Tag: taxes

Tor Project received $2.5M from the US government to bolster privacy

The US government contributed over $2.5 million to the Tor Project in its 2023–2024 fiscal year, marking a continued but reduced financial relationship with the privacy-focused nonprofit.

The funds represent 35% of Tor’s $7.28 million in reported revenue, according to newly released financial disclosures.

The funding, primarily sourced through the US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), supports multiple high-impact projects aimed at strengthening internet freedom, especially in regions experiencing heavy censorship. The largest single contributor was DRL, providing $2.12 million. These funds were allocated across several major initiatives, including expanding Tor access in China, Hong Kong, and Tibet; developing a Tor-based VPN client for Android; combating malicious Tor relays; and migrating core network infrastructure to a more secure Rust-based implementation (Arti).

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‘German’ Globalist Authoritarianism: Berlin Migrant Housing Costs Skyrocket to Nearly €1 Billion, Tripling Since 2020

Berlin—Germany’s far-left globalist capital—has seen its migrant housing bill explode, becoming a symbol of everything Germans, particularly the AfD, warned about but which most chose to ignore.

Newly released government figures have revealed the capital spent nearly €900 million ($9.8 million) in 2024 alone to house migrants, many of which do not have any kind of status in the country, almost triple the cost from just four years earlier, Die Welt reports.

Internal Senate data confirms that accommodation expenses for foreign nationals reached €883 million last year, compared with €312 million in 2020, an increase of 183%.
The numbers expose the real cost of mass migration policies pushed by Berlin’s left-liberal globalist political class.

Mega-sites like Tegel and Tempelhof have become financial black holes for German workers. Tegel alone swallowed roughly €260 million ($280 million) in 2024, more than many German cities spend on public services altogether.

These costs arrive as Berlin plunges deeper into debt and slashes funding elsewhere—and as other German cities are headed toward insolvency, according to some sources. Universities, cultural institutions, transport projects, and basic city services are all being cut to patch a budget hole nearing €3 billion.

Between 2022 and 2025, total spending on migrant accommodation, care, and so-called integration nearly doubled to €2.24 billion. At one point, city leaders even discussed declaring a financial emergency to unlock special loans to cover the costs.

Now the ruling, anti-European, globalist CDU–SPD coalition claims the costs are “manageable,” setting aside up to €870 million annually in reserve funds for 2026 and 2027, while German pensioners go broke and middle-class lifestyles are increasingly out of reach for young people. For ordinary Germans facing rent hikes and service cuts, that reassurance rings hollow, obviously.

For years, Berlin prioritized migrant housing while native citizens were priced out of their own neighborhoods. Luxury container villages and converted hotels appeared, enriching owners willing to make shady government deals, while Germans sat quietly in line for the ever-shrinking social housing stock.

Only recently has the globalist, anti-German coalition paused plans for new migrant facilities, quietly admitting the system is destroying the German taxpayer. This comes after approving projects like a container complex for over 1,000 asylum seekers just months earlier.

There is one statistic officials now eagerly highlight, claiming new arrivals dropped in 2024. Berlin took in ‘just’ over 21,000 migrants last year, about a third fewer than in 2023.
That decline continued into 2025, with roughly 11,700 arrivals recorded by October. But even with fewer newcomers, the financial burden remains crushing. The damage has been done.

As of mid-November, nearly 37,000 people were still housed in state-run migrant facilities. They occupy emergency shelters, container units, dormitories, hotels, hostels, and former office buildings across the city.

Meanwhile, homelessness among Germans is rising, and working families are being pushed out of urban housing markets. The false promise that mass immigration would pay for itself has collapsed under the weight of hard numbers.

Public opinion is shifting fast, and voters are no longer buying the slogans. Polls show growing resistance to both legal and illegal immigration nationwide.

The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the only party that has long warned that unchecked migration would drain public finances,destroy social cohesion, and make Germany and Europe weaker. Berlin’s €900 million migrant housing bill now stands as proof that the AfD was right all along.

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Maryland to consider slavery reparations after Gov. Wes Moore’s veto is overridden

Maryland will create a commission to study potential reparations for slavery after lawmakers voted Tuesday to override a veto by Gov. Wes Moore — currently the nation’s only Black governor — that disappointed many fellow Democrats.

Moore said in his veto letter in May that it was a difficult decision to veto the bill, which was a priority of the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland. But he wrote there has been enough study of the legacy of slavery, and it was now time to “focus on the work itself” to address it.

But Democrats who control both chambers of the Maryland General Assembly decided the commission was needed to better examine how to do that.

“This topic isn’t easy, but, again, without formal study, reparations risk being dismissed as symbolic or unconstitutional, regardless of moral merit,” said Sen. Charles Sydnor, a Democrat.

After his veto was overridden, Moore said that while he disagrees with the legislature’s decision, “I am eager to move forward in partnership on the work of repair that we all agree is an urgent and pressing need.”

“I believe the time for action is now — and we must continue moving forward with the work of repair immediately,” Moore said in a statement. “That mission is especially vital given the immediate and ongoing effects of this federal administration on our constituents, including communities that have been historically left behind.”

Potential reparations outlined in the bill include official statements of apology, monetary compensation, property tax rebates, social service assistance, as well as licensing and permit fee waivers and reimbursement. Reparations also could include assistance with making a down payment on a home, business incentives, childcare, debt forgiveness and tuition payment waivers for higher education.

Maryland’s Black population is about 30%, the highest percentage of any state outside of the Deep South.

Support for reparations gained momentum in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. However, the issue has been a difficult one, particularly for high-profile Democrats, and comes amid a broader conservative backlash over how race, history and inequality are handled in public institutions.

“At a time of growing attacks on diversity and equity, today’s action reaffirms our shared commitment to truth-telling, accountability, and meaningful progress for Black Marylanders,” the state’s Legislative Black Caucus said in a statement.

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Ed Department: Nearly 2,000 Minnesota ‘Ghost Students’ Fraudulently Received $12.5 Million

In Minnesota, home to the largest population of Somali immigrants in the U.S. and the site of numerous fraud investigations, fraudsters received $12.5 million in student loan and education grant money, according to a letter Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

The letter calls on Walz to resign, and states that a new fraud prevention system at the department has found over $1 billion in “attempted financial aid theft,” including by international fraud rings and artificial intelligence (AI) bots.

“[Y]our careless lack of oversight and abuse of the welfare system has attracted fraudsters from around the world, especially from Somalia, to establish a beachhead of criminality in our country,” McMahon wrote. “As President Trump put it, you have turned Minnesota into a ‘fraudulent hub of money laundering activity.’”

“At the beginning of this year, the U.S. Department of Education became aware that fraudulent college applicants, especially concentrated in Minnesota, were gaming the federal postsecondary education system to collect money that was intended for young Americans to help them afford college,” she said.

McMahon referred to the fraudsters as “‘ghost students’ because they were not ID-verified and often did not live in the United States, or they simply did not exist,” and noted that, “[i]n Minnesota, 1,834 ghost students were found to have received 12.5 million in taxpayer-funded grants and loans.”

They “collected checks from the federal government, shared a small portion of the money with the college, and pocketed the rest–without attending the college at all,” according to the letter.

The letter comes after Somalis in Minnesota, in particular, have been exposed as having massively defrauded American taxpayers. They have even reportedly funded terrorists back in their country.

The news surrounding Somali fraud includes allegations of multiple scams, including claims that an autism “provider” enrolled Somali children who did not have an autism diagnosis in a welfare fraud scheme.

The outrage, among many other cultural problems with Somalis, has resulted in President Donald Trump intending to cancel some Somalis’ temporary protected status.

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How fears of being labeled ‘racist’ helped ‘provide cover’ for the exploding Minnesota fraud scandal

In the aftermath of the massive Feeding Our Future scandal and broader allegations of systemic fraud in Minnesota’s social programs, a troubling theme has emerged: accusations of racism repeatedly used to deflect scrutiny, intimidate investigators and stall accountability. 

Rumors and reports of fraud in Minneapolis, primarily within the city’s exploding Somali community, have been circulating for at least a decade, but criticism of the fraud has been largely dismissed by elected Democrats as “racist” or being underpinned by animosity toward foreigners. News stories focused on Somali fraudsters in recent years were shot down as “racist.”

“The whole story kind of died under these accusations that people were being racist,” Bill Glahn, policy fellow with Center of the American Experiment, told Fox News Digital. “Oh, maybe somebody stole a little bit here, a little bit there, but there’s nothing systemic going on.”

Former assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Teirab, who helped take on federal prosecutions in the Feeding Our Future case, described to Fox News Digital how individuals implicated in fraud leaned on racial accusations as a shield. According to Teirab, suspects explicitly invoked race during a secretly recorded meeting with Attorney General Keith Ellison, asserting that investigators were targeting them “only because of race.”

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Senate Advances $900 BILLION Defense Spending Bill with Military Aid to Ukraine

The US Senate on Monday voted to end the filibuster and advance the National Defense Authorization Act to a final vote. 

The bipartisan vote, 76-20, invoked cloture on the bill, bringing it one step closer to final passage, which could still take days.

Still, some lawmakers seek to amend the bill further, which would then require House passage before landing on the President’s desk.

Senator Ted Cruz, who showed no concern about Ukraine funding or other unnecessary provisions, has called for an amendment to restrict military aircraft at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), following the deadly crash between a female helicopter pilot and a passenger airplane in January.

The presidential hopeful released a campaign-style video of himself at a Monday press conference, calling for the rewriting of Section 373 of the bill and its replacement with his ROTR Act to add more protections for aviation safety in the bill’s language.

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Why are we paying Canadian dairy farmers who are producing more?

Every once in a while, someone inside a tightly protected system decides to say the quiet part out loud. That is what Joel Fox, a dairy farmer from the Trenton, Ontario area, did recently in the Ontario Farmer newspaper. In a candid open letter, Fox questioned why established dairy farmers like himself continue to receive increasingly large government payouts — even though the sector is not shrinking, but expanding. His piece, titled “We continue to privatize gains, socialize losses,” did not come from an economist or a critic of supply management. It came from someone who benefits from it. And yet his message was unmistakable: the numbers no longer add up.

Fox’s letter marks something we have not seen in years — a rare moment of internal dissent from a system that usually speaks with one voice. It is the first meaningful crack since the viral milk-dumping video by Ontario dairy farmer Jerry Huigen, who filmed himself being forced to dump thousands of litres of perfectly good milk because of quota rules. Huigen’s video exposed contradictions inside supply management, but the system quickly closed ranks. Until now. Fox has reopened a conversation that has been dormant for far too long.

In his letter, Fox admitted he would cash his latest $14,000 Dairy Direct Payment Program (DDPP) cheque, despite believing the program wastes taxpayer money. The DDPP was created to offset supposed losses from trade agreements like CETA, CPTPP, and CUSMA. These deals were expected to reduce Canada’s dairy market. But those “losses” are theoretical — based on models and assumptions about future erosion in market share. Meanwhile, domestic dairy demand has strengthened.

Which raises the obvious question: why are we compensating dairy farmers for producing less when they are, in fact, producing more?

This month, dairy farmers received another 1% quota increase, on top of several increases totalling 4% to 5% in recent years. Quota — the right to produce milk — only increases when more supply is needed. If trade deals had truly devastated the sector, quota would be falling, not rising. Instead, Canada’s population has grown by nearly six million since 2015, processors have expanded, and consumption remains stable. The market is expanding.

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Waste of the Day: Senators Earmarked Cash for Their Former Schools

Topline: Nearly every university relies on donations from its former students, but those with alumni in the Senate can solicit money straight from taxpayers’ wallets.

Twenty-four U.S. senators requested earmarks in the 2026 federal budget for the colleges they attended as students, totaling $614 million, according to Open the Books’ audit of congressional disclosures.

Some of the earmarks have been removed during congressional debate, but others will make their way into the final appropriations bill Congress must pass before Jan. 31 to avoid another government shutdown.

Key facts: The 125 earmarks are spread across 21 states.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) stands out with $165 million in requests, far more than any other senator. McConnell once supported a complete ban on earmarks but has recently become one of the GOP’s most pork-hungry senators, with 60 requests filed this year.

McConnell asked for four earmarks worth $100 million for the University of Louisville, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in 1964, and three earmarks worth $65 million for the University of Kentucky, where he graduated law school. Some of the money would be used to build “state-of-the art” research facilities and buy “high-end” lab equipment.

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) requested the second most money with $60 million for the University of Kansas and its hospital.

Sen. Jim Justice (R-WV) asked for nine separate earmarks totaling $57.5 million for Marshall University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree and Master of Business Administration.

Justice, once the richest man in West Virginia according to Forbes, previously donated $5 million of his own money to Marshall University. Today he has a net worth of “less than zero,” per Forbes, because of crippling debt and liabilities.

He has spent the last few years funneling government funds to Marshall University instead of using his personal wealth. As governor of West Virginia, he gave the school $45 million for a cybersecurity program and $14 million for a baseball stadium.

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Minnesota Gets New Fraud Czar Amid Somali Welfare Scandal

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Friday named Tim O’Malley the state’s director of program integrity, tapping the judge and former superintendent of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to root out fraud in government.

O’Malley, who also worked as an FBI agent and spearheaded reforms in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, will be involved across agencies to oversee that taxpayer funds are not misappropriated.

Walz also announced a partnership with WayPoint Inc., a Minnesota firm made up of former law enforcement and federal agents focused on forensic accounting and investigations.  They will develop a comprehensive fraud-prevention strategy for the state.

Walz said he was proud O’Malley would be working to protect Minnesota taxpayers from fraud in government programs.

“Today we are building on the work of the last several years and strengthening Minnesota’s defenses against fraud,” Walz said.

“If you commit fraud in Minnesota, you will be caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

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British Police Will NOT Investigate Former Prince Andrew’s Alleged Use of Taxpayer-Funded Security Officer To Dig Dirt on His Accuser, Late Epstein Victim Virginia Giuffre

Randy Andy is still protected from prosecution.

Now that Former Prince Andrew lost all his royal titles and honors, you could be excused for believing that he was finally about to face real law enforcement consequences for his decades of alleged crimes.

But you’d be wrong.

The British establishment is still fiercely protective of Mr. Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.

Today (13), it arises that the Metropolitan Police of London will not launch an investigation into the reports saying Andrew asked a taxpayer-funded officer to help dig up dirt on the woman who accused him of sexual assault.

Sky News reported:

“The Mail on Sunday claimed in October that Andrew tried to get his personal protection officer to investigate Virginia Giuffre for a smear campaign in 2011.

He reportedly passed Ms. Giuffre’s date of birth and social security number to his taxpayer-funded bodyguard in 2011 and emailed the late Queen’s then-deputy press secretary telling him of his request.”

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