Reality Is Stranger than Fiction, California is Jacked Up & Mortgage Fraud is Too – Top 3 Takeaways, August 21st, 2025
Takeaway #1: You can’t make this up
While doing my usual due diligence investigating the world’s events yesterday, I came across these two stories, and these two headlines simultaneously. The first headline: ICE detains dad who previously had green card after 44 years in US. Now, clearly the headline to the story “ICE detains dad” was designed to achieve a certain sympathy, correct? As was the one-time green card and 44 years in the U.S. But wait there’s much more... The Newsweek story starts out like this: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained California man Chuong Dong... Hmm, ok. California man. I’m a little curious. How many “California men” or “Florida men” or say “Maryland men” need green cards? How many men of those states are detained by ICE for deportation? Actually, I suppose if you were say, a Florida man in California, you might ask ICE to deport you back to a state that resembled the United States of America. So anyway, the story eventually goes on to say that the reason that Vietnam national Chuong Dong was detained by ICE and is scheduled for deportation was due to his green card having been revoked because he’s a two-time convicted felon – having been found guilty of robbery and while on probation of burglary. Oh, and there’s been a longstanding deportation order issued by a judge for him. But again, Chuong Dong is just your everyday California dad who’s getting the shaft from the Trump administration, right? Oh, in case your concerned about this good ‘ole Cali man – he's got a friend who’s making a personal appeal to Governor Gavin Newsom to keep him here. And literally the next headline, the next story I came across was this: Nonbinary Yosemite Biologist Who Hung a Transgender Pride Flag From El Capitan Has Been Fired. Well, there’s someone who spent a little too much time with a chemistry set. And can you even imagine telling one of your friends about this story the way that it’s positioned with a straight face? Hey Bob, did you hear about the nonbinary Yosemite biologist who hung a Transgender Pride Flag from El Capitan? Yeah – they, it(?) was fired. But yes, based on the GSS news media you’re also supposed to be outraged that in Donald Trump’s America a self-identifying gender indeterminate park ranger hanging tranny flags inside the park was fired. The premise is almost as absurd as a local city defying the law, and traffic safety protocols, to place homosexual propaganda at a busy intersection...and then to legally fight for it...oh wait.
Takeaway #2: But wait...there’s more
Each day this week we’ve learned a little bit more about Harjinder Singh, the illegal immigrant who’d been granted a CDL by California and recently killed three Floridians while making an illegal U-Turn on the Turnpike. Prior to yesterday we’d learned that Singh was an Indian national who entered Mexico to cross the Southern border illegally in 2018. When he was quickly apprehended by Border Patrol, Singh was set for immediate deportation, but claimed “fear” of returning to India and a left-wing judge let him stay for a $5,000 bond while his asylum case was processed. He then applied for a work permit, but the Trump administration rejected it. In 2021, with Joe Biden as president, he applied again and he got one. He then used that federal work permit to apply for a CDL which he was given in California. And that takes us to the newest developments. As it turns out it wasn’t just California who issued Singh a commercial driver’s license but Washington state too. And what’s more is what was discovered by authorities when they tested his competency following his arrest. Singh could barely speak or read any English in failing an English proficiency test – a requirement to obtain a CDL. What’s more is that he was only able to correctly identify the meaning of a quarter of posted traffic signs. That’s another part of the CDL test. So not only is there no way that Singh could have possibly passed the test to qualify for a CDL when he was granted one in 2021, he was given a CDL he could have never qualified for from two different left-wing sanctuary states...which not only fills in additional blanks about the Turnpike case and the deadly illegal U-turn that was attempted, but introduces no shortage of questions about the view of the possible problems stemming from CDL practices in poorly governed states. The Trump administration had already begun a nationwide auditing of CDL’s to see if there were issues with abuse, but now with the additional information, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has launched an official investigation into the failures in California and Washington. Quoting Duffy: We will use every tool at our disposal to hold these states and bad actors accountable. And that’s what’s desperately needed here...accountability within these incompetent and unlawfully run sanctuary states and cities.
Takeaway #3: Oh...Schiff
As California Senator Adam Schiff is building a “legal defense fund”, as he faces federal charges for a multi-decade, mortgage fraud scheme...it appears that in the federal government he’s got additional company (beyond New York Attorney General Letitia James). Biden-appointed Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook (one of the people who votes on what happens with monetary policy and interest rates) is also under a formal investigation for alleged mortgage fraud. Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte said that similar to Schiff, Cook falsified mortgage applications to claim primary residences, with multiple properties, in multiple states to obtain better terms. He said it was an obvious case of mortgage fraud and called on Cook to resign. The implications here are many as are apparently the number of Democrats in public life who’ve engaged in mortgage fraud.