Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Fraud as a feature, not a bug, in California
ny post opinion ^

Posted on 02/13/2026 10:39:32 AM PST by BenLurkin

It refers to the circle of self-enrichment through which political donors and special interests bag cash from government spending — then kick some of that cash back to politicians’ campaigns.

That’s the only way to explain why the high-speed rail project persists in the Central Valley, even though almost nobody wants it and nobody is even pretending the state can afford it.

Fraud is also the only way to explain how California spends nearly half a billion dollars on an overhaul of the 911 emergency system, only to find that the project doesn’t work.

And when you double state spending in 10 years, without doubling — or even improving — the quality of public services, you know that a good chunk of that money is being wasted or being siphoned off somewhere.

We’re not necessarily talking about criminal fraud — though there is plenty of that. We’re talking about systemic fraud. It’s a feature, not a bug.

More than a century ago, the infamous Plunkitt of Tammany Hall explained the difference between “honest” graft and the dishonest kind.

Dishonest graft, he said, was simple theft from the government. Only fools did that, and they were usually caught.

“Honest” graft, he said, was taking advantage of information or political clout to make investments alongside whatever the government was doing, and becoming rich that way.

That was the kind of corruption baked into the system in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. And it’s the kind of system that is the foundation of Sacramento.

It’s like vote-by-mail and ballot harvesting — recognized the world over as dangerously vulnerable to fraud, but legalized here in California.

The state legislature and the courts have refused to do much about it. So it falls to the feds.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: US: California
KEYWORDS:

Click here: to donate by Credit Card

Or here: to donate by PayPal

Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794

Thank you very much and God bless you.


1 posted on 02/13/2026 10:39:32 AM PST by BenLurkin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin

With printed, fiat money and the massive Federal debt/spending it allows - massive fraud is a permanent feature of blue-state government

Its helped by electoral fraud - which makes sure the one-party state and its cronies control the flow of printed money.


2 posted on 02/13/2026 10:43:10 AM PST by PGR88
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin

Not funding fraud is acting white.


3 posted on 02/13/2026 10:49:34 AM PST by Steely Tom ([Voter Fraud] == [Civil War])
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin

This is communist takeover writ large.


4 posted on 02/13/2026 10:54:39 AM PST by Skywise
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Steely Tom

Race hate is why this site is dying.


5 posted on 02/13/2026 11:04:33 AM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is opinion or satire. Or both.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin
Fraud is baked into the California system and it's not just in the welfare and healthcare sectors

Government contracts go to political cronies.

Workers compensation fraud is so bad it has become a lifestyle for a huge number of perfectly able bodied people who get fraudulently get 100% disability

It's so bad that a number of years ago a shocking number the finishers in the San Francisco Bay to Breakers mini marathon foot race were receiving 100% disability workers compensation paychecks to fund their fitness lifestyle

Student loan fraud is off the charts. So much so that the Democrats obsession with student loan forgiveness is driven as much by a desire to forgive fraudulent loans to avoid exposing the fraud as it is to buy votes from young voters.

California's huge illegal alien population has given rise to the most comprehensive , organized and sophisticated false identification and identity theft industry in history - often in partnership with California SEIU workers who provide legitimate State of California documents for the fake identity

This makes it easy for grifters to set up high quality fake identity documents for multiple fictitious individuals and businesses , all of which receive money from the State of California

Not only are California politicians aware of this, they are actively encouraging the fraud and corruption by banning the use of hard biometric data that could verify that an identity is an actual true and legitimate person which allows criminals to receive government money from multiple programs under multiple false identities

Fraud is a normal way of life for members of California's huge illicit underground economy

6 posted on 02/13/2026 11:24:13 AM PST by rdcbn1 (..when poets buy guns, tourist season is over................Walter R. Mead)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: rdcbn1

Insurance fraud is out of control which is part of the reason California insurance costs are out of control


7 posted on 02/13/2026 11:26:33 AM PST by rdcbn1 (..when poets buy guns, tourist season is over................Walter R. Mead)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin

Pattern Recognition is driving.

We’ve skirted it here historically with askance references to “those darned Amish.”

More recently, across the web, posts like the following appear:

“Is it them, again, Yogi?”
“Hush, Boo-boo.”

MANIFESTLY there are race-connected issues.
Is it an endemic low IQ problem? No. That’s stupid.
Is it an inherent race-bound ability problem? Again, no.
Is it a political problem? Politically driven, yes.
Political machinations hitchhiking on the back of the Civil Rights Movement have cultivated a narrative in which said rights are never attained, not because that’s true, but because if said rights have been attained in any great degree, said advocates insta-morph into unfunded social liabilities as their federally sustained 501(c)(3) withers and dies.

But the sustenance of this grift demands an unending stream of fiction to be projected upon sectors of society that were the historically “downtrodden” to the effect that after all this time and all this supposed effort, they’re still in that same state. If these are permitted to conceive of themselves as no longer downtrodden, the nakedness of The Emperor, so to speak, stands exposed and the whole grift collapses.

The fallout, though, is that within these purportedly downtrodden communities of people the ongoing fiction works actively from infancy to imprint an identity of downtrodden-ness.

When the mind takes ownership of circumstantial disadvantage, and — rather than being taught healthy means to surmount it — is programmed to embrace it as an identity, the grift is given permanence, but the community becomes doomed. It is increasingly full NOT of people who see themselves as being in downtrodden circumstances capable of being elevated out of them, but of people who conceive off their very selves as Downtrodden as a matter of self-identification, which is internal and intrinsic to their very being. It is orders of magnitude more difficult to elevate a person out of this condition of identity, than it is to lift them out of economic distress.

Against that prospect, it is inevitable that any claim of possible betterment or positive change will be viewed with withering pessimism, if it is even acknowledged as at all possible, and under those conditions — in that leftism-stoked cauldron of psychological desperation, despair, of feeling at a dead end, of hopelessness — yeah, all of the negative aspects of human behavior will come bubbling to the surface. This is the dismal and dystopic pattern wrought by leftist politics, and it isn’t racist to point and say, “Oh, there’s that Pattern, again.”


8 posted on 02/13/2026 12:51:17 PM PST by HKMk23 (https://youtu.be/LTseTg48568)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: HKMk23

. It is increasingly full NOT of people who see themselves as being in downtrodden circumstances capable of being elevated out of them, but of people who conceive off their very selves as Downtrodden as a matter of self-identification, which is internal and intrinsic to their very being.


Who are you is a good question to ask.


9 posted on 02/13/2026 12:53:50 PM PST by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued, but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin

Califraudia


10 posted on 02/13/2026 1:33:15 PM PST by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus….)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson