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$1 Trillion Not Enough for Hegseth – The Wednesday AM Quickie 7/22/26

By Whitney Curry Wimbish —

They had me at “low effort, high reward.” Bye for now, Corey returns tomorrow. - Whitney

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THE BIG NEWS

$1 Trillion Not Enough Money for Hegseth

If RFK Jr. and his fellow charlatans really want to uncover waste, fraud and abuse (see below), they should look no further than Peter Brian Hegseth, the former Fox News host and current alcoholic who is also the Secretary of Defense. Hegseth went to Capitol Hill yesterday to ask the Senate Appropriations Committee for $70 billion more to wage war on Iran, the Washington Post reported. Senators asked how come, since they’ve already given him a record $1 trillion. Per the Post: 

He acknowledged that the Pentagon has yet to spend about $75 billion of one-time military funding lawmakers passed last year, though he argued it was already slated for other priorities, such as purchasing advanced weaponry. The military is running so short on money that without additional funding, Hegseth said, some military training will need to be “curtailed.”

Some senators criticized Hegseth and said he was bad at planning. Hegseth said nuh uh, not his fault, and blamed his failure as a leader on Joe Biden, who has not been in office for 18 months. He also put the current price tag of the illegal war at $37.5 billion.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon identified a third soldier killed after Trump’s failed ceasefire: Army Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, ABC News reported. Swinton died Sunday when personnel conducted a “controlled detonation of a downed Iranian attack drone at Erbil Air Base in Iraq.” It’s unclear how that led to his death and the Department of Defense is investigating. Per ABC:

The use of controlled detonations is a common practice among trained explosive ordnance disposal teams to neutralize hazardous devices. Those procedures were refined over two decades of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, where roadside bombs were a persistent threat to coalition forces. While the disposal of munitions is inherently dangerous, one U.S. official explained, fatal incidents are relatively rare. 

According to the Department of Defense, 17 US service members have died in the joint US-Israel war on Iran, and a further 500 have been wounded. In the last two weeks alone, at least 100 service members have been injured – a figure a source told the Intercept was a gross undercount.

RFK Jr. Using AI to Justify Withholding $1 Billion in Medicaid Funding to California and Minnesota 

Amid an already crushing affordability crisis that is making healthcare unaffordable for millions of Americans, the pestilential Health and Human Services secretary has decided to cut funding even further to California and Minnesota over fake fears he made up in his disgusting worm brain and justified with artificial intelligence, the Guardian and the NYT reported. “We used AI, advanced analytics, and other cutting-edge tools to identify suspicious activity and potential fraud,” RFK Jr. said.

RFK Jr. is holding hostage more than $867 from California and about $200 million from Minnesota. “If those states want that money, they need to provide documentation that these payments are legitimate,” he said. Who else was there at the presser? Why, Mehmet Oz, the quack whose daughter, Daphne Oz, is married to John Jovanovic, chairman and president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. That’s the slushy fund full of US tax dollars that federal officials use to pay domestic executives to operate their businesses abroad. And what did the good doctor have to say? Oh, that Medicare funds are being used to “pad the pockets of criminals.”

Trump’s regime has already withheld $1.3 billion from California and $250 million from Minnesota for several months. Governors of both states called bullshit. Per the Times: 

“California isn’t being targeted because Trump has evidence of fraud,” Governor Newsom posted on Twitter. “We are being targeted for political reasons.”
In a statement to The New York Times, Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, said that the Trump administration was only “punishing children, seniors, working families and people with disabilities.” 

Mexican Man Immigration Thugs Murdered July 14 Was Tourist Visiting Florida Beaches 

A Mexican man whom immigration agents chased into the highway, where he was struck and killed by a semi truck, was a tourist visiting Florida on vacation, the AP reported. Juan Jairo Coronilla Durán was just 28 when agents chased him to his death on July 14; he had “traveled from his hometown of San Luis de la Paz, in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, to Atlanta to visit family and friends.” He was in Georgia for three weeks “before traveling to Florida’s east coast to enjoy the beaches.” May he rest in peace.  

QUICKEST QUICKIES

  • Trump Slaps 50 Percent New Tariffs on Canadian Goods Following a ruling that his earlier levies were illegal, Trump decided to try again in a move that will jack up prices on $20 billion worth of products, including cement, dairy products, furniture, wigs, and, if you can believe it, hockey sticks. The tariffs take effect in 30 days. via CBC and Reuters.  
  • Kash Patel Plans Trip to Party with KGB Successors in St. Petersburg and Moscow The FBI director will go to Russia in October, an interesting month to select, and “is expected to be hosted by the FSB, the main successor organization to the Soviet Union’s secret police. via the Independent.
  • Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn Says He’ll Block Ambassador Nominees Unless AIDS Funding to Africa is Restored The Texas Republican says he’s ready to jam up Kari Lake and Doug Mastriano’s dreams of going to Jamaica and Slovakia, respectively, for extended vacations on Americans’ dime. via Politico.    

SOME NUMBER

Roughly 30

That’s how many times Bill Gates and other members of his foundation staff met with human trafficker and child rapist Jeffrey Epstein, according to an external review. Gross.

ON THE SHOW TODAY

7/22: Emma is hosting solo today. Her guests are Ken Klippenstein, independent journalist covering security and U.S. politics at his newsletter KlipNews; and Dylan Gyauch-Lewis and Fletcher Calcagno. Dylan is a senior researcher at the Revolving Door Project and Fletcher is a research intern at the Revolving Door Project; They will discuss their piece in The American Prospect: Not All Nepo Babies Are Trumps.

DON'T MISS MR CLIPS‌

Israeli Lawmakers March On Gaza Vowing Settlements

Read the +972 Magazine article here. 

‘Border Czar’ Tom Homan ‘Speaks’ To Reporters

He is lying and it is easy to prove. Also, zero ICE agents have died in the line of so-called duty in 2025 or 2026.

PARTING WORDS

“We’re going to get out of here.”

– Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, as he fled a press conference Tuesday when “asked about reports that he potentially committed voter fraud and owns 15 homes worth $9 million on a government salary,” HuffPost reported. Paxton is running for the Senate against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico and only wanted to talk about law enforcement. But reporters wouldn’t let up so he ran away. 

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