#abcnews

(From ABCNews)

"He told me on the phone that it was three trucks of white men trying to kill him," Tiffany Carter said. "As any citizen of this world, you're going to try to get to a place of safety. And I thought telling him to go to a place of safety was the right thing to do as a mother because I wasn't close enough to get him, myself."

Rasheem Carter notified police that he was concerned for his safety and visited the Taylorsville Police Department on two separate occasions leading up to his disappearance, according to Tommy Cox, chief of the Laurel Police Department, which filed the initial missing persons' case after the family came to them for help.

Taylorsville police did not immediately return ABC News' request for a statement.

In addition to Rasheem Carter's head being severed, his spinal cord was recovered in a separate area from his head, according to Crump.

"I know this, something horrific was done to my son," Tiffany Carter said. "God knows and God will deal with everyone accordingly to what they have done."

source: ABCNews.com

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 14, 2026

Heather Cox Richardson

May 15, 2026

Vice President J.D. Vance was in Maine today to tout what the Trump administration claims is its push to combat fraud in public services. Vance blamed Democrats for fraud in Medicaid programs and vowed that the Trump administration would stop such fraud by refusing to distribute funds to states that were not cooperating with the federal government’s anti-fraud efforts. He announced yesterday the administration intends to withhold $1.3 billion in Medicaid payments from California.

This alleged push against fraud is part of an old playbook the Republicans have used since at least 2000 in which they accuse the Democrats of their own weak points and misdeeds.

This play was often associated with Republican strategist Karl Rove, but in 2024, Caroline Wazer of Snopes noted that it is most usually associated with Nazi propaganda in the 1930s. Accusing opponents of what you, yourself, are doing, muddies the waters and makes it hard for real accusations against you for the same thing to stick.

Experts say fraud in federal programs is a real problem but that it is carried out primarily by transnational criminal organizations, not by individual recipients. Republican rhetoric claims a high rate of “improper payments,” but the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services itself stresses that “improper payment measurement is not a measure of fraud.” Rather, that term identifies payments where the paperwork provided by the state or provider was incomplete. Those numbers have been high recently because the government allowed states greater flexibility during the Covid-19 public health emergency.

According to the nonpartisan Maine Center for Economic Policy, MaineCare is overseen by both state and federal agencies, and the most recent federal review found that only about 0.1% of total program spending was in incorrect payments. Indeed, last month, Reed Shaw of Just Security noted that the administration’s claim to be rooting out fraud appears simply to be a new way to punish perceived political enemies that might have a better chance of getting through the courts than the administration’s previous attempts did.

Accusing Democrats of fraud will also accomplish the political goal of muddying the waters to make it harder for voters to see that the Trump administration is the most corrupt U.S. administration in history. And concern about voters’ perceptions of corruption must be uppermost in the minds of administration advisors right now, since new Hungarian prime minister Péter Magyar’s landslide victory over Trump ally Viktor Orbán was driven in large part by voters’ fury at Orbán’s corruption.

Muddying the waters for voters is the best the Trump administration can hope for because, for all the administration’s claims to be fighting fraud, Trump’s corruption is mind-boggling.

He has fired or demoted twenty inspectors general—the people key to oversight—and in 2024 alone the people he has since fired or sidelined identified more than $50 billion in waste and abuse. Matthew Purdy and Luke Broadwater of the New York Times noted in March that in both terms as of March 2026, Trump has also pardoned or commuted the sentences of more than 70 donors or allies who were convicted of fraud. One, Philip Esformes, was convicted of stealing $1.3 billion from Medicare.

Steven Greenhouse of The Guardian reminded readers today that in January, David D. Kirkpatrick of the New Yorker reported that the Trumps have pocketed about $4 billion, primarily through cryptocurrency enterprises. Greenhouse notes that Trump’s sons Eric and Don Jr. have invested in a drone manufacturer that is trying to sell weapons to Gulf countries currently at risk from the war their father started in Iran, and that the Pentagon recently awarded a $24 million contract to a robotics startup for which Eric is the “chief strategy advisor.”

Even as Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is acting as a chief negotiator for the U.S. in the Middle East, he has been trying to raise $5 billion from investors there for his investment firm. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, a sovereign wealth fund overseen by Saudi Crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), has already invested $2 billion with Kushner.

And then there are Trump’s vanity projects to remake the national capital. As Greenhouse notes, corporations and billionaires have dropped millions of dollars in donations for Trump’s ballroom where the East Wing used to be and his proposed presidential library in Miami. In December 2025, Karen Yourish, Kenneth P. Vogel, and Charlie Smart of the New York Times estimated that Trump had raked in more than $2 billion for his projects or causes, more than half a billion of it from 346 people who each gave at least $250,000. Some of those people have received presidential pardons, others have been given jobs, and all have received access to the president.

On May 11, Jonathan Allen, Peter Nicholas, Matt Dixon, Henry J. Gomez, and Allan Smith of NBC News reported that Trump is using the planned Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event to be held on his birthday on the White House lawn as a new way for donors to funnel money to him. Although the UFC is paying for the event—and expects to lose as much as $30 million on it—and although tickets are technically free, Trump is picking who gets most of the tickets.

Sponsorship packages that include ringside seats have been selling for $1 million or more. Neither the White House nor the UFC would comment on where the money is going. A Republican lobbyist told the NBC News journalists: “It’s basically been added to the list of approved entities to give undisclosed money to and get credit with Trump. They are raising a sh*t ton of money and have used it as another unofficial vehicle for corporate donors to give and gain favor with Trump.”

And now Trump is in China on a state visit on which he took along seventeen CEOs of companies—many of which do business in China—including billionaires Elon Musk and Tim Cook of Apple. Together, the members of the delegation are worth more than a trillion dollars. Trump also took his son Eric, who runs the family business. As economist Paul Krugman said today, “He might as well have been walking around Beijing with a sign that says—in block capitals, of course, this is Trump—BRIBE ME.”

On Tuesday a group of Miami residents sued Trump, his library fund, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, Miami Dade College and its trustees, and Florida officials to stop the construction of Trump’s presidential library, charging that state officials violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause when they transferred almost three acres of prime waterfront land, worth between $67 million and $300 million, to Trump’s library foundation for $10. Trump has already said he wants to build a hotel on the site rather than a traditional library.

Andrew Duehren and Alan Feuer of the New York Times reported Tuesday that the Department of Justice was working with Trump to settle his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after a contractor during Trump’s first term leaked tax returns from thousands of wealthy individuals to the media. The Department of Justice and Trump were eager to settle before the judge in the case could rule on whether the case was valid, a decision that could easily go against Trump since he was both the plaintiff and, as the person overseeing the IRS, the defendant in the lawsuit.

This evening, Katherine Faulders, Peter Charalambous, and Alexander Mallin of ABC News reported that Trump is in talks to drop the lawsuit in exchange for the government’s establishing a $1.7 billion fund to compensate those of Trump’s allies who claim they were harmed by the Biden administration’s alleged “weaponization” of the Department of Justice. Those eligible for payments from this taxpayer-funded account would include nearly 1,600 people convicted of committing crimes related to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, people Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of shortly after he took office in January 2025. While Trump himself will probably be barred from direct payments, entities associated with him will not be.

A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team told the ABC News reporters: “President Trump continues to hold those who wrong America and Americans accountable.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

OUR STATEMENT welcoming Royal Commission scrutiny of ABC, social media companies:

The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (@AIJAC_Update) welcomes reports that the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion will hear evidence from the ABC, major media organisations and social media companies.

For years, AIJAC has raised the alarm about the long-term, systematic and institutional anti-Israel bias at the ABC, as well as the failure of social media platforms to adequately address the relentless proliferation of antisemitic hate, misinformation and incitement.

AIJAC Executive Director Dr Colin Rubenstein: “When reporting is distorted, context is omitted, or antisemitic narratives are amplified and allowed to spread unchecked, the consequences can be profound, and even lead to violence.

Equally, social media companies must answer for their repeated failure to effectively curb the tidal wave of antisemitic abuse, conspiracy theories and incitement that continues to flourish on their platforms.

We hope that the Commission’s work will lead to meaningful reforms that strengthen accountability and restore public confidence in our media institutions.”

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After spending over 26 years as a senior ABC journalist & broadcaster, I’ve seen the once great ABC become a sheltered workshop of dishonest, corrupt, bias, left wing, journalism.

1.4 billion taxpayer dollars wasted annually on this cancerous crap.

Proof of ABC lies: Russian collusion hoax, Joe Biden dementia coverup, Biden laptop, George Pell, Gaza Hospital bombing, Charlottesville fine people hoax, Covington kids, fake Trump Jan 6 speech, fake Heston Russell Afghan gunshots, Grace Tame Jew hate, fake Gaza genocide, Brittany Higgins coverup lie, ABC/RMIT fact check bias, lost multiple defamation cases.

Every article I've come across discussing DD's stint in rehab always recycled the same sentiment, which abcnews succinctly sums up:

He was the first celebrity to own up to sex addiction. Other public figures have sought treatment following sexual indiscretions since then.... But Duchovny still holds the distinction of being the only celebrity to cite sex addiction as his reason for treatment, as opposed to depression, "undisclosed reasons" or any number of other ailments.

Yet, according to his own words, David had a different experience:

To be honest with you, when I went through it [rehab] and I was stripped of my anonymity, y'know, immediately-- which, if you're going to attempt to do 12 Step stuff, anonymity is a keystone of that. And I was barred from that almost immediately in my journey there.

And I wondered: what could he be referencing, being "stripped of his anonymity?"

Well, the only article I could find that confirms DD's side of things was written in October 2008-- and it paints a different picture to the one I hear commonly speculated:

"X Files" star David Duchovny's announcement that was he was in rehab for sex addiction sparked a lot of rumors. One of them was that he'd been caught having an affair with his tennis instructor (a woman) and that he was undergoing rehab to save his marriage.

Alas, it isn't so, says a close friend. Duchovny did not check in because of an extramarital fling. That much the friend is certain of. Even more so: Duchovny's problem has been longstanding. His wife, Tea Leoni, was aware of it for some time. It had just reached a point where it had to be treated.

I have inferred from my conversation with Duchovny's friend that this has something to do with an addiction to pornography, probably on the internet. It's the sex equivalent of a gambling addiction, where the person is just hopelessly trapped in chat rooms....

By the way, I'm told that David issued that press statement about his rehab because the tabloids were about to issue their own story. What happened: A fellow patient "dropped a dime" on David to make some extra coin. Nice confidentiality!

Huffington Post still has the article up, meaning whatever legal measures David used to shut down alleged affair rumors were ineffective or unwarranted in this case: either because he didn't feel the need to address anonymous speculation-- other rag mags still have "articles" up about he or Tea cheating, after all-- or because the "source" had proof that the newspaper wielded in their defense. Regardless, no other tabloid fodder matched the key detail DD mentioned on his podcast. Meaning, to me, these claims not only coincide with what he said, but also have legs of their own.

This is all to be taken with a grain of salt, of course. No one will ever know the truth of what happened except David and Tea. As is their right.

Aloha kākou. The fear of offending others and being offended. Uncomfortable Truths and Comforting Lies. Academia is a beast with no natural predators. As Douglas Murray explains, how those that are offended by free speech are more dangerous than we can begin to understand. Being accused of being a racist, for example is a sure way to shut down any debate. “Your comment is racist, and it offends…