Three Things You Need to Know - September 28, 2017

UC Berkley is a circus.

There are only a couple of situations in life where you need a tent.

When you’re camping.

When you’re setting up a circus.

And that’s about it. 

But the tent that was put up during the latest protest at UC Berkeley was totally different.

This tent was an “Empathy Tent.” Doesn’t that make you feel so warm inside? The “empathy tent” was designed to give opposing forces a “safe space” to flesh out their political disagreements in a peaceful environment.

Right-wing group “Patriot Prayer” was speaking on campus when leftist groups “By Any Means Necessary” and Antifa showed up to protest.

What could go wrong?

It wasn’t long before representatives from both sides were placed in the tent to talk it out. Of course, talking turned to yelling, which turned to pushing, which turned to fighting.

Almost immediately, the brawling escalated to the point that the tent was nearly toppled. Police officers rushed to the scene.

Four people were arrested, including an activist for “By Any Means Necessary” named Yvonne Felcara. Yvonne has an interesting profession for an extreme left-wing activist. She’s a middle school teacher. Don’t you feel confident in the future of our country? She was arrested on suspicion of rioting, obstruction and battery. This was not her first arrest.

And this nonsense does not come cheap.

This protest comes after UC Berkeley preemptively spent $600,000 to ensure protests didn’t turn violent when Ben Shapiro spoke on campus.

We live in a world where apparently people with different opinions cannot talk to each other in a civil fashion. At all.

We live in a world where it costs $600,000 to stop middle school teachers from becoming violent.

We live in a world where “empathy tents” exist. 

And our inability to be considerate human beings is making our world worse.

UC Berkeley has shown, once again, that it is not a bastion of education. It is a circus.

So maybe a tent is appropriate after all.

Helping people in times of crisis should never be a partisan issue.

If there was ever a moment when Democrats and Republicans could truly collaborate, you’d think it would be working together on something like the disaster in Puerto Rico.

Last Sunday, Hillary Clinton tweeted unsolicited advice to President Trump that he should send the USNS Comfort a U.S. Navy hospital ship, to Puerto Rico now.

“These are Americans citizens,” she tweeted helpfully.

Turns out the Navy was already preparing to send the Comfort. There are also three other U.S. Navy ships already in Puerto Rico working on relief. And 5,000 active-duty U.S. service members on the ground. And 13 Coast Guard ships working to fix ports and launching search-and-rescue missions.

Hillary did not have all the facts when she pleaded for Trump to #SendtheComfort.

The Pentagon discussed sending the Comfort to Puerto Rico as early as last weekend, but decided against it because the damaged Puerto Rican ports weren’t able to accommodate a ship that large, and because the Puerto Rican government requested help in getting the island’s 60 hospitals operational instead. So, the Pentagon sent a fleet of Air Force jets with supplies, generators and medical personnel.

Hillary’s tweet didn’t mention those things. The President’s critics aren’t interested in hearing about his actual relief efforts because his approval rating rose after hurricanes Harvey and Irma. The Left can’t have that.

Priority number one for the Left isn’t helping Puerto Rico. It’s trying to make America think Donald Trump doesn’t care about helping Puerto Rico. It sounds like they’ve already got their main talking point picked out.

Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez said it: "This is going to turn [out] to be Mr. Trump’s Katrina."

President Trump brings a ton of criticism on himself, but this is not one of those times. He seems to be trying to help Puerto Rico, and Democrats, if they truly cared about Puerto Rico, should help him.

Divide and conquer.

That’s what our enemies are doing to us, and it’s happening right under our noses. Chaos is the name of the game, and we’re falling for it time after time after time.

Facebook revealed this month that Russia purchased $100,000 worth of political ads during the 2016 presidential campaign. The way this has been reported lately, you’d think all those ads would be pro-Trump. But, yesterday, details started to emerge on what Russia was actually doing and who they were really supporting. The answer is: everyone, no one, everything and whatever stirred up the most chaos.

As early as 2015, Russian Facebook ads have both supported and condemned Black Lives Matter. Some ads were pro Muslim and pro-immigration. The next day, those same groups would post negative Muslim ads and anti-immigration rhetoric. Trump, Hillary, Right and Left. They’ve been playing both sides.

Do you think the Russians actually cared who became president? In terms of heads of state, the President of the United States is one of the weakest authority figures in the world. The founding fathers made it that way on purpose. The Russians know this. They were preparing to divide us, regardless of who became president.

This goes a lot deeper than just the election. As early as this past week, Russian intelligence was using the NFL “take a knee” controversy to continue their chaos campaign. Senator Lankford of Oklahoma said in a hearing yesterday that Russians were “taking both sides of the argument” on social media to inflame divisiveness.

We’re being played like a fiddle. And while the collusion narrative continues in the media, a foreign intelligence service is actively trying to split us apart. The Russians have been doing these types of things for decades but never on this scale and this magnitude. Technology has opened up an entirely new era in espionage, and the scary part is that this has only just begun. Look how easily we have been turned against one another. Imagine how much worse this will become in 2 to 5 years.

It’s divide and conquer. Chaos is the name of the game. It’s time to wake up.

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Glenn: Why Memorial Day is not just another holiday

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They wore the uniform so you could live free. This holiday, ask yourself if you're living in a way that honors that sacrifice — or cheapens it.

Your son has been a Marine for what feels like an eternity. Only those who have watched their children deploy into war zones can truly understand why time seems to freeze in worry. What begins as concern turns to panic, then helplessness. You live suspended in a silent winter, where days blur and dread becomes your constant companion.

Then, in an instant, it happens. What you don’t know yet is that your child — your most precious gift — fell in combat 60 seconds ago.

This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives.

While you go about your day, unaware, military protocol kicks into motion. Notification must happen within eight hours. Officers are dispatched. A chaplain joins them. A medic may accompany them in case the grief is too much to bear.

Three figures arrive at your door. One asks your name. Then, by protocol, they ask to enter your home. You already know what’s coming. You sit down. He looks you in the eye and says:

The commandant of the Marine Corps has entrusted me to express his deep regret that your son John was killed in action on Friday, March 28. The commandant and the United States Marine Corps extend their deepest sympathy to you and your family in your loss.

This moment has played out thousands of times across American soil. In 2003 alone — just two years after 9/11 — 312 families endured it. In 2007, 847 American service members died in combat. In 2008, 352. In 2009, 346. The list goes on. And with every name, a family became a Gold Star family.

Honor the fallen

For most Americans, Memorial Day means backyard barbecues, family gatherings, maybe a trip to the lake or a sweet Airbnb. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying these things. But we must never forget why we can.

Ask any veteran who lived when others did not, and you’ll understand: Memorial Day is not just another holiday. It is a solemn day set apart for reverence.

So this weekend, reach out to a Gold Star family. Acknowledge their pain. Ask about their son or daughter. Let them know they’re not alone.

This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives — not for accolades but for love of country and the preservation of liberty. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

They died for the Constitution, for our shared American ideals, and the worst thing we could do now would be to betray those ideals in a spirit of rage or division.

We cannot dishonor their sacrifice by abandoning the very principles they died to protect — equal justice, the rule of law, the enduring promise of liberty.

This Memorial Day, let us remember the fallen. Let us honor their families. Let us recommit ourselves to the cause they gave everything for: the American way of life.

They are the best of us.


This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump exposes Left’s habeas corpus hijack in border crisis

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Democrats accused the president of declaring war on civil rights. In reality, he’s defending habeas corpus while they drown it in delays and legal loopholes.

Tuesday’s congressional testimony from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem turned heads for all the wrong reasons. Pressed to define “habeas corpus,” she stumbled. And while I respect Noem, this moment revealed just how dangerously misunderstood one of our most vital legal protections has become — especially as it’s weaponized in the immigration debate.

Habeas corpus is not a loophole. It’s a shield. It’s the constitutional protection that prevents a government from detaining a person — any person — without first justifying the detention before a neutral judge. It doesn’t guarantee freedom. It demands due process. Prove it or release them.

Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.

And yet, this doctrine — so essential to our liberty — is now being twisted by the political left into something it was never meant to be: a free pass for illegal immigration.

The left wants to frame this as a matter of compassion and rights. Leftists ask: “What about habeas corpus for migrants?” The implication is clear: They see any attempt to enforce immigration law as an attack on civil liberties.

But that’s a lie. Habeas corpus is not an excuse for indefinite presence. It doesn’t guarantee that every person who crosses the border gets to stay. It simply requires that we follow a process — a just process.

And that’s exactly what President Donald Trump has proposed.

Habeas corpus, rightly understood

Habeas corpus is the front door to the courtroom. It simply requires the government to justify why someone is being held or detained. It’s not about citizenship. It’s about human dignity.

America’s founders knew this — and that’s why they extended the right to persons, not just citizens. Habeas corpus isn’t a pass to stay in America forever — it’s a demand for legal clarity: “Why are you holding me?” That’s it.

If the government has a lawful reason — such as illegal entry — then deportation is a legitimate outcome. And yet, the left treats any enforcement of immigration law as a betrayal of American ideals.

The danger today isn’t that habeas corpus is being ignored; it’s that it’s being hijacked. The system is being overwhelmed with bad-faith cases, endless appeals, and delays that stretch for years. Right now, the immigration courts are buried under 3.3 million pending cases. The average wait time to have your case heard is four years. In some places, people are being scheduled for court dates as far out in 2032. Where is the justice in that?

This is not compassion. This is national sabotage.

Weaponizing due process

The left uses this legal bottleneck as a weapon, not a shield. Democrats invoke due process as if it requires the government to play a never-ending shell game with public safety. But that’s not what due process means. Due process means the state must play by the rules. It means a judge hears a case. It means the law is applied justly and equally. It does not mean an open border by procedural default.

So no, Trump is not proposing the end of habeas corpus. He’s calling out a broken system and saying, out loud, what millions of Americans already know: If we don’t fix this, we don’t have a country.

This crisis wasn’t an accident — it was engineered. It’s a Cloward-Piven playbook, designed to overwhelm the system. Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.

Abandon the Constitution?

Remember, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. But how do we balance the Constitution and our national survival without descending into authoritarianism? Abandon the Constitution? No. Burn the house down to get rid of the rats? Absolutely not. The Constitution itself gives us the tools to take on this crisis head on.

The federal government has clear authority over immigration. Illegal presence in the United States is not a protected right. Congress has the power to deny entry, enforce expedited removals, and reject bogus asylum claims. Much of this is already authorized by law — it’s simply not being used.

President Trump’s idea is simple: Use the tools we already have. Declare the southern border a national security emergency. Establish temporary military tribunals for triage. Process asylum claims swiftly outside the clogged court system. Restore “Remain in Mexico” so that the border is no longer a remote court room. Appoint more immigration judges, assign them to high-volume areas, and hold streamlined hearings that still respect due process.

That’s not authoritarian. That’s leadership.

The path forward

Trump is not trying to destroy habeas corpus. He’s trying to save it from being twisted into a self-destructive parody of itself. Leftists have turned due process into delay, justice into gridlock, and they’re dragging the entire country into their chaos.

It’s time to draw the line. Protect habeas corpus. Use it lawfully. Use it wisely. And yes — use it to restore order at the border. Because if we lose that firewall, we lose the republic.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Betrayal of trust: Medicare insurers face lawsuit over kickback scheme

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Editor's note: This article is sponsored by Chapter.

The U.S. government has filed a major lawsuit under the False Claims Act, targeting some of the biggest names in health insurance—Aetna, Elevance Health (formerly Anthem), and Humana—along with top insurance brokers eHealth, GoHealth, and SelectQuote. The allegation? From 2016 to at least 2021, these companies funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks to brokers to steer seniors into their Medicare Advantage plans.

If the allegations are true, it means many Americans may have been steered into Medicare Advantage plans that weren’t necessarily the best fit for their needs—not because the plans were better, but because brokers were incentivized by illegal kickbacks.

The Kickback Conspiracy

Navigating Medicare Advantage’s maze of plan options is daunting, so beneficiaries rely on brokers like eHealth, GoHealth, and SelectQuote, who claim to be unbiased guides. But from 2016 to 2021, insurers Aetna, Humana, and Elevance Health allegedly paid brokers millions in kickbacks to favor their plans, regardless of quality. Disguised as “co-op” or “marketing” deals, these payments were tied to enrollment targets. Internal emails revealed executives knew this violated the Anti-Kickback Statute, with one eHealth leader joking that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) would miss a $15 million Humana deal for minimal enrollments. Brokers used call routing to prioritize high-paying insurers, betraying beneficiaries’ trust.

Discrimination Against the Vulnerable

The scheme wasn’t just about profits—it targeted vulnerable beneficiaries. Medicare Advantage must accept all eligible enrollees, including disabled people under 65. Yet Aetna and Humana allegedly pressured brokers to limit their enrollment, as these beneficiaries were deemed to be less profitable. Brokers complied, rejecting referrals and filtering calls to favor healthier enrollees, incentivized by bonuses. This violated federal anti-discrimination laws and CMS contracts, undermining the founding principles of Medicare by discriminating against the very people it was created to aid.

False Claims and the Pursuit of Justice

The schemes led to false claims to CMS, with insurers certifying enrollments as “valid” despite kickbacks and discrimination. The government paid billions, unaware of the fraud. Examples include Humana’s $12,477 for a 2016 enrollment and Aetna’s $79,047 for a 2020 case. On May 1, 2025, the U.S. filed suit, seeking treble damages and penalties under the False Claims Act. Aetna and others deny the allegations, per May 2025 reports, promising a fierce defense. The case, demanding a jury trial, seeks justice for beneficiaries and taxpayers.

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