Random News and Notes 1 July
Oh Canada, my home and native land. . .
It’s Canada Day. The holiday, formerly known as Dominion Day, celebrates the confederation of Canada and the signing of the British North America Act of 1876 when the three separate colonies of the United Canadas, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were united into a single dominion within the British Empire called Canada.
The vote-a-rama surrounding the Big Beautiful Bill is wrapping up. The bill passed a key procedural hurdle this morning, but the final text has yet to appear. There have been a record number of votes taken in the last 24 hours.
I am not a fan of any omnibus bill and I am really not a fan of reconciliation. We need to get back to normal order. That means 12 appropriations bills and single issue bills for everything else.
The DOJ announced a huge healthcare fraud takedown yesterday. The 314 defendants were charged in fraud totaling more than $14 billion.
. . . by state attorneys general, while the remaining 247 face federal charges. Authorities said they seized over $245 million in cash, luxury vehicles, cryptocurrency, and other assets.
Good start, but there needs to be more.
Y’all remember the name Brian Kohberger? He was accused of killing four college students in Idaho. University of Idaho students Ethan Chapin, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, and Xana Kernodle were all stabbed to death in their share-house in Moscow Idaho. Kohberger was quickly identified and arrested for the crime. He was facing the death penalty if convicted. Well, he entered a surprise guilty plea yesterday.
It looks like the plea was made just to take the death penalty off the table. None of the family members were told of the deal before it was entered. With any luck, some inmate in the Idaho prison system takes matters into his own hands. . .
The Democrat nominee for the Mayor of NYC has a plan to open government run grocery stores in the City. Zohran Mamdani has made that a the centerpiece of his campaign so far. He says the city spends $140 million on subsidies for ‘corporate’ groceries every year. The problem? It isn’t true. In fact, he got the idea because he apparently does not know how to read.
That headline is a bit misleading, it isn’t an accounting error. Mamdani merely misread the website detailing the program. The $140m that Mamdani is claiming the City spent on subsidies is actually the amount corporations have invested of their own money into building stores in NYC.
I complained about the lack of gravitas in politics the other day, it seems I should have been complaining about the lack of basic reading comprehension instead.
The FBI has arrested two Chinese nationals on charges of espionage. Yuance Chen, who resides in Happy Valley, Oregon, and Liren Lai, who traveled to Houston on a tourist visa in April 2025, were arrested on Friday. Lai is accused of attempting to recruit US Navy personnel to spy for the MSS, the Chinese spy agency. Chen and Lai have been charged with operating in the U.S. as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the U.S. attorney general. If convicted, both men face a fine of up to $250,000 and up to 10 years behind bars.
Generally speaking I dislike painting with a broad brush, but I will make an exception here. I assume all Chinese nationals are here for one of two reasons. 1, they are spying. 2, they are doing birther tourism. That’s it.
