Tag: taxes

California Has Gay-Certification Program To Tap Into $633 Million For “LGBT” Businesses

Americans are used to handouts for favored groups. Affirmative action in university admissions, corporate “diversity” initiatives, and minority-owned contracting requirements direct opportunities, resources, and contracts to supposedly “oppressed” groups, such as women, Native Americans, blacks, and Hispanics.

In California, state Democrats have embraced another kind of favoritism: contracts for state-certified gay-owned businesses.

The scheme operates through the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which regulates privately owned utility companies. California utilities spent more than $43 billion in 2024 on contractors—fuel suppliers, surveyors, engineers, and others—whose work helps deliver water, gas, electricity, and internet service to California’s 39 million residents.

In 1986, Governor George Deukmejian signed Assembly Bill 3678, which required certain CPUC-regulated utilities to submit annual “plans” for buying goods and services from woman- and minority-owned companies. Two years later, CPUC created its “Supplier Diversity Program,” which would enforce the law and set contracting “goals” for large utilities.

Under a series of Democratic governors, the program has expanded to include gay-owned businesses. In September 2014, then-Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation requiring CPUC to recognize “LGBT-owned businesses” as eligible for supplier-diversity benefits. Five years later, Governor Gavin Newsom expanded the program further, “encouraging” other companies involved in the energy sector to award contracts to gay-owned firms.

In the years that followed, CPUC faced activist pressure as it implemented the gay expansion. BuildOUT California, a since-rebranded LGBT building-industry organization, sent a letter to the commission arguing that “homophobia” existed within “the ranks of the utility companies.” The state’s legislative LGBTQ caucus suggested in a 2021 letter that even considering lower gay-procurement targets was “an insult to the LGBTQ+ community.”

By 2022, CPUC had fully implemented the expansion. In practice, this meant establishing a “goal” for utility companies with annual revenues exceeding $25 million to buy things from state-certified LGBT businesses: 0.5 percent of procurement in 2022; 1 percent in 2023; and 1.5 percent in 2024 and beyond. If “large” CPUC-regulated utilities met these “goals” in 2024, they would have sent roughly $633 million to LGBT-owned firms.

This scheme raises an obvious question: How does a business qualify as officially gay? Paperwork. Supplier Clearinghouse, a group that certifies firms for the CPUC program, features a list of qualifications linked on its website. Applicants can secure certification by providing a letter from an “LGBT organization” attesting to their sexual preferences; proof that a newspaper identified them as “LGBT”; or three letters from “personal contacts” written “on company letterhead” attesting to their homosexual orientation. Corporate officials who “falsely represent” their business as gay face up to a year in county jail.

Supplier Clearinghouse also accepts gay-certification letters from the National LGBTQ+ & Allied Chamber of Commerce. The chamber has its own list of accepted documents, including human resources complaints or police records claiming LGBT discrimination. As NGLCC states on its website, “Certification is a journey, not a destination.”

Mary Ann Horton has experienced this “journey” firsthand. Horton, an early internet pioneer credited with helping develop the e-mail attachment, is a white male who “transitioned” and is now married to a woman. Horton’s company, Red Ace, is registered in California as a woman- and LGBT-owned business.

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The Wish List Of The New York City Council For The City Budget

The deadline for the New York City deadline for the first budget negotiation cycle is looming for June 30, 2026. The elephant in the china shop is how to close the city’s budget gap projected to reach into the multi-billions of dollars. Thanks to Albany’s bailout which mitigated the impending financial disaster, Mayor Zhoran Mamdani was able to avoid raising property taxes. Nonetheless, the City Council giddily advocates significant NEW spending initiatives. Taxpayers from New York State have facilitated Mamdani’s proposing a $124.7 billion dollar executive budget.

Will the Big Apple expand its Rental Voucher program? Currently the 2023 eligibility rules are in force, although some council members desire an expansion. The mayor already campaigned on expansion but dropped that promise when he realized the prohibitive costs. Any expansion would necessarily exceed the current almost $1.8 billion budget. This contentious issue promises to be a potential sticking point in budget negotiations.

Low income public transportation riders already enjoy a 50% discount, but some council members are proposing up to $135 Million dollar more to make those fares free. Were this initiative to be passed the standing $96 Million dollar would double. However, the IBO (Independent Budget Office) underscores that a Fair Fare expansion would still be cheaper than “Fast and Free” buses.

In what seems to many as counterintuitive, the council, charged with living within budget constraints, still envisions staff increases rather than staff reductions which would add $32 Million over the next three years.

In a point of contention, Mayor Mamdani had initially proposed to cut 100 positions for Parks Enforcement Patrol officers. The council, on the other hand, desires to employ 200 new officers which would raise the budget allocation by about $40 Million.

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Failing Hollywood Wants a Bailout From Taxpayers and Adam Schiff is Trying to Give it to Them

Just yesterday, it was reported that Hollywood insiders fear the city is turning into the next Detroit. Movie and TV productions are talking their business to other, more attractive locations with fewer rules and better tax rates.

In response to this, Adam Schiff and other lawmakers want to give Hollywood a federal tax subsidy. In other words, they want taxpayers to bail out Hollywood.

Why should average Americans who have nothing to do with the entertainment industry have to help Hollywood fix a problem that they are causing for themselves?

Reason reports:

Adam Schiff Wants Federal Tax Credits for Movie and TV Production

Eager to cut costs, studios increasingly shoot films and TV shows overseas. Unsurprisingly, one lawmaker thinks the government should help.

“Los Angeles has been the world’s entertainment capital for 100 years and still has an unmatched concentration of talent and infrastructure,” Gene Maddaus writes at Variety. “But in an age of globalization, with easy international travel and communication, the city is losing its edge.”

While still synonymous with the entertainment industry, fewer and fewer projects are actually filmed in Hollywood.

The problem primarily comes down to cost. “Everything costs more in L.A., starting with labor, due to the high cost of living and elaborate union agreements,” Maddaus writes. “Other states and countries have developed crew bases of their own, are more solicitous of producers’ needs and offer more generous incentives.”…

“In order to save this industry in America, we need to be competitive with tax credits,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D–Calif.) told Variety. Schiff wants a federal film production tax credit; he said in March he had “largely drafted” a bill but that he needed bipartisan support.

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California Gay Business Certification Another Dem Lurch to the Prog Fringe

Our jumping off point is a real doozy, even by California lunatic fringe standards. Had I not read it on one of our sister sites, I probably would have triple-checked it. This is from my Townhall colleague Joseph Chalfant:

A new report from the City Journal revealed the “LGBTBE Certification” process that individuals must go through should they wish to receive preferential treatment in the taxpayer-funded contract bidding process in the state of California.

For those who haven’t updated their Victim Group Alphabet Soup glossaries, LGBTBE stands for “LGBT Business Enterprise.” I don’t know why the “++” was left out or how the “Q” was dropped. Perhaps they were lost during one of the many times that the goal posts were being moved. 

Check out all of Joseph’s post. The state of California requires extensive documentation for businesses to prove that they are gay enough for gay contract money. That’s rich coming from a state that insists that asking for identification to vote is racist and disenfranchises people. 

Don’t they care about gay business owners who may not be able to provide “Proof of domestic partnership health insurance utilization” or any of the other proof of gayness documents that the Golden State wants before it signs any checks?

There are some old school elders of the village in the Democratic Party who freely admit that the party has lost its way on so many issues, most notable among them being former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. He’s exploring a run for president in 2028 and hopes to get his party to focus on issues that matter to regular Americans. 

His party doesn’t seem to be paying attention. Nobody on the left is, they all just keep rushing headlong to the far left edges of the Milky Way galaxy. 

The “you will be made to care” agenda regarding all things LGBTQ++ is still in full swing and continues to manifest itself in ways that would indicate nothing but complete disdain for anything that even glances toward the center. 

Recently, Major League Baseball forced its players to wear caps that had Pride flag rainbows on the logos. Los Angeles Dodgers reliever Blake Treinen didn’t play along, and the enemy of the people media was aghast. Three members of the San Francisco Giants responded by writing Bible verses on their caps, and the San Francisco Chronicle said they defaced them. My Twitchy colleague Brett T. covered that here.

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Trump Will Slap French Wines With 100% Tariff Over France’s Digital Services Tax – Macron Is Defiant, But Wine Producers Are VERY Afraid

Tech versus Wine is the geopolitical arm-wrestle.

US President Donald J. Trump is in France for the G7 Summit and to meet French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, as you can read in 

Among the many issues that will be discussed, there is one economic war that is on the outing: Trump is demanding that France drop its tax on American tech firms or face a 100% tariff on its wine.

FOX Business reported:

“The U.S. will ‘have no choice’ but to apply the tariffs if French President Emmanuel Macron does not end its 3% levy on large digital services companies. ‘I asked him not to charge American companies, and if they do, I have no choice but to charge a 100% tariff on all champagnes and all wines coming out of France’, Trump told the New York Post in an interview. ‘All [Macron] has to do is get rid of the sales tax, and he wouldn’t have that kind of pressure’.

[…] ’The president has been unequivocally clear on digital services taxes and other forms of extortion against American tech firms’, a senior White House official told FOX Business on Monday, when reached for comment. ‘The administration is committed to using the many legal authorities at our disposal to defend American workers and businesses’.”

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Report: Obama Center Contractors Owed Millions and Safety Net to Spare Taxpayers Not Funded

Taxpayers could be left with a big tab if the Obama Presidential Center experiences financial trouble because its foundation has not yet established a promised $470 million safety net to guard against a public bailout.

That according a Fox News Digital investigation of the center’s finances as Chicago awaits its grand opening on Friday, June 19.

The outlet’s investigation, published Saturday, found that “multiple contractors and subcontractors claiming losses ranging from hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions on the project, with some alleging they remain locked in payment disputes and face financial ruin…”

In an agreement with the city of Chicago, the foundation promised to create the endowment, essentially a reserve of cash, as part of its 99-year sweetheart deal to to control the publicly owned 19.3-acre section of Jackson Park for a one-time payment of just $10.

The foundation had deposited just $1 million into the reserve fund in 2021, but the balance has largely not changed according to public filings, the outlet reported.

The shortfall is not the first chapter in matters not going as expected for the ambitious project, which also included handsome salaries for former Obama presidential aids.

As Breitbart News reported last November:

The Obama library was originally estimated to cost $300 million, before the budget was revised upward to $500 million in 2017, and then further up to $700 million in 2021. Now, in a financial disclosure form, it appears it will cost much closer to $850 million to construct the mammoth grey monolith building in the South Side of Chicago in Jackson Park.

Executives at the Obama Foundation “are among the best paid of all cultural centers in the nation, with CEO Valerie Jarrett paid $740,000 last year.” Robin Cohen, the executive vice president of the foundation, earned over $600,000 and Tina Chen, the group’s chief legal and people officer, earned $425,000.

Called a “center,” rather than a presidential library, as  Obama’s presidential records will be held by the National Archives in Maryland.

No final cost has been publicly released for the Chicago project. It reportedly has been entirely funded by private donations from individuals, corporations and other foundations.

“One of their core promises was they were supposed to create an endowment as basically an insurance policy so the taxpayers wouldn’t get stuck with the bill,” Illinois GOP Chair Robert Grogan told Fox News Digital.

He continued, “They promised hundreds of millions of dollars for it. It’s still sitting at the $1 million mark [where it stood] when they opened it up. So I don’t believe that they’ve kept that promise.”

Grogan said reports that contractors and subcontractors remain locked in payment disputes make the underfunded safety net more problematic.

The outlet’s investigation identified multiple construction firms that were claiming losses “from hundreds of thousands of dollars to tens of millions.”

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Gonorrhea Rates Are Soaring In NYC: Mamdani Rushes Free Chocolate Condoms To Citizens Of Big Apple!

So what’s the priority of New York City’s Mamdani administration these days?

FrontPage Magazine reported:

Gonorrhea rates in New York City have more than doubled in a decade and syphilis is ‘surging’ statewide. Mamdani’s Department of Health has responded to this crisis by rushing a free supply of lubricant and chocolate flavored condoms.

Beam me up, Scotty.

FPM quoted NYC Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Helen Arteaga as stating,

“Providing high-quality sexual and reproductive healthcare services is a priority for the Mamdani Administration. Making safer sex products more accessible to the most affected and vulnerable communities is a critical public health need.”

Well, it’s good to have priorities. But are chocolate-flavored condoms safer than regular old garden-variety ones? I’m guessing not, but I couldn’t tell you from experience.

FPM again:

Councilwoman Pierina Sanchez, a Mamdani ally, explained that the free chocolate flavored condoms were necessary because “inequities persist among women, low-income households, and Black and Latino New Yorkers.

Women, low-income households, and black and Latino New Yorkers are adversely and disproportionately affected by a relative dearth of chocolate-flavored condoms? Is New York a den of iniquity inequity?

Unfortunately for virtue-signaling do-gooders, the free chocolaty condoms are coming from Karex, a Malaysian company that is apparently the largest manufacturer of condoms on Earth.

Why is this unfortunate?

According to The Telegraph, some Karex workers said they are put up in cramped and undignified conditions, with as many as a dozen housed in damp and unhygienic dormitories.

Workers at one site are allegedly granted just half of a steel bunkbed, with no mattress — and only have access to a filthy, broken toilet. And for these “amenities,” about 12 dollars a month is deducted from their wages. The Telegraph reported that one Karex employee said “sometimes poisonous snakes come in” to the dorms.

Not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse.

“Forget the crime! Forget the fact that the city is broke! Chocolate condoms for everybody!” does not seem like a winning slogan for Mamdani … but what do I know?

Ask not what you can do for the city, ask what Mayor Mamdani can do to — I mean for — you!”

I’m sure someone in the Mamdani administration will tout the mayor’s actions thusly: “These delectable prophylactics will be generously distributed, free of cost, to all genders with a penis … and to all those that love them! Mayor Mamdani is hard at work to make your lives better!”

Considering the shape the city is in, this may be the biggest cover up in the history of the Big Apple.

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CDC Awards Pfizer $1.24 Billion For COVID Vaccines For Kids And Adults

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) recent decision to award Pfizer $1.24 billion for COVID-19 vaccines has renewed debate over the government’s continued investment in mRNA technology.

The contracts, awarded on June 1, include about $735.7 million for pediatric COVID-19 vaccines and nearly $505.3 million for adult doses for fiscal year 2026-2027.

Critics say the funding reflects a continued commitment to vaccines associated with high rates of serious injuries and deaths, and a lack of adequate safety testing and monitoring.

Public health experts argue the investment is necessary to protect vulnerable populations and prepare for future outbreaks.

The latest contracts come as mRNA technology expands beyond COVID-19.

A recent review in Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics found that mRNA-based therapeutics were identified in more than 550 registered clinical trials. The authors reported that more than 90% of the projects involved mRNA vaccines and that most products remain in early-stage testing before broader adoption.

‘Unnecessary and often harmful injections’

The procurement of monetary resources signals that federal officials intend to continue investing heavily in mRNA technology despite declining public demand and ongoing controversy over vaccine safety monitoring, critics say.

Jeffrey Tucker, president and founder of the Brownstone Institute, told The Defender there was “no scientific justification” or “market demand” for the latest mRNA vaccine funding.

“This raises a serious question concerning how these captured agencies really work,” Tucker said. “We are talking about vast amounts of tax dollars flowing to support unnecessary and often harmful injections.”

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Illinois Just Adopted a Half-Baked Scheme to Tax Social Media

Government officials may not fully understand what social media is, but they damned well plan to do something about the ills it may or may not inflict on our society. They’ll happily start with extracting some money from the companies behind social media, though it may take a few tries, given politicians’ complete lack of understanding of the thing they want to tax. Illinois is a good example, where legislators just passed an attempt at a social media levy that runs afoul of its authors’ ignorance.

“A nearly $56 billion state spending plan is headed to Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk after the Democratic-controlled Illinois legislature approved it in the early-morning hours of another overtime spring session,” the Chicago Tribune‘s Dan Petrella noted last week. “The biggest source of new revenue is a new per-user tax on large social media companies.”

The governor’s signature is essentially guaranteed, since the budget proposal and social media tax originated in his office. Pritzker hopes to raise $200 million per year from the scheme. But the plan faces challenges, not least of which is that a similar tax passed by Chicago is tied up in court. Another and potentially more serious problem, as pointed out by Dan Levin of Straight Arrow News, is that “one of the elements that remains the most unclear is what exactly is being taxed? The language in the bill does not answer that question directly and is, frankly, confusing.”

As passed, the budget plan imposes a tax on social media companies based on “the average number of monthly users of the platform located in the State of Illinois.” Platforms with 100,000 to 500,000 “Illinois users” will have to pay $0.10 per user each month; platforms with 500,000 to 1 million “shall pay $40,000, plus $0.25 per month” per user; and platforms with over 1 million users will pay $165,000, plus $0.50 per user, each month on the number of users over 1 million. A provision adjusts the tax for inflation starting in 2028. Companies that fail or refuse to pay will be punished with a fee of “an amount equal to 100% of the unpaid fee and any penalties each month until the fee is paid.”

That’s an awful lot of numbers backed by dire threats. But it still doesn’t clarify how to tally up the bill.

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As Ukraine Runs Out Of Men, To Keep War Going, Zelenskiy To Create Mercenary Army – What Could Go Wrong?

As the number of fighting-age men dwindles in Ukraine, as the Christian ethnocide plays out, Ukraine is launching a major recruitment drive that will allow private companies to source, screen, and deliver foreign fighters to its armed forces, with the goal of filling 30 to 50 percent of its assault and infantry positions with non-Ukrainians. This will allow globalist forces to keep the war going at any cost.

There has also been talk of enabling mass migration of third world men into the area.

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men have deserted this year, and many of those have fled the country. Daily videos of violent bounty hunters clashing with civilians are appearing online as the war loses the support of more and more of the Ukrainian people.

Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov announced the target on Thursday, describing the initiative as a way to bolster combat units and preserve Ukrainian lives. Commander-in-Chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi echoed the statement, calling the plan “the first stage of a large-scale transformation” of the military.

Under the new system, private recruiting firms will handle the search, vetting, selection, and logistics for foreign volunteers. Companies will be compensated for each recruit who successfully signs a contract and joins a unit. Foreign fighters will serve under the same terms, pay, and conditions as Ukrainian personnel, without a separate foreign legion structure.“

We are opening the market for recruiting foreigners to strengthen combat units and save the lives of Ukrainian military personnel,” Fedorov said.

The recruitment effort forms the centerpiece of a broader military service overhaul announced by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the same day following a meeting with Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, Fedorov, and Finance Minister Serhii Marchenko, writes SOFX.

As part of the reforms, minimum pay for rear-area personnel will rise to 30,000 hryvnias (approximately $670) per month — double the previous floor. Frontline infantry will receive 300,000 hryvnias (roughly $6,700) for a month of service, which Fedorov described as the highest infantry compensation rate globally. With combat bonuses, total monthly pay for assault troops can exceed $10,000 (about 460,000 hryvnias).

New contracts will last 10 to 14 months for infantry and assault roles, and 24 months for specialized units such as drone operators, artillery crews, and electronic-warfare personnel. Each contract will be followed by a demobilization window exempting soldiers from further mobilization.

Fedorov indicated that the army plans to begin discharging its longest-serving and most combat-experienced troops before the end of 2026, balancing the arrival of foreign recruits with the release of exhausted Ukrainian personnel.

Ukraine’s military has faced significant manpower challenges. Many long-serving troops are battle-weary with no fixed end to their service, while recent mobilization efforts have struggled to attract motivated infantry. A 2025 attempt to recruit 18-to-24-year-olds with competitive pay and short contracts saw limited uptake for ground combat roles, succeeding mainly in high-demand technical specialties like drone units.

Foreign volunteers already play a substantial role in frontline infantry duties, particularly fighters from Latin America. Colombians form one of the largest foreign contingents, with many deployed after minimal training. The Atlantic Council has estimated that 300 to 550 Colombians have been killed in Ukraine — the highest toll among foreign nationalities — with most losses attributed to FPV and kamikaze drones targeting infantry positions.

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