Tim Pierce

They said that the regulation seemed a huge overreach that was likely to be struck down.

And Roberts also said that the costs were extreme, nearly half a trillion dollars.

And he and Alito were both concerned that the Obama EPA was actually trying to run around the court because of an incident two years before.

But by doing this, the court set a new precedent that now effectively results in dozens of significant decisions every year without the full deliberative process.

Now, that's The Times' version, but SCOTUS blog editor Sarah Isker pointed out that the court had used the shadow docket in 2013 and 2014 to stop a ban on same-sex marriage in Utah, as well as an abortion ban in Texas.

Unlike in a Times story, in both of those cases, the rulings please the left rather than the right, like in the Clean Power Plan case.

Yet a report details massive, systemic, brazen fraud in California.

The state has an annual budget of $300 billion, but since Gavin Newsom became governor in 2019, this report suggests that the state has lost at least $180 billion to fraud.

And this fraud isn't just stealing from California taxpayers, but from taxpayers all over the U.S.,

For instance, according to Heywood Talcove, a fraud specialist and CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions for Government, California ran one of the most corrupt unemployment insurance programs in the country during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unemployment is administered by each state, but part of the funding for it comes from the federal government.

In California, the fraud was so bad that a Memphis rapper that goes by the name Nuke Bizzle released a song about making money off it.

He later pleaded guilty to stealing $700,000 from California's unemployment insurance program.

Yeah, it's a good question.

It's not something that has been looked into by any outlet or investigator at the Scope City Journal is right now.

Part of the reason for that could be because the people in power in California benefit from keeping the state's welfare rules loose and its programs bloated.

Here's Rufo explaining that on a recent episode of the Daily Wire's Friendly Fire.

So while officials recognize that these programs are rife with fraud, their political allies are also benefiting greatly from the money that these programs pay out.

Yeah, it could spell a lot of trouble for the California governor.

Now, we should note that City Journal is not an unbiased investigator here.