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:

more @

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2026/04/21/oops-california-lost-425-billion-and-the-audit-starts-never-n4952005