Tag: corruption

Burma Election Phase 1: No Hope for Federal Democracy With Opposition Banned

The Burma (Myanmar) election leaves observers asking whether it can truly be called a legitimate election when opposition parties and much of the population are prohibited from participating.

Burma’s military junta held the first round of its 2025 election on December 28, marking the first vote since overthrowing the country’s democratically elected government in 2021. Participation was sharply limited, with only about one-third of eligible voters casting ballots. Voting took place only in areas under military control, effectively disenfranchising large segments of the population living in conflict zones that comprise roughly 70 percent of the country’s territory.

As voting began, the Union Election Commission announced that nine additional townships had been added to the list where voting could not take place due to ongoing armed conflict. The newly excluded areas included three townships in Chin State, two in Sagaing Division, and four in Rakhine State, bringing the total number of townships entirely excluded from elections to 65, up from 56.

The UEC also confirmed that Phases 1 and 2 could not be held in 51 village tracts in Karenni State, and that Phase 3 elections scheduled for January 25 would not take place in 10 village tracts in Pekhon Township. In total, 134 townships are now affected either fully or partially, setting a record for the highest number of areas where elections could not be conducted in Burma’s history.

The election is being held in three phases across 265 of 330 townships, with the second round on January 11 and third round on January 25. Final results are expected to be announced by the end of January 2026.

One Yangon polling station recorded turnout of just under 37 percent, well below participation levels in the 2020 election won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy. In Karenni State and other areas controlled by revolutionary forces, residents rejected the process, saying the election is neither free nor fair and excludes large portions of the population displaced by war.

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Recognizing Media Malfunctions With the Heckler Awards – Part 1: The Industry Technical Trophies

With the year coming to a close, it is time to haul the news from the media to the curb, but we first need to dig through the pile and sort the refuse. We need to separate the worst from getting into the recycling bins, because the last thing we need to see is some of this behavior circulating once again. So, in the futile effort of improving the journalism landscape, we need to highlight the lowlights of 2025.

Here at “Riffed From the Headlines,” it has been another year of compiling the worst and misbegotten in the media landscape. We began the year with the hope that improvements would be experienced. Our hopes were, not surprisingly, dashed. Thus, we are left with the task of delivering notice of the worst from the journalism industry, and for that, we have developed The Heckler Awards.

This will be a four-part series in which we will (dis)honor the events reported in the press this year, based on the evidence compiled in our daily column. We begin with technical awards, and that will then give way to specific honors in the various categories we use to organize the lapses in journalism ethics. Part One will honor industry-wide activity, while Part Two will recognize achievements by individuals and specific outlets, and then Parts Three and Four will entail the category “winners.”

Now, with that pageantry aside, let us delve into the recognition and begin handing out the recognition of the news industry foibles for 2025, in this, the first round of The Hecklers!

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Fulton County’s 315,000 Admission Goes Well Beyond Just “Unsigned Poll Tapes” – Including Illegal Tabulation, Rule Violations and Open Records Deception

During a December 9 hearing before the State Election Board (SEB), the attorney for Fulton County’s Board of Registration and Elections (BRE), Ann Brumbaugh, “did not dispute” the fact that over 315,000 ballots in Fulton County were missing signatures on the poll tapes, as required by Ga. Comp. R & Regs. 183-1-14-.02(15) and O.C.G.A. § 21-2-483(h).

This was in response to a complaint submitted to the SEB in March 2022, 33 months prior to the SEB hearing.

In addition to the poll tapes being unsigned, another egregious and concerning discovery was made: the poll tapes were altered to make it appear as if the machines they came from were the ones from the precincts where the ballots were scanned at.

Concerning Response to Open Records Requests

Prior to the December 9th, 2025 admission, and even the March 2022 complaint, Fulton County had a different response.

In an Open Records Request submitted by the Election Oversight Group for the poll tape records that were subject to the March 2022 complaint, Fulton County Attorney Steve Rosenberg responded in writing so there was “a record of our response.”

In the response, Rosenberg states that “the zero tapes are printed on paper that resembles old-style receipts” and that “they fade and they fade even more when handled.”

He then states that they’ve received “a number of requests for these and other poll tapes” and that “over time, the zero tapes have become almost completely faded” and then says that he provided what they maintain and can locate “that still has some printing on it.”

Then he claims that the “consolation is that the Secretary of State’s office maintains the originals” and says that a request should be sent to their office.

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Surveillance Footage Reveals Somali Daycare Fraud Playbook — Scheme Dates Back to 2013!

Newly resurfaced surveillance footage and investigative reporting confirm that the now-exploding Somali daycare fraud scandal in Minnesota follows a well-documented playbook that state officials were warned about as early as 2013, and repeatedly thereafter.

Yet year after year, the fraud was allowed to metastasize, draining hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars from programs meant to help poor children, while far-left Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and radical Rep. Ilhan Omar looked the other way.

The scandal exploded into the national spotlight this week after a viral video by YouTuber Nick Shirley went mega-viral, accusing Somali-owned daycare centers of blatant fraud.

Shirley knocked on doors, demanding answers, and what he uncovered has prompted the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to “surge” into Minnesota for a massive investigation.

Let’s rewind to 2013, when a team of Ramsey County forensic auditors uncovered the scam’s early roots. A KSTP 5 Eyewitness News report from October 2025 reveals a whistleblower from Ramsey County who, in 2013, uncovered four daycare centers exploiting CCAP, with dozens more suspicious cases totaling over $100 million in fraud.

The whistleblower alerted the Department of Human Services (DHS) and lawmakers, but nothing happened for years.

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Western intelligence lawfare op plotted illegal sting on EU fraud office, leaks reveal

After The Grayzone exposed CIJA – the Western gov’t-funded regime change outfit – for collaborating with al-Qaeda and its allies in Syria, files show the group sought to penetrate and “intimidate” European financial regulators who charged them with corruption.

Leaked documents reviewed by The Grayzone reveal the intelligence-linked Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) launched a malicious effort to infiltrate and subvert the European Commission and EU anti-fraud office after it accused them of corruption. In order to carry out these attacks, its director solicited the services of at least one longtime MI6 operative, Ian Baharie.

The group, which came to prominence in the early stages of the Western-backed dirty war on Syria, describes itself as a “non-governmental organisation dedicated to collecting evidence… for the express purpose of furthering criminal justice efforts” across the world.” CIJA’s work in gathering supposed evidence of the abuses of the Syrian government of deposed President Bashar Al-Assad earned it gushing praise from Hillary Clinton and puff profiles from The New Yorker, New York Times and The Guardian.

As The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal revealed in a 2019 profile on CIJA – one of the first critical investigative reports on a group touted by mainstream media as “independent” – one of the NGO’s top funders was the US State Department, which granted it over $500,000 in a short period. Today, CIJA boasts that it “currently works to support prosecutions in 16 countries” and is “assisting 52 law enforcement and counter-terrorism agencies and 14 prosecutorial offices globally.” 

Unmentioned there, and entirely ignored by English-language legacy media outlets, is the fact that the European Union’s Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) placed CIJA on an EU blacklist as punishment for unethical activities including cooking accounting books, forging documents, and graft. The group has been on EU regulators’ radar since at least 2015, when OLAF conducted a raid of CIJA’s registered headquarters only to find no trace of the organization actually operating there.

Now, leaked documents and emails reviewed by The Grayzone indicate CIJA’s founder and executive director William “Bill” Wiley undertook a retaliatory campaign of dirty tricks aimed at removing his organization from the EU blacklist. His grand scheme included a ruthless sting operation on a former staffer he accused of whistleblowing, as well as plans to gather dirt on OLAF officials which European Commission officials would be “intimidated by.” 

With a career skirting the line between the world of NGOs, multinational corporations and Western intelligence, Wiley sought out a veteran British MI6 operative to assist his dirty tricks campaign. Though CIJA promotes universal jurisdiction for purported crimes committed by rogue foreign governments, the leaked files show the group is more than willing to circumvent the law to advance its own objectives.

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‘Disclosure is required now’: DOJ stalling case against 2020 election denier accused of planting bombs ‘outside the RNC and DNC’ day before Jan. 6, lawyers say

Newly released court documents accused a Virginia man of confessing to planting pipe bombs “outside” the headquarters of the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C., just one day before the Jan. 6 Capitol Attack. Federal prosecutors who say the man told investigators he did this because he wanted to “speak up” for 2020 election deniers are now choosing to stall the case, according to his lawyers.

“Disclosure is required now, not later,” Brian Cole Jr.’s attorneys write in a 15-page motion for discovery filed Monday, which seeks an order that directs the government to cough up all copies of evidence against him, including “any and all statements, confessions, or admissions.”

Cole’s lawyers say the Justice Department has “asked to push” his preliminary hearing to either Jan. 7 or 8 — but prosecutors have no concrete reason why, the attorneys say, other than “ordinary scheduling matters and the possibility of a forthcoming indictment,” according to court documents.

“That request comes too late,” Cole’s team says in a motion to confirm his preliminary hearing filed late Sunday. “In its email to defense counsel, the government has identified no extraordinary circumstances.”

Cole’s lawyers want the court to direct the government to be “prepared to present its evidence in support of probable cause” on Tuesday, should the preliminary hearing happen. They say Cole has already consented to an extension that moved his hearing to Tuesday, “but he has not consented to any further delay,” according to their motion.

“Dec. 30 is the proper, timely date for the preliminary hearing,” Cole’s team says. “The government’s desire to accommodate ordinary scheduling or the pace of a grand jury is not a lawful basis to continue the hearing for which it has had more than three weeks to prepare.”

Cole, 30, of Woodbridge, was arrested and charged in the District of Columbia earlier this month with transporting an explosive device in interstate commerce with the intent to kill, injure, or intimidate any individual or unlawfully to damage or destroy any building, vehicle, or other real or personal property. He was also charged with attempted malicious destruction by means of fire and explosive materials.

According to federal prosecutors, Cole drove his Nissan Sentra to Washington, D.C., by himself on Jan. 5, 2021, to plant at least two pipe bombs downtown “in the immediate vicinity” of the RNC and DNC headquarters. The improvised explosive devices had 60-minute timers, but failed to detonate. Cole allegedly said he planted them at night “because he did not want to kill people,” according to the DOJ.

Federal prosecutors say Cole learned how to make the bombs by playing video games. He allegedly admitted that he is a Trump supporter but does not like “either party” and wanted to go after the RNC and DNC because he was sick of election deniers being called “conspiracy theorists” and other “bad” things.

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As support for Israel drops, the mainstream media is becoming even more Zionist

During a recent appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher, CNN’s Van Jones told the studio audience that young people protesting Israel’s genocide are actually falling for an Iranian-Qatari disinformation campaign.

Jones proceeded to do an impression of a young person’s social media feed. “Dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby, Diddy, dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby!,” he joked.

Jones’s callous attempt at humor was condemned across social media, and he quickly apologized for the comments, acknowledging that they were “insensitive and hurtful.”

However, as Howard University law professor Ziyad Motala notes in an Al Jazeera op-ed, Jones’s apology failed to engage with a dark reality at the root of his joke: the consistent dehumanization of Palestinians.

“A true apology would have confronted the deeper problem: the instinct, common in US media, to distrust evidence of Palestinian pain unless it is filtered through Western validation,” wrote Motala. “It is an impulse rooted in hierarchy, the same hierarchy that divides the grievable from the disposable, the innocent from the suspect.”

That hierarchy has been on full display in recent days, as the mainstream media has centered stories of released Israeli captives while largely ignoring stories of Palestinians.

In a Middle East Eye, Doha Institute professor Mohamad Elmasry identifies a number of such examples.

“Since Trump announced his plan two weeks ago, western coverage has focused heavily on Hamas’s requirement to release the remains of 28 dead Israeli captives,” points out Elmasry. “Much less attention has been devoted to Israel’s obligation, under Article 5 of the plan, to return the remains of 420 Palestinians it has long withheld.”

Such bias has been par for the course throughout the genocide. Media critic Adam Johnson recently noted that the Sunday cable news shows have not featured a single Palestinian guest since October 7.

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FBI agents spill Kash Patel’s ‘diva’ demands on the job including ‘ensuring he gets screen time for any big arrests’

FBI agents have lifted the lid on alleged diva-like behavior by Director Kash Patel as they accused him of using the agency as a personal branding platform.

Current and former agents told Axios that this included instructing staff to alert him to ‘noteworthy arrests’ so he could appear for media coverage. 

The security chief also demanded agents to keep interactions with him on such occasions to a minimum and insisted on wearing an FBI windbreaker instead of a suit, the outlet reports.

‘You’re the director of the FBI. Wear a f***ing suit,’ one recently retired agent fumed to Axios.

Patel rose to the FBI’s top job by vowing to dismantle entrenched Washington bureaucracy but has come under scrutiny for bungling responses to several security incidents.

Concerns about his leadership were recently detailed in a leaked dossier written by current and former agents and first obtained by the New York Post, which outlined what they called repeated management failures.

Among the incidents cited was Patel’s alleged meltdown following Charlie Kirk‘s killing in Utah. 

His staffers also complained to Axios about his social media etiquette after the assassination, citing a post where he hinted at an arrest in the probe before a suspect was actually in custody.

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FBI Intercepts Reveal Hillary Clinton’s Shady Discussions on Campaign Donations with Convicted Foreign Felon

Newly released FBI documents show that the bureau intercepted communications involving Hillary Clinton discussing donations with Indian hotel magnate Sant Singh Chatwal, a convicted felon.

The revelations, detailed in documents provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee and published on December 15, expose concerns over foreign bribery, pay-to-play schemes, and the potential misuse of the Clinton Foundation as a personal and campaign slush fund during Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.

The documents stem from the FBI’s “Cracked Foundation” investigation, which began probing the Clinton Foundation’s activities as early as 2010.

At that time, The Daily Caller found the FBI recorded Chatwal discussing illegal straw donations to Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Chatwal, a longtime Clinton family friend, Clinton Foundation trustee, and key fundraiser, pled guilty in 2014 to laundering those donations through straw contributors and forfeited $1 million as part of a deal with the Department of Justice.

In a chilling quote captured by an FBI informant, Chatwal admitted, “That’s the only way to buy them, get into the system,” referring to his efforts to influence politicians through illicit contributions.

By the spring of 2016, as Hillary Clinton was on the verge of securing the Democratic presidential nomination, FBI field officers in New York, led by Assistant Director in Charge Diego Rodriguez, urged headquarters in Washington, D.C., to interrogate Clinton about these foreign donations.

The agents prepared a series of pointed questions that highlighted red flags uncovered in the investigation, including evidence that the FBI had been “intercepting individuals associated with the Clinton Foundation.”

One of the most damning pieces of evidence was a recorded conversation between Clinton and Chatwal, where they discussed settling her lingering 2008 campaign debt.

According to the documents, Clinton reportedly told Chatwal he could no longer donate directly to her campaign but should instead funnel money to the Clinton Foundation.

Agents wanted to ask Clinton directly, “Based on information derived from a recorded conversation, you (HC) and Mr. Chatwal had a conversation regarding settling debt. You indicated to Mr. Chatwal that he could no longer donate to your campaign but he should instead donate to the Clinton Foundation. Were donations made to the Clinton Foundation used for personal use and/or to settle campaign debt?”

This exchange raises serious questions about whether the Clinton Foundation, ostensibly a global charity, was being exploited as a backdoor mechanism to pay off political debts or fund personal expenses, circumventing campaign finance laws.

State Department documents, first revealed through WikiLeaks in 2011, confirmed Chatwal’s role in helping settle Clinton’s 2008 campaign debt, further fueling suspicions of impropriety.

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Self-Proclaimed Prophet from Ghana Told Followers the ‘End of the World on Dec. 25’ Was Postponed — Says His Prayers Were Answered and the Flood Is Delayed Until Further Notice — Bought a Mercedes-Benz Instead

A self-proclaimed prophet in Ghana has quietly moved the goalposts after his dramatic prediction that the world would end in a catastrophic flood on Christmas Day failed to materialize.

According to reporting by News18, Ebo Enoch, who also goes by “Ebo Noah,” previously warned followers that nonstop rain would begin on December 25 and continue for three years, wiping out everything in its path.

The only salvation, he claimed, would be a series of Noah-style wooden arks he said God instructed him to build.

As December 25 came and went with no flood, no rain, and no apocalypse, Ebo quickly pivoted. The end of the world, he now says, has not been canceled, just “postponed.”

According to the self-proclaimed prophet, God was so impressed with his prayers, fasting, and “donations” that He granted humanity extra time. The revised divine instruction? Build even more arks and expand the project so additional people can be “saved.”

Ebo Noah:
God reveals to redeem. I have prayed, I have fasted, I have donated, and I have built. Through my prayers, I received another vision. In that vision, when you look at the number of people coming from all over the country and all over the world into the Ark, the expansion of the Ark could not contain them.

So I shared my vision with some great men of God who also interceded with me. After the intercession, God has given us some time to build more Arks, in addition to the tent that will contain all of us.

Therefore, tomorrow, nobody should rush to any location. I am not selling tickets. I am not taking money from anyone either. Please stay home, enjoy yourself, and have fun.

I also wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

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