Tag: taxes

Senate parliamentarian strikes SNAP reform from Republican megabill

The Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough rejected provisions in the Republicans’ megabill related to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) reform.

The House version of the bill contained language to bar illegal immigrants from receiving SNAP benefits, which MacDonough ruled against. 

The provision that would require states to fund a certain percentage of SNAP benefits based on those states’ error rates in delivering aid was also eliminated.

The Senate is currently revising the version of the bill that the House previously passed.

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Los Angeles Riots Cost Taxpayers Over $30 MILLION, Including $1.4 Million in Clean-Up/Public Property Damage – Leftist LA City Controller Blames ICE: “Raids Have Now Cost LA Taxpayers $32 Million”

New data from the City of Los Angeles’ Controller shows that anti-ICE riots across the city had cost taxpayers over $32 million between June 1 and June 17. 

LA City Controller Kenneth Mejia tried to spin numbers on X, attributing the massive cost to the city to “ICE raids.”

“$29.5 million or 92% relates to LAPD’s response to protests against ICE, including citywide tactical alert costs,” he said, failing to mention the violence by so-called protesters that spurred police responses.

Police have arrested at least 561 people since the riots started earlier this month.

He also mentioned the “$1.4 million relates to clean-up / public property damage,” but somehow, it’s ICE’s fault that leftist rioters and illegal aliens caused over one million dollars in damage.

The total, roughly $32 million, “does not include potential lawsuits,” Mejia said.

ICE agents have faced a 500% increase due to Democrats like Mejia lying to the American people and defaming law enforcement like this.

It can be recalled that Governor Gavin Newsom sued President Trump for exercising his authority as President to federalize the National Guard and prevent the riots from becoming even more violent and costing more money. Trump had sent in 4,000 National Guard Troops to help quell the riots.

After winning a leftist federal judge in San Francisco ordered President Trump to return control of the National Guard to California, the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court unanimously sided with Trump, allowing him to keep the California National Guard deployed.

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WHAT? Out-Of-Touch Zelensky Asks ALL Allies To Devote 0.25% of Their GDP to Finance Ukrainian War Effort

After more than 3 years having his regime be the focus of the Globalist establishment, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky now sees the world’s attention turning to the dangerous escalation in the Middle East – and is afraid funds for his war effort will become even harder to come by than they’ve already become.

So, Zelensky came up with a ‘brilliant’ idea: he is calling on Ukraine’s Western partners to allocate 0.25% of their GDP to help Kiev ramp up weapons production.

He also said Ukraine will start exporting weapon production technologies.

Reuters reported:

“In remarks released for publication by his office on Saturday, Zelensky said Ukraine was in talks with Denmark, Norway, Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Lithuania to launch joint weapon production.

‘Ukraine is part of Europe’s security and we want 0.25% of the GDP of a particular partner country to be allocated for our defense industry and domestic production,” Zelensky said’.”

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Enemies Within: Information Ties Top USAID Official to Dirty Eric Ciaramella and the First Bogus Attempt to Impeach President Trump

Trump Attorney Rudy Giuliani joined Jesse Watters in 2020 where he broke news about the January 2016 meeting in the Obama White House organized by the anti-Trump CIA whistleblower Eric Ciaramella.

This was previously reported at The Gateway Pundit in November 2019.

Records show Obama and his Deep State actors in the White House pressured Ukraine to provide dirt on candidate Trump and his team in early 2016.

Highly respected investigative reporter John Solomon called the 11 AM January 19, 2016 meeting in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building “one of the earliest documented efforts to build the now-debunked Trump-Russia collusion narrative and one of the first to involve the Obama administration’s intervention.”

Suspected Schiff whistleblower Eric Ciaramella chaired that meeting, which was also attended by his frequent collaborator Liz Zentos.

The meeting was ostensibly arranged by the Obama administration for anti-corruption training and coordination, but it didn’t take long for the Ukrainian participants, during the meetings and afterward, “to realize the Americans’ objectives included two politically hot investigations: one that touched Vice President Joe Biden’s family and one that involved a lobbying firm linked closely to then-candidate Trump.”

The Obama Department of Justice officials were interested in reopening a closed 2014 FBI investigation that “focused heavily on GOP lobbyist Paul Manafort, whose firm long had been tied to Trump through his partner and Trump pal, Roger Stone.”

Nazar Kholodnytskyy, then Ukraine’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor and a meeting attendee, said he saw evidence in Ukraine of political meddling in the U.S. election, when the “black ledger,” key evidence against Manafort, who had joined Trump’s campaign on March 29, 2016 and then was promoted to campaign chairman on May 19, 2016, was suddenly released to the media in May 2016.

According to Ukrainian official Andriy Telizhenko, who has communicated with The Gateway Pundit numerous times, then a political officer at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington DC and a meeting attendee, U.S. officials told the Ukrainians they would prefer that Kiev drop the Burisma probe and allow the FBI to take it over (it is believed that the FBI attended the January 19, 2016 meeting).

Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company, was under investigation in Ukraine for improper foreign transfers of money. At the time, Burisma allegedly was paying then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter as both a board member and a consultant.

All of the above suggests that the Obama Administration used U.S. government personnel in an attempt to enlist a foreign nation to provide negative information about political opponents and to quash investigation of political allies.

And when the Ukrainians did not agree, it appears that the U.S. government pressured the Ukrainian government to replace obstinate Ukrainian officials with more compliant ones.

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DARPA Wants to Crack the Code of Human Behavior—And They’re Betting on “MAGICS” for Bold New Ideas

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched a new program to solicit paradigm-shifting research ideas to revolutionize how scientists predict collective human behavior. 

The program, known as Methodological Advancements for Generalizable Insights into Complex Systems (MAGICS), aims to address the problem that despite the rise of big data and machine learning, we’re still surprisingly bad at forecasting how large, dynamic human systems respond to change.

“For the past decade or more, there has been an assumption and hope that the explosion of digital data streams (e.g., social media, purchase patterns, traffic dynamics, etc.) combined with powerful machine learning tools would usher in a new era of research in complex, dynamic, evolving systems,” a DARPA solicitation notice writes. “[However] Despite many attempts, results have failed to meet expectations.” 

The MAGICS opportunity, announced through DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office, invites individual researchers to propose innovative concepts that could form the foundation for a new science of social prediction. 

As DARPA notes, today’s best statistical tools often falter when applied to real-world, evolving systems—whether it’s understanding how economies adapt to disruption, how populations shift under demographic pressure, or how societies react to technological upheaval.

At the heart of the MAGICS effort is answering the question: Can we develop new ways to model collective human behavior that outperform current statistical approaches and capture the dynamics of complex, evolving systems? 

The Pentagon brain trust is looking for fresh frameworks beyond what’s possible with today’s machine learning models, namely systems that can handle the messy, recursive, and often unpredictable nature of human systems.

The stakes are high for national security. From forecasting the spread of misinformation to anticipating societal responses to crises, the ability to model human behavior accurately could offer profound advantages. 

Yet DARPA acknowledges that researchers must overcome foundational challenges that large datasets and artificial intelligence have failed to address before these benefits can be realized.

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Sunnova International just another EMBEZZLEMENT FRONT COMPANY as part of the Biden Regime’s FAKE GREEN movement – now BANKRUPT

Obama was the king of creating fake green companies, funding them with millions and billions of dollars, then watching them all magically go bankrupt as the money completely disappeared (went into the offshore accounts of all the executives involved). Biden was even worse, participating in these scams and schemes on a much higher financial level, running up trillions in unaccounted funds, while claiming to be supporting “climate science” and “climate change” initiatives. All big lies for embezzlement. Sunnova is just another pawn in the big “climate” game of racketeering and fraud.

  • Obama’s Green Energy Scams: The Obama administration funneled billions in taxpayer dollars into fake “green” companies like Solyndra, Abound Solar, and Fisker Automotive—only for them to collapse as executives pocketed the money. These ventures were never meant to succeed, just to launder funds to political allies.
  • Biden’s Bigger Fraud Scheme: The Biden Regime has taken green energy corruption to new heights, pushing trillions in unaccountable “climate” spending while companies like Sunnova and SunPower declare bankruptcy after executives siphon off subsidies. The entire “renewable energy” push is a front for embezzlement and control.
  • Sunnova’s Collapse Exposes the Scam: Sunnova Energy, propped up by federal loans and tax breaks, just filed for bankruptcy with up to $50 billion in liabilities—proving yet another “green” company was a taxpayer-funded Ponzi scheme. CEO John Berger and other insiders got rich while employees and customers were left holding the bag.
  • The Green Energy Grift Continues: From solar to EVs, the government’s “climate” agenda is a racket designed to bankrupt the middle class while elites profit. With more collapses coming, sites like ClimateAlarmism.news expose how these companies were never about the environment—just theft.

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Gov. Hochul Pledges $50 Million in Legal Aid for Migrants — Stefanik Slams “Illegals First, New Yorkers Last” Policy

In a move drawing sharp criticism from New Yorkers and political rivals alike, Governor Kathy Hochul has announced that the State of New York will allocate $50 million in taxpayer funds to cover legal fees for migrants. The funding, Hochul says, will be used to provide immigration legal services amid the ongoing influx of illegal border crossers resettled in New York.

The announcement comes on the heels of a controversial incident involving New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who was briefly detained by ICE after interfering in an immigration enforcement operation. Lander demanded that ICE agents produce a warrant during an arrest and attempted to block their actions. He was later released—reportedly after pressure from state officials, including Hochul herself.

Critics say this pattern of prioritizing undocumented immigrants over law-abiding citizens is part of a growing crisis in New York. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a rising Republican star and strong contender for the governorship, blasted Hochul’s decision:

“$50 MILLION of New Yorkers’ hard-earned taxpayer dollars are being used for illegal migrants’ legal fees because of Kathy Hochul’s ‘illegals first, New Yorkers last’ failed leadership in NY. VOTE HER OUT.”

The $50 million payout comes at a time when residents are grappling with rising crime, economic uncertainty, and housing shortages. Many New Yorkers are frustrated with what they see as a lack of support for citizens, veterans, and struggling families—while migrants receive state-funded benefits, housing, and now, legal representation.

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Waste Of The Day: $140 For Taxi Ride Across Parking Lot

Topline: Massachusetts’ Emergency Assistance Family Shelter Program recently funded what might just be history’s most expensive car trip: $140 for a taxi ride of 223 feet. For those quick with a calculator, that’s a rate of $3,314 per mile.

It’s just one example of taxpayer funds spent on “improper and unlawful emergency procurements” while the agency was using $325 million in state funds last year to help address the state’s migrant crisis, according to a recent report from the state auditor.

Key facts: The emergency housing program was originally created to carry out Massachusetts’ “right to shelter” law from 1983, which guarantees housing for families with children or pregnant mothers. 

The program has been overwhelmed with immigrant families in the last few years. There were 3,883 families in shelters in January 2023 but 7,463 families by December 2024. 

The influx forced the state to sign emergency, no-bid contracts with companies that were charging up to $31 per meal to feed migrants on the taxpayers’ dime. One company, Spinelli Ravioli, billed the state 9.6% more than their contract allowed for 493 food deliveries, according to the new audit.

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As Congress struggles to cut spending, states expose Medicaid fraud on steroids

Medicaid for millionaires. Jaw-dropping swindles. Bureaucrats who aren’t checking patients’ eligibility.

As Congress struggles to find spending cuts in a bloated federal budget, a growing number of states are exposing the breathtaking extent of fraud, waste and abuse inside the government’s primary medical welfare program for the poor. 

Arizona became the latest state to unveil failures, as Senate Majority Leader Janae Shamp, House Majority Leader Michael Carbone, and other GOP lawmakers released a report showing that 130,000 of the 388,000 state residents who applied for Medicaid last year were not verified, suggesting up to $6 billion a year in Medicaid fraud.

“When we’re talking about cutting fraud, waste and abuse, that is exactly where we start,” Shamp told Just the News.

The report showed only 24% of Arizonans who applied for the assistance were vetted, and of those people who did get vetted properly, 34% weren’t supposed to be accepted, but they got the Medicaid benefits anyway.

When asked if she believes that Arizona’s Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs would consult the Republicans who led the effort to investigate, Shamp told Just The News, “I always want to believe in the good that, yes, we can work across party lines, and we can figure out how to do this collectively together, because it’s the citizens of Arizona, the taxpayers of Arizona, that are bearing the brunt of this fraud.”

“I have sent a letter to her office, and I’m asking for a bunch of questions to be answered and to find out what it is that the governor’s office is prepared to do with her agency that is directionless, leaderless…no transparency [and] totally unaccountable,” she continued. 

Arizona’s Medicaid problems follow similar issues found in states like Ohio where a Bloomberg Law investigation revealed that state health departments and Medicaid contractors often fail to detect or ignore blatant fraud, costing taxpayers billions annually. 

Congressional leaders are targeting an estimated $50 billion in yearly Medicaid waste, as states and contractors prioritize approving claims over scrutinizing questionable expenditures. 

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Declining Enrollment Leaves 150 Chicago School Buildings Half Empty, Spending Tens of Thousands for Each Student

There are currently as many as 150 Chicago school buildings that are half empty, due to lower enrollment in the city.

The city has been run by Democrats for decades and their closest allies are the teacher unions. There is absolutely no excuse for this disastrous mismanagement of the city’s schools.

The pandemic, and the shuttering of schools for months, certainly didn’t help.

FOX News reports:

Chicago schools face enrollment crisis with 150 buildings half-empty

A new report showed that declining enrollment in Chicago leaves about 150 of its schools half-empty.

The report, authored by ChalkBeat and ProPublica, found that 47 schools are operating “at less than one-third capacity, leading to high costs and limited course offerings.”

Chicago Public Schools had roughly 325,000 students enrolled this year after losing 70,000 students from a decade ago, according to the report.

“District officials project that three school years from now, there could be as few as 300,000 or, in a best-case scenario, as many as 334,000 students. Those estimates are based in part on the city’s sharply falling birth rates. Citywide, from 2011 to 2021, the number of births dropped by more than 43%,” the authors of the report wrote.

While the city faces enrollment struggles, the city spends about $18,700 per student. Some schools are “double or triple” that number the report stated. One school that enrolled 28 students costs $93,000 students…

Frederick Douglass Academy High School, which has 28 students this year, reportedly costs $93,000 per student.

This is one of the reasons why more and more Americans are beginning to favor school choice, including homeschooling.

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