Tag: taxes

California Speaker: I Will Consider Withholding Federal Taxes from The Trump Administration If They Slash Federal Funding from My State

One of the most powerful Democrats in California is shooting his mouth off about breaking federal law after learning the Trump Administration might be about to drop the hammer on his state.

Multiple sources told CNN that the Trump administration is preparing to cancel a large portion of federal funding for California, which might begin as soon as today.

According to the outlet, Team Trump is specifically looking at entirely cutting off federal grant funding for the University of California and California State University systems.

As TGP readers know, President Trump has been rightfully livid over California’s open defiance of federal law, particularly over transgender issues.

President Trump issued an executive order in February, which was supposed to ensure that biological men could not compete in women’s sports. But California and other blue states have decided to defy Trump’s order and continue to allow men to compete against women.

White House spokesman Kush Desai released the following statement Friday afternoon, slamming California but adding that no final decision has been made.

“No taxpayer should be forced to fund the demise of our country. “No final decisions, however, on any potential future action by the Administration have been made, and any discussion suggesting otherwise should be considered pure speculation.”

Upon reading this, the speaker of the California State Assembly, Robert Rivas, erupted in anger and threatened various responses, including withholding federal taxes from the federal government.

“This is unconstitutional and vindictive,” Rivas wrote on BlueSky. “We’re the nation’s economic engine and the largest donor state, and deserve our fair share.”

“I’ll use every legal and constitutional tool available to defend CA — we must look at every option, including withholding federal taxes.”

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Snarky Democrat Rep’s Interrogation of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick Backfires When She Makes an Embarrassing Blunder While Discussing Bananas 

A Democratic member of Congress earlier this week made such an embarrassing mistake regarding one of the world’s most famous fruits that one could justify an IQ test for certain members of Congress.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was testifying before the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday to defend Trump’s tariff policy when a snarky Rep. Madeline Dean (D-PA) decided to try to entrap him with a question about tariffs on bananas while holding the fruit.

After Lutnick calmly stated the answer (10%), Dean fired back and said Walmart had already increased the tariffs. Unbothered, Lutnick pointed out that there is no tariff for people who manufacture in America.

Immediately following Lutnick’s remark, Dean face-planted with a comment that is news to people in several states, including Hawaii and Florida.

TRANSCRIPT:

DEAN: What’s the tariff on bananas? Americans, by the way, LOVE bananas… What’s the tariff on bananas?

LUTNICK: The tariff on bananas would be representative of the countries that produce them.

DEAN: And what’s that tariff?

LUTNICK: Generally 10%.

DEAN: Walmart has already increased the cost of bananas by 8%.

LUTNICK: If countries do deals with us, that tariff will go to zero…

DEAN: But the cost is on the American consumer now…Mr. Secretary, I believe you know better. I believe you recognize that a trade deficit is nothing to fear…I wish you would show that truth to this administration.

LUTNICK: There’s no uncertainty if you build in America…There will be no tariff.

DEAN: We can’t produce bananas in America…We cannot build bananas in America.

The truth is that bananas have been grown in America for decades, with the first banana farm established in 1876 in Florida, near Silver Lake.

Today, bananas are grown in several states, with Hawaii producing the most. Florida ranks second.

Other states, such as California, Texas, Louisiana, and Arizona, produce bananas as well, albeit nowhere near the scale of Hawaii and Florida due to their climate.

Florida is also a major exporter of bananas, particularly specialty ones such as Thai and cooking bananas.

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Lawyer Who Bulletproofed Biden Bucks Now Fighting Trump Admin To Keep Gravy Train Rolling

A former Biden administration official who made it more difficult for agencies to terminate certain grants is now backing several legal efforts to ensure money awarded before President Donald Trump took office keeps flowing to left-wing organizations.

Daniel Jacobson, who was previously general counsel of Biden’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is opposing the Trump administration in cases that seek to restore billions in Biden administration grants from the Department of Education (ED), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). He also filed a lawsuit against OMB. 

Jacobson’s involvement “raises many questions,” Michael Chamberlain, director of Protect the Public’s Trust, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. He noted that former government lawyers have “obligations regarding what legal matters they can work on after leaving government service, under both federal ethics law and under professional rules of conduct, particularly as those rules have been adopted by the DC Bar, where Mr. Jacobson is a member.”

“If a government lawyer were to learn client confidences or secrets during his representation of an agency and use such information in litigation against that very same agency, it could very well implicate these ethics obligations,” Chamberlain said. “Although it’s not clear that has happened here, on the face of it, the situation raises many questions.”

Jacobson did not respond to requests for comment.

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Report: Biden Gave ‘Millions’ In Tax Dollars To ‘Soros-Backed NGO,’ Group Pushing Men In Women’s Prisons

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released a report “exposing the disastrous consequences” of Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) awarding millions in taxpayer-funded grants to two non-governmental organizations with “radical” agendas.

The report showcases how, as Grassley noted in a statement, the tax dollars Biden’s DOJ gave to the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) and Impact Justice funded “left-leaning agendas that ultimately put lives at risk.”

“This is just a small sampling of the grant programs scrutinized by the Justice Department, but an inspection of these recipients suggests potentially a much bigger problem in how the Justice Department historically has awarded its grant funds,” Grassley said in his introduction to the report.

According to the group’s website, Vera’s mission is to create programs to “end the criminalization and mass incarceration of people of color, immigrants, and people experiencing poverty.”

Vera “reportedly received $6.75 million in contracts from the Biden Administration’s Department of Justice” between 2022-2023, Grassley’s report reads, citing InfluenceWatch. In April, the Trump DOJ said it was terminating $5 million dollars worth of grants to the organization on the basis that its activity “no longer effectuate[s] the program goals or agency priorities,” Vera reported.

Later that month, Vera launched an “Emergency Justice Fund,” asking people to give them money directly.

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Gavin Newsom Threatens to Block California Tax Payments to Federal Government

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) threatened Friday that his state would stop tax payments to the federal government, after news reports suggested President Donald Trump was thinking of cutting funds to the state.

As Breitbart News noted earlier in the day, reports emerged suggesting that the Trump White House was considering cutting federal funding to California due to its challenges to, and defiance of, federal policy.

Breitbart News reported:

President Donald Trump is reportedly considering ways to pull more federal funding from the State of California, as Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) continues to defy White House policies, despite needing money.

California is suffering a large budget deficit for the second year in a row, with the state’s Medicaid program borrowing money to stay afloat. Newsom has also asked the federal government for $40 billion in fire relief.

But Newsom is also enthusiastically suing the Trump administration over many of its policies, often seeking the kinds of nationwide injunctions that would stop those policies everywhere, not just in California.

…

Trump had already threatened California’s federal sports funding after the state defied a federal transgender policy that bars biological males from competing in girls’ sports. And this week, the U.S. Department of Transportation suggested the administration could claw back billions of dollars in federal spending wasted on the state’s troubled high-speed rail project.

But Democrats have argued that California should be allowed to oppose federal policies while benefiting from federal spending, especially given the state’s large contributions to federal revenues. And they have pushed back against the idea of conditioning fire aid on policy changes.

It is not clear what constitutional authority Newsom has to withhold federal taxes on behalf of individuals, businesses, and other entities within the state. Trump’s authority to withhold funding is far clearer.

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Supreme Court Sides With Catholic Charities in Case About Tax Exemptions for Religious Organizations

The Supreme Court unanimously sided with Catholic Charities Bureau on Thursday, ruling that Wisconsin discriminated against the organization by denying tax exempt status and violated the First Amendment’s protection for religion. 

Wisconsin has a law, similar to most states and the federal government, that exempts certain religious organizations from paying unemployment compensation taxes. The statute exempts nonprofit organizations “operated primarily for religious purposes” and “operated, supervised, controlled, or principally supported by a church or convention or association of churches.” Catholic Charities Bureau and four of its sub-entities tried to obtain the exemption in 2016 as an organization controlled by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Superior, Wisconsin.

After years of litigation, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ultimately denied the exemption, ruling that Catholic Charities Bureau was not “operated primarily for religious purposes” because they do not engage in proselytization or limit their charitable services to Catholics. However, Catholic Charities Bureau argued that Catholic teachings do not permit “misus[ing] works of charity for purposes of proselytism.”

“There may be hard calls to make in policing that rule, but this is not one,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the court. 

“When the government distinguishes among religions based on theological differences in their provision of services, it imposes a denominational preference that must satisfy the highest level of judicial scrutiny,” she continued. “Because Wisconsin has transgressed that principle without the tailoring necessary to survive such scrutiny, the judgment of the Wisconsin Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.”

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Student Suspended For Saying ‘Illegal Aliens’ Will Receive Cash, Public Apology

The perceived overreach of administrators at one North Carolina high school sparked a nationwide conversation about whether students should be kicked out of school for using terms some others might find offensive.

At the heart of the case is Christian McGhee, who was 16 when he received a three-day suspension for uttering the words “illegal aliens” during a class lesson.

He insisted he was only trying to clarify the assignment, but the supposed violation was nevertheless deemed severe enough to warrant a suspension.

The ensuing backlash has resulted vindication for the student, as the New York Post reported:

McGhee’s mother, Leah, had filed a lawsuit in which she accused the school and the Davidson County Board of Education of violating her son’s First Amendment rights.

However, McGhee’s family and the school board settled on Wednesday after a year-long battle in the courts, according to court documents.

The board has agreed to remove all references to racial bias in McGhee’s school record and issue a public apology “for the mischaracterization of racial bias” in his record, documents show.

The board will also provide him with $20,000 in compensation to help his family with the costs of tuition at his new private school, to which he was forced to transfer after being suspended.

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Welcome to the Palantir World Order

How does a company with CIA ties and two steering committee members of the secretive Bilderberg Group as founders end up in the White House?

This question should be on the minds of every free-thinking person regardless of political affiliation or lack thereof. The answer to this question cuts to the heart of understanding the future direction of the American experiment, and the impact it will have on the rest of the world.

Starting in 2019 I began warning that we were witnessing the creation of a Technocratic State, with Big Tech CEOs amassing exorbitant wealth and unfathomable data about the world. This collection of financial wealth and data has allowed these Technocrats to gain power equivalent to many nations, and beyond that of smaller nations. Palantir is a perfect example of the merging of corporate and state power.

Palantir was co-founded by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, long before they were made Steering Committee members of the secretive Bilderberg Group. Karp and Thiel launched Palantir with seed funding from the CIA’s venture capital firm In-Q-Tel. The CIA aimed to use Palantir to relaunch the controversial post-9/11 program known as Total Information Awareness. TIA would be shuttered after public outcry and concerns around surveillance. However, after Thiel and Karp began meeting with intelligence officials they helped Palantir to do privately what the government could not get permission from the American people to do publicly.

Over the last 120 days of the 2nd Trump administration it has become clear that Palantir is on the way to becoming the U.S. government’s new favorite Military Industrial Complex contractor of choice. A quick search reveals numerous headlines detailing the recent rapid rise of Palantir’s stock.

This should come as no surprise given the abundant contracts and projects Palantir is reportedly developing with the U.S. government. Here’s a brief look at the ways in which Palantir is becoming more deeply connected to the MIC.

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“Are You A Covert White Supremacist?” Fireworks Erupt In DOGE Hearing Exposing NGO Funding, Taxpayer “Theft”

In a fiery House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) hearing on June 4, 2025, titled “Public Funds, Private Agendas: NGOs Gone Wild,” Republican lawmakers exposed the “gold bars thrown off the Titanic,” alleging the Biden administration under Democratic control of Congress had siphoned billions in taxpayer dollars to push left-wing policies like open borders and the Green New Deal through Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). 

Held at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, the hearing, chaired by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), aimed to expose what Republicans call a corrupt nexus of NGOs, Democratic campaign funds, and bureaucratic cronyism. 

In a fiery exchange, Democrats pushed back with allegations that Republicans are “trying to keep a strong black woman down,” while simultaneously chastising the GOP for not codifying enough DOGE cuts, at the same as alleging Republicans are cutting vital services as part of a partisan witch hunt. Here’s the breakdown of the clash that’s got X buzzing and taxpayers fuming.

Republicans Drop the Hammer on NGO Funding

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) didn’t mince words, calling the allocation of “hundreds of billions” to NGOs under the Biden administration a “CRIME” against Americans. “There’s a difference between true charity and the government forcibly removing money from your pocket and giving it to someone else,” Burlison declared, framing the forcible removal of tax dollars to fund the ideological priorities of NGOs as outright theft.

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OMB: Rescission Bill Would Cut Funding For ‘Sexual Networks’ In Nepal And These 16 Other Boondoggles

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sent a rescission package to Congress on Tuesday, requesting $9.4 billion in funding cuts for various programs. This is the first package of proposed DOGE cuts since Trump was elected on the promise to eradicate waste, fraud, abuse, and excessive government spending. According to the OMB, here’s some of the waste they found.

OMB reported that the rescission bill would cut “$67,000 for testing insect powder nutrition on children in Madagascar.” Details listed for a USAID grant first awarded in 2023 dedicated funds to testing a porridge made from “dried cricket powder.”

The bill would nix $33,000 in funding for the United Nations program “Being LGBTQI+ in the Caribbean,” as well as $643,000 for a similar program in the Western Balkans and $567,000 for one in Uganda. It also proposes a $5 million cut in funding for the Minority Serving Institute, which awards National Nuclear Security Administration grants to “Minority-Serving Institutions,” and would nix $595,400 for “training women in gender equity.”

The bill would also prevent $500,000 from going to an electric bus program in Rwanda. USAID approved a grant to “scal[e] up clean, green, public transportation in Rwanda” in 2023. The package would cut $6 million in funding for “net zero cities” in Mexico, $2.1 million for “climate resilience in Southeast Asia, Latin America, & East Africa,” and $5 million for “green transportation and logistics” in Eurasia.

The package would remove $4 million in funding for “legume systems research” — which was apparently not intended for increased agricultural productivity in the U.S., but for improving bean production in Guatemala and Honduras. The bill also includes a $3 million cut to funding for a Sesame Street program for children in the Middle East. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, once quipped, “USAID asked, ‘Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?’ and ended up in Iraq.”

The OMB’s suggested cuts would save taxpayers $833,000 in funding that would have gone to “transgender people, sex workers and their clients, and sexual networks” in Nepal, while slashing $5.1 million allocated for “resilience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans gender, intersex, and queer global movements.” Additionally, the bill would nix $3 million in funding for circumcision, vasectomies, and condoms in Zambia, apparently for HIV prevention.

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