Political Pistachio
By Douglas V. Gibbs
American History offers a number of moments when prolonged provocation, lawlessness, and international contempt forced a President of the United States to choose between endless negotiation, endless harm to America, or decisive action. Two centuries ago President Thomas Jefferson’s bold decision to confront the Barbary pirates after years of failed diplomacy and maritime predation has been echoed by President Donald Trump’s strike and capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.
When Thomas Jefferson entered office in 1801, he recognized that the United States had endured decades of harassment from the Barbary States. During the two previous administrations Muslim pirate regimes along the North African coast demanded tribute, seized American ships, and enslaved U.S. sailors. President Washington’s and Adams’ administrations attempted to buy peace through payments and negotiation, but the problem only grew. The young republic faced a stark choice: continue paying for temporary calm or assert its sovereignty through force.
Jefferson chose the latter, rejecting the cycle of tribute and humiliation and dispatching the U.S. Navy and Marines to the Mediterranean, initiating the First Barbary War. His decision marked one of the earliest and clearest demonstrations that the United States would not tolerate lawless actors who preyed upon American citizens or defied international norms. Jefferson’s action was not merely military; it was constitutional, strategic, and symbolic. It signaled that American patience had limits and that the republic would defend its interests when diplomacy failed.
As I read the news this morning about the move against Venezuela that resulted in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro I recognized the historical parallel. For years, Maduro’s regime had been accused by international observers of corruption, human‑rights abuses, narcotrafficking, and the destabilization of an entire region. Diplomatic pressure, sanctions, and multilateral negotiations had repeatedly failed to curb the crisis or protect civilians. In this view, Trump’s action represented a modern application of the Jeffersonian principle: when a hostile actor repeatedly violates international norms, threatens regional stability, endangers the safety of Americans, and disregards every diplomatic avenue, the Commander in Chief of the United States may choose decisive action to restore order and uphold the rule of law. Just as Jefferson refused to allow piracy to become a permanent cost of doing business on the high seas, Trump refused to allow Maduro’s regime to remain an entrenched source of chaos and suffering.
On Fox News’ Fox and Friends Weekend show this morning, President Donald Trump called in and indicated that the operation to hit Venezuela, strike Maduro’s fortress, and capture the criminal president of Venezuela was supposed to happen four days ago, but weather pushed it to this morning. President Trump called Venezuela’s negative effect on America, largely due to the drug trade and human trafficking coming out of that country, war. “It’s a war. We’re losing 300,000 people a year,” said President Trump. They were run by a dictatorship, and “tremendous numbers of people were being killed through drugs and what they did to our country is sending prisoners and mental people – people from mental institutions, and, uh, drug lords and everything. They sent them by the hundreds of thousands of people into our country and that is just unforgivable. That’s why, you know, he wanted to negotiate at the end and I didn’t want to negotiate and I said ‘Nope.’ We gotta do it. You know, he was trying to negotiate at the end, you probably saw that – and – uh, trying hard to make a deal. And I said, and you know, this could have been a very foolish thing if it didn’t work out, but I said ‘nope, we can’t do it.’ What he did with drugs is bad, what he did with a lot of other things is bad, but what he did was sending hundreds of thousands of Tren de Aragua and drug dealers and they emptied out their jails into our country, they emptied out, if you think about it, they emptied out all of their mental institutions into our country. What he did there, and every other thing, is unforgiveable.”
What is important to note, is President Trump echoed Jefferson’s initial patience. Jefferson negotiated until negotiation became a trap. Trump was facing a similar impasse. Jefferson’s naval campaign broke a cycle of extortion, and Trump’s strike broke a cycle of impunity. Jefferson’s decision helped establish the United States as a country unwilling to be bullied. Trump’s approach has been a parallel assertion of American strength and resolve in the modern era.
Both presidents confronted long-standing crises that outlived diplomacy. Jefferson’s confrontation with the Barbary pirates helped define the early republic’s posture toward international lawlessness. Trump’s action toward Maduro fits within that same tradition: a moment when the United States, after exhausting peaceful options, acted decisively to protect regional stability and uphold principles larger than any single administration.
The likely eventual successors to the ousted authoritarian Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro are likely 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition leaders María Corina Machado and Edmundo González. The United States recognized González as the legitimate leader of Venezuela after he soundly defeated Maduro by a more than two-to-one margin in the 2024 election. González replaced Machado after she was banned from running for the presidency by the Maduro-run high court. Maduro ignored the results.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
According to Gateway Pundit and SuperGrok: Here are the top 10 U.S. news stories that generated the most public attention and traffic in 2025, based on trending searches, year-in-review recaps from major outlets (e.g., ABC News, CBS News, Google Year in Search), and widespread media coverage:
- Assassination of Charlie Kirk
The September shooting of conservative activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk during a campus event at Utah Valley University topped Google’s U.S. trending searches and dominated headlines, sparking national debates on political violence. - Donald Trump’s second inauguration and early administration actions
Trump’s January 20 swearing-in as the 47th President, followed by rapid executive orders, tariffs, and immigration policies (including mass deportations), defined the year’s political landscape. - Palisades and Los Angeles wildfires
Devastating early-year fires in Malibu and Pacific Palisades destroyed thousands of homes, becoming one of the most talked-about non-political domestic disasters. - Targeted shootings of Minnesota Democratic lawmakers
The June attacks on State Rep. Melissa Hortman (killed) and State Sen. John Hoffman (injured), along with their families, raised alarms about political violence against officials. - Major immigration and deportation policies
High-profile deportations, including transfers to El Salvador’s CECOT prison using wartime laws, and related protests fueled ongoing national discourse. - Government shutdown and fiscal battles
The longest U.S. government shutdown in history, tied to budget fights and Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” ranked among top trending news topics. - Sean “Diddy” Combs’ federal trial
The high-profile sex trafficking and racketeering trial captivated celebrity and crime followers throughout the year.Bryan Kohberger sentencing in Idaho student murders
The July sentencing of Kohberger for the 2022 killings drew massive renewed interest in one of the decade’s biggest true-crime cases. - Central Texas floods and Camp Mystic tragedy
- Deadly summer flooding killed over 100, with spotlight on children affected at a summer camp in known flood zones
- Economic impacts of tariffs and stock market volatility. Trump’s sweeping tariffs reshaped trade, consumer prices, and markets, contributing to dramatic stock swings and widespread economic anxiety discussions.
But, according to TIME Magazine, the assassination of Charlie Kirk didn’t deserve to be on the list…
Did you notice that the Minnesota fraud was not on the list, but P-Diddy was?
By Douglas V. Gibbs
The Devil always appears as an angel of light.
On the steps of New York City Hall, Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivered an inauguration speech wrapped in soft velvet of idealism, but the ideological steel beneath it was unmistakable. His words were polished, poetic, and perfectly engineered to sound compassionate; the same way every collectivist movement in history has introduced itself.
Mamdani declared, “We will build a city where prosperity is shared, not hoarded.”
To the untrained ear, it sounds noble. But anyone who has studied the rhetoric of Marx, Lenin, Castro, or Chávez recognizes the formula:
- Redefine prosperity as a collective asset.
- Redefine individual success as theft.
- Redefine government power as moral necessity.
This is the linguistic sleight‑of‑hand that has always preceded the erosion of liberty.
He continued, “Housing is a human right, and we will democratize it.”
“Democratize” is a word that sounds empowering but from the mouths of socialists historically means centralization, regulation, and the slow suffocation of private property. It’s the same vocabulary that turned once‑vibrant cities and countries in history into bureaucratic wastelands.
Then came the crescendo: “We will build a city where dignity is guaranteed.”
Guaranteed? By whom? Government bureaucracy?
Guaranteed at what cost? Taxing the rich? As the song, “I’d Love to Change the World” by Ten Years After (1971) goes, “Tax the rich, feed the poor, Till there are no rich no more.” Then, the inevitable question becomes, “Then what?”
Guaranteed through what mechanism? In the end it always becomes through government force.
This is the classic utopian promise: a world where government becomes the arbiter of dignity, fairness, and morality. And once government claims the power to guarantee dignity, it inevitably claims the power to define it, apply it, and enforce it. What follows is mismanagement, corruption, a loss of innovation and industry, shortages and rationing, violence, poverty, and ultimately death.
New York may be the stage, but the script is nothing new. We’ve seen this ideological drift metastasize in Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco on a smaller scale, and lead to the deaths of hundreds of millions on a global scale when countries adopt the same path. Understand, this is not just leftism. This is not just the rantings of a Democratic Socialist with the best of intentions. Zohran Mamdani is proclaiming that communism will rule New York City. He will make it happen despite any obstacles from outside the city. And he is willing to follow the same hellish path every other historical leader who used the language of “equity” have gone down. The policies that Mamdani is proclaiming as a new and bold path for New York City are tried and failed policies that opened up cities and countries throughout history to catastrophic consequences that punished productivity, rewarded dependency, hollowed out the middle class and led those societies to unparalleled poverty and ultimately massive death.
Despite calls that this is only New York City’s problem, understand that when a cancer forms, it threatens the entire body. Mamdani’s inauguration was not just a local ceremony. It was a national signal. Mamdani’s speech was a declaration that the same collectivist ideas that have failed everywhere around the world throughout history once they’ve been tried are once again being marketed as moral imperatives – but this time, right here in America in a major American city.
And like any cancer, if ignored, it can spread.
The reality is as clear as the horrific images we have seen from history: Communism never arrives wearing a hammer and sickle. It arrives wearing compassion. It arrives promising fairness. It arrives insisting that government-guided socialism can fix what capitalism supposedly broke. The rhetoric is always beautiful. The results are always catastrophic.
From a constitutional perspective, Mamdani’s speech was a direct challenge to the principles that built this country:
- Individual liberty
- Individual God-Given Natural Rights
- Private property
- Limited government
- Free Market
- Personal responsibility
When a mayor speaks as if government is the source of dignity, prosperity, and fairness, he is not merely offering policy; he is redefining the relationship between the citizen and the state. That is the ideological pivot point where republics falter, and democracy becomes socialist collectivism.
Bad ideas do not remain contained if a virtuous informed people do nothing to stop them. Cancer spreads, and as Americans we must pay attention to where these tumors begin to grow, and then take action to surgically remove them. If left unchecked, especially when it comes to us who understand the Constitution, history, and the cost of freedom, we know that the ideology being spewed by Mamdani takes down civilizations, and destroys liberty. Therefore, we must:
- Speak boldly
- Get involved in the public square
- Write clearly
- Challenge false narratives
- Defend the principles that made this nation exceptional
- And do so by the means God has given us, be it written, verbal, by our actions, or even pursuing public office.
We must be fully aware that the battle is not in New York City alone.
The battle is a part of a much larger war where the language of collectivism is being repackaged as compassion.
And if we do not confront it now, we will confront its consequences later.
If we don’t cut out the cancer early, here’s what will happen:
- Private Enterprise in New York will be strangled, and a mass exodus of corporate money will follow.
- As the local markets begin to fail, bureaucratic control will increase.
- As bureaucratic control increases, more businesses, and wealthy individuals will flee New York City.
- As the money begins to dry up, the free bus rides will be reduced, the government grocery stores (if not already haunted by empty shelves) will fail and face closures, hospital services will begin to collapse, shortages will become chronic, basic care or services will become inaccessible, and a reduction in competence will ensue as the most skilled residents depart from the region for better opportunities.
- Centers of production or services will close their doors as they become regulated into oblivion. If not for outside sources contributing, the rationing and hunger within the city would begin killing people.
- Prices in New York City will elevate to levels that residents cannot afford.
- Rent control will result in owners of properties losing their properties or abandoning them. The advent of empty structures will begin to increase. Many of those buildings will become swarmed by homeless, drug-users, and the criminal element. Violence and crime will increase and become a dominant characteristic of the city. With prices exceeding salaries, residents will begin to barter or use black market channels to receive what little is left for them to procure in the markets.
- Due to mismanagement, city services will be crippled, and crime will increase due to a shortage in police, or the refusal of police services to be anything other than social services officers. Frustrated, city personnel in vital services will quit and leave the area, leaving New York City without significant police, fire or other emergency services.
- The remaining professionals and those who can afford to leave will flee as those who remain become further pushed into poverty. Equity will be achieved in the sense of equal misery, with Mamdani and his cronies living in an elite status and blaming their collapse on conservatives, large corporations, and the failure of the rest of the country to follow their example. When corruption and mismanagement begins to be revealed as we are seeing in Minnesota, they will point fingers, deny responsibility, and launch lawsuits against those who accuse them of impropriety. The media will blame Corporate America, Trump, or his successors in the Republican Party.
I am not a prognosticator. I simply have seen this play out over and over and over in cities and countries in history many times. Socialism always fails, no matter the scale. The only reason New York City won’t collapse into complete despair like the Soviet Union, Cuba, or Venezuela is because it is a city in the United States, and the rest of the country is not following it into its death spiral. But, like California, New York’s collapse will not be resolved until it all hits rock bottom, and even then I am not so sure a light will be at the end of the tunnel within our lifetimes. While politicians will seek to bail out the city with federal money, the situation won’t turn around until the city is pulled from its own rubble by a return to free market principles, a reduction in the centralization of power, and a return to law and order.
Hopefully, the collapse of New York City will serve as a lesson to the rest of America who have the fantastical belief that socialism is somehow a path to utopia.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” – C.S. Lewis
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
By Douglas V. Gibbs
Tonight I am spending New Years’ Eve with my lovely wife of over four decades. Our journey has been an interesting one, to say the least. We began unevenly yoked, spent 21 years battling like children, spent the next 17 sort of battling but trying to figure it out, and then the last trio of years living the marriage The Lord intended for us. I am not sure if it is a lesson of how hard of heads we had, or the importance of patience. My wife says, “God’s Timing.”
God sees what we don’t. Sometimes the path we wind up with isn’t what we planned, but by God’s Grace it turns out better. I have always believed God has a Hand in things, though I’ve never been so sure He necessarily controls things, either. I believe in Free Will, but I also believe that God nudges things sometimes to keep them going in a manner He intends. I remember in 2020 how upset we were that President Trump didn’t win, and that the whole thing about Biden’s victory seemed spurious at best. Then, the January 6 production of deception by the Democrats made it worse. The agitators and plants created exactly what they hoped for, and despite the fact that we knew that MAGA is not violent, and that what happened at The Capitol was a staged false flag, it seemed there was nothing we could do about it. I had many friends who don’t have a violent bone in their bodies behind bars over it, charged with ridiculous crimes, simply because they were on the grounds in Washington D.C. on January 6. Then, with the success of the 2020 cheat, the deception that shrouded the whole thing, and the lies that continued to fester during Biden’s presidency, it seemed like the Democrats had figured out a way to win even when they lose. It was very discouraging, to say the least.
Which brings us back to, God’s Timing.
God had other plans. Looking back, it was a good thing Donald Trump skipped four years between presidencies. The best laid plans blew up in the faces of the Democrats as their policies ruined an economy that was raging in the right direction before their COVID scamdemic and false Biden presidency ruined it. But, during that four years of darkness the enemies of America exposed themselves, Donald Trump discovered who his friends were and who his enemies truly were, and in their arrogance the Democrats laid out a perfect path for Donald Trump to win the presidency back in November of 2024. And, since his inauguration on January 20, 2025, we’ve been as a country on a trajectory many thought was impossible. I am not saying that President Trump is some kind of savior, but he’s definitely the better choice; and in the last year he’s done more as President than any other President in history.
As a Christian, I support his policies. As a constitutionalist I have found his policies to be, for the most part, within the parameters of constitutional authority. His job as President is to execute the laws of the Union, according to Article II of the Constitution, and that’s what he’s been doing. Some of his ideas push the boundaries (not so sure about that Sovereign Wealth Fund idea, for example), but it’s nothing like the unconstitutional madness we saw with Obama and Biden – or would have seen with a President Hillary Clinton.
Time will tell, I suppose, if Americans will recognize the progress we’ve been experiencing under Trump’s leadership. Americans tend to vote with their wallets, so if the economic improvements continue, and become more visible during 2026, then the midterm elections should swing in the favor of the Republican Party, with a hint of MAGA seasoning.
And that is the key. Time will tell. God’s timing, as my wife says. In the end, that is usually the best answer. I am not a prognosticator. People who claim to be prophets don’t do well when they are wrong. So, I am not going to claim a Red Wave is coming, though we are long overdue for one. But, since we have a President that operates with America’s best interests at heart, you would think that voters would see enough to rid ourselves of the destructive Democrats who stand in his way. If election integrity was fully in place, I believe the Democratic Party would go the way of the Whigs and the Federalists. But, at the same time, I am careful not to underestimate the enemies of American Liberty.
Time will tell…
“The chief beauty about time
is that you cannot waste it in advance.
The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you,
as perfect, as unspoiled,
as if you had never wasted or misapplied
a single moment in all your life.
You can turn over a new leaf every hour
if you choose.”
― Arnold Bennett
“Rather than turning the page, it’s much easier to just throw the book away.”
― Anthony Liccione
“Morning will come, it has no choice.”
― Marty Rubin
“New Year – a new chapter, new verse, or just the same old story? Ultimately we write it. The choice is ours.”
― Alex Morritt, Impromptu Scribe
Conventional wisdom says the Trump agenda will not be fading away. He’s the man who the Tea Party emerged for. He’s the kind of President who defeats the enemies of America while tying the loose ends in such a way that America comes out ahead. But understand, like the current under a boat in a raging river, the left doesn’t give up. We fight a never-ending battle, a war that requires eternal vigilance on our part.
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” Spuriously attributed to Thomas Jefferson.
God’s Timing.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
By Douglas V. Gibbs
Venezuela was once one of the wealthiest countries in the world on a per-capita basis, powered by enormous oil reserves and a relatively stable western democratic free-market system. Then, as their prosperity peaked and oil exports increased its influence on their economy, they moved away from domestic manufacturing and domestic agriculture, becoming more dependent upon imports for things they once produced. Then, in 1999, the voters fell for the trappings of socialist promises, and elected Hugo Chavez as their president. Chavez then launched the Bolivarian Revolution, transforming the economy into a state-controlled socialist model. The government nationalized oil, agriculture, telecommunications, steel, electricity and more. Then, price controls were placed on food, fuel, and consumer goods. Currency controls distorted the markets and encouraged corruption. Then, pushed by Cultural Marxism’s call for social justice, massive social spending ensued, funded almost entirely by high oil prices. While in the beginning the policies were viewed as fair, and a way to create better equity in society, they hollowed out private industry and placed the country’s economy solely on government decisions and a lack of any private innovation or domestic production.
Oil production ultimately declined, largely due to mismanagement, and the domestic economy collapsed. Once Chavez was gone, the deterioration of the economy increased, with living standards dropping by 74% between 2013 and 2023 under Nicolas Maduro who replaced Chavez when the communist leader died on March 5, 2013. Maduro doubled down on Chavez’s policies of central planning and repression, leading to hyperinflation and a contraction of GDP by more than 75%. Seven million Venezuelans fled by 2022, creating one of the world’s largest refugee crises.
As nationalization destroyed the private-sector and any industrial efficiency, price controls made production unprofitable, expropriations scared off investment, and state-run enterprises became politically staffed and mismanaged, black markets and corruption gained footing and began to bleed throughout the system. Lack of accountability fed the corruption, and the concentration of power increased to protect the corruption. Incentive was eliminated, productivity was destroyed, and the market system collapsed thanks to the socialist policies of Chavez and Maduro.
As with any collapsed state and runaway widespread corruption, organized crime found a footing. With the breakdown of institutions, and the weakening of government, criminal networks filled the vacuum. Security forces went unpaid, borders became porous, oversight and accountability evaporated, and as a result criminal groups became the de facto authority. The rise of criminal organizations was accepted by the Maduro regime, and government officials became enablers of the criminal organizations. Maduro allowed, provided little resistance to, and profited from drug trafficking, money laundering, arms trafficking, and human trafficking. Venezuela became a key corridor for cocaine moving from Colombia to global markets. Why? Weak border patrol, corrupt military and policing units, strategic Caribbean access and corrupt communist government made Venezuela a perfect tool for criminal organizations. The government, after all, could no longer stop them, much less cared to stop them.
As time passed, the rise of megabandas emerged. Megabandas are criminal groups with more than two-hundred members, have access to military-grade weapons, and who have achieved territorial control over neighborhoods or regions in Venezuela. For example, El Koki, a gang leader who controlled a population of 700,000 in Caracas operated with tacit approval from the Maduro government.
These gangs run extortion rackets, control drug distribution and operate with political protection. Sometimes, they even act as paramilitary forces for the Maduro regime. Venezuela’s citizens, as a result of trading a western-style free market for socialism, are now experiencing mass unemployment, food scarcity, and hyperinflation. For a lot of people, drug trafficking and other criminal activities become their main viable options for survival. When the legitimate economy dies, a black market inevitably becomes the primary economy.
Here in America, the Democrats, while in power, turned a blind eye to what was going on, and the hardcore socialists I’ve talked to even went so far as to blame Venezuela’s fall on American multi-national corporations, rather than the political socialist policies of Venezuela’s government leaders. President Trump, however, views what is going on as a national security issue, and he has made it one of the priorities of his administration to take action regarding the threat.
According to the Trump administration, Venezuela’s collapse created criminal and trafficking networks involved in drug trafficking, illicit finance, and organized crime. These criminal networks are directly tied to drug flows, which harm Americans. President Trump has made it a mission to protect the U.S. homeland from narcotics and criminal organizations operating from Venezuela.
So, President Trump has taken action as Commander in Chief to launch strikes on drug-smuggling boats, to seize sanctioned tankers in international waters, and now to hit a “big facility” where drug-running boats were loaded.
President Trump acknowledged Monday, December 19, 2025 that U.S. forces struck a facility in Venezuela, describing a “major explosion” at a dock area used to load boats with drugs. While President Trump has described his actions against Venezuela as moves designed to “squeeze” Maduro’s government, this is the first land-based strike in Venezuela under Donald Trump’s presidency.
“We hit all the boats, and now we hit the area, it’s the implementation area. That’s where they implement. And that is no longer around,” said President Trump regarding the strike while meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. While the President has denied that he plans to start a land war in Venezuela, or that he seeks “regime-change,” he has also signaled that he is willing to expand military actions from maritime strikes to land-based targets if that is what is necessary to disrupt narcotics trafficking and diminish the Maduro regime’s influence.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
Long History of Democratic Party Rot
By Douglas V. Gibbs
How many people have believed that the deep dark establishment of the political left is evil, corrupt, and even murderous? Ever since the nineties we’ve heard about the Clinton Kill List. Nobody has ever been able to prove it, but deep down we know it exists. It worked its way into mainstream conversation with the deaths of Seth Rich, and notorious sex-island pedo Jeffery Epstein. Then, the investigations about secret email servers and dark schemes to go after Donald Trump emerged. Again, we were not surprised, but until lately the truth of the whole thing never really made it to mainstream discussions. Typically, it was only talked about during conservative gatherings with hushed jokes and careful whispers.
Recently, news of a trail that leads back to Hillary Clinton in 2016 has surfaced regarding foreign donations flowing to the Clinton Foundation while she steered American foreign policy as Secretary of State. Of course, the FBI machine back then was more than happy to let the trail go cold. Documents published a couple weeks ago revealed the existence of reports about concerns of foreign bribery back then. A 2016 book by investigative journalist Peter Schweizer called “Clinton Cash” helped kick off the 2016 Cracked Foundation investigation.
The Clintons aren’t the only ones capable of behind-the-scenes antics. Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom, and Ilhan Omar experienced questionable financial gains once in office, as has their significant others in the cases of Pelosi and Omar.
Then, of course, there is the myriad of Hollywood Productions on the political stage designed to create the political drama the Democrats believe serves their political interests, from the Russia-Russia-Russia Hoax regarding Donald Trump to the agitation/FBI-plant/staging of the alleged insurrection of January 6 to the lawfare antics that conveniently uses leftist federal judges on the public stage for all to see.
In other words, the Progressive Democrats and their Deep State allies are willing to go to just about any length to gain and maintain their power and wealth. From agitations to assassinations, nothing seems to be too far to go to secure their power and wealth. And since President Donald Trump took office nearly a year ago, a nice long list of exposed dark schemes are now bubbling to the surface.
After ruining the lives and careers of anyone who dared claim that the 2020 Election was stolen, and in particular when it came to the State of Georgia where Fani Willis staged a vicious lawfare campaign regarding those claims, recent news has come out that Fulton County now admits to illegally counting 315,000 ballots. That means that if those illegal votes had not been counted, Trump would have won Georgia by somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000 votes. Now, a new investigation has been opened, and I have a feeling the recent revelation of 315,000 votes is only the tip of the iceberg. Other revelations of election fraud have been springing up around the country, with a case in southern Texas likely changing a district from blue to red.
In Los Angeles a cover-up has been exposed regarding the Palisades firestorm on January 7, 2025. According to PJ Media, Mayor “Bass’s office and the leadership at the LAFD removed, erased, and excised information that implicated the state’s role and the city’s botched preparation and response to the Lachman Fire and the state’s standing orders to allow those fires to burn themselves out.” In short, L.A. Fire and city brass chose not to pre-deploy and fully staff-up for the fire – a decision that did not align with the department’s policy and procedures during red flag days. What else are they hiding?
The fraud and corruption and willingness to do things that may even incite the assassination of a candidate for President of the United States is not beyond these people. Their power, their wealth, and their arrogance have led them to a position where it seems nothing is off the table.
Which brings us to Minnesota, and the Somali Fraud.
The fraud in Minnesota is not an isolated incident, and we are finding out that it is tied to much deeper dark engines inside the Democratic Party than what we see on the surface. It all came to light with the Feeding Our Future fraud where the Feeding Our Future non-profit fraudulently siphoned roughly $250-300 million in federal funds, making it the largest pandemic-relief fraud scheme ever brought to light. More than 90 people have been charged, with at least 60 convicted so far. Defendants enrolled restaurants, storefronts, or community centers as “meal distribution sites” under Feeding Our Future’s sponsorship. The meal counts were falsified with fake invoices and meal count sheets, and then the money was laundered through various false companies, fake food vendors, real estate purchases and luxury goods. One defendant used a property company to launder nearly $1 million, buying homes that also operated as taxpayer-funded group homes. While the whole thing exposed the vulnerabilities in federal pandemic-era oversight, it triggered investigations that have exposed a long list of fraud cases, with the FBI calling it “the tip of a very large iceberg” as they investigate related schemes.
The Minnesota fraud also includes up to $18 billion in Medicaid-related spending since 2018 that may have been misused, and other related fraud schemes costing the American taxpayers billions more with a large number of the defendants being Somali. The scandal is partially the result of failure of oversight by Governor Tim Walz who failed to act despite years of warnings. For the Democrats in Minnesota, the “walls are caving in” on Walz as whistleblowers and mayors come forward with claims of a long train of systemic fraud tied to Somali-run programs. The claims are that Walz either ignored the warnings, lacked the competence to prevent the fraud, failed to take action for fear of being accused of being racist, or had his hands in it himself – the latter being a possibility that seems to be bubbling to the surface as we begin to see how many hands were in the scheme through FBI investigations and other revealing reports.
A viral video by independent journalist Nick Shirley showed visits to several Somali-run daycare centers that appeared to be inactive despite allegedly receiving millions in government funding. Federal authorities, including Homeland Security Investigations, launched a new massive investigation following the video’s release.
Representative Kevin Kiley, R-CA, recently unveiled similar mismanagement of taxpayer funds in California, calling it worse than anything going on in Minnesota. According to an audit, the number of high-risk agencies in California that may be vulnerable to fraud, abuse, and mismanagement has doubled while Governor Gavin Newsom has been in office. According to Kiley, “They failed to take corrective steps, costing taxpayers billions and billions of dollars…$24 billion that was spent on homelessness in the state audit also found that the state just lost track of that money as homelessness soared…$32 billion lost to unemployment fraud…a third of our community college applications are fraudulent…The list goes on and on and on.”
Carl DeMaio, California State Assemblyman representing District 75, claims Newsom is overseeing a widespread and costly welfare fraud, arguing that the scale of the alleged misconduct far exceeds similar issues raised in other states and that national media outlets have largely failed to scrutinize the situation.
In Minnesota, protecting the schemes may have even led to the assassination of a member of the state legislature. According to the Libs of TikTok, Melissa Hortman was the only Democrat to vote against healthcare for illegals in the state legislature, and then was found assassinated a few days later. The Democratic representative had held an office in the Minnesota State House of Representatives since 2023, and was murdered by Vance Boelter who was indicted on July 15, 2025 on six federal charges in connection to her death, that of her husband Mark Hortman, the shootings of Senator John Hoffman and Yvette Hoffman, and the attempted shooting of Hope Hoffman. Vance Boelter was re-appointed to a Minnesota state advisory board by Governor Tim Walz six years ago, though it was a minor, unpaid position and no personal relationship or ideological alignment between Walz and Boelter has been established.
Could her vote have angered individuals connected to Minnesota’s large welfare-fraud networks to the point that they would put a hit out on her? While there is no hard evidence that fraud networks targeted Hortman, and statements put out by those involved in the investigations state that the shooter acted alone and that such theories are unfounded, the circumstances and timing definitely can be considered compelling enough to make such an assertion.
Considering the long history of leftist deception, lies, and illegal moves by the Democratic Party’s elite, it’s no surprise that under the Trump presidency a number of progressive games of deception and fraud are being rooted out. So much so that the rats are beginning to abandon ship, and in many cases out themselves. According to The Daily Signal, “More than 200 former staff at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division signed a letter condemning Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, and in doing so, they outed themselves as deep state actors and demonstrated Dhillon’s effectiveness in restoring the division to its true mission.”
“There absolutely is a deep state,” John Daukas, former acting assistant attorney general in the division in Trump’s first term told The Daily Signal. An April RMG Research poll found that 75% of the federal employees who voted for Kamala Harris last year, work in the District of Columbia, and make more than $150,000 annually said they would refuse to follow a lawful order from President Donald Trump, if they considered it bad policy. Daukas said many Civil Rights Division career staff he worked with acted on a similar mentality. “They acted like they were the policymakers, like they had been elected, as opposed to the president,” he recalled. I can name a long list of federal judges that seem to think the same way.
How long has the shenanigans been going on when it comes to the Democrats, and their quest to build and maintain their power and wealth? At least a hundred years, or more? Then again, these kinds of things go all the way back to the founding. President Thomas Jefferson was attacked by the courts for his actions, and found himself firing half of the bureaucracy when he entered office – the big government, Federalist Party half. Incidentally, reversing the bad policies, ending bad government spending, and clearing out the deep state actors in the bureaucracy led to an interesting result; the inability of the Federalist Party to win anymore major elections, which, within a couple decades, led to the end of that political party.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary