The latest report from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reveals that American adults lost a record amount of money to acts of fraud in the year 2023, totaling around $10 billion.
As reported by Axios, the number of Americans who fell victim to fraudulent scams was roughly 690,000. The average lost amount per person was $500.
Read More
At least four elections in the U.S. have been overturned by courts this year after voting irregularities and fraud were discovered, prompting new balloting in most of those races.
In 2020 and 2022 general elections, numerous lawsuits were brought challenging results amid alleged irregularities. This year, a few lawsuits have been decided on 2023 elections and on a 2022 election, which resulted in the initial results being overturned.
Read More
The U.S. Energy Department faces major management challenges ranging from hacking vulnerabilities to foreign espionage and could create “massive new risks to the taxpayer” as it spends tens of billions of dollars in new spending from President Joe Biden’s signature infrastructure initiative, the agency’s internal watchdog warns.
The Office of Inspector General offered a stark assessment of the department under Secretary Jennifer Granholm, pointedly warning losses from fraud in the current infrastructure spending could mirror that seen during the COVID pandemic, where taxpayers now lost an estimated $200 billion government wide.
Read More
Pfizer and Moderna’s lack of transparency regarding DNA contamination in its COVID-19 shots “meets the criteria for evidence of fraud,” according to the doctor who invented the mRNA vaccine technology upon which the products are based.
“They [Pfizer and Moderna] absolutely did know about the existence of SV40 sequences,” vaccinologist Dr. Robert Malone told Republican lawmakers during a livestream House hearing Monday. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) led the event to examine injuries and deaths caused by COVID-19 vaccinations.
Read More
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs revealed another batch of legislative actions Tuesday, including four more vetoes for Republican-led legislation.
“Katie Hobbs just vetoed my bill that would have affirmed that courts are to interpret election laws in the interests of transparency – insane,” shared State Representative Alexander Kolodin (R-Scottsdale).
Read More
Former President Donald Trump called for the termination of the Constitution’s rules regarding elections after the release of information about the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020.
“So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION?” Trump wrote on TRUTH Social.
Read More
A Jamaican man was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Raner C. Collins to 160 months, which is a little over 13 years, in prison for leading an international fraud ring that targeted thousands of elderly victims around the United States. As part of his sentence, the court also ordered McIntosh to pay approximately $1.8 million in restitution.
Read More
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced Wednesday a proposed consent judgment that will require CashCall, Inc., its owner J. Paul Reddam, and a wholly-owned subsidiary, WS Funding LLC, to pay $4.8 million in restitution to Arizona consumers who took out personal loans with interest rates as high as 169 percent, greatly exceeding that allowed under Arizona law, according to a press release by Brnovich’s office.
Read More
What irony!
Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger must be turning over in their graves.
Bernie Sanders must be having sleepless nights.
The left-wing anthem “Which Side Are You On?” is no longer about whether you’re a “union man” or a “thug for J.H. Blair.” It’s about the size of your stock portfolio or when to go public with your start-up.
Read More
Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty Monday on four counts: three of wire fraud and one of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
The jury remained deadlocked on three charges and found her not guilty on four other felony charges.
The former entrepreneur reportedly remained emotionless as the verdicts were read, The Associated Press stated. Her partner, Billy Evans, reacted similarly.
Read More
This week’s Golden Horseshoe goes to the Small Business Administration for millions in Paycheck Protection Program loans it issued to fraudsters who used the money to purchase luxury homes, high-priced jewelry and expensive cars, including a Bentley and two Lamborghinis, according to a watchdog report.
The Paycheck Protection Program had the highest percentage of cases of criminal activity of all the pandemic relief programs, according to the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee’s recent Semiannual Report to Congress.
“A total of 14 OIGs have indictments/complaints, arrests, and/or convictions from April 1, 2021, through September 30, 2021, related to the federal government’s COVID-19 pandemic response,” PRAC reported.
Read More
Just two weeks after his House floor speech on financial fraud in Congress went viral, Arizona Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) delivered another epic speech, this time focusing on COVID-19 and President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill. Schweikert said the country is about at the point to declare the pandemic over, and he slammed Biden’s “social spending plan” for “economic violence” against the working poor and “laced with budget gimmicks.”
Schweikert explained how the combination of several factors now means the pandemic is about over. Pfizer’s new antiviral medication, which is about to be approved by the FDA, is 89% effective and will be available to millions by January. There are at-home COVID-19 tests and multiple vaccines. He will be putting forth legislation shortly to address this developing situation.
Read More
Rep. David Schweikert (R-06-AZ), known as the wonky numbers member of Congress, gave a speech on the House floor a few days ago about runaway spending in Congress that has gone viral with over 1.2 million views. It’s on Social Security and Medicare running out of money and how the U.S. is headed for a dystopian future if it’s not fixed. He addressed several myths and offered solutions.
He began saying he’s about to say some things most people don’t want to hear, “We call it math.” The biggest threat over the next couple decades facing the country is demographics. “Getting older isn’t Democrat or Republican, it’s going to happen to everyone.” But he says he’s been booed for telling people the truth. “You don’t raise money telling people the truth about what’s going on.” Referring to Congress, he said, “We live in a financial fantasy world in this place … there’s a fraud around here.”
Read More
Two corporate executive parents whose children attend prestigious universities were found guilty in federal court Friday for bribing university staff to rig the admissions process, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Gamal Abdelaziz, former chief operations officer of Wynn Resorts Development and John Wilson, a private-equity financier and former chief financial officer of Staples, who were tried together in federal court, each spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to falsify their childrens’ academic and athletic records to gain admission to the University of Southern California (USC), Stanford and Harvard as athletic recruits with the help of scandal ringleader and admissions consultant Rick Singer.
The two men were found guilty of conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy to commit bribery involving a school that receives federal funds, the WSJ reported. The jury also found Wilson guilty of aiding and abetting in fraud and bribery and filing a false tax return.
Read More
The feds faced another setback in their quest to keep $85 million in assets seized in a raid without charging hundreds of safe deposit box renters with a crime.
U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner issued a preliminary injunction July 16 in a lawsuit by several customers of Los Angeles-based U.S. Private Vaults (USPV), who alleged the FBI denied them due process by providing civil forfeiture notices that lacked “any legal basis” for seizing the contents of each box.
Read More
Maryland officials say they suspect over 508,000 new, potentially fraudulent unemployment claims have been filed since May.
The announcement Monday followed the state saying it has verified over 1.3 million fraudulent claims since the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic.
The most common means of filing a fraudulent claim is identity theft, according to CNN.
Read More
Republican lawmakers in Michigan released a report Wednesday concluding there was no widespread fraud in the state’s November election, debunking many speculations, but they pointedly warned that the mailing of unsolicited absentee ballot applications creates “a clear vulnerability for fraud that may be undetected.”
“The serious, potential outcomes of these vulnerabilities versus the minor effort to request an application make a strong and compelling necessity to not provide such applications without a request from a voter – as was standard practice until this past year,” the Michigan Senate Oversight Committee concluded. “Therefore, the committee recommends the Michigan secretary of state discontinue the practice of mailing out unsolicited applications.”
The committee also recommended that the state strengthen voter ID requirements, not weaken them like Democrats in Congress have proposed, as the practice of absentee or not-in-person voting grows.
Read More
This week’s Golden Horseshoe award goes to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., the nation’s pension bailout agency that is still reeling from revelations its chief of contracting engaged in a bribery scheme that steered $4.8 million in fraudulent business to a vendor in return for more than $1 million in personal benefits.
The bribery scheme involving the now convicted director of PBGC’s Procurement Department was possible because the agency suffered from several vulnerabilities, including reduced competition among vendors, missing legal reviews and sole-source contracts that evaded bidding designed to get taxpayers the best bargain, the PBGC’s inspector general reported.
“His actions were enabled by internal control weaknesses; specifically, inadequate oversight of PD procurements and a lack of a control mechanism to ensure that PD sent all requisite contract actions for legal review,” the inspector general reported. “Although PBGC began requiring that more contract actions receive legal review after the PD Director resigned in February 2020, it does not have a mechanism to ensure PD complies with this requirement.”
Read More
For as long as politicians have been passing legislation, there have been measurable consequences to that legislation – both intentional and unintentional. Usually, the final impact is not known for years after a law is passed. We could write a book predicting problems with the proposed federal bill, H.R.1, the so-called For the People Act, but the state of Connecticut has given American taxpayers a timely preview of the burdens and waste we can expect from just one of the bill’s many government mandates. Specifically, the requirement that states must mail out ballot applications to all registered voters will unnecessarily spend, and ultimately waste, hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.
The 2020 elections in Connecticut provide a cautionary preview of this proposed requirement in H.R. 1 to send absentee ballot applications (ABR) to every registered voter. Connecticut Secretary of the State Denise W. Merrill (pictured) did exactly that, spending $7.1 million in federal taxpayer money sending out unsolicited ABRs for the primary and general elections. A total of 3.6 million applications were mailed, yet only 865,000 were converted to actual votes. That’s a cost of $8.20 per ballot returned – by any measure, a poor yield on that investment.
The sad irony about this waste of taxpayers’ money is that the applications were available to voters free of charge either at town halls or on the State of Connecticut website. One had only to pick up the form in person or download and print it in the comfort of his own home. Other states have similarly convenient options for obtaining ABRs and provide for ballot applications to be requested online, by email or by phone. Citizens in these states take responsibility for their right to vote, and the states facilitate their doing so, rather than mandate it.
Read More