Day: January 22, 2026
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.
RELATED: The insane little story that failed to warn America about the depth of Somali fraud
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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‘We Mexicans are reclaiming our territory’: Peter Schweizer drops bombshell on Glenn Beck about Mexico’s invisible coup
The intentional implosion of the United States via mass immigration — often called the “Great Replacement” theory — has been “debunked” as a baseless, racist conspiracy theory by left-wing organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
But what Glenn Beck just heard from bestselling author Peter Schweizer is proof that it’s not theory. It’s happening right now — and in places we wouldn’t expect.
Schweizer’s new book, “The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon,” is a deep dive into the weaponization of mass migration as a political tool to influence U.S. elections, undermine national security, and reshape demographics and power structures.
While the book presents documented evidence exposing multiple foreign adversaries, including China, Venezuela, Cuba, and the Muslim Brotherhood, for weaponizing immigration for political gain, its revelations about Mexico are among the most disturbing.
“I always thought of Mexico in the context of, OK, you’ve got kind of this hapless government, and it’s corrupt, and they’re kind of glad for mass migration because now they don’t have to feed their own people,” Schweizer says.
But he’s been giving Mexico too much credit.
“The reality is — in their own words — they view immigration very differently,” he tells Glenn.
According to a December 2024 report written by one of President Claudia Sheinbaum’s top aides, Mexico sees mass migration to the U.S. as a means of reconquest.
“We already know that the Mexican population in the United States reaches 39.9 million. We Mexicans are reclaiming our territory,” Schweizer reads directly from the report.
On top of that, another “powerful senator” in Sheinbaum’s progressive, populist Morena Party, who “sits on the National Defense Committee,” is on record saying: “We Mexicans are in our territory — California, Nevada, Texas, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Wyoming. We’re going to take back the territory that was stolen from us.”
“You hear these quotes, and you think, ‘OK, well maybe this is just bravado,’” Schweizer says. But when you see the “network and infrastructure inside the United States” Mexico has built, it’s clear that it’s far more than bombast.
“This infrastructure — this includes Mexican government officials inside the United States who are organizing violent protests, like those that hit Los Angeles, those that are in Minneapolis, and they are actively participating in our politics,” he explains.
“They are working to elect Democrats … who are sympathetic to them on immigration and working to defeat President Trump through Mexican consulates that are across the United States.”
Glenn is shocked by these revelations and wonders why we’re just now hearing about Mexico’s reconquest plans, especially given the pile of evidence that’s out there.
Schweizer says that Mexico has “masked what they’re doing quite effectively.”
He reads a 2023 quote from the “head of the Mexican News Agency” that captures the intentional covertness of Mexico’s immigration agenda: “We are quietly carrying out the reconquest of our territories in the U.S. taken from us in 1848. The reconquest of the Aztec territory is silent, and the day that the gringos realize this, their diabolical fundamentalism will become macabre.”
“In other words, we need to keep this quiet … because when the ‘gringos,’ as he says, find out, they’re gonna be really, really angry about it,” Schweizer says.
These quotes from powerful Mexican officials, he says, are just a sprinkling of what’s out there. “The Invisible Coup” lays out a wealth of evidence on Mexico’s “Reconquista” and pulls no punches in naming key figures.
To hear more about it, watch the video above.
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South Korea launches landmark laws to regulate AI
SEOUL – South Korea introduced on Thursday what it says is the world’s first comprehensive set of laws regulating artificial intelligence, aiming to strengthen trust and safety in the sector, but startups fretted that compliance could hold them back.
Earthquake swarm in Sultan Kudarat linked to movements along Cotabato Trench
The occurrence of more than 600 small earthquakes in a span of days in Sultan Kudarat may have been caused by movements along the Cotabato Trench, according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) on Thursday.
UAAP: Ateneo stays undefeated, La Salle stuns UST in HS basketball
Continuing their strong start to the season, Ateneo de Manila University took down last year”s runners-up National University Nazareth School, 86-63, Thursday at the FilOil Centre.
NCAA: Intact Mapua, Benilde headline Group A in Season 101 men”s volleyball
Mapua University and De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde will showcase strong core lineups in the NCAA Season 101 men”s volleyball tournament as they aim to bounce back from their Final Four exits last year.
MLBB: Team Liquid ousts Onic Indonesia, keeps M7 dream alive
The ‘Golden Road” bid lives on for Team Liquid as the Philippine champion escapes home bet Onic, 3-1, in their knockout M7 World Championship lower bracket clash on Thursday in Jakarta, Indonesia.
