June 12, 2026

ANALYSIS: TRUE.

Posted at 1:01 pm by Stephen Green

THE PURPOSE OF A SYSTEM IS WHAT IT DOES: California hit by another huge fraud bombshell as thousands of claims for $4 BILLION in taxpayer-funded compensation meant for sex crime victims are FAKE, investigator says.

Los Angeles County had agreed in April last year to pay over $4 billion to settle more than 11,000 claims of sexual abuse at county-run juvenile halls, foster homes and a notorious children’s shelter.

The claims, many of which stretch back decades, came after the Golden State changed its statute of limitations to give victims who were sexually abused as minors a new window to sue.

But District Attorney Nathan Hochman claimed in a court filing on Wednesday that he believes a whopping four out of five claims for which the county is paying the largest sex abuse settlement in American history are fake, the Los Angeles Times reported.

There was even evidence that some recruiters had paid people to file bogus claims.

More:

The District Attorney’s Office has been probing the claims since November, following reports that some plaintiffs fabricated stories of sexual abuse – and sometimes were never even in custody at the facilities.

An LA Times investigation in October found nine people who claimed they were paid small amounts of cash by recruiters to sue the county, claiming they were sexually abused in juvenile halls.

They described how a network of individuals approached them on the street and incentivized them to fabricate stories of sexual abuse within the juvenile justice system in exchange for cash payments ranging from $50 to $200.

Does Sacramento do anything anymore that isn’t meant to defraud taxpayers?

Posted at 12:46 pm by Stephen Green

FREDDY FROM GERMANY IMMANENTIZES THE ESCHATON: A German soccer fan has been live-tweeting his reaction to visiting the USA and it’s some of the best stuff on the internet right now. “This German madlad is currently on his way to New Orleans for the next part of his adventure. This guy wanted the full American experience. I gotta say, I couldn’t have planned a better trip myself.”

“Cynical Publius” adds, “Lots of Europeans visit the USA as tourists. They visit New York City, or Washington DC, or Hollywood, or Las Vegas, and if they visit natural beauty too, they go to really crowded places like the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone…Freddy is not seeing fentanyl and decline. He is seeing the real, hopeful, patriotic, kind America that European tourists rarely traverse. And he loves it. That’s why Freddy is a phenomenon.”

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

BLEED OUT AND THINK OF ENGLAND:

Posted at 12:29 pm by Stephen Green

YET EVEN MORE ON THAT GLOBE & MAIL HIT PIECE:

Checks out.

Posted at 11:59 am by Stephen Green

THE INTELLIGENCE IS FAKE BUT APPARENTLY THE SPYWARE IS REAL: OpenAI Admits To Spying On Its Own Users. “The AI giant published a report Wednesday outlining their suspicions that ‘clusters’ of CCP-linked ChatGPT users were a part of an influence campaign to spread anti-AI propaganda. Earlier in June, House Republicans had called on the Trump administration to investigate alleged Chinese influence on the growing, bipartisan backlash to data centers across the U.S.”

Posted at 11:44 am by Stephen Green

THE NUMBERS ARE TOO GOOD TO CHECK:

Posted at 11:28 am by Stephen Green

DO THE WORST GET ON TOP IN ACADEMIA? A Hayekian analysis. I don’t know if the “worst” get on top in academia any more than normal corporate jobs. But it’s worth considering the idea of more administration being done by faculty on rotation.

Posted at 11:15 am by Robert Shibley

DAVID MANNEY: The Washington Post’s Credibility Crisis Hits the Checkout Page. “The complaint, filed in Superior Court of the District of Columbia, seeks class-action status for current and former subscribers, claiming the Post used reader behavior, engagement, and personal information to estimate how much subscribers would tolerate paying at renewal.”

Posted at 11:13 am by Stephen Green

SCHLICHTER: Don’t Panic About Trump’s Iran Strategy Just Yet.

Let’s examine his strategy with an open mind, putting aside our prejudices and preconceptions. Trump is taking a different approach. A lot of people who agree with me that the best course of action is to simply kill them until they surrender are extremely upset with him. But here’s the thing: he may be wrong, but he’s not crazy. He comes at this strategic problem from a different perspective. He’s a guy who makes deals. He uses all his advantages. He is a guy who is not a hammer. I’m a hammer. I’m a soldier. Everything looks like a nail, and I want to pound it.

But Trump looks at things differently. He sees pressure points beyond the target list. You might argue that Donald Trump is using the elements of national power as levers to obtain the ultimate strategic objective more comprehensively than anyone has waged war against the Iranian regime in the past. What are the elements of national power? Well, that gets a little convoluted because people keep adding letters to the applicable acronym, but let’s keep it simple because I was in the infantry, and I like simple. And I will get grief from strategists about how I’m simplifying things, but that’s OK because anybody who calls himself a “strategist” is probably a dork anyway.

The applicable acronym for the elements of national power is DIME, and it stands for “Diplomacy, Information, Military, and Economic” power. These are the ways a nation-state exercises power.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 9:40 am by Stephen Green

ROD MARTIN ON THE CHOICE WE ALL MUST MAKE: Rod Martin was among the original creators of X, nee Twitter, and he has been a hugely successful tech entrepreneur ever since. He’s also a tremendously articulate, logical and historically grounded political and spiritual analyst whose Substack column is regularly read by hundreds of thousands of Americans in all walks of life.

This particular essay is on what Rod considers the most important decision every one of us must, sooner or later, make about where we are on “the Jesus question.” Yes, it’s apologetical, but one doesn’t have to be a Christian to appreciate and benefit from what I consider to be one of the finest expressions ever of why Jesus is the central fact of history. Even if you aren’t a believer, allow yourself the pleasure of reading a precisely formulated, superbly expressed presentation.

Posted at 9:34 am by Mark Tapscott

MORE ON THAT GLOBE & MAIL HIT-PIECE ON MUSK:

“My browser let me bypass the paywall, maintaining my principle of not subsidizing Canadian bigotry. Once you get past the clickbait headline, it turns out the way to properly hate Elon Musk is with poorly argued warmed-over lefty billionaire bashing, Trump bashing, plus repeating the USAID blood libel, the theoretical deaths caused ‘according to one study,’ with no mention of the billions in taxpayer dollars siphoned off by political NGOs.”

Posted at 9:24 am by Stephen Green

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Feds Keep Racking Up Law Enforcement Wins, Dems Hardest Hit. “The picture is a very clear one: our side is trying to get rid of the evil criminals, their side is trying to get rid of the people who are getting rid of the evil criminals. Sure, that could be more pithy, but that’s the essential message for Republicans.”

Posted at 9:09 am by Stephen Green

YES, IT’S INCITEMENT:

Posted at 8:38 am by Stephen Green

I LIKE IT WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER:

Related:

Posted at 8:30 am by Glenn Reynolds