Tag: california

California Supreme Court Orders Sheriff Bianco to Pause His Massive Election Fraud Investigation and Preserve 650,000 Ballots He Seized

The California Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered Sheriff Chad Bianco to pause his massive election fraud investigation and preserve the 650,000 ballots he seized.

Last month, a state appellate court rejected California Democrat Attorney General Rob Bonta’s emergency writ to halt Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco’s bombshell investigation into 45,000 extra votes mysteriously counted in the November 2025 special election.

Chad Bianco, a Republican currently running for California governor as a Republican, moved to seize approximately 650,000 ballots and initiate a recount after a citizens’ group reported significant discrepancies, according to CalMatters.

Bianco revealed that a team of 10 investigators had already begun counting ballots before being ordered to halt their work, as part of an ongoing election investigation, The Sun reported.

According to Bianco, the team’s initial progress suggested that counting the approximately 611,000 ballots would take about five days to complete. However, the effort was paused before a full review could be conducted.

Earlier this week Bianco paused his investigation because of the onslaught of legal issues.

California Attorney General Bonta slammed Sheriff Bianco and celebrated the State Supreme Court’s order.

Keep reading

Woke California lawmaker who backs transgender treatments for children squirms as brave young gay man shares how being railroaded into puberty blockers destroyed his life

A California lawmaker who supports youth access to gender-affirming care was confronted by a young gay man who testified that puberty blockers and hormone therapy negatively affected his physical development.

State Senator Scott Wiener heard from 23-year-old Jonni Skinner, who said the treatments Wiener backs have left him unable to achieve orgasms.

‘When I was young, I was a feminine child, and I discovered trans influencers online. They said, “Change your body and your life gets better. Don’t and it gets worse,”‘ Skinner said during a state Senate hearing on Tuesday.

‘Or, as my doctors told my mom, I would commit suicide,’ he continued. ‘The medical and mental health providers didn’t bother to ask why I felt the way I did. They poisoned my body with blockers and hormones, arresting my puberty and messing with my development. The result is I’m a 23-year-old gay man who’s never had an orgasm and may never experience one.’

Skinner was testifying against Senate Bill 934, which was introduced by Wiener. The measure allows people to sue licensed therapists for harms caused by ‘sexual orientation or gender identity change efforts’.

At first glance, someone like Skinner – who says he was improperly pushed by therapists and doctors toward transitioning into a female – might be expected to support the measure. 

But critics, including Skinner, argue that the bill is not intended to target medical professionals supportive of gender transition treatment.

The California Family Council said in a statement that the bill will ‘weaponize civil liability’ against counselors who tell children it might not be a good idea to switch genders at such a young age.

‘When the government cannot constitutionally ban speech outright, it sometimes turns to more subtle forms of coercion. By creating overwhelming legal risk, SB 934 seeks to make it practically impossible for counselors to offer certain viewpoints, even to clients who request them,’ the organization said.

The bill vastly expands the statute of limitations for filing claims, allowing people to sue therapists and doctors years or even decades after the alleged harm was done. 

On March 20, Wiener put out a statement explaining the bill’s intent, making it clear it would go after providers who try to convince people they are not LGBTQ.

‘Conversion therapy – the made up notion that you can convert a gay or trans person into being not gay or trans – was debunked long ago, and is now condemned by every major medical association as dangerous and ineffective,’ he said.

Greg Burt, Vice President of California Family Council, has said this amounts to viewpoint discrimination, and that the bill is trying to get around the landmark Supreme Court case, United States v. Skrmetti.

In that case, which was decided last year, a 6-3 majority ruled that state bans on gender-affirming care for minors is constitutional.

‘This is a desperate and vain attempt to pretend the Supreme Court didn’t say what it really did say. They can’t stop professionals from helping people who don’t want to identify as LGBTQ anymore,’ Burt said. 

Skinner filed an amicus brief in that case, where he revealed more about his upbringing and why he ended up on estrogen from the age of 13 until he was 20.

Keep reading

Total Cost of California High-Speed Rail Line Rises to $126 Billion, With a Big Funding Shortfall

California’s high-speed rail project connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco is now estimated to cost $126 billion, a rail authority board member said in an interview released by CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday.

But the High-Speed Rail Authority, according to its 2026 Business Plan issued in February, forecasts $39.3 billion in capital funding through 2045, a shortfall of around $87 billion.

“It is a big gap to fill,” board member Anthony Williams said, “[but] we have an understanding of how to get there and to fill that gap.”

The project, approved by voters in 2008, was supposed to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles by high-speed rail for around $33 billion and a completion date of 2020.

“We’re now in 2026,” Republican Congressman Vince Fong of Bakersfield said in the interview. “There are no trains. There’s no track laid. It was a complete bait and switch. The business plan that was put out in 2008 was very theoretical. You know, ‘This is what we think is gonna happen.’ And it became very clear that they didn’t have the specifics worked out.”

Toks Omishakin, who became California’s secretary of transportation in 2022, admitted that mistakes had been made and a lot of the project’s criticism is “very fair.”

Keep reading

Swalwell Caught Paying His Wife with Campaign Cash for Child Care in 2026 California Governor’s Race

If you were a donor to Eric Swalwell’s gubernatorial campaign, how would you react to learning that your contributions were used to pay his own wife to watch their children?

As Swalwell now runs for governor of California, a troubling pattern of campaign spending is drawing scrutiny, one that now includes direct payments to his spouse for “childcare.”

These payments do not stand alone. They come after years of similar child care expenditures through his congressional campaign, which are already the subject of my formal complaint before the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

A New Round of Payments—This Time to His Wife

Recent disclosures from Swalwell’s gubernatorial campaign show multiple payments made directly to “Swalwell, Brittany” for child care: $2,301.00, $2,026.50, and $1,740.50.

These are not minor reimbursements; they are substantial, repeated payments to a candidate’s spouse.

Keep reading

O’Keefe Media Group: California’s Top Controller Communications Official Admits Audits “Are Not Getting Done”

The O’Keefe Media Group on Tuesday released undercover video of California’s top Controller Communications official admitting that audits “are not getting done” while acknowledging that fraud is rampant in the state.

Bismarck Obando told an undercover O’Keefe Media Group journalist that there is no plan to tackle homelessness.

“Do you feel there’s fraud going on in the state of California?” the OMG journalist asked Obando.

Without skipping a beat he replied, “Everywhere, cities, counties, special districts, hospitals, insurance companies.”

“We just can’t conduct the audits,” Obando told the journalist.

“It’s funny because they haven’t funded us to do those audits…they keep cutting our auditing teams,” he said.

Keep reading

SoCal: Orange County Man Pleads Guilty to Submitting $270 Million in Fraudulent Claims to Medi-Cal in 11 Months: DOJ

A man in Orange County, California, pleaded guilty to orchestrating a scheme to steal $270 million in bogus Medi-Cal claims in 11 months, the DOJ announced on Tuesday.

“Paul Richard Randall, 66, of Orange, pleaded guilty Monday to one count of wire fraud committed while on release. He has been in federal custody since June 2025,” the DOJ said.

According to federal prosecutors, Randall and others, through a business called Monte Vista Pharmacy, submitted claims for expensive prescription drugs that contained generic ingredients that were “not medically necessary.”

Monte Vista Pharmacy billed Medi-Cal millions of dollars a month after it suspended its requirement that healthcare providers “obtain prior authorization before providing certain health care services or medications as a condition of reimbursement,” the DOJ said.

Medi-Cal suspended the prior authorization as it transitioned to a new payment system.

Of the $270 million that was billed to Medi-Cal, Randall and his co-conspirators received $178 million.

Randall and the other defendants laundered the money by transferring the funds to a third party to pay “kickbacks” to Patricia Anderson, 58, of West Hills.

Randall is facing up to 30 years in federal prison.

“This defendant used a public health program as his personal piggy bank,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli. “This guilty plea should send a message that this administration — consistent with the President’s war on fraud — will not turn a blind eye while criminals fleece taxpayers.”

“Thanks to the leadership of President Donald Trump, the Department, working closely with the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, is supercharging efforts to take down every fraudster and bring them to justice,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

“In one day, the Department prosecuted the theft of a half-billion in taxpayer dollars. All those ripping off the American people are on notice,” Blanche added.

“The defendant was a repeat fraudster who caused Medi-Cal, a program designed to help those in need, to be billed nearly $270 million for expensive and medically unnecessary medications,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

“He and his co-schemers stole over $178 million through false and fraudulent claims for these medications, lining their own pockets with public funds. The Criminal Division will aggressively prosecute those who defraud Medicaid and exploit taxpayer-funded benefit programs,” he said.

Keep reading

NBC Report Drops Truth Bomb: Newsom’s Lies About Gas Prices Are Pure Gaslighting

Rising tensions tied to the war in Iran and its impact on global oil shipping routes are contributing to higher gas prices across the United States, with California drivers facing some of the steepest costs in the country.

The national average price for gasoline has now surpassed $4 per gallon, while California’s statewide average is hovering just below $6.

In several locations across the state, prices have climbed even higher, widening the gap between California and the rest of the nation.

As consumers question why California continues to pay significantly more at the pump, analysts point to a combination of long-standing state policies and factors that remain less clearly understood.

Dr. Severin Borenstein, faculty director of the Energy Institute at Haas at the University of California, Berkeley, said California’s higher fuel taxes, environmental fees, and unique gasoline blend account for roughly half of the price difference compared to the national average.

However, he said those factors alone do not fully explain the current price gap.

“The difference is what I call the mystery gasoline surcharge,” Borenstein said.

According to Borenstein, prior to 2015, California gas prices generally tracked closer to the national average, with an additional 90 cents to $1 per gallon attributed to the state’s taxes and environmental requirements.

Keep reading

California FRAUD SCANDAL Keeps Getting Worse: LA School District Employee Accused of Running $22M Kickback Scheme

The latest corruption case in California’s public education system serves as a warning sign of a deeper structural failure—one that reflects weak oversight, misplaced priorities, and leadership that has consistently failed to enforce accountability.

As the Los Angeles Times reported, a former Los Angeles Unified School District employee is accused of directing $22 million in contracts to a private technology firm in exchange for roughly $3 million in kickbacks. 

Prosecutors have described the scheme as the largest of its kind in the district’s history, involving shell companies, manipulated bidding processes, and deliberate efforts to conceal wrongdoing.

The details are not merely concerning—they are revealing. According to the complaint, the employee allegedly controlled the contract selection process, removed oversight personnel, and coordinated directly with the vendor to ensure favorable outcomes. 

At one point, messages cited by prosecutors indicate explicit awareness of wrongdoing, including instructions to delete communications and avoid detection.

This level of coordination does not occur in a system with strong safeguards. It occurs in a system where oversight mechanisms either fail or can be easily bypassed.

That reality leads to a broader question: how does a scheme of this scale operate for years inside one of the largest school districts in the country without being stopped?

Keep reading

Trump Admin Busts Open Gavin Newsom’s $146 BILLION Medi-cal FRAUD Machine

Fox News just laid bare the staggering scale of waste, fraud, and abuse plaguing California’s Medi-Cal program under Governor Gavin Newsom.

In a hard-hitting segment, Kayleigh McEnany highlighted the eye-watering numbers: $146 billion per year lost to fraud in the state’s Medicaid expansion.

“That is slightly more than Warren Buffett’s estimated net worth. It is more than the GDP of several small countries,” McEnany stated.

The revelation comes as the Trump administration ramps up its nationwide assault on entitlement fraud through the White House Anti-Fraud Task Force and aggressive oversight by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz.

Oz didn’t hold back when asked about the bigger picture.

“How big do you think this fraud is nationwide?” McEnany pressed.

“We believe nationwide it’s $100 billion in Medicare and Medicaid,” Oz replied. “If you’re worried about Medicare being there for you… and you’re worried that it’s going to expire… This fraud, getting rid of it, will DOUBLE the life expectancy of the Medicare trust fund.”

He added, “That’s a massive increase in numbers of years of extra Americans can trust that the program will be there for them.”

Keep reading

Forget Minnesota – The Amount Of Fraud Uncovered In California Is Staggering

California is a cash machine. The state collects some of the country’s highest income, business, and fuel taxes, and now spends more than $300 billion per year. And yet, everywhere you look, California seems to be falling apart.

The roads are crumbling. Mismanaged wildfires have turned neighborhoods into ash. Drug addiction and homelessness have metastasized, turning parts of Los Angeles and San Francisco into no-go zones. And the cost-of-living crisis is pricing middle-class taxpayers out of basic necessities like groceries and gas, even as the state spends billions on welfare programs that never seem to lift anyone out of poverty.

Californians are beginning to ask: Where is all this money going? On paper, it funds hospitals, universities, schools, prisons, infrastructure, and other public services. But beneath the surface, something else is happening that California Governor Gavin Newsom does not want you to see: massive, systematic, brazen fraud.

We conducted interviews with public officials, fraud experts, and political figures, and reviewed hundreds of pages of government reports, state audits, criminal indictments, and other public records on California fraud. From unemployment insurance and Medicaid to failed homeless initiatives and welfare programs, seemingly every state program has been compromised by criminals. The best estimates suggest that, on the governor’s watch, fraudsters, scammers, and organized crime rings have stolen at least $180 billion from taxpayers.

Welcome to Gavin Newsom’s empire of fraud.

Fourteen months after Newsom began his first term as governor of California, the Covid-19 pandemic swept the world. Roughly 2.7 million Californians eventually lost their jobs. The state’s economy went into freefall as its leaders imposed some of the country’s most restrictive public-health measures. In response to the crisis, Newsom sought to dump pallets of cash across the state—as quickly as possible.

One way to inject money was through California’s massive unemployment insurance program (UI). Unemployment insurance is administered by the state’s Employment Development Department (EDD), which can process billions of dollars in payments monthly. Before the state turned on the cash machine, however, experts had warned that the system was ripe for fraud.

Haywood Talcove, one of America’s leading fraud specialists and CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions for Government, was one such expert. “I was begging [federal officials] not to let the money go out like that, because it was going to be the biggest fraud in the history of our country,” he said. “Obviously, I wasn’t successful.”

For many reasons, California was particularly susceptible to the large-scale fraud schemes Haywood Talcove saw on the horizon. Not only did the state have some of the most generous welfare programs in the country; its bureaucrats had also failed to implement some basic fraud controls during Newsom’s tenure.

“They literally suspended all of the rules for the [unemployment insurance] program,” Talcove said. “[That made] it possible for anyone to get that benefit even if they weren’t entitled to it. It was very intentional. They knew what they were doing. But it caught up to them because it just got so out of control.”

Keep reading