Some state officials in California are calling for an investigation into the California Lottery after a whistleblower complaint argued that giving away a total of $212,500 in Scratchers on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” was a “misuse of funds.”
The complaint is the latest in a series of scandals involving the lottery, including allegations of improper gifts, nepotism and wasteful spending and just weeks before a state audit of lottery finances are scheduled to be released, the Los Angeles Times reported.
DeGeneres gave away $500 in Scratchers tickets to each audience member last December as part of her 12 Days of Giveaways before Christmas.
“I know something that can make them absolutely filthy rich this holiday season,” Jimmy Kimmel, who was presenting the Scratchers with DeGeneres, said of the audience during the giveaway. “Give the gift of Scratchers from the California Lottery. Their mission is to provide funding to California schools for programs like music, reading art, technology — all that kind of stuff.”
The audit was requested last year by Republican State Sen. Ling Ling Chang to make sure 34 percent of lottery sales are going to public schools in the state.
Chang said the “Ellen” giveaway should also be investigated because she thinks it was handled improperly.
“This concerns me because, bottom line, the mission of the California Lottery is to provide supplemental funding to California public schools,” Chang said, according to The Times. “I want to know how this contribution affects supplemental funding to California public schools. Does it help? I don’t think so.”
She added that the show should have reimbursed the lottery for the tickets and questioned the handling of the Scratchers when a YouTuber said someone affiliated with the show – who was not an audience member – gave her a $500 packet.
The whistleblower complaint, filed by lottery employees, also alleged some of the ticket packets were unaccounted for and left with staff for the show.
“I think somebody needs to take a very close look at how the lottery is distributing their Scratchers tickets. This is money taken right out of education,” retired lottery sales representative Charlotte Belasco told the Times.
Lottery spokesman Russ Lopez said the “total media value” of having DeGeneres and Kimmel promote the Lottery on her show was calculated to be worth about $1.6 million.
“The Ellen Show offered a unique opportunity to increase consumer awareness of California Lottery’s contributions to public education while helping to drive sales of Holiday Scratchers,” Lopez said. “This promotional opportunity allowed the lottery to achieve significant cost savings compared to buying the equivalent in media exposure via a traditional ad buy.”
He added that the giveaway complied with state regulations.
California Lottery officials confirmed to The Times that the show was given 425 Scratchers packets worth $500 each for the giveaway.
He said the Lottery wasn’t told by the show how many packets were left over after the giveaway but said the packet given to the YouTuber is the only one he knows of that didn’t go to an audience member.
“It was Lottery’s understanding that all gift boxes were to be distributed,” Lopez said, according to The Times. “We subsequently learned that an extra gift box was supplied to a popular influencer which provided additional media exposure, endorsement and promotional value for Holiday Scratchers games at no extra cost to Lottery.”
But Chang said she doesn’t think giving away the tickets helps Lottery sales and if one of the audience members wins big it could take away money meant for schools.
Representatives for “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” have not commented.
A New York man willing to testify against MS-13 members who attacked him in 2018 was found dead earlier this week after his identity was disclosed to defendants’ attorneys in pre-trial proceedings, police say.
The bludgeoned body of 36-year-old Wilmer Maldonado Rodriguez was found Sunday outside an abandoned home in New Cassel, the Nassau County Police Department announced Wednesday. Investigators said Rodriguez in October 2018 came to the defense of two boys who were being threatened by the gang — only to be beaten with a bat and stabbed, according to Newsday.
"This courageous man was prepared to testify against his alleged assailants at an upcoming trial, but he was brutally beaten to death before he could," Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas said in a statement provided to the newspaper.
"This case underscores the importance of safeguarding the identities of witnesses and victims of crime and our hearts are with Mr. Maldonado’s family and friends as we grieve his loss.”
Wilmer Maldonado Rodriguez was found dead Sunday behind this home in New Cassel, N.Y., police say. (Google Maps)
Singas says prosecutors tried to keep Rodriguez’s identity secret by obtaining a protective order in December 2018.
But last December, ahead of looming changes to New York’s criminal justice system, including reforming the pre-trial discovery phase – during which prosecutors reveal evidence to the defense for preparation – the judge in the case issued a new order.
It allowed “for the disclosure of the protected information to defense counsel,” Newsday reports. The judge’s order, it added, required attorneys for two defendants not to reveal Rodriguez' s name to their clients until the trial’s start date of Jan. 6.
However, Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said Wednesday that the trial was delayed.
MS-13 is associated with a spate of brutal and violent killings. How did the gang originate, and how widespread are its members?
“We don’t know if the defense counsel turned that information over to the defendants, but we do know that right after that time period… started this pattern of intimidation,” Ryder said.
He told reporters Wednesday that another witness on the case was shot at in New Cassel on Jan. 30.
“On February 1st, 2020, Wilmer, our now victim, deceased, was also beaten on and he escaped from there,” Ryder said. “Then on February 2nd, we found Mr. Rodriguez’s body.”
“The individuals whoever did this attack, we believe had received that information,” Ryder concluded, referring to Rodriguez’s identity. He noted that the investigation into Rodriguez’s killing is ongoing and no suspects have been identified.
Both attorneys, though, are denying that they disclosed any names of witnesses or victims to their clients.
“I never gave him the name of those people. And he never asked me for it,” lawyer Greg Madey, who is representing 20-year-old Denis Pineda, told Newsday. “I’m offended by the allegation that Denis Pineda had something to do with orchestrating this murder.”
Justin Feinman, who is representing 19-year-old Elian Ramos Velasquez, told Newsday that “at this point to say that it was a defense attorney that leaked without more information is completely inappropriate.”
“I feel horrible that this happened,” Feinman added. “This should have never happened. I just don’t see how you can blame a particular judge or attorney.”
The trial Rodriguez was supposed to testify in is set to begin sometime this week, Ryder said Wednesday.
The Treasury Department complied with a Republican-controlled Senate inquiry into Hunter Biden's business dealings in Ukraine and handed over highly sensitive financial records and "evidence' of questionable origin," a report on Thursday said.
Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, has been a favorite target for President Trump and other Republicans who use him as an example of an extreme case of crony capitalism. He once held a $50,000-a-month job with Ukrainian gas giant, Burisima Holdings while his father served under then-President Obama. His father was tasked with handling Ukraine policy at the time.
Yahoo News first reported that the Treasury Department began to turn over the documents related to the Senate inquiry late last year.
Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Ron. Johnson, R-Wisc., the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, requested the records in the form of a suspicious activity report, also known as a SARs. They also requested financial records through FinCEN, which is a branch of the Treasury Department that eyes money laundering.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who sits on the Finance Committee, told Yahoo News that the swift response from Treasury is a "blatant double standard" considering how the Trump administration responded to Democrats' effort to obtain documents and witness testimony in his impeachment trial.
"The administration told House Democrats to go pound sand when their oversight authority was mandatory while voluntarily cooperating with the Senate Republicans’ sideshow at lightning speed," a spokesman from Wyden told the website.
Grassley refused to identify what information Treasury provided when reached by the New York Times, but said through a spokesman, "It's unfortunate that Democrats whom we’ve kept in the loop on our investigations would recklessly seek to interfere with legitimate government oversight."
Grassely and Johnson announced in a letter Wednesday they are also seeking “records of Hunter Biden’s travel while he was under U.S. Secret Service protection as they continue to investigate potential conflicts of interest to boost his business ventures in Ukraine and China."
"We write to request information about whether Hunter Biden used government-sponsored travel to help conduct private business, to include his work for Rosemont Seneca and related entities in China and Ukraine," the senators wrote, referring to the company co-founded by the younger Biden.
Trump's impeachment trial was based on a phone call he had with his Ukrainian counterpart where he asked him to investigate the Bidens' dealings in the country. Democrats alleged that Trump withheld military funding in order to put pressure on Kiev. Trump denied any wrongdoing, was impeached in the House and acquitted in the Senate impeachment trial.
The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to an after-hours email from Fox News.
The White House is reportedly weighing options to dismiss Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman from the National Security Council (NSC) in an effort to shrink its foreign policy bureaucracy, a report said.
Bloomberg reported that the White House plans to frame it as part of an NSC staff downsizing, not a retaliation. Vindman gave testimony last year during President Donald Trump's impeachment proceedings.
Vindman was an important witness for the Democrats in July and raised concerns over Trump's phone call with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky.
National Security Council aide Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman is sworn in to testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2019, during a public impeachment hearing of President Donald Trump's efforts to tie U.S. aid for Ukraine to investigations of his political opponents. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Vindman had drawn applause from spectators during his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee -- after expressing his love for America when asked how he overcame his fear of retaliation.
"Congressman, because this is America. This is the country I have served and defended, that all of my brothers have served. And here, right matters," Vindman said. "I knew I was assuming a lot of risk. [My father] deeply worried about [my testimony]. Because in his context, it was the ultimate risk."
CNN reported that Vindman has been telling colleagues that he expects to be leaving the NSC and return to work at the Department of Defense.
His departure is expected to be soon after Trump was acquitted in the Senate impeachment trial.
Scientists in China say the pangolin, a type of scaly anteater, could be a possible host for the coronavirus that has killed over 636 people and infected nearly 31,400 globally, according to a report by Reuters on Friday.
“This latest discovery will be of great significance for the prevention and control of the origin [of the virus],” South China Agricultural University, which led the research, said in a statement.
Reuters reported the genome sequence of the coronavirus strain taken from pangolins in the study was 99 percent identical to infected people, according to China’s official Xinhua news agency.
A very rare close up of a wild Pangolin, taken in the Masai Mara, Kenya (iStock)
John Epstein, an epidemiologist with the Ecohealth Alliance, said in January that pangolins could be a source of the virus.
Mammals like the pangolin are commonly found in Chinese markets similar to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market -- where 41 of the first cases reportedly originated.
A menu list from a vendor at the market reportedly showed over 100 species for sale. It was called “Wild Game Livestock for the Masses.”
“The vendors are selling illegally poached animals with these licenses in hand," Tian Jiang Ming of the Anti-Poaching Squad, told The Associated Press.
The pangolin is one of the most trafficked mammals in Asia and Africa, with an estimated 116,990 to 233,980 killed between 2011 and 2013, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
They are reportedly in high demand in countries like China and Vietnam, who consider their meat a delicacy. Their scales are routinely used in traditional medicine and folk remedies, the organization said.
"Pangolins eat ants, termites and larvae," the WWF said. "Because they have no teeth, pangolins pick up food with their sticky tongues, which can sometimes reach lengths greater than the animal’s body."
All eight pangolin species are protected under national and international laws, with a treaty of over 180 governments agreeing to end all legal trade of pangolins back in 2016, the organization said.
Even so, they said there is still a growing illegal international trade in pangolins.
At this moment there is a bill pending in Congress called the New Way Forward Act. It’s received almost no publicity, which is unfortunate as well as revealing.
The legislation is sponsored by 44 House Democrats, including Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. At roughly 4,400 words, it’s almost exactly as long as the U.S. Constitution.
Like the Constitution, this legislation is designed to create a whole new country. The bill would entirely remake our immigration system, with the explicit purpose of ensuring that criminals are able to move here, and settle here permanently, with impunity.
You may think we’re exaggerating for effect. We’re not – not even a little.
The New Way Forward act is the most radical single piece of legislation we’ve seen proposed in this country. It makes the Green New Deal look like the status quo.
A document produced by Democrats to promote the bill says: “Convictions … should not lead to deportation.”
Keep in mind, we’re not talking about convictions for double parking. The bill targets felony convictions – serious crimes that send you to prison for years. A press release from Rep., Jesus Garcia, D-Ill., is explicit about this.
Garcia brags that the bill will break the “prison to deportation pipeline.” How does the bill do that? Under current U.S. law, legal U.S. immigrants can be deported if they commit an “aggravated felony” or a “crime of moral turpitude” – that is, a vile, depraved act, like molesting a child. Under the New Way Forward Act, “crimes of moral turpitude” are eliminated entirely as a justification for deportation. And the category of “aggravated felony” gets circumscribed too.
What does that mean?
Consider this: Under current law, immigrants who commit serious crimes – such as robbery, fraud, or child sexual abuse – must be deported, regardless of the sentence they receive. Other crimes – less severe ones like racketeering – require deportation as long as the perpetrator receives at least a one-year sentence.
But if this bill passes the House and Senate and is signed into law by the president, there will no longer be any crimes that automatically require deportation. None.
And one crime – falsifying a passport – will be made immune from deportation, no matter what. Because apparently 9/11 never happened, and we no longer care about fake government documents.
More fro
If you just renewed your driver’s license to comply with the Real ID Act, you must feel like an idiot. Under the proposed legislation, the minimum prison sentence for crimes that still require deportation would rise from one year to five.
We checked the Bureau of Justice Statistics. According to federal data, crimes like car theft, fraud, and weapons offenses all carry average prison sentences of fewer than five years. And that’s just looking at averages. There are people who commit rape, child abuse and even manslaughter and receive sentences of fewer than five years. Lots of them.
If the New Way Forward Act becomes law, immigrants who commit those crimes and receive those sentences would remain in the country. They’ll all be eligible for citizenship one day, too.
But even that is understating the law’s effect. Even a five-year prison sentence won’t necessarily be enough to secure deportation. The bill would grant sweeping new powers to immigration judges, allowing them to nullify a deportation order.
The only requirement is that “the immigration judge finds such an exercise of discretion appropriate in pursuit of humanitarian purposes, to assure family unity, or when it is otherwise in the public interest.” In other words, anti-American immigration judges – and many of them are exactly that – would have a blank check to open the borders. No vote required.
Sound shocking to you? We’re just getting started. Current U.S. law makes drug addiction grounds for deportation, because why wouldn’t it? This bill would eliminate that statute.
Current law also states that those who have committed drug crimes abroad, or any “crimes involving moral turpitude,” are ineligible to immigrate here. The New Way Forward Act abolishes that statute.
A Mexican drug cartel leader could be released from prison, then freely come to America immediately. And if he wants, he could come here illegally, and it wouldn’t be a crime – because, and you were waiting for this, the bill also decriminalizes illegal entry into America, even by those previously deported.
According to a document promoting the bill, criminalizing illegal entry into America is “white supremacist.”
By this point, you’re beginning to wonder if we’re making this up. We’re not. In fact, we’re barely halfway through the bill.
The legislation doesn’t just make it harder to deport legal immigrants who commit crimes. It doesn’t just make it easier for criminals to legally move here. The bill would also effectively abolish all existing enforcement against illegal immigration.
To detain illegal immigrants, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would have to prove in court that the illegal immigrants are dangerous or a flight risk. But of course, ICE wouldn’t be allowed to use a detainee’s prior criminal behavior as proof he or she is dangerous. That's banned.
ICE would have to overcome even more hurdles if the detainee claims to be gay or transgender, under 21, or can’t speak English and an interpreter isn’t immediately available.
In other words, it would be much harder to arrest an illegal alien than it is to arrest you. They’re the protected class here. You’re just some loser who’s paying for it all.
But believe it or not, we saved the nuttiest part for last. What could be more destructive than changing U.S. law, specifically to allow rapists, child molesters, and drug dealers to stay in America? How about this: Using taxpayer money to bring deported criminals back into America.
That’s right. This bill would not only abolish your right to control who lives in your own country, but it invents a new right in return: the “right to come home.”
The bill orders the government to create a “pathway for those previously deported to apply to return to their homes and families in the United States,” as long as they would have been eligible to stay under the new law.
The Department of Homeland Security must spend taxpayer dollars transporting convicted criminal illegal aliens into the United States. Who will be eligible for these free flights? Tens of thousands of people kicked out of this country for all kinds of crimes. Sexual abuse. Robbery. Assault. Drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, human trafficking.
From 2002 to 2018, 480,000 people were deported for illegal entry or reentry into America. And under this bill, you’d have to buy them all a plane ticket to come back. The tickets alone would cost about a billion dollars, and that’s before Democrats make you start paying for these criminals’ free health care, too. Which they plan to.
The New Way Forward Act fundamentally inverts every assumption you have about America. Under this legislation, the criminals are the victims. Law enforcement is illegitimate. It’s racist, just like the country you live in, and the only solution is to get rid of both. America would be better off as a borderless rest area for the world’s worst predators and parasites.
This is a big deal. It’s hard to believe any American would put these ideas on paper, much less pass them into law. Yet, remarkably, the press has ignored it. Scores of Democrats have backed it, but the bill hasn’t been mentioned in The New York Times, or on CNN, or even in self-described conservative outlets like National Review.
If a lone Republican state legislator from Minot, N.D., had proposed a bill this extreme, that would remake America this completely, the president himself would be expected to answer for it.
CNN would demand the president “disavow,” even if he knew nothing about it. But when one-fifth of the Democratic caucus backs a bill demanding that you pay to import illegal alien felons, it’s a non-event in American media. They don’t think you should know about it. That’s dangerous.
Whether the press cares or not, these are the stakes of the 2020 election. A growing wing of the Democratic Party views America as essentially illegitimate – a rogue state, in which everything must be destroyed and remade: our laws, our institutions, our freedoms, our history and our values. That’s the point of all this, of course. An entirely new country, in which resistance is crushed, and they’re in charge forever.
