Tag: taxes

New York’s Boom In Home Health Aides Is Just Another Medicaid Racket

Not long ago, I wrote in The Federalist about “labor unions’ racket,” as it relates to corruption within one Service Employees International Union (SEIU) local. But the “racket” doesn’t end there. It extends to the people who finance it: federal taxpayers like you and me.

You don’t have to take my word for it. Consider the following quote:

I’m telling you right now, when you look on TikTok and you see ads of young people saying, “Guess what, you can make $37 an hour by sitting home with your Grandma. You know, here’s how you sign up,” it has become a racket.

The speaker is none other than New York’s Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul, describing her own state’s Medicaid program. And the reason why she has suddenly changed her rhetoric and refuses to fix the problem has much to do with the union corruption I wrote about recently.

Union Dues Skimming

As with most things in politics, keen observers should follow the money. The New York Post recently criticized Hochul for reneging on her plan to attack the “racket” she described last year, with the Post alleging that she “switch[ed] sides with an eye on her re-election run” in 2026. 

The outlet explained that “the health care worker unions — above all, 1199[SEIU] — are a ginormous lobbying power.” The push to expand home health workers, including family members giving care, which Hochul previously criticized as a “racket,” has “morphed into a mass unionization drive,” as the Post noted.

Explosion of New Aides

That “mass unionization drive” comes as home health jobs within New York state have soared. The Empire Center, a conservative think tank, reviewed the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. From 2023 to 2024, home health employment grew by 57,000 jobs in New York alone. That’s a 10 percent increase in home health employment within one year, with New York accounting for one-fifth of all the new home health aides nationwide.

On both an absolute and relative basis, the data reveals New York’s absurdly high number of home health aides. The Empire State has more than three times as many home health aides (623,000) as fast food workers (183,810), and more than four times as many aides as waiters and waitresses (140,890). On a relative basis, New York has by far the most home health aides per 1,000 senior citizens, more than twice as many as the national average and 24 percent higher than the next-highest state, California.

As one observer told Newsweek last year, the home health aide program started with good intentions by “allow[ing] family members and friends to get paid for providing home health assistance to loved ones using Medicaid and Medicare dollars. The problem is now you have individuals taking advantage of a pretty liberal, open-ended process for determining who qualifies.” 

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GOP Congressman And House Democratic Leader Team Up To Prepare For Federal Marijuana Legalization With Alcohol-Like Regulations

A GOP congressman and the top House Democrat are teaming up on a new bill to lay the groundwork for federal marijuana legalization.

On the same day he announced the refiling of a separate bipartisan measure to end federal prohibition in states that have legalized cannabis, Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH) has again introduced the Preparing Regulators Effectively for a Post-Prohibition Adult-Use Regulated Environment Act (PREPARE) Act.

The legislation is also being sponsored by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who has worked with Joyce on earlier versions of the bill in past sessions.

The incremental reform would direct the attorney general to create a commission charged with making recommendations on a regulatory system for cannabis that models what’s currently in place for alcohol.

“Currently, nearly all 50 states have legalized or enacted cannabis to some degree, bringing us closer to the inevitable end to federal cannabis prohibition,” Joyce said in a press release on Thursday. “Recognizing this reality, the PREPARE Act delivers a bipartisan plan.”

“With this legislation, Congress would be equipped to develop a much-needed federal regulatory framework that not only respects the unique needs, rights, and laws of each state, but also ensures a responsible end to prohibition and a safer future for our communities,” he said.

The legislation largely resembles an earlier version introduced last session, with several largely technical changes.

One substantive from the last version is that the proposed cannabis commission would now include representatives of the Departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Labor and Treasury, as well as the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and Office of Minority Health and Indian Health Service.

Language was also added to clarify that two commission members who’ve overseen the development of “two successful, separate, and unique State-level regulatory systems” must have served on state cannabis control commissions. Such commissions are newly defined as “any State commission, bureau, board, department, office, agency, division, or authority responsible for the regulation of the State’s legal medical and recreational cannabis program.”

The prospects of marijuana legislation advancing in the Republican-controlled Congress this session remain unclear, but certain members have expressed confidence that modest reform could be achievable on a bipartisan basis. The PREPARE Act could represent an area of agreement to that end.

“Since the failed war on drugs began more than 50 years ago, the prohibition of marijuana has ruined lives, families and communities, particularly communities of color,” Jeffries said. “The PREPARE Act is one of the bipartisan solutions that will lay the groundwork to finally right these wrongs in a way that advances public safety and boosts our economy.”

“I am grateful to Congressman Joyce for reintroducing this important bill and his leadership to help the United States be ready for the inevitable end to cannabis prohibition,” he said.

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House Oversight Chair James Comer Denies Democrats Taxpayer Funds to Visit MS-13 Gang Member in El Salvador: ‘Spend Your Own Money’

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer slammed Democrats for requesting taxpayer-funded travel to El Salvador to visit a deported illegal alien with alleged ties to the MS-13 gang.

In a letter shared on X, Comer informed Democratic Reps. Robert Garcia of California and Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida that if they wish to meet with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, they’ll have to pay for the trip themselves.

He wrote:

It is absurd that you both displayed active hostility for over two years toward the Committee’s oversight of the Biden Border Crisis and the consequences of millions of illegal aliens entering the country, yet now, you are seeking travel at Committee expense to meet with foreign gang members.

You may be pleased to know that a Democrat Senator, Chris Van Hollen, was photographed just yesterday in El Salvador enjoying margaritas garnished with cherry slices with the foreign gang member your letter references.

If you also wish to meet with him, you can spend your own money. But I will not approve a single dime of taxpayer funds for use on the excursion you have requested.

The request came less than 24 hours after Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador to meet with Abrego Garcia and lobby for his return to the United States.

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Leaked White House Document Reveals Monster Budget Cut Proposal For Federal Health Agencies

The Trump administration could slash roughly one-third of the federal government’s bloated health budget, a leaked White House proposal shows. The plan, first reported by the Washington Post and detailed in documents acquired by CNN, calls for slashing “tens of billions of dollars” annually, targeting a host of programs across multiple agencies.

The proposal, already sent to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), aligns with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” initiative and tech titan Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, sources say.

The proposal, part of President Donald Trump’s broader push to curb government waste, would eliminate billions in annual spending and reign in a sprawling bureaucracy that employs 82,000 workers across 10 regional offices, with average salaries of $100,000 plus generous benefits.

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New Evidence Reveals EPA Mega-Grant Has Stacey Abrams’ Fingerprints All Over It

Last month, President Trump singled out Georgia activist Stacey Abrams as someone who helped orchestrate a controversial $2 billion deal between left-wing nonprofit groups and the Environmental Protection Agency during the Biden administration.

“We know she’s involved,” Trump told Congress.

He was right. But after his statement, the Washington media went into overdrive to pooh-pooh her role in a frenzy of “fact-checking.”

The Washington Post, for one, claimed Abrams’ role in the Biden massive green-energy initiative has been “vastly overblown” by President Trump and the “right-wing media.”

The paper’s top fact-checker asserted it’s “a stretch” to suggest the Democratic politician helped land the grant. “[S]he was not involved with Power Forward’s EPA grant,” Post reporter Glenn Kessler recently wrote.

The Post also denied she had “any role at Power Forward Communities beyond advising Rewiring America,” one of the partners in the coalition.

This claim was echoed by PolitiFact, a fact-checking site run by the liberal Poynter Institute, which quoted an Abrams spokesperson as saying, “Abrams did not have a role at Power Forward Communities beyond her position at Rewiring America.”

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OF COURSE: Bernie Sanders Has Spent More Than $200K Flying on Private Jets for His ‘Fight the Oligarchy’ Tour

The Gateway Pundit recently noted that ‘woman of the people’ AOC flew first class to the Bernie Sanders ‘Fight the Oligarchy’ event in Las Vegas.

Now it has been revealed that Bernie Sanders has spent more than $200,000 flying to the same events on private jets.

It’s starting to look like these people are hypocrites who don’t believe their own claims about climate change, or the ‘oligarchy’ for that matter. They deny themselves nothing and live the high life while decrying the same.

The Washington Free Beacon reported:

Bernie Sanders Spent $221K on Private Jets Amid ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ Tour

Sen. Bernie Sanders has crisscrossed the country on his nationwide Fighting Oligarchy Tour to rail against billionaires and supposed “oligarchs” like Elon Musk—while traveling like an oligarch himself.

Campaign expenditures released Tuesday and reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show Sanders’s main campaign committee, Friends of Bernie Sanders, spent $221,723 chartering private jets during the first quarter of 2025, with the first payment coming just days before the launch of his tour in February.

“We will not accept a rigged economy where working people struggle while billionaires become richer,” Sanders said during the tour’s latest event in California on Tuesday. “We have got to create an economy that works for working people, not just Mr. Musk and the billionaire class.” But Sanders has had no issue splurging on private jets far beyond the means of working people, even as he has ramped up his attacks on the rich.

How do so many people on the left fall for this act?

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Florida House Committee Approves Hemp Regulatory Bill That Would Impose 15% Tax On All THC Products

All hemp-derived THC products would be taxed at 15 percent under a proposal passed in a Florida House committee on Wednesday.

The measure is one of two regarding regulation of hemp-derived THC products sponsored by Panhandle Republican Rep. Michelle Salzman that were approved unanimously in the House Budget Committee.

The main bill (HB 7027) is a companion to a Senate bill (SB 438) that has already passed unanimously in that chamber, although they do contain significant differences. Among them is that Salzman’s bill would not ban delta-8, the hemp-derived THC product that has grown in popularity since hemp was legalized in the United States through the 2018 U.S. Farm Bill.

Like its Senate companion, the House bill limits the amount of delta-9 THC in hemp-derived products such as beverages and gummies. It says edibles must contain no more than 2 milligrams, be individually wrapped and be sold in containers with no more than 20 edibles.

That raised objections from Patrick Shatzer of Sunmed/Your CBD Store, who says his company is the largest CBD brick-and-mortar business in the country, with 260 locations nationwide and 42 in Florida.

“The size of the gummies—limited to 2 grams—that’s just a tiny little pinkie size wide,” he said to the committee. “That’s not the industry standard. The industry standard is anywhere from 5 to 8 grams.”

Shatzer also objected to the provision limiting 20 servings per container, saying the average dietary supplements permit 30 gummies in a container. And he raised objections to a prohibition on selling, delivering, bartering, giving or furnishing hemp consumables that total more than 100 milligrams of THC to a person in a 24-hour period, saying it would be unenforceable.

Rep. Salzman replied that, while she is open to changing some of those limits, she is holding firm on limiting personal consumption of such products to 100 milligrams of THC a day.

“If somebody knows that they can’t buy more than 100 milligrams in that day, it’s going to give them a warning subconsciously, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have more than 100 milligrams of this stuff in a day,’” she said. “And if you want more than 100 milligrams of this stuff a day, you probably need to get a medical cannabis card.”

Regarding the proposed 15 percent excise tax on hemp products, Jodi James of the Florida Cannabis Action Network said that not all hemp products are intoxicating, and that those that aren’t should not be taxed at all.

“In the state of Florida, we don’t tax vitamins, we don’t tax supplements,” she said.

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Profanity-ridden Emails, Misuse of CDC Funds: How Big Fluoride Tries to Prevent Towns From Cleaning Up Their Water

When Washburn, North Dakota’s town commissioners decided in January to take up the issue of whether or not to continue fluoridating the water supply for the town’s 1,300 residents, they anticipated researching the risks versus benefits and putting the matter to a vote.

What they didn’t anticipate — but soon encountered — was evidence of a coordinated effort by state actors and a national fluoride lobby group, using federal money, to crush local efforts by small towns like Washburn to stop fluoridating their water supplies.

On Monday night, town commissioners voted 4-1 to stop adding fluoride to Washburn’s water supply — making Washburn the latest in a growing list of communities across the country to end the practice in light of mounting scientific evidence that the chemical harms children’s health and provides little or no dental benefit.

At the meeting, Commissioner Keith Hapip shared what he said was evidence of astroturfing by Dr. Johnny Johnson, president of the American Fluoridation Society; Jim Kershaw, Bismarck, North Dakota’s water plant superintendent and others.

“Astroturfing is when a group with money and power pretends to be regular folks supporting something, but it’s really a planned push from the top,” Hapip said. “Real grassroots come from the community naturally. And here, the oral health program used CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] cash to manufacture support for fluoridation in Washburn.”

Johnson phoned into the meeting to advocate for water fluoridation. In response, the commission also hosted a presentation by Michael Connett — the attorney who represented the plaintiffs who won alandmark ruling in a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the agency’s failure to appropriately regulate fluoride use in water supplies.

Dr. Griffin Cole, conference chairman of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology, who has expertise on fluoride’s toxic effects, also made a presentation.

Interviews by The Defender with grassroots actors across the country revealed that for years, Johnson, one of the country’s foremost advocates of water fluoridation, has been intervening in grassroots efforts to end fluoridation in their communities.

He and colleagues — in this case, Kershaw — travel physically or virtually to meetings in towns across the country.

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US Mulls Ground War In Yemen Via Mercenaries, Pro-Saudi Factions

Bloomberg reports Wednesday that the United States is currently in talks with Saudi-supported Yemeni forces (who have long fought the Houthi rebels) to cobble together a possible new land offensive to send against the Shia militant group which is allied to Iran.

“Yemeni forces opposed to the Houthis are in talks with the US and Gulf Arab allies about a possible land offensive to oust the militant group from the Red Sea coast, according to people involved in the discussions,” Bloomberg writes.

The report follows with, “The conversations come about a month into a US-led aerial assault against the Houthis ordered by President Donald Trump, an operation yet to achieve its aim of ending the Iran-backed group’s attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, a vital trade route, and Israel.”

And The Wall Street Journal first reported Monday that the US is considering a ground assault, given the Houthis have proven impossible to dislodge merely through airstrikes, which have been intense and ongoing since March 15.

The group in question is the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) of former Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The PLC is the ‘internationally recognized’ government, but which is now based in Saudi Arabia (in exile), given the Houthis have de fact control over most of the country.

The Saudi-UAE-US coalition had already waged an aerial as well as proxy ground war from 2015 to 2022, which killed hundreds of thousand of people and blocked vital resources for the starved population, but the whole campaign did nothing to oust the Houthis – in fact quite the opposite as they became entrenched in the most important strategic sites.

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DOGE Does It Again: Unemployment Insurance Claims $254M For Under Age 5

In yet another shocking data discovery from Elon Musk & ‘DOGE’, they found $254 million worth of unemployment insurance claims – for people under the age of 5!

“It’s just one more installment to what we can only call sophisticated white collar crime stealing taxpayer money” said Scott Powell, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and Newsmax contributor.

This, while radical left protestors continue to march, swearing that none of this fraud, waste, and abuse is happening.

“Sad to say that we’ve come to a point in America where you have large numbers of our population that can no longer think critically, that can no longer really think commonsensically” Powell told KTRH, “But that’s where we’re at.”

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