Another member of Congress, Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, has resigned in the wake of a scandal.

 

Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick. Fox News/AP.

Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick has resigned in the wake of a major scandal. Fox News. The Florida Democrat was accused of stealing Covid relief funds and has been indicted by a grand jury. The House Ethics panel found that she had stolen the funds and there were preparations being made to expel her from congress. She has denied wrongdoing and said she was resigning to help her constituents. She is the third member of Congress to resign in a week after Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzalez did so last week due to separate sex scandals. A fourth member of Congress, Cory Mills, who has been accused of domestic abuse and stolen valor, could face expulsion as well, though the House Ethics committee has not ruled on his case yet.  

My Comment:

This happened yesterday, but it was a pretty slow news day. And it is an important story. McCormick was pretty obviously guilty of the crimes she was accused of and it was pretty clear that she was going to be expelled from congress. 

So why did she resign? I am guessing it was to help with her criminal trial. She's facing a very long sentence and I think she is probably going to go to trial. If she was expelled from Congress it would be a huge problem for her even though I would think that the judge would want to keep that under wraps to the Jury. Still, why take the risk of a savvy juror knowing that she was expelled from Congress? 

Plus it allows her to save a little face. It's absolutely humiliating to be expelled from Congress, which is why Swalwell and Gonzalez resigned as well. In those cases neither man had faced anything like a fair trail but both were perceived as guilty enough to kick out so they resigned. A similar thing happened here. 

This does have implications for the control of the house. When Swalwell and Gonzalez resigned, it didn't matter because they were both from separate parties. But with McCormick resigning, there is a potential gain of a seat for the Republican Party. The GOP's lead there has been very narrow for awhile now so extending that could be a victory for them.   

The question now is if Cory Mills survives. Unlike McCormick the accusations against him haven't been vetted and there hasn't been a flow of new accusations against him. If the Ethics Committee does find him responsible for the stolen valor and domestic abuse allegations, he will be out too. But so far he hasn't been. 

Nancy Mace has introduced an expulsion of Mills but supposedly he's doing the same thing to her. I think he has a point, he deserves some due process for the accusations against him. And I don't believe for a second that Mace is doing it for anything other than her own publicity. Either way though it's very possible that we will see another tit for tat resignation in the wake of the McCormick resignation. 

DOJ charges the Southern Poverty Law Center for fraud after it was found that they were funding, not fighting, right wing extremism.

 

Acting US Attorney Todd Blanche and FBI director Kash Patel. New York Post/AFP/Getty.

The Department of Justice has charged the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for fraud after it was found they were funding right wing groups. New York Post. The SPLC had donated millions of dollars to members of right wing groups, like the Klu Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and even an organizer of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. The SPLC says that these people were informants, but the government accused them of hiding payments to them and for purporting to fight right wing extremism while funding them. The government argues that this was fraud as the payments to right wing groups was not disclosed to donors. The SPLC even went so far to use shell companies to hide the payments. 

My Comment:

It's been a truism on the right that the demand for rightwing extremism far outweighs the actual supply and that most noticeable extremist groups on the right are infiltrated with informants and undercover law enforcement agents. This is very strong evidence that the idea isn't off base. The SPLC was funding right wing groups for years.

The SPLC is saying that these folks were just informants, but even if that is true and this wasn't an effort to make a problem where non existed, what they were doing is indeed fraudulent. Paying informants doesn't appear to be illegal, but not disclosing that to the donors that paid for it was. You can't claim to be an anti-right wing network while at the same time paying the people that they are supposed to be fighting, many of the people that gave money to the SPLC would not have done so if that had been disclosed. 

Using shell companies to hide the payments is a big no-no as well. The victims in this case would be the banks that processed the payments, which is illegal to lie about. It's something that I don't think the SPLC can defend, though their argument is that it was to protect their informants. Though somehow I doubt that the leadership of these right wing groups were checking their memberships for unusual payments from the SPLC. 

The SPLC's involvement in the Unite the Right rally also makes a lot of sense. The rally, which ended with a death after a woman was hit by a car, pretty much destroyed the far right in America and it's clear now that the SPLC was helping out quite a bit. They were paying for transportation to the rally and I wouldn't be surprised if the tiki torches were there idea as well. 

The damage that rally did to the right is hard to understate. The right was ascendant when the rally happened but it really did change things. Suddenly the right was scary again with the tiki torches sending the exact opposite message that they wanted to send. And it didn't help that someone died. To find out that the left was deeply involved in that rally to the point they were paying for transportation is not surprising, but it does vindicate a lot of what I believe. 

Will the government get a conviction? You never can tell these days. Given the evidence, I don't think there is much doubt that the SPLC is guilty of at least some of what they are accused of, I don't know how you defend using shell companies legally. But with all prosecutions of left wing crimes, I worry about jury nullification, activists judges and 100 other lawfare efforts that the left is going to use to defend the SPLC. Time will tell if the charges stick...     

UK Prime Minster Kier Starmer faces fresh calls for resignation for misleading Parliament over Peter Mandelson's Jeffrey Epstein ties.

 

Lord Peter Mandelson (left) with Jeffrey Epstein in an undated photo. NBC News.

The Prime Minster of the United Kingdom, Kier Starmer, is facing fresh calls for resignation for misleading Parliament over Peter Mandelson's ties to Jeffrey Epstein. NBC News. Mandelson was arrested for passing data to Epstein this year and his ties to the disgraced billionaire were public knowledge before Starmer appointed him to the most prestigious and influential ambassadorship with the United States. The scandal reignited after it was revealed that the Foreign Ministry had recommended against the appointment of Mandelson for security concerns. However, Starmer never mentioned this to Parliament and he stands accused of misleading them on this issue. Starmer placed blame on the Foreign Ministry for not telling him that he failed his background check. 

My Comment:

Kier Starmer is a historically unpopular Prime Minster and this is the kind of thing that can bring down an entire government. Starmer has a lot of enemies and he has pushed many unpopular and damaging policies, most notably restrictions on the internet. Plus, the economy is terrible and they are having major issues with fuel costs due to the Iran conflict. The scandal alone wouldn't be enough to take him down alone, but given his popularity, approval is in the 20's, it could well take him down. 

Though the public perception of Epstein is that he was a pedophile trafficker, it's not entirely accurate. He obviously did a lot of that, but folks stuck by him because he was a fixer too. He was the guy that you would go to if had a problem that needed to be solved or you needed information. He was also probably beholden to one or more intel agencies. Indeed, that was what he was doing with Peter Mandelson in the first place. Epstein was getting information from Mandelson and handing it to someone else. 

That's about the biggest red flag you can get for someone in such a critical government post. The US ambassador spot is a huge one for the UK and it's one that a lot of information can be sucked out off. Though Epstein was long dead before Starmer appointed Mandelson to the post, it's an act of insanity to send the same guy that has already been compromised once to do the job. It's just baffling that it was allowed to happen. 

Regardless of the obvious security issues that Mandelson posed, you would have thought that Starmer would have avoided him for the whole connection to Epstein in the first place. Mandelson's connection was well known and though his corruption wasn't revealed until after the Epstein file release, it still showed some extremely bad judgement for him to be friends with Epstein. 

But Starmer appointed him anyways. Starmer is claiming that it's everyone else's fault and not him. Mandelson lied to him, he says, and so did the Foreign Ministry. It's just pure arrogance on his point and I think it's a major reason why I don't like him or his party. Labor has always struck me as far left schoolmarms that want to control everything people do, regardless of how little credibility they have. 

The sad thing is that Starmer is likely to survive for at least a little while. Starmer still has to support of Labor and as long as that is the case he will likely survive a vote of no-confidence. But he's on the razor's edge. I don't think that this scandal alone will be enough to take him down, as angry as everyone is. But there's a real chance that if anything else happens, Starmer could be forced to resign. 

Crazed woman shot by police after kidnapping and stabbing a 3 year old in Nebraska.

 

Bodycam footage shows Noemi Guzman about to stab the child. New York Post. 

A woman was shot and killed by police after she kidnapped and slashed a 3 year old boy at a Nebraska Wal-Mart. New York Post. 31 year old Noemi Guzman confronted the child's babysitter and took the child after shoplifting a knife from the store. She then stabbed 3 year old Cyler Hillman in the face and hand before police shot and killed her. The boy is expected to recover but had to get stiches to close the laceration inflicted by Guzman. Guzman had a long rap sheet and had been found not guilty due to insanity after a crime spree that saw her stab her father, try to burn down his house and then breaking into a church to threaten a priest. She also had a previous conviction for assault in 2018.

***WARNING: THE FOLLOWING STORY CONTAINS GRAPHIC DETAILS. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED***

An attempted kidnapping at an Omaha Walmart ended with a child injured and a woman dead.https://t.co/WRlvLnFS1a pic.twitter.com/BuDV62DJLK

— KETV NewsWatch 7 (@KETV) April 15, 2026

My Comment:

 Normally I don't cover minor incidents like this one, even if they go viral, but this case speaks to larger trends in law enforcement and criminal justice for what should be obvious reasons. I had wrote previously how the justice system might change how they handle mental illness after the man who murdered Iryna Zarutksa, Decarlos Brown, was found not competent to stand trial.

In a sane world, Guzman would absolutely not be on the streets. Her rampage in 2024 was beyond the pale. Not only did she stab her own father, she tried to light both him and his home on fire. She then broke into a church and threatened a priest and it's a miracle that nobody was killed during that rampage. And she was already a convicted felon for an assault! 

Guzman was undoubtably mentally ill. She appears to have been a severely schizophrenic person and she was apparently off her meds. Her motivations here were likely her mental illness and it's tragic that she wasn't under control. 

But she was supposed to be. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity, but that's not supposed to be a free pass. Instead of institutionalizing her she was let out as an outpatient and was ordered to take her meds. The problem was there was nobody there to actually ensure that she was taking her meds. A lot of people with severe mental illness stop taking their meds for various reasons.

This was a recipe for disaster and it's lucky that Cyler Hillman was only stabbed and not killed. And it's the kind of thing that is sadly predictable. This was an entirely preventable crime. Had the laws of Nebraska had been better, Guzman would have been in prison, getting treatment, or in a secure mental health facility, depending on how the laws would be changed. Something like New York's "guilty but mentally ill" verdict or even just ensuring that folks aren't let out as outpatients would have prevented this crime. 

I do think that there is a growing outrage over these kinds of preventable crimes. People like Noemi Guzman and Decarlos Brown should absolutely not be on the streets and the laws need to change to protect our law abiding citizens from career criminals and dangerous mentally ill people. 

I do understand that the old asylum system absolutely had some downsides. Warehousing the mentally ill did have a lot of injustice involved in it and conditions were poor. But it does seem like it was the better system because at least it protected innocent members of the public from people like this. 

Finally, I do think this is another example of why bodycams backfired on the left. This story would not have gone viral if it wasn't for the dramatic screencap from the officer's bodycam. That means that there wouldn't be more discussion of these insanity laws, many of which were championed by the left in the first place. 

Trump hints that a 2nd round of diplomacy with Iran may be coming soon.

 

An oil tanker. BBC/Reuters. 

President Donald Trump has hinted that a 2nd round of diplomacy with Iran may be coming in the next couple of days. BBC. Trump made comments that the US might go back to Islamabad, where peace talks were held last weekend, in the next couple of days. This comes after a US led blockade has stopped most Iranian traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. At least six ships have been turned back by the US Navy. It is unclear if there has been a breakthrough on diplomacy, the last round of talks failed due to disagreement over Iran's nuclear program. Meanwhile, Israel and Lebanon have entered peace talks of their own. 

My Comment:

As expected, a 2nd round of peace talks is beginning. Peace talks usually take quite some time and it's rare for the 1st round of talks to be fully successful. Indeed, it's very possible that the 2nd round of talks will lead into a 3rd round and beyond. 

However, there is a chance that there will be major progress made in the 2nd round of talks. I say this because they are coming so quickly after the 1st round and that could mean that whatever the sticking point was, it has been resolved. 

It could be the fact that while the US diplomats were authorized to negotiate an end to the war, the Iranian delegation had to get it approved with their leadership first. From what I understand, that made their negotiating tactics rather handicapped and they weren't able to actually make a deal. It's possible that obstacle has been removed. But it's also possible, even likely, that this will just be a more considered counter offer from Iran. 

I do think that Iran is going to be motivated to negotiate because of the blockade. Iran gets a huge amount of their money from oil sales and they were also getting money from their transit bribes they were forcing on ships that were trying to transit. The blockade, while not perfect, is going to cost the Iranian regime millions of dollars a day, every day that it's in effect. Give that Iran's economy is in shambles, not having the oil flowing out of the Strait of Hormuz is going to be extremely costly. 

I also think that the conflict will likely remain in a "frozen" state and that the ceasefire will be extended. There is always a chance that something goes wrong, but I am guessing that as long as diplomacy is happening at this high of a level the conflict will remain in it's current state. Both sides have a major incentive to not start the conflict again, so unless someone screws something up or there is just an absolute impasse I am guessing that the ceasefire will hold. 

It's also positive that Israel and Lebanon are holding talks. It shows that Israel too wants to end the conflict. I had worried about them torpedoing any peace deal but it seems like they want out of this conflict as well. 

So, how likely is this 2nd round of talks to end the war? I'd say it's unlikely, but not impossible, like a 1 out of 3 chance. More realistically, it's going to be a starting point and it will probably take more rounds of negotiating to actually end the war. There is always a chance of a breakthrough or some kind of disaster but my guess is that the war will probably end sometime in May or June.