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Our last story is heaped with hope for future generations. Yesterday, the San Diego Union Tribune ran a super encouraging citizen-journalist story headlined, “Two San Diego teens investigated their high school foundation’s finances. Then one got called in to the principal.” The sub-headline skeptically added, “The school principal and foundation blasted the report as untrue but didn't identify anything specifically wrong in the students' findings.”
Alert student Kevin Wang, 17, a Canyon Crest High School senior, became annoyed after twenty-five percent of his robotics club’s fund-raising was ‘taxed’ to the school’s foundation. Even worse, at the end of each school year, the foundation further taxed the club thirty-four percent of its total annual revenue.
So Kevin and his classmate Litong Tian, 17, decided to question authority. The duo dug through public records, including the foundation’s Forms 990 disclosures, combed its annual audited financial statements, reviewed its website and bylaws, as flyspecked robotics club’s financial spreadsheets. The pair interviewed Canyon Crest students and coaches, and compared everything to other schools in the school district.
“What I found was, like, really shocking, and it just kept building up,” Kevin concluded.
Last week, the two sleuthing students published their results in a 15-page report, on a website titled “Ravens for Transparency.” Among other things, they found that the so-called charitable foundation failed to disclose its executive director salaries —required by law— and buried substantial costs ($3.5 million over 12 years) in a murky “other expenses” category.
According to Kevin’s report, for some unknown reason, administrative expenses for his school’s foundation run over twice as high as all other schools in the district. And they also found a former foundation president who agreed with them:
CCAF's Former President
A former president of the CCA Foundation's board contacted us by email to express her support for
our original report. She criticized the principal's response to our criticisms, and also alleged that the
former Executive Director ignored concerns and campaigned to remove members of the Foundation
who disagreed with her.
In their rebuttal to the foundation’s hyperbolic objections, the students described a recent school board meeting, in which nearly all parent commenters supported their work and requested reforms—except for one deranged parent who called them ‘fascists.’
For the record, Kevin and Litong deny being fascists.
These so-called charitable tax-exempt organizations, like all the D.E.I. NGO’s and the ‘get out the vote’ groups, are where you find all the graft and corruption these days. I believe that government should be banned from giving grants to nonprofits. Let taxpayers donate to nonprofits voluntarily, if they like what the nonprofits are doing.
The George Soros-funded leftist propaganda outlet Media Matters is reportedly moving to buy Alex Jones’s InfoWars.
The courts recently ordered a forced sell-off of InfoWars to pay off huge legal debts after Jones and his outlet were thrashed with waves of lawsuits.
A Texas judge ruled the outlet could be liquidated to pay the families of the victims of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Texas and Connecticut courts ruled that Jones must pay the families $1.5 billion in damages for reporting on theories that the shooting was staged.
I still don't understand why Jones is being fined anything at all. Do we have free speech or don't we?
“Covid” became the Great Event of Our Times between January and March 2020, meaning that the world’s best and brightest have now had almost five years to prove their academic or scientific importance.
If a faculty meeting like this occurred at any college, the colleges’ public relations staffers didn’t send out a press release. (Note: The names are made up.)
Dean of College School X (Let’s call him John): “Esteemed colleagues, as you all know, a killer respiratory virus is said to be spreading throughout the world and the public is counting on us to tell them the truth about this virus and how society should respond to it.”
Science Professor Albert: “John, first, thank you for calling this very important faculty meeting. The first question that occurs to me is what if the virus isn’t deadly? What if Fauci and Birx are inflating the alleged risks?”
John: “Well, that’s what we need to find out.”
A professor named Tom asks a question: “Can’t we perform some inquiries - use all our collective expertise - and find out if the risk is perhaps wildly inflated?”
President of University: “Well, Tom, that’s why we’re here. The truth is the truth and all of us are committed to finding it and reporting it to the people. That’s why we became professors in the first place.”
In this imaginary scenario, the room might explode with exclamations of “Hear! Hear!” Without question, a “search for truth” is what motivated these professors to become professors.
Alas, In the Real Academic World, here’s what would have been said:
“… What the hell?”
“… Are you crazy, man?”
“… Do you know who pays our salaries and provides us all these great benefits?’
“… Aren’t we in these positions to support the policies of the Establishment and our benefactors?”
Chorus from those in the room:
“…. Right!”
“…. Guys, we’ve got a good deal going here. Why risk it?”
“… How are we going to keep getting grants and getting our papers published if we challenge views we’re not supposed to challenge?”
“… John, I must ask why you even called this meeting. Please tell me nobody is taking minutes.”
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"Stern and lasting message" my ass. Only life in prison will do. Singapore is a much better country than the US in this way.