Author Archives: sterlingcooper

STUDENTS FROM INDIA ABUSE THE STUDENT VISA PROGRAM AND NOBODY NOTICED!

India media just blew up the student visa scam–now everything changes…

For years now, the H-1B debate has been sold to us as a tech-company issue or a skills argument. But what doesn’t get talked about is how much of the H-1B pipeline starts long before the lottery or the job offers and way before the actual paperwork gets filled out.A recent piece from the Times of India just admitted the ugly truth out loud. For many Indian families, an American student visa has zero to do with education. It’s quietly understood that the student stuff is a progression that starts with admission and a visa and moves through internships and graduation and ends with work authorization long enough to recover their costs and secure a foothold in the US job market. The degree isn’t the reason; it’s just their foot in the door.

This matters because the entire legal structure of a student visa is about “intent.” F-1 visas are for studying, not labor. Yet now, what’s being openly described by the Times of India is a system where the “student” status is actually a way to weasel into the US job market.

And now that this little sneaky truth has been made public, the entire conversation should change. Because the US has allowed a “temporary education” visa to mutate into a backdoor work program, and that can’t stand.

India’s media spells out how the system has been used and abused, how Optional Practical Training became the bridge to US jobs, and why Washington’s sudden turn against it could blow up the entire game, especially for those Indians who are using this path to cheat the system.

Times of India:

For Indian families, the US degree has rarely been just a degree. It is a sequence you pay for and plan around: Admission, visa, internship, graduation, and then a post-study runway long enough to recover costs, build a résumé, and attempt the H-1B lottery without falling off a bureaucratic cliff. That runway is Optional Practical Training (OPT).Now the runway is being described in Washington as a loophole, not a ladder. In 2025, the US debate has moved beyond generic immigration noise into something more targeted: A political and legal narrative that frames OPT as unauthorised, unfair to American graduates, and ripe for abuse. This is followed by proposals that would either terminate the programme, tax away its advantage, or convert student status from a compliance-based continuum into a clock with expiry dates. What is significant here is that OPT is being attacked simultaneously in Congress, agency memos, and in the regulatory agenda—three levers that rarely align.

India sits closest to the blast radius because they have become the most invested in the OPT logic. The story, then, is not “Will America stop Indians from studying?” It is more precise, and more destabilising: Will America continue to attach a credible work pathway to the education it markets to the world?

Now, this is where the “misuse” argument collapses and the “scam” argument starts to hold some serious water.

What follows is sworn testimony that describes how a program meant to supplement education turned into one of the biggest work-authorization pipelines in the country. Honestly, calling it a “student visa” program is more marketing than reality. The Times of India piece goes on:

In June 2025, Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), appeared before the House Judiciary Subcommittee with a blunt charge: OPT, she argued, has effectively become the largest unregulated guest-worker scheme in the United States. Drawing on internal datasets she said were provided by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, Vaughan told lawmakers that more than 540,000 work authorisations were granted under OPT and Curricular Practical Training (CPT) in FY2023 alone. In her framing, this was not administrative flexibility; it was regulatory drift at scale. OPT, she said, had fuelled an ecosystem of diploma mills, fake schools, bogus training programmes, and illegal employment—a parallel market built less around learning than around visa preservation and labour substitution—while the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) remained too under-resourced to vet the volume and complexity of the pipeline.

Her sharpest point was legal-constitutional in tone: OPT is not explicitly authorised by Congress, having been created through executive rulemaking—formalised under the Bush administration and expanded under Obama—without an up-or-down vote to permit hundreds of thousands of foreign graduates to work in the US.Where her testimony lands politically is in how it converts a sprawling, messy system into a single prosecutable story: Scale plus abuse equals illegitimacy. Once OPT is narrated primarily as a work programme rather than an education-to-employment bridge, the policy debate shifts from ‘how to regulate’ to ‘whether it should exist at all’. And even if one contests her characterisation, the effect is the same: it gives restrictionists a numbers-and-oversight argument that is easier to sell than a purely ideological one.

Our student visa program is functioning as a mass employment agency.

Now, US senators are saying that the government is issuing massive numbers of work permits through a student visa system that was never meant to function that way and calling on DHS to shut it down.

The Times of India piece continues:

On September 23, 2025, Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote to Kristi Noem, Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security, urging her to end Optional Practical Training (OPT)-style work authorisations for student visa holders. Grassley argued DHS is issuing ‘hundreds of thousands’ of such work permits “in direct violation of the law” and criticised the practice of allowing foreign graduates to remain in the US on student visas “for years after graduation” to work. He said this undercuts young Americans’ job prospects and claimed the authorisations are incompatible with the Immigration and Nationality Act, which he says limits student visas to education, not employment.

On November 14, 2025, Senator Eric S. Schmitt (Republican, United States Senator for Missouri) wrote to Kristi Noem, Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security, and Joseph B. Edlow, Director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, urging them to move toward ‘reforming or ending’ Optional Practical Training (OPT). He calls OPT ‘one of the most abused’ immigration programmes and argues it operates as a cheap-labour pipeline and a ‘backdoor’ into the job market, hurting young American workers. Schmitt also stresses the programme’s tax advantage—citing payroll tax exemptions and claiming this encourages employers to hire OPT workers over US graduates. He asks DHS to conduct a ‘thorough review’ as the first step toward shutting OPT down or reshaping it.

What Grassley and Schmitt are both saying is that the student visa program has been allowed to function like a work visa.

Now, let’s hope that this is where all the talk turns into action. These proposals show how lawmakers are trying to unwind the student-to-work scam, either by totally eliminating OPT or taking away the backdoor access into the US job pool.

The Times of India piece shares more:

If the narrative is the pressure, the proposals are the machinery. They range from a guillotine to a slow squeeze to a procedural clock.The American Tech Workforce Act of 2025: A termination proposalThe American Tech Workforce Act of 2025, introduced in the US Senate in September and referred to the Judiciary Committee, tries to rewire the entire student-to-work pipeline:

Tighten H-1B through a tougher, higher-wage logic, and then cut off the quiet bridge that feeds it—OPT. The Bill treats Optional Practical Training not as an education policy tool but as a structural loophole that Congress never explicitly authorised and now seeks to close.

The language of the Bill is deliberately spare. In its Section 3—Termination of Optional Practical Training Program; employment authorization to terminate after completion of course of studies—the proposal is not to narrow eligibility or toughen oversight, but to erase the programme itself. OPT, and any successor scheme by another name, would be barred in law. Employment authorisation would end the moment an F-1 student completes their degree, collapsing the post-graduation runway to zero. Even pending OPT applications would be denied at enactment, with fees returned.

The message is unmistakable here: Study may still be welcomed, but work after graduation would no longer be part of the offer.The Dignity Act of 2025: A quiet rewrite of OPT economicsThe Dignity Act of 2025, a bipartisan immigration reform Bill introduced in the US House of Representatives, proposes a broad reset of immigration rules—mixing tougher enforcement tools with new legal-status pathways and system-wide adjustments. It is not law; it remains a legislative proposal moving through the committee process, not a measure that has cleared both chambers and been signed.For international students, its most consequential move is not a headline attack on OPT, but a quiet change to its economics.

The Bill proposes to end the payroll tax exemption on OPT wages by bringing those earnings under FICA—the Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes that most US workers pay through automatic deductions. Under the current framework, many F-1 students on OPT who are treated as nonresident aliens for tax purposes are generally exempt from FICA withholding; the proposal would remove that carve-out.

These proposals are about dismantling a work pipeline that’s clearly screwing over American workers… because a student visa that functions like a work visa is a total backdoor scam. And once it’s admitted out loud, everything is on the table, and changes better be made.

DENMARK’S GOVERNMENT CONTROLLED GREENLAND’S BIRTHRATE SECRETLY…

Denmark’s Dirty Little Secret About Population Control in Greenland

Denmark has controlled Greenland since 1721. Indigenous peoples lived there for thousands of years before that. In 1953, the world’s largest island transitioned from colony to become part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Today its domestic affairs are considered self-rule, while Denmark is responsible for Greenland’s foreign policy, defense, and currency.

But with regard to Greenland and the women who have lived there, Denmark has had a dirty little secret centered on population control: a relatively recent birth control practice that was forced on thousands of women, for which the country only apologized in September 2025.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a group of independent researchers released a report that followed a two-year investigation. That investigation found that Denmark — from 1966 through 1992 — forced sterilization on more than 4,500 women and girls in Greenland, some as young as 12 years old. Many, if not most, were never told.

In the name of population control, doctors implanted an intra-uterine device (IUD) in the unsuspecting patients.

Revelations of this birth control program only came to light in 2022 through a podcast called Spiralkampagnen. While the revelations first emerged three years ago, Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, only issued an apology to Greenland in the Fall of 2025.

She said, “We cannot change what has happened. But we can take responsibility…On behalf of Denmark, I would like to say sorry,” while granting that the women and girls injured by the program had “experienced both physical and psychological harm.”

Outraged critics of the program described it as “systematic discrimination.”

The CFR said that to compile its report, researchers took testimony from 410 cases, 349 of which involved health consequences for the affected women. Hundreds of the victims were from Greenland’s Indigenous population, but the program impacted over 4,000 women and girls in total. While the researchers revealed that patients had the IUDs implanted without consent, in some cases women and girls received injections that left them infertile.

Denmark controlled Greenland’s healthcare sector until 1992. Now, the authors of the investigation’s report have called for authorities to consider whether this pattern of abuse violated Danish and human rights law. Lawyers for 143 women filed a lawsuit over the program. Reports are that 138 of the plaintiffs were minors when they were sterilized.

Last month, the Associated Press reported that Denmark agreed to “compensate thousands of Indigenous women and girls in Greenland over cases of forcible contraception carried out by health authorities over decades starting in the 1960s.”

The Danish health ministry said “women who were given contraception against their knowledge or consent between 1960 and 1991 can apply for individual payouts of 300,000 Danish kroner (about $46,000)” starting in April of this year.

This program in Greenland is not the last time Denmark has found a way to use ghoulish birth control practices to address a societal issue.

In Denmark today, the number and proportion of people with Downs Syndrome are vastly lower than other countries. You might think that Denmark has found a cure for Downs, but that’s not the case. Instead, the country has instituted universal screening among pregnant women for early detection of Downs Syndrome among their babies.

In 2019, in a country of over 6 million people, only 18 children were born with Downs in Denmark. This demonstrates the dramatic impact abortion has had on that population. The average number of babies born with Downs at present is roughly 21-34 per year.

Pundits, myself included, have been having a little fun with the prospect of the U.S. taking control of Greenland at the expense of such a small country as Denmark, but I’m not laughing now. Stories like these provide proof that even a small country can foster the worst kind of inhumanity, and for that reason alone, it should be taken seriously.

THE TRUMP STORE IN PHILLY, PLANS TO CLOSE…

Trump Store to Close as Sales Falter, With No Election Battles Ahead

The shop in suburban Philadelphia had been a gathering spot for the MAGA crowd to rally during the 2024 campaign.

Mike Domanico, the owner of a store that sells Trump merchandise in Bensalem, Pa., said it was time to close its doors.Credit…Hannah Beier for The New York Times

Nestled in a strip mall in suburban Philadelphia, The Trump Store is hard to miss with its all-caps sign in bold next to a photo of President Trump hugging the American flag. But after six years of drawing MAGA supporters from all over, the 800-square-foot store that sports everything from hats and watches emblazoned with the president’s name is closing.

The store’s owner, 56-year-old Mike Domanico, said that, with sales down, it was time.

“He’s not running again,” Mr. Domanico said of the president, who is barred from seeking a third term by the Constitution. “When something’s happening like an election’s coming up or something in the news happens with Trump, the sales jump. But since there’s no election coming up, things have slowed down.”

The Trump store was stocked with stuffed animals, T-shirts, hats and the works. Credit…Hannah Beier for The New York Times

By the time Mr. Domanico decided to close the store on Jan. 31, he was making roughly 30 sales per day — just a fraction of what he once earned.

He recalled making about 100 sales per day in the months leading up to the 2024 presidential election, and roughly double or triple that amount when the store first opened to immense demand in February 2020, when Mr. Trump was seeking re-election after his first term.

“I did very well for the store for six years and it’s just time to move on for me,” he said. The store owner said he wanted to focus on his other businesses, including selling gun-related items.

The store, in Bensalem, Pa., was a magnet for the Make America Great Again crowd. Large numbers of the politically like-minded gathered in its parking lot for pro-Trump rallies leading up to the 2024 presidential election.

“It was a place that you could go to sing and dance and celebrate Trump,” said Bobbie Murphy, who frequented the store and its rallies. She added, “It put Bensalem on the map. They came from everywhere for that store.”

Ms. Murphy, a real estate agent in Bensalem, has collected 50 to 100 pieces of Trump merchandise over the years, including shirts, hats, stuffed animals and tree ornaments.

“We think small. We don’t think big,” like the president, she said.

Adam Berinsky, a political science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and director of the MIT Political Experiments Research Lab, said that kind of loyalty is why he would warn against viewing the store’s closure as a sign that the president’s core base was faltering — even if he’s unpopular with the general public.

Yphtach Lelkes, an associate professor of communications at the University of Pennsylvania, similarly said that the president’s most loyal supporters are unlikely to leave him. But the decline in sales could signal less enthusiasm among more casual Trump backers who might think twice before sporting a MAGA hat in public.

“It’s not only what you believe, but what you perceive other people believe,” he said. “So if you’re a Trump supporter and you can increasingly see people around you dislike him, it’s going to be riskier to go around donning that signal.”

A woman shops for pro-Trump gear, like decals and coffee mugs. — Kathy Knowles shopping at the store on Thursday.Credit…Hannah Beier for The New York Times

Mr. Trump’s approval rating is mired at 42 percent, according to a New York Times polling average. The only presidency this century that had a lower approval rating at this point in a term was also Mr. Trump’s, during his first term.

Mr. Domanico said he has been a Trump supporter since the 1980s. He admired Mr. Trump’s ambition and success as a real estate developer, and watched “The Apprentice” religiously.

In 2019, he was a general contractor and selling T-shirts at local car shows when someone requested he make Trump T-shirts. He brought about 20 Trump T-shirts to the next car show, and sold out in about half an hour. He began setting up a “Trump 2020” tent in front of his office once a week where he peddled more Trump gear.

“Immediately it was a hit,” he said.

Once a week soon became daily. He moved the growing business to a kiosk at Neshaminy Mall, several miles down the road from the closing brick-and-mortar store, for a couple months before finding its final home at the strip mall, which also features Latin American and Chinese eateries as well as an African goods store.

A store front in a strip mall with a rack of T-shirts and banners and signs that promote President Trump. — The Trump Store in Bensalem, Pa., outside Philadelphia is scheduled to close on Jan. 31.Credit…Hannah Beier for The New York Times

“It took me a couple months to find somewhere, because as soon as I said Trump store to any of the landlords, they were like no way, we don’t want any problems with our building,” Mr. Domanico said.

The store opened in February 2020 to fanfare among conservatives in the swing county with lines out the door. He sold out in the first week.

“It was nuts from the very beginning and one thing led to another and it was crazy and we had a lot of fun with it,” he said.

FORECLOSURE FILINGS ARE UP AND APPEAR TO GROW EVEN MORE!

Banks seize 367,000 homes as housing pain spreads across US… and it is about to get much worse

The past year was difficult for homeowners — but experts warn that 2026 could be even more challenging.

Foreclosures — when a bank or lender takes back a home after missed mortgage payments — rose 14 percent from a year earlier.

In total, 367,460 US properties faced foreclosure filings in 2025, meaning they were in some stage of being taken over by a lender, according to ATTOM’s data.

Experts warn even more homes may be seized in 2026. ‘If the job market weakens, and it may very well, then we could unfortunately down the road see the increase in the foreclosure rate significantly accelerate,’ said economist Michael Szanto.

Indeed, the outlook for the housing market — and the wider economy — is increasingly bleak. In total, the US added only around 584,000 jobs in 2025, making it the weakest year for job growth outside a recession since 2003.

As foreclosures rise, neighborhoods are flooded with discounted, bank-owned homes, dragging down nearby property values. For homeowners, that often means losing equity simply because of where they live.

A surge in foreclosure filings are a symptom of deeper financial problems: homeowners squeezed by higher taxes and interest costs are falling behind, as they fail to pay other debts, such as credit cards and car loans, as well.

That dynamic is reviving fears of a downturn reminiscent of 2008.

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Foreclosure is when a bank or lender takes back a home because the owner hasn’t made the required mortgage payments

Economist Michael Szanto

If Americans are struggling to pay their mortgages, they’re likely cutting back on essentials like food, transportation, and healthcare — an affordability crunch that weighs on economic growth.

Foreclosures were most concentrated in a handful of states in 2025, with Florida topping the list at one filing for every 230 homes — an unsettling sign in a state already grappling with soaring insurance and housing costs.

Szanto explained that Florida’s condo crisis was partly responsible: ‘Florida is being uniquely affected by a massive rise in assessments for older condo buildings in response to the tragic Surfside collapse.’

Delaware followed closely at one in every 240 housing units, while South Carolina wasn’t far behind at one in 242.

Illinois and Nevada rounded out the top five, each posting foreclosure filings on roughly one out of every 248 homes, underscoring that financial strain is spreading well beyond any single region.

A closer look at metro areas paints an even starker picture. Among the 225 metropolitan regions with at least 200,000 residents, Lakeland, Florida, stood out with the highest foreclosure rate in the country in 2025, with one in every 145 homes entering the foreclosure process.

Columbia, South Carolina followed at one in 165, while Cleveland, Ohio ranked third at one in 187.

Florida appeared again on the list with Cape Coral (one in 189), joined by Atlantic City, New Jersey, where one in every 192 housing units faced a foreclosure filing — signaling mounting stress in both Sun Belt and legacy markets alike.

Las Vegas was one of the cities that saw the most concerning foreclosure rates in 2025

Amongst the metro areas most affected by foreclosure filings was Cleveland, Ohio (pictured)

Among the 225 metropolitan regions with at least 200,000 residents, Lakeland, Florida (pictured) stood out with the highest foreclosure rate in the country in 2025

Rob Barber, CEO at ATTOM

The pressure was also evident in the nation’s largest metro areas.

Among cities with populations exceeding one million, Jacksonville, Florida posted the worst foreclosure rate in 2025, with one filing for every 200 homes.

Las Vegas wasn’t far behind at one in 210, followed by Chicago at one in 214 and Orlando at one in 217, highlighting that even major housing markets are increasingly feeling the strain.

‘The main weakness of our housing market is still a major supply shortage combined with factors like higher mortgage rates locking out many would be new homebuyers,’ said Szanto.

While the data seems concerning, Attom’s CEO Rob Barber says it simply reflects a ‘continued normalization of the housing market following several years of historically low levels’.

Last month, ATTOM’s data showed the number of homeowners falling behind to be rising every single month.

In November, 35,651 properties had a foreclosure filing — up a staggering 21 percent from just one year earlier.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MANUFACTURING BOOM PREDICTED BY TRUMP?

Introducing the highest U.S. tariffs since the Great Depression, President Donald Trump made a clear promise in the spring: “Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country.”

They haven’t.

Manufacturing employment has declined every month since what Trump dubbed “Liberation Day” in April, saying his widespread tariffs would begin to rebalance global trade in favor of American workers. U.S. factories employ 12.7 million people today, 72,000 fewer than when Trump made his Rose Garden announcement.

So while tariffs have protected American manufacturers like steel mills from foreign competition, they have raised costs for many others. Auto and auto parts employment, for example, has dipped by about 20,000 jobs since April.

“2025 should have been a good year for manufacturing employment, and that didn’t happen. I think you really have to indict tariffs for that,” said economist Michael Hicks, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State in Muncie, Indiana.

Smaller companies also were more than twice as likely to respond to tariffs by delaying investments in new plants and equipment, the survey found. One reason could be that taxes on imports raise the price of goods used in production much more than they do with typical consumer items, according to a study by the San Francisco Fed.

Industries producing more technologically complex goods such as aircraft and semiconductors also are paying an outsize price, according to Gary Winslett, director of the international politics and economics program at Middlebury College. Makers of semiconductors, for example, shed more than 13,000 jobs since April.

“They’re the ones who need the imported inputs. Really advanced manufacturing is actually what’s getting hit the hardest,” he said.

Trump’s tariffs, however, are not the industrial sector’s only headache. Factory payrolls began their post-pandemic decline in early 2023, almost two years before Trump returned to the White House.

High interest rates and a shift in consumer spending patterns are hurting the nation’s manufacturers, economists said. Business loans are more than twice as expensive as they were four years ago, with banks charging their most creditworthy borrowers interest rates of 6.75 percent. That discourages businesses from expanding operations and hiring additional workers.

After bingeing during the height of the pandemic on durable goods, consumers have gradually redirected their spending to in-person services. Money that once went to makers of furniture, televisions and exercise machines now goes instead to restaurants and entertainment venues.

In Indiana, the spending switch can be glimpsed in the fortunes of the recreational vehicle industry, a local mainstay. RV shipments soared to a record 600,400 in 2021 as consumers trapped at home by the pandemic hit the road. But by 2024, the work-from-home era was over, and sales fell by nearly half. Thor Industries, the largest RV manufacturer, laid off several hundred workers last year, as demand flagged.

Once Trump returned to the White House, manufacturers responded by over-ordering imports to beat the anticipated tariffs. That’s left many producers with more inventory than they need, suggesting cuts lie ahead, according to Hicks.

“The manufacturing job losses that we see now are really just the beginning of what will be a pretty grim couple of quarters as manufacturing adjusts to a new lower level of demand,” he said.

Modest numbers of manufacturing jobs have been trimmed throughout the economy. In December, Westlake Corp., a Houston-based producer of industrial chemicals, said it would idle four production lines at facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi, putting 295 employees out of work. Speaking on an investor call, company executives blamed excess global capacity and weak demand for the move.

While the jobs that Trump promised have not materialized, factory output rose in 2025, reaching its highest mark in almost three years, according to Federal Reserve data, and administration officials said it is only a matter of time before the full benefits of the president’s plan are felt.

Trump’s tariffs and jawboning encourage CEOs to invest in new U.S. plants. Provisions in the president’s signature fiscal legislation permitting companies to quickly write off the full expense of new investments in equipment and research and development expenses will spur modern manufacturing, they said.

“It also encourages the build-out of high-precision manufacturing here at home, which will lead to high-paying construction and factory jobs,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a speech this month.

Companies are spending more than three times as much on constructing new factories as they did when Trump was first inaugurated, though less than during the Biden-era peak. The White House last fall hailed recent investment announcements by companies such as Stellantis and Whirlpool. Last month, T. RAD North America, a subsidiary of a Japanese manufacturer, announced plans for a new auto parts plant in Clarksville, Tennessee, which would employ 928 workers.

Nick Iacovella, a spokesman for the Coalition for a Prosperous America, which backs Trump’s manufacturing policies, said the roughly 1 percent shrinkage in factory employment last year was less significant than the uptick in business investment.

“We saw a significant increase in capital expenditures, which is the earliest signal that reindustrialization is taking hold. Those investments take time to permit, build and staff before they show up in employment data,” he said.

The president’s hopes of increasing manufacturing employment defy decades of experience in the United States and other advanced economies. American factory jobs peaked at 19.5 million in the summer of 1979 and have been sliding ever since, largely because of the introduction of machinery that can do the job of several workers.

As two presidents sought to revive domestic production over the past decade, manufacturing employment rode a roller coaster. Factory jobs increased by 421,000 during Trump’s first term before sinking by more than 1 million during the pandemic. President Joe Biden used government subsidies to encourage hiring, especially for green energy projects, and manufacturing payrolls rose more than 100,000 above Trump’s highest mark.

But those gains evaporated by the end of 2024.

On Tuesday, the president addressed the Detroit Economic Club, touting “the strongest and fastest economic turnaround in our country’s history.” He boasted about growth, productivity, investment, incomes, inflation and the stock market.

“The Trump economic boom is officially begun,” the president said.

All that’s missing now are the jobs.

SOMALI FAKE PATIENT AND DAYCARE TRANSPORTATION COMPANIES ARE MASSIVE FRAUD!

The Most Sketchy Business Here’: Nick Shirley Goes in Search of Somali Transportation Companies

by Mariane Angela, DCNF

January 15, 2026

in Curated, Videos

Reading Time: 3 mins read

(DCNF)—Independent investigative journalist Nick Shirley uncovered additional alleged welfare fraud in Minneapolis in a new video released Tuesday, documenting transportation companies with idle vans and questionable addresses.

In Shirley’s latest upload he uncovered more signs of widespread welfare fraud while investigating transportation companies tied to Minnesota’s public assistance system, pointing to idle vehicles, nonexistent offices, and businesses that appear to exist only on paper. While visiting a listed address for Dreamline Transportation, Shirley said the registered location was a liquor store lined with mailboxes.

Shirley also documented more than a dozen vans branded with Dreamline’s name sitting untouched for months, buried in snow with no tire tracks. The video showed that the vehicles were photographed repeatedly over an eight-month period and found parked in the exact same positions, suggesting they were never used to transport anyone.

Shirley said the findings raised questions about claims that the vans serve healthcare, childcare, or adult daycare clients.

“If these vans are being used to transport people, whether it be healthcare or childcare, there would be snow tracks. And there’s one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11 vehicles here. No snow tracks anywhere,” Shirley said.

The investigation then turned to Silver Mountain Inc. LLC, another firm listed at a Minneapolis address. When Shirley and his companion David asked the building’s occupants about Silver Mountain, they said they had never heard of it. One man ordered the journalists to leave.

“All right, we’re moving on. So, Silver Mountain does not exist,” Shirley concluded.

Shirley said the pattern repeated across multiple sites, with three different welfare-linked companies allegedly tied to the same address. He said these transportation firms play a central role in enabling fraud by creating a paper trail that makes it appear people are moved between daycare centers, healthcare providers, and other services that never actually receive them.

At another location tied to Eponia Transport LLC, Shirley found no signage, no vehicles, and little evidence of an operating business. A neighboring office tenant told him the supposed transportation operator rarely appeared and kept an office containing little more than a couch.

“So there was a transportation company here in 305, for a long time, even before I joined the building a few years ago. He’s never really here. I’ve seen the office a couple times. There’s barely anything in there but a couch. And then I see him maybe twice a month.”

“And there’s no transport vehicles outside?” Shirley asked the man.

“I know everybody in the building,” the man said. “And this specific space here is probably the most sketchy out of any other business here.”

As Shirley pressed his investigation further, he asked how long the alleged scheme could survive if Minnesota cut off transportation reimbursements. His companion David responded that removing that single component would have an immediate impact.

“How quick do you think the fraud would dry out here in Minnesota if they were to cut out the transportation side of the fraud?” Shirley asked.

“I think it would have a massive effect and that the signal that that would send would let people know the party’s over,” David said.

Shirley posted another video on Jan. 6, accusing Minnesota’s medical transport network of widespread abuse. He said his year-long probe uncovered about 1,200 medical ride providers operating statewide. Shirley conducted the investigation alongside David, whom he credited with supplying research, records, and on-the-ground observations that helped reveal what he called large-scale fraud.

JUDGE BLASTS FEDERAL “IMPERIAL” JUDGES WHO THINK THEY ARE ABOVE THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS

Judge Ho Takes A Sledgehammer To Judicial Supremacy And Its ‘Elite’ Enablers

‘If the American people can’t expect the judiciary to stay in its lane, then federal judges shouldn’t expect the American people to follow them.’

Receiving little attention outside legal circles, Ho authored an article for the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy last week criticizing what he views to be an increasing “arrogance” among many federal judges — an arrogance he argues is downstream from judicial supremacy. As The Federalist previously described, judicial supremacy is the belief that the executive and legislative branches are subordinate to the Supreme Court and the judicial branch, meaning judges — rather than the people’s elected representatives — are the ultimate authority on law and policy.

Ho started his article by highlighting how many of the federal judges now supposedly concerned about “judicial independence” after President Trump’s return to office were silent as left-wing “cultural elites bombarded certain Justices and judges with absurd ethical complaints.” Their silence persisted, Ho added, even “[a]s the [Biden] Justice Department refused to prosecute individuals for harassing certain Justices at their own homes” after the leak of SCOTUS’s 2022 Dobbs draft decision, and “[a]s elite law schools allowed students to disrupt events to protest certain judicial decisions.”

“It wasn’t until this year — following the inauguration of a new President — that the Federal Judges Association suddenly found its voice, and suddenly discovered a crisis over judicial independence,” Ho wrote. “After years of silence, it’s obvious that these concerns are not sincere, but strategic. What they’re really championing is not judicial independence, but judicial supremacy. What we’re really seeing in the judiciary is not principle, but arrogance.”

Ho contended that much of this arrogance — which he argued entails an elitist mindset among “[t]oo many judges” — stems from judicial supremacy and a backward system that teaches rising legal minds “to venerate (if not worship) judges.” He then dispelled the notion of America having three “co-equal” branches of government, noting that while the judiciary “has an important role in our constitutional republic,” “it’s a limited one.”

“Judges don’t write the law. Judges don’t execute the law. And that’s for one simple reason. As Americans, we believe that we can govern ourselves,” Ho wrote. “Our Constitution begins ‘We the people’ — not we the few with life tenure. Our Founders didn’t fight a Revolutionary War to replace one king in royal garb with hundreds of kings in judicial robes. Judges are supposed to apply the law to whatever disputes are brought before us — and leave everything else to the other branches of government.”

Citing The Federalist Papers, the Trump appointee further underscored that the framers viewed the judiciary as the “least powerful branch,” as it lacks the “sword” and “purse” possessed by the other two branches. Only by issuing rulings “based on what the law is — and not on our personal views on what the law should be,” he reasoned, can the judiciary “earn the respect of the other branches.”

Ho subsequently directed his focus toward the hypocritical views of “cultural elites” suddenly concerned about “judicial independence” under Trump. He specifically criticized them for “prais[ing] and protect[ing] judges who do their bidding — and condemn[ing] and cancel[ing] those who don’t.”

“The double standards are everywhere. And they aren’t inadvertent. They’re intentional. Because the elites don’t want neutrality. They want conformity,” Ho wrote. “If you don’t conform, they’ll call you corrupt, unethical, racist, sexist. They’ll say and do whatever it takes to get you to bend the knee. And even if you still won’t conform, they’ll attack you anyway, because they know that others will get the message and comply. The double standards don’t trouble the elites, because to them, this isn’t a debate — it’s a war.”

Ho further chastised (left-wing) members of the ruling class for “fundamentally misunderstand[ing]” how the judicial system is supposed to operate and noted how many Americans support real judicial independence because they believe judges should be “impartial” — not “imperial.” He surmised that judges abusing their authority and abandoning impartiality will result in a loss of trust among the people, which he said would be “fatal to the rule of law” and “entirely our fault.”

Ho’s commentary also touched on originalism, which involves interpreting the Constitution as originally written at the time it was adopted. He highlighted three key areas he views as “threats” toward the philosophy, namely the “insubordination in the district courts”; “fair-weather originalism,” which is when “you’re an originalist only when elites won’t be upset with you” and “when it’s easy”; and the temptation among judges to “avoid the kinds of issues that most energize and anger cultural elites — cases about abortion, transgender ideology, religious liberty, and illegal immigration.”

While Ho concluded his article by voicing optimism about the future of the judiciary and judges faithfully interpreting the Constitution in the year ahead. Citing his more than a decade-long experience in the judicial selection process, he also suggested several “principles” to look for in potential future judges and reaffirmed the proper role of the judiciary in American life.

“My hope is that judicial supremacy will ultimately prove to be self-defeating — that the harder its proponents push, the more likely they’ll fail,” Ho wrote. “If the American people can’t expect the judiciary to stay in its lane, then federal judges shouldn’t expect the American people to follow them.”

HOTTEST HOUSING MARKETS IN 2026? WHO WRITS THIS NONSENSE>?

The top 10 hottest housing markets in 2026: Zillow

by Andrew Dorn – 01/09/26 6:50 AM ET

Several Northeast metros are expected to remain hot in 2026
California cities such as San Jose and Los Angeles also made the top 10
Here’s which housing markets will stay competitive, according to Zillow

THIS IS TOTALLY NUTS!!!

THESE ARE SOME OF THE WORST CRIME RIDDEN CITIES, AND ZILLOW JUST MANIPULATES THE STATISTICS TO MAKE A STORY!!!!

(NewsNation) — Home prices are expected to rise modestly in 2026, but sellers will still be calling the shots in certain markets.

Zillow expects Hartford, Conn., to be the hottest housing market in 2026, warning buyers to brace for “bidding wars and broken hearts.”

The Connecticut capital saw a nation-high 66.4 percent of homes sell over asking price last year and the second-lowest share of homes with a price cut (16.5 percent), according to Zillow. Home values in Hartford also rose 4.6 percent, the fastest pace of any major metro.

Other Northeast metros — including Buffalo, N.Y., Boston and Philadelphia — also cracked Zillow’s annual top 10 list for 2026, in part because inventory remains well below pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels.

Out West, California cities such as San Jose and Los Angeles are among the most expensive housing markets in the country, and with few options for buyers, they’re expected to remain competitive.

Zillow’s rankings factor in home price growth and measures of competition, like how quickly homes sell and how often sellers cut prices.

Note: Typical home value reflects Zillow’s Home Value Index (ZHVI) as of October 2025.

10 – Milwaukee

A sailboat moves across the water on Lake Michigan in Milwaukee on July 1, 2024. (Photo by TANNEN MAURY / AFP) (Photo by TANNEN MAURY/AFP via Getty Images)

Typical home value (Oct. 2025): $369,303
Home value growth forecast (Oct. 2026): +2.1 percent
Change in inventory vs. 2018–2019 averages: -25.7 percent

9 – Richmond, Va.

Pedestrians cross the James River on the T. Tyler Potterfield Memorial Bridge with the skyline of Richmond, Va., in the background. (Photo by John McDonnell/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Typical home value (Oct. 2025): $383,275
Home value growth forecast (Oct. 2026): +2.1 percent
Change in inventory versus 2018–2019 averages: -34.2 percent

8 – Los Angeles

A general view of the Los Angeles downtown skyline with a view of mountains in the background at sunset from Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area on October 15, 2025, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Luke Hales/Getty Images)

Typical home value (Oct. 2025): $941,869
Home value growth forecast (Oct. 2026): +1.1 percent
Change in inventory versus 2018–2019 averages: -18.5 percent

7 – Boston

Tourists view the famous cobbled street Beacon Hill in the historic district of Boston at night. (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)

Typical home value (Oct. 2025): $717,711
Home value growth forecast (Oct. 2026): +1.5 percent
Change in inventory versus 2018–2019 averages: -30.3 percent

6 – Philadelphia

The Philadelphia skyline is shown before the game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Minnesota Twins at Citizens Bank Park on September 26, 2025, in Philadelphia. (Photo by Isaiah Vazquez/Getty Images)

Typical home value (Oct. 2025): $378,054
Home value growth forecast (Oct. 2026): +1.7 percent
Change in inventory versus 2018–2019 averages: -39.4 percent

5 – San Jose, Calif.

Hotel De Anza opened its doors in 1931, now surrounded by new buildings along W. Santa Clara St. in downtown on Friday, March 4, 2022, in San Jose, Calif. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Typical home value (Oct. 2025): $1,558,466
Home value growth forecast (Oct. 2026): +1.2 percent
Change in inventory versus 2018–2019 averages: -26.7 percent

4 – Providence, R.I.

Kennedy Plaza, the 1871 Soldiers and Sailors Monument, and Providence City Hall in Providence, R.I., are pictured on April 25, 2019. (Photo by Lane Turner/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Typical home value (Oct. 2025): $503,409
Home value growth forecast (Oct. 2026): +3.0 percent
Change in inventory versus 2018–2019 averages: -54.9 percent

3 – New York City

The skyline of lower Manhattan and One World Trade Center in New York City is reflected on the top of a monument along the Hudson River as the sun sets on January 1, 2026, in Jersey City, New Jersey. (Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)

Typical home value (Oct. 2025): $704,284
Home value growth forecast (Oct. 2026): +1.5 percent
Change in inventory versus 2018–2019 averages: -48.4 percent

2 – Buffalo, New York

Basin Marina Park and city skyline on Oct. 9, 2016, in Buffalo, N.Y. (Photo by John Greim/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Typical home value (Oct. 2025): $277,499
Home value growth forecast (Oct. 2026): +2.5 percent
Change in inventory versus 2018–2019 averages: -39.1 percent

1 – Hartford, Conn.

General aerial view of the city of Hartford, Conn., on March 23, 2019, at XL Center. (Photo by John Jones/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Typical home value (Oct. 2025): $381,760
Home value growth forecast (Oct. 2026): +3.9 percent
Change in inventory versus 2018–2019 averages: -63.0 percent

BILLIONS IN FRAUD DISCOVERED RELATED TO REFUGEE AND RELATED PROGRAMS

Obama’s Trojan Horse: How His Refugee Machine Engineered The Billion-Dollar Looting Of US Treasury

Authored by X user Saggezza Etern,

Obama’s Billion-Dollar Minnesota Fraud Empire

The Heist You Paid For

Imagine waking up tomorrow to find your bank account empty. Every dollar you saved for your children’s tuition, your retirement, your security—gone. Now imagine looking out the window and seeing the thief driving a Porsche bought with your money, laughing as he waves a government-issued thank you note. This is not a hypothetical scenario. It is the reality of the American taxpayer in the wake of the single largest COVID-era fraud scheme in the nation’s history. While you were locked down, masked up, and worrying about the price of eggs, a sophisticated network of fraudsters in Minnesota was siphoning off a quarter of a billion dollars—likely far more—from programs meant to feed hungry children.

The “Feeding Our Future” scandal is not just a story about greed. It is the smoking gun of a much darker political operation. Federal prosecutors have charged 70 people in a $250 million conspiracy, and the FBI is reportedly eyeing fraud that could total over $2 billion across multiple sectors including autism therapy, housing, and daycare. The vast majority of these defendants come from the Somali community in Minnesota. But do not be distracted by the foot soldiers. To understand how a fraud of this magnitude happens, you have to look past the people cashing the checks and look at the architect who built the bank. This industrial-scale theft traces directly back to Barack Obama. It was his administration that deliberately flooded Minnesota with tens of thousands of refugees, creating a dependent, insular enclave primed for exploitation. It was his policy of “equity” that paralyzed oversight. And it is his political heirs who are now frantically trying to bury the evidence.

The Architect of the Enclave

You might be wondering how Minnesota, a state once known for Scandinavian stoicism and lakes, became the global epicenter for Somali diasporic fraud. It was not an accident. It was a federal mandate. Between 2008 and 2016, the Obama administration oversaw the admission of over 54,000 Somali refugees into the United States. But they didn’t just scatter them across the 50 states. They targeted specific swing states and counties, with Minnesota being the primary dumping ground.

By the time Obama left office, Minnesota was home to the largest Somali population in the country, now estimated at over 80,000 people. This concentration was strategic. By clustering refugees in Minneapolis, the Democratic machine created a voting bloc that could be harvested for elections and a demographic that demanded massive government outlays. They called it “diversity.” In reality, it was demographic engineering. The Obama administration poured federal grants into “refugee services,” creating a lucrative industry of nonprofits and community organizers whose entire existence depended on keeping the flow of refugees—and federal dollars—moving. This established the infrastructure for the fraud we see today. When you import a population from a failed state with no tradition of Western civic duty, and you teach them that the government is a bottomless trough of free money, you don’t get assimilation. You get predation.

The “Equity” Shield: How They Paralyzed the Police

The genius of the Obama-era strategy was not just in the importation of people, but in the weaponization of race to silence dissent. Under the guise of “equity,” the Obama administration pushed for relaxed standards in federal contracting, specifically favoring “minority-owned” nonprofits. This created a regulatory environment where asking questions became a career-ending risk.

Consider the mechanics of the “Feeding Our Future” fraud. The fraudsters claimed to be serving thousands of meals a day to children who did not exist. At one site, they claimed to be feeding 2,000 children daily in a second-story apartment. Anyone with eyes could see this was impossible. So why didn’t the Minnesota Department of Education stop it? Because when they tried, they were called racists. The fraudsters, emboldened by the racial grievance culture Obama cultivated, sued the state for discrimination. Terrified of the “racism” label, the state resumed payments. This is the direct result of a decade of Obama-era policy that equated oversight with oppression. The bureaucrats were more afraid of a lawsuit from the ACLU than they were of letting billions of dollars in taxpayer money walk out the back door.

The Protege: Ilhan Omar and the MEALS Act

If Barack Obama built the machine, Ilhan Omar is the operator. Omar is the ultimate product of the Minnesota Somali enclave. She rose to power not despite her radicalism, but because of the demographic reality Obama created. And her legislative fingerprints are all over this scandal.

In 2020, as the pandemic began, Omar sponsored the MEALS Act. This legislation fundamentally altered the rules for federal nutrition programs, allowing parents to pick up meals without children present and removing the requirement for congregate dining. While pitched as a compassionate measure, it effectively removed the only verification mechanism the government had. It was a blank check. It is no coincidence that the fraud exploded immediately after these rules were relaxed. Omar’s campaign has accepted thousands of dollars from individuals later indicted in the scheme, money she quietly returned only after the media glare became too bright. She defends the lax rules as necessary to “feed kids,” twisting the narrative to make you feel guilty for questioning the theft. But the money didn’t go to kids. It went to luxury condos in Nairobi, beachfront property in Turkey, and Porsches in Minneapolis.

The Deep State Money Laundry

The rabbit hole goes deeper than just meal tickets. The connections between the Somali fraud network and the highest levels of the Democratic establishment are becoming impossible to ignore. Take a look at Rose Lake Capital, a venture capital firm founded by Tim Mynett, Ilhan Omar’s husband. As the fraud investigations heated up, astute observers noticed that the firm’s website was scrubbed of some very interesting names.

Prior to the scrub, the firm listed advisors including a former Obama ambassador to Bahrain, a former Obama ambassador to China, and a former DNC treasurer. Why are top-tier Obama officials swimming in the same financial waters as the family of a Congresswoman whose district is ground zero for the largest fraud in history? These networks provide the cover. They provide the legitimacy. And they potentially provide the mechanism to wash the proceeds of the grift. This is not just local corruption. It is a federally integrated operation where the political elite protect the foot soldiers who deliver the votes and the cash.

The Cost of Submission

You are paying for this. Every time you look at your pay stub and see the massive chunk taken out for federal taxes, remember that money is not building roads. It is not securing the border. It is funding the lifestyle of people who hate you. The $250 million stolen in the Feeding Our Future scam is just the tip of the iceberg. Investigators believe the total theft across childcare, autism, and housing programs could reach billions.

But the financial cost pales in comparison to the security threat. Much of this stolen money was remitted overseas. We know it bought real estate in Kenya and Turkey. What we don’t know is how much of it ended up in the hands of Al-Shabaab or other extremist groups in the Horn of Africa. By turning a blind eye to this fraud to preserve “community relations,” the Democrats have effectively turned the US Treasury into a piggy bank for foreign interests. And politically, they have succeeded. The Somali bloc in Minnesota votes over 80% Democrat. They have sent Ilhan Omar to Congress three times. They are a captured constituency, bought and paid for with your tax dollars.

Dismantling the Legacy

The Minnesota fraud scandal is the inevitable result of the Obama doctrine: Import a dependent class, dismantle the safeguards against corruption under the banner of “equity,” and brand anyone who notices as a bigot. They counted on your silence. They counted on your fear of being called a name.

But the receipts are in. We know who did this. We know how they did it. And we know who let it happen. The solution is not “reform.” It is a complete dismantling of the refugee resettlement pipeline that Obama built. We need a forensic audit of every federal dollar sent to “community non-profits” in the last ten years. We need to seize the assets—the cars, the houses, the overseas accounts—of everyone involved. And most importantly, we need to stop being afraid. The cry of “racism” is the thief’s final defense. Ignore it. Keep your eyes on the money. Keep your eyes on the truth. They stole your country and sold it back to you as “diversity.” Demand a refund.

What You Can Do Right Now:

Share this article: The mainstream media is trying to bury the Obama connection. Force the conversation.
Demand Audits: Contact your state representatives and demand a specialized audit of all Department of Education and DHS grant recipients in your state.
Reject the Guilt: When they try to shame you for asking where the money went, laugh in their faces. You are the creditor. They are the debtors. And collection day is coming.

. . .

GAZA TO BE TRANSFORMED INTO A GLEAMING METROPOLIS? SURE!

Project Sunrise: Inside The $112BN Plan To Rebuild Gaza As ‘High Tech Metropolis’

US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have presented a $112 billion reconstruction plan to Gulf officials to build a “high-tech metropolis” atop the remains of Gaza, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The 32-page PowerPoint presentation labeled “sensitive” and titled “Project Sunrise” was developed over 45 days and reportedly presented to officials from Qatar, UAE, Egypt, and Turkiye.

The plan envisions turning the Gaza Strip into a “high-tech metropolis” over the next two decades with four phases of reconstruction beginning in southern Gaza. It also calls for turning Rafah into Gaza’s new “administrative center,” housing over 500,000 residents.

However, the plan does not specify where two million Palestinians would be sheltered during the reconstruction period. Israel’s blockade of shelter materials has left Palestinians sheltering in bombed-out buildings and tattered tents.

In early December, a severe winter storm caused over a dozen fatalities, including three infants who succumbed to exposure, and led to the collapse of several buildings. About 95 percent of Gaza’s tent camps have flooded due to the heavy rain.

Witkoff and Kushner’s reconstruction plan also proposes monetizing 70 percent of Gaza’s coastline beginning in year ten of the project, a move officials hope would generate over “$55 billion in long-run investment returns for prospective investors.”

Both Witkoff and Kushner come from prominent Jewish real estate families rooted in New York’s property sector, with careers built around large-scale, high-value developments and deep financial ties to Gulf sovereign wealth funds.

According to the proposal, the US would provide $60 billion in grants and loan guarantees to back new debt, with expectations that the project would become self-financing as local industry and the broader economy recover. The World Bank would also have a role in the project.

The proposal is contingent on Hamas demilitarizing and decommissioning all weapons and tunnels. This precondition is highlighted in bold red type on the second page of the slide deck.

Hamas officials recently offered to “bury” the group’s weapons and hand over power to a Palestinian governing body.