Bummer: Feeding Our Future CEO Aimee Bock Found Guilty

How bad was the graft with a federal program to make the government come after her? Pretty bad

Minnesota jury convicts alleged ringleader of massive pandemic food fraud scheme on all counts

A jury found the alleged ringleader of a massive pandemic fraud case in Minnesota guilty on all counts Wednesday for her role in a scheme that federal prosecutors say stole $250 million from a program meant to feed children in need.

They found her guilty. Nothing alleged about it. Fookin’ Associated Press

Aimee Bock — founder of Feeding our Future, the group at the heart of the plot — was one of 70 defendants charged in the overall case, which prosecutors said was the nation’s single largest fraud scheme against COVID-19 relief programs.

The Minnesota case has also drawn attention for an attempt to bribe a juror in an earlier trial and witness tampering in Bock’s trial, which began last month. Thirty-seven defendants have already pleaded guilty, while five were convicted in a group of defendants who were tried last year.

The jury also convicted a co-defendant, Salim Ahmed Said, owner of the now-defunct Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis.

Bock, 44, and Said, 36, were charged with multiple counts involving conspiracy, wire fraud and bribery. Said was also charged with money laundering. Bock allegedly pocketed nearly $2 million, while Said was accused of taking around $5 million. They both maintained their innocence and testified at trial.

Feeding or Future was always rather shady, the minute it was created in 2016, and the Minnesota Department Of Education was always leery of them from the get go. But, somehow they got funding

(IRS) In total, Feeding Our Future opened more than 250 Federal Child Nutrition Program sites throughout the state of Minnesota, and in doing so, went from receiving and disbursing approximately $3.4 million in federal funds in 2019 to nearly $200 million in 2021. Throughout the course of their scheme, Feeding Our Future fraudulently obtained and disbursed more than $240 million in Federal Child Nutrition Program funds. The defendants used the proceeds of their fraudulent scheme to purchase luxury vehicles, residential and commercial real estate in Minnesota as well as property in Ohio and Kentucky, real estate in Kenya and Turkey, and to fund international travel.

Who authorized these federal funds to go to Feeding Our Future? I hope federal prosecutors are looking at their finances and lifestyles, see if they were receiving kickbacks. The thing here is that FOF was so shady that they were easily caught. How many others aren’t? How much waste of federal money occurs elsewhere but they’re better at hiding it? From this tweet on the subject

They were so bad they got caught. When Dems caterwaul about children going hungry, medicine not getting to needy people, and so forth, how much of the federal money actually goes to the stated purpose? What percent? There are a few charities I refuse to donate to because so much of the donated money goes to overhead, payroll, and more fundraising and just a pittance goes to aid. If, say, $2 billion goes to feeding people around the world, how much makes it? As it passes through the hands of NGO after NGO to this company to that company, what percent is used for food? The programs are set up poorly, and often set up to avoid accountability. This needs to stop.

Read: Bummer: Feeding Our Future CEO Aimee Bock Found Guilty »

If All You See…

…is a hill which probably lost its glacier from carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is American Greatness, with a post on a reckoning for higher education.

Read: If All You See… »

Bummer: Universities Are Caving To Trump

This has given Politico and Democrats a big mad

Universities are caving to Trump with a stunning speed and scope

Colleges and universities across the country are capitulating to President Donald Trump with staggering speed, moving to slash progressive policies and crack down on student activism as they face compounding threats from an administration hellbent on reshaping higher education.

Columbia University on Thursday appeared poised to submit to a list of Trump administration demands that threaten core tenets of the school’s mission in an attempt to release itself from a $400 million federal funding freeze. The University of California’s board moved on Wednesday to cut diversity statements from recruitment requirements. Dartmouth College on Monday announced it had hired the Republican National Committee’s former chief counsel — an outspoken critic of birthright citizenship — as the college’s top lawyer and leader of its immigration office. And dozens of universities last month rushed to scrub diversity, equity and inclusion policies from their websites and cancel related events.

It’s a stunning display of how some of the country’s oldest, wealthiest and enduring institutions have swiftly folded to Trump, who is acting on longstanding conservative criticisms of universities as elitist and progressive. In the path of the Trump administration’s threats — and with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake — schools are being tested on how their values, jobs and research stand up to today’s political realities.

If they’re so wealthy then why are they relying on millions, even hundreds of millions, of dollars from Los Federales?

“It’s going to be tense for a while, because … the [university] presidents are not going to go into full-on resistance mode,” said Holden Thorp, the former chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “They have too much history and financial resources and people to protect to do that.”

A growing number of institutions are initiating hiring freezesrescinding graduate admissions offers and pausing construction, which may be costly to fire up again even if Congress or a new administration reopens the spigot of cash.

Trump hit them in the thing they really care about, the thing that will make them change their behavior: money.

Trump’s tactics are largely delivering on years of conservative frustrations accelerated during the pandemic that galvanized voters against academic frameworks like critical race theory and gender identity as well as DEI and pro-Palestinian protests. As early as 2021, Vice President JD Vance — a Yale alum and not yet a senator — declared “the universities are the enemy.”

Now that Trump and Vance are in charge, they’re using rarely tapped levers of government to shred DEI, discipline pro-Palestinian activists and bar transgender athletes from sports nationally in a way that previous administrations have shied away from. They’re also testing those theories with private universities that are not as directly dependent on state tax money for their operating budgets but have come to expect billions of dollars in federal grant funding for research that can be excruciating to restart if dismantled.

Politico finally hit the primary reasons, the first being allowing Hamas support/protests/riots on their campuses, but, do not mention the harassment and violence towards Jewish students. Second is allowing biological men to take the spots of biological females in sports primarily, along with those gender confused in the safe spaces of women. When did Democrats decide they would throw woman overboard? It wasn’t that long ago they were overdoing it with #MeToo.

“This is long overdue,” said Roger Severino, vice president of domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation. He added that universities are “finally complying with the law” after “civil rights laws under Obama and Biden were turned on their head and the DEI woke agenda displaced actual civil rights.”

As usual, Democrats went too far with this, and it was long time to end it.

Read: Bummer: Universities Are Caving To Trump »

Doom Today: UN Says Some Glaciers May Not Survive By The End Of The Century

I’d say “who gets fired when this doesn’t happen”, but, really, there are lots and lots of glaciers which have disappeared since the end of the last glacial age. That’s why this is called an inter-glacial. And then glaciers will come back during a Holocene cool period. Then disappear during the warm period that follows

End of eternal ice: Many glaciers will not survive this century, climate scientists say

Together with ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, glaciers lock up about 70 per cent of the world’s freshwater reserves. They are striking indicators of climate change as they typically remain about the same size in a stable climate.

But, with rising temperatures and global warming triggered by human-induced climate change, they are melting at unprecedented speed, said Sulagna Mishra, a scientific officer at the World Meteorological Organization

Last year, glaciers in Scandinavia, the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard and North Asia experienced the largest annual loss of overall mass on record. Glaciologists determine the state of a glacier by measuring how much snow falls on it and how much melt occurs every year, according to UN partner the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) at the University of Zurich.

How far back does that record go? Can it incorporate the previous Holocene warm periods for scientific integrity?

The latest data indicates that 25 to 30 per cent of sea level rise comes from glacier melt, according to the World Glacier Monitoring Service.

Melting snowcaps are causing sea levels to rise about one millimetre higher every year, a figure that might seem insignificant, yet every millimetre will flood another 200,000 to 300,000 persons every year.

Man, they are really going full Doom, eh?

WGMS’s Mr. Zemp, who also teaches glaciology at the University of Zurich, is already preparing for a world without glaciers.

“If I think of my children, I am living in a world with maybe no glaciers. That’s actually quite alarming,” he told UN News.

“I really recommend going with your children there and having a look at it because you can see the dramatic changes that are going on, and you will also realise that we are putting a big burden on our next generation.”

And how will they get there? Fossil fueled travel? Maybe they can talk about the glaciers during the next UN climate conference in Brazil after tens of thousands take fossil fueled trips.

Echoing those concerns, WMO’s Ms. Mishra added that if emissions of warming greenhouse gases are not slowed “and the temperatures are rising at the rate they are at the moment, by the end of 2100, we are going to lose 80 per cent of the small glaciers” across Europe, East Africa, Indonesia and elsewhere.

And if that doesn’t happen? Well, none of the people making the prognostications will be around to be fired.

Read: Doom Today: UN Says Some Glaciers May Not Survive By The End Of The Century »

Trump Admin Drops Lawsuit Against Texas Law Which Criminalizes Illegally Crossing The Border

Yet another Biden era thing that’s going away….unless one of the moonbat judges want to try and tell the DOJ they must challenge the law

Trump administration drops challenge to Texas law targeting people who illegally cross the border

The Trump administration late Tuesday moved to drop the federal government’s legal challenge to the Texas immigration law that allows local police to arrest people they suspect crossed the Texas-Mexico border illegally.

The law, known as Senate Bill 4, will continue to be challenged by El Paso County

Two immigrant rights groups — Austin-based American Gateways and El Paso-based Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center — who are represented by Texas Civil Rights Project lawyers.

In a court filing, the U.S. Department of Justice told U.S. District Judge David Ezra that it is voluntarily dropping its legal challenge.

The Texas Legislature approved the law in 2023, then the Biden administration filed a lawsuit against it. Ezra had blocked the law from going into effect, but Texas appealed. The appeals court sent the case back to Ezra’s court, where it remains pending.

Unfortunately, it still means that the law is on hold

The law would make it a state crime to cross the Texas-Mexico border between ports of entry. If a police officer believes they have evidence that a person illegally crossed the Rio Grande, that person could be charged with a Class B misdemeanor, which carries a punishment of up to six months in jail. For subsequent offenses, the person could be charged with a second-degree felony and face up to 20 years in prison.

If the migrant is convicted and has served their sentence, a judge must order police to transport them to a port of entry for removal from the country. A judge could drop the charges if a migrant agrees to return to Mexico, and police could turn over migrant families to Border Patrol agents to avoid separating children from their parents instead of arresting them.

Fortunately, President Trump has been sending tons of help to the border states, including Texas, to pick up all those illegals. And, if a local, county, or state law enforcement officer catches one they can just hand of to Los Federales.

Meanwhile

TN lawmakers introduce bill to criminalize those harboring illegal immigrants

Tennessee lawmakers are working to make it a crime to harbor or hide a person who illegally enters and remains in the United States.

Introduced by Representative Chris Todd (R-Madison County) and Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis), HB0322 has recently been recommended for passage in the House and has had multiple sponsors added throughout March.

The bill would allow the attorney general to charge people or an organization with a human trafficking offense or an aggravated human trafficking offense if they harbor or hide an illegal immigrant in Tennessee.

And we all know that the minute it is passed the Usual Suspects will sue.

Read: Trump Admin Drops Lawsuit Against Texas Law Which Criminalizes Illegally Crossing The Border »

Utah Supreme Court Kills Yout’s Climate Cult Lawsuit

First the Utah Supreme Court decided in June 2024 that they would hear the suit to see if it should be revived. Then in September 2024 they seemed reluctant to revive the suit. And now

Utah Supreme Court rules on teens’ lawsuit over climate change policies

The Utah Supreme Court has rejected a lawsuit filed by a group of teens against the state arguing its fossil fuel policies contribute to climate change and harm their lives.

In a unanimous ruling, the Court upheld a lower court judge’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit. However, the justices reversed the lower court and ordered the lawsuit to be dismissed “without prejudice,” allowing the teens to bring a new legal challenge. That gave them a partial victory.

Seven teens represented by Our Children’s Trust sued Governor Spencer Cox and Utah’s Division of Oil, Gas & Mining. They basically argued that the state’s energy policies — with a heavy reliance on fossil fuels — contributes heavily to climate change and that harms their health, in violation of the Utah Constitution’s “right to life” provision. They were asking the Utah Supreme Court to revive their lawsuit and the justices heard arguments last year. (snip)

But Justice Hagen and the rest of the Court did leave a door open for the teens to bring a new legal claim. They ordered the lawsuit to be dismissed “without prejudice.”

“In the proceedings below, the youth plaintiffs did not seek leave to amend their complaint. So once the district court determined that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction, it should have dismissed the complaint without prejudice, providing the youth plaintiffs an opportunity to cure the jurisdictional deficiencies in a repleaded complaint,” she wrote.

So, the youts and their big money astroturf enablers can waste more time and money bringing another suit in an attempt to force Everyone Else to comply with their cult beliefs. And, sadly, the Court didn’t ask the youts if they had given up their own use of fossil fuels and make their own lives carbon neutral. But, remember, the cult will never give up.

Read: Utah Supreme Court Kills Yout’s Climate Cult Lawsuit »

If All You See…

…is a wonderful low carbon sailboat, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Ace Of Spades HQ, with a post on DOGE calling the cops on the US Institute Of Peace.

Read: If All You See… »

CNN Notices All The Conservatives Being Swatted In The Most Antiseptic Way Possible

Swatting is a horrible, horrible thing. It puts people’s lives in extreme danger, and it almost always seems to be done with the intent of causing harm to people on the other political side. This seems to happen mostly to Conservatives, but, not always. Angela Belicamino, known as a BOLD LIB on Twitter, was swatted in 2018. And, really, as she also tweeted “Swatting = attempted murder.” It is

Right now, it is primarily Conservatives being swatted, because they support Trump and Elon. But, I remember when a bunch of Conservatives were being swatted for going against Brett Kimberlin (a big deep issue). People like Aaron Walker and Patterico were swatted over this. Erik Erickson and Steve Bannon have been swatted. Many on Trump’s transition team were swatted. And now, for instance

So, how does CNN cover this?

‘I just fell to the ground:’ Some of Trump and Musk’s most public supporters targeted in a wave of swatting incidents

Larry Taunton was in bed around 1 a.m. on Sunday in his Alabama home when he noticed his dog, Ranger, getting worked up.

“His ears were up and moving like satellite dishes,” Taunton told CNN in an interview.

He noticed a flicker of light, and then the German Shepherd headed toward the front door. Taunton grabbed his gun and followed, leaving the lights off. When he got to the kitchen, all he could see in the darkness was a figure in body armor holding a semi-automatic rifle trying to open his door.

“I’m thinking, if that man comes through my door, I’m going to light him up,” Taunton said. “Because you’re just thinking, ‘Somebody’s here to murder me and my wife.’”

It turned out to be three officers, guns drawn. Police told Taunton that they received a call saying three men in hoodies were “moving throughout the house, executing everybody.”

He had been swatted.

Is it just me or does that seem rather antiseptic? Minimized? Emotionless? Can you imagine if these were Democrats getting swatted, how that story would be written?

Almost all the influencers who have publicized their recent swattings are conservative supporters of President Donald Trump. Many have also interacted with top Trump adviser and donor Elon Musk on X over the years, with Musk either replying to them or reposting their X posts. The swattings are happening as Tesla owners and dealerships are experiencing a wave of vandalism in backlash against the company’s billionaire CEO, and his Department of Government Efficiency.

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security say they’re investigating this latest rash of swattings, which these influencers say could easily turn deadly.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, we will not sit idly by as conservative new media and their families are being targeted by false swatting,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem wrote on X on Wednesday. “@DHSgov has the ability to trace phone numbers and track location information. We will use it to hunt these cowards down. This is an attack on our law enforcement and innocent families and we will prosecute it as such.”

I’m not sure why police departments aren’t taking more measures when these calls come in. They should know who it is for real before sending a swat team. It should be verified. Heck, a couple months ago I called the Raleigh PD about a fire underneath the 540 bridge at Capital Blvd, they had my phone number, asked my name and address, and seemed to verify me quickly before listening. Sure, nothing is perfect over the phone, but, a swatting is more serious.

Swatting is a form of harassment that’s considered a crime at the federal and state levels.

And it can be deadly. In 2017, police killed Andrew Finch after a group of online gamers — who were later imprisoned — called 911 to report that a man had shot his father in the head and was holding his mother and brother at gunpoint, while threatening to set their home on fire.

Finch was shot by police when he dropped his hands as officers told him to raise his arms when he came out of the house, according to the US attorney.

This is a dangerous practice, and there needs to be harsh penalties. And it doesn’t just affect those being swatted

The responding officers have in some cases been impacted, too. Derham said she and her husband have been in touch with the first officer who responded to the swatting call targeting their home. He has been “very affected,” by the incident she said, considering he could have unintentionally harmed her, or her children, had the night gone differently.

They get sent on fake calls which can go very, very wrong.

Read: CNN Notices All The Conservatives Being Swatted In The Most Antiseptic Way Possible »

Greenpeace Slapped With $660 Million Fine Verdict Over Criminal Pipeline Protest

If you can’t pay the fine don’t do the crime

Greenpeace must pay over $660M in case over Dakota Access protest activities, jury finds

Environmental group Greenpeace must pay more than $660 million in damages for defamation and other claims brought by a pipeline company in connection with protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline’s construction in North Dakota, a jury found Wednesday.

Dallas-based Energy Transfer and subsidiary Dakota Access had accused Netherlands-based Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA and funding arm Greenpeace Fund Inc. of defamation, trespass, nuisance, civil conspiracy and other acts. Greenpeace USA was found liable for all counts, while the others were found liable for some. The damages owed will be spread out in different amounts over the three entities.

Greenpeace said earlier that a large award to the pipeline company would threaten to bankrupt the organization. Following the nine-person jury’s verdict, Greenpeace’s senior legal adviser said the group’s work “is never going to stop.” (snip)

Energy Transfer called Wednesday’s verdict a “win” for “Americans who understand the difference between the right to free speech and breaking the law.”

“While we are pleased that Greenpeace has been held accountable for their actions against us, this win is really for the people of Mandan and throughout North Dakota who had to live through the daily harassment and disruptions caused by the protesters who were funded and trained by Greenpeace,” the company said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Obviously, Greenpeace is going to appeal, and say they will keep fighting to stop Big Oil (hey, how’d all the protesters get to the protests?). But, this was such an easy verdict for the jury shows that appeals might be difficult, even if they find a friendly judge.

Cox had said Greenpeace carried out a scheme to stop the pipeline’s construction. During opening statements, he alleged Greenpeace paid outsiders to come into the area and protest, sent blockade supplies, organized or led protester trainings, and made untrue statements about the project to stop it.

Attorneys for the Greenpeace entities had said there was no evidence to the claims and that Greenpeace employees had little or no involvement in the protests and the organizations had nothing to do with Energy Transfer’s delays in construction or refinancing.

The jury felt they did. Oh, well. Greenpeace long ago lost the thread of protecting the environment. They were always a bit militant, but, then they just went wackadoodle in trying to push climate cult stuff.

Read: Greenpeace Slapped With $660 Million Fine Verdict Over Criminal Pipeline Protest »

Washington Post Very Concerned Trump Is Sending “Chilling Message” To Illegal Aliens

Seriously, the Washington Post and excitable writers Marianne LeVine and Adriana Usero don’t seem to get that sending chilling messages to illegals already here and ones who are thinking of coming is exactly the point

As Trump aides celebrate deportations, chilling message sent to migrants

As the Trump administration battled with a federal judge over the use of wartime powers to deport alleged gang members to El Salvador, the White House X account on Monday posted a video of migrants being handcuffed and sent away, to the soundtrack of the 1998 Semisonic hit “Closing Time,” a song that’s often associated with the end of a party.

“You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here @CBP,” the White House posted, with musical note emojis — a reference to the song lyrics. The video was also posted on Team Trump’s TikTok and reposted by the official account for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, with the caption: “It’s closing time. We are making America safe again.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that the video “sums up our immigration policy pretty well” and that the White House is “encouraging illegal immigrants to actively self-deport, to maybe save themselves from being in one of these fun videos.”

Obviously, this makes the unhinged illegal aliens supporters Upset, yet, you do not see them offering to house the illegals, do you?

Immigration experts, academics and political strategists see a communications approach that’s aimed at the administration’s core supporters and leans into a policy area where President Donald Trump polls more favorably compared with the economy or his overall job performance. During his presidential campaign, Trump said repeatedly that he viewed immigration and the border as the top issue for Americans over the economy.

But some immigration experts also described the use of humor as dehumanizing by minimizing the impact and repercussions of the government’s aggressive actions. They added that images of migrants in shackles boarding deportation flights contribute to Trump’s broad portrayal of undocumented immigrants as criminals, even though there’s little evidence that they commit crimes at a higher rate than U.S. citizens.

Are those experts, academics, and strategists housing illegals? Everything the Trump admin is doing is to disincentivize illegal immigration, as well as fake asylum seekers. And then massive drop in people showing up at the border from the Biden-Harris numbers is indicative that it is all working.

“The sense of humor really signals that the person consuming this message is in the in-group, they’re in on the joke,” said Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan, deputy director of the international program at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. “It amplifies the sense of accomplishment that is not readily apparent in the data. … In so doing, they’ve made a real choice to use dehumanizing and what I would say is a cruel juxtaposition of humor and suffering that is read by the other side.”

It’s like these wackos are denying one of the reasons Trump beat Kamala. Seriously, this is the kind of article that should appear in Media Matters, Salon, and other wacko lefty sites, not a major national newspaper. Shameful. And then they wonder why no one trusts them.

Read: Washington Post Very Concerned Trump Is Sending “Chilling Message” To Illegal Aliens »

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