CMR is the leading provider
of funding and management
support for small to
medium-sized businesses and
entrepreneurs
Established 1984 C MR
is the leading venture
capital, management
support and business
services provider for
small to medium-sized
businesses - linking
excellent management
skills with the
substantial financial
resources of a global bank
of private investors.
CMR has over 450 senior
executives, operating
in the UK, USA, Europe, Asia,
Australasia and
globally,
providing both funding and
specialist help for
entrepreneurial
businesses .
For Businesses
CMR provides excellent
resources:
CMR FundEX Business Exchange - gives all companies & entrepreneurs direct access to CMR's global investor base.
CMR Catalyst Group
Programme -
transform
profitability through
merging.
CMR Company Sales Division helps owners to exit
at the best price.
CMR Corporate Recovery
Division -
experts in rescue and
turnaround.
CMR Technology Licensing
Division -
commercialising
innovation.
CMR Executive
Professionals - management support
and consultancy.
CMR Executives-on-Demandâ„¢ Fully experienced
senior executives
available quickly and
cost effectively.
We always welcome
contact with new
business clients- please get in touch
- we will do our
best to match
your needs and exceed
your expectations.
For Investors
Preferential access to new opportunities for investment and/or acquisition
P re-vets
propositions and
provides a
personalised service
to our investors
Syndication service
enabling investors to
link together as desired
Executive and
management support for
investments as needed
CMR's services to
our investors are not
only fast & efficient
but also free
W e
always appreciate new
members- you are welcome
to join as an investor
or as a CMR Executive.
When you
join us as a Senior
Executive:
CMR's strength is in the
skills and experience of
our executive members -
all senior, director level
people with years of
successfully running and
managing companies.
Because the demand for
CMR's support and services
is ever-increasing,
especially as we enter
recessionary times, we
have a growing need for
more high calibre
executives to join us from
every industry and
discipline.
You will be using your
considerable experience to
help smaller businesses
and entrepreneurs to grow
profitably.
We offer full training
and mentoring support to
help maximise potential.
We are
always keen to find more
high calibre senior
executives in all areas-
skills and location.
Make contact with us today
and maximise your
opportunities.
HEAD
OFFICE
124 City Road
London EC1 2NX
Tel: +44 (0)207-636-1744
Fax:+44 (0)207-636-5639
Email: cmr@cmruk.com
Registered Office:
124 City Road ,
London EC1 2NX
Also Glasgow,
Dublin, Switzerland, Europe, USA/Canada
Privacy Statement: CMR only
retains personal details
supplied directly by executives
joining CMR themselves either as
Full Executive Members or
Interim Management Members or
Investors. Those details are
only used within CMR and not
disclosed to any third parties
without that person’s
agreement. We will keep that
data until requested by the
person to be removed – at that
point it will be deleted.
Personal data is never sold or
used for purposes outside of
CMR’s normal operations. Any
correspondence should be
directed to the Managing
Director, CMR,
Kemp House,
152-160 City Road, London EC1V
2N
Senior Executives
CMR is a worldwide network of senior executives. Join us to expand your career and business horizons.
Business Entrepreneurs
CMR has a complete range of resources & services provided by experts to help all businesses to grow and prosper.
Investors & Venturers
CMR has a continuous stream of business and funding propositions, which are matched to investor preferences. Join us - it's FREE!
FundEX
FundEX is CMR's worldwide stock market for small to medium sized companies and entrepreneurs to raise new capital.
Interim & Permanent Management
Many of CMR's executives can be recruited on an interim, permanent or NED basis.
Login
Main CMR Intranet members only
Regional Intranets
Sat, 17 Jan 2026 02:45:00 +0000 How The 1917 Virgin Islands Deal Is A Blueprint For Buying Greenland
How The 1917 Virgin Islands Deal Is A Blueprint For Buying Greenland
How The 1917 Virgin Islands Deal Is A Blueprint For Buying Greenland
Authored by Dustin Bass via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
When Secretary of State Marco Rubio stood before reporters on Jan. 7 to discuss the military operation that took place in Venezuela four days prior, he added another element of intrigue. He planned to meet with Danish officials this week to discuss purchasing the world’s largest non-continental island: Greenland.
A fjord in western Greenland on Sept. 16, 2025. Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters
Such discussions will be new for Rubio, though it is not the first time the Trump administration has broached the subject. President Donald Trump’s brief statement to reporters on Jan. 4 aboard Air Force One was succinct: “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security.” It was a reiteration of his March 2025 congressional address.
Additionally, Trump first mentioned purchasing Greenland in August 2019 , a suggestion rebuffed by Danish officials, which led to a brief kerfuffle between the two states.
When Rubio sits with Danish leaders for those first discussions, he will have entered upon diplomatic deliberations that stretch back to the Andrew Johnson administration. The first inquiry to purchase Greenland from the Danes came in 1868 from Secretary of State William Seward. America had recently purchased a tundra to its northwest: Alaska . That purchase in 1867 was initially mocked as “Seward’s Folly” by the press, but of course, after the discovery of gold and oil, Seward’s decision was more than justified. Nonetheless, Congress proved disinterested in the icy territory to its northwest.
Seeking the ‘Small Gibraltar’
While negotiating the Alaska purchase from Russia, Seward was negotiating the purchase of the Danish West Indies from Denmark. The small islands of ??St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix—specifically the “small Gibraltar,” St. Thomas—were considered vital to national security. The Civil War had highlighted American vulnerabilities in the Caribbean, as the major European powers held possessions in the region, but the United States did not. And it was the European powers that concerned the United States.
“The West India Islands, in the possession of Denmark, are of not much danger to us,” wrote U.S. consul to Denmark, George P. Hansen, in 1864, “but it seems to me we cannot very well afford to let a powerful European nation get possession of them. If they ever change ownership, the ownership should be in the [United] States.”
The American and Danish officials had reached an agreement to purchase St. Thomas and St. John for $7.5 million in gold coins. A plebiscite on the islands overwhelmingly approved the sale. Danish King Christian IX announced the sale. But American politics ended the purchasing process. The Republican-led Senate, furious over President Johnson’s policies and Seward’s support of the president, refused to ratify the agreement. The United States’ Atlantic seaboard would remain vulnerable.
A Second Attempt
Early into the momentous year of 1898, Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge expressed his concerns about the islands in a report to the Foreign Relations Committee, stating, “So long as these islands are in the market there is always the danger that some European power may purchase, or try to purchase, them. This would be an infraction of the Monroe Doctrine, and would at once involve the United States in a very serious difficulty with the European power which sought possession of the islands. In the interest of peace, it is of great importance that these islands should pass into the hands of the United States and cease to be a possible source of foreign complications, which might easily lead to war. From a military point of view the value of these islands to the United States can hardly be overestimated.”
Three weeks later, the Spanish–American War began, during which the United States secured its Pacific seaboard by obtaining Guam and the Philippines from Spain (America also annexed Hawaii during this period). Additionally, America obtained Puerto Rico and kicked the Spanish out of Cuba, which became a quasi-protectorate.
Spain had fallen far as a European power, but Russia, France, Great Britain, and a surging Germany remained great powers. The ongoing construction of the Panama Canal by the French only increased concerns about America’s Atlantic vulnerabilities.
The State Department again began negotiations with the Danish for the West Indies . By the winter of 1902, an agreement between Secretary of State John Hay and Danish Chargé d’Affaires Constantin Brun had been reached. The Americans ratified the treaty, but this time it was the Danish who refused to ratify. The nations had signed two treaties with nothing to show for it.
Securing the Islands
In 1910, Maurice Egan, the U.S. ambassador to Denmark, believed he had come up with a plan to obtain both the Danish West Indies and Greenland . Egan wrote to the State Department with the “very audacious suggestion” of a multi-country land trade agreement. Perceiving the Danish government gave “very little attention” to Greenland—combined with what he viewed as the growing threat of a triple alliance in the Far East of Russia, Japan, and China—he believed that Germany could be utilized as a way of obtaining the islands and placing an ally in the Philippines.
He proposed swapping Mindanao , the second-largest Philippine island, for Greenland (and after further talks, the West Indies). This would allow Denmark to swap Mindanao for the Schleswig-Holstein territory it had lost to the Germans in 1864. “I assure you that it represents the desires and the opinion of some of the best minds in Denmark, and some of them most highly placed,” Egan added.
The proposal, though interesting and complex, came to nothing. Egan, however, may have been onto something.
A year into World War I, it was Germany that caused the Americans to inquire again about the West Indies. Instead of a potential ally as suggested by Egan, Germany was now a threat.
The initial inquiry about the islands by Secretary of State Robert Lansing was rebuffed by Brun, who indicated Denmark “had very large commercial interests which were vastly increasing with the construction of the Panama Canal.”
Lansing communicated that the Americans were not concerned about the Danes’ commercial interests, but about Germany’s interests. Germany’s expanding empire, militarism, and growing commercial interests led the Americans to believe they might annex Denmark or force the sale of the West Indies. If that were the case, Lansing made it clear that “the United States would be under the necessity of seizing and annexing [the islands].”
“This plain spoken threat of what might occur under certain conditions had the desired effect ,” Lansing recalled. On Aug. 4, 1916, Lansing and Brun signed the treaty, which both sides ratified, and the purchase of the now-U.S. Virgin Islands was completed on March 31, 1917, for $25 million in gold coins. Part of this agreement, however, confirmed Denmark’s rights to Greenland.
The Post-World War II Attempt
The acquisition of Greenland arose almost immediately after World War II. In 1946, the State Department took a page out of Egan’s book by suggesting a land trade. America would acquire portions of Greenland in exchange for land in Alaska’s Point Barrow district. Again, the land-swap idea was a no-go.
Interestingly, U.S. diplomat John D. Hickerson echoed Egan’s belief that ‘'Greenland is completely worthless to Denmark.” The State Department then offered $100 million for the “worthless” island that appeared “indispensable to the safety of the United States.”
Brief and unofficial discussions took place, but the matter was eventually dropped. Denmark and the United States, however, did sign a treaty in 1951 to establish a base in Thule, now known as Pituffik Space Force Base.
In 1953, Greenland was incorporated into Denmark, ending two centuries as a colony. It achieved Home Rule and then Self Rule in 1979 and 2009, respectively. It has the option to pursue independence, and despite its wealth of natural resources, which the Trump administration often mentions, it is considered a “welfare state,” requiring an annual $600 million Danish block grant.
Trump and Greenland
President Trump, in the spirit of Secretary Lansing, has made it rather clear he is not concerned about Danish or Greenlandic interests. His concerns are more immediate and widespread.
“We need Greenland from a standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it ,” Trump stated. “The European Union needs us to have it, and they know that.”
The national security threat is no longer from European powers as it was in the 19th and first half of the 20th century. The threats now come from Russia and China, whose navies roam the Arctic Ocean with seeming impunity. Trump claimed, perhaps with a hint of sarcasm, that Denmark was not doing enough to protect American or international interests with Greenland.
“You know what Denmark did recently to boost up security on Greenland? ” he rhetorically asked reporters. “They added one more dog sled. ”
The world was alarmed when Trump suggested military force was an option. No doubt, as the administration has made clear, purchasing Greenland is preferable. But when Rubio sits down with Danish officials this week, he may need to pull a page out of Lansing’s book. It may again have “the desired effect.” Additionally, much like our purchase of the Danish West Indies, maybe the third attempt is the charm.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/16/2026 - 21:45 Close
Sat, 17 Jan 2026 02:20:00 +0000 Nuclear Bunker Faces Final Days As Coastline Rapidly Erodes
Nuclear Bunker Faces Final Days As Coastline Rapidly Erodes
A nuclear bunker on the East Yorkshire coast is close to falling into the sea after decades of coastal erosion, Read more.....
Nuclear Bunker Faces Final Days As Coastline Rapidly Erodes
A nuclear bunker on the East Yorkshire coast is close to falling into the sea after decades of coastal erosion, according to the BBC . The structure near Tunstall, built around 1959 as a Cold War lookout post, was once more than 100 yards from the shoreline but is now dangerously exposed on the cliff edge.
Local historian Davey Robinson, who has been filming the site, said: "We live on one of the most eroded coastlines in Europe and this bunker hasn't got long left, perhaps just a few days," and described the bunker as "just a few days" from collapse.
The East Riding of Yorkshire Council has warned the public to stay away from the area because of unstable cliffs, while the Environment Agency confirms the region has some of the fastest-eroding coastline in the UK.
Robinson and his partner Tracy Charlton have returned to the site daily and shared footage online. "We are posting the footage on our YouTube channel and it's getting interest from around the world," Robinson said.
The BBC writes that the bunker, known as the Tunstall ROC Post, was part of a network of nuclear monitoring stations. It included sleeping space and basic living facilities. Robinson explained: "It was designed so that people could live inside it and just wait for a nuclear explosion to register and they could tell other people in other bunkers around the country," adding: "It never got used thank goodness."
The Holderness coast is losing around 6.5ft (2m) of land each year, and more than 3 miles have disappeared since Roman times. Robinson said the bunker "adds a lot of meaning" to the situation, calling it "a symbol of erosion in this area," and adding, "This whole area is eroding at a rapid rate and to see an actual physical thing moving it just shows what's happening really."
Charlton said they would continue filming because the bunker "only had days left" before collapse: "We're invested in this and I guess we're obliged to keep visiting for the sake of the thousands of people who are now watching our videos on the YouTube channel."
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/16/2026 - 21:20 Close
Sat, 17 Jan 2026 01:55:00 +0000 How Expanded Obamacare Made Premiums Spiral, Americans Dependent
How Expanded Obamacare Made Premiums Spiral, Americans Dependent
How Expanded Obamacare Made Premiums Spiral, Americans Dependent
Authored by Lawrence Wilson and Sylvia Xu via The Epoch Times,
Congress responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by passing the American Rescue Plan Act in early 2021. This $1.9 trillion spending bill was intended to provide relief and spark an economic recovery.
Among other provisions, the law expanded the availability of government-subsidized health care through the Obamacare Marketplace to help low- to middle-income people maintain health coverage until the economy normalized.
The measure brought millions of middle-class Americans into Obamacare, but had the unintended consequence of making many of them dependent on government aid.
The law also introduced temporary, enhanced subsidies, which raised Obamacare premiums, some observers say.
Though the enhanced subsidies expired on Dec. 31, 2025, Congress continues to debate their possible reinstatement.
Expanded Enrollment
Obamacare was created for people caught in the gap between Medicaid coverage and employer-sponsored health insurance.
The program provides income-based premium tax credits, which are subsidies paid directly to insurance companies, for people whose incomes are on the poverty line and up to four times above the poverty line (between 100 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty level).
People earning less than—or in some states, up to 138 percent of—the poverty level are eligible for Medicaid. Obamacare offers help for people earning up to four times that amount, up to $62,600 per year or $106,600 for a family of three, based on the current federal poverty level .
During the pandemic, Congress created subsidies that had no income cap. These enhanced subsidies also lowered enrollees’ affordability cap—the maximum amount a customer would pay out of pocket for a monthly premium.
Under the enhanced subsidies, introduced in 2021, no enrollee would spend more than 8.5 percent of their monthly income on premiums. Some would pay no more than 6 percent, others 4 percent or 2 percent, and some would pay nothing.
Enrollment boomed, jumping from 11.4 million to 14.5 million in two years. By 2025, enrollment had doubled from its pre-pandemic level, topping 24 million, according to data from health research organization KFF.
The enhanced subsidies were set to expire in 2022, allowing just enough time to get people back to work.
But when the pandemic ended, the enhanced subsidies remained.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and fellow Democrats hold a news conference on the East Front Steps of the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 18, 2025. Jeffries said on Jan. 5 that House Democrats are seeking to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, which expired on Dec. 31, 2025. Heather Diehl/Getty Images
Premiums Increased, Wages Didn’t
Health insurance premiums increased dramatically during Obamacare’s first five years. The average individual premium for a 40-year-old went up at least 75 percent, according to data reported by KFF.
Prices soared in commercial markets, too, where the cost of individual premiums rose about 120 percent from 2013 to 2019, according to The Heritage Foundation.
Obamacare prices leveled out before the pandemic hit and from 2020 to 2022, which includes the first two years of enhanced subsidies, prices dropped 5 percent, according to data reported by KFF.
But in 2022, the year the subsidies were set to end, inflation was on the rise, peaking at more than 9 percent by midyear, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Economists broadly agree that this was an unintended consequence of American Rescue Plan spending. The rising prices were “the product of easy fiscal and monetary policies, excess savings accumulated during the pandemic, and the reopening of locked-down economies,” Ben Bernanke, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, wrote in a co-authored assessment for Brookings.
Congress responded by spending even more money. The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in August 2022, would pump another $1.2 trillion into the economy within a decade, the Cato Institute estimated . That included a three-year extension of the enhanced subsidies.
(L–R) Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), and Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) speak at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on Aug. 3, 2022. While most Republicans opposed extending the enhanced Obamacare subsidies, some supported a second short-term extension of one to three years. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Obamacare premiums shot back up, according to data reported by KFF, rising more than 13 percent in three years.
Economic and policy researcher Cynthia Cox for KFF pointed to a number of factors driving the recent rise in premiums, including increased hospital costs, the rising popularity of expensive new drugs such as Ozempic, and the use of tariffs.
Many observers also cite the enhanced subsidies themselves as a driver of the problem they were created to address.
“The [Affordable Care Act] subsidy structure is itself inflationary—driving up health care prices and total premiums,” said Mark Howell and Brian Blase of the think tank Paragon Health Institute. “As Congress considers the future of the COVID Credits . . . it must confront the reality that the [Affordable Care Act] made coverage far less affordable.”
That reality was largely hidden from many who received the enhanced subsidies because their out-of-pocket premium payments were capped based on income. Price hikes above that cap were paid by taxpayers, which meant the enhanced subsidies were now even more important for people with modest incomes.
Meanwhile, the real wages of American workers were not keeping pace with the price of consumer goods, let alone the skyrocketing cost of health insurance.
Around that time, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) commented on the value of the enhanced subsidies to members of his congressional district. “Without the Inflation Reduction Act, the average premium for these individuals would have increased by 76 percent, to $1,430, in 2023,” he said in a statement .
By 2025, the year the enhanced subsidies were again scheduled to expire, Obamacare premiums were at their highest point ever. Health insurers realized that, without the additional subsidies, healthier enrollees would drop their coverage in 2026, leaving a smaller, more expensive pool of people to insure, according to the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker.
Insurers responded with premium increases ranging from 10 percent to 59 percent, Peterson-KFF found, with the median being 18 percent.
Congressional Democrats argued that the enhanced subsidies had become essential and moved to make them permanent. Some Republicans agreed that a second extension of one to three years was needed.
After five years of premium increases largely paid for by federal taxpayers, both the insurers and the insured appear to have become dependent on the enhanced subsidies.
Increased Fraud
Most Republicans opposed extending the enhanced subsidies. Before spending more money on rising premiums, they said another problem hidden in the system needs to be fixed first—fraud.
There has been no dispute among lawmakers that the enhanced subsidies have been a boon to consumers.
The average Obamacare premium for 2025 was $619 per month, of which subsidies covered more than $500. More than 10 million enrollees, 46 percent of those receiving aid, paid $10 or less per month out of pocket for premiums.
About 8 million paid $0, according to Brookings.
That’s exactly the problem, according to some analysts, because the possibility of enrolling large numbers of people who would never receive a bill created a ripe opportunity for fraud.
Many people were enrolled in the program without their knowledge by unscrupulous insurance brokers, Blase alleges, prompting the federal government to send a commission check to them—and premium payments to an insurance company.
These phantom enrollees are detected in part by their lack of activity once enrolled, Blase said.
“In 2024, nearly 12 million enrollees did not use their plan a single time—up from fewer than 4 million in 2021,” Blase told the House Judiciary Committee on Dec. 10.
Overall, 35 percent of all exchange enrollees never used their plan, and 40 percent of fully subsidized enrollees did not have a single claim, which Blase said is double the rate in both the commercial market and pre-pandemic Obamacare.
America’s Health Insurance Providers, the trade association for health insurance companies, disputed that claim.
“A ‘no-claims’ year is evidence that a consumer stayed healthy or only had a few months of coverage—not that taxpayer money was misdirected or that their policy was illegitimate,” the group said in an Aug. 18 statement.
Yet in December 2025, the Government Accountability Office provided evidence of enrollment fraud in Obamacare that suggests fake accounts are being created.
Pages from the U.S. Affordable Care Act health insurance website healthcare.gov are seen on a computer screen in New York City on Aug. 19, 2025. Patrick Sison/File/AP Photo
Investigators were able to enroll 20 nonexistent identities in Obamacare in 2024 by using Social Security numbers that had never been issued to any person and other easily created counterfeit documents.
Of the 20 false enrollments, 18 were still active in September 2025, costing taxpayers more than $10,000 per month.
Investigators also found 26,000 accounts that received subsidies in 2023 based on Social Security numbers that matched records in the Social Security Administration’s death file.
More than 7,000 Social Security numbers belonged to people who were reported dead before enrolling in Obamacare, and 19,000 Social Security numbers matched death data by number but not name and address, indicating that false identities may have been created for enrollment.
Taxpayers paid more than $94 million in subsidies for one year based on those numbers.
Another indication of fraud is the number of states where enrollment in Obamacare plans with a $0 premium is unreasonably high compared to the number with a qualifying income.
Twenty-four states have more Obamacare enrollees claiming incomes between 100 percent and 150 percent of the federal poverty level than there are people living in the state with that income, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The problem appears worse in states that have not adopted expanded Medicaid, which would have increased Medicaid eligibility to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.
Obamacare customers are automatically re-enrolled each year, so a fictitious account would continue to generate fraudulent commissions and wasteful insurance payments until detected.
Fraudulent enrollment costs up to $20 billion per year, according to Paragon Health Institute.
A Social Security card sits alongside checks from the U.S. Treasury in this photo illustration in Washington on Oct. 14, 2021. The Government Accountability Office found evidence of Obamacare enrollment fraud involving fake accounts created with Social Security numbers of people reported dead before enrollment. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Making Health Care Affordable
The enhanced subsidies expired on Dec. 31, 2025.
Congressional Republicans and Democrats continue to agree that the U.S. health care system has become unaffordable and want to address the problem. They differ in approach.
Democrats generally favor government intervention in the system, as in the case of Obamacare, where taxpayers pitch in to cover rising costs.
The Senate in December 2025 rejected a proposal to make the enhanced subsidies permanent.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said at a press conference on Jan. 5 that his party continues to seek an extension of the subsidies “to protect the health care of tens of millions of … everyday Americans, middle-class Americans and working class Americans.”
Without the subsidies, Jeffries said, some consumers would face cost increases of up to $2,000 or more per month.
Republicans generally favor using the power of government to create marketplace competition. Senate Republicans recently presented a plan to provide dedicated funds directly to consumers, which they could use to shop for health care. That plan, too, was rejected by the Senate.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the Senate majority leader, addressed the differing philosophies in a Dec. 16, 2025, press conference.
“If [Democrats are] willing to accept changes that actually would put more power and control and resources in the hands of the American people, and less of that in the pockets of the insurance companies, I think there’s a path forward,” he said.
The House passed a three-year extension of the enhanced subsidies on Jan. 8. A bid by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y) to pass the bill via unanimous consent in the upper chamber failed on Jan. 14.
President Donald Trump has said he would veto any extension of Obamacare subsidies that came to his desk.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/16/2026 - 20:55 Close
Sat, 17 Jan 2026 01:30:00 +0000 Time To DOGE Baltimore: Top City Leaders Admit They Can't Track Tax Dollars Flowing To Nonprofits
Time To DOGE Baltimore: Top City Leaders Admit They Can't Track Tax Dollars Flowing To Nonprofits
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's interview with Christopher Rufo last week highlighted that there is still unfinished business at DO
Read more.....
Time To DOGE Baltimore: Top City Leaders Admit They Can't Track Tax Dollars Flowing To Nonprofits
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's interview with Christopher Rufo last week highlighted that there is still unfinished business at DOGE, where fraud, waste, and abuse may account for as much as 10% of the total federal budget. We even joked that the scale of recent fraud uncovered in Democratic states could compel Elon Musk to return to DOGE in some capacity, as his recent X posts targeting dark-money NGOs suggest renewed interest.
After Nick Shirley's exposé on Somali fraud in Minneapolis, citizen journalists across the country began investigating where their tax dollars are going in Democratic run states. What followed has been a wave of DOGE-style efforts by citizen journalists to root out left-wing corruption, and what they are uncovering is alarming, particularly in California.
The focus is no longer limited to Minnesota and California, but extends across blue states where local left-wing leaders, posing as responsible stewards, are often little more than activists with exceptional talent to loot local, city, state, and even federal coffers.
The latest example of why a DOGE revival at the state level is urgently needed comes from Maryland, a one-party rule state controlled by Democratic kings and queens, where the word accountability doesn't exist, and the state's financial profile is rapidly deteriorating, placing increasing financial strains on working-class households as taxes soar amid a deficit crisis.
Fox Baltimore reporter Patrick Hauf dropped a bombshell report this week, revealing that top leaders in Baltimore City do not actually know how many taxpayer dollars are being funneled into the nonprofit universe.
Hauf's investigative team asked Baltimore City Council members, along with the mayor and comptroller, whether they track nonprofit funding. None provided a precise figure or centralized data.
"None of them provided a precise measure. Some argued that the city government has thorough oversight of taxpayer funds, while others said greater oversight and transparency would be beneficial," the report wrote.
Hauf's reporting comes after a similar report of how Maryland state leaders were unable to specify how much taxpayer money they sent to nonprofits.
The pattern of behavior from city leaders to state officials is that accountability doesn't exist, and why should it when the state is controlled by Democratic Party kings and queens?
The think tank Urban Institute estimated that Maryland nonprofits received more than $6 billion in federal, state, and local grants in 2021. ProPublica data Nonprofit Explorer shows Maryland nonprofits reported $95 billion in revenue in 2024, including executive compensation as high as $7.1 million.
Here are the responses when Hauf's team asked City Council members, along with the mayor and comptroller, how much taxpayer money is being funneled into nonprofits:
City Council responses:
Zach Blanchard said his office does not track nonprofit funding and doubts other council members do, though he expressed interest in increased disclosure for larger nonprofits.
Mark Conway supported nonprofits but said there is no centralized, public-facing system showing how much public funding flows to nonprofits or what outcomes it produces.
Odette Ramos pointed to oversight hearings, while John Bullock and Jermaine Jones declined interviews.
Mayor and comptroller:
Mayor Brandon Scott and Bill Henry said spending is publicly available through the Baltimore City Board of Estimates dashboard.
The dashboard does not identify whether recipients are nonprofits or organize spending by district.
Both offices acknowledged that greater transparency would be welcome, while maintaining existing oversight requirements.
Fox Baltimore reported earlier this month that the Baltimore City Health Department funneled more than $60 million in federal funds since 2022 to Connections Thru Life, a nonprofit that has not completed required audits and shares office space with a for-profit firm led by the same individual.
Meanwhile, working-class Marylanders are furious with Democratic kings and queens who appear to be looting taxpayers while simultaneously raising taxes and plunging the state into a deficit crisis. On top of that, backfiring green energy policies have collided with surging data-center power demand, sparking a power-bill crisis in the state that is financially crushing working-class households.
Growing anger.
The state's fiscal mess is the byproduct of one-party rule. Poor stewardship has sent Gov. Moore's polling numbers sliding, a rare sight for a Democrat in the deep-blue state.
Doesn't look good for the mayor of Baltimore...
And Gov. Moore.
Do these Democratic kings serve the residents of the state or left-wing billionaires with nonprofits?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/16/2026 - 20:30 Close
Sat, 17 Jan 2026 01:05:00 +0000 "They've Totally Lost Control"; Trump Threatens 'Agitators' As Civil Unrest Soars In Minnesota
"They've Totally Lost Control"; Trump Threatens 'Agitators' As Civil Unrest Soars In Minnesota
Update : President Trump escalated his threat to use the Insurrection Act ( Read more.....
"They've Totally Lost Control"; Trump Threatens 'Agitators' As Civil Unrest Soars In Minnesota
Update : President Trump escalated his threat to use the Insurrection Act (as we detailed here ) earlier today, warning that state and city officials "have totally lost control."
The origin of the chaos appears to be mostly manufactured and began hours after the legal observer was shot and killed last Wednesday:
Democrats are using the manufactured chaos, think of it as George Floyd 2.0, in an attempt to sway public opinion polls about Trump's deportation policies. As Trump strips power from Democrats and the party's unhinged left watches its illegal alien voter bloc get deported, those with their backs against the wall increasingly see violence as the only remaining option. Just wait until spring.
As Michael Snyder detailed earlier via The Economic Collapse blog, what we have witnessed on the streets of Minneapolis this week has been absolutely stunning .
It was once such a beautiful city, but now it has been transformed into a war zone. For more than a decade, I have been relentlessly warning my readers that civil unrest would be one of the core elements of the coming “perfect storm”, and now we are literally watching violent clashes between radical leftists and federal authorities play out right in front of our eyes . In fact, it is getting so bad that President Trump is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act. That hasn’t happened since the Los Angeles riots of 1992. If we keep going down this path, will we soon see martial law in major U.S. cities?
Independent journalist Nick Sortor is on the ground in Minneapolis, and last night he watched as rioters destroyed multiple federal law enforcement vehicles …
MULTIPLE ICE and FBI vehicles have been DESTROYED and LOOTED by rioters in Minneapolis after federal agents were forced to abandon them
Agents gear, laptops, and personal information now LITTERS the street
THIS IS ABSOLUTE ANARCHY
He is right.
It is absolutely anarchy.
Sortor is also reporting that the rioters actually broke into a weapons locker in one of the vehicles and got away with a rifle and ammunition …
Minneapolis rioters successfully BROKE OPEN a weapons locker in a federal vehicle and STOLE A RIFLE and ammunition before fleeing
I captured the thief’s face and license plate on the getaway vehicle.
A state of lawlessness exists on the streets of Minneapolis at this moment, and President Trump just threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act …
As the rioters were destroying and looting federal vehicles, the police just stood by and did nothing.
Of course the reason why they didn’t intervene is because that is what their leaders are instructing them to do.
In remarks that she just made to the press, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt explained that Trump’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act “spoke very loud and clear to Democrats across this country” …
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that President Donald Trump’s threats to enact the Insurrection Act in Minnesota “spoke very loud and clear to Democrats across this country.” Leavitt said it send a message to elected officials “who are using their platforms to encourage violence against federal law enforcement officers who are encouraging left-wing agitators to unlawfully obstruct legitimate law enforcement operations.”
Of course the Democrats are not going to back down.
And neither will the Trump administration.
So I expect things to get really crazy in the months ahead.
If Trump actually invokes the Insurrection Act, that will allow him to deploy active duty soldiers to Minneapolis…
The president would have fairly broad authority under the law, Gene Rossi, a former federal prosecutor, told Newsweek on Thursday.
“The punchline is this. Under the Insurrection Act, President Trump and any president has broad power to invoke that act, which is an extraordinary step,” he said. “What it means is that the president can employ active duty soldiers to assist state and local authorities in executing the federal laws.”
In Minnesota, ICE is “executing, in their mind, the immigration laws in terms of arresting and detaining people who are here without proper documentation,” Rossi said. Trump would have broad authority to determine whether laws cannot be effectively executed without invoking the Insurrection Act, he said.
If troops are deployed in the streets, will far left radicals stop harassing ICE?
Of course not.
Instead, there would probably be even more violent confrontations like the one that we just witnessed on Wednesday evening …
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent is in the hospital after being ambushed during an attempt to arrest a Venezuelan national in Minneapolis on Wednesday evening, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
The agent was ambushed by two people while attempting to conduct a traffic stop on an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, DHS said, adding that the agent fired his gun during the alleged attack because he was “fearing for his life and safety.”
One Venezuelan suspect was shot but is reported to be stable and is now in custody, DHS said.
The radical left has drawn a line in the sand.
They are going to resist ICE no matter how much the Trump administration escalates matters.
And so now our society stands at a very dangerous tipping point.
According to a post by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Facebook , the ICE agent that is in the hospital got hurt when two men attacked him with “a snow shovel and a broom handle”…
At 6:50 PM CT, federal law enforcement officers were conducting a targeted traffic stop in Minneapolis of an illegal alien from Venezuela who was released into the country by Joe Biden in 2022.
In an attempt to evade arrest, the subject fled the scene in his vehicle and crashed into a parked car. The subject then fled on foot.
The law enforcement officer caught up to the subject on foot and attempted to apprehend him when the subject began to resist and violently assault the officer. While the subject and law enforcement were in a struggle on the ground, two subjects came out of a nearby apartment and also attacked the law enforcement officer with a snow shovel and broom handle.
As the officer was being ambushed and attacked by the two individuals, the original subject got loose and began striking the officer with a shovel or broom stick.
Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life. The initial subject was hit in the leg.
All three subjects ran back into the apartment and barricaded themselves inside.
The attacked officer and subject are both in the hospital. Both attackers are in custody.
This attack on another brave member of law enforcement took place while Minnesota’s top leaders, Governor Walz and Mayor Frey, are actively encouraging an organized resistance to ICE and federal law enforcement officers.
Their hateful rhetoric and resistance against men and women who are simply trying to do their jobs must end. Federal law enforcement officers are facing a 1,300% increase in assaults against them as they put their lives on the line to arrest criminals and lawbreakers.
It would help if Democrats would tell their constituents to calm down and leave federal law enforcement officers alone.
But that isn’t happening.
In fact, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is calling on the citizens of his state to “resist” the “occupation” that he believes is currently taking place…
Folks, I know it’s scary, and I know it’s absurd that we all have to be defending law and order, justice, and humanity while also caring for our families and trying to do our jobs. So tonight, let me say once again to Donald Trump and Christine Noem: End this occupation, you’ve done enough.
…
Donald Trump wants this chaos. He wants confusion, and yes, he wants more violence on our streets. We cannot give him what he wants. We can, we must, protest loudly, urgently, but also peacefully.
All across Minnesota, people are learning about opportunities, not just to resist, but to help people who are in danger. Thousands and thousands of our fellow Minnesotans are going to be relying on mutual aid in the days and weeks to come, and they need our support.
Tim Walz was a member of the National Guard for 24 years.
When he uses military terminology, he knows exactly what he is doing.
On the other side, Stephen Miller is warning that federal officials are in the process of “identifying, disrupting and dismantling the insurgent networks” that are causing so much chaos in Minnesota…
Stephen Miller, a top White House official, said Tuesday evening that federal law enforcement now has the resources to protect its officers and begin the work of “identifying, disrupting and dismantling the insurgent networks” hampering Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Minnesota.
That sounds very similar to the terminology that many of our politicians would use regarding anti-insurgent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan under previous administrations.
But even if the violent radicals in Minnesota are successfully suppressed, more will just pop up elsewhere.
Personally, I believe that this is just the beginning of an enormous wave of civil unrest.
And if a major war erupts in the Middle East, that will just add more fuel to the fire.
This year is already off to such a crazy start.
And we are only halfway through the first month.
Unfortunately, I believe that the rest of the year will be even more insane.
* * *
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com .
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/16/2026 - 20:05 Close
Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:40:00 +0000 Rashida Tlaib Melts Down Over America
Rashida Tlaib Melts Down Over America
Democratic Socialist Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) was triggered this week by a Homeland Security post on X featuring a B-2 stealth bomber overhead and a cowboy below, accompanied by the text in th
Read more.....
Rashida Tlaib Melts Down Over America
Democratic Socialist Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) was triggered this week by a Homeland Security post on X featuring a B-2 stealth bomber overhead and a cowboy below, accompanied by the text in the center of the image that read: "We'll Have Our Home Again."
"What does it evoke in you when you see this? Literally, when I see it, as a Muslim, as a Palestinian, as a child of immigrants, I see it as something that evokes the feeling that I'm not welcome here," Tlaib said.
Listen for yourself. Tlaib appears to be triggered, but more or less it comes across as a performative show, as X user Saggezza Eterna noted:
Tlaib performs this grief to manipulate the emotional weaklings in her base. She mourns because the restoration of our borders signifies the end of her power to dilute our sovereignty. The Department of Homeland Security finally serves the homeland. Her tears confirm the effectiveness of the policy. We watch a subversive realizing the host nation has activated its immune system against the infection she champions. Let her weep while we ruthlessly secure the perimeter.
Tlaib's reaction is very revealing. She called herself "a Muslim, a Palestinian, a child of immigrants" and doesn't even bother to call herself an American.
Remember it's all theatrics...
Meanwhile, Democrats were given the memo from party higher-ups in recent weeks to pivot away from pro-Islam and anti-Jewish rhetoric, likely because that messaging does not resonate with the majority of Americans.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/16/2026 - 19:40 Close
Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:15:00 +0000 US Foreclosures Up 14% In 2025; Florida Tops States
US Foreclosures Up 14% In 2025; Florida Tops States
US Foreclosures Up 14% In 2025; Florida Tops States
Authored by Mary Prenon via The Epoch Times,
Home foreclosures across America were on the rise in 2025, increasing by 14 percent from 2024, with Florida experiencing the highest numbers in the nation.
In its Jan. 15 report , property data and analytics provider ATTOM, said that 367,460 U.S. properties were involved with default notices, scheduled auctions, or bank repossessions last year.
Those properties represented 0.26 percent of all housing units, a slight uptick from 0.23 percent in 2024, but down from 0.36 percent in 2019.
While the amount of the annual foreclosures were also down by 25 percent from 2019, the fourth quarter alone saw a total of 111,692 properties with foreclosure filings—up by 10 percent from the previous quarter and 32 percent from the fourth quarter of 2024.
Nationwide, one in 1,274 properties was involved in a foreclosure filing in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Florida led in foreclosure filings last year (1 in 230 housing units), followed by Delaware (1 in 240), South Carolina (1 in 242), and Illinois and Nevada (1 in 284).
“Foreclosure activity increased in 2025, reflecting a continued normalization of the housing market following several years of historically low levels,” ATTOM CEO Rob Barber said in the report.
“While filings, starts, and repossessions all rose compared to 2024, foreclosure activity remains well below pre-pandemic norms and a fraction of what we saw during the last housing crisis.”
Barber added that the data indicates the recent surge in foreclosures is being driven more by “market recalibration” than homeowner distress.
Rounding out the top 10 states with the highest foreclosure rates in 2025 were New Jersey (1 in 273 units), Indiana (1 in 302), Ohio (1 in 307), Texas (1 in 319), and Maryland (1 in 326).
In December 2025 alone, 1 in 3,163 properties nationwide had a foreclosure filing, with New Jersey leading the pack for the highest foreclosure rates.
In total, 28,268 properties began the foreclosure process in the month—a 19 percent hike from the previous month and 47 percent higher than December 2024.
Among metro areas with a population above 1 million, Cleveland fared the worst in terms of 2025 foreclosures, followed by Jacksonville, Las Vegas, Chicago, and Orlando. Lakeland, Florida, took the lead for the most foreclosures in metro areas with populations of at least 200,000. Joining Lakeland were Columbia, South Carolina; Cleveland; Cape Coral, Florida; and Atlantic City, New Jersey.
The report shows that foreclosure starts also increased during 2025 in all regions of the country. In total, lenders started the foreclosure process on 289,441 properties, up by 14 percent from 2024. Texas led with 37,215 starts, followed by Florida (34,336), California (29,777), Illinois (15,010), and New York (13,664).
Described as the official beginning of the legal process in which a lender attempts to recover and sell a property due to non-payment, a foreclosure normally begins after 120 days of missed payments.
According to Rocket Mortgage, the process can vary from state to state.
In those metro areas with populations over 1 million, New York City placed first with the most foreclosure starts at 14,189 last year. Chicago recorded 13,312 starts, Houston, 13,009, Miami, 8,936, and Los Angeles, 8,503.
In terms of bank repossessions last year, lenders took over 46,439 properties, representing a 27 percent hike from 2024. Texas, California, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Illinois saw the largest numbers of repossessions during 2025.
The ATTOM report indicates that properties foreclosed during the fourth quarter of 2025 had been in the foreclosure process an average of 592 days , a 3 percent decrease from the previous quarter and a 22 percent decrease from December 2024.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/16/2026 - 19:15 Close
Fri, 16 Jan 2026 23:50:00 +0000 Biden-Appointed Federal Judge Blocks Trump Admin's Move To Withhold Minnesota Food Stamp Funds
Biden-Appointed Federal Judge Blocks Trump Admin's Move To Withhold Minnesota Food Stamp Funds
A federal judge on Jan. 14 stopped the Trump administration from withholding $80 million in administrative costs for Minnesota’s
Read more.....
Biden-Appointed Federal Judge Blocks Trump Admin's Move To Withhold Minnesota Food Stamp Funds
A federal judge on Jan. 14 stopped the Trump administration from withholding $80 million in administrative costs for Minnesota’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), ruling that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s tight deadline for reviewing the eligibility of 100,000 households was likely illegal.
U.S. District Judge Laura Provinzino, appointed by President Biden in 2024, said during a hearing in Saint Paul that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) failed to justify why Minnesota needed to complete the review of recipient eligibility by Jan. 15, or face losing half its administrative costs. She noted the agency ignored laws limiting such reviews to once per year.
“USDA is asking the state to violate federal law, regulations, and the state’s own operational plan,” which had previously been approved by the agency, said Provinzino.
As Kimberley Hayek explains below via The Epoch Times , the injunction prevents the USDA from cutting the funds, including $20 million for the first quarter that was set to be withheld on Jan. 14, until the lawsuit is resolved.
The case focuses on administrative costs, not direct benefits to recipients.
Minnesota officials argued the USDA’s actions stem from political animosity by President Donald Trump toward the state and Gov. Tim Walz.
“This is part of an ongoing effort by the federal government to pummel our state,” Joseph Richie of the Minnesota Attorney General’s office said during the hearing.
Brian Mizoguchi of the U.S. Department of Justice argued that Minnesota’s issues with other federal programs justified the move, and the state could cover costs itself.
The move ties into broader allegations of fraud in Minnesota’s social programs. The USDA cited a scandal involving theft of federal welfare funds as a reason for the review.
The Trump administration has intensified scrutiny of SNAP nationwide, with around 118 arrests for fraud in one operation, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told Fox News in Nocember 2025.
Rollins has highlighted “massive fraud,” including thousands of dead people receiving benefits and duplicate payments.
She said in a Nov. 2, 2025, post on X that 21 states refused to send data for review to the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The request was sent to all 50 states shortly after the Trump administration took over in January of that year, she said, and within the 29 states that cooperated, “massive fraud” was found in the form of thousands of cases of illegal immigrants and deceased individuals receiving benefits.
As a result of that audit alone, approximately 700,000 individuals have been removed from SNAP benefits, and more than 100 arrests have been made in connection with fraudulent SNAP benefits.
Minnesota is among 21 states that have failed to share SNAP data.
SNAP serves Americans below 130 percent of the poverty line with maximum benefits of $298 monthly for one person and $546 for two. States handle daily operations.
Similar court actions have occurred, such as a California ruling blocking USDA access to SNAP data.
The USDA did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/16/2026 - 18:50 Close
Fri, 16 Jan 2026 23:25:00 +0000 To Combat Academic Fraud, Scholars Confront Hallowed Tradition
To Combat Academic Fraud, Scholars Confront Hallowed Tradition
To Combat Academic Fraud, Scholars Confront Hallowed Tradition
Authored by Vince Bielski via RealClearInvestigations ,
This is the fourth part of a series on the crisis in academic research and publishing. Read the first three parts here, here and here .
The driving ethos of academia, “publish or perish,” is fighting for its life.
The requirement that scholars constantly publish or face academic ruin has been considered the primary engine of scientific discovery for decades. But a growing movement of universities and researchers is trying to banish the practice to the archives, saying it has perverted the pursuit of knowledge and eroded the public’s trust in science.
Reformers at top universities in Europe and the U.S., including Cambridge, Sorbonne, and UC Berkeley, say this traditional system of advancement has led to an explosion in the growth of low-quality research , with little meaningful impact on academic fields or society. It has also sparked the spread of fraudulent research, as “paper mills ” churn out fake articles for sale to academics seeking to pad their CVs.
To weaken the “publish or perish” stranglehold on universities, hundreds of research institutions are reforming the incentive system that shapes academic careers. It currently rewards scholars for frequently winning grants and publishing papers, with extra points for landing in the most esteemed, high-impact journals, even when the articles are not themselves influential.
The new incentives vary at different universities and research centers, but tend to focus on the actual quality of the research rather than the quantity or the prestige of the journals. The research’s influence on academic fields and, when appropriate, on society and public policy, is also often rewarded. So is a commitment to share papers and data as widely and freely as possible with the public . The goal is to break science out of its self-serving and insular bubble and better connect the enterprise with the public that funds it.
“The incentives dictate how people behave, and we have a long tradition of rewarding publications in high impact journals, ” said Ginny Barbour , a Cambridge-trained physician, medical journal editor, and co-chair of the Declaration on Research Assessment , or DORA. “If we don’t get research assessment right, then the whole foundation of academic life is undermined.”
The growing movement to revamp the rewards that set the direction of science is spearheaded in the United States by DORA, which is also the name of its declaration of principles. The declaration has gathered 3,500 signatures of support from organizations, and 23,000 from individuals, since its founding in 2012 at a cell biology conference in San Francisco.
In Europe, the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) operates much like DORA. Some 700 organizations and 450 higher education institutions – and 27% of all Ph.D. awarding universities in Europe – have committed to its principles since 2022, according to a study co-authored by Alex Rushforth at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
“In Europe we have made a lot of progress in a short period of time. CoARA has been a very impressive catalyst,” said Rushforth. “Of course, signing CoARA is one thing and implementing culture change is quite another thing.”
Overturning an Entrenched Culture
Despite these significant inroads, reformers of the deeply embedded “publish or perish” culture face a huge challenge. High-ranking university officials, from presidents on down who would have to approve a new reward system, have greatly benefited from the current one. “This system worked for me so why wouldn’t it work for anyone else?” said Professor Mike Dougherty, explaining the thinking of those who questioned the assessment reforms he eventually won at the University of Maryland.
Defenders of the status quo, which is intended to bring out the best in scientists, can also point to notable progress as recently as the last decade, especially the dazzling breakthroughs in healthcare . A system that pushes researchers to aim high can get impressive results.
The iconic journal Nature is among the most influential drivers of this culture. The Nature family of journals is near the top of the publishing pyramid largely because of their “Journal Impact Factor,” or JIF, scores. JIF is a beauty contest based on the number of citations the articles in the journal receive. The more citations, the higher the JIF, and the greater the journal’s esteem. Publishing in journals with high JIF scores can make a career.
The Nature family is highly selective, attracting more than 50,000 scholarly submissions a year and publishing less than 10% of them. Nature’s tendency to report on major advances in many fields, famously illustrated by the Watson and Crick paper on DNA structure, has helped give the 157-year-old journal its magisterial reputation.
But the fact that prestigious journals publish important articles doesn’t mean everything they run is noteworthy. Studies show that a journal’s impact factor is often determined by a small number of influential articles that receive a lot of citations, reflecting glory on many less influential papers that are not cited much. In other words, many marginal papers make the cut. It’s as if Aaron Judge’s Yankees teammates got credit for his home runs.
JIF is also easy to manipulate: Authors are sometimes encouraged to include citations to articles in the same journal that they are publishing in to raise the JIF score. Even the publisher of Nature warns research institutions not to place too much emphasis on its own JIF, and DORA says the metric should be completely ignored.
As he was trying to convince his faculty in Maryland’s psychology department to support reforms that would sideline JIF, Dougherty examined 45,000 papers in a couple of hundred journals to determine if the journal metric and citation counts were indicators of research quality, based on factors like statistical errors and the strength of evidence. “What we found is that there is no evidence to support the claim that higher-impact journals publish higher quality research ,” Dougherty said.
The need to be published in prestigious journals leads some scholars to shape their research to fit what they believe will be accepted. That means researchers take fewer experimental risks, jump on popular trends, and shelve negative findings that are very important to report, creating what DORA’s Barbour calls a “gap in the literature.”
The quest for glamour publications also delays by years the dissemination of knowledge and the possibility of breakthroughs, said Professor Steve Russell, who led the implementation of assessment reforms at Cambridge. “Young researchers in particular start at the highest impact factor journal, go through peer-review, get rejected, and then work their way down to the next highest impact factor, and on and on,” said Russell, who has bylines in both Nature and Science. “It’s a complete and utter waste of time.”
When researchers can’t clear this high bar, the fallback option is to maximize the quantity of papers to list on their CVs. This is enabled by what Dougherty calls “salami slicing” the data. Rather than producing the most substantial paper possible, scholars divide their experimental data into several small slices, allowing them to generate more papers that contribute little to science but add to the flood of publications that’s making quality control and fraud detection through the peer-review process almost impossible.
The publication of fraudulent articles full of fake data is growing at a faster rate than legitimate papers, according to a 2025 study , threatening the legitimacy of the scientific enterprise. “We know that the incentives for people to publish in high impact journals skews behavior, ” said Barbour. “And at its worst, it skews behavior towards the fabrication and falsification of research, and that’s highly problematic.”
U.K. Funders Push Reform
Most universities in the U.K., which gave birth to the first academic journal in 1665, have embraced research reform, either in word or deed, along with many in the Netherlands, Norway, and Finland. Pressure from funders looking for more research with greater societal impact is one reason why.
UK Research and Innovation, the largest government funder of research and a signatory to DORA in 2019, runs a program that annually assesses universities’ research contributions to academic disciplines and society. It then divides £2 billion in grants based on those scores. The Wellcome Trust, which is the other major source of grants, restricts them to researchers at institutions that have reformed assessment practices, aiming to produce a bigger impact on people’s health and well-being from the billions of pounds it provides.
“Funding pressure was initially the driving factor. When the people giving money say this is what we expect, change happens very quickly,” said Cambridge’s Russell. “But there was also a group of academics who were very vocal that we needed to change the way that we assess researchers.”
At Imperial College London, a tragedy added to the impetus for reform. In 2014, Professor Stefan Grimm took his own life as he was struggling to win grants and publish papers needed to succeed in the faculty of medicine. It went as far as to list the high-impact journals that mattered most.
“People were shocked but not necessarily surprised,” said Stephen Curry, an emeritus professor of biology at Imperial who helped push through reforms.
The suicide catalyzed a review of assessment practices that, with the strong support of the vice provost of research, led Imperial to sign DORA in 2017 over the opposition of some engineering faculty. The changes discourage the consideration of metrics like JIF in hiring and promotion while placing greater emphasis on the quality of teaching and the impact of research.
Curry said mandates from the top don’t quickly erase ingrained habits. But in 2023, Curry sat in on dozens of recruitment and promotion interviews in different faculty groups and was impressed with what he observed.
“There has been a shift away from dwelling overmuch on numbers and journal impact factors,” he said. “These things haven’t gone away and people certainly still feel that heat of competition, but I think it is more evident now that the quality of one’s work, as well as one’s wider contributions to the university and to society, are more important than they were.”
U.S. Universities Slower to Change
While the U.K. is a success story for reformers, they have yet to deeply penetrate the biggest research system of all – the U.S. – where only a handful of major research institutions have joined the movement. Unlike in Europe, U.S. universities don’t face federal funding pressure from above to transform how they reward scientists. Under the Trump administration, federal agencies are mainly focused on ending what they deem, sometimes wrongly, as DEI-related research, and reducing overhead fees that add up to 70% to the cost of research grants.
Reformers in the U.S. also face resistance from below. University faculty wield much more power over academic affairs than their peers in Europe, where administrators are more likely to make the rules. Some U.S. scholars don’t see the case for abandoning long-standing reputational metrics, according to a survey by Leiden’s Rushforth. Even if JIF and the number of citations a paper receives aren’t perfect proxies for quality, survey respondents said, they offer a practical way for busy academics on hiring committees to efficiently evaluate a long list of candidates.
Maryland’s Dougherty says university departments are also wary of being on the cutting edge of reform in case it doesn’t work out. “A lot of the resistance comes back to people saying ‘We won’t do it until other universities do it, or until other people within our discipline are doing it,’” he said.
Even academics like Mark Hanson, who is critical of the “publish or perish” culture and has published papers about the misconduct it breeds, see some downsides to assessment reform. The University of Exeter professor’s fundamental research has overturned assumptions about genes and disease resistance, opening the door to rethinking therapeutic designs. Hanson is concerned that the reform movement’s emphasis on research that’s tied to practical problems will further diminish fundamental research that generates the new ideas that science needs to advance.
“With increasing pushes to fund only directly-applicable or policy-impacting research, we’re stuck in our current state of knowledge and we just iterate and explore its crevices endlessly,” said Hanson.
Reform in the U.S. has been mostly left to lone scientists with a passion for the cause. After Sandra Schmid enacted assessment changes to focus on research quality rather than metrics like JIF at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, she became chief scientific officer in 2020 at Biohub, founded by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. One year later, Biohub, which creates AI tools for biological research, signed DORA.
Another research group, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, signed DORA in 2013. In its competitions among researchers for employment and grants, and in evaluations for continued support, journal names are removed from applications, turning the focus on the quality of scholarship, not whether it was published in a prestigious journal.
Nonprofits like the Pew Charitable Trusts are also joining the movement. Pew is working with a group of philanthropic and public funders who want their grants to produce a bigger impact in healthcare, education, and other areas. To engage researchers in the effort, Pew has convened a group of 18 university leaders , including those at Brown, Duke, and UC Berkeley , who are redesigning their reward systems to encourage the public interest research that the funders seek.
At Maryland, Dougherty almost single-handedly championed the reforms. It took five years of meetings, his aforementioned study, and two rounds of assessment guideline revisions before Dougherty finally won the unanimous approval of his 27 faculty members. The new assessment practices, implemented in 2022, focus on measures of quality, such as the reproducibility of research, making papers and data widely accessible, and their impact on academic fields and, when applicable, on public policy.
Dougherty says so far, so good. Some faculty are more motivated to pursue important questions and take risks they would have avoided earlier because high-impact journals may not be interested in their work.
But is the overall quality of research improving in departments that have established new incentives? It’s the ultimate goal. But so far, no one has tried to answer this important question of whether the hard work of changing the culture of academia is producing better research, leaving a gap in understanding that needs to be filled, said Leiden’s Rushforth.
“We should be collecting data and testing our hypotheses and not taking for granted that if you change the incentives, you get a different type of academic research,” Rushforth said. “There should be some sort of accountability.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/16/2026 - 18:25 Close
Fri, 16 Jan 2026 23:00:00 +0000 New York Scammers Plead Guilty In $68M Adult Day Care Fraud Scheme
New York Scammers Plead Guilty In $68M Adult Day Care Fraud Scheme
Two scammers in Brooklyn pleaded guilty on Thursday to defrauding the state's controversial Medicaid home care program to the tune of $60 mi
Read more.....
New York Scammers Plead Guilty In $68M Adult Day Care Fraud Scheme
Two scammers in Brooklyn pleaded guilty on Thursday to defrauding the state's controversial Medicaid home care program to the tune of $60 million.
Google Maps
Manal Wasef and Elaine Antao, both 46, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud. Their scheme involved referring Medicaid recipients to two Brooklyn social adult day care centers and a home health company in exchange for illegal kickbacks and bribes , the DOJ announced on Thursday.
Between approximately October 2017 and July 2024, in exchange for illegal kickbacks and bribes, Wasef and Antao referred Medicaid recipients to the social adult day cares and the home health company . The defendants also paid illegal kickbacks and bribes to Medicaid recipients for social adult day care services and home health care services that were billed to Medicaid but were not provided or that were induced by kickbacks and bribes. Wasef and Antao used multiple business entities to launder the fraud proceeds and generate the cash used to pay kickbacks and bribes . In connection with their guilty pleas, Wasef and Antao agreed to collectively forfeit approximately $1 million. Wasef and Antao are the sixth and seventh individuals, respectively, to plead guilty in this case. -DOJ
The pair were tapping into the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP), which allows people with minimal health care experience to care for their elderly disabled relatives and friends. According to the NY Post , hundreds of 'middleman' firms work as de-facto payroll agents between the caregivers and Medicaid - all with minimal oversight.
On top of their guilty plea, the pair agreed to pay back around $1 million .
Google Maps
"Today’s guilty pleas demonstrate the Department’s longstanding commitment to rooting out fraud in government health care programs by aggressively prosecuting those who steal from taxpayer-funded programs," said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
The pair are scheduled to be sentenced in May, where they each face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
Overall, eight people were initially accused of participating in the yearslong scheme to defraud the state. Also charged were owners Zakia Khan and Ahsan Ijaz, as well as Oasmneah Hamdi, Ansir Abassi, and Amran Hashmi.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/16/2026 - 18:00 Close