Tag: corruption

SoCal Education Leaders Stole Nearly $20M From Schools; Report

A new report has revealed that a pair of Southern California school leaders separately stole nearly $20 million from their schools in order to fund lavish personal lifestyles.

According to The New York Post, the report was co-authored by the State Financial Officers Foundation, a watchdog made up of state treasurers and auditors, and OpenTheBooks, a nonprofit focused on transparency in government spending.

The cases of the two Southern California educators were among the most expensive examples of K-12 education fraud documented nationwide.

Jorge Armando Contreras, the former fiscal services director for the Magnolia Elementary School District in Orange County, was charged with altering school checks over several years to funnel $16.7 million into his personal accounts.

Contreras was spending the money on everything from a luxury home and a BMW to designer clothes and pricey tequila and federal investigators found stacks of cash stuffed into a mini-fridge and luxury designer bags at his home.

He was sentenced to nearly six years in federal prison in 2024 and order to pay $16.7 million in restitution to the Magnolia School District in Orange County.

Another case highlighted in the report revealed that Janis Bucknor, the head of the Community Preparatory Academy charter school in Los Angeles, stole more than $3 million in taxpayer funds to cover travel, restaurants, shopping and private school tuition for her children.

Bucknor also pleaded guilty to spending more than $220,600 on Disney cruise line vacations, theme park admissions, and other Disney-related expenses.

According to prosecutors, Bucknor admitted in 2020 to stealing the funds, and was sentenced to three years’ probation and ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, State Financial Officers Foundation CEO OJ Oleka said:

All fraud is harmful, but defrauding education dollars meant to help kids learn and succeed is especially hideous. The findings in this report should alarm every family, teacher, and civic leader.

The California cases were part of nearly 90 cases identified by a coalition of auditors over the past six years involving embezzlement, phony invoices, inflated enrollment, bid-rigging and kickbacks, among other crimes.

The report follows the Trump administration’s promise to crack down on government waste, with Vice President JD Vance leading a nationwide “War on Fraud” that has raised new questions about oversight of federal education spending.

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Israel Debated: Why Palestine Is Rewriting the Rules of Domestic US Politics

A major showdown on the House floor seemed imminent. An amendment, advanced by the Rules Committee, was poised to force a rare and telling record vote on stripping Israel of $3.3 billion in annual US military aid.

Brought forward by Republican Representative Thomas Massie and drawing support from key progressive Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Greg Casar, the measure was set to put every lawmaker’s stance on unconditional foreign assistance under a public microscope.

However, the high-stakes vote never actually happened. On June 30, the entire legislative package collapsed under the weight of Washington’s internal political warfare. In a dramatic procedural twist, a coalition of Democrats and disgruntled conservative Republicans voted down the mandatory ‘rule’ required to even begin debating the underlying State Department spending bill.

But even if the vote on Massie’s amendment had occurred, the result would have been entirely predictable. It would have been defeated, as support for Israel on both sides of the congressional aisle remains structurally entrenched – even as the American public shifts against Israeli policy in historic numbers.

According to a watershed Gallup poll published on February 27, a plurality of Americans now sympathize more with the Palestinians than the Israelis, leading by a margin of 41 percent to 36 percent. This marked the first time since Gallup began tracking the metric over two decades ago that Israel did not hold the upper hand in public sympathy.

Yet the shift is part of a broader, undeniable trend. A nationwide survey published in late June 2026 by Quinnipiac University revealed that an unprecedented 48 percent of American voters now think the United States is “too supportive” of Israel – the highest percentage recorded since the pollster first began tracking the question in 2017.

This is precisely why Massie’s amendment carries such profound weight. It is significant not because US politicians have suddenly developed a collective moral conscience, but because recent election cycles represented the first time in modern American history where Palestine factored as a major, decisive variable in how citizens cast their ballots.

For years, conventional political analysts dismissed pro-Palestinian mobilization, claiming Americans only vote based on immediate socioeconomic interests and rigid party loyalties. That assessment has since proven faulty.

The political cost of Washington’s complicity became undeniable following the fallout of the 2024 presidential race, a reality later confirmed by those within the inner sanctums of power. In the post-election debates, senior administration insiders admitted that the handling of the Gaza genocide alienated core voter blocks.

The political cost of Washington’s complicity became undeniable after the 2024 presidential race. According to Axios, top Democratic strategists conducting the party’s post-election audit explicitly admitted to advocacy groups that internal party data proved the administration’s Gaza policy was a “net-negative” on the ballot.

This finding – disclosed during internal briefings by DNC autopsy author Paul Rivera – confirmed that the party’s unconditional backing of Israel directly fractured its base, and ultimately contributed to its loss of the elections.

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The ABA Wants The White House’s Receipts On The Biglaw Executive Orders

In 2025, Steve Bannon said the quiet part out loud, on his own podcast, when it came to the Trump administration’s goals when issuing (unconstitutional) executive orders aimed at Biglaw firms. Bannon said of the targeted firms, “What we are trying to do is put you out of business and bankrupt you.” Now the ABA wants to know how much of that he was really involved with.

In a Tuesday filing in American Bar Association v. Executive Office of the President, the ABA asked U.S. District Judge Amir Ali to force the White House to hand over internal communications, including those involving Bannon and Boris Epshteyn, Trump’s personal senior counsel. According to reporting, Epshteyn connected two firms that struck deals with the administration, Kirkland & Ellis and Skadden, with the Commerce Department on matters related to U.S. trade negotiations.

The ABA sued the administration back in June 2025, arguing that the executive orders, plus the wave of “deals” that spooked firms into capitulating before an order ever came for them, amounted to a coordinated policy, not isolated grievances against a handful of firms. As noted when the suit was first filed, the ABA had reason to worry about standing before it ever got to the merits, given this particular Supreme Court’s track record on associational standing.

Those worries didn’t pan out, at least not yet. In April, Judge Ali rejected the DOJ’s motion to dismiss, finding the ABA had plausibly alleged a real threat of retaliation and a documented chilling effect on its members, including instances of firms declining pro bono work seen as adverse to the administration. That ruling is what put the case into the discovery fight now playing out over Bannon, Epshteyn, and the rest of the internal White House record.

The underlying grievance predates the ABA suit by months, of course. Four firms — Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey — fought their individual executive orders in court and won, repeatedly, sweeping the district court level on First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment grounds. Nine other firms didn’t fight, cutting deals worth roughly $940 million in pro bono commitments to Trump-approved causes instead. And DOJ’s posture toward the winning firms has been anything but consistent: in March, the department dropped its appeals of those district court losses, only to reverse course about two weeks later and go back to defending the orders, this time citing the nine capitulating firms as proof the policy worked exactly as designed.

The DOJ, as you’d expect, does not want to produce any of this. The government has argued the requests raise separation-of-powers concerns and are overbroad, and last week, it asked a federal court in New York to block the ABA from deposing Epshteyn altogether. Whether that gambit works is now Judge Ali’s problem; DOJ’s response to the ABA’s Tuesday brief is due July 17.

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“JUSTICE IS COMING” – Spencer Pratt GOES OFF On California Election Fraud, Says He Has Evidence and Suggests Criminal Investigation Underway in Epic New Video

Former Los Angeles Mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt released a new video on Wednesday, bringing the receipts and evidence that the election was stolen from him. 

Pratt went over it all: homeless people being paid to vote Democrat, NGOs “hoarding ballots,” hundreds of thousands of dead and out-of-state voters on the voter rolls, fraudulent signature verification on mail-in ballots, and ballot harvesters filling out mail-in ballots for voters.

It can be recalled that Pratt emerged as an early leader in the mayoral primary, trouncing City Councilwoman Nithya Raman by about 40,000 votes on election night, but she staged a miraculous comeback with fraudulent mail-in ballots.

In an impossible upset, Raman surged, netting roughly 70,000 votes over Pratt and finishing roughly 30,000 votes ahead in the final results. Los Angeles took nearly two weeks to count all of the ballots.

The “late-arriving” fraudulent mail-in ballots knocked Pratt out of the race, and he explains exactly how they did it with evidence.

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Newsom Lashes Out at Trump When asked About Federal Investigation Into Wife Jennifer Newsom

California Governor Gavin Newsom lashed out at President Trump and the Trump DOJ when asked about the federal investigation into his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

Last month, Newsom fumed as he announced the corruption probe had expanded, and he and his wife are now under investigation.

Newsom said federal agents have contacted people and organizations close to him and his wife, Jennifer Newsom.

People close to the Newsoms have been subpoenaed for records, according to the governor.

According to Semafor, there are several investigations related to Newsom and they are focused on Jennifer Newsom’s taxes (+ his chief of staff).

Contrary to Newsom’s claims, the investigations did not originate from main DOJ in DC, but are out of Sacramento and involve whistleblowers, Semafor reported.

The investigation began under the Biden Regime, but Newsom lashed out at President Trump during a question and answer session on Thursday.

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HARMEET DHILLON Puts Michigan’s Dirty Sec of State Jocelyn Benson On Notice—Warns She and Local Election Officials Are “Subject to Criminality” For Knowingly Allowing Non-US Citizens To Remain On Voter Rolls

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division just put Michigan Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson on notice, cautioning her in a strongly worded letter about federal law requirements for maintaining clean voter rolls and ensuring only eligible U.S. citizens vote in federal elections.

The July 7, 2026, letter was sent directly to Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s chief election officer — the same dishonest secretary of state who is currently running for the Democratic candidate for Governor of Michigan and will be overseeing her own election.

The letter reminds Benson of multiple federal statutes, including the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), the Voting Rights Act (VRA), and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), and explicitly threatens her with potential criminal liability for election officials who knowingly allow non-citizens to remain on voter rolls or cast ballots.

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Supreme Court rejects Michigan family’s claim that county committed ‘home equity theft’ over $2,200 tax debt

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously sided with Isabella County, Michigan, rejecting a family’s claim that local governments must pay homeowners the full fair market value of property seized and sold in tax foreclosures rather than the lower price obtained at public auction.

In the 9-0 decision, the court ruled that under the Fifth Amendment, “the proper baseline under the Takings Clause is the price obtained in a tax sale, at least when the sale is fairly conducted in light of our country’s history of tax sales.”

Writing for the court, Justice Samuel Alito explained that “neither the Fifth nor the Eighth Amendment requires the government to compensate former owners based on the hypothetical fair market value of their property.”

The high court noted that creating a fair-market-value baseline would impose “unprecedented burdens” on local governments seeking to collect unpaid taxes, making these sales “impractical.”

“Under Pung’s rule, a tax sale to collect $20,000 in delinquent taxes would net the government a $20,000 loss—a loss paid out to the delinquent taxpayer himself,” Alito continued. “The possibility of such a perverse result would render tax sales infeasible as a debt-collection mechanism.”

The ruling comes amid a decade-long legal battle between Isabella County and the Pung family over what they called “home equity theft.” Isabella County foreclosed on the family’s 3,000-square-foot home over a disputed $2,241.93 tax bill stemming from a revoked Principal Residence Exemption, subsequently selling the $194,400 property at auction for just $76,008. Michael Pung, acting as the personal representative of the estate, disputed the bill and brought the legal challenge on behalf of the family.

While the county eventually returned the surplus auction proceeds, the family argued the Constitution required “just compensation” based on the home’s actual worth, rather than a low-ball auction price that destroyed more than $118,000 in equity.

However, the court said on Tuesday it would not “resolve any of Pung’s newfound contentions that the procedure the County followed in seizing and selling his property was unfair.”

The court ultimately vacated and remanded the case, sending it back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to reconsider those procedural claims.

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Corrupt Illinois Democrat State Rep and County Clerk Husband INDICTED In Mass NGO Kickback and Fraud Scheme — Just Weeks After Daughter Busted For COVID Fraud

Another corrupt Illinois Democrat family caught with their hands in the till.

Urbana Democrat State Representative Carol Ammons and her husband, Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons, were indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury on multiple felony counts including wire fraud, false statements, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

The indictment lays out a brazen scheme where Ammons allegedly used her campaign committee, Friends of Carol Ammons, to issue overpayments and then took cash kickbacks disguised as “gifts.”

At the same time, she used her position as a state lawmaker to steer massive state grants to friendly nonprofits that then put her daughter Titianna Ammons on the payroll, WCIA reported.

According to the federal indictment:

  • Carol Ammons allegedly caused campaign funds to be paid to herself and family members through excess checks and then received cash kickbacks to hide the scheme. She also falsely reported expenditures to the Illinois State Board of Elections.
  • She helped secure over $1.6 million in state grants for nonprofits including:
    • Bridgewater Sullivan Community Life Center ($612,000 grant) — where daughter Titianna was paid more than $60,000 as Program Director (Ammons even helped draft her employment contract).
    • Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center (over $1 million in grants) — where Titianna was paid nearly $10,000 as a digital marketing coordinator.
    • Another grant to Hood Vote that also funneled money to the daughter.

Prosecutors say Ammons and her daughter received financial benefits in excess of $100,000 through this web of campaign misuse and grant steering between 2017 and roughly 2023.

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LICENSE TO KILL? French MPs Approve Law That Gives Police Officers The ‘Benefit of the Doubt’ in Case of Shootings

The new law is making waves in a country in constant turmoil.

French deputies in the National Assembly passed ‌a law giving police officers who become involved in shootings the ‘benefit of the doubt’.

Critics of the legislation are calling it a ‘license to kill’.

Reported to be a longstanding demand of the French right, (that MSM will always call the ‘far-right’), the law means that cops who kill someone during a shooting are presumed ​to have acted within the limits of the law – unless there is proof to the contrary.

Reuters reported:

“The ​law was approved by 313 votes to 199 in the lower house of parliament, the ⁠National Assembly, on Tuesday evening. The government has lent its support to the law, which still needs to ​be voted on by the upper house.

The number of fatal shootings by police in France is among the ​highest in Europe and rising. The agencies that carry out investigations of police in France, the IGPN and IGGN, recorded 69 people killed by police or gendarmerie officers in 2024, compared with 49 in 2023 and 50 in 2022.”

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Florida mayor’s arrogant answer when asked why he was illegally driving around in a POLICE CAR with flashing blue lights

A Florida mayor was caught illegally driving a police car and using its flashing blue lights for a VIP traffic experience.  

Newly released body camera footage shows Hialeah Mayor Bryan Calvo, 28, being pulled over by a Miami police officer, after Calvo allegedly made an improper left turn in Coconut Grove, Miami at 11.30am on June 14.

But what began as a routine traffic stop quickly escalated when officer Yasmani Gonzalez noticed the black Chevrolet SUV Calvo was driving was fitted with flashing red and blue police lights.

‘Is this a police car? Is this your personal?’ the officer interrogates in the footage.

‘I’m an elected official,’ retorted Calvo, whose mayorship is non-partisan.

The response did little to impress the officer.

‘You turned on your police lights,’ the officer told him. ‘That’s a criminal offense, and I can easily take you to jail.’

The tense roadside exchange continued as the officer delivered a reminder that holding an elected office position does not entitle him to lawless behavior.

‘I don’t care if you’re the mayor,’ Gonzalez slammed. ‘If you’re not a police officer, don’t activate police lights.’

The officer then warned Calvo that he was driving a police vehicle despite not being a sworn law enforcement officer. 

Gonzalez proceeded to threaten jail time, saying, ‘that right there could be a third-degree felony.’

However rather than making an arrest, the officer issued Calvo two citations – one for the improper left turn and another for having prohibited emergency lights on the vehicle. 

Court records show the mayor has pleaded not guilty to both violations. It also remains unclear whether Calvo is still driving the SUV.

The footage has also launched fresh questions over why the city’s mayor was driving a police-issued SUV equipped with functioning emergency lights.

Florida law generally limits the use of blue lights to authorized emergency vehicles and does not provide a specific exemption for mayors. Although municipalities may authorize rare vehicle assignments or equipment for operational purposes, local policies do not supersede state law.

Driving a city vehicle equipped with police-style equipment could be interpreted as the impersonation of a police officer, even if emergency lights were not activated and is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

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