A Trump-hating American Indian tribe with a powerful lobbying arm has wielded its influence to push California Attorney General Rob Bonta to issue a controversial ban on fantasy sports betting, a watchdog group said. In the months leading up to Bonta’s decision to ban fantasy sports betting in California, the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians repeatedly lobbied his office. And in the days leading up to the ban, one prominent tribe member boasted that they were “coming for” fantasy sports betting companies and “we’re bringing our friends.” The lobbying was flagged in a memo shared with The Daily Wire by the American Accountability Foundation, a conservative watchdog group founded by former Republican congressional staffer Tom Jones.  “Since 2001, Pechanga has contributed almost $120 million to political causes, most notably on ballot measures and powerful political figures like Attorney General Rob Bonta,” the memo said. “In return for their money, Bonta has acquiesced to tribal demands, even going as far as declaring fantasy sports websites illegal in California.” Lobbying reports compiled by the American Accountability Foundation show that Pechanga has spent over $1.8 million on political lobbying since Bonta took office in April 2021. In every single lobbying report filed by Pechanga, Bonta’s office was listed as one of the targets. The reports did not disclose the purpose of the lobbying or the specific amount directed toward Bonta’s office.  Listed on the lobbying reports was Chief Mark Macarro, who has given thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates and has been pictured aboard Air Force One with former President Joe Biden. After being asked by State Assemblyman Tom Lackey to issue a legal opinion on fantasy sports betting, Bonta vowed not to take money from the industry’s supporters; he did not do so for its opponents. The opinion was first requested by Senator Scott Wilk, and Lackey had no position on the final call, his office said.  Bonta’s office previously maintained that the money did not impact his decision.  “The donors were not parties to the opinion — they neither requested it nor were its subject,” spokesman Dan Newman told POLITICO. “They simply expressed a point of view, and of course an elected official cannot reject support from everyone who holds an opinion on their work.” However, prominent members of the Pechanga tribe appeared to take credit for the opinion and celebrated it. Victor Rocha, a member of the Pechanga and an official with the Indian Gaming Association, told the Capital Weekly that the tribes had requested an opinion on fantasy sports betting. “You have to fight ‘em or you’ll get rolled over,” he said.  Two days before Bonta’s opinion was issued on July 3, Rocha posted on X that daily fantasy sports companies were in trouble.  “We’re coming for you, and we’re bringing our friends. Politically speaking, there are many ways to skin a rat,” he wrote.  On the day the opinion was issued, Rocha posted a meme depicting a person labeled “California tribes” posing in front of a grave of a fantasy sports betting company. The meme was captioned, “Just saw the California AG’s opinion.” Just saw the California AG’s opinion. pic.twitter.com/Poa02j1zMq — Victor Rocha (@VictorRocha1) July 3, 2025 Jones said that the ruling and donations were not a “coincidence.”  “When a single tribe and its allies spend over $400,000 into an attorney general’s campaigns, spend nearly $2 million on lobbying which includes his office, and then walk away with favorable legal rulings, that is not a coincidence,” Jones told The Daily Wire. “It is a glaring conflict of interest that reeks of corruption. Pechanga’s political power in California is dangerous, and the money trail to Rob Bonta is clear.”  Throughout his political career as both attorney general and state assemblyman, Bonta has received $400,000 from the Pechanga and other tribes. In fact, both Bonta and his wife have also been the recipients of tens of thousands in political donations over the years, according to donor records compiled by the American Accountability Foundation.  As noted by the watchdog group, Pechanga and its employees have given $49,800 to Bonta since his political career began in 2013 as a member of the California State Assembly. Mia Bonta, his wife, has also received $34,500 since 2021. She was elected to the assembly in 2021.  Since 2001, Pechanga and its employees have contributed $117,089,903 to political causes.  American Accountability Foundation. At the same time, it has raked in tens of millions of taxpayer dollars, all while operating a lucrative casino. Since 2008, the tribe — which has around 1,823 members — has taken over $13.4 million in grants from the Department of Health and Human Services, around $6.9 million from the Environmental Protection Agency, $2.4 million from the Department of the Interior, $2.2 million from the Justice Department, and hundreds of thousands more from the Departments of Energy, Homeland Security, and others. At the same time, it has taken legal action against those critical of the tribe. In November, it issued a cease-and-desist letter to the makers of a documentary called “You’re No Indian.”  The documentary highlights allegations from former tribal members who say they were kicked out of their tribe to boost the casino profits shared with other members. Back in 2012, it was reported that the average casino profit per month for Pechanga members jumped to $30,000 per month after 250 people were kicked out.  The tribe said that the film contained “numerous inaccuracies” when explaining why the cease-and-desist letter was sent. The film’s director, Ryan Flynn, gave a different story.  “We interviewed families, reviewed records, spoke with experts,” Flynn said. “We reached out to Chairman Macarro multiple times during production. Mark had every opportunity to participate, and he chose not to.” The film screened last weekend at three sold out theaters in Temecula, California, where the Pechanga tribe is located. The American Accountability Foundation said that the letter was an effort to “stifle” free speech.  Jones previously told The Daily Wire that Pechanga should lose its taxpayer funding over its political activism.  “Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to bankroll the Pechanga tribe’s lavish lifestyles and radical views, especially when individual tribe members are raking in tens of thousands a month from casino profits. That’s not an ‘impoverished community,’ it’s a corrupt one,” Jones said. “Time to shut the spigot off and stop subsidizing them!” 

The State Department will freeze immigrant visa processing for the citizens of dozens of nations over welfare concerns. The department announced on Wednesday that it will stop processing visas for 75 countries. The Trump administration plans to enact the pause because migrants from the countries in question “take welfare from the American people at unacceptable rates.” “The freeze will remain active until the U.S. can ensure that new immigrants will not extract wealth from the American people,” the department said. “The pause impacts dozens of countries – including Somalia, Haiti, Iran, and Eritrea – whose immigrants often become public charges on the United States upon arrival,” the statement continued. “We are working to ensure the generosity of the American people will no longer be abused.” The freeze is scheduled to go into effect on January 21. The pause will not affect non-immigrant visas, nor temporary tourist or business visas, which allow people to come to the United States on a temporary basis. The freeze comes after investigations and public reporting has raised the prospect that fraudsters in Minnesota, especially from the Somali community in the Twin Cities area, have bilked taxpayers for billions of dollars in social service funding. The freeze is just the latest action taken by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to restrict the number of immigrants allowed into and residing in the United States. The Secretary has previously taken steps to revoke the visas of immigrants in the United States who have expressed support for terror groups or committed crimes. The Trump administration has also restricted the ability of residents of dozens of other countries to enter the United States. Last month, President Donald Trump signed an order adding 20 additional countries to a list that included 19 others setting restrictions and limits on nationals’ ability to travel to the United States. The countries on the restricted list include some in Latin America, such as Venezuela and Cuba.

The following is an edited transcript from the The Michael Knowles Show. * * * Scott Adams has died. It is a sad story, though not an entirely unexpected one. And it’s important to note, Scott Adams did not kill himself. Adams, the cartoonist behind Dilbert, was a defining cultural figure for decades. His comic strip was a genuine phenomenon — so much so that, flipping through old Dilbert panels, one can feel a kind of nostalgia, like being at a parent’s house. He was a delightful figure in American public life. Adams did not stop at cartoons. He parlayed his success into a second career as a writer and thinker on persuasion, self-help, and politics. He became one of the earliest and most incisive commentators to notice something many others missed about Donald Trump: that Trump was not simply a big dummy saying big dummy things, but an extremely persuasive communicator. Adams could articulate that insight with unusual precision, in much more expansive terms. In recent years, however, Adams became associated with a much darker subject: assisted suicide. And yet, Scott Adams did not kill himself. Despite living in California, where physician-assisted suicide is legal under certain conditions, Adams ultimately chose not to end his life that way. But he very nearly did. In public discussions and on his own show, Adams spoke candidly about having been declared terminally ill, having received certification from doctors, having completed the paperwork, and even having obtained the lethal drugs prescribed for assisted suicide. At one point, he admitted that he had internally planned to take his own life on a specific date. That moment came and went. Adams did not take the drugs. Here he is back in June of 2025 talking about it: Scott Adams Update: In May, he was in intense pain and didn’t expect to make it past today or tomorrow. Now, his new cancer treatment has eliminated his pain and may extend his life by 1-2 years!⁰@scottadamssays So do I feel like I’m on borrowed time? Got a little extra? Oh… pic.twitter.com/PWc2UR1pqN — jay plemons (@jayplemons) June 29, 2025 Credit: @jayplemons/X.com For years prior, Adams had been one of the most vocal defenders of assisted suicide in public life. After his father’s death in 2013 — a death Adams described as painful and prolonged — he sought to defend assisted suicide in Reason magazine, writing: I’m okay with any citizen who opposes doctor assisted suicide on moral or practical reasons, but if you have acted on that thought, such as basing a vote on it, I would like you to die a slow, horrible death too. The argument was blunt: opposition to assisted suicide was, in Adams’s view at the time, complicity in torture. But something changed. Only after Adams had committed to the process — after he had received the drugs and contemplated using them — did he realize it was more complicated. He begin to grasp what assisted suicide actually entailed. It was not, as it is often advertised, a clean or painless “going to sleep.” The process could involve vomiting, prolonged unconsciousness, and hours of dying while loved ones stood by, waiting, checking repeatedly to see whether the person was dead yet. The act that had been sold as a mercy turned out to be something else entirely. Whatever pain the dying person sought to avoid would instead be imposed on family and friends. The poor family not only has to endure the scandal of watching a loved one kill himself, the very thing that is much more likely to persuade the loved ones around them to kill themselves. Suicide, after all, is not merely an individual act; it is a social contagion — it is long-documented as a contagion, especially among those who admire or identify with the person who chooses it. Adams eventually summarized this realization while speaking to Dr. Drew Pinsky and Greg Gutfeld, saying, “It’s not as cool as I thought it would be.” WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show And there’s the irony of Scott Adams’s final chapter. A man who had spent years publicly advocating for assisted suicide ended his life by rejecting it. And in doing so, Scott Adams offered us one of the best examples of dying well. An amazing irony in the grand scope of Providence.  He was calm. He was loving. He did not hide it.  Today, we hide death. We institutionalize it. We rush through funerals and euphemize loss. We prefer not to look at dying at all. In earlier eras, particularly in the Middle Ages, a “good death” was understood as one in which a person knew death was coming, put their affairs in order, reconciled relationships, and prepared spiritually for what followed. That is what Adams did. We should pray for him. We should pray for his soul. Though he was not a lifelong believer, Adams spoke openly near the end of his life about being  persuaded by Pascal’s Wager and by his loving Christian friends. He did not pretend to believe. Instead, he adopted an attitude of humility that is almost shocking in its simplicity: I want to believe. I want to spend eternity with Jesus. If I wake up in heaven, that will convince me. Some will quibble over the theology of those words. But there is something undeniably childlike about them — in the best sense. Not childish. Childlike. As Scripture reminds us, it is precisely this posture that Christ holds up as the model for entering the Kingdom of Heaven. Adams could have scandalized the world. He could have taken his life and inspired others to do the same. Many people looked up to him as an “internet dad,” a guide through cultural and political chaos. His suicide would have rippled outward, causing real harm. Instead, he chose restraint, honesty, and peace. The reaction from the legacy media was, sadly, predictable. The New York Times and Boston Globe framed Adams’s death not with reflection or mercy, but with denunciation, labeling him racist even in death. Here’s the breaking news alert from The New York Times: Screenshot: iPhone This is what they do. Listen, we’re talking about the political Left which celebrated the assassination of Charlie Kirk. So, yes, when a prominent Right winger dies, they’re going to find some way to attack him, even in his death. If they’re willing to do it to Charlie, they’re willing to do it to anybody. It’s sad, but they will celebrate your death. Contrast this with how the Right generally responds to tragedy: even when acknowledging wrongdoing or responsibility, there remains sorrow. There is room for grief. The New York Times wants to define Scott Adams by his worst comments. But I don’t think their narrative sums up his life at all. Then again, I don’t believe most of what I read in the New York Times.

Vice President JD Vance cast a tie-breaking vote in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday evening, killing the War Powers Resolution that was designed to curtail President Donald Trump’s administration if any further military action was warranted in Venezuela. Vance presided over the Senate as the vote was tallied to 50 yeas and 50 nays — with Republican Senators Rand Paul (KY), Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Susan Collins (ME) voting with Democrats. After announcing that the vote was tied, Vance briefly conferred with someone at the desk before announcing his vote. WATCH: ? BREAKING: Vice President JD VANCE just DEFEATED the anti-Trump War Powers vote in the Senate on Venezuela, casting the tie-breaking vote, 51-50 The resolution has officially FAILED. THANK YOU JD! You can always rely on VP Vance! ?? Trump wins again ? pic.twitter.com/8f7Eprt1Jg — Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 14, 2026 “On this vote, the yeas are 50, the nays are 50. The Senate being equally divided, the Vice President votes —” Vance quickly covered the microphone as he looked over the legislation on the desk in front of him “Affirmative. And the point of order is sustained,” he said, chuckling, after the brief pause. “I had to make sure.” Two other Republican Senators had initially indicated that they would vote with Democrats on the measure, but were convinced to change their votes prior to Wednesday evening. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) told Fox News host Will Cain that he’d been assured by the White House that there would be no move to put troops on the ground in Venezuela without going through the proper congressional channels. “For me, it’s always been about troops,” Hawley explained, adding, “I talked to the president … I thank for the admin for the outreach. We are not going to occupy Venezuela. That’s good enough for me.” WATCH: ? BREAKING: Sen. Josh Hawley has FLIPPED on the War Powers resolution against President Trump’s Venezuela operation Hawley is now a NAY, after voting YEA to advance it, drawing a sharp response from Trump “For me, it’s always been about troops…I talked to the president…I… pic.twitter.com/yFuo2RKVOc — Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 14, 2026 Senator Todd Young (R-IN) also changed his vote prior to Wednesday, saying that he’d been convinced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio — who indicated a willingness to testify on the matter before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Rubio also said in a letter to Young that if the United States were to engage in “major military operations” in Venezuela, the administration would “seek congressional authorization in advance (circumstances permitting).”

A lawmaker in Minnesota has filed articles of impeachment against embattled Democrat Gov. Tim Walz. Walz has become a national focus in the wake of reports concerning a massive fraud scandal in his state, largely concerning Somali residents. A stunning press conference held by federal prosecutor Joseph Thompson last month confirmed that $9 billion – or potentially more – of taxpayer money could have been stolen during Walz’s tenure. GOP state Rep. Mike Wiener announced on his Facebook page on Monday that he’s filed articles of impeachment against Walz  “I have officially filed Articles of Impeachment against Governor Tim Walz, initiating the impeachment process in the Minnesota House of Representatives,” he posted. The articles accuse Walz of committing corrupt conduct and violating his oath of office. The four articles specifically allege that Walz knowingly concealed widespread fraud in the state’s Department of Human Services, despite repeated warnings; interfered with lawful oversight and investigation into the fraud; prioritized political considerations above lawful administration; and failed to execute laws of the state, specifically laws concerning stewardship of public funds. “Democrat control of our state has led to 9 billion dollars of fraud that we currently know about,” Wiener told Newsweek.  “Governor Walz said ‘the buck stops with him.’ Since he refused to resign the next step is impeachment. Our taxpayers are demanding this, and if the Democrats don’t support the impeachment they are complicit with the fraud.” The impeachment effort would need to pass the Minnesota House and Senate, where control is split. As noted by Newsweek, both parties have 67 seats each, and Wiener said he would need one Democrat in a committee to vote with him for it to go to the House. As outlined by Thompson, 14 taxpayer-funded programs in particular were found to be rife with fraud since 2018. Those programs cost $18 billion, and Thompson said it’s possible that half of that, or more, could have been fraudulently claimed. “I think we’re an outlier in a bad way,” Thompson said of Minnesota. “You don’t see fraud on this scale in other states. … Every day we look under a rock and find a new $50 million fraud scheme. That shouldn’t be the case in a state of our size. Certainly other states have problems with frauds, but I think our problem is unique.” Walz, who’s unsurprisingly in the hot seat over the scandal, has contended that Thompson is engaging in “sensationalism” and says there’s “no evidence” the scope is $9 billion or more. Earlier this month, Walz announced that he won’t seek re-election as governor this year. In a lengthy statement, the Democrat claimed Minnesota has been unfairly targeted by the Trump administration and cited the ongoing fraud scandals that the Justice Department is investigating and prosecuting, The Daily Wire reported. “Like many Minnesotans, I was glad to turn the page on 2025. It was an extraordinarily difficult year for our state. And it ended on a particularly sour note,” Walz said.