Tag: taxes

F-35A’s 25mm Gun Still Needs Tests To Verify It Works

The Pentagon says more testing is required to demonstrate that the 25mm automatic cannon mounted internally on the F-35A variant of the Joint Strike Fighter is indeed now an effective weapon. Various software and hardware issues had long left the stealthy jets unable to shoot straight, but fixes intended to resolve them have been implemented.

New questions about the actual effectiveness of the F-35A’s internal gun emerged last month after the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), an independent nonprofit, published a heavily redacted declassified copy of a report on the Joint Strike Fighter program from the Pentagon’s Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E). POGO obtained the document, which is dated February 2024, via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and provided its own analysis of the contents. The report also underscored long-standing maintenance and logistics challenges that have contributed to historically low readiness rates across all variants of the F-35 and that could have worrisome impacts on future combat operations. The War Zone has explored those issues and their broader ramifications in detail in a past feature.

“The F-35 lethality assessment suffered from the inability of the F-35’s gun to hit the targets because of design and installation issues,” according to an unredacted section of the February 2024 DOT&E report that POGO obtained.

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U.S. Taxpayers Spent Almost $13B To Fund Global War On Drugs In The Past Decade, Report Shows

Nearly $13 billion in U.S. taxpayer money has gone to fund worldwide counternarcotics activities since 2015, often coming at the expense of efforts to end global poverty while at the same time contributing to international human rights violations and environmental harms. That’s according to a new report issued on Wednesday by two organizations critical of the war on drugs.

The 47-page document, jointly published by the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) and Harm Reduction International (HRI), consists of what it describes as a “follow-the-money data analysis” that looks at anti-drug spending allocations across various government departments as well as case studies from Colombia, Mexico and the Philippines.

Authors wrote that the analysis “demonstrates how U.S. assistance has supported and expanded destructive and deadly anti-drug responses in low- and middle-income countries around the world.”

The $13 billion figure, the report says, “is more taxpayer money than the U.S. government spent over that decade on primary education or water supply and sanitation in low- and middle-income countries” and also greater than U.S. foreign aid over the same period “for all of Southern Africa or Central America.”

It’s also “about 300 times the total amount of U.S. foreign aid over that decade for women’s rights organizations in low-and middle-income countries around the whole world,” it adds.

DPA said in an email about the report that the topic is “especially timely as President-elect Trump and members of his administration threaten to ramp up the global war on drugs and increase punitive responses to international drug markets.”

For fiscal year 2025 alone, the report says, President Joe Biden “requested $1 billion for international ‘counternarcotics’ activities,” about half of which ($480 million) would be allocated to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), while about $350 million would have gone to the State Department.

“The role of the United States in exporting the destructive war on drugs to other countries is unparalleled,” DPA and HRI said in an executive summary of the findings. ”

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Denver Spent $356 Million on Migrants – Mayor Will Fight Deportation Efforts

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston has said he would do everything in his power to prevent Trump from deporting migrants. One must question why Johnston is eagerly putting the taxpaying citizens of Denver last. The city may be a sanctuary for illegal trespassers but has become a nightmare for residents. The latest reports reveal that the city spent $356 in taxpayer funds, 8% of its budget, on migrants.

Roughly 45,000 migrants made their way to Denver since 2022, according to the Common Sense Institute (CSI). The city has spent $256 million educating 16,000 migrant children. The local healthcare system cannot accommodate the large influx but the city has spent $49 million on migrant healthcare after 8,000 migrants recorded around 20,000 visits to Denver Health alone last year. Doctors are calling the strain on the system a “humanitarian crisis” that has pushed the state hospital system to a breaking point. The hospital was forced to remove 15 beds in 2023 after finishing FY2022 $22 million above budget.

Surrounding suburbs have attempted to sue the city to no avail. Tren de Aragua, the violent Venezuelan gang, has taken over numerous apartment complexes as they terrorize citizens with no repercussions. Yet, Johnston and others in the far-left camp will not admit that open borders have ruined their cities. Instead, they focus on the “human rights” that should be awarded to everyone but American citizens.

Johnston said that he would prevent all measures to deport the migrants syphoning resources from his city AND he will encourage the people to protest. “More than us having DPD stationed at the county line to keep them out, you would have 50,000 Denverites there,” Johnston told reporters. “It’s like the Tiananmen Square moment with the rose and the gun, right? You’d have every one of those Highland moms who came out for the migrants. And you do not want to mess with them.” He is inciting civil unrest with this political rhetoric. Johnston believes he can offer himself as some sort of martyr to the Trump Administration as new border czar, Tom Homan, said he would happily arrest the mayor for interfering with federal law.

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UK Pays Wind Farms $1.3 Billion To Shut Down When It’s Windy

Bloomberg reports UK Is Paying £1 Billion to Waste a Record Amount of Wind Power

Burgeoning capacity and blustery weather should have driven huge growth in output in 2024. But the grid can’t cope, forcing the operator to pay wind farms to turn off, a cost ultimately borne by consumers. It’s a situation that puts at risk plans to decarbonize the network by 2030 and makes it harder to cut bills.

Crucial to the net zero grid target is a massive build-out of renewable power, particularly from wind. Britain has boosted its offshore fleet by 50% in the past five years and is set to double it in the next five, Bloomberg data show.

But the grid hasn’t expanded at the same pace. As a result, the operator is increasingly paying wind farms, particularly those in Scotland, not to run. So far this year, the UK has spent more than £1 billion ($1.3 billion) in “congestion costs” to turn off plants that can’t deliver electricity because of grid constraints, and switch on others.

Last month for example, when Storm Bert swept across the UK, some of its newest and biggest wind parks were still. Scotland’s £3 billion Seagreen project, owned by SSE Plc and TotalEnergies SE, was shut off. SSE’s Viking development on the Shetland Islands was also closed.

Wind vs Gas

UK generators usually sell output in advance on the wholesale market. But those transactions don’t take into account the physical limitations of balancing supply and demand in real time. To keep the lights on, the operator steps in, paying some plants to turn off and others that are closer to demand centers to fire up.

Often, this means shutting off a far-flung wind farm and starting up a gas-fed plant that’s closer to a city.

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“This Is Nuts”: NYC Pays Pakistani-Owned Roosevelt Hotel $220 Million To House Illegal Aliens 

Americans should be outraged by New York City’s $220 million sweetheart deal with Pakistan to lease the prestigious Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan as a luxury shelter for illegal aliens. The most alarming issue is that NYC paid a foreign government to help house the migrants.

X user John LeFevre resurfaced a 2023 news story, first published by The Economic Times, regarding Pakistan’s decision to lease the iconic Roosevelt Hotel to the local government, sympathetic to globalist policies, such as open borders. 

For some context, Pakistan has owned the Roosevelt Hotel since 1979. State-owned Pakistan International Airlines acquired the trophy property through its investment arm, PIA Investments Limited. 

According to the 2023 report, the lease agreement spans three years, during which NYC stuffed thousands of illegal aliens into the 1,250-room hotel like cattle—funded entirely by taxpayers. This arrangement has sparked outrage about how NYC paid a foreign gov’t to help support the invasion of the third world into a first-world city.

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Fuel Minister Liz Kendall, who axed £300 payment to pensioners, lives in £4million Notting Hill home with her banker partner – and their heating bill is paid by YOU

The Cabinet Minister who axed pensioners’ winter fuel payments has her own £350-a-month energy bills paid by the taxpayer – while she lives in a £4 million London mansion.

Liz Kendall has been branded a hypocrite for removing the payment for ten million pensioners while bills at her second home are being met from the public purse. 

The Work and Pensions Secretary’s main base is a four-bedroom property in Notting Hill, West London, which she shares with her partner, an Old Etonian investment banker. But she is allowed to claim costs for the second property she rents in her Leicester West constituency.

The most recent documents held by the Commons show she claimed a total of £3,810 in energy costs between April 2023 and July this year, with the largest monthly bills totalling £352. 

Ms Kendall’s decision to axe the annual winter fuel payment of between £100 and £300 for all but the poorest pensioners will force 100,000 people into poverty by 2027 according to her own department’s forecasts.

Last night, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage told The Mail on Sunday: ‘The hypocrisy of the Labour Government knows no bounds. I will not be claiming a penny in expenses for my heating.’

And Tory MP David Simmonds said: ‘This revelation will be a kick in the teeth for the 10 million pensioners facing choosing between heating and eating this Christmas because of Labour and Liz Kendall’s political choice to cut the winter fuel payment.

‘While Liz Kendall is living a life of luxury the country is facing real life consequences of Labour’s ill-thought-out decisions. In four short months this Labour Government have made it clear they do not have the British people’s best interests at heart.’

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New Chair Of Connecticut Dems Was “Hesitant” To Talk About Past As Illegal Immigrant When He Ran For Danbury Mayor In 2021

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont has tapped Danbury Mayor Roberto Alves to be the next chairman of the Democrat State Central Committee.

“As the mayor of a major city, he speaks with the residents of our state on a daily basis and is intimately familiar with their concerns and needs – working to keep our focus on making Connecticut more affordable,” said Lamont who believes Alves “represents the kind of leader needed” for the CT Dems.

“Roberto Alves exemplifies the very best of our state’s values, immigrating to Connecticut as a child, graduating from Danbury High School, and going on to work as a technical sales engineer at Cartus,” said Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz.

According to the CTMirror, Alves came to the U.S. in 1989 as a 5-year-old from Brazil with his parents who overstayed their tourist visa.

When Trump took office in 2016, Alves reportedly “sped up his plan to earn” citizenship, and officially became a citizen on May 18, 2017.

“I wanted to fight locally for people who had the same struggles that my parents did and I did,” Alves told the NewsTimes in 2019.

Alves subsequently ran for Danbury Mayor in 2021, and didn’t hide his previous illegal status, but he didn’t highlight it, either.

“I’m hesitant to use it politically, and I don’t talk about it politically, because people are conservative, and it [rubs] on some people the wrong way,” said Alves in 2021.

It should rub people the wrong way, considering illegal immigration has been estimated to cost Connecticut residents around $1.28 billion.

And let’s not forget that folks like CT AG William Tong have been appearing all around the state, promising to protect illegals from the incoming Trump Administration’s “mass deportation” plans.

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Some Questions to Ask on Thanksgiving

What if the government’s true goal is to perpetuate its own power? What if the real levers of governmental power are pulled by agents, diplomats, bureaucrats, donors, central bankers and arms manufacturers? What if they have power no matter who is elected president or which political party controls either house of Congress?

What if the frequent public displays of adversity between Republicans and Democrats are just a facade? What if both major political parties agree on the fundamental issues of our day?

What if the leadership of both political parties believes that our rights are not natural to our humanity but instead are gifts from the government? What if those leaders believe the government that gives gifts to the people can take those gifts away?

What if the leadership of both parties gives only lip service to Thomas Jefferson’s assertions in the Declaration of Independence that all persons “are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” and that when the government assaults our natural rights, we can “alter or abolish” it?

What if the leadership of both parties quietly dismisses those ideas as Jefferson’s outdated musings? What if Jefferson’s words are core American values that all in government have sworn to uphold?

What if the leadership of both political parties believes that the constitutional requirement of due process somehow permits mothers to hire doctors to kill babies in their wombs, out of fear or convenience? What if the leadership of both political parties believes that the president may lawfully kill any foreigner out of fear, because due process is an inconvenience?

What if the last four presidents — two from each political party — have used high-tech drones to kill innocent people in foreign lands with which America was not at war and claimed that they did so legally, relying not on a declaration of war from Congress but on erroneous and secret legal arguments that claim American presidents can kill with impunity?

What if the Constitution requires a congressional declaration of war or due process whenever the government wants anyone’s life, liberty or property, whether convenient or not, and whether the person is American or not? What if due process means a fair jury trial, not a secretly ordered killing?

What if most members of Congress from both political parties believe in perpetual war and perpetual debt? What if the political class believes that war is the health of the state? What if the leadership of that class wants war so as to induce the loyalty of its base, open the pocketbooks of the taxpayers, gain the compliance of the voters and enrich its benefactors? What if the government has been paying for war by increasing its debt?

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Illegal migrant crime cost $166.5 billion, three times the price of deportation

The cost of crime from 662,000 criminal illegal migrants sought for deportation has been pegged at three times the much-hyped price of President-elect Donald Trump’s “mass deportation” plan.

In an analysis from the Crime Prevention Research Center, the costs of crime from the top targets of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations was set at $166.5 billion. That number is based on the cost to victims, a price list developed by the National Institute of Justice.

Crime Prevention Research Center President John R. Lott Jr., who did the analysis for Real Clear Investigations, said the cost was based on just one of the crimes “each of the 662,566 ‘non-detained’ noncitizen offenders on ICE’s list” has been previously accused of.

“Murders account for almost $153.8 billion of the $166.5 billion in estimated criminal victimization costs. Another $6 billion involves sexual assaults/offenses, and an additional $5.2 billion comes from sexual assaults and sexual offenses,” he wrote.

“Half of the crimes these non-detained individuals commit don’t have cost estimates. These crimes include kidnapping, embezzlement, extortion, smuggling, traffic offenses, and weapon offenses,” he added.

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Global First: Denmark Starts Taxing Farm Animals’ Burps, Farts And Poop

Denmark, known for its inventive restaurants and elegant design studios, is about to become known for something more basic: the world’s first belch and manure tax.

That’s because there are five times as many pigs and cows in Denmark as there are people. Nearly two-thirds of its land is taken up by farming. And agriculture is becoming its largest share of climate pollution, putting lawmakers under intense public pressure to reduce it.

So now, Denmark’s unlikely coalition government, made up of three parties from across the political spectrum, has agreed to tax the planet-heating methane emissions that all those animals expel through their poop, farts and burps. The measure, under negotiation for years, was passed by the Danish Parliament this month, making it the only such climate levy on livestock in the world.

“I think it’s good,” said Rasmus Angelsnes, 31, who was shopping for dinner in Copenhagen one recent afternoon. “It’s kind of a nudge to make different choices, maybe more climate-friendly choices.”

Never mind that his shopping cart contained thick slices of pork belly, which he planned to cook that rainy evening with potatoes and parsley. “Comfort food,” he said sheepishly.

The tax is part of a larger package designed to clean up the country’s agricultural pollution and eventually restore some farmland to its natural form, like peat lands, which are exceptionally good at locking away planet-heating gases underground but were drained decades ago to grow crops.

Denmark’s quest is also part of a reckoning for many agricultural powerhouses, including the United States, as they face calls to clean up pollution from farms, while balancing the needs of politically powerful agricultural lobbies.

Globally, the food system accounts for a fourth of greenhouses gases, and reducing those emissions requires making tough choices on diets, jobs and industries. At the same time, farmers are vulnerable to the hazards of climate change, with punishing heat, droughts and floods exacerbated by the burning of fossil fuels. That makes food a particularly vexing climate problem to take on.

No wonder that efforts to reduce agriculture’s climate emissions have faced stiff resistance, from Brussels to Delhi to Wellington, where the New Zealand government proposed a burp tax in 2022 only to have a later government scrap it.

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