Tag: taxes

Ohio Officials Who Excluded Christian Group From Foster Care System Forced to Pay Massive Sum

Officials in Montgomery County, Ohio, agreed to a more than $120,000 settlement after reversing a decision to exclude a Christian organization from the foster care system.

Gracehaven, which assists young people rescued from sex trafficking, filed a lawsuit in 2024 accusing the county of barring them from “a public program and benefit for which it is otherwise qualified.”

The decision was “based solely on the ministry’s commitment to hire only employees who share and adhere to its religious beliefs,” according to a May 12 release from the Alliance Defending Freedom.

Montgomery County had previously contracted with Gracehaven for years, reimbursing the ministry with public funds in exchange for their care services.

But they “suddenly decided to exclude” Gracehaven after the organization “told county officials that it was not waiving or surrendering its constitutionally protected freedom to employ those who share its faith.”

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio ruled last year that Gracehaven could not be excluded from the foster care program because of its policy to only hire employees aligned on faith.

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Hawaii To Pay Up After Trying to Criminalize Political Memes

Hawaii has agreed to pay $118,237.47 in attorney’s fees and costs to The Babylon Bee and local activist Dawn O’Brien, closing the books on a failed attempt to make some political satire a criminal act.

The state chose not to appeal a January ruling that struck down its so-called deepfake law, Act 191, as facially unconstitutional. It tried to ban speech. It lost. Now, taxpayers are covering the bill.

The settlement comes with an unusual wrinkle. Hawaii can’t actually pay yet. The agreement is contingent on the state legislature appropriating the funds during its next session, which runs from January to May 2027. If the legislature doesn’t approve the money by September 1, 2027, the Bee and O’Brien retain the right to file a formal motion for attorney’s fees, meaning the case would reopen and the final number could climb.

Act 191, signed by Governor Josh Green in July 2024, banned the distribution of “materially deceptive media” during election seasons if it risked “harming the reputation or electoral prospects of a candidate” or “changing the voting behavior of voters.”

The only escape for satirists was to slap joke-killing disclaimers on their content, disclaimers that had to appear throughout the entirety of a video and be printed in letters as large as any other text on screen. Violations carried fines, civil lawsuits, and jail time.

The law didn’t require anyone to actually be harmed or deceived. It punished speech based on a speculative “risk” of harm, a standard so vague that the person posting had no reliable way to know whether they were complying. US District Judge Shanlyn Park found that the law “muddies the line between compliance and noncompliance by forcing speakers to base their conduct on their own risk assessment, rather than on clear, objective standards.”

She noted the law created an “inherently subjective assessment for enforcement agencies” that “could conceivably lead to discretionary and targeted enforcement that discriminates based on viewpoint.”

Hawaii argued the law was needed to protect election integrity. Park acknowledged that interest but found the state couldn’t show it had chosen the least restrictive means.

Hawaii’s own expert agreed that digital literacy education would work, objecting only that it “would require a larger investment of resources” compared to a ban. Park cited the Supreme Court: “The First Amendment does not permit the State to sacrifice speech for efficiency.”

ADF legal counsel Mathew Hoffmann said: “Hawaii’s war against political memes and satire has come to an end, thankfully. The First Amendment doesn’t allow any state to choose what political speech is acceptable and censor speech in the name of ‘misinformation.’ That censorship is both undemocratic and unnecessary.”

Hawaii follows California, which lost a similar fight against the Bee. Minnesota’s version is still being litigated before the full 8th Circuit.

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Federal Judge Dismisses Prohibitionist Lawsuit Challenging Medicare CBD Program

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit led by Smart Approaches to Marijuana challenging the Trump administration’s Medicare-linked CBD program, finding the plaintiffs failed to show they had standing to bring the case.

Judge Trevor N. McFadden, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, dismissed the case Friday, finding that SAM, MMJ International Holdings, its subsidiaries and the other plaintiffs failed to meet the basic requirement needed to sue in federal court.

SAM and its allies had asked the court to halt a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services program connected to hemp-derived CBD access for certain Medicare patients. The challenge had been placed on an expedited track after the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint and again asked for emergency court intervention.

“Each claims an injury too abstract or too remote to open the courtroom doors,” McFadden wrote.

Rather than weighing the broader legal claims raised in the lawsuit, McFadden said the case could not proceed because the plaintiffs did not establish Article III standing.

“At the outset, the Court notes that it need not tackle the bulk of questions that Plaintiffs raise in their motions,” McFadden wrote. “That is because Plaintiffs’ case suffers from a fatal flaw: the failure to establish Article III standing to bring their claims. The Court addresses only this jurisdictional hole and will dismiss the entire suit and deny Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction as moot.”

Because of that finding, the court did not rule on whether the plaintiffs were entitled to a preliminary injunction. McFadden instead concluded that the alleged harms outlined by the plaintiffs were not concrete enough to keep the lawsuit alive.

The case was brought by SAM, allied prohibitionist organizations, individual activists and MMJ International Holdings, a cannabis-focused biopharmaceutical company. The plaintiffs claimed the program raised legal and public health concerns, but McFadden found their alleged injuries were too distant from the policy to support federal jurisdiction.

The decision is a major loss for opponents of the Medicare-linked CBD policy, which has drawn attention as President Donald Trump’s administration moves to expand medical marijuana and cannabidiol (CBD) research and access.

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US said to fire more interceptors to protect Israel in latest Iran war than Israel did

The US reportedly used up more than half of its inventory of THAAD anti-missile interceptors while defending Israel from Iranian attacks during the recent war.

According to The Washington Post on Thursday, the United States used over 200 THAAD interceptors to shoot down missiles bound for Israel. It also launched more than 100 SM-3 and SM-6 interceptors to defend Israel, which itself used fewer than 100 Arrow interceptors and around 90 from the David Sling’s system, the report said, quoting Defense Department data.

Overall, the report said, the US “expended far more advanced interceptors to protect Israel than Israeli forces did.”

A US official told the newspaper that if fighting renews with Iran, the US will likely need to use even more interceptors defending Israel because Israel has sent some of its missile defense batteries for maintenance.

“Israel is not capable of fighting and winning wars on its own, but nobody actually knows this, because they never see the back end,” said a US official quoted in the report.

The Pentagon denied to The Washington Post that there is any issue of burden sharing with Israel, saying, “Ballistic missile interceptors are just one tool in a vast network of systems and capabilities.”

The Israeli Embassy in Washington said in response that “the US has no other partner with the military willingness, readiness, shared interests and capabilities of Israel.”

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Zohran Mamdani Wants NYC to Spend $4.2 BILLION on Services for the Homeless After Claiming City is in ‘Historic’ Budget Crisis

In April, New York City’s new Democratic Socialist (communist) Mayor Zohran Mamdani, claimed that the city was facing a ‘historic’ budget crisis.

Now, he wants to spend $4.2 billion on services for the homeless. So which is it? Does a city in a budget crisis have that kind of cash to spend on homeless services?

Also, does anyone believe there will be any drop in the number of homeless people after he does this? The number could actually go up as a result once it becomes known that the city has money to burn on this.

The New York Post reports:

Mamdani wants to spend stunning $4.2B on NYC homeless services — more than during crippling migrant crisis

Mayor Zohran Mamdani plans to spend more money on homeless services next year than his predecessor Eric Adams did during the height of the city’s migrant crisis — proposing a $4.2 billion budget for the agency in 2027.

Mamdani’s plan was rolled out in his latest budget proposal last week, which sought to hike the Department of Homeless Services’ budget by $700 million, from $3.5 billion for 2026 to the towering $4.2 billion sum.

That would be $100 million more than the $4.1 billion budget DHS hit in 2024, at the height of the migrant crisis when the city’s shelter system was housing a peak of about 69,000 asylum seekers.

Then-Mayor Adams had budgeted $2.4 billion for DHS in 2023 — but that number ended up rising to $3.5 billion as the new arrivals ramped up , straining the city system.

More than 230,000 asylum seekers ended up cycling through the Big Apple during the crisis, which began in the spring of 2022. The homeless services department budget was $2.3 billion that year, the first of Adams’ tenure.

How many people working to ‘solve’ the homeless problem will get rich off of this? We have seen that happen in Los Angeles and other cities.

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California Is Exploring High-Speed Buses That Connect LA and San Francisco in Just Over 3 Hours

While construction is still underway on California’s long-delayed high-speed rail system, the Golden State is now looking into high-speed buses that could someday travel up to 140 miles per hour.

The California Department of Transportation, also known as Caltrans, has been researching the concept for at least a year and discussed it recently during a webinar.

The basic idea is to build dedicated bus lanes and stations along existing California freeways.

“Long-distance travel by bus could become an attractive and affordable way to go between California metropolitan areas,” Ryan Snyder, Caltrans’s feasibility studies manager, told local news station KCRA on Wednesday.

The high-speed bus service could connect major California metro areas like Sacramento, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

One proposed route would take passengers between San Francisco and Los Angeles in about 3 hours and 12 minutes, with buses traveling at around 120 miles per hour. The roughly 380-mile trip currently takes anywhere from seven-and-a-half to nine hours by a direct Greyhound bus.

Researchers are looking at examples abroad, including South Australia’s Adelaide O-Bahn busway system and the Netherlands’ Superbus prototype, to see whether such a system could work in California.

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Indicted Minnesota Fraudster Muhammad Omar Captured After Jumping Off Balcony and Fleeing Amid $90 Million Bust

Indicted Minnesota fraudster Muhammad Omar was captured two hours after he jumped off a 4-story balcony and fled.

The Justice Department on Thursday announced new indictments against 15 Minnesota fraudsters in a ‘shocking’ $90 million bust during a press conference on its efforts to crack down on fraud.

Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald made the announcement after Aimee Bock, the convicted mastermind behind the $250 million Feeding Our Future scandal, was sentenced to 41.5 years in federal prison.

“Today, we are announcing criminal charges against 15 defendants in Minnesota for fraud schemes that targeted over $90 million in taxpayer dollars,” Colin McDonald said.

“This is the beginning of our work in Minnesota. The fraud here in Minnesota is shocking,” he added.

One of the indicted fraudsters, identified as Muhammad Omar, jumped out of a 4-story building and fled.

“Muhammad Abdulqadir Omar, 32, was charged by indictment with one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and four counts of health care fraud in connection with a scheme to submit $3.3 million in fraudulent claims to the Housing Stabilization Services (HSS) Program of Minnesota Medicaid, of which approximately $3.2 million was paid,” the DOJ said.

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Senator John Kennedy Reveals That California’s Medicaid System Will Pay for EXORCISMS

Apparently, the state of California cares about the health of your soul.

During a recent hearing, Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana revealed that in California, the state will reimburse a provider for exorcisms. Yes, really.

Even if you are a person of faith who believes the forces of darkness are real, you would probably have trouble buying the idea that this should be covered by a state’s Medicaid system.

Wouldn’t you love to know how many of these are covered in a year?

FOX News reports:

Taxpayer spending on ‘exorcisms’ derails Senate testimony: ‘What the hell are we doing about it?’

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., railed against California’s Medicaid program, Medi-Cal, which is facing scrutiny from the Trump administration over fraud allegations, as Kennedy highlighted reports during a Tuesday hearing that the state covers exorcisms and other faith-based healing practices.

Medi-Cal’s spending practices have faced growing scrutiny as California’s Medicaid spending has more than doubled since 2019, rising from roughly $100.7 billion to a projected $222 billion in 2026.

Just last week, the Trump administration suspended $1.4 billion in federal funding for California home health and hospice programs after Vice President JD Vance’s anti-fraud task force identified an estimated $600 million in suspected fraud within the state’s Medicaid system.

Kennedy alleged during his line of questioning to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche that taxpayer dollars were being used to cover the cost of exorcisms, a religious practice most commonly associated with the Catholic Church, and other indigenous spiritual practices.

“California’s got 12% of the population in the last 10 years,” Kennedy told Blanche. “They’re responsible for half of these new so-called health providers to provide exorcisms and other things. Now, what the hell are we doing about it? Why has this gone on for so long?”

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DOJ Indicts 15 In Sweeping Crackdown On Somali Fraud

Federal prosecutors unveiled sweeping new charges Thursday against 15 defendants in Minnesota, accusing them of looting more than $90 million from taxpayer-funded Medicaid programs in what officials described as a massive new chapter in the state’s sprawling Somali fraud scandal.

The Department of Justice announced the cases during a press conference led by Colin McDonald, assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, just hours after Feeding Our Future figure Aimee Bock was sentenced to more than 41 years in prison for her role in a separate $250 million pandemic fraud scheme that rocked Minnesota.

Many of the defendants charged in the latest cases are Somali or Somali-American, according to charging documents and court records tied to the investigation.

Federal officials signaled the new indictments are part of a much broader push to crack down on what prosecutors say has become systemic fraud across multiple Minnesota public assistance programs.

“Let me be clear upfront about something: This is not the end of our work in Minnesota,” McDonald said. “This is the beginning of our work in Minnesota. The fraud here in Minnesota is shocking.”

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“DOUBLE DIPPING?” — Jim Jordan Demands Answers After Explosive Claim January 6 “Human Sources” May Have Been Paid by BOTH Biden DOJ and SPLC

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan just dropped another political bombshell tied to January 6.

During a fiery interview Thursday, Jordan revealed that congressional investigators are now probing whether confidential human sources operating around January 6 may have been receiving money not only from the Biden Justice Department, but also from the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center.

In other words: federally connected informants potentially “double dipping” while infiltrating groups tied to January 6.

Jordan made the remarks while discussing a new subpoena issued by the House Judiciary Committee as Republicans intensify their investigation into the SPLC and its alleged network of paid “field sources.”

Rep. Jordan: “Here’s a key question I have too. Were any of the guys they were paying— was the Biden Justice Department paying these same guys confidential human sources? We know 26 confidential human sources were at the Capitol on January 6th. 4 went in the Capitol. They weren’t authorized to do so. I want to know if any of these guys were double dipping and taking money from the government and from the Southern Poverty Law Center. That’s one of the things we want to find out. That would be another new chapter if true and if proven.”

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