Day: January 22, 2026
JONATHAN TURLEY: When Minnesota AG Ellison excuses mob rule, religious freedom is trampled
Attorney General Keith Ellison’s selective enforcement pattern emerges as he excuses mob conduct at St. Paul’s Cities Church during worship services.
Apple taps Google Gemini to power Apple Intelligence
Apple and Google entered a multiyear collaboration for Apple Intelligence features powered by Gemini, accelerating the development of a personalized Siri.
Can the flu shot actually give you influenza? Doctors set the record straight
Medical experts debunk flu shot myths: vaccines use inactive virus that cannot cause illness. Discover what side effects actually mean for your immunity.
Minnesota agitator arrested in wake of church invasion, Bondi says
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the arrest of a Minnesota agitator who helped organize the storming of Cities Church in St. Paul on Thursday.
Mike Tobin documents daring Mount Everest climb in new Fox Nation special
Fox Nation’s new documentary follows reporter Mike Tobin’s Mount Everest climb, exploring what drives adventurers to risk everything for the peak.
Ex-Michigan wide receiver makes startling claims about Sherrone Moore amid scandal
Former Michigan Wolverines head coach Sherrone Moore was accused of treating a player unfairly and being blackmailed by others during his final season.
DHS funding heads to House vote after Johnson quells GOP revolt over ethanol
House Rules Committee approves spending bill funding ICE as Reps. Tom Cole and Rosa DeLauro navigate bipartisan negotiations despite conservative concerns.
Trumps to celebrate 21st wedding anniversary as president returns from Davos
President Donald Trump is returning from Davos Thursday to celebrate his 21st wedding anniversary with Melania Trump at a White House dinner tonight for the first couple.
Taxpayers are funding California’s Medicaid shell game
Federal prosecutors in Minnesota have launched one of the largest Medicaid fraud crackdowns in American history. Raids. Indictments. Billions of dollars. A system designed to help the poor became a loot bag for criminals and grifters.
California saw those headlines and said, “They should have consulted us!”
Taxpayers don’t care whether fraud happens the Minnesota way — through day-care centers and nonprofits — or the California way — through health care accounting games.
Sacramento’s progressive class has spent years perfecting a cleaner version of the same scam — one that stays inside the lines, collects federal dollars on paper, and sends the bill to taxpayers everywhere else. Call it “legal.” Call it “approved.” Call it “routine.” None of those words makes it legitimate.
In 2004, the Government Accountability Office warned Congress that states were gaming Medicaid through intergovernmental transfers. States would shuffle public money through a circular process to make spending look real, inflate federal matching payments, then cycle the funds back to themselves. The GAO described “round-trip” arrangements that generated federal dollars without exposing states to true financial risk and that undermined the balance Congress intended.
Washington shrugged. Some states backed off. Others refined the trick.
California scaled it.
Medi-Cal, the state’s massive Medicaid program, now serves as the vehicle for this legal laundering operation. State officials insist that the system complies with federal rules. Fine. A loophole still remains a loophole, and taxpayers still pay the tab.
Paragon Health Institute, a conservative health policy organization, has laid out the mechanism clearly. Counties and public hospital systems transfer funds to the state through IGTs. The state counts that money as the “non-federal share” of Medicaid spending, then claims a larger federal match. Sacramento sends the combined state and federal funds back to government-owned providers through supplemental payments and formula-driven reimbursements.
The math almost always works in the contributors’ favor. The entities that send money in get reimbursed in full — and often receive more than they put up.
Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images
California’s ambulance program shows how ugly this gets. Under the state’s Ground Emergency Medical Transport program, California bars payments from the state’s general fund. Public ambulance agencies instead receive “supplemental payments” that California largely restricts to public providers, limiting private companies’ access.
The result: California pays public ambulance providers about $1,065 per transport, while it offers private ambulance companies roughly $339 for the same job.
Then the federal government matches the inflated payments.
This isn’t just favoritism. It warps the market. It pushes private providers out and leaves patients with fewer options.
California has also expanded Medi-Cal eligibility regardless of immigration status. The state claims it funds routine coverage for “undocumented” adults with state dollars, but emergency Medicaid remains federally reimbursable. Sacramento still taps federal funds through the back door, even as it sells the program as a self-funded moral gesture.
This system stinks — even when regulators bless it.
And the political contrast tells you everything. Minnesota’s fraud scandal has created enough public anger to drive its Democrat governor out of the next election. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), whose administration runs a program built on the same kind of federal exploitation — just with better paperwork — remains a top Democrat presidential prospect in 2028.
The federal government could stop this tomorrow. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services could clamp down on the abuse of IGTs and demand a genuine state contribution, not an accounting illusion. Instead, under the Biden administration, CMS approved major expansions and encouraged the same incentives that fuel the problem.
Audits don’t fix it, either. Regulators review what states claim on paper, not what taxpayers actually fund. If a state can justify the scheme in bureaucratic language, CMS signs off. Fraud analysis often misses the point for the same reason. A state can structure IGTs so the “state share” exists largely as a bookkeeping device. Federal taxpayers remain the only party exposed to real financial loss.
Congress never designed Medicaid to serve as a revenue stream for local governments. It created Medicaid to help the poor. California’s 12-to-1 payment disparities punish the poor by reducing competition, shrinking access, and driving private providers out of business.
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Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images
Congress already has the solution. The GAO outlined it two decades ago, and the George W. Bush administration backed the basic idea: Close the loophole by prohibiting Medicaid payments that exceed actual costs for government-owned facilities.
In plain English: Stop rewarding government-owned providers with inflated reimbursements that private providers can’t touch. Set equal rules. Require real state contributions. Cut the circular funding schemes that turn Medicaid into a federal ATM.
Taxpayers don’t care whether fraud happens the Minnesota way — through day cares and nonprofits — or the California way — through health care accounting games. We care that Washington keeps subsidizing systems designed to break the rules everyone else has to follow.
California built this machine. Congress can shut it down.
Homeless man allegedly choked 13-year-old at school bus stop until Good Samaritan beat his face with a toolbox
A homeless Florida man allegedly attacking a teenager was beaten in the face with a toolbox by a Good Samaritan before police arrived and took him into custody.
Christopher Steven Schwable, 36, of Pierson was restrained by bystanders when he choked and beat a 13-year-old at a school bus stop in DeLand on Tuesday morning.
The man had been in jail for just over three weeks on charges of indecent exposure and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Police said they responded to a call about a possible stabbing at the intersection of Clear Lake Dr. and North Spring Garden Ave. when they saw Schwable being held down by another man.
The man said that he hit Schwable with his toolbox after driving by the bus stop and seeing him attacking the child. He said that the man threatened him with a knife, so he hit him twice.
Schwable had a head injury and was bleeding.
Police bodycam footage showed their interaction with the boy, who said that Schwable had pulled out a knife, grabbed him, and hit him. Two witnesses corroborated the boy’s account, according to police.
In addition to the witnesses’ corroboration, police said they found a green-and-black folding knife in the man’s pocket and confiscated it as evidence.
WOFL-TV reported that Schwable had been released from jail on Jan. 13, just a week before the alleged attack on the teenager. The man had been in jail for just over three weeks on charges of indecent exposure and possession of drug paraphernalia. WOFL said that those charges were dropped by prosecutors, according to court documents.
Police said those charges were not related to the bus stop incident.
Schwable’s booking photo appeared to show a large wound on the right side of his face.
Schwable was charged with aggravated child abuse and aggravated assault.
A spokesperson with Volusia County schools confirmed that the boy was a seventh-grade student at Southwestern Middle School.
Officials also confirmed that Schwable was currently homeless.
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