Three stories this week, one pattern: public money and public land moving to insiders through systems with almost no oversight.
First — a Los Angeles nonprofit took in $118 million in public funds to house homeless people. Prosecutors say $12 million of it went to a nightclub, luxury travel, and vintage cars. But the detail that doesn't make the headline: some of the people the system reported as "housed" were fabricated. Fake welcome letters, forged sign-in sheets, ghost clients created so a fraudster could bill for housing people who were never there. And the nonprofit at the center is now named in two separate LA political corruption cases — one involving a sitting city councilman on trial for 12 felony counts.
Second — California's high-speed rail authority is already $93 billion over its original budget with zero track laid. This week its own inspector general found consultants billed for a nightclub, a cigar lounge, gym trips, and a $40 rideshare for a one-mile trip in downtown Sacramento. The firm that submitted the nightclub bill also employs the CEO's fiancée. When the IG told the agency to require justification for each trip, the agency said it didn't think it should have to. You're funding this project through California's cap-and-trade program — every time you buy gas.
Third — 73% of Californians oppose AI data centers in their communities. This week we look at how those data centers are getting built anyway: through cash-strapped county fairgrounds, 100-year land leases, a six-month-old company whose own subsidiaries aren't registered anywhere, and a state official whose daughter works for the company making the pitch. We also connect a thread no outlet has reported: the rail authority's own revenue recovery plan involves leasing its public land corridor to AI data centers — the exact same play, running through two different arms of California government at the same time.
We also talk about why fear of AI is legitimate, Murray Rothbard's argument from The Progressive Era that when big companies ask to be regulated it's usually to lock out competition, and what True Detective Season 2 got right about California ten years before any of this happened.
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For deeper reading on how California got here: The Gilded State
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