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The man suspected of committing the mass shooting at Brown University, and killing an MIT nuclear science professor, was found dead in a storage locker in New Hampshire. 48-year-old Claudio Neves Valente, . . .

"I love Joan." The post The song Judy Collins dedicated to Joan Baez: “Mystically endowed” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Minnesota’s Somali fraud scandal has dominated the headlines for several weeks, yet similar allegations of abuses in Ohio remain largely ignored by the media. Whistleblowers and investigators in Ohio claim to have uncovered Somali networks allegedly exploiting Medicaid’s home‑health caregiver program, siphoning millions of Ohio’s taxpayer dollars through false claims. And although these allegations are largely unacknowledged by the State’s Attorney General’s office at this point, several media sources are beginning to report on them. Ohio’s Somali fraudsters appear to have exploited a loophole in Ohio’s Medicaid waiver program that allows family members to become paid caregivers to people who never needed care to begin with. In many ways, Ohio’s scandal mirrors Minnesota’s Feeding Our Future fraud because it may be exposing how weak governmental oversight of social service programs may have enabled systemic abuse. But while Minnesota’s Somali-linked fraud involved receiving federal funds for meals that were never provided through the state’s Department of Education, Ohio’s Somali fraudsters appear to have exploited a loophole in Ohio’s Medicaid waiver program that allows family members to become paid caregivers to people who never needed care to begin with. (RELATED: Walz Can’t Escape the Somali Fraud Scandal) Whistleblower reports estimate that Somali‑linked Medicaid fraud in Ohio has siphoned off millions of dollars over the past decade, with individual payouts reaching as high as $91,000 per person annually. According to news reports, Mehek Cooke, an Ohio attorney who is familiar with the fraud and has led the investigation, has alleged that for more than decade, individuals within Ohio’s Somali community — the second largest in the country — have pressured Ohio healthcare providers to “rubberstamp” Somali community members to receive Medicaid funding enabling them to become home healthcare providers for family members who do not actually need it. Clinicians who are compliant in helping them become caregivers — even though their family members do not need care — are given a “kickback” once the individual family member caregiver is approved for Medicaid payment. Under this waiver system, no one has had to medically certify that the individual receiving the caregiving actually needs the care. According to Cooke, who had previously worked at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio, handling criminal cases involving corruption, terrorism, drug trafficking, asset forfeiture, and money laundering, “The ones that are corrupt, the ones that are getting kickbacks, the ones that know full well that a Somalian individual really doesn’t need that care, they’re just rubber stamping a lot of these.  And then that same individual, a week later, that’s supposed to be bedridden, is all over social media, whether they’re out dancing at a party or something like that, so the symptoms aren’t really adding up at the end of the day.” Cooke claims that Ohio’s Somali Medicaid fraud has been running for over a decade, making it systemic rather than isolated. The scheme relied on loopholes in caregiver rules and complicit medical professionals. It also depended upon the Somali community’s silence about how potential caregivers were “coached” on how to file false claims, apply for the fraudulent funds, and find the compliant clinicians. And although these are only unproven allegations at this stage, providers within the Somali community allegedly told attorney Mehek Cooke that nearly 99 percent of applicants filing false claims were coached to lie to doctors about the medical conditions of their loved ones in order to qualify for Medicaid’s home‑health caregiver program. At this point, however, these are only allegations by whistleblowers. While Cooke, a former federal prosecutor, is bringing evidence to light, specific large-scale indictments directly related to the specific Somali caregiver fraud claims made by Cooke have not been filed. And to be fair, we must acknowledge that the Ohio Attorney General’s office has, in fact, actively prosecuted several Medicaid fraud cases in the past, with Attorney General Dave Yost telling reporters that his office is working to “recover ill-gotten gains and bring fraudsters to justice.” But none of the Ohio cases Yost has cited involve the Somali family caregiver allegations. According to news reports, queries made to the Ohio Department of Medicaid have gone unanswered. The situation remains an ongoing — but as yet unproven — news story based only on whistleblower testimony. Cooke continues to assert that what we have seen in Minneapolis is  “just a snippet of what is happening in Ohio.” From Cooke’s perspective, the systemic abuse by the Somali community in Ohio has continued because the state failed to have in place proper safeguards, including audits of the program. Yet Yost’s office has successfully prosecuted several Medicaid fraud cases based on comprehensive audits of the state’s Medicaid program. Whether or not Cooke’s allegations of Somali‑linked Medicaid fraud in Ohio ultimately result in indictments, the parallels between Minnesota and Ohio highlight a deeper truth: without rigorous oversight and consistent audits, taxpayer‑funded social service programs remain vulnerable to systemic abuse. Until stronger safeguards are enforced, programs like Medicaid will remain easy targets for systemic fraud, including the kind of Somali family caregiver allegations now coming to light. READ MORE from Anne Hendershott: No, Mayor-Elect Mamdani, the Homeless Are Not an Apartment Away From a Good Life The Optics of Accommodation: Pope Leo’s Audience with Pro-Abortion Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker Bowdoin College: Finishing School for a Socialist

About 20 years ago, I received an email from a young man congratulating me on my good fortune in being hate-listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center. It is not pleasant to think back to what was then a rather dark moment in my life. At the time, the SPLC had not yet completely discredited itself by its wild accusations of “extremism” against just about anyone to the right of Chuck Schumer, and surviving their attack was not quite as easy for me as some might nowadays suppose. (RELATED: How the SPLC Targets Catholics and Other Christians) My great sin — the Thought Crime for which the SPLC arraigned me — was to be a Southerner who was not ashamed of my ancestors, and to dare speak in defense of my beloved homeland. When I attended Jacksonville (Alabama) State University, I learned that the highway which bisects the campus was named for the most famous native of that region. Pelham Road memorializes Confederate artillery officer John Pelham, who gained fame as commander of J.E.B. Stuart’s “horse artillery.” During the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia, in December 1862, Stuart, with two guns, held up the advance of an entire Union division for more than an hour, a feat witnessed by Gen. Robert E. Lee, who praised Pelham’s “unflinching courage.” Three months later, when the young major was killed in the Battle of Kelly’s Ford, Lee mourned the loss of “the gallant Pelham.” He was posthumously promoted to lieutenant colonel and buried in the city cemetery in Jacksonville, a site I have visited, contemplating the life of that young hero who died at age 24. Virginia has recently dishonored the memory of Lee, and news this week made me think of that young man who emailed me two decades ago to applaud my refusal to bend the knee and tug the forelock in obeisance to the infernal Yankees. Quickly, I replied to his email and, upon learning that my youthful fan was then a graduate student at an eminent university, offered him some advice: Say nothing. Keep your reactionary beliefs to yourself, so that none of your professors or peers have the least suspicion of your traditionalist leanings. Don’t let your zeal lead you to damage your usefulness in the great work that is to be done, if the American project is to survive. Something else that made me think of that moment was Jacob Savage’s viral article, “The Lost Generation,” about the decade of blatant discrimination against young white men in academia, journalism, and entertainment. The rage of Millennial and Gen Z youth is a phenomenon that has attracted widespread attention since the controversy over Tucker Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes nearly wrecked the Heritage Foundation. (RELATED: The False Prophet of the Digital Right: What Nick Fuentes Really Sells) There is an appetite for destruction among them, a “burn-it-all-down” nihilism that is frightening to encounter. Anyone working within the conservative movement cannot help notice the vehemence of some of these young people, especially when they so often erupt in blanket denunciations of Baby Boomers as hopelessly out of touch with their concerns, if not indeed complicit in the systemic misfortunes of which they complain. There is an appetite for destruction among them, a “burn-it-all-down” nihilism that is frightening to encounter. And, insofar as I have any opportunity to advise these young firebrands, my counsel is to calm down and work patiently with hope for the future. (RELATED: Bush Republicanism Can’t Win the Votes We Need to Save America) Back in March, when the possibility of a government shutdown loomed if Congress could not agree on a new stopgap spending bill, one of my young MAGA friends enthusiastically advanced the idea that shutting down the government would be a good thing. No, sir, I explained to him, recalling the long-ago shutdown battles between Newt Gingrich’s GOP-controlled Congress and President Bill Clinton. Republicans never “win” a shutdown and, with the GOP holding the White House and majorities in both houses of Congress, there was no way they’d escape the blame. Whatever any hard-core partisans might say about the principles involved, ordinary voters hate shutdowns — it looks like amateur-hour incompetence to them — and it behooved Republican leaders to get a deal done. Speaker Mike Johnson managed to put together an agreement to avert the shutdown last spring, buying six months of time, but in the fall, it was Democrats who decided to shut down the government for a whole month, all the while trying to cast blame on the GOP. What I was trying to offer my young MAGA hothead friend was the historical perspective on the situation, informed by many decades of political observation. If your direct involvement with politics began when Donald Trump came down that escalator in June 2015, it might be difficult for you to understand the long view of events that your elders bring to bear on such controversies. And, to invoke an old adage, we stand on the shoulders of giants. I was directly acquainted with some of those giants, including Phyllis Schlafly and M. Stanton Evans. Over the years, I had the opportunity to interview some old-timers who had been part of Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign, the spark that lit the fuse for the future Reagan revolution. Those old-timers were kind enough to give me advice that has been useful to me, and would be useful to some of these “burn-it-all-down” types, were they willing to listen to what any of their elders had to say. “Let’s grow up, conservatives,” Goldwater famously told his supporters at the 1960 Republican convention, where they had hoped to stop the Establishment forces from nominating Richard Nixon. Goldwater said, “We want to take this party back, and I think some day we can. Let’s get to work.” And so they did, beginning a 20-year struggle that eventually put Ronald Reagan in the White House. The tendency of GOP leadership to drift into Laodicean moderation — a weak “controlled opposition” to the radicalism of Democrats — is a perennial challenge for the grassroots Right. It is easy to become discouraged and to feel that your efforts have gone for naught because the cowardly elites in charge decided to compromise away everything you had labored to gain. Despite all the betrayals, however, there have been real achievements, and Trump’s amazing 2024 comeback election is proof that tens of millions of Americans still want to Make America Great Again. (RELATED: Five Quick Things: A Bush Family Comeback? Not No. Hell No!) So, back to my email exchange with that young graduate student who had applauded me for being the kind of “neo-Confederate” worthy of denunciation by the SPLC. Having survived that episode, I later had the opportunity to meet the young scholar in person and reiterate to him my advice that he keep his political sentiments private. He did so, got his PhD, and has enjoyed a successful career, which I won’t describe in detail because I don’t want to blow his cover. Yet he is now in a position to influence and mentor youthful right-wingers, and I occasionally see his byline on essays written in very careful academic language, inoffensive and unlikely to provoke controversy. He is a wise fellow, playing the smart game, and no doubt counseling like-minded young scholars to do the same. It’s almost Christmas, when we sing the “tidings of comfort and joy,” and I hope angry young men will reject the beckoning voices of darkness. Let them recall the “unflinching courage” of that gallant young artillery officer who stopped an entire division with just two cannons. And let them also remember what General Lee wrote to his former aide Charles Marshall in an 1870 letter: My experience of men has neither disposed me to think worse of them nor indisposed me to serve them; nor, in spite of failures which I lament, of errors which I now see and acknowledge, or of the present aspect of affairs, do I despair of the future. The truth is this: The march of Providence is so slow and our desires so impatient; the life of humanity is so long, that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope. The lesson is clear. Amid the most discouraging times — and “the present aspect of affairs” in 1870 was far more dire for Lee than it is for us now — we cannot “despair of the future.” We have a duty to remain optimistic, to keep the faith, and continue working steadily, no matter how much adversity confronts us. Be of good cheer, for history still teaches us to hope. READ MORE from Robert Stacy McCain: Gooder and Harder, New York The Dangerous Delusion of ‘Equality’ Dots and Patterns: What History Can Teach Us

As 2026 looms and the Trump White House sharpens its second-term foreign policy priorities, one critical test is unfolding far from Washington headlines: Nigeria’s escalating fight against violent extremist groups across West Africa. The administration has made clear that it intends to narrow U.S. overseas commitments, prioritize the Western Hemisphere, and demand clearer returns on American security investments. That recalibration is already reshaping U.S. engagement in Africa — and Nigeria sits squarely at the center of that shift. (RELATED: Media Denies Christian Genocide in Response to Trump’s Threat of Military Action in Nigeria) With more than 220 million people, Africa’s largest economy, and a military stretched thin by Boko Haram, ISIS-West Africa Province (ISWAP), and criminal insurgencies, Nigeria is both a security partner and a pressure point. How Washington handles Abuja will signal whether “America First” translates into disciplined realism — or strategic retrenchment with unintended consequences. For more than a decade, U.S. policy in West Africa centered on counterterrorism: training Nigerian forces, sharing intelligence, and supporting regional coordination to prevent jihadist spillover across the Sahel. (RELATED: What Is America’s Role in Africa?) That framework is now colliding with a broader Trump administration emphasis on great-power competition, border security, and domestic political priorities. Yet “Africa policy,” while not abandoned, is clearly being subordinated to higher-visibility theaters — China, the Western Hemisphere, and economic security. (RELATED: China and Russia’s Economic Takeover in Africa: The Global Shift America Cannot Ignore) Inside the administration, this has produced a familiar debate: whether limited U.S. resources are better spent maintaining partnerships in fragile regions or pulled back to avoid what officials privately describe as “open-ended security assistance with unclear outcomes.” Nigeria illustrates that tension vividly. The reality on the ground is more complex than Washington sound bites suggest. President Trump’s recent rhetoric on Nigeria — including public criticism over religious violence and threats to reconsider aid — has resonated with parts of his political base. But it has also unsettled U.S. diplomats and defense officials who see Nigeria less as a moral litmus test and more as a strategic hinge state. The reality on the ground is more complex than Washington sound bites suggest. Nigeria’s violence is driven by overlapping insurgencies and regional instability — not a single ideological conflict easily resolved through punitive diplomacy. Abuja, for its part, has pushed back against what it views as external oversimplification, while still seeking deeper cooperation on intelligence, equipment, and regional stabilization. Yet Nigerian officials privately worry that mixed signals from Washington could weaken coordination at a moment when extremist groups are becoming more mobile and decentralized. Even under a narrower “America First” doctrine, Nigeria remains strategically relevant — the West African nation anchors the region. Simply put, its collapse or prolonged insecurity would reverberate across Niger, Benin, Cameroon, and beyond. Further, extremist groups displaced from the Sahel are probing southward, exploiting governance gaps and porous borders. And they’re migrating to western borders quietly. And finally, dissipated U.S. engagement creates openings for China, Russia, and Gulf states to expand security and infrastructure influence with fewer governance conditions attached. None of this argues for large-scale U.S. troop deployments or nation-building. But it does argue against disengagement masked as realism. A policy-savvy version of “America First” would recognize that selective engagement can be cheaper — and more effective — than strategic neglect. That means prioritizing intelligence sharing and logistics, not broad military commitments; and ultimately, supporting regional coordination, which spreads costs and limits U.S. exposure. Most importantly, it means clarity. Allies and adversaries alike are watching to see whether Trump’s foreign policy reset produces a consistent strategy — or simply transactional signals. Nigeria is not the centerpiece of Trump’s foreign policy. But it is an early indicator. If Washington can balance restraint with influence in West Africa, it strengthens the administration’s case that “America First” is not synonymous with retreat. If it cannot, the consequences will be felt not just in Abuja, but across a region where instability rarely stays local. For a White House intent on redefining U.S. leadership, Nigeria may be one of the first quiet tests — and one of the most revealing. READ MORE from Duggan Flanakin: The US Rediscovers a Valuable Trading Partner — Indonesia

Vice President JD Vance recently stated that “[t]he most significant single thing you could do to eliminate anti-semitism and any other kind of ethnic hatred is to support our efforts to lower immigration and promote assimilation.” A day later, the White House released a proclamation stating that the White House would continue to fully restrict and limit the entry of nationals of the following 12 countries: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen, and to newly fully restrict and limit the entry of nationals of 7 additional countries: Burkina Faso, Laos, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Syria, in addition to “individuals using travel documents issued or endorsed by the Palestinian Authority (PA).” Would restricting immigration from these countries help control importing antisemitism in the United States? For countries in the Middle East and North Africa, this looks to be the case. The worst countries and territories for antisemitism are Muslim-majority, and mostly in the Middle East and North Africa… According to a recent global study, the Middle East and North Africa is the region with the highest amount of antisemitism, while Western Europe ranks the lowest. The worst countries and territories for antisemitism are Muslim-majority, and mostly in the Middle East and North Africa: West Bank and Gaza (ranked 103, or absolute worst); Kuwait (102); Indonesia (101); Bahrain (100); Oman (99); Saudi Arabia (98); UAE (97); Jordan (96); Lebanon (95); Egypt (94); Tunisia (93); Libya (92); Algeria (91); Turkey (90); Iraq (89); Malaysia (88); Sudan (87); Morocco (86); and Qatar (85). Russia and China trailed immediately behind these countries, with rankings of 84 and 83, respectively. Granted, Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, all Muslim-majority countries on the White House’s fully restricted list, were not surveyed. But would restrictions on immigration from individuals using travel documents issued or endorsed by the Palestinian Authority help control the importation of anti-Semitism? It looks like it. West Bank and Gaza scored 103 out of 103 countries and territories surveyed, indicating that antisemitic views are the worst in these regions. Palestinians answered “definitely” or “probably true” to the following statements: “Jews loyalty is only to Israel” (86 percent of respondents); “Jews have too much power in the business world” (89 percent); “Jews don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind” (93 percent); “Jews have too much control over global affairs” (92 percent); “Jews think they are better than other people” (91 percent); “Jews have too much control over the media” (92 percent); “Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars” (92 percent); and “people hate Jews because of the way Jews behave” (94 percent). Additionally, a recent review of the Palestinian Authority’s textbooks of grades 1-12 stated that [a]ntisemitism remains a central figure of the curriculum. Hate and collective accusations specifically directed toward Jewish people appear across grades and subjects, depicting them as deceitful, manipulative, or inherently corrupt enemies of Islam, drawing on classical Islamic polemic, historical distortions, and modern antisemitic motifs used to describe the present-day conflict. Contemporary passages link Zionists and Jews to greed, global conspiracies, and control of financial and media institutions. Antisemitic stereotypes including imagery and terminology, are repurposed for classroom use, ensuring that prejudice against Jews is pedagogically transmitted. Libya, which is also on the White House’s restrictions list, does not fare much better, scoring 92 out of 103 countries for tolerance toward Jews. Libyans answered “definitely” or “probably true” to the following statements: “Jews loyalty is only to Israel” (71 percent of respondents); “Jews have too much power in the business world” (73 percent); “Jews don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind” (78 percent); “Jews have too much control over global affairs” (75 percent); “Jews think they are better than other people” (66 percent); “Jews have too much control over the media” (74 percent); “Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars” (78 percent); and “people hate Jews because of the way Jews behave” (83 percent). While these numbers are statistically better than views held by the Palestinians, this study shows that Libyans still hold, in clear majorities, antisemitic opinions. And the larger Muslim majority countries of Indonesia and Egypt, which are both U.S. allies, are similarly drowning in antisemitism: Indonesia scored 101 out of 103 countries and territories surveyed, not far behind the West Bank and Gaza for antisemitism. Indonesians answered “definitely” or “probably true” to the following statements: “Jews loyalty is only to Israel” (92 percent of respondents); “Jews have too much power in the business world” (92 percent); “Jews don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind” (95 percent); “Jews have too much control over global affairs” (92 percent); “Jews think they are better than other people” (94 percent); “Jews have too much control over the media” (89 percent); “Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars” (86 percent); and “people hate Jews because of the way Jews behave” (94 percent). In a bit of a silver lining, despite these horrific scores, an analysis of newer Indonesian textbooks in Islamic education, as compared with their 2013 counterparts, “show[s] a notable reduction in stereotypical depictions of Jews, such as greed and dishonesty, compared to the previous curriculum. They highlight instead respectful examples from the life of the Prophet Muhammad, such as the Medina Charter, encouraging respect for the Torah and recognizing Jews as People of the Book deserving equality.” And Egypt scored 94 out of 103 countries and territories surveyed. This is particularly unfortunate, given Egypt’s lasting peace with Israel and the amount of American financial support for Egypt. Egyptians answered “definitely” or “probably true” to the following statements: “Jews loyalty is only to Israel” (74 percent of respondents); “Jews have too much power in the business world” (83 percent); “Jews don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind” (84 percent); “Jews have too much control over global affairs” (73 percent); “Jews think they are better than other people” (66 percent); “Jews have too much control over the media” (66 percent); “Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars” (75 percent); and “people hate Jews because of the way Jews behave” (87 percent). So, would controlling immigration from certain countries limit the importation of antisemitism into the United States? Based on what these societies teach and believe in clear majorities, the answer appears to be yes. READ MORE from Steve Postal: Did Iran Orchestrate the Hannukah Murder of Jews at Bondi Beach? 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