While California lawmakers were busy pushing a totally unconstitutional "Stop Nick Shirley Act" to make his style of investigative journalism punishable by big fines and even jail time, you might have missed out on the story about the state's missing $425 billion that nobody will bother auditing.
It's almost like the totally unconstitutional bill was just a distraction.
Let me repeat that figure — $425 billion — because California was just 30 or 40 billion away from me being able to write "nearly half a TRILLION dollars." I mean, at that level of fraud, 30 or 40 billion is almost a rounding error.
O'Keefe Media Group's Megan Barth reported earlier this month on yet another OMG secret video, this one with Bismarck Obando. Obando does public affairs and serves as press secretary for California’s "top fiscal watchdog," State Controller Malia Cohen.
The OMG report slipped right under my radar on April 7, probably because news that Sacramento couldn't be bothered to audit where taxpayer dollars actually went hardly seemed like news at all. This is the same state that spent $37 billion somehow increasing the number of homeless, so it's clear that the state government merely serves as a conduit between taxpayers and well-connected Democrat groups that provide services that somehow never seem to materialize.
Or as Barth's report put it: "Obando conceded that required audits are falling by the wayside because 'instead of funding us they cut us… they keep cutting our auditing teams.' He added that agencies 'none of them want us to go in there.' When pressed on the Controller’s Office’s ability to perform its core oversight function, Obando stated plainly: 'We just can’t conduct the audits.'"
Watching where the money goes is literally Controller Cohen's only job. If she isn't allowed to do it, that means that the system is performing as designed. If she isn't screaming to high heaven about it, that means she's in on it. No other conclusion fits — particularly when the state's real concern seems to be stopping independent reporters like Nick Shirley from doing even part of Cohen's job for her.
My PJ Media colleague Victoria Taft reported on that bill last week:
California Attorney General Rob Bonta's wife, Mia, a leftist state assembly member, has introduced AB 2624. The bill would fulfill a need that no one needs or asked for except for the professional grifters receiving big dollars from their buddies in government who want to hide it from the media. They want to hide the identities of the people running the programs under the guise of protecting illegal immigrants.
Under the bill, the press would be prevented from any meaningful reporting on the grift through fines, jail time, and orders to remove the content from media outlets.
"It sounds like the actions of tyrants," Victoria added — or like thieves covering their tracks.
What brought the story to my attention this morning was the almost unimaginable scope of the fraud, courtesy of Wall Street Apes on X: "The California State Auditor and Legislative Analyst’s Office have repeatedly flagged delays in financial reporting, even high-risk issues and inaction on audit recommendations," adding up to at least $425 billion in recent years.
"It’s money laundering."
WSA also added, "A California analysis in January 2026 found Democrat lawmakers failed to enact three out of four audit recommendations."
Whatever the fourth one was, it doesn't seem to have worked.
To the tune of $425 billion.
By comparison, I once spent a week looking for a missing twenty. Turned out it was wadded up in the bottom of my jeans pocket, down below where my car keys usually go. No clue how it ended up there, and that still bothers me all these years later.
Sacramento loses more than FOUR HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS, and the whole state — government, voters, all of it — is basically one giant shrug emoji.
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