INTERNACIONAL
Highest-ranking US official to ever serve jail time, former House Speaker Dennis Hastert dead at 84
The Purcell County, Illinois, Coroner’s Office says former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., «passed away at his home due to natural causes.»
The brief statement was posted on the coroner’s website early Monday morning.
Hastert was 84 and one of the most ignominious figures to serve in American politics.
He was the longest-serving Republican speaker in history, wielding the gavel from 1999 to 2007. But Hastert’s career featured one of the most disgraceful falls from grace, becoming the highest-ranking U.S. official to ever do jail time.
MONICA LEWINSKY RECALLS ‘VERY DARK MOMENTS’ AFTER SCANDAL, SURVIVING JUDGMENT BY ‘BILLIONS OF STRANGERS’
The scandal involving Hastert emerged years after he left Congress — but dates back to the 1960s and 1970s when he served as high school history teacher and wrestling coach in Illinois. Hastert admitted in 2015 that he sexually abused teenage students and athletes as young as 14 — long before he entered Congress in the mid-1980s.
Hastert was an accidental speaker.
He served as chief deputy whip in the Republican hierarchy in late 1998 when House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., decided to step aside. Gingrich was controversial. Some GOP members had knives out for him and believed Gingrich overplayed his hand pushing for impeachment of President Clinton. This, coupled with Republicans nearly losing control of the House in the 1998 midterms, set the table for Gingrich to step aside.
Republicans tapped then-Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La., Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, to become Speaker in 1999.
But in late 1998, as the House voted to impeach Clinton, it came to light that Livingston had an inappropriate relationship with a lobbyist. Hours before the House voted to approve two articles of impeachment for Clinton linked to his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, Livingston stepped aside and said he would not stand for speaker in the new year.
By nightfall, Republicans picked Hastert, a backbencher, to serve as speaker in 1999.
Hastert was criticized in late 2006 for not moving more aggressively to protect teenage House pages after it was discovered that then-Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., sent inappropriate text messages to the pages. The scandal led to the end of the House page program, which dates back to the beginning of the republic.
Hastert lost the speakership when Democrats seized control of the House in the 2006 midterms. Hastert did not serve in the GOP leadership in early 2007 and resigned from office later that year.
FMR DEM REP BARNEY FRANK, SHARP-TONGUED LIBERAL TRAILBLAZER AND DODD-FRANK CO-AUTHOR, DIES
Hastert was often quiet and shunned interviews and the press.
Known as «Coach» to fellow lawmakers because of his wrestling background, Hastert often proclaimed that he was more of a «listener» than a «speaker.»
But Hastert’s career took a dark turn in 2015.
US OLYMPIC HERO NANCY HOGSHEAD WINS LEGAL BATTLE AFTER VOLLEYBALL COACH’S $250M DEFAMATION SUIT IS DISMISSED
Federal banking regulators flagged Hastert’s curious withdrawals of staggering amounts of cash at peculiar intervals. Banking regulators suspected the transactions signaled that someone may be blackmailing the former Speaker.
But that’s how it came to light that Hastert was actually paying millions of dollars in hush money to the family of a student he abused in the 1970s.
Hastert admitted to sexually abusing students decades before at his trial for illegal bank transactions, saying he «mistreated athletes» and «took advantage of him.» The judge in the case called the former speaker «a serial child molester.»
Hastert served 13 of 15 months of his federal sentence for banking crimes at a facility in Rochester, Minn. However, Hastert never faced legal ramifications for sexual conduct.
Hastert is also known for the «Hastert Rule.» When Hastert served as speaker, he would not bring a piece of legislation to the floor unless it had the support of a majority of House Republicans. House GOPers continued to use that standard for bills for many years after Hastert left office.
But that terminology fell out of favor after Hastert was convicted and information about his past became public.
politics, congress, house of representatives politics, illinois, house of representatives
INTERNACIONAL
Medicaid provider allegedly billed $165K for dead patient’s rides among fraud exposed in explosive report
A Colorado resident was charged with trying to steal hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars by billing the state’s Medicaid program for transporting a patient to doctor’s appointments — rides that would have taken place after that person had already died.
A new report by the House Energy and Commerce Committee revealed that taxpayer-funded healthcare programs, specifically Medicare and Medicaid, are rife with vulnerabilities that allow them to be exploited on the local, state and federal levels.
«Medicare and Medicaid fraud occurs nationwide and costs American taxpayers billions of dollars a year. Fraud is prevalent in all sectors of health care and is especially egregious in taxpayer-funded health care programs that are intended to serve vulnerable populations, including the elderly, disabled, children, and pregnant women,» the report said. «Patients are suffering from identity theft, long waiting lists, substandard health care, and, in some cases, a lack of health care services due to fraudulent claims to Medicare and Medicaid.»
Digital highlighted some of the most egregious examples below.
BOMBSHELL REPORT EXPOSES HEALTHCARE FRAUD SCHEMES AS TAXPAYERS LOSE UP TO $521 BILLION ANNUALLY
Wesam Yassin was one of two providers of non-emergency medical transportation, a Medicaid benefit for helping patients get to doctor’s appointments, charged by state and local prosecutors for fraudulent billing in Colorado in February 2026.
Yassin is accused of charging Colorado Medicaid a total of $3.3 million in questionable bills under a company called Sama Limo, according to the report. Yassin is accused of charging $283,000 for 64 rides for one person, coming out to over $4,000 per ride.
Roughly $165,000 of those charges came after the patient in question had already died, the report said.
«Proceeds from this scheme were allegedly used for personal gain, including the purchase of a home, furnishings, luxury vehicles, jewelry, and cosmetic surgery,» a federal release announcing the charges said.
It also pointed to charges against Ashley Marie Stevens, who is accused of trying to bilk the state for over $1 million in taxpayer dollars. She is accused of billing the state some $400,000 for non-medical rides for herself and her family in addition to «ghost rides,» which never even took place.
VANCE-LED TASK FORCE CUTS OFF $1.4B FROM HOME HEALTH, HOSPICE PROVIDERS SUSPECTED OF FRAUD
The report also accused the hospice industry in California of raising suspicions of fraud.
«Investigators observed nearly 500 hospices operating in a three-mile radius in L.A. County, 137 hospices operating on Van Nuys Boulevard alone, and 89 companies registered to a single address in Van Nuys,» the report said.
TRUMP ADMIN’S FRAUD CRACKDOWN TARGETS FOREIGNERS ACCUSED OF INFILTRATING US FEDERAL PROGRAMS
The document also noted that House lawmakers raised concerns with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that an increase in home health and hospice providers raised red flags about possible healthcare fraud tied to foreign criminal groups earlier this year.
«The Committees were concerned about data from a March 2022 California State Auditor’s Report and HHS hospice ownership data, showing that L.A. County had more than 31 percent of the hospice agencies in the U.S. in 2022,» the report said.
DOJ CHARGES 10 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA DEFENDANTS IN LARGEST FEDERAL HEALTHCARE FRAUD CRACKDOWN IN US HISTORY
The California Department of Public Health had placed a freeze on new hospice licenses in January 2022. Despite that, however, the report found that 15 new hospices — located in a single Los Angeles County building — still got Medicare certification in 2023.
House Republicans are worried that potential hospice fraud is not the only area being targeted by international criminal groups.
The report highlighted allegations from 2024 in which «years-long, large-scale» schemes targeted as much as $3 billion in American taxpayer dollars via fake bills for urinary catheters.
Members of Russian organized crime groups bought 30 small medical supply companies already receiving federal dollars, and billed the Medicare system nearly $11 billion for urinary catheters, the report said. More than 99% of those funds never went out the door, however.
Similar medical equipment fraud schemes ensnared bad actors in Estonia, Pakistan, Georgia and Hong Kong.
Allegations of fraud in Minnesota’s social programs have been well documented and the subject of numerous state and federal probes.
One particular incident highlighted in the report involves a man named Abdinajib Hassan Yussuf, who pleaded guilty to trying to defraud $6 million from a Minnesota autism therapy program paid for by state Medicaid dollars.
He and his co-defendants are accused of hiring unqualified people as behavior counselors and getting children to enroll by bribing their parents, the report said.
Yussuf admitted during his plea hearing that he did not actually know anyone with autism, the report said.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie told Digital that «combating fraud is a coast-to-coast battle.»
«Every instance of fraud we uncover represents money stolen from taxpayers and care taken away from the patients who depend on it most,» Guthrie said.
politics, investigations, health care healthy living, health care, health care executive, house of representatives politics
Flávio Bolsonaro ha ganado a Lula da Silva la primera vuelta de las elecciones presidenciales de Brasil, y de repetirse este resultado en el balotaje del 25 de octubre, la derrota de Lula marcará el fin del principal gobierno para dictatorial de las Américas, caracterizado por la servidumbre a la dictadura de Cuba y a su expansión antidemocrática y delictiva en la región.
Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva fundó en 1990 de Foro de São Paolo como operador de Fidel Castro con el propósito de proteger y sostener la dictadura castrista en Cuba. En noviembre de 1989 había caído del Muro de Berlín y la Unión Soviética se desmoronaba hasta que se disolvió en diciembre de 1991, con lo que terminó la “Guerra Fría”, marcando el triunfo del capitalismo sobre el comunismo.
La dictadura de Cuba, bajo la narrativa de “revolución” fue la principal plataforma de la Unión Soviética en las Américas y sobrevivió como dictadura parásita del sistema comunista. La disolución de la Unión Soviética impuso el inicio del denominado “periodo especial” de la dictadura cubana, pero el efecto más importante fue el desfinanciamiento de las actividades terroristas, conspirativas, desestabilizadoras, guerrilleras y más que operaba Fidel Castro y su sistema de delincuencia organizada, que siguió operando como el primer narcoestado de la región.
Bajo mando de Lula, el Foro de Sao Paolo integrado por grupos terroristas como las FARC y el ELN, partidos y grupos de izquierda latinoamericana, ante la derrota del comunismo por el capitalismo, estableció como objetivo “la unidad de acción en la lucha antiimperialista y popular” y como estrategia la “multiplicación de los ejes de confrontación”, esto es la exacerbación de conflictos sectoriales, funcionales, regionales, raciales, de género y de todo tipo para deteriorar el sistema democrático.
El grupo no tuvo mayor influencia hasta la llegada de Hugo Chávez a la presidencia de Venezuela en 1999, cuando con el aporte del dinero y petróleo venezolanos malveresados por Chávez, del saber hacer criminal de Castro y el Foro de Lula, se inició la expansión de la dictadura cubana que hizo de Venezuela con Chávez y Maduro, Bolivia con Morales y Arce, Nicaragua con Ortega y Murillo, y Ecuador con Correa, dictaduras satélites bajo la denominación de socialismo del siglo 21 o castrochavismo.
La metodología de conspiraciones, desestabilización, golpes de estado, terrorismo, guerrillas, narcoterrorismo y todo tipo de crímenes contra gobiernos democráticos fue complementada por el financiamiento de candidatos para ganar elecciones y atacar la democracia desde dentro y así nacieron los “gobiernos para dictatoriales”, que son los “elegidos en democracia pero que sirven a regímenes dictatoriales para contribuir a su sostenimiento y permanencia con acciones de legitimación y apoyo, incumpliendo obligaciones jurídicas internacionales y perjudicando sus propios intereses nacionales”.
El siglo 21 que debió ser el de la democracia plena -porque se preveía el fin de la dictadura de Cuba– fue el de la expansión de la dictadura de Cuba con su antiguo operador Lula da Silva que llegó tres veces a la presidencia de Brasil desde donde desestabilizó gobiernos democráticos participando en su derrocamiento, sostuvo a las dictaduras ignorando las violaciones a derechos humanos y crímenes de lesa humanidad, promovió y financió el caso de corrupción trasnacional mas grande de la historia regional llamado “Lava Jato”, encubrió y sostuvo los narcoestados y narcoterrorismo, cumplió y ejecuta la “lucha antiimperialista” a costa de la economía de Brasil, participa en el sistema esclavista de médicos que Cuba realiza y perpetra delitos que cubre con la impunidad del poder político.
Lula da Silva es el único fundador vivo del grupo Chávez-Castro-Lula que inició la destrucción trasnacional de las democracias en Latinoamérica y la guerra híbrida contra Estados Unidos, y es sin duda uno de los ejemplos más evidentes de cómo en -la primera cuarta parte de este siglo- la delincuencia organizada ha suplantado la política en Latinoamérica bajo el rótulo de socialismo del siglo 21.
El socialismo del siglo 21 ha perdido sus gobiernos para dictatoriales en Argentina con los Kirchner, en Paraguay con Lugo, en Uruguay con Vasquez, en Perú con Toledo, Humala y Castillo, en Salvador con Funes y Sanchez, en Honduras con Castro, en Chile con Bachelet y Boric, en Colombia con Petro y más. Hoy solo le quedan dos, el de México con Sheinbaum y el de Brasil con Lula, pero la importancia de Lula es que se trata del jefe en ejercicio del grupo delictivo y que usa el poder y la economía de Brasil para continuar su agenda de violación impune de derechos humanos.
El principal gobierno para dictatorial de las Américas está en Brasil con Lula y su final modificará el perverso rumbo en que ha puesto al pueblo brasilero, acelerará el final de la dictadura de Cuba, cesará la intervención de democracias de la región y el entreguismo a dictaduras extra hemisféricas como China, Rusia, Irán y más.
* Abogado y Politólogo. Director del Interamerican Institute for Democracy
www.carlossanchezberzain.com
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,Brasil,América Latina,caricatura política
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The flydubai co-pilot accused of attacking his captain in an attempted terrorist act aboard an Israel-bound passenger jet allegedly planned to crash the aircraft into Ben Gurion Airport, according to new reports on the investigation.
Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 reported that Hamam al-Hammami told investigators he intended to continue flydubai Flight FZ1073 toward Israel as though nothing was wrong, obtain the necessary clearances to approach Ben Gurion Airport and then crash the aircraft into a building or another plane at the airport.
The information reportedly came from investigations by Saudi and Emirati authorities into the incident. Israeli investigators have not questioned al-Hammami directly, according to reporting from Channel 12 and Ynet.
FLYDUBAI CO-PILOT ACCUSED OF COCKPIT ATTACK WAS GROUNDED BY OMAN AIR BEFORE JOINING AIRLINE: REPORT
Israeli passenger Haim Lazarovich, who experienced an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, during a flight on FlyDubai plane, arrives at Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Fox News Digital reached out to the UAE Public Prosecution and flydubai seeking confirmation of the reported findings.
Reuters separately reported Monday that a source briefed on the UAE investigation said the Omani co-pilot had planned to crash the flight into Ben Gurion Airport. Two Israeli officials with knowledge of the investigation also told Reuters that al-Hammami said during questioning that he had planned the attack before he was hired by flydubai.
Captain Smit Machchhar, the Indian pilot who allegedly was attacked on a FlyDubai plane heading to Israel on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (Israel Foreign Ministry)
The latest details follow last week’s dramatic incident aboard Flight FZ1073, which was traveling from Dubai to Tel Aviv when the co-pilot allegedly attacked the captain inside the cockpit.
NETANYAHU PRAISES HEROIC BYSTANDER IN BLOODY COCKPIT ATTACK FOR PREVENTING ‘ANOTHER 9/11’
UAE Attorney General Hamad Saif Al Shamsi said investigators determined that the co-pilot attempted to carry out a terrorist act by attacking the captain with a crash axe and attempting to take control of the aircraft.
A FlyDubai aircraft carrying Israelis who experienced an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia is seen parked at Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (Ariel Schalit/AP)
Passengers and others aboard the flight ultimately intervened, and the aircraft was diverted to Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, where it landed safely.
Al Shamsi has said the UAE investigation remains underway to determine the full circumstances and motives behind the attack, as well as any potential links to others.
The UAE Public Prosecution has said the final results of the investigation will be announced after the necessary investigative procedures are completed.
world, terrorism, airlines, saudi arabia, middle east, airports
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