Wednesday Tax Day Potpourri

Sample Hezbollah confiscated weapons

The Bint Jbail hospital in Gaza is symbolic to Hezbollah – it’s where then-secretary general Hassan Nasrallah described Israel as “weaker than a spider web.” Since September 2024, courtesy of those web-spinners, he has not been around to confirm that. They tagged him in an airstrike on Beirut.

Seems Israeli troops in the vicinity of the hospital drew fire – from the hospital.

The soldiers, operating under the military’s 98th Division, identified terrorists who opened fire at IDF soldiers from hospital windows. The military killed an unspecified number of the terrorists operating within the hospital, as well as approximately 20 additional terrorists operating in the vicinity, the military stated.

Nothing characterizes a religion of peace by violating international law  by running combat from a hospital.

The hospital complex was used to transfer and store weapons, while terrorists used the facilities as observation posts, hiding places, and sheltered locations, the military added.

This comes amid reports in Israeli media that the IDF is besieging the town of Bint Jbail, which is one of the largest population centers on the Lebanese side of the border. Jerusalem Post

Next up, Jason Butler of Jupiter, FL gets an all-expenses vacation at our expense.

A 38-year-old Jupiter, Florida man is going to federal prison after pulling off one of the more brazen military fraud schemes in recent memory: he billed the U.S. Navy for fuel it never received, using forged documents, fabricated wire transfers, and at one point, an entirely made-up identity. The scheme ran for nearly a year and a half, and by the time it was over, Jasen Butler had pocketed more than $4.5 million in stolen military funds.

What Butler spent that stolen money on is now also gone: the judge ordered the forfeiture of multiple high-value properties in Florida and Colorado that Butler had purchased with the illicit proceeds.

The judge gave him five years.

Between August 2022 and January 2024, U.S. Navy warships operating in international ports needed to purchase fuel, and Butler’s company swooped in with bids and paperwork, none of which were legitimate.

He submitted dozens of falsified documents including tampered invoices, fraudulent wire transfer memos, and forged contracts, all designed to look like real fuel transactions.

When investigators began closing in and scrutiny of his company intensified, Butler did not stop. He simply changed his approach. He hid his identity and began representing himself as an employee of a fuel division at another company, except that division did not exist. He had invented it. The scheme continued until authorities finally caught up with him and the full scope of the fraud was exposed.  Guessing Headlights

Me, I’m thinking that whoever approved payment needs some serious examination, too. A year per million bucks sounds kinda light, doesn’t it?

Remember the Noem-mobiles?

The case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia is still ongoing and may get more interesting.   Todd Blanche is getting ready to take over Pam Bondi’s chair.

Blanche’s public statements about human smuggling charges brought against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the US wrongly deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador, have for months frustrated prosecutors’ ability to bring the case to trial as Abrego Garcia has asserted that he’s being vindictively targeted.

A judge is poised to decide at any time whether to use those comments to dismiss the charges. But if doesn’t toss out the charges, he could decide to summon Blanche to his courtroom in Nashville, Tennessee, to answer questions under oath about the department’s motivation for criminally pursuing Abrego Garcia.

“The judge’s determination as to the truthfulness of Blanche’s statements takes on extra importance now that Blanche is the acting attorney general and, potentially, a candidate for the permanent job,” said Elie Honig, a CNN senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor.

“If the judge finds that Blanche’s statements support a finding of vindictive prosecution, that’ll be a black eye for Blanche, and for DOJ, and will impact his credibility,” Honig added.

The day officials announced Abrego Garcia’s return, Blanche told Fox News that the Justice Department started probing Abrego Garcia after a judge in Maryland both concluded that the administration “had no right to deport him” and accused officials “of doing something wrong” in its approach to him. CNN

Obviously this one ain’t over.

Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Crime, Israel, Navy