What an Ash-Hole
Traci Kornak, the beleaguered and bedraggled former treasurer of the Michigan Democratic Party, keeps digging herself deeper.
Kornak is the subject of multiple investigations into the alleged looting of her court-appointed ward, a brain-damaged old lady.
That old lady, Rose Burd, died last April. Rose’s sister wants to know where her sister’s money went. But she also wants to know what’s happened to Rose’s remains.
“Rosey wanted a Catholic funeral,” said her sister, Debbie Valenti, by telephone. “She wanted to be buried in the cemetery next to her first husband. Her name is already engraved on the headstone.”
Kornak, who was supposed to manage Rose’s finances in her capacity as legal conservator, showed up to the funeral services last year with a box full of ashes. Rose had been cremated, a much cheaper and less reverent alternative to a casket.
“Kornak told us we’d have to pay for the burial, because there was no more money in Rosey’s accounts,” said Valenti. “Then she took the ashes with her.”
Typically, burying ashes on a family plot costs no more than a few hundred dollars. Kornak did not return phone calls seeking comment.
The family has since retrieved the remains of their sister, Rose Burd. Stunned by the scope of the Kornak scandal, the family is discussing their next steps, said Valenti.
Run for the Border
The food at Leo’s Coney Island in Ypsilanti is so tasty that a man might find himself wandering 2,500 miles through thicket and dust to quench his hankering for the famed tuna on rye, pickle on the side.
And so it seems with Issam Bazzi, who used to work at Leo’s until he was swept up by ICE last July and deported back to Venezuela.
Bazzi, 53, is a Hezbollah-linked financier who crossed the southern border in 2021. While detained in Texas, Bazzi’s name came back as a positive hit on the FBI Terror Watch List. Biden let him move to Dearborn, anyway, the first known instance of a terror watch list resident knowingly being let into the U.S.
Bazzi was given a social security number, a driver’s license, and permission to work at Leo’s. Then Trump got elected and Bazzi got a one-way ticket back to Caracas.
Now DHS sources tell me Bazzi in on their radar again. He was pinged last week as being in Chiapas, Mexico. Bazzi might be making his way back to Michigan, said a U.S. security official.
“Somebody should tell the guy that even if he makes it past mosquitoes and the cartels, he is not getting back in,” the official said.
Somebody should save Señor Bazzi the trouble of the journey and tell him about DoorDash.
Kwame Accounting
Kwame Kilpatrick is long gone, but the Detroit Police Department still uses his accounting practices.
For the seventh year in a row, Detroit City Hall and Police brass held an event to push the glorious headline: Fewest homicides in Detroit since the 1960s!
The audience erupted in applause! Just 165 people killed!
But the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office determines cause of death, and they put the 2025 homicide count at 186.
The cops took a 10% death discount.
Since Kilpatrick became mayor in the early 2000s, the police department—hungry for headlines—has backed out homicide victims whose deaths were determined to be “justified.”
The FBI allows this, but it requires those homicides to be counted and reported.
Since the FBI began collecting crime data in 1930, the DPD never engaged in this “justifiable” sleight of hand, not in 1965, not in 1985, not until the Kwamster came to power.
So what gives? The answer is as simple as 2 + 2 = 5.
Charlie LeDuff is a reporter educated in public schools. Follow him on X @Charlieleduff.
