Having Lost the Game, Democrats Now Want to Change the Rules

You would have time to make peace with what has happened.

Flanked by members of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, Vice President JD Vance announced a series of moves Wednesday by the Trump administration to defer $1.3 billion in Medicare reimbursements to California for its refusal to tackle welfare fraud, demanding states prove they’re committed to addressing fraud, and a six-month moratorium on new hospices and home health care operations. But when it came to the broadcast networks mentioning it on their lead Wednesday night and/or Thursday morning newscasts, there were crickets on ABC and NBC even though, in the case of the latter, they not only had a reporter — White House correspondent Monica Alba — in the room, but was called on first to ask a question about the issue at hand. It’s not particularly surprising given that, as we reported on April 13, they have yet to even acknowledge the problem. Wednesday’s CBS Evening News failed to cover it, but Thursday’s CBS Mornings did with a 41-second news brief kicking off the second half-hour and its “Caught Our Eye” block. Correspondent Tom Hanson framed the announcement as the government following up on CBS’s reporting: “We begin with a development in a story we brought you involving allegations of massive health care fraud. A CBS News investigation raised red flags about more than 700 potentially fraudulent hospice companies in Los Angeles County. Now, the Trump administration is taking action.” This 41-second news brief on Thursday’s ‘CBS Mornings’ was the only mention on the lead newscasts from any of the broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) about yesterday’s @WHFraudTF announcement with @VP JD Vance, @DrOzCMS, and @AfergusonFTC about Medicare and Medicaid fraud pic.twitter.com/5Ahk5rooDd — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 14, 2026 Hanson added Vance and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Oz “announced the administration is deferring $1.3 billion in Medicare payments to California” cause “[t]hey said the state had not taken fraud seriously and, on top of that, they are pausing all new Medicare enrollments by hospice and home health agencies.” “Vance and Oz said the hold will last six months while they investigate the potential fraud,” he concluded. Oz explained in the press conference the logic behind the withholding of Medicare payments to California, including the fact that the top five percent of state billers accounted for $630 million, plus the state’s rate of “growth of spending in personal care services, in home services, is twice the rate of the average of the rest of the country”: .@DrOzCMS on questionable Medicare billing in California... “California Medicaid deferral that the Vice President mentioned is $1.34 billion. Those submissions of Medicare records in the backup — estimates are generating major red flags for us, and we have looked carefully at… pic.twitter.com/lPZ9jLM6cr — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 13, 2026 He also delivered a prebuttal of sorts to those questioning why there’s a nationwide moratorium and not just in states the Trump administration deems problematic: .@DrOzCMS announcing a moratorium on new hospice and home health care companies... “[W]hen we squeeze the balloon in California, and slow the growth of hospice and now take away 800 payments — 800 hospices, we know what those fosters do. They move to nearby Nevada. Next door,… pic.twitter.com/nTIE7B9RoS — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 13, 2026 Here was Vance explaining in full the $1.3 billion deferment to the Golden State (click “expand”): #BREAKING: @VP Vance makes official the Trump administration will be “deferring $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursements from the state of California” following the exposure of rampant fraud inside the state, including at nursing homes.... “So, first, we’re announcing that the… pic.twitter.com/RCZyxOYCwu — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 13, 2026 We’re announcing that the federal government is deferring $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursements from the State of California. And the simple reason is because the state of California has not taken fraud very seriously. And because of that, we see a lot of the consequences that I just referenced. And again, let me let me highlight the fact that this really is two separate victims. So, there are California taxpayers and American taxpayers who are being defrauded because California isn’t taking its program seriously. But also you have people who have been prescribed medications that they don’t even need. Sometimes they’ve had drugs put into their bodies that they don’t need, because fraudsters have actually encouraged false prescriptions and false administration of medications. So, think about this. You’re just a person trying to go see a doctor. You assume that your doctor is doing the right thing, but these fraudulent health care providers are getting rich by giving people medications they don’t even need. It’s defrauding of the American taxpayer, but it’s a violation of the trust that should exist between every American and the people who prescribed the medications. That’s one thing that we want to we’re targeting, and this is why we’re taking this action, is because we want California to get serious about this fraud. When it came to imploring all 50 states to be more proactive, Vance explained how “[t]he Medicaid system that exists in the United States is really 50 separate systems” with “the federal government pay[ing] most of the Medicaid money, but then each of the individual states actually administers the Medicaid program” and thus are responsible for ensuring federal tax dollars are properly stewarded. Vance said that, while there is bipartisan attention given in a blue state like Maryland and a red state like Ohio (thanks to the Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak), Hawaii and New York are two states that have not been as committed to investigating raud with the former having zero convictions in recent years and only nine indictments in the latter, which receives $100 billion from Medicaid. He said to combat this, the federal government has communicated to all 50 states to explain and show what they’ve done to take the matter seriously: .@VP @JDVance on @WHFraudTF’s actions against states who refuse to take Medicaid/Medicare fraud seriously... “So, what are we going to do to fix that? Today, we are sending across 50 Medicaid programs — we are sending letters that will require them to show that they are… pic.twitter.com/jc8adRzohI — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 13, 2026 Because it’s the Trump administration and even more so since we’re in an election, Disney’s ABC and Comcast’s NBC want nothing to do with basic, good-government journalism. Instead, Wednesday’s World News Tonight featured this bizarre display from anchor David Muir in China: TERRIFYING: Disney's ABC News top anchor David Muir marveled over commie Chinese robots dancing, doing chores, run, survive freezing temperatures, operate on roller blades and ice skates, perform martial arts, and "help in the home" -- all "putting the world on notice" pic.twitter.com/I5PjtSEMfj — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 13, 2026 Over at NBC, Thursday’s Today had a look at the invasive spotted lanternfly, so they covered fraud of sorts via a bug, but not fraud from humans! To see the relevant CBS transcript from May 14, click “expand.” CBS Mornings May 14, 2026 7:21 a.m. Eastern [TEASE] [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Ahead; Healthcare Fraud Update] VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: And we have a major update on an investigation we brought you about health care scammers. What the Trump administration says it is doing about the fraud. (....) 7:30 a.m. Eastern [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Caught Our Eye; Feds Pause New Medicare Enrollements] TOM HANSON: We begin with a development in a story we brought you involving allegations of massive health care fraud. A CBS News investigation raised red flags about more than 700 potentially fraudulent hospice companies in Los Angeles County. Now, the Trump administration is taking action. On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance and Medicare Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz announced the administration is deferring $1.3 billion in Medicare payments to California. They said the state had not taken fraud seriously and, on top of that, they are pausing all new Medicare enrollments by hospice and home health agencies. Vance and Oz said the hold will last six months while they investigate the potential fraud.

Ohio’s gubernatorial campaign has kicked into gear, and so has PolitiFact with its weird partisan political takes. Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was tagged as “Mostly False” for an ad against his Democrat opponent that said: In 2020, “Amy Acton called off Ohio’s election at the last minute.” PolitiFact’s Amy Sherman acknowledges that “Ramaswamy’s campaign spokesperson pointed to an order Acton signed in March 2020 to close polling sites” when she was the state's health director. So it’s True. What makes it False? Sherman brought out the but-but: “But DeWine, who endorsed Ramaswamy, said that was his call after a judge declined to delay the primary.” Even if you included DeWine’s claim of responsibility, it’s “Half True” at worst. But these are the “Truth-O-Meter” games that they play. You can wonder if this line of attack on Acton is effective -- but part of that calculation is the media trying to tell voters it's wrong. When you look at the footnotes to this “fact check,” you notice that PolitiFact is only following up on the Ohio press seeking to punish Ramaswamy for this ad. NBC4, Gov. DeWine says Ramaswamy ad claiming Acton closed polls in 2020 is inaccurate, April 16, 2026 Statehouse News Bureau, Ohio governor race: Ramaswamy's anti-Acton ad leaves out details about March 2020 primary, April 21, 2026 The Columbus Dispatch, Ramaswamy ad blames Acton for delayed 2020 primary. Here's the truth, April 23, 2026 NBC 4 in Columbus was fierce: Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine denounced a gubernatorial campaign ad that claims Democratic candidate and former Ohio Health Director Amy Acton was responsible for postponing the 2020 primary election. “In government this happens all the time. Do you think a member of the president’s cabinet would issue this kind of order without his approval?” DeWine said. “I told her to issue the health order. The decision was mine.” Statehouse News Service argued: "Nobody ever cast a vote for Amy Acton, but she stopped yours," the ad launched April 11 says. It claims she “called off Ohio’s election at the last minute”. However, Republican state leaders, including some on the ballot now, had as much or more of a hand in that decision. Alex Perry at the Columbus Dispatch twisted it: “As the race for Ohio's next governor continues, a campaign ad shared by Republican Vivek Ramaswamy accuses Democratic candidate Dr. Amy Acton of canceling Ohio's March 2020 primary election, a claim Gov. Mike DeWine says is inaccurate.” Overall, PolitiFact has done 12 fact checks on Ramaswamy since 2023, eight of them are “Mostly False” or worse (75 percent). Three of them are “Pants On Fire” ratings. Let’s remember Kamala Harris has zero “Pants On Fire” ratings. The only “Mostly True” this Republican received was the very first one three years ago, and he was criticizing Ron DeSantis. Amy Acton has Zero fact checks.

I love dogs. I have two: a pug and a Jack Russell. They run my house like they pay the mortgage.The pug snores like a dying lawn mower and produces gas that has, on numerous occasions, cleared a room of human beings. The Jack Russell stares at the mailman the way Manson stared at juries. They're a handful, but they are mine. So please know that what follows comes from a co-conspirator, not a critic.Pet humanization is one of the most reliable consumer trends of the past two decades: recession-resistant and demographically expanding.Golden Child is the latest entrant in America's premium pet food gold rush, a venture-backed, direct-to-consumer brand that thinks your dog should be treated like royalty. It pitches itself as a wellness system for canines, and that’s exactly what it is. There are recipes and drizzles. There is talk of amino acids and gut flora, the kind of language once reserved for humans recovering from something serious. There are five-star meal plans at $90 a month.The dogs in question, meanwhile, eat their own vomit when no one is looking.Dog's lifeThe product is fine. The cultural moment producing it is the problem. Americans now spend roughly $158 billion a year on their pets (the combined GDP of Azerbaijan and Bolivia). A meaningful slice of that goes to food alone, and the premium tier keeps climbing while regular grocery budgets shrink. Households that order DoorDash four nights a week and that haven't touched a vegetable since a wedding in 2022 are reading ingredient labels on dog food the way oncologists read blood panels. The Labrador eats grass-fed bison sourced from a single Montana ranch. The owner eats a frozen burrito over the sink.A Pew survey found that 51% of dog owners consider their pet as much a part of the family as a human member. Estate lawyers, one assumes, have noticed. Wills are being rewritten. Somewhere, a daughter is being cut for a dachshund.The figure climbs even higher among Millennials and Gen Zers, who are having fewer kids, getting married less, and writing personal essays in which their dogs appear as therapists, life partners, and the last remaining reason to get out of bed. For many, a labradoodle has assumed the role of romantic partner, co-parent, and emergency contact. There is a real and growing market of people who tell pollsters they would rather come home to a dog than a spouse.RELATED: Modern pet ownership is a mental illness Tommaso Boddi/GC Images/Getty ImagesPetting zooTo some, this looks like harmless eccentricity. It is, in fact, the visible surface of a deeper rearrangement. A generation of people are pouring into their pets the care and attention they cannot seem to direct at themselves or at one another. The dog gets the supplements. The dog gets the bone-broth topper. The dog gets the orthopedic bed engineered by a former Tesla designer. The owner, meanwhile, hasn’t seen a primary care doctor in four years and sleeps on a mattress purchased during the Obama administration.Wellness, as a cultural product, has performed a strange migration. It started as a self-improvement promise, mutated into an aesthetic, and has now landed on the family pet, where it can be practiced without the burden of self-discipline.Buying Golden Child is easier than cooking dinner. Researching your dog's microbiome is more pleasant than confronting your own. The dog cannot push back, cannot disappoint you, cannot leave. Devotion flows in one direction and returns as tail wags. It is the most effortless emotional transaction available in modern American life.To be clear, companies like Atomic (the venture studio behind Golden Child) aren’t villains. They’re simply responding rationally to a market that has decided dogs are the last acceptable recipients of unconditional generosity.Pet humanization is one of the most reliable consumer trends of the past two decades: recession-resistant, demographically expanding, and immune to the kind of guilt that suppresses other luxury spending. A Birkin invites judgment. A supplement regimen for your dog's joints invites applause.Paw patrolZoom out, and the absurdity compounds. American life expectancy fell during the pandemic and has barely recovered. Roughly half of adults take a daily prescription medication. Anti-anxiety drug use among young adults has risen sharply in recent years. One-third of Americans now report what can only be described as an existential crisis. More and more are self-medicating — with alcohol, with drugs, with whatever is closest.The same population producing these numbers is the population debating whether the schnauzer should be on a raw or gently cooked diet. The schnauzer, for the record, would devour a sock, cough it up, and devour it again.Of course dogs deserve to be treated well. They should be cared for, fed properly, and protected. But people spending more on their pets than on themselves or the people around them ought to pause and reconsider.Loving animals well is a real and decent thing, and dogs deserve a great deal of what they receive. The discomfort lies elsewhere. Somewhere along the way, caring for a dog became a substitute for the far less photogenic work of caring for ourselves and each other.

A black teen in North Carolina has allegedly terrorized his community in more ways than one in just the past couple of weeks.On May 2, Taquon Jameek Vereen, 18, was arrested after police in Fayetteville received reports of a suspect spray-painting a swastika on a building. A social media video also suggested a suspect was spray-painting swastikas on other properties as well, police said.The Observer made no mention of Vereen's race.Officers identified Vereen as the suspect and took him into custody without incident. He was charged with two counts of damage to real property and one count of second-degree trespassing, police said.Court documents revealed that Vereen is accused of spray-painting swastikas on public property — "two stop signs and one traffic light control box" — as well as on the side of a convenience store from which Vereen had been banned back in April.The Fayetteville Police Department statement described Vereen as a "black male, 18 years of age."In its report about the incident, the Fayetteville Observer specifically noted that swastikas are "widely recognized as symbols of hate" that are "commonly associated with Nazi ideology and white supremacist groups." However, the Observer made no mention of Vereen's race.RELATED: Video of man lurking in KKK garb unnerves Rhode Island residents — police say it is not what it seems Photo of swastika graffiti in Brooklyn in March 2026 by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis/Getty ImagesVereen posted bond on May 6 in connection with the swastika case, court records showed. Just six days later though, he was back in custody, this time in connection with an even more serious incident.On Tuesday, Vereen was arrested after he was "walking down the roadway pointing a handgun at bystanders and passing vehicles," police claimed, citing witness statements.When cops arrived at the intersection in question, located about a half-mile from the swastika-tagged convenience store, they spotted the suspect, who immediately attempted to flee on foot. He was quickly apprehended and identified as Vereen.A handgun was recovered at the scene, police said.Vereen was charged with going armed to the terror of people and assault by pointing a gun. As of Thursday morning, he is not listed among the inmates at the Cumberland County Detention Center website, but a representative at the jail confirmed to Blaze News that Vereen remains in custody and has a hearing scheduled for Thursday afternoon.A public defender for Vereen did not respond to a request for comment.H/T: Stephen HornLike Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Rep. Kevin Kiley was elected as a Republican in 2022 to represent California's 3rd district in the U.S. Congress.After the Golden State's Democratic gerrymander effectively reduced to nil his chances of getting re-elected with an "R" next to his name, Kiley filed to run as an independent in the nonpartisan primary for California's newly drawn 6th district.'This arms race could create a new norm.'"I've always seen my role as being an independent voice for our community, holding politicians in Sacramento and Washington accountable to serve my constituents. I answer to you, not party leaders," said Kiley, who had a 77.42% lifetime score in Turning Point Action's rating system.On his way out the GOP door, the newly minted free agent complained about gerrymandering, noting that "both parties are complicit" and that "political division has become a serious problem for our country."Kiley — one of the few casualties on the right of the redistricting war that Republicans are now winning in a big way thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Callais — is asking Democrats to help him pass a bill that would prohibit states from engaging in mid-cycle redistricting and changing their congressional maps more than once a decade.The former Republican told Axios on Wednesday that he has written to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, asking the radical Democrat and his cronies to support a discharge petition that would force a vote on his ban.RELATED: Play stupid games: Tennessee GOP makes Democrats pay a heavy price for childish tantrums over redistricting Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images"This arms race could create a new norm where maps are redrawn to gain a temporary advantage every two years," Kiley wrote to Jeffries. "The result will be chaos for our democracy: a weakening of representation, a further polarization of Congress, and a deepening of the distrust and division that threaten our country's future."Some Democratic lawmakers who, like Kiley, are on tilt after having their districts redrawn, are receptive to the idea of a ban.Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio), for instance, said he'd sign on, noting, "Why wouldn't I? Both parties need to get behind ending this. It's gonna kill the democracy."Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D), whose Kansas City-based district lawmakers transformed last year into a GOP-leaning Missouri seat, is another desperate lawmaker supportive of the ban, stating that "of course" he would sign onto the discharge petition.Jeffries — whose help Kiley acknowledged was critical to the petition's success — apparently has no interest in helping the independent with his crusade.Christie Stephenson, a spokeswoman for Jeffries, told Axios, "Kevin Kiley's unserious legislation would supercharge partisan gerrymandering by Red states while putting Democratic-led ones at a serious disadvantage.""Leader Jeffries has no plans to support it," Stephenson added.This is at odds with Kiley's statement earlier this month, where he noted, "Minority Leader Jeffries has announced he supports my proposal to prohibit mid-decade redistricting."Former Democratic Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee (Texas), who passed away in 2024, introduced the same legislation to ban mid-cycle redistricting in the last Congress.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Artificial intelligence is advancing at a pace far beyond society’s ability to control it, and new experiments are fueling fears regarding what that could mean for humanity’s future.“These artificial intelligence systems have to be aligned with the goals, behaviors, decisions, human values that we have, our ethics, our intentions, and it has to have guard rails, and it has to be guided and carefully monitored,” Gray says.But when Gray plays an informational video on AI, it doesn’t appear that his idea of what AI should be will be how it plays out.In the video, it’s revealed that research from Anthropic found that AIs will do “disturbing things to gain power,” like resorting to “malicious behavior” including “blackmail and leaking sensitive information.”In some cases, AIs “deliberately ended human lives to save themselves.”“They’ve been programmed to continue to do whatever they do. And so, they will in many cases lie, cheat, steal, kill, in order to achieve their goal. So it’s not aligned with ours yet. And ours needs to be that you don’t harm humans,” Gray comments.“I haven’t disagreed with anything you've said here, but I do want to put this in there,” executive producer Keith Malinak chimes in.“We can’t agree as a society of humans on the definition of what is a woman. So there are so many things that we can’t get aligned with as a human race. How can we expect us to properly program, or have AI follow our shared values?” he asks.“What are our shared values?” he adds.“Yeah, we don’t have them anymore,” Gray agrees.Want more from Pat Gray?To enjoy more of Pat's biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

An intruder broke the glass front door of a home in northern Hopkins County, Texas, on Tuesday and reached inside, officials said.But the homeowner was prepared for just such an emergency.'Man has the right to protect his home.'Upon arrival at the residence, investigators reviewed Ring doorbell camera video, which showed an individual — identified as Buck Clary — striking the glass front door of the residence while yelling, officials said.Clary subsequently broke a portion of the glass and reached inside the home, officials said.With that, the homeowner shot through the door, striking Clary, officials said.Hopkins County EMS took Clary to a local medical facility, where the justice of the peace later pronounced him dead.RELATED: Elderly Texas homeowner armed with hunting rifle spots burglar who broke through back door. It doesn't end well for intruder. Officials said the incident remains under active investigation.A handful of commenters under the sheriff's office post about the incident seemed decidedly behind the homeowner:"[Justified] shoot if you ask me," one commenter said. "Sorry he died, but he died [because of] his own actions.""FAFO!" another user exclaimed."Man has the right to protect his home," another commenter declared."Wow," another user reacted.Other commenters under the Facebook post from KYTX-TV about the incident arrived at similar conclusions:"My welcome sign says, 'This door is locked for your safety, not mine,'" one commenter shared."As it should be," another user said."Texas wins again," another commenter observed."He asked for it. Good job," another user wrote."Great job to the homeowner," another commenter noted."If the door is shut and locked, visitation time is over," another user quipped. "It was locked, so you got the Glock ...""Thank you for saving the taxpayers money," another commenter said.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

There’s no avoiding blunt reality.