Greets! It’s Monday, May 18, 2026. Today is National Cheese Soufflé Day, National “No Dirty Dishes” Day, which I guess means we’ve got to order out. It’s also National Visit Your Relatives Day, and International Museum Day. And, of all things, National Shrek Day. (Shrug.) Trust me I couldn’t make some of this stuff up.
1631 John Winthrop is elected the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1652 Rhode Island enacts the first law declaring slavery illegal.
1804 The French senate proclaimed Napoleon Bonaparte Emperor of France.
1830 Edwin Budding of England signs an agreement to manufacture his invention, the lawn mower.
1860 The U.S. Republican Party nominates Abraham Lincoln for president.
1934 Trans-Word Airlines (TWA) begins commercial service.
1963 “If You Wanna Be Happy” by Jimmy Soul hits #1.
1965 American engineer Ray Dolby founds Dolby Laboratories in London, England.
1974 Novelty song “The Streak” by Ray Stevens hits #1.
1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state triggers the largest landslide in history, killing 57 people and causing over $1 billion in damage.
Birthdays Today include Bertrand Russell, English mathematician and philosopher (Nobel Prize, 1950); Frank Capra, Academy Award-winning film director (It’s a Wonderful Life; Mr. Smith Goes to Washington); Meredith Willson, composer for stage (The Music Man), and screen (The Great Dictator; Little Foxes); Jacob K. Javits, politician (senator, R-N.Y.); Perry Como, singer (“Catch A Falling Star”) and TV personality (The Perry Como Show); Don Martin, cartoonist, “Mad Magazine’s Maddest Artist”; Gary S. Paxton, musician and songwriter (“Monster Mash”; “Alley Oop”); George Strait, country singer (“All My Exes Live in Texas”); and “Butch” Tavares, R&B singer (Tavares – “Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel”).
If today’s your birthday, special birthday wishes from us here.
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John Windom — That’s a name you should be hearing much more of than you have. This is a story that involves not only Windom, but many government contractors, and best I can tell, the previous administration as well.
Windom, who was the VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization chief from 2017 to 2021, didn’t just oversee a broken computer system that hurt veterans in Spokane. He also pocketed thousands in cash, casino chips, and an $8,200 Louis Vuitton gift card from the contractors he was supposed to oversee. A D.C. grand jury indicted him on three counts for hiding it all.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro called it “a betrayal of the public trust.”
“As alleged, the defendant exploited his senior position for personal gain and concealed gifts and financial relationships that created serious conflicts of interest in the health care of our nation’s veterans,” Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said in a statement. “Such conduct is not only a betrayal of the public trust – it undermines confidence in the institutions dedicated to serving those who have sacrificed for this country.”
Windom personally oversaw the award of a $10 billion contract to Cerner Corp. — now Oracle Health, after Oracle swallowed Cerner in 2022. That $10 billion figure? The project has since ballooned to a projected $33 billion, because apparently no one in this story knows how to stop spending, and ultimately wasting, other people’s money.
Windom ran a cozy little operation he called the “Power Group” — at least seven owners and employees of minority-owned businesses who regularly bought him meals and drinks at a D.C.-area casino and nearby restaurants. In return, Windom used his position to steer contracts their way, both inside and outside the billion-dollar EHR project. When Cerner pushed back, Windom demanded they improve their “diversity efforts” — and then conveniently awarded a $1.7 million contract to one of his Power Group friends. Windom handed oversight of those same “diversity efforts” to another member of the group, with whom he was allegedly carrying on an undisclosed romantic relationship.
So let’s call this what it is: Windom shook down potential federal contractors such as Cerner, (Now Oracle Health) under the cover of DEI, enriched his friends, enriched himself, and installed his lover in a position of authority. In a political climate where “diversity” functioned as a sacred, unchallengeable mandate, it made remarkably effective camouflage for straightforward graft. To top it all off, the system that we got out of it was a dud. Indeed the only reason the developers got the contract, was because they could slide it in under the cover of “Diversity” while enriching Windom and his cohorts.
That Diversity cover may well explain why the legacy media has said absolutely nothing about this. Not one word. Stars and Stripes covered it. Military Times covered it. Federal News Network covered it. The Daily Wire was chasing the story as far back as August. The mainstream outlets that dedicate considerable airtime and print to celebrating DEI initiatives? Crickets.
My complaint here is worth stating plainly: Windom didn’t operate in a vacuum. This story involves a lot more people and a good deal more crime than one retired Navy captain with expensive taste in gift cards. Yet all we have is Windom. Where are the indictments of the “Power Group,” and of the others who benefited from Windom’s actions? There’s no way they didn’t know the actions and threats of Windom were illegal. We find in a Spokane Spokesman- Review story:
In a message to the group included in the indictment, Windom instructed them not to tell anyone “that you know me, interact with me or have any type of relationship with me.” In another, the retired Navy captain allegedly told the group, “As a reminder, ‘loose lips sink ships.’ ”
Look, folks: That’s not a red flag, that’s a nuclear-powered red searchlight you could see from two galaxies over. And yet Windom is the only one on the hook? Should there not have been indictments on the other people involved in this mess?
Perhaps worst of all is the idea that the whole thing would have slipped right by us, unmarked, had the heath care system they built not been so problem-riddled, and caused actual harm to the vets the VA is supposed to help.
Oh, and at the bottom of the Spokesman story:
But Mike Missal, who served as VA inspector general from 2016 until January 2025, said in a brief interview Thursday that his office began investigating Windom before Trump returned to office.
“The evidence was gathered well before this administration,” Missal said, declining to elaborate because of the ongoing case.
Well, that suggests that the Biden administration, as with the legacy media, sat on the scandal, saying nothing and taking no action.
Let me be crystal clear, on this kids; — I’ve been sounding the alarm on government-run healthcare since before it was fashionable, precisely because it was always going to rot into exactly this. Corruption, incompetence, quiet little scandals swept neatly under the rug while the machine grinds on, spending many times more taxpayer dollars that the value it ends up providing. But don’t worry — nothing to see here, citizen. The people in charge have it completely under control. Now kindly return to your regularly scheduled compliance and stop asking questions.
I simply cannot investigate this further at the moment. The shock of it is too much, already.
Thought of the Day: Is there a tax I can pay to stop the hantavirus, or does that only work for climate change?
VIP members: Smash that heart on the lower left, and let’s hear your thoughts in the comments.
Thanks for being here today. Let’s plan on doing this again tomorrow.
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