Free Republic

California's delayed, over-budget high-speed train from Los Angeles to San Francisco is running fast in only one direction: Rising costs to even get rolling, which are now estimated to be $126 billion. "Today, we estimate with the right optimization just over $125 billion," California High Speed Rail Authority board member Anthony Williams told CBS's "60 Minutes" on Sunday. "I think $126 billion is the current estimate for that." Snip "We’re now in 2026: There are no trains; there’s no track laid; it was a complete bait and switch," Rep. Vince Fong, R-Calif., told "60 Minutes," saying the project "needs to...

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom is a filmmaker whose documentaries have been seen by millions —but that didn’t happen purely because of talent. Siebel Newsom leaned on her powerful hubby and his education board to push preachy flicks about “toxic masculinity” into classrooms, casting her husband as an enlightened Democratic savior —all while raking in up to $300,000 annually through her nonprofit, The Representation Project, and for-profit outfit Girls Club Entertainment. “I turned the lens on boys and men and looked at the boy crisis in America and how we were failing our boys and men with this...

Gavin Newsom’s transport secretary has admitted criticism of California’s high-speed rail is justified — as estimates of the project show it will be a struggle to be completed. Officials now say it will cost an eye-watering $126 billion to finish the line from Los Angeles to San Francisco — which is more money than Amtrak has ever received from the federal government since it was established in 1971, a damning 60 Minutes report revealed. That’s and a huge uptick when compared to the $33 billion voters were told the rail would cost when it was announced way back in 2008....

My jaw dropped watching this Reporter Matt Seedorff asks Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass about the homeless numbers, he says people don’t trust the data because they can see the growing number of encampments in LA She literally says not to trust what you’re seeing, trust her Reporter “There's just overall a lack of trust with these numbers. It's not what people see” Mayor Karen Bass “I will tell you something. It is absolutely what you see”

Two corrupt town workers in posh East Hampton accepted thousands of dollars in cash bribes from contractors in exchange for near-instant under-the-table building permits, according to prosecutors. Town Building Inspector Ryan Benitez, 37, and his senior office assistant, Evelyn Calderon, 46, pocketed more than $16,000 from four unnamed contractors so that the builders could sidestep the months-long approval process and have their permits and certificates of occupancy secretly fast-tracked, Suffolk County prosecutors claimed. The pair of government employees would sometimes jump into action within minutes of getting a request — and cut down the typical months-long process to mere hours...

YouTuber and investigative journalist Nick Shirley’s quest to uncover fraud continues to yield results that — while alarming — are also admittedly hilarious in watching. After gaining national attention for his investigation of Minnesota’s Somali communities, Shirley has made his way to Los Angeles, California. In an update posted to social media platform X on Sunday, Shirley paid a “friendly” visit to a “hospice consulting” business, inquiring with employees as to how he could start one. They were, predictably, unwilling to oblige. “LA hospice fraudsters shut down their fraudulent business and flee the building. This ‘business’ was operating as a...

The FBI on Thursday announced the arrest of 8 of 15 defendants charged in connection with a major multi-million dollar health care fraud scheme. The arrests were made in and around Los Angeles County, as well as in Court d’Alene, Idaho. Officials said some of the defendants are health care professionals, including nurses, a psychologist and a chiropractor. Losses to taxpayers reportedly exceeded $50 million, according to the Department of Justice. Six of the defendants arrested Thursday are expected to make their initial appearances Thursday afternoon in United States District Court in downtown Los Angeles. ... Essayli announced the arrests...

A homeless nonprofit paid the son of San Francisco’s top human rights boss $10,000 to prepare five slides for a panel his mother moderated — as she was signing city contracts worth millions to the organization, according to prosecutors. Sheryl Davis, former head of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, was arrested Monday on a slew of public corruption charges stemming from her time leading the scandal-scarred Dream Keeper initiative, a $120 million plan to aid the city’s black communities. Davis signed city contracts worth more than $3.5 million to Homeless Children’s Network, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that provides substance...

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. 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. Where is all this...

Independent journalist and YouTuber Nick Shirley is set to release part two of his California fraud investigation, this time targeting alleged childcare scams. In a teaser clip, Shirley examines a San Diego facility listed as serving 14 children, yet state inspectors had never seen the children, citing missing records and the absence of an official roster. In the brief clip, the woman Shirley question's becomes immediately confrontational, threatening to call the police and accusing him of targeting Somalis. https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/2038740552158421088? - 2 MIN "Here is Hayden Serra Family Child Care," Shirley said. "This is a daycare right here. Apparently, they have...

A disgraced San Francisco human rights chief and her longtime beau have been arrested for allegedly grifting taxpayer funds for personal use through a city program intended to help the city’s black communities. Sheryl Davis, former heard of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, and her nonprofit boss partner James Spingola were taken into custody Monday on suspicion of multiple felony counts of misappropriating public funds and conflicts of interest. “Public integrity matters because our communities must be able to trust that government agencies treat everyone fairly and serve all members equally,” said District Attorney Brooke Jenkins at a press...

As Kamala Harris uses California Highway Patrol officers as her security detail, Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration will not release records or provide information on how much it's costing taxpayers. As KCRA 3 first reported in February, dozens of CHP officers have been assigned to Kamala Harris and her international book tour. In response to a California Public Records Act request submitted by KCRA 3 earlier this month, the California Highway Patrol confirmed on Monday that it has records related to the situation, but will not release them, citing a section of state law that protects law enforcement and security-related records....

State officials have awarded the City of Sacramento $2.5 million to support equity efforts in the local cannabis industry. The funding comes from the Cannabis Equity Grants Program for Local Jurisdictions, administered by the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (Go-Biz).

🚨 BUSTED: Elections Volunteer CAUGHT Stealing Encrypted Access Key Just DAYS Before Trump-Endorsed Candidate “Loses” Florida Seat by 800 Votes! This is the same District as Mar-A-Lago. No way in hell… A Palm Beach County elections volunteer was just arrested for stealing an encrypted access key and sensitive computer equipment from a voter registration terminal — 5 DAY BEFORE the special election for Florida House District 87. • The Trump-endorsed Republican Jon Maples lost by only ~800 votes to Democrat Emily Gregory. • The theft happened INSIDE the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office during official poll-worker training. Republicans...

<p>Vice President JD Vance said Friday that Rep. Ilhan Omar defrauded the US by allegedly marrying her brother to help him remain legally in the country.</p><p>Vance added that he’s been discussing legal remedies with White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, explaining that questions have been raised: “How do you go after her?"</p>

"Zelensky billions of dollars through Hungary to the West, Ukrainian funds were used for the Democrats Campaign." VIDEO.

A former Los Angeles Unified School District employee has been charged in what prosecutors described as a pay-to-play scheme that directed more than $22 million in contracts to a single technology company, making it one of the largest money laundering schemes in the district’s history. Officials with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office allege that between 2018 and 2022, 53-year-old Pasadena resident, Hong “Grace” Peng, who worked as a technical project manager for LAUSD, of illegally awarding Innive, a Texas-based tech company, millions of dollars worth of contracts for work on the district’s My Integrated Student Information System (MiSiS)....

Even while faced with a Russian invasion of their nation, some elements in the Ukrainian government were plotting to help the Biden re-election campaign — with U.S. taxpayer money. That was the gist of an explosive article Thursday from the Washington-based website Just the News, citing a declassified intelligence report. And Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is reportedly on the case. The Just the News report was authored by website founder John Solomon, a veteran, highly respected D.C. journalist, and Just the News chief investigative correspondent Jeff Dunleavy. It claimed that U.S. intelligence intercepts had revealed that personnel in...

All those empty office buildings in downtown Seattle are dragging down property values, according to newly-released King County Assessor data. According to the King County Assessor’s Office, the city’s most valuable skyscrapers have lost $3.7 billion in value since 2022. Approximately a third of downtown commercial space remains vacant. Among the biggest decreases in value are the Amazon Doppler Tower and Meeting Center (62% drop), Amazon’s Day One Tower and Spheres (59% drop), the DocuSign Tower on 999 Third Street (56% drop), Amazon’s Re-Invent Towers (55% drop), and the US Bank Centre (53% drop). The three Amazon office buildings listed...

70 hospice and home health providers in Los Angeles were cut off from federal funding in one week after being flagged for fraud by Vice President JD Vance’s anti-fraud task force, with officials indicating that additional providers are likely to be flagged as the review widens. Early findings point to a broader network of activity than the initial suspensions suggest. “As the task force to root out waste, fraud and abuse ramps up, we expect this number to grow exponentially.” As RedState previously reported, the GOP-led House Oversight Committee has now opened an investigation into what they describe as “rampant”...