwise is disingenuous,” Stone said. 

Yet, the best solution would be costly – as Meta has long recognized that universal advertiser verification would significantly reduce scam activity. Internal analyses indicate the company could implement such a system globally in less than six weeks – yet the company has repeatedly balked at the cost. Executives estimated that universal verification would require roughly $2 billion to implement and could eliminate up to 4.8% of total revenue by blocking unverified advertisers. Despite generating $164.5 billion in revenue last year, nearly all from advertising, the company chose not to proceed.

Internal data show that unverified advertisers account for a disproportionate share of harm. One 2022 analysis found that 70% of newly active advertisers were promoting scams, illicit goods or low-quality products.

Instead of adopting verification, Meta chose what documents describe as a “reactive only” stance, accepting universal verification only where mandated by law.

Whack-a-Mole

Despite Meta’s playbook, Taiwanese regulators dropped the hammer – threatening steep fines for unverified financial scam ads. Meta rushed to comply with new rules requiring advertiser verification, which authorities said coincided with dramatic reductions in investment and impersonation scams.

Meta’s own analyses, however, showed that much of the blocked fraudulent advertising was rerouted to users in other countries, displacing both revenue and consumer harm rather than eliminating it. Unless verification was enforced globally, staff warned, Meta would be relocating scams rather than eradicating them.

Even then, the documents show, the financial costs to Meta have remained small. Meta’s own tests showed verification immediately reduced scam ads in those countries by as much as 29%. But much of the lost revenue was recouped because the same blocked ads continued to run in other markets.

If an unverified advertiser is blocked from showing ads in Taiwan, for example, Meta will show those ads more frequently to users elsewhere, creating a whack-a-mole dynamic in which scam ads prohibited in one jurisdiction pop up in another. In the case of blocked ads in Taiwan, “revenue was redistributed/rerouted to the remaining target countries,” one March 2025 document said, adding that consumer injury gets displaced, too. “This would go for harm as well,” the document noted. -Reuters

Hong Kong is another example – where Meta lobbyists moved quickly in 2024 to blunt a proposal by financial regulators that would have required verification of advertisers promoting investment products. To preempt stricter rules, Meta staff helped regulators draft a voluntary “anti-scam charter” and coordinated with Google to present what one lobbyist described internally as a “united front.” The final language, the documents note, imposed no new verification requirements or product changes. In an internal message celebrating the outcome, a Meta lobbyist wrote that regulators had relaxed measures that would have forced identity checks for financial advertisers, adding that officials expressed “huge appreciation” for Meta’s participation. Hong Kong regulators later said advertiser verification was only one of several tools available to platforms and emphasized that they lacked authority to mandate such requirements, while urging social media companies to do more to detect and remove fraudulent content.

In a statement, Hong Kong financial regulators said that “advertiser verification is one of many ways social media platforms can protect the investment public.”

In light of these findings, Meta has assigned scam handling its highest internal risk rating for 2025, citing regulatory, legal, reputational and financial exposure. One internal estimate warned that potential liability in Europe and Britain alone could cost as much as $9.3 billion.

Meanwhile, regulatory scrutiny has intensified – with European authorities having formally requested information about Meta’s handling of scam ads, and two U.S. senators urging federal agencies to investigate the company. The attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands has sued Meta, alleging it knowingly profited from fraud. Meta has said it strongly disagrees with the allegations.

For now, the documents suggest Meta believes its approach is working.

Authored by Matt Margolis via PJMedia.com,

Everybody’s buzzing about that Minnesota Medicaid mess with Gov. Tim Walz. Some are even calling it the largest fraud scandal ever. If only.

Blue-state fraud is undoubtedly a problem, and Walz should be held accountable if he did indeed look the other way. But what happened in the land of 10,000 lakes is tiny compared to the fraud in California under Gavin Newsom.

Heck, it makes Minnesota look like pocket change.

A fresh 92-page bombshell from the California State Auditor lays it all out.

“This latest report was issued by the state auditor, and that’s a nonpartisan position; that state auditor now puts eight state agencies on the high-risk list of agencies to watch out for, for things like fraud and mismanagement as well as waste,” Newsmax correspondent Heather Myers revealed last week.

“Here’s a look at that 92-page report. Newly added to the high-risk list is California’s food stamp program. If the state doesn’t get the improper payments under control, it could cost an extra $2.5 billion. Also on there is the Department of Finance, which was tasked with giving out COVID relief funds. Critics say $32 billion of that was taken by fraudsters. Then there are infrastructure issues like California’s deteriorating dams, and also the high-speed train that’s already cost taxpayers 18 billion without a single section of track complete.”

But wait, there’s more!

“Other reports cite $24 billion spent on the homeless issue that critics claim the state lost track of. More recently, there’s a report that says California cell phone users paid a surcharge for years to upgrade the state’s 911 system,” she added.

Tallied all up, California taxpayers lost $70 billion to fraud.

But here’s where things get really interesting. While pressure is on in Minnesota to get to the bottom of the state’s fraud, California seems to be under the radar.

Now get this. Right in the middle of the fraud apocalypse, a new ballot initiative seeks to impose a one-time 10% wealth tax on billionaires’ assets.

“Billionaires are threatening to leave California, and it’s all because of a possible new ballot initiative in the state. It’s a wealth tax. A healthcare labor group is behind this push, calling for a one-time tax on billionaires equal to 10 percent of their assets. And right now, it does not have enough signatures to get on the ballot,” CNN’s Abby Phillip reported Monday.

“These are big numbers, just to let people know what we’re talking about here. Larry Page, for example, he’s worth $258 billion. His estimated tax would be $12 billion. Peter Thiel, worth $27 billion. His estimated tax would be $1.2 billion. That’s not $1.2 in your pocket. It’s billions of dollars. So, I mean, should they or should they not?”

CNN’s Scott Jennings torched the whole scheme; it’s about covering up the fraud.

“And it is not for the public benefit,” he pointed out.

“In California, the state auditor just found $70 billion in fraud going on in the state. The reason they need a wealth tax is to cover up the fraud. The hole in the budget in California is due to fraud. That’s why they’re trying to tax people.” Boom. Panelists flipped out. Jennings doubled down. Why 5%? Why billionaires? Arbitrary envy tax to paper over Sacramento’s black hole. Imagine handing more cash to the clowns who blew $24 billion on tent cities.”

Make no mistake about it, he’s right. Newsom is going to run for president in 2028. Something tells me that $70 billion in fraud on Gavin’s watch is the kind of thing that won’t sit well in a primary, much less the general election.