Yesterday I got a robocall promoting Xanthi Gionis, a candidate for CA's 40th state senate district in the special election this week, and so decided to check her out. Though the call boasted that she was the only candidate with an "A rating by the NRA," Gionis's story was much worse than I expected. This Tea Party affiliate -has recently been accused of fraud for running a diploma-mill fake university ripping off third-world students,-has had her "Aristotle University" shut down by the state -is under investigation by Homeland Security -has had at least one ex-teacher go on-camera to say Gionis borrowed money for the campaign (for my robocall?) and won't pay it back,-threatened her students with deportation if they didn't pay their tuition on time,-is running around saying all of the above are "personal attacks" likes she's the victim , and-couldn't even get the endorsement of the Republican party this time; she's running as an independent.

It's really hard to watch the plaintive testimony of one of her students, who came all the way from Ghana and lost his life savings, without thinking that Xanthi Gionis is a major-league scumbag; hopefully she'll soon be a convicted felon and/or the target of a major lawsuit, too; I can't see any way that charges won't be brought against her or that her ex-students don't have an open-and-shut case. Her website falsely claimed the school was accredited, it showed a large modern building as the "university" when in fact the whole school was a one-room office, the instruction was often limited to sitting around and watching videos, and now it's been shut down for not even having a license.