The Justice Department this week wrapped up health care fraud investigations in California, Florida, and Nevada, saying it recovered about $500 million. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, chaired by Vice President JD Vance, and the Justice Department are together “supercharging efforts to take down every fraudster and bring them to justice.” Here are three adjudicated cases this week that ended in either a settlement, sentencing, or guilty pleas. 1. Florida Obamacare Payments The DOJ obtained guilty pleas and a civil settlement from AP of South Florida LLC., a one-time subsidiary of AssuredPartners Inc., a national insurance firm. AP of South Florida pleaded guilty to charges over an enrollment scheme for the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, in which it obtained $141.5 million in unwarranted subsidies, according to the Justice Department. The DOJ alleged that the Florida company targeted low-income individuals—including people experiencing homelessness, the unemployed, and those with mental health and substance abuse problems—with cash or gift cards to enroll in Affordable Care Act plans. This caused enrollees to lose Medicaid coverage and face increased costs for treatment. The department further alleged that AP of South Florida employees submitted false information to Florida’s Medicaid program to generate letters denying Medicaid coverage. The Florida firm agreed to pay a $27.6 million fine, according to the Justice Department. AP of South Florida’s former parent company, AssuredPartners Inc., a national partnership of insurance brokers, agreed to pay $107 million in a separate civil penalty to resolve fraud allegations. The national company was not charged in the criminal case, the Justice Department said. The current owner of AssuredPartners Inc. is Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., which issued a statement noting they did not own the company at the time the federal probe commenced and that they never owned the Florida subsidiary. “Today, the U.S. DOJ announced a settlement with APSF and AssuredPartners. The settlement is in relation to actions that occurred at an agency that was owned by APSF from February 2021 through September 2022,” the Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. statement said. “This period predates Gallagher’s acquisition of AssuredPartners in August 2025.“ “Importantly, Gallagher became aware of the government’s investigation during its pre-acquisition diligence of AssuredPartners. APSF was not included in Gallagher’s acquisition of AssuredPartners, and Gallagher has never owned APSF,” the statement continued. ”The investigation and potential settlement were considered under the purchase agreement, the settlement amount was fully reserved, and settlement does not impact the purchase price Gallagher paid for AssuredPartners.” The Daily Signal reached the phone and email contacts listed for AP of South Florida, but no one responded by publication time. 2. California Pharmacy Fraud In the California case, three people have pleaded guilty in a Medicaid scheme involving the submission of $269.1 million in fraudulent claims. Paul Randall, 66, of Orange, pleaded guilty this week for his role in the plot after two others—pharmacy owner Kyrollos Mekail, 37, of Moreno Valley, and nurse practitioner Patricia Anderson, 58, of West Hills—pleaded guilty in 2024 and 2025. The DOJ charged them with crimes spanning from May 2022 to April 2023, under a business called Monte Vista Pharmacy. Randall’s sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 3, News Channel 3 KESQ reported. A lawyer for Randall was not listed in the Justice Department press release or news accounts of the case. The publicly listed phone number listed for a Paul Randall in Orange, California, was disconnected. The Justice Department said the three billed Medicaid tens of millions of dollars per month for purportedly providing high-priced medications that actually contained generic ingredients. The department said Randall paid illegal kickbacks to patient marketers and to Anderson to sign prefilled prescriptions. Under his plea agreement, Randall agreed to forfeit property obtained from the fraud, including bank account balances of more than $17 million, three vehicles, seven properties, and sports memorabilia. The government seized about $126.5 million in assets that the trio accumulated from the scheme. 3. Nevada and COVID-19 Claims Candies Goode-McCoy, formerly of Las Vegas, was sentenced this week to 54 months in prison and three years of supervised release on fraud charges. She pleaded guilty in February 2025 to conspiracy to defraud the government by claiming $98 million in COVID-19-related tax credits, according to the Justice Department. Goode-McCoy was also ordered to pay the Internal Revenue Service $26 million in restitution, according to the Justice Department. Prosecutors said that from June 2022 to September 2023, she filed more than 1,200 tax returns for her businesses and those of others, claiming tax credits and seeking refunds totaling more than $98 million. The IRS paid out about $33 million as a result of the scheme. There was not a publicly-listed phone number for Goode-McCoy. The post Trump Administration Announces 3 Wins and $500M Recovered in ‘War on Fraud’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. Donald Trump recently outlined the end game for Iran. We’ve been there about a month, and he was saying in week five it would take two or three weeks, so maybe seven weeks total or two months. That got people very angry and said it’s an endless war.  And the people on the Left, remember, don’t want the war to work because they want to win the midterms. And they’re not, they haven’t been successful so far in hurting Trump, but they feel that if they can create a narrative that this is an Afghanistan-like withdrawal, which they oversaw that was a disaster, or a Vietnam or an Afghanistan or Iraq, maybe they can bring him down.  And history’s on their side—with the out party gaining seats—and winning the midterms and then impeach him. So their criticism is not empirical. It’s entirely political, but it’s infectious. Recently we had a plane, an F-15 was shot down. One of the pilots was rescued. We don’t know yet, as I speak, the fate of the other one, but people just went crazy.  And after Trump’s speech, some of the commentators, Fareed Zakaria at Newsweek, said, “can you ever imagine a war that costs so much and did so little, obtained so little?” I thought, are you serious?  We’ve lost 13, maybe 14. That’s tragic, but 14 people attacking a country almost twice the size of Texas, one and a half times the size of Alaska, 93 million people, five weeks. And we’ve pretty much denuclearized it and destroyed its ability to make war.  It’s just a question of, do you want to go into the civilian infrastructure when you’re trying to help the Iranians stand up and have regime change? Because you can easily do that. You can take out their water, their electric, and you can send it back, as Trump said, to the Stone Age. So, the restrictions are all self-imposed.  People said, “How about the Strait of Hormuz?”  Donald Trump had a good point. He said the countries that use it and need it need to come in and patrol it. Now, we can help them. We can use our Warthogs or our Apaches or our tactical aircraft and make a sanitary corridor on the other side of the Iranian side of the strait. We can use some of our minesweepers and our naval craft to sweep it of mines. We might even escort some ships in.  But the countries that want the oil, they can do it. And by the way, there has been an implicit understanding before the war, before we ever bombed, that strait was politicized and under the control of Iran, had closed it in the past, and it had threatened to close it often. So there was a quid pro quo that if you are a nation that needs it, then you better temper your criticism of the theocracy.  And most of the European countries, and a lot of the Asians, did. They didn’t want to really talk about this regime. When it killed 30,000 to 40,000 of its own people, they were mum, because they were given a free pass.  So we can help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, either by doing it tactically or just giving them, as Donald Trump said, here’s a list of targets. It’s your decision. If you want this power plant … you don’t want it, tell us, because we’ll take it out. We’ll do it. Take it out.  What is the end game? A lot of people think that Russia, Zakaria said Russia’s a beneficiary. Russia’s mired in Ukraine. It’s lost a million dead. It’s probably got a million and a half casualties. It’s completely broke. It’s been kicked out of the Middle East. Its Syrian proxy, the Assad regime, is over with. The price of oil is just a brief spike. They haven’t won anything. They’re out.  China, they’ve lost the Venezuelan discount on oil. They’re out of basically the Western Hemisphere. They don’t know what to do with Iran. They’re watching to see if it’s going to survive or not. They’re probably stealthily trying to supply it, but they’re not winners yet.  How does it end? There are three scenarios. Seems to me there’s Trump’s hinting that he was going to, in Curtis LeMay fashion, bomb them back to the Stone Age. He can do that. He can just at some point say, “You know what, we’re gonna be here for two or three weeks, but they don’t want to negotiate, and I’m going to lift all restrictions off their targets.  “And I hope that the people will revolt, stand up, have an insurrection against this horrible, wicked regime. And the moment I see them doing it in the next two weeks, I’ll stop. But if they’re not gonna do it, I’m gonna take out their bridges.” And he started that. “I’m gonna take out the rail facilities. I’m gonna take out their oil facilities. I’m going to take out their power.  Just write down the list, and either one of two things will stop me. Either the people will come out and fight, and then I’ll stop and try to help them by not taking out the infrastructure they will inherit. Or if they come out to fight the regime, I will go after the regime more intensely.  Or in three weeks I’ll say that I did enough, and it’s up to you people. See, you wouldn’t want to be you.” Or he can do the Venezuela solution. I think he’s trying to do that. In other words, he can find people, as he has, a speaker of the Iranian party to talk to. And yes, they are contaminated with the theocratic hard-liners, but maybe they want to break away, or maybe they can deliver the goods of an agreement.  Or maybe they can just say, “We’re not gonna build nukes for a while or ever.” But somebody you can talk to that would take over as a transitional government, and then they would probably have to accede to the demands of the people.  And while you’re talking to them, you can tell them, if you’re not being sincere, we’re gonna put you on the list. And the list is, go look at it. Anybody who’s on this list and the Revolutionary Guard or part of the theocratic government isn’t here anymore, because the Israelis know better than you and I where they are, and they’re going down the list.  If we put you on the list, who knows? But if you’re not on the list, the people who are opposing you are gonna be dwindling in numbers, and they’re gonna be held responsible after this war, and they’re probably gonna be at the mercy of the people, and you won’t be.  And you can have a Venezuela solution. Not the best in the world, but a way to create stability and end that awful regime.  And then finally, you don’t even have to talk to anyone. You just say, “These were what we wanted. Think about it. I don’t care who talks, but if I see we’re gonna have, we’re gonna keep bombing.  If I see that you are importing missiles, if I see that you are trying to rescue the nuclear material, if I see you’re killing your people, if Strait is not open, we’re not going to worry. We’re not gonna argue. We’re just going to take out your infrastructure, and we’re going to leave.”  And infrastructure—and that means there are no distinctions between civilians and military targets. And Trump, all he has to say is, “I’m gonna follow the Iranian theocratic model. You people, when you attack Israel, you aim for, you don’t even aim for necessarily electric plants or sewage or water or transportation. You go after residential.  “We’re not gonna do that. We’re not gonna go after hotels or airports the way you do, but we are gonna go after your infrastructure, your ability to maintain a sophisticated society. And then we’re gonna leave. And it’s up to you whether we come back.”  Either way, this war is not a disaster. It’s one of the few times in history where Western power has had very minimal losses, has had a huge country to subdue, and has done it very quickly and effectively.  We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Beginning of the End for Iran appeared first on The Daily Signal.

One of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s big campaign promises was that under his leadership, everyone in the city would be able to ride “free” buses, but the idea is reportedly now on pause. “Mamdani’s highly-touted demands for free buses has fallen to the wayside in both state and city budget proposals,” the New York Post reported on Wednesday. Politico asked Mamdani about the status of his free bus proposal, but he only committed to a “pilot program” backed by the state—far short of his original promise. “We’re encouraged by the conversations we’re having with the governor and legislative leaders to take action on that in 2026 as a first step,” Mamdani said Tuesday, according to Politico. A free bus program would require additional aid from the state government. New York City Comptroller Mark Levine projected the current budget deficit at $6.5 billion, according to the Post. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, has voiced opposition to the free bus idea. She said in November that she can’t commit because it “takes money out of a system that relies on the fares of the buses and the subways.” Even if the free bus proposal becomes a reality, there are serious questions about its long-term viability beyond the cost and what it will mean for the safety of passengers. Mamdani wrote for the Nation in 2024 that there was evidence that free bus rides made passengers safer, based on evidence from a previous bus pilot program in New York. However, City Journal cast doubt on Mamdani’s conclusions, which it said were based on a “small pilot program.” City Journal claimed that the decrease in assaults on the free buses happened as assaults dropped at a similar rate throughout the transportation system. Other studies on “free” bus systems around the country have reported them to be failures. “In Kansas City, the results were especially disastrous: homeless residents remained on buses all day, and while assaults on drivers declined, assaults on passengers went up,” City Journal noted in another report. “In Boston, the city’s free buses were notoriously slow, ‘effectively canceling out the benefits of free fares,’ according to one local transit advocacy group.” The post Mamdani’s Free Bus Plan Likely Not Happening This Year appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A quiet surge is reshaping American courts in states such as Georgia and Missouri to prevent the encroach of Sharia law. State legislators are advancing “American Laws for American Courts” (ALAC) and related measures. These laws attempt to keep the U.S. and state constitutions as the sole legal authorities. The message to Americans is clear: no foreign codes and no parallel tribunals. This effort addresses real risks in family law, contracts, child custody, arbitration, and other legal conflicts. These laws are not instance of intolerance or fearmongering; Sharia principles have clashed with constitutional rights in our nation, and these laws will help prevent such clashes in the future. The foundation for these laws was laid years ago. Since 2010, about a dozen states have enacted ALAC-style protections. These laws bar courts from enforcing foreign laws that violate American liberties. Alabama’s 2014 constitutional amendment is a well-known example, but Arizona (2012), Kansas (2012), Louisiana (2010), North Carolina (2013), Oklahoma (2017), South Dakota (2017), Tennessee (2017), and Texas (2017) all followed a similar model. These laws work to ensure that foreign legal codes—including religious ones like Sharia—cannot override due process, equal protection, or free speech. These laws were passed with bipartisan or supermajority support, often after testimony on honor-based violence, polygamy, or unequal inheritance issues. While these laws began to be passed more than a decade ago, 2025–2026 marks a new acceleration. In Georgia, Republican State Senator Greg Dolezal introduced SB 486 on Feb. 10, 2026. “Sharia law has no place in the United States, and it has no place in Georgia,” Dolezal declared. “Only American laws in American courts. No exceptions.” The bill cleared the committee on Feb. 22 and explicitly prohibits any foreign law that conflicts with Georgia’s constitution. Dolezal, who is now running for lieutenant governor, frames it as a defense of Western civilization against parallel societies. Missouri State Senator Nick Schroer introduced SB 977, the “No Foreign Laws Act,” which passed the Senate unanimously and now moves to the House. The bill prohibits the application or enforcement of any foreign legal code, including Sharia, if it conflicts with Missouri or U.S. law. Schroer’s rationale is sovereignty-based. Arizona State Senator Janae Shamp, a Republican, pushed SB 1018 through the Senate in early March 2026. The measure explicitly adds Sharia law to the definition of prohibited foreign law. It tightens statutes against forced marriage, polygamy, and spousal abuse justified by religion. Shamp insists it is not about faith but about legal supremacy. She says that Sharia “in no way, shape, or form is compatible with the U.S. Constitution.” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently signed HB 1471. It reinforces the state’s ban on foreign law and strengthens enforcement against groups promoting conflicting frameworks. In Texas, beyond the headline Proposition 10—which got 94.81% GOP support in March—State Rep. Brent Money launched the Sharia-Free Texas Caucus with Republicans. The caucus plans policy proposals for 2027 to counter “Islamization.” This state-level momentum feeds national efforts. The bipartisan Sharia-Free America Caucus in Congress—now with dozens of members from more than 20 states—has advanced bills like the No Sharia Act (H.R. 5512) and the Preserving a Sharia-Free America Act (H.R. 5722). House Judiciary hearings in Feb. 2026 titled “Sharia-Free America” amplified the message: one legal system for all Americans. To turn awareness into concrete commitments, national security expert Frank Gaffney has launched BanSharia.com, a public education initiative and resource hub. The site equips citizens with facts on Sharia supremacism, model legislation, and tools for direct engagement. Visitors are encouraged to ask their representatives and candidates to sign the Sharia-Free Pledge: “I pledge to the citizens of my district and the American people that I will oppose any and all efforts to impose sharia law on them.” Gaffney’s campaign, featured in recent discussions with Lara Logan and at CPAC 2026, aims to build a nationwide movement of officeholders bound to defend constitutional supremacy. Critics call the bills redundant or discriminatory. Supporters cite cases in Europe, including U.K. grooming gang reports, to show what they see as failures of prioritizing “cultural sensitivity” over justice. They warn of parallel societies and raise concerns about rights and free speech. The wave is building because voters and lawmakers increasingly recognize the incompatibility of Sharia with U.S. law. From Dolezal in Georgia to Schroer in Missouri, Shamp in Arizona, and Money in Texas, red-state officials are refusing to repeat Europe’s mistakes. One nation, one law. As more states join the firewall, the message to newcomers is unmistakable: America welcomes you—but only under American rules. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post State Lawmakers Nationwide Erect Firewalls Against Sharia Law appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The past five years have seen a massive migration of Americans out of heavily Democratic counties and into ones where Donald Trump won majorities in each of the past three elections. That’s according to an exclusive analysis by Issues & Insights of the latest Census Bureau and election data. Most analyses of internal migration patterns look only at state-level data. And what they show is that blue states are losing population to red states, and have been for many years. I&I wanted to go deeper, so we used the latest Census data on migration between counties and compared that with how these counties voted in the past three presidential elections. What we found was that millions aren’t just moving out of blue states, but are moving out of blue counties within states. Trump won 2,589 counties in each of the past three elections. From 2020 to 2025, those counties gained 5.4 million people due to net migration—which measures how many people move into and out of an area. The 433 counties where Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris carried the day saw a net loss of 5.43 million people.   And the 121 counties in which Trump won at least one of the past three elections saw a net gain of 29,000 people over those years. I&I has been tracking these migration trends for years. In 2023, we found that Biden-voting counties had lost 2.6 million people from 2020 to 2022. We did the analysis again in 2024, and the number had swelled to 3.7 million. The exodus clearly has continued. The latest data show that of the 10 counties with the biggest gains in population, only one was deep blue. Trump won the rest in each of the three past presidential elections. (See the chart below.) The 10 counties with the biggest loss of population from 2020 to 2025 were all heavily Democratic — they voted for Hillary Clinton, Biden, and Harris. Even if you go further down the list, the pattern remains. Of the 50 counties with the biggest net gain of population, all but four voted for Trump in the past three elections. Of the 50 counties with the biggest losses due to net migration, all but five are solid blue. Other findings: Blue counties lost population even in states that had big gains. The five Florida counties where Trump lost in his three election bids lost 150,000 people due to net migration over the past five years. This is a state that saw an overall net gain of 890,000. The three heavily Democratic counties in Tennessee lost more than 81,000 people, while the state overall gained 293,000. Only five counties in Utah lost population from 2020 to 2025, and three of them voted for both Biden and Harris. At the other end of the spectrum, California lost almost 1.7 million people to net migration. But the few counties that consistently voted for Trump saw a slight gain of 3,024.      New Jersey’s seven solidly pro-Trump counties gained almost 25,000 people during the years that solidly Democratic counties lost more than 214,000. Virginia’s blue counties lost nearly 160,000 to net migration, while its solidly red ones gained more than 122,000. We keep hearing how unpopular Trump and his policies are. (Our latest I&I/TIPP poll shows that just 39% have a favorable opinion of the president—See “Trump’s Popularity Took A Hit In April — Is Iran War Reason Why, Or Something Else?“) While that might be what people tell pollsters, their own actions – picking up and moving to a new county or a different state – speak much louder. Millions of Americans would rather live among Trump supporters than those voting for the likes of Kamala Harris. Originally published by Issues & Insights. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post 5.4 Million People Have Migrated to Pro-Trump Counties Since 2020 as the Great Divorce Continues appeared first on The Daily Signal.