This was an incredible week for news, and I am going to discuss just three of what I consider the most important events: The ongoing investigations and criminal indictments; the shutdown of the government, and the ceasefire and return of the hostages in Gaza.
The Ongoing Criminal Investigations
Letitia James, the New York attorney general who confected a criminal case for financial fraud against President Trump has herself been charged with criminal mortgage frauds. Former head of the FBI James Comey has been indicted by a Virginia grand jury for making a false statement to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation.
Reasoned speculation is that former national security adviser John Bolton will be indicted in Maryland for potential violations of the Espionage Act this week.
Also rumored to be subjects of criminal investigations are former FBI head Christopher Wray, former Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Jack Smith, former special counsel. (It was revealed this week that Smith tracked the private communications and calls of nearly a dozen GOP senators during his J6 investigation. It was also recently revealed that 274 FBI agents were part of the J6 crowd and likely instigated the crowd to enter the Capitol. If that was not their purpose, what were they doing there? There are suggestions that some of them are talking to congressional investigators.) The list of targets keeps growing:
Paul Sperry reports that Mueller deputy Andrew Weissman is among those under scrutiny, for participation in a judicial proceeding in which he had a financial interest.
It’s not just these prominent figures -- the Administration is reviewing the financial files of Antifa with an eye to prosecuting those who funded this terrorist outfit.
In sum, we are looking at a criminal defense attorneys’ pot of gold.
The Shutdown
To me, the shutdown orchestrated by Senator Chuck Schumer, who seems terrified of a 2028 primary challenge by Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, is a big mistake. Unlike previous shutdowns, which were a bit of political theater, this administration is using it to achieve a paring down of the federal bureaucracy -- a big part of the Democrats’ base. The numbers keep shifting, but at last count I believe over four thousand federal employees were struck from the payrolls. The agencies involved so far are Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Agency (CISA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Treasury Department, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
The Democrats are insisting, among other things, that the subsidies for ObamaCare which expire this December be continued. The absurdly named Affordable Care Act was sold by a pack of lies, the most notable of which was Obama’s “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” It has nearly destroyed what was one of the best healthcare systems in the world, and impoverished the middle class and small businesses while enriching bureaucrats and insurance companies.
Obamacare started in 2014.
Health insurance became more unaffordable.
It got so bad, in 2021 Biden and Dems passed temporary subsidies with an expiration date of Dec 31, 2025, to hide the real cost of Obamacare insurance.
Obamacare is broken and more subsidies won't fix it.
ObamaCare was rammed through Congress without a single Republican vote. Its mandate was unconstitutional and only Justice John Robert’s legerdemain relabeling it a tax allowed it to exist. A vindictive last-minute vote by Senator John McCain kept it from being repealed.
The true measure of this policy's wickedness is found not in spreadsheets, but in human suffering. Behind the sterile language of "deductibles" and "premiums" are real families making impossible choices. Stories abound of individuals with "coverage" who couldn't afford the thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs required to actually see a doctor. The high-deductible plans were a cruel joke, providing only the illusion of security.
Worse, by flooding Medicaid rolls with millions of new recipients, including able-bodied adults and, in many states, illegal immigrants, the system strained resources for the truly vulnerable. Our veterans were left languishing on waitlists at the VA, while the architects of this failure virtue-signaled about their supposed compassion. This wasn't healthcare; it was a rationing system disguised as a right, where an anonymous bureaucrat held the power of life and death over treatment decisions.
A Constitutional Abomination
At its very core, the Affordable Care Act represents a profound betrayal of the American constitutional order. The individual mandate -- the requirement that a free citizen purchase a government-approved product or face punishment by the IRS -- is an affront to every principle of liberty our nation was founded upon. It took a feat of breathtaking judicial gymnastics from Chief Justice John Roberts, redefining a penalty as a "tax," to save this tyrannical overreach from being struck down entirely.
President Donald J. Trump, recognizing this poison pill for what it was, heroically gutted the law by zeroing out the individual mandate penalty in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. He neutered the beast. But the creature still breathes, reanimated by the current administration with a torrent of taxpayer-funded subsidies that only mask the rot within.
The Conservative Antithesis: Freedom
The alternative is not, as the Left hysterically claims, a return to some Dickensian nightmare. The alternative is freedom. True conservative reform is built on principles that work:
Market Competition: Allow insurance companies to sell policies across state lines. This single move would shatter state-level monopolies and create a vibrant national market where consumers, not bureaucrats, are king.
Individual Ownership: Expand Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), allowing individuals to save tax-free for their health needs. When people control their own healthcare dollars, they become discerning consumers, driving down costs and improving quality.
Tort Reform: End the lawsuit lottery that forces doctors to practice defensive medicine and drives up costs for everyone.
Price Transparency: Mandate that hospitals and providers post their prices for services. The simple power of sunlight would expose absurd price gouging and empower patients to shop for value.
This is the path of empowerment, personal responsibility, and prosperity. It trusts individuals, not the state.
It’s not that complicated to make the necessary corrections to this failing program:
Here's an idea: Rather than shut down the Govt and argue endlessly over subsidies for insurance companies under the Unaffordable Care Act ... How about passing legislation fixing the problems that make it so expensive. The coverage mandates were predicted to lead to astronomical premium increases. The Obama Admin and Democrats have hidden this for almost two decades by subsidizing the costs of coverage. Admit the problem is the coverage mandates and ELIMINATE THEM. Let the market create options and price-points.
The Gaza Ceasefire
You’d think that all those folks marching for a ceasefire would be elated. That is, if you didn’t realize it was a combination Islamist-Marxist coalition with a giant dollop of anti-Semitism.
Tomorrow or Tuesday Hamas -- or what’s left of it -- will turn over the 20 living hostages which were its ace in the hole and sometime later, as far as possible, they will turn over the bodies of those they killed.
A day before the agreement the UN was falsely claiming starvation in Gaza. The minute the agreement was signed fat Gazans reported they had sufficient food to feed everyone there for three months. To my mind, the Trump, Witkoff, Kushner team succeeded where other efforts did not because they enlisted other Middle Eastern countries to go along with gelding Hamas and working on improving the lives of their own people and the Gazans.
What caused Hamas to agree to give up its chief bargaining chip, the Israeli hostages, for phase 1 of the deal was the unprecedented pressure against the terror group from Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt. The Turks want sanctions relief, the F-35 stealth fighter, new F-16s, and greater cooperation with the US. The Qataris got the apology from Israel for the failed airstrike and the US commitment to Doha’s national security through a new agreement/pact, and in exchange, had to deliver the hostages, which means delivering Hamas. Egypt has been terrified of the specter of forced displacement of Gazans into Sinai, and its mobilization of the Egyptian army on the country’s eastern border raised tensions with Israel and threatened the peace treaty between the two countries, not to mention US foreign aid. Cumulatively, this meant that the three countries (Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt) applied enormous pressure on Hamas, which is isolated, militarily weakened, its allies defeated, and without options.
If you want a deal, bring in your dealmakers.
Two years ago, Hamas committed barbaric acts against Israelis. Today Gaza is rubble filled, its military leadership, like that of the Houthis, has been eliminated. Hezb’allah is toast. Iran’s nuclear threat is substantially eliminated.
Will Gaza overnight become peaceful and prosperous? Not likely -- reports are they are already executing each other in the streets.