Tag: corruption

Minnesota nonprofit accused of siphoning $6.5M to fund Vegas trips, luxury cars, private liquor store

The head of a Minnesota nonprofit allegedly siphoned off more than $6 million in taxpayer funds to treat himself to such lavish goodies as trips to Vegas, luxury rides and shopping sprees at Harley Davidson.

Trahern Pollard, founder and now-former director of the nonprofit We Push For Peace, was supposed to be leading his organization in providing “conflict de-escalation’’ work after George Floyd’s murder — an effort fueled by millions of dollars in government contracts, according to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison in a new lawsuit against the group.

Instead, Pollard diverted more than $6 million of the dough to fund a well-heeled lifestyle for himself — not to mention to pay off child support, settle a tax bill with the IRS and subsidize his private businesses, including a liquor store and a used-car dealership, authorities said.

Pollard’s fellow former director, Jaclyn McGuigan, also was nailed in the alleged scheme.

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Legal group exposes heavy use of Minnesota’s ‘vouching’ system to override voting ID rules

America First Legal, a conservative legal group, has obtained records from the Minnesota Secretary of State showing thousands of Minnesotans used the state’s “vouching” system to bypass voter ID while registering or updating their information during recent election cycles.

The records, which were obtained through a public records request, showed that Minnesota’s Election Day Registration process allows registered voters or certain residential facility employees to verify another voter’s residency in place of standard identification or proof-of-address documents.

Minnesota law reportedly allows a registered voter from the same precinct or an authorized employee of a residential facility to confirm another individual’s residency for voting purposes if that person lacks traditional documentation in-person at the polls.

According to the data released by AFL, almost 18,900 Election Day registrations in 2024 involved the use of vouching. 

Of those, 13,441 were updates to existing voter registrations, while 5,457 involved new voter registrations.

The records also showed 10,278 voter registrations or updates using vouching during the 2022 election cycle, including 2,215 new registrations. 

In 2020, the state recorded 17,616 vouched-for Election Day registrations or updates, including 5,069 new registrations, the data showed.

AFL said it tried to get more information from the secretary of state’s office, including data showing whether voters were vouched for by private citizens or residential facility employees, lists of authorized facility staff, and records involving alleged fraudulent or suspicious activity connected to the system.

According to AFL, the secretary of state’s office responded that it “does not record or maintain data on vouching method,” and in several categories replied that there was “no data responsive” to the request.

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Radical Woke Bexar County Judge – The County’s First Openly LGBT Activist on the Bench – Resigns in Disgrace and Accepts LIFETIME BAN from Judiciary

Bexar County Court-at-Law No. 13 Judge Rosie Speedlin-Gonzalez, the self-proclaimed “first openly LGBT judge” in the county, has been forced to resign in disgrace and accept a permanent, lifetime disqualification from ever holding judicial office in the State of Texas again.

According to the Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Speedlin-Gonzalez signed off on the deal on April 20, 2026, quietly slinking off the bench effective immediately.

In exchange, prosecutors dropped felony unlawful restraint and misdemeanor official oppression charges against her.

The scandal stems from a December 2024 courtroom meltdown during a domestic violence probation revocation hearing. Defense attorney Elizabeth Russell dared to try changing her client’s plea mid-hearing.

Speedlin-Gonzalez flew into a rage, accused the attorney of “coaching” her client, and ordered bailiffs to slap handcuffs on Russell right there in open court.

The attorney was then marched into the jury box and detained like a common criminal, all because she had the audacity to advocate for her client in front of this power-drunk judge.

The downfall was politically humiliating as well. Speedlin-Gonzalez had already lost her Democrat primary reelection bid earlier this year.

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More States Enact New Laws Curbing Teachers Unions

New organized labor reforms signed into law by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last week require a majority of members to be present for teachers union certification or recertification votes, increase fines for illegal strikes, and establish merit-based pay for educators.

In Idaho, after July 1, teachers unions will be prohibited from collecting dues directly from members’ paychecks, using paid time off for union activities, or recruiting new members during school hours.

A similar law in Arizona, which also bans teacher strikes and prohibits organized labor members from using any school property—even email addresses—for union activities, will be decided on by voters in the November election.

“They can’t consume taxpayer-funded resources during the school day,” said Rusty Brown, special projects director for the Freedom Foundation policy organization, which assisted state legislators with those measures and helps teachers opt out of union membership.

These ideas are expected to gain ground throughout the nation in the months and years ahead, Brown told The Epoch Times.

Individually, the Freedom Foundation’s Teacher Freedom Alliance has so far helped more than 272,535 teachers opt out of union membership, including more than 50,000 in 2025 alone, according to data provided to The Epoch Times. This includes educators in red and blue states.

At the state level, Oklahoma lawmakers have advanced legislation that would allow teachers to withdraw from a union at any time and would terminate “closed shop” provisions that prevent teachers from accessing alternative labor or professional organizations, such as the Teacher Freedom Alliance.

Brown calls this an “equal access and an end to a monopoly and captive audience bill.” Alternative organizations can offer teacher liability insurance and other benefits at a fraction of the price that traditional unions charge, he said.

Brown said he believes that the legislation could pass before Oklahoma’s session ends later this month, but the member withdrawal proposal probably won’t go through this session.

Alabama state lawmakers will consider legislation similar to Oklahoma’s next session, he said.

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How a Scientific Cartel Protects Fraudsters and Rakes in Billions of Taxpayer Dollars

I was 22 when my grandmother forgot me.

It took her 12 years to die from Alzheimer’s. It started with little things, like where her glasses were or what day it was. Soon she didn’t know who I was. For a while, she addressed me as her son, but then, as the disease ate away more of her mind, she forgot him too. Then I was the young, handsome version of her husband, until he too faded away. After a while, I was just a nice young man who came to visit her.

The rest of the time, she was afraid: waking up in an unfamiliar world, surrounded by people she’d never met, confused that she wasn’t back home in Minnesota, where she’d grown up. It hit my mom the hardest. She did everything she could to take care of her own mother, watching the brilliant, kind woman she knew rot into a husk of her former self.

My grandmother died on Christmas Eve. As sad as it was, it was a blessing for my mom, who was finally freed from her duty of watching the woman she loved the most waste away.

The Alzheimer’s Researcher Who Became a Poster Child for Academic Fraud

Sylvain Lesné, a neuroscientist at the University of Minnesota, published a paper in Nature in 2006 claiming to identify a specific amyloid beta protein assembly as the direct cause of memory impairment in Alzheimer’s. This reinvigorated the amyloid hypothesis at a moment when skepticism about it was ramping up. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) devoted $1.6 billion to projects that mention amyloids in 2022 alone, nearly half of all federal Alzheimer’s funding that year. Lesné was a star.

But there were rumblings. Numerous amyloid drugs made it to trials with billions invested by pharmaceutical companies. They failed repeatedly. A question arose in the pharmaceutical community: How can this be right? How can the trials keep failing if the underlying research is correct? 

In 2022, the Vanderbilt neuroscientist Matthew Schrag uncovered evidence that images in Lesné’s paper had been manipulated. Science magazine found more than 20 suspect papers by Lesné, with over 70 instances of possible image tampering. Nature retracted the paper in June 2024. Every author except Lesné signed the retraction. Lesné himself resigned from his tenured position at the University of Minnesota on March 1, 2025, three years after his fraud was exposed.

More news and details trickled out over time. Charles Piller’s 2025 book Doctored talks about the Amyloid Mafia, a nickname for a network that had prioritized novelty over replication and marginalized dissenters for decades. Anyone questioning the amyloid gospel was pushed out and watched their funding vanish.

When I first picked up that Science article, I hadn’t considered academic fraud as something that was real and widespread. As I thought about it more, I was filled with a deep, bitter hatred. For his own pride, greed, and acclaim, this man had doomed millions of people like my grandmother to slow, horrible deaths and millions more like my mom to agonizing years as caregivers.

Lesné resigned, but was still rich. None of his grant money was clawed back. The system that was supposed to catch this—peer review, university compliance, journal editorial boards—failed repeatedly for years.

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Cash for crowds scandal as lobbyist ‘offered hundreds of dollars to recruit attendees for JD Vance speech’

Vice President JD Vance‘s appearance in a state critical to the 2028 Republican presidential nomination is raising eyebrows due to a lobbyist’s bid to entice attendees.

Ahead of a rally Vance headlined in Des Moines with Iowa Congressman Zach Nunn that took place last Tuesday, a text message was sent by an Iowa ethanol lobbyist recruiting spectators to attend. The messages contained an offer of payment.

The text, obtained and published by Iowa Starting Line read:

‘Gentlemen, Jake Swanson here. I wanted to invite you to join me in seeing Vice President JD Vance this afternoon in Des Moines. I do some work for an ethanol company and so if you’re able to join, I will give you $100, and for anyone that you recruit, an additional $25. No limit on referrals, so if someone recruits a group of 20 to show up, that’s $500.’

Swanson is a lobbyist and a former policy adviser to Iowa’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds.

In a statement to Iowa Starting Line, Swanson defended the move: ‘I love ethanol and what it does for our state. 

‘So I was happy to bring some Iowa State kids to the rally to celebrate all the things Trump-Vance have done for biofuels and I think there’s opportunity for so much more. This is what I like to do in my own personal spare time,’ Swanson noted.

The Daily Mail reached out for comment to the Vice President’s office, which did not respond in time for publication. There is no suggestion that Vance or his team were aware of Swanson’s actions. Swanson was also contacted for additional comment.

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REVEALED: Swalwell Sent His Young Sexual Assault Victims Intimidating Snapchat Messages AFTER CNN’s Bombshell Report

Former Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell sent messages to his young sexual assault victims on Snapchat on the night CNN released its bombshell report.

The San Francisco Chronicle recently published a story about a woman who claimed that Democrat Eric Swalwell sexually assaulted her twice.

The woman, who worked as a staffer in Swalwell’s office for two years, told the San Francisco Chronicle that Swalwell began pursuing her just weeks after she was hired at the age of 21 in 2019.

After the San Francisco Chronicle dropped its bombshell report on Swalwell, three additional women spoke to CNN and provided evidence about alleged additional misconduct by the California Democrat.

The Swalwell staffer said she was sexually assaulted by Swalwell in 2019

The staffer also said Swalwell raped her years later in 2024 after she left his employment.

The unidentified former female staffer sat down with CNN and recounted some of the horrific details about the alleged rape that occurred in 2024.

“I went to the bathroom, and I don’t remember anything after that,” she said, adding that she “remembered the next day.”

“I can see flashes of that evening of him on top of me, me pushing him off, him grabbing me. It was a lot more aggressive. It was aggressive,” she said about the 2024 assault.

“He didn’t stop. He didn’t stop. I woke up the next morning naked, alone in his hotel. I, for a moment, didn’t even know that I was in his hotel room. That’s how intoxicated I was,” she said.

CNN said they corroborated the woman’s claims by speaking with friends and family that she confided in. CNN also reviewed photos and screenshots of contemporaneous text messages. The outlet reviewed a message from her medical provider the week after she received the pregnancy and STD test calling her a “survivor.”

Now this…

Swalwell sent his young sexual assault victims intimidating Snapchat messages after CNN’s bombshell report.

It was previously reported that Swalwell was sending pervy videos to young women on Snapchat.

Now CNN is reporting that Swalwell sent midnight Snapchats to his young victims asking them why they screenshotted his messages.

“According to CNN the night after they spoke with Swalwell’s attorney about their reporting, Swalwell initiated Snapchats with some of the very women in their report at 1:57 am,” Kayleigh McEnany reported.

“Swalwell messaged one woman asking why she had screen shotted his chats and including screen caps of text between the two of them,” she said.

“And CNN says just prior to that at 140 a.m. Eastern time he sent a similar message to another woman who received that text and said this: ‘my whole chest got tight,’ and she immediately started crying,” she added.

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SPLC Leader Pleads NOT GUILTY To Charges Of Funnelling Millions To Neo-Nazis

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s leader entered a not guilty plea Thursday in federal court, desperately fighting charges that the organization defrauded its donors by secretly funneling more than $3 million to the very white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups it claimed to oppose.

The SPLC was forced to respond to an 11-count indictment from the Trump DOJ, including six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud and false statements, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. 

Commentators are labelling the case one of the biggest scams ever to be exposed.

The SPLC is accused of making payments amounting to over $1 million to a National Alliance affiliate, more than $300,000 to an Aryan Nations affiliate, $270,000 to a “Unite the Right” member, $140,000 to a former National Alliance chairman, $73,000 to former KKK members, and $19,000 to an American Front president and felon.

The court appearance comes just weeks after the Trump DOJ’s indictment exposed the scheme. 

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California County Discovers 596 Unopened Ballots Hidden in Locked Drop Box Months After Special Election Allowing Democrats to Redistrict

Officials in Humboldt County, California, have discovered 596 unopened ballots from last November’s special election still sealed at the bottom of a locked voting drop box.

The discovery came months after the election was certified and the ballots were legally supposed to have been destroyed.

The ballots were cast in the November statewide special election focused on Proposition 50, the redistricting measure heavily promoted by Governor Gavin Newsom and Democratic leaders.

Prop 50 was designed to create even more Democratic advantages in the state’s congressional and legislative maps by giving the party-controlled legislature more power over redistricting.

The measure passed by more than three million votes statewide, so these uncounted ballots alone would not have altered the final result. However, the discovery raises serious questions about how many other votes may have been overlooked in California’s mail-in and drop-box-dominated system.

According to the Humboldt County Office of Elections, the ballots were left behind because of a basic but inexcusable staff error.

An election worker failed to properly empty the drop box after polls closed, and the box was then locked with the ballots still inside.

The mistake was only discovered during a routine inventory check earlier this month, long after the election had been certified on December 5.

Humboldt County Clerk-Recorder and Registrar of Voters Juan Pablo Cervantes gave a statement to the Los Angeles Times, taking full responsibility.

“That outcome is unacceptable and runs counter to the core of what this office stands for,” Cervantes said. “While the mistake occurred after an election worker did not follow proper procedures, the responsibility for what happened ultimately sits with me.”

County officials said the sealed ballots showed no signs of tampering. They have now contacted the California Secretary of State’s office to determine the proper legal steps for handling the late-discovered ballots, even though state law required them to be destroyed six months after certification.

In response to the situation, Humboldt County has already rolled out new safety measures, including a “lock out, tag out” protocol that requires every drop box to be physically verified as empty before final results are certified.

“I promise you that we are taking this seriously,” Cervantes added. “We will strengthen our processes and continue pushing toward the standard our community expects and deserves.”

President Donald Trump and Republican leaders have repeatedly highlighted the state’s universal mail-in voting, widespread drop boxes, and loose chain-of-custody rules as “ripe for fraud.”

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Steve Hilton Catches Leftist Grifters Paying Illegals to Campaign for a Dem with Your Tax Dollars

Steve Hilton said a new investigation from Cal DOGE uncovered what he described as a corruption scandal involving California gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra and the taxpayer-funded immigrant advocacy organization CHIRLA.

Speaking outside CHIRLA offices in Santa Ana, Hilton said the organization receives nearly all of its funding from California taxpayers while also engaging in political activity tied to Becerra’s gubernatorial campaign.

“So this is our latest investigation from Cal DOGE, and it’s the latest corruption scandal involving having a Becerra. And it’s all connected to this organization, CHIRLA,” Hilton said.

Hilton said CHIRLA endorsed Becerra in April and pledged to support his campaign for governor.

According to Hilton, the endorsement raised concerns because the organization receives public funding.

“We are standing outside the CHIRLA offices in Santa Ana in Orange County. This organization is almost entirely funded by you, the California taxpayer,” Hilton said.

“Nearly all of the money to fund CHIRLA comes from taxpayers, and we will lay out the details of that in a moment.”

Hilton said Cal DOGE reviewed documents connected to CHIRLA’s political operations and claimed those records showed the organization using illegal immigrants in campaign-related efforts.

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