Category: Update

Defrauding the welfare state is not just a Minnesota practice. A developing story about a vaporous business near Portland, Oregon, linked to Medicaid fraud, kidnapping and torture, Venezuelan gang activity, and a pastor serving East Africans in America:

Oregon Roundup Foundation reported last summer OHA paid Uplifting Journey $2.3 million in drug and alcohol treatment Medicaid reimbursements for reported dates of service from April 15, 2024 to March 14, 2025. In January of this year, Washington prosecutors charged one man who allegedly lived in a Lake Oswego, Oregon house operated by Uplifting Journey with kidnapping, torturing and attempting to murder a Seattle area woman. Prosecutors allege another man living in the house participated in the crimes, but has not been apprehended.

Oregon Roundup Foundation reported last week Arizona pastor Theodore Mucuranyana, accused of laundering millions originating from a $60 million Arizona Medicaid fraud ring, co-​signed for Uplifting Journey on a lease for a house to serve as a residential treatment facility in Gresham, Oregon in November 2024. Mucuranyana pastors the Hope of Life International Church, which caters to east African congregants in the Phoenix, Arizona area. The Arizona Attorney General alleges Mucuranyana funneled some of the fraudulent proceeds to an entity in Rwanda.

Jeff Eager, “Health Authority withheld plea for “scrutiny” of Uplifting Journey” (December 14, 2025).

The same reporter appears to be alone on the coverage (it’s hard to find anyone else). His last relevant post on his Substack site was in early February, basically informing us of the latest. The upshot? Little due diligence had been done by a government eager to give millions out in grants:

Oregon Health Authority chose to forego criminal background checks and site visits when it approved Uplifting Journey LLC to receive Medicaid reimbursements and subsequently paid the company at least $2.3 million, according to an agency spokesperson. One Uplifting Journey owner, Espoir Ntezeyombi, is a business associate of a man charged by Arizona’s Attorney General with orchestrating a $60 million Medicaid fraud scheme, an Oregon Roundup Foundation investigation found.…

Uplifting Journey told OHA it would provide services at an address on N Broadway in Portland. An August visit during business hours showed the office apparently closed, with a paper sign on the door and mattresses and full plastic trash bags in the space. Because OHA chose the lightest level of scrutiny for Uplifting Journey, OHA was not required to conduct a site visit of the Portland location.

Jeff Eager, “OHA: No Uplifting Journey Background Checks” (February 3, 2026).

The story has its lurid elements; nevertheless, those elements have yet to entice much press notice. That Pastor Theo Mucuranyana linkage — the headlines almost write themselves! It’s almost as if the old days of Yellow Journalism — where Story was All — have been replaced with the present days of propagandistic pfiffle … and nothing but the pfiffle. If the news doesn’t serve the State and its ever-​metastasizing growth, then the news remains unstated.

It’s Valentine’s Day, and time to acknowledge that the First Couple have a contested “meet cute” story. 

The official story?

Donald Trump and Melania Knauss (now Trump) first met in September 1998 at a New York Fashion Week party hosted by Paolo Zampolli, an Italian modeling agent and businessman who had signed Melania to his agency (ID Models) earlier that year. Zampolli has consistently claimed credit for the introduction, and both Donald and Melania Trump have publicly corroborated this account over the years, including in Melania’s 2024 memoir Melania (where she describes the meeting at the Kit Kat Club). At the time, Trump was 52 and still legally married to Marla Maples (their divorce finalized in 1999), though he attended the event with another date, Norwegian heiress Celina Midelfart. Melania, then 28, reportedly refused to give Trump her number initially but called him later, leading to their first date.

But that is not how Whitney Webb tells the tale.

Author of the two-​volume One Nation Under Blackmail (2022), Ms. Webb has appeared on several podcasts noting that Jeffrey Epstein’s modeling ties (via Ghislaine Maxwell’s recruitment and Les Wexner’s Victoria’s Secret empire) allowed Epstein to leverage “beautiful women” for influence, including potential matchmaking. She has alleged Epstein’s operations included procuring young women for elite men, sometimes under the guise of legitimate modeling or social introductions, naming Melania as having been “allegedly” introduced to Trump by Epstein.

So where are such allegations?

In the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) release of over 3.5 million pages of Epstein-​related documents in phases starting in late 2025, culminating in a massive January 30, 2026, dump, as mandated by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed by the president. These include FBI interviews, emails, flight logs, and much more from investigations into Epstein’s sex trafficking as well as Ghislaine Maxwell’s 2020 – 2022 trial.

An 11-​page FBI report from August 2025 quotes a former Epstein assistant (who worked for him 2005 – 2006) stating that Epstein “introduced MELANIA TRUMP to DONALD TRUMP.” This directly contradicts the Zampolli story and suggests Epstein played a matchmaking role. The assistant’s identity is redacted.

Not so cutely met. If true. 

Melania and Donald married on January 22, 2005.

The big news this past week has been the info dump — over a million files! — regarding the Jeffrey Epstein case. The story is mainly chaos right now. But Matt Kibbe’s interview of Rep. Thomas Massie (R‑Ky.), who is chiefly responsible for this ungainly disclosure, offers an interesting perspective on the mess. He makes a good case that blackmail was not the chief method of Mr. Epstein:

For a deeper dive, consider Tucker Carlson’s discussion of “pizza and grape juice” (and other oddities found in the release of data) with the notorious Ian Carroll:

Kim Iverson quotes the original Pizzagate researcher, Ben Swann:

It is quite a story, unfolding before our eyes. Sort of. And it reviving the Pizzagate story isn’t outré enough, why not reconsider the question of whether Jeffrey Epstein is really dead?

But what do the files say? The above appraisal does not analyze all the purported postmortem photos available:

There are a lot of issues to deal with regarding the Jeffrey Epstein case. One issue hanging out there, like a matzo ball: Epstein claimed to be an agent of the Rothschilds.

“I have instructed Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, that under no circumstances,” Trump posted on Truth Social, “are we going to participate in various poorly run Democrat Cities with regard to their Protests and/​or Riots unless, and until, they ask us for help.” 

“Later Saturday night, Trump said to reporters as he flew to Florida for the weekend,” explains the Associated Press, “that he felt Democratic cities are ‘always complaining.’

“‘If they want help, they have to ask for it. Because if we go in, all they do is complain,’ Trump said.”

But that doesn’t mean federal property won’t be protected. “We will, however, guard, and very powerfully so, any and all Federal Buildings that are being attacked by these highly paid Lunatics, Agitators, and Insurrectionists.”

But does that include vehicles? A video of a man who looked like Alex Pretti — who was shot on the 24th of January by Border Patrol agents — surfaced last week, showing the protester kicking the right-​rear lights of an ICE vehicle. Though many suspected the video to be AI, it has been confirmed by Pretti’s parents as of their son. The video-​recorded event took place on the 13th, according to The Epoch Times. 

Trump addressed this video directly in a Truth Social post, where he claimed that Pretti’s “stock has gone way down” due to the footage of him “screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off in pieces.” Trump called Pretti an “agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist.”

The post has been widely reported in major legacy media stories.

It is well known that the several states cannot be commandeered to carry out federal law. 

So however much President Trump and his followers may demand aid from the state of Minnesota in the business of carrying out federal immigration law — which has long been held constitutional from multiple rulings as a federal, not a state, matter — the federal government may not compel such aid. 

Everyone should know this. It is a firmly established principle.

This would mean Governor Tim Walz and the State of Minnesota are under no legal obligation to cooperate with the federal government’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in removing criminal aliens (or alien criminals) from within the state’s borders.

But must the state protect the agents as they go about their duties? 

Probably not. Remember that the police are under no obligation to come to the aid of any citizen in any or all moments of crisis. This was firmly established in the District of Columbia District Court of Appeals ruling in Warren v. the District of Columbia. There does not appear to be case law that indicates a duty of states to protect federal agents as if they were body guards, for example.

Federal agents are protected under statutes like 18 U.S.C. § 111, which criminalizes assaulting, resisting, or impeding federal officers in their duties. If citizens (including protesters or rioters) harass agents — through physical obstruction or threats — agents may use reasonable force in response.

This is why U.S. Border Patrol agents (part of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP) were called in to protect ICE from Minnesota mobs. It was not ICE agents who shot and killed Alex Pretti on January 24, 2026. It was U.S. Border Patrol agents.

Joe Rogan has described the activities of the mobbing “protesters” as a coordinated “color revolution”; his guest Andrew Wilson insists that the mobs are being directed and supported in part by Minnesota state officials. If this proves true, an insurrection may technically be in progress.

And then the legality of federal crackdown in Minneapolis and St. Paul would become quite clear.

Javier Milei, the President of Argentina, delivered a special address at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos on January 21, 2026:

President Milei began by proclaiming that “Machiavelli is dead,” and in general championed free-​enterprise capitalism as not only the most productive economic system but also the only morally just one. He structured his speech around themes of justice, efficiency, and ethics, arguing that capitalism aligns with natural law, Judeo-​Christian values, Greek philosophy, and Roman law. Milei drew on economists like Adam Smith, Murray Rothbard, Thomas Sowell, Israel Kirzner, Hans-​Herman Hoppe and Jesús Huerta de Soto to support his points, emphasizing that free markets foster entrepreneurial creativity, dynamic efficiency through innovation and coordination, and increasing returns without government intervention. He rejected the idea of market failures justifying regulation, claiming interventions violate property rights and the non-​aggression principle, leading to lower growth and injustice.

He also referenced the Bible, according to The Jerusalem Post, in an article titled “Milei says Bible shows ‘where woke-​ism leads’ in Davos, urges return to Judeo-​Christian roots”:

In the closing section of his speech, Milei referenced Moses’s confrontation with Pharaoh and the final three plagues described in Parshat Bo: locusts, darkness, and the death of the firstborn.

The Argentinian President cast Pharaoh as “the symbol of the oppressive power of the state,” and argued that the sequence of plagues illustrated how societies slide from economic ruin to moral confusion and, ultimately, collapse when they deny freedom.

In comparison, U.S. President Donald Trump boasted about America’s “fastest and most dramatic economic turnaround in history” under his second term, citing 5.4% Q4 growth, core inflation at 1.6%, 52 stock market highs adding $9 trillion in value, over $18 trillion in secured investments, and lifting 1.2 million off food stamps. He attributed this to policies like massive tax cuts (no taxes on tips, overtime, or Social Security for seniors; 100% expensing), slashing regulations at a 129:1 ratio, firing 270,000 federal bureaucrats, cutting the deficit by 27%, and imposing tariffs that reduced the trade deficit by 77% without inflation. Trump criticized Biden-​era “stagflation” and Europe’s “Green New Scam” as a hoax, praising U.S. record energy production (oil, gas, nuclear) that dropped gasoline below $2.50 per gallon and positioned America to lead in AI.

Both leaders’ appearances underscored pro-​capitalist stances, with Milei hailing Trump’s U.S. as a “beacon of light,” echoing Trump’s MAGA with “Make Argentina Great Again” rhetoric, aligning on deregulation, free markets, and socialism critiques. But Milei’s speech was, on the whole, an example of politic ideological libertarianism, while Trump’s was far more about deal-​making and nationalism. 

The attitude of Somalian refugees to their United States hosts does not usually, these days, seem like one of gratitude. But then, we cannot expect them to be thrilled with the federales (ICE, actually) arresting, systematically, those Somalians in the country illegally.

Most are legal, considering the mountains moved by politicians to bring them here (starting with the Refugee Act of 1980), but taking sides has largely been a matter of taking sides against, well, “the U.S. ‘god-​damned’ States.” A colorful phrasing by Representative to the United States Congress, Ilhan Omar (D‑Minn.)

Of course, much of this is about the fraud — about which the Duck​.ai search assistant urges caution:

The Somali-​American community, particularly in Minnesota, has expressed fear and frustration over recent fraud accusations, feeling that the allegations have led to increased xenophobia and discrimination against them. Community leaders urge individuals to conduct their own research rather than rely on social media narratives that generalize the actions of a few to the entire community.

Consider these bullet points courtesy of Reuters:

• Immigration raids prompt volunteers to share leaflets, accompany elders in Somali community
• Trump invokes fraud scandal to send immigration agents to Minnesota
• Some Somali Americans say they fear immigration raids are bid to suppress future voter turnout

A jaded person might say that these reactions are odd, but human. There is nothing shocking about a refugee crackdown after uncovering what has been reported to be billions of welfare fraud within a refugee community: Many Somali-​American immigrants “feared they were being singled out, a worry that revived memories of the state surveillance and arbitrary authority they thought they had left behind when they resettled in the United States.”

This latter point must be at least somewhat dissonant to the meme-​obsessed from a decade ago, where Somalia was said to be anarchic, not state-​totalitarian. It shows that Somalians have had to weather all sorts of changes. Now, within the U.S., too. 

The Reuters article focuses on Kowsar Mohamad, who states that his people, now understandably alarmed by raids and demands for identification, had “just believed the Constitution was going to protect us from this level of interrogation.”

One thing the article does not mention is that the community and its current activists did not think to police their own against illegality, whether that of illegal entry or mass fraud.

In early January, Paul Jacob discussed the Maduro capture story, noting its unconstitutionality and the likely political irrelevance of that unconstitutionality. 

What has happened since then?

Well, a lot; or not much at all — depending on how you look at it!

• The capture and removal of the dictator led to an interim government, prisoner releases (hundreds since December, including at least 56 political prisoners and some U.S. citizens recently), and U.S. demands for further releases. [New York Times]
• The U.S. Senate (with Vice President J.D. Vance’s tie-​breaking vote on January 14) blocked a resolution requiring congressional approval for further military actions in Venezuela. [CNN]
• A Department of Justice memo affirming the president’s constitutional authority for the operation. [Times Op. cit.]
• Opposition leader María Corina Machado met President Trump at the White House around January 16, presenting her Nobel Peace Prize medal to the American leader. [The Guardian]

“President Donald Trump on Jan. 15 released his administration’s new health care affordability plan, which aims,” says The Epoch Times, “to lower prices through marketplace reforms that include price negotiation, increased competition, and greater price transparency.”

The White House has provided an announcement and a fact sheet as well as a PDF of the plan itself. It’s called The Great Health Care Plan, and the White House urges Congress to make it a key piece of legislation, to make up for the lapse in the failing ObamaCare scheme. Touted features include:

• Codifying the Trump Administration’s Most-​Favored-​Nation deals to match U.S. prices with those in other countries, expanding access to over-​the-​counter drugs to boost competition and reduce doctor visit costs, and building on prior actions like affordable insulin and voluntary negotiations. Goal: reduce drug prices.
• Redirecting taxpayer subsidies from insurance companies directly to eligible Americans to choose their own plans, funding a cost-​sharing reduction program that saves taxpayers at least $36 billion and cuts Obamacare premiums by over 10%, and ending kickbacks from pharmacy benefit managers to brokerage middlemen. Goal: Reducing insurance premiums.
• Establishing a “Plain English” standard, requiring clear, jargon-​free publication of rates, coverage comparisons, revenue breakdowns (e.g., claims paid vs. overhead/​profits), claim rejection rates, and average wait times for care. Goal: Holding insurance companies accountable.
• Mandating healthcare providers and insurers that accept Medicare or Medicaid to post prices and fees prominently in their facilities. Goal: Maximizing price transparency.

As of September, Scott Lincicome and Alfredo Carrillo Obregon write, “more than half of all US imports (by value) were subject to one or more special tariff measures (i.e., classified in Chapter 99 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States) and to the associated bureaucracy.”

Though there has been legal action against Donald Trump’s diktat-approach to tariff policy, the Cato authors don’t put much hope in these challenges. “Regardless of what the Supreme Court does with Trump’s ‘emergency’ tariffs, moreover, US tariff red tape will likely grow more this year, burdening US companies and the economy in the process.”

And growing red tape is a drag on economic growth. It is a prime strangler of growth.

But there is more than one challenge to Trump’s tariff mania. They’re not all equally feckless, are they?

The Supreme Court’s forthcoming decision in the Learning Resources Inc. et al. v. Trump case could significantly reduce the complexity of the US tariff system if the Court invalidates the Trump administration’s IEEPA tariffs. Such reprieve, however, would likely be temporary because the Trump administration has pledged to replicate the IEEPA regime through other executive tariff authorities, including through both Sections 232 and 301 measures, and previously unused statutes such as Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1934 and Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930. (Though, such authorities arguably have more built-​in procedural and/​​or substantive checks than IEEPA does.) This system, in fact, might be even more complex than what we have right now.

It will therefore remain the case that a true reduction in tariff red tape will only be accomplished through congressional action to revise various US trade laws and reclaim the legislative branch’s constitutional authority over tariffs.

This needless complexity all comes back to Congress, which could fix it, but chooses not to. A familiar problem.

Also all-​too-​familiar is fundamental confusion about tariffs. For some reason, Americans don’t think of tariffs as taxes. But tariffs are just another form of taxation, of course, no matter what is popularly believed. And can anything show how far from the Reagan Revolution the Trumpian movement is than seeing Republicans rally around an enthusiastic taxer?