Monday, October 26, 2026

Government Tax Fraud and Corruption, Chapter 21 - The SNAP/Food Stamp Fraud Epidemic Across the Country

One of  the most ripped off Federal government programs  is the food stamp/SNAP program. We have discussed numerous instances of fraud ripping off the  American taxpayer via SNAP fraud and that fraud continues  despite Trump’s  crackdown on the  program:

1)The Department  of Homeland Security has recently launched a  coast-to-coast program to track down and  arrest illegal immigrants allegedly defrauding the SNAP program:

  • Arrests have already been made in a number of arrests regarding illegal  immigrant SNAP fraud.

  • Those already arrested are illegal immigrants  from Haiti and Cuba.

  • DHS has been emphatic  that they are only looking for those that received SNAP benefits deceptively, not immigrant families following SNAP rules.

  • The US Department  of  Agriculture  believes  that  about 12% of SNAP payments were  improper, amounting to billions of dollars being lost.

After decades of  the American taxpayer  being ripped  off over food stamps  it is  refreshing to finally see the government doing the  job  it should have been doing from the  beginning.

2)Let’s get into a specific SNAP fraud situation:

  • A recent report from the Fiscal Alliance Foundation  estimates that the state government  of Massachusetts improperly paid out  over $1 billion in SNAP benefits from 2022  through 2024.

  • 75% of the able-bodied SNAP recipients in the state  were not working,  a violation of  SNAP  rules.

  • The report  estimated the state error rate was 14.1%,  higher than  the national  error rate noted above.

  • SNAP  enrollment in  Massachusetts  soared  40% over the past ten years, going from 785,000 in 2015 to  over 1.1 million in 2024. 

  • But during that time the state government allowed able bodied  recipients  to not work for the  privilege  of  SNAP benefits.

  • A whistleblower cited in the  report claims that the SNAP state fraud process has “rampant” along with a government workplace  culture that  discourages basic  verification  of SNAP  eligibility.

  • According  to Paul Diego Craney  the executive director  of the Fiscal  Alliance  Foundation: "More than a billion dollars in improper SNAP payments in just two years is not a rounding error, it is a complete failure of oversight. Taxpayers are being asked to fund a system where fraud is ignored, safeguards are weakened, and accountability is treated as optional."

  • The study also found  that state Medicaid  spending is up almost 50% since 2021, now eating up one out of every four dollars  in the state government budget.

  • Emergency shelter costs funded by the state and its taxpayers is nearing $1 billion  a year.

  • When government programs expand that fast it is usually a great bet that proper guard rails needed to prevent fraud and misspending do not  exist.

  • Craney went  on: "Beacon Hill has prioritized expanding enrollment over protecting taxpayers and ensuring these programs are being used as intended. When you combine skyrocketing caseloads with weak verification and rising error rates, you create an environment where fraud can thrive. Reform is long overdue."

With skyrocketing budgets and skyrocketing fraud and misspending, at some point there will be a  financial reckoning and odds are the state taxpayers will not make out well.

3)Apparently many SNAP recipients  should not be receiving those benefits,  given what they are driving  around:

  • According  to recent government data, thousands of recipients of SNAP benefits are also cruising  the streets driving  high  end expensive  luxury cars.

  • Brooke Rollins, the Department of Agriculture secretary recently highlighted the  problem  from  just one state, documenting what cars  some SNAP recipients were  driving: 3 Bentleys, 3 Ferraris, 11 Lamborghinis, 59 Maseratis, 141 Porsches, 244 Alfa Romeos, 306 Land Rovers and  2098 Teslas.

  • According  to Rollins: “We need to defend our nutrition programs for those most in need, not for scammers gaming the system.”

  • According  to an analysis done  by the  Foundation  for Government Accountability, across the country about 14,000 SNAP  recipients are driving luxury cars.

  • The analysis  found that: “The luxury car brands [SNAP recipients are driving] are among the most expensive in the nation, with Lamborghinis costing over $680,000 … Ferraris are worth over $600,000 and Bentleys range from $250,000 to $414,000.”

As a taxpayer,  and one whose wife drives  a 13 year old Mazda and I drive a 9 year old truck, I am  not happy that the Federal government allows my tax dollars to flow to the  owners of luxury cars.  These fraudsters certainly don't need to receive my hard earned tax  dollars via SNAP fraud and negligence by the government employees  running  the program.

4)But Rollins  wasn't  done documenting the types of fraud that permeate the SNAP  program:

  • There were 186,000 situations where deceased Americans’s Social  Security numbers contend to  get SNAP benefits.

  • 500,000 SNAP recipients received benefits more  than once a month, often across state lines.

Your tax dollars at work… supporting the style of others.

4)One more ridiculously offensive SNAP  fraud scheme for  today:

  • According  to the Atlanta News First organization, Mercedes Reshard New,  also known as Shawty Dred, was recently indicted on Federal charges  of  defrauding the SNAP program.

  • The indictment alleges that he stole $4.6 million via SNAP fraud.

  • The  period of  the  alleged fraud spanned the years 2020 to early 2026 and involved New somehow  qualifying for and getting  350 SNAP  accounts.

  • Just between  April, 2024 and November, 2025, about 19 months, he  stole $660,000 in  SNAP funds, about $35,000  a month on average  or over $1,000 a day on average.

  • Despite this high  level of theft, the government somehow did not notice the fraud for six years.

  • And it was not  like New was  discreet about his money, using his Tik Tok and Instagram accounts to  show off  his  private jets, luxury cars, and stacks of cash.

  • The indictment  cites 46 counts of mail fraud, 5 counts of identity theft, and one count  for each of the SNAP transactions.

Makes  you wonder how many other  folks across the country are making themselves millionaires just like Mr. New strictly on the theft of SNAP dollars.

Be it Covid programs, Medicare, Medicaid, or SNAP,  fraudsters across  the country have  been ripping off taxpayers for decades and it is only recently that the American political  class  realized that maybe  something should be  done  to stop it. Keep  in mind, many  of these fraudsters are driving nicer cars than you but you paid for them!

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If you agree that we need to deseat every member of Congress for their lack of success and accomplishment, then please consider going to the following petition link to help the cause:


https://www.change.org/p/deseat-congress-reset-freedom



**********************


Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
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Sunday, October 25, 2026

October, 2016, Political Class Insanity, Part 6: More FBI Corruption, More Poor Education Results, More Proof Biden Blew the Afghanistan Withdrawal and More

 The incompetence and mismanagement of taxpayer dollars and government programs, be it Covid, voting, or over staffing continue to waste taxpayer dollars while never resolving any major issue facing the country. We call it political class insanity  so here is  today's dose of  recent insanity:

1)We have often discussed the  reality that the Biden administration illegally and morally weaponized the Federal government to go after their enemies and those with a different position on issues of the time.  They went after Trump, they illegally spied on dozens of Republicans in Congress, they tracked hundreds of thousands of Americans who bought MAGA hats, they sent FBI agents and sometimes FBI SWAT teams to the homes of anti-abotion advocates who did nothing illegal, they forced banks to not do business with conservative and Republican organizations and businesses, etc.

And unfortunately, they took one of the few Federal government  agencies that had a reputation for integrity and turned it into a political weapon, the FBI. And the  ramifications of that abuse of power were recently in the news again:

  • Two former FBI high  ranking officials  were recently arrested on charges of  lying  to Congress while under oath.

  • Nikki  Cole Floirs was  a  deputy assistant director in the FBI in charge  of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force.

  • Bradley Benavides was section  chief  of that task force.

  • Their  alleged lies to Congress revolved around the Hunter Biden investigations.

  • Both testified in front  of Congress that themselves and the task force were not involved in the Hunter Biden situation.

  • But according to FBI Director, Kash Patel: “Documentary evidence, contemporaneous communications, and witness accounts contradict their testimony.”

  • Recent declassified government documents allegedly show that the task  force and the former  agents had worked hard to protect Hunter Biden from the allegations involving corruption in  Ukraine.

  • Those documents also allegedly show Floria bragging about how she was “running a shadow government” inside the FBI.

“Running a shadow government,”  chilling words to be said by a high ranking law  enforcement  officer that had  sworn to  uphold the laws and Constitution of  the country. And the integrity of the FBI, and the  government in general, takes another hit as far as being unbiased and free from political  hanky panky.

2)The Federal Department  of Education has been around since the Carter administration in 1980, over 45 years ago. Since the current 2026 budget for  the Department  is $79 billion, it is probably a safe bet that the American taxpayer has paid over a trillion dollars into the Department over the past four and a half decades.

Unfortunately, even with spending a  trillion dollars, the education  of our kids has  gotten worse over time:

  • In testing the education achievement levels of kids across different countries, there are usually about two dozen or so countries that educate  their kids better than we educate ours and they usually do  it at a lower cost.

  • We have  previously discussed the reality at a Baltimore inner city high school  where 70% of the graduating seniors were reading at a third grade level or below.

  • We have  also previously discussed the  reality that in  Chicago there were dozens of schools that did not have a single kid that was proficient at grade  level testing for math and reading.

And recent  reports out of California confirm that the situation, despite a trillion dollars, is not getting any better:

  • Across the entire University of California university system almost  20% of freshment students enrolled in  introductory math classes failed  to pass  those classes.

  • This is double the failure rate from just five years ago.

  • This  is  obviously a black eye to the  high  school and elementary education  attainment of these failing freshmen.

  • One of the state universities, UC Merced, had a whopping 36.4% of their  freshmen failing to  pass introductory math classes.

  • This  failure rate was more  than double the  failure rate from five years ago.

  • UC  Riverside  saw  its  failure rate jump 150% over the  five years,  going from  about 8% to  about 20%.

  • Joel Hass, a math professor at UC Davis had  these insights: “There is a wider range of interest and preparedness. We still have a good number of highly qualified students, but also many who are unprepared for college. The preparedness gap between these groups is large.”

  • But this should not surprise us since California grammar and high school students are not doing well  with  only 49.3%  meeting or beating English arts standard testing and  only 38.4% being  proficient in math  in standard testing.

  • And  yet, the state taxpayers via the state government spent $134 billion on K-12 education in  2025-2026 or about a whopping $26,450 per  student, certainly not  a good investment.

  • Given that California state universities do not use SAT or ACT scores  when considering admission, it should not be surprising  that kids getting into  these colleges are not ready for college level learning  since their poor SAT and ACT scores would have shown that reality.

Einstein once said  that doing the same thing over  and over and  expecting different results is the definition of insanity. Spending billions and billions of dollars every year and expecting different  education  results  without changing  the  approach  to education  is  a  prime example of Einstein’s observation.

3)Biden’s Presidency was marked with numerous failures that we will not go into today. Previous  posts examined the failed economic, Constitutional, military, immigration, and diplomatic failures. One of his most prominent failures was the disastrous  withdrawal  from  Afghanistan where  his evacuation plan resulted in the unnecessary death  and wounding of dozens of American service  people.

A recent book by Azadeh  Moavani, which was  excerpted in a recent Vanity Fair article, shows how panicky Jill  Biden's staff was  because  of her  husband's botched Afghanistan withdrawal:

  • As  the withdrawal disaster proceeded, there was an emergency call  where Jill Biden’s staff scrambled to protect the First  Lady’s exposure to the  disaster.

  • The call included discussions about suspending Jill Biden’s “Joining Forces”  initiative  for military families so that she would not face tough questions  or anger from military families.

  • They also discussed curtailing her  public activity for the same reason.

  • According to the article:  “They had a huge fear of doing anything at bases, they were just petrified. Even though this was when military communities needed support.” 

  • While she did visit one military base during  this timeframe, her staff forbade the press from accompanying her, probably to  make sure  there  would not  be negative press.

Another and  unexpected proof that Biden really put together a fatally flawed and  fatal plan to withdraw from  Afghanistan.

4)We have  previously discussed the ridiculously stupid plan out in  California that would impose a  5%  “wealth tax” on  billionaires living in the state. The  plan  is on the ballot for  next month’s elections.  As a result of just the thought  of such a tax, many billionaires and other  wealthy California people  have fled the state to  avoid the potential tax on wealth, not income.

This out migration  will reduce the  expected  take from a wealth tax  if it  is  passed since a lot of the billionaires that were  assumed to be liable to the tax have left the state already to avoid it. Also, not only will  the  wealth  tax not deliver what has been promised but other tax revenue streams will also  suffer.  

Billionaires who left the state because of the wealth tax idea will no  longer be paying state  income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, etc. so that the entire state government tax stream has  already taken a hit. Thus, the wealth tax may not happen but the  threat of it has had major negative effects on tax revenue.

An unforeseen  negative impact of such a tax has recently arisen as it concerns  Mark Zuckerberg the  CEO  of Meta/Facebook:

  • Zuckerberg lives and  works in California and is a billionaire many times over.

  • If the wealth tax becomes reality,  there are estimates that he would have to pay over $12 billion.

  • As a result, he  has publicly stated that he may move his residence out  of the state to  avoid  the tax.

  • But high ranking Meta executives and the board  of directors want to keep him in the state and close  to the  Meta  operations.

  • So  they have  come up with  a plan  to shield his personal wealth and  keep him in the state because they feel that having  Zuckerberg  close to  the  Meta operations in  California is “critically important” to the company's  future success.

  • Thus, the board has  approved a new class  of nonvoting stock shares that they would create and give to  Zuckerberg who  could then sell to  cover his personal  wealth  tax amount.

  • As a result, Zuckerberg has committed  to staying in the state for eight more years since his wealth tax liability is now covered by the gift  of nonvoting  shares that he  can now sell  to cover the tax liability.

However, while Zuckerberg suffers no financial downside,  millions  of Americans that own Meta shares will take a financial hit.  It is a simple  matter of basic economics: with the creation  of news shares,  current shares are less valuable since the value of the  company did not increase, but the value is now spread out  over more shares in the market  when Zuckerberg sells his  nonvoting shares.

A simple matter  of supply and demand: increase the supply (stock shares) and  the demand, and the resulting price, goes  down. Thus, an unintended bad consequence of the ridiculous wealth  tax idea is that average Americans will see a decrease in their wealth via Meta share  ownership while Zuckerberg pays  nothing in additional taxes. 

A  stupid  idea gets even more  stupid. But kudos to Zuckerberg on  avoiding the wealth tax  impact on his financials.

Enough insanity for today: more negative wealth  tax fallout, more  proof that Biden blew the Afghanistan withdrawal,  more failing education results in the  country  and  more  FBI corruption and loss of integrity.

**********************

If you agree that we need to deseat every member of Congress for their lack of success and accomplishment, then please consider going to the following petition link to help the cause:


https://www.change.org/p/deseat-congress-reset-freedom



**********************


Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
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Thursday, October 22, 2026

October,2026, Political Class insanity, Part 5: Another Journalism Integrity Fail, Presidential Library Fails, Ocasio-Cortez's Elon Musk Insult and More

 The incompetence and mismanagement of taxpayer dollars and government programs, be it Covid, voting, or over staffing continue to waste taxpayer dollars while never resolving any major issue facing the country. We call it political class insanity so here is today's dose of recent insanity:


1)We  have  often opined that the country can survive less than stellar politicians and Presidents, e.g. Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Joe Biden, and other less than  outstanding politicians. Our freedoms and  history of democracy have survived these  folks.


But it is also our opinion that our freedoms will not survive a  biased,  failed, or lazy journalism profession. Journalism should be a bastion  of truth and diligence  that holds politicians and others to high standards of integrity and  honesty. Because if journalism  does not, who will?


But lately the journalism  industry and those operating  within it have not done a  good job  of protecting our freedom against the selfish  motives  and incompetence  of the American political  class. Consider:


  • During the George Floyd riots in Minneapolis, a CNN  reporter said that there were “fiery but  mostly peaceful protests” while standing in front  of a building that was  burning to the  ground.

  • A deceptive editing of a CBS “60 MInutes”  report showed Florida governor,  Ron DeSantis, in a negative light during the Covid years but  never showed the larger context of the situation which  would have shown  a completely different story than the heavily biased editing that showed up on the show.

  • ABC News paid out $15 million in  a defamation  suit brought by President Trump for inaccurate and biased  reporting.


We could list many other biased reporting by today’s journalism industry but you get the  idea. Corporate news directors often seem more interested in advancing  a political angle or viewpoint even if it meant cutting corners on integrity.


But the  trend of  biasness continues:


  • Nationwide strikes, riots, and attacks have  spread across France in the past couple of weeks.

  • Hundreds of businesses have been  looted and burned to the ground. 

  • Government buildings have also been burned  to the  ground  including many historical buildings that have survived world wars and natural  disasters but  not the current riots.

  • Thousands of people have  been arrested and hundreds of police officers have  been injured.

  • CBS News  took a look  at the massive destruction and rather than accurately show and  describe the carnage, violence, and destruction, they referred to the situation as “scuffles” with “small  groups.”

  • Not riots, not mass destruction, not violence, not arson,  just “scuffles” as if a few guys were  pushing each other around on the street corner after having a few beers.

  • After getting immediately crucified online for this ridiculous characterization they took down the article.


Someone, somewhere in the CBS News hierarchy had a reason for down playing the situation, something a real journalist would never do. And if  the journalism  industry cannot accurately report on what is obvious to  everyone with a brain, it makes you wonder what other news they are reporting  in a distorted manner. 


And this  bias and lack of integrity undermines their responsibility of reporting the truth and keeping the country’s  politicians under control.


2)Just when you think that the politicians in the country cannot have worse priorities, you are amazed what they believe they should  focus on:


  • JoCasta Zamarripa is running to become the secretary of state for the state government of  Wisconsin.

  • A secretary of state of any state is  responsible for maintaining accurate public records  and archives, modernizing and streamlining archives processes, managing election  processes and integrity, and overseeing state trust funds, four critical state government  functions.

  • But apparently Ms. Zamarripa  has different priorities: "My number one priority is to see the governor sign driver's licenses for undocumented Wisconsinites into law." 

  • Forget the traditional  and well defined roles  of a secretary of state, her number one priority is  to take care of illegal immigrants in her state.

  • Obviously, a primary manner for illegal immigrants  to vote illegally is  to present a state issued drivers license when registering to vote, i.e. shenis using government resources to push a non-government political objective.

  • Her defense of such  nonsense is ridiculous: "Driver's licenses for undocumented Wisconsinites is going to improve the public safety of all Wisconsinites," which obviously make no sense.


Another  example where the welfare of Americans is a secondary priority of another  American politician.


3)Several years ago  we loved  talking about in inane comments of  New York Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:


  • Despite having a business  degree, she did not know how the most basic government unemployment rate is calculated.

  • She openly stated that the three branches of our government were the Presidency, the  House Of Representatives and the Senate, the Supreme Court be damned.

  • Her inability to understand tax policy and  terms caused Amazon to abandon her Congressional district as a candidate for a secondary headquarters operations, a decision  that would have brought billions of dollars of value to her Congressional district.


We dialed back our observations of her inane comments since they actually got boring after a while. But in a retro manner, let’s discuss  her most recent idiotic statement and observation of life:


  • Elon Musk recently demonstrated a prototype Tesla car that also flies.

  • The prototype demonstrated how it could hover  above the ground, perform aerial flips, and go from 0 to 60 mph in one second, truly remarkable technology.

  • Musk told the crowd: “This will be an actual car that’s on the roads. You know, I’m not sure it’s necessarily legal in all jurisdictions.  But there will be such a car that someone can own, so it’s going to be pretty wild.”

  • Musk is obviously one of the  great innovators of our era, Tesla  electric cars, Space X rocketry, and other breakthrough technologies.

  • But  despite this outstanding record of innovation, the ex-bartender Congresswoman once described Musk  as follows:  “This dude [Musk] is probably one of the most unintelligent billionaires I have ever met or seen or witnessed.”


First of all, not  sure that using the word “dude” is becoming a member of Congress. But given her proven insane ignorance in her background compared to  the mammoth accomplishments of Musk, not sure she should be calling anyone, never mind,  Musk, unintelligent.


4)We have previously discussed the atrocity and  failure that the Obama  Presidential  Library had  become:


  • First off, it is ugly as sin, a giant gray monolith with no  style or personality at all.

  • Its construction costs went way over budget,  going from the original estimate of $300 million to $850 million.

  • The powers behind this  disaster insisted that many minority owned businesses be involved in the construction,  which is fine, but those same minority owned businesses then  got stiffed and their services were never paid  for.

  • One minority owned  plumbing company that worked on the library had to lay off 25 workers when the owner never got paid.

  • Locals in the  area around the  library were not happy that local parkland, 19 acres,  was destroyed to make room for the library.

  • And adding insult to injury,  despite all these problems, it is really not a true Presidential library since it contains only copies of Obama administration  papers, the  original documents are stored with the National Archives in Maryland.


But the insanity continues:


  • The library foundation bought  the 19 acres for  a mere $10 but with an agreement that a $470 million endowment would be created  to fund any future problems associated with the library.

  • But the endowment now contains only $14.2 million.

  • Since the annual cost of operating the library is estimated to be about $40 million, a ridiculous number for a building that has already been built, unless tens of millions  of dollars  are raised  every year to fund the  library operations,  the city taxpayers may soon find  themselves  in a difficult  financial situation since the current endowment  level,  $14.2 million, is not going to cover half  of one year's  operating budget.

What a mess: cost overruns, timeline overruns,  contractors not paid, valuable city parkland destroyed, a grossly ugly end product, and  a financial liability that might  soon hit city taxpayers. Not sure you could do  a worse job if you actually tried to fail.

5)One  funny and telling closing  discussion point today:

  • Obama spent over $800 million to build his library.

  • It has  an  annual operating  budget of about $40 million.

  • So far, Biden has collected about $4million  to build his Presidential library.

  • It is  said that he  had wanted  between  $200 million and $300 million  to build his Presidential library, meaning that he is  a  whopping $196 million  short  of the low  end of his  intentions.

Looks like his effort to build a  decent Presidential library for himself  is going to be  just as unsuccessful as  his tenure in the White House. Given he has been out  of office for almost two years, it does not seem like a burst of donations and funds  are going  to be coming his way anytime soon,  a big indictment  of his failed Presidency.

That will do it for today: a Presidential library effort  that may never get fulfilled, a Presidential effort that failed on so many levels, a Congresswoman  still entertains  us with inheritance  of the world, another politician  that favors illegal immigrants over Americans, and another big journalism integrity failure.

**********************

If you agree that we need to deseat every member of Congress for their lack of success and accomplishment, then please consider going to the following petition link to help the cause:


https://www.change.org/p/deseat-congress-reset-freedom



**********************


Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
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