The Stone Zone dissects rural hospitals as 24/7 lifelines under congressional threat while Roger Stone frames Trump’s 2024 win as a MAGA realignment fueled by RFK Jr.’s independent bid and Elon Musk’s $291M pivot. He praises Kennedy’s Medicaid vaccine mandate rollback, exposes Somali-run child care fraud in Minnesota (and Ohio/Washington), and slams Governor Tim Waltz for enabling abuse. Stone predicts 2026 election dominance by these scandals, credits Trump for reshaping the GOP toward working-class priorities, and warns of Democratic overreach—all while tangentially linking to Tiger Woods and social media bans. [Automatically generated summary]
Rural Americans deserve access to the best of what our nation has to offer, especially health care.
Across every state and every community, America's rural hospitals are the first line of defense, protecting our families, neighbors, and loved ones.
No matter where you live, hospital care doesn't clock out.
They're there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Each year, America's over 5,000 hospitals care for millions of patients, providing 24-7 emergency care, delivering babies, cancer treatments, and other life-saving care that patients rely on.
Behind every one of those patients are doctors, nurses, and caregivers working tirelessly to keep people healthy and safe.
Hospitals are our community's lifelines.
They employ our neighbors and keep our families healthy.
But now, some in Congress are threatening access to care.
Tell Congress, protect patient care to keep America strong.
Don't cut rural health care.
The Stone Zone.
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You are now entering the Stone Zone for the second time in 2026.
Welcome to the Stone Zone.
You know, I think that the outcome of our last presidential election was based on a unique confluence of events that resounded in a political realignment in this country and an upset victory, nothing less than the single greatest comeback in American political history.
As someone who is a veteran now of 13 national presidential campaigns, someone who studies the polls and understands the systems, I must tell you that on paper, theoretically, of course, Donald Trump should not have been able to pull off the greatest comeback in American political history.
Up to that time, the comeback of Richard Nixon, who had lost the White House by a whisker to John F. Kennedy, elected even though President Dwight Eisenhower and New York Governor Tom Dewey, who had been the Republican presidential candidate in 1944 and 1948, both urged Nixon to contest that result based on not just the evidence of fraud in Chicago, Illinois,
but also literally the burning of 100 Nixon Lodge ballots in Dallas County, Texas alone in a state that Kennedy and Johnson carried over Nixon and Lodge by a mere 25,000 votes.
But Nixon decided not to contest that election, living to fight another day.
And thanks to, again, an extraordinary series of events, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, and of course the voters becoming tired of the endless Vietnam War, parted the seas in a way that no one could foresee.
And Nixon made a comeback only to crash and burn based on what we now know was an undercover CIA operation based on declassified documents.
The CIA was well aware of the plot to break into the Watergate.
In fact, they even filled the burglar team with active CIA operatives.
But that's a story for another day.
In 2024, You had the alliance between Robert F. Kennedy, who left the Democrat Party to become an independent, and then as an independent decided to join forces, bringing his Maha, Make America Healthy Again movement into alignment with Donald Trump's MAGA movement, Make America Great Again, providing a bridge, I think,
for Democrats and independents and other free thinkers to vote Republican, for some of them, for the first time in their lives.
Then you had two other major factors.
Elon Musk, who earlier on had flirted with the presidential candidacy of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis until he figured out that that guy was a stone-cold loser, and then later decided post-Butler, Pennsylvania, and after the assassination attempt on Trump to throw his weight and support and money behind Donald Trump.
Of course, Trump and Elon Musk got along famously in the beginning of the presidential transition.
Musk was the chairman of the effort to ferret out government waste, fraud, and abuse.
And that Doge effort uncovered not millions, not billions, but literally trillions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse.
We're now seeing that Elon Musk was right as these fraud scandals unfold in Minnesota, Michigan, Washington State, soon to be near you, New York, California.
But they fell out.
Now it appears that they have been reconciled with the 2026 midterm elections.
Rapidly approaching, tech billionaire Elon Musk is signaling that he now will once again provide significant financial backing for Republican candidates.
According to multiple reports, Musk has begun donating to GOP, House, and Senate campaigns, doing his part to prevent a potential Democrat resurgence in the Congress.
Sources familiar with the donations say Musk has already written large checks and plans to contribute much more throughout the cycle, although exact figures won't be disclosed until campaign finance reports are released a little later this year.
This comes after a highly publicized rift between the tech billionaire Elon Musk and President Trump earlier this year over the big, beautiful bill, during which Musk even flowed the idea of launching a new political party.
I think Elon Musk has recognized that doing so would merely split the common sense vote in this country and open the way for the return of the Biden-Harris Democrats, and what a disaster that would be for the country.
The two now appear to have buried the hatchet back in September when they met privately at the September Memorial for the late Turning Point USA founder, my good friend Charlie Kirk.
Musk later admitted that some of his criticism of Trump went too far, which is, of course, putting it mildly.
Musk's decision to support Republican candidates in the midterms, massively consequential.
In the 2024 cycle, he was the single largest political donor in the country, contributing more than $291 million, most of it in support of President Trump.
As several high-profile lawmakers retire, Musk's financial firepower could prove to be the deciding factor in whether Republicans retain control of the House and the Senate.
Now, as mercurial as Musk can be, MAGA should welcome Elon Musk's support.
What he did to help the president get elected, as well as what he did after buying Twitter and transforming it into X and opening up as a free speech platform, makes him a bona fide hero for free speech.
I had 1 million followers on Twitter when I was just unilaterally banned in 2017.
They didn't even send me an email explaining to me which of their extremely fluid community standards I had violated.
I just woke up one day and my profile was gone and with it my ability to communicate with roughly a million people.
So when I heard that Elon Musk was buying Twitter and would convert it to X, it's funny because I was in a hotel suite with candidate Donald Trump in Las Vegas when he took a phone call from Musk, who told the former president, the then former president, that he was going to buy Twitter and change the name of it to X. Trump admonished him, why would you change the name?
That's a blue chip brand name.
And obviously, Musk disagreed.
I filed the application to be restored on Twitter, now known as X, never expecting that I would ever hear back, never expecting that I would get my voice back.
After all, to this day, I'm banned for life on Facebook.
I'm banned for life on Instagram.
I appear to be banned for life on YouTube.
A couple months ago, I started a new YouTube channel, a new YouTube persona, and I went from about 581 followers to about 18,000 in one week.
And then one day, my profile, once again, just disappeared.
When I complained to the folks at Instagram, I got back a notice saying that I had been banned because my posts on Instagram were inauthentic.
Inauthentic?
What does that mean?
Well, when I asked, they told me that Roger Stone had definitely died on November 24th of the previous year.
Of course, I'm very much alive.
It is a little confusing, but I think having Elon Musk back in the fold is going to be one of the key elements of the 2026 election.
And to be more precise, this burgeoning financial scandal beginning with the Somali community in Minnesota, where once again, not millions, not trillions, before it's all over, billions of our tax dollars will have been wasted away on fraud, whether it is daycare centers or transportation centers or other COVID release.
This is the kind of unseen issue that the political experts who say so convincingly that the Republicans will definitely lose the House don't know what they're talking about.
The fact that this is in many ways Elon Musk's signature issue, waste, fraud, corruption, and abuse of our tax dollars is a strong reason for Musk to be back in the fold and be very enthusiastic about it.
So this is good news indeed.
Meanwhile, golf legend Tiger Woods turned 50 this week.
The boy Wonder turned 15 major championship and all-time great now stands eligible for the PGA Tour Championship Circuit.
Woods, who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Donald Trump in 2019, has long embodied perseverance, discipline, and redemption.
That honor recognizes not just his dominance on the golf course, but his resilience in overcoming adversity, a theme that continues to define his career.
Now, while Woods has not yet confirmed plans to compete on the senior tour, he's made it clear that he's working towards a return.
After suffering in a devastating car accident, I guess that was back in 2021, undergoing multiple back surgeries and suffering a ruptured Achilles earlier this year, Woods admitted that he's still rebuilding strength and his mobility.
Woods has not played a competitive round since last summer, but his influence in the sport remains unmatched.
Fellow pros routinely credit him for transforming golf, expanding its audience, and raising the sport's global profile.
The man who once won 15 major championships and redefined American dominance in golf still commands respect across various generations.
His 2019 Masters victory, one of the greatest comebacks in sports history, remains a symbol of his perseverance, his discipline, and, well, his grip.
He was truly the pro-sports equivalent of Trump's political comeback to win the presidency once more in 2024.
As Woods enters his 50s, only a fool would count him out.
He will have a swan song to Capstone's legendary career that will captivate the golf and broader sports community for yet another time.
Bernie's New Marxist Push00:06:06
Meanwhile, if you missed it, yesterday I released my 17th annual international best and worst dress list.
This is a habit and a custom that I picked up from the late Mr. Blackwell, who could make or destroy careers of titans in business, socialites, movie stars and starlets, and other prominent citizens with his withering commentary on their clothing and how they were adorned.
The whole theme of my list is, of course, that it's about style.
See, fashion is fleeting.
Fashions come and go.
Neckties get thinner and they get wider.
Skirts go up and skirts go down.
Lapels become wider, they become more narrow, and they become wider yet again.
Those things all pertain to fashion.
Fashion is temporary.
Fashion is fleeting.
But style is enduring.
So, for example, the little black cocktail dress will always be in style for women.
The navy blue blazer with brass military buttons, whether single-breasted and two- or three-button style or double-breasted, will always be a fashion, I should say, style staple.
Check out my best and worst address list for 2025.
It includes both Greg Kelly and Larry Kudlow, two of my colleagues right here on the Red Apple Audio Networks.
And it's a labor of love for me to put together.
17 years running, doing it.
Very proud of this list.
You can check it out online.
In the meantime, I'm Roger Stone listening to the Stone Zone.
We got more politics when we come back.
So whatever you do, don't touch that dial.
If you're looking to create, grow, and sustain your wealth, download and subscribe to the Pain Points of Wealth podcast at bebullish.com with Bob, Ryan, and Chris Payne.
It's your podcast for market insights, money tips, and real talk on the economy.
Download and subscribe at bebullish.com.
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Welcome back into the Stone Zone.
Well, New York City's new mayor made it very clear that he is, in fact, a communist.
New York City's new mayor, Zorain Miamdami, wasted no time signaling a sharp turn to the far left, declaring during his inauguration that he was elected as a democratic socialist and would govern accordingly.
One chilling statement shows exactly how Miam Dami deliberately intends to attack the very pillars upon which America was founded.
Let's listen to the new mayor.
And if for too long these communities have existed as distinct from one another, we will draw this city closer together.
We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.
If our campaign demonstrated that the people of New York yearn for solidarity, then let this government foster it.
Because no matter what you eat, how you pray, or where you come from, the words that most define us are the two we all share.
New Yorkers.
Extraordinary.
You see, America was built on the whole concept of rugged individualism rather than his stated goal of collectivism.
In his speech, Mandami vowed to dramatically expand government power, promising to fix the property system by shifting the tax burden from outer borough homeowners to what he describes as wealthier and wider, his words, neighborhoods.
He openly embraced policies aimed at redistributing wealth, pledging higher taxes on working people, expanding government programs, and sweeping new mandates.
Among his promises, free child care, free public transportation, and a freeze on rent for stabilized apartments, all funded, he said, by taxing the city's highest earners.
The mayor also aligned himself closely with socialist U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, a man who's never had a real job in his life.
Bernie used to attack millionaires and billionaires.
Now I notice he only attacks billionaires.
That's because in his two campaigns for president, Bernie Sanders and his wife skimmed millions of dollars in media placement fees from his presidential campaign.
Now that is not technically illegal, although I don't think he ever disclosed to his many, many donors that he and his wife were getting rich on his presidential campaign.
Bernie Sanders attended the mayor's inauguration and praised the socialist-style policies as the solution to inequality.
Sanders called for forcing the wealthy and corporations to pay more, despite the fact that the top 1% already contribute roughly 41% of all New York City tax revenue today.
For those who thought Miam Dami might moderate himself once getting elected, you thought wrong.
He's now going to go full Marxist all over New York City.
Hopefully the coming disaster will show Americans what happens when you embrace socialism.
His new law, which zoomed through the city council, actually forces you, if you are a private property seller, you must first offer your property to the government.
That's right.
You must offer it to the government or to a government-supplied NGO before you can sell your property privately.
And even then, if the government takes a pass at it at first, if you find a private buyer, you must yet let the government have last look before you can sell the property.
Iran Uprising Watch00:03:13
This is, without any question whatsoever, completely and totally unconstitutional.
This is Roger Stone.
You're listening to the Stone Zone right here on the Red Apple Audio Networks.
Keep listening because we'll be right back.
The Stone Zone, entertaining and informative on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
Welcome back into the Stone Zone.
If you've been watching, there is an uprising in Iran against the brutal Iranian regime.
President Donald Trump has issued one of his strongest warnings yet to the Iranian regime, declaring that the United States stands ready to intervene if Tehran moves to violently crush its own people.
In an early morning post this morning on True Social, the president wrote that if Iran shoots and violently kills peaceful protesters, the United States will come to their rescue.
While stopping short of outlining specific military action, the message sent a clear signal to Iran's leadership that the Islamic regime's days of unchecked repression against their own people are soon to be over.
The warning comes as large-scale protests continue to spread across Iran, fueled by economic despair, rising food costs, soaring inflation, and public anger towards the ruling clerics.
Demonstrations have expanded from city marketplaces to university campuses, with at least six deaths reported so far.
Iranian officials claim some casualties were security personnel, including members of the Basji militia, a paramilitary force closely tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iran's supreme leader responded predictably with arrogance and defiance.
A senior aide to Ayatollah Ala Khomeini warned that the U.S. involvement would destabilize the entire region and threaten American interests, which is an ominous threat of terrorist retaliation, in my opinion.
President Trump's message marks a stark contrast to the enabling of Iran from the Biden and Obama regimes.
President Trump's warning signals that the United States will not look the other way as the Iranian regime suppresses its own people and it reinforces his broader posture of strength against Tehran.
It appears that the days are numbered for the Islamic Republic, and that is great news for the Iranian people who've had to live under abject misery for at least five decades.
On the other hand, the question remains as to what comes next.
The Shah of Iran, or the Shah's son from the House of Pahlavi, claims that he is the rightful ruler, but I personally think it's a mistake to go from theocracy back to monarchy.
And the Shah was not exactly a paragon of human rights, but say that online and you will have a thousand of the bots attacking you.
Ohio Republicans Alarm Over Child Care Fraud00:11:38
Clearly, I favor a return to Democrat rule, democratic rule, I should say, open elections as opposed to a return to a monarchy.
If the Shah wants to run, he should run in an open, democratic election.
We'll be watching very, very closely.
I saw Steve Bannon viciously attacked Donald Trump over his remarks today.
I guess he would rather have us stand by and do nothing if the Iranians start mass murdering their own people.
We'll be watching this very closely right here in the Stone Zone.
If you're just tuning in, I'm Roger Stone.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has moved to roll back federal vaccination reporting mandates, an incredible development for patient privacy rights.
In a decision announced this week, RFK Jr. directed the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to end a requirement that doctors report the vaccination status of patients, including children and pregnant women, as a condition of participating in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.
The policy had required physicians to report which vaccinations children receive by certain ages, as well as vaccination data for expectant mothers.
In a statement, Kennedy made it clear the change was about restoring trust between patients and their doctors.
Kennedy said government bureaucracies should never coerce doctors or families into accepting vaccinations or penalize physicians for restricting patient choice.
Under the Trump administration, the Department of Health and Human Services will protect informed consent, respect religious liberty, and uphold medical freedom.
This is why I think RFK is one of President Donald Trump's very best appointments.
He has taken a huge amount of incoming from Big Pharma, who's used to dominating the health industrial complex within our federal government.
RFK stands alone as a true statesman in his efforts to restore health freedom, and it's interesting that he has the full and complete support of President Donald Trump.
The reporting mandate has been expanded in recent years and was intrusive, had become burdensome, and completely inconsistent with patient-centered care.
Although initially voluntary, the requirement for mandatory reporting came into place in 2024, tying compliance to participation in federal health programs as the Biden regime moved closer and closer to mandatory vaccinations.
Under the new guidance, doctors may still voluntarily submit vaccination data, but they will no longer face federal pressure or penalties if they decline to do so.
CMS also confirmed it will explore alternative approaches, including collecting information on whether families were informed of vaccination risks, benefits, and available options.
This move would restore balance, in my opinion, between public health goals and individual rights and shows that the Make America Healthy Again agenda is not about being anti-vaccination, but instead about being pro-health freedom.
Let each individual and their family decide for themselves whether they wish to be vaccinated, rather than restoring freedom of choice and stopping the big pharma domination of our health care system.
Anyone who poses this guidance is a technocrat and a proponent of medical tyranny.
What we support here in the Stone Zone is health freedom.
Let each individual or his family, his or her family, make decisions for themselves.
As independent journalist Nick Shirley's explosive reporting on alleged fraud in Minnesota continues to rack up literally millions of views, the fake news media outlets are more focused than ever on discrediting the messenger rather than investigating the massive taxpayer fraud.
Shirley's recent on-the-ground video expose, which has now been viewed by more than 130 million people on X and nearly 3 million times on YouTube, has brought national attention to widespread abuse of government child care and social service programs in Minnesota.
Rather than investigate the substance of the allegations, National Public Radio, funded with your tax dollars, by the way, chose instead to attack Shirley himself.
Shirley is in his late 20s.
The outlet dismissed his reporting as unverified, despite offering no independent findings of its own.
Shirley's video documented multiple daycare centers that were completely and totally empty during business hours, despite receiving large sums in public funding.
One such center, infamously even misspelled quality learing rather than learning, on their sign, claimed it operated from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., hours that directly contradict state licensing rules that require operations must be between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.
One particular clinic I loved, when you called their phone number, it actually connected you to the office of Governor Tim Waltz.
That's right, Tampon Tim.
You have to ask yourself, what did Tim Waltz know and when did he know it?
He favored massive increases in all of these federal programs, and he was fully aware of the fact that these millions of dollars were being sent to those in the Somali community and others who were bilking the taxpayers.
As scrutiny mounted, state officials claimed that the facility in question, the famous quality learing facility in Minneapolis, had already shut down, while locals reported seeing activity even after Shirley's initial reporting.
Instead of addressing these discrepancies, National Public Radio questioned Shirley's credibility, lambing him as a shock YouTuber and downplaying his documented encounters with Antifa thugs, which included video evidence showing him being pepper sprayed by far-left extremists while trying to conduct a podcast video.
Shirley, a devout Christian, has openly stated that his faith grounds him amid these personal attacks and smears, and that there are no skeletons in his closet that the fake news can use to destroy or discredit him or seek to control him.
Nick Shirley has inspired a legion now of young citizen journalists to take their cameras and their video out into the field and do some muckraking.
Hopefully this will be the final death blow for the corporate fake news and the world will be better off for it.
But in the meantime, we wait.
We wait for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, CNN, MSNBC to report on this burgeoning scandal.
The next state with a huge fraud problem caused by third world migrants dumped here from their home countries appears to be the Buckeye State of Ohio.
Ohio Republicans are raising alarms over large-scale fraud within publicly funded child care programs, seemingly a carbon copy of what we have now uncovered in Minnesota, warning that the state is ignoring red flags that were already exposed in the neighboring state.
Despite growing concerns, Governor Mike DeWine, who they call little Mike DeWine, if you see a picture of him, you'll understand that.
His administration has downplayed the issue, calling fraud an unfortunate but expected cost of doing business.
That's a pretty outrageous comment.
It shows exactly how these Somali swindlers and other foreign card artists are able to set up shop with authorities in the states looking the other way.
On December 30th, State Representative Josh Williams called on the Ohio Department of Children and Youth to immediately investigate suspected fraud at a number of Columbus area child care centers.
Representative Williams said, we need round-the-clock unannounced inspections of all these child care facilities that are receiving public tax dollars.
What's happening in Minnesota is almost certainly happening in Ohio.
But despite these concerns, the DeWine administration has dismissed claims of a surge in fraud, does not plan to do any investigation whatsoever.
This is outraging a number of Ohio taxpayers who understand that such complacency invites abuse of taxpayer dollars.
Governor DeWine's attitude reflects a strain of extreme cowardice that persists today in the modern Republican Party.
Even though President Trump is the head of the party, many of the Republicans in name only that remain in the party embodied the weakness and squishiness that made the Republican Party so loathed before President Donald Trump showed up.
His nomination in 2016 was essentially the hostile takeover of the Republican Party.
The last hostile takeover of the Republican Party had taken place under Governor Ronald Reagan.
I know because I was there.
Unfortunately, I think the greatest single mistake that President Ronald Reagan made was the selection of George H.W. Bush as his running mate.
George Bush, of course, rode into office on Reagan's coattails, winning the 1988 election, by pledging that he would pass no new taxes.
Remember that?
Read my lips, he said to the National Convention.
No new taxes.
Problem with that, of course, is that as soon as he became president, he raised federal taxes on the working families of America, functionally ending Reaganism and the outsider control of the once great Republican Party.
President Trump has changed all that.
The Republican Party, under Trump, has gone from being the party of Wall Street, the party of the elites, the party of the country clubs, the party of billionaires, to be the party of working Americans.
There was a piece the other day in the UK Daily Mail that said that the Bush family is claiming that they will retake control of the Republican Party the way you would pick up a checked hat at a hat check.
But I don't think that's going to happen.
I think the permanent changes that Trump has wrought within the GOP are here to stay.
And it's interesting that the Democrat Party, which has claimed as its birthright that it is the party of working families, certainly was the party of the labor unions, is now the party of the ultra-rich, the party of the tech billionaires, the party of Wall Street, the party of the big banks and the big insurance companies, the party of big pharma, the party of big money.
So the parties have changed position.
It's a juxtaposition, and I don't think it's going to change.
We'll be watching the 2026 elections very closely, but for those who say the Republicans will definitely lose control of the House, I say they don't know what they're talking about.
This Somali spending spree, this epic waste of American tax dollars, is about to become the dominant issue in the 2026 elections.
Mark my words.
Somali Spending Scandal00:05:00
You heard it here first on the Stone Zone with Roger Stone right here on the Red Apple Audio Network, where we are with you five days a week talking about news, history, politics, food, and more.
And if you're enjoying the show, we thank you for joining us.
Please stay with us because we'll be right back.
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Well, the Somali Jesse Smollett seems to have emerged.
How coincidentally, Minneapolis Daycare Center tied to Minnesota's massive human services fraud scandal now claims it was the target of a break-in which conveniently removed all financial records and proof that children actually come to the facility.
Sure, it did.
No Comis Daycare Center, a Somali-run facility, says someone entered the building and removed all the sensitive documents just as scrutiny intensified over alleged fraud involving public assistance programs.
The claim has not been independently verified.
Authorities have not confirmed that a burglary, in fact, actually occurred.
No surveillance footage has been released, and the police have not announced any arrests.
More than 90 individuals have been charged thus far as part of the fraud probe, most of whom are Somali foreigners attempting to get rich by scamming Uncle Sam.
The daycare center's manager, Nasrullah Mohamed, blamed the viral video by Nick Shirley for triggering harassment, he said, though he acknowledged his center was never featured in the footage.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has frozen roughly $185 million in federal child care funding to Minnesota pending verification of legitimate use of those taxpayer funds.
That's a good start.
It's clear to me that this Nashrullah Mohammed is the Somali Jussie Smollett.
They will play the race car because they have no other cards left to play.
But the Somalis lack the requisite IQ points to effectively pull off this scam.
So get your popcorn ready because their antics are going to be very amusing in the upcoming weeks.
I predict to you yet again, this is going to become a scandal that will dominate discussion in the upcoming 2026 election cycle.
Meanwhile, liberals are not enjoying the growing trend of citizen reporters actually investigating their scams, and Seattle's new mayor has a solution.
Charge anybody who questions their publicly elected officials with hate crimes.
In a public statement, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson accused independent reporters of conducting what she called a surveillance campaign and labeled their work extremist, urging anyone who felt targeted to contact Washington's hate crimes and bias incident hotline.
She claimed the investigations amounted to harassment and insisted that home-based child care providers are private businesses that should not have to be scrutinized by the public.
So let me get this straight.
These centers, these child care centers who are receiving both state and federal tax dollars, they have no responsibility for public accountability.
I'm not buying this.
This is, of course, just a thinly availed attempt to intimidate journalists and suppress legitimate investigative reporting.
The scrutiny follows mounting evidence that the state of Washington's child care subsidiary system may be vulnerable to the exact type of widespread fraud uncovered in Minnesota, where hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds were misused.
Independent journalists Kim Higby and Jonathan Chloe have documented several addresses listed as licensed child care centers that appear to be operating no child care services at all.
In one case, a resident Fotley denied that a daycare center had ever existed at the address, despite state records showing over $210,000 in taxpayer payments and recent safety violations.
Federal officials quickly pushed back against the mayor's rhetoric.
Assistant Attorney General Harmee Dillon, a good friend of mine, warned that targeting journalists for asking questions violates the First Amendment and could trigger federal civil rights investigations.
Former Senate Judiciary Counsel Mike Davis of the Article 3 project echoed that warning, stating plainly that American citizen journalism is protected speech, even though the fake news looks the other way and bureaucrats are too lazy or too corrupt to stop it.
The wave of these new citizen journalists empowered by free speech platforms like X could expose and humiliate the fraudsters and anger the public so much that reform ultimately becomes inevitable.
It is that tradition that we embody here, embody here on the Stone Zone.
Embodying WABC's Tradition00:01:42
Thanks for joining us.
We're going to continue to cover this massive taxpayer scandal.
Until tomorrow, God bless you and Godspeed.
Thanks for listening to the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
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Rural Americans deserve access to the best of what our nation has to offer, especially health care.
Across every state and every community, America's rural hospitals are the first line of defense, protecting our families, neighbors, and loved ones.
No matter where you live, hospital care doesn't clock out.
They're there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Each year, America's over 5,000 hospitals care for millions of patients, providing 24-7 emergency care, delivering babies, cancer treatments, and other life-saving care that patients rely on.
Behind every one of those patients are doctors, nurses, and caregivers working tirelessly to keep people healthy and safe.
Hospitals are our community's lifelines.
They employ our neighbors and keep our families healthy.
But now, some in Congress are threatening access to care.
Tell Congress, protect patient care to keep America strong.