Tag: taxes

Central Inclusive Agency! Fury as CIA lists ‘equal employment opportunity specialist’ role for up to $184,000 per year (almost TRIPLE the $67,000 per year starting salary for field agents)

The CIA has sparked fury by advertising for an equal opportunities officer at up to triple the pay of a foreign intelligence job.

An Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Specialist position at the agency is being offered at an eye-watering starting salary of between $154,428 and $183,500.

The job description includes pushing outreach and education initiatives to help raise awareness of equity issues within the CIA.

In stark contrast, a Collection Management Officer role – which involves the collection of foreign intelligence – starts at between $67,122 and $102,166.

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Ramaswamy: Public shouldn’t be paying ‘hush money for sexual indiscretions’ by members of Congress

In voicing his opposition to former President Trump’s indictment, tech entrepreneur and 2024 GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy noted that taxpayers have been paying millions to settle sexual harassment claims in Congress.

“If you want to talk about hush money for sexual indiscretions by politicians,” he tweeted Friday, “consider this: in the past 25 years, the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights has paid a staggering $18.2 million of *taxpayer dollars* to settle 291 cases of sexual harassment & other misconduct committed by members of Congress.

“The public shouldn’t be paying for this nonsense. We’re fixing corruption. No one will be spared.” 

The indictment of Trump by a Manhattan grand jury stems from hush money payments he allegedly made to women before the 2016 presidential election. The 45th president’s arraignment is expected to take place in New York on Tuesday,

Ramaswamy said the indictment is “politically motivated” and “marks a dark moment in American history.”

“It will undermine public trust in our electoral system and justice system,” he said. “It is un-American for the ruling party to use police power to arrest its political rivals. Principles go beyond partisanship. Let the American people decide who governs.”

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California reparations hearing descends into chaos as activist blares out James Brown, another tells absent reparations tsar to ‘stay in Africa’ with Kamala Harris – and a third screams ‘we’re not asking for money, it’s ours!’

California‘s reparations task force has descended into chaos as activists blasted music and aired wild accusations – a day after it was revealed they want $800billion.

Among the first people to speak was Reggie Romain who blared James Brown’s I’m Black & I’m Proud through his phone and down the microphone.

Romain, as well as members of the audience, danced to the 1968 track and after cutting the song short promoted his social media channels before sitting down.

Later, a San Francisco-based activist at the podium described the US as a country ‘born in the name of evil’ and said: ‘Evil cannot give justice.’ She went on scream at the committee members: ‘We ask you for nothing. It’s ours!’

The second-day began amid controversy over the absence of senior committee member Rev. Amos Brown, who is in West Africa, as part of Kamala Harris’ official trip to the continent. On Thursday, one activist demanded that Brown ‘should stay in Africa.’

Unlike at Wednesday’s meeting, Rev. Brown did not Zoom in to make remarks on the meeting. 

Brown Zoomed into Wednesday’s meeting in Sacramento in which he complained that the reports that $5 million would be given to black residents in reparations in the Bay Area were part of a ‘smear campaign.’ 

Brown, 82, said that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, of which he is a member, gave ‘lip service’ to reparations and noted that the city is facing a massive deficit. 

A member of the public who called into the meeting to offer comment addressed Brown’s absence saying: ‘Shame on you.’ 

The reverend’s absence came on the same day that it emerged that the bill for California’s reparations bill has skyrocketed to at least $800 billion.

During the vice president’s historic visit to Africa, Harris promised billions of investment to the continent as she toured historic sites associated with slavery.

It later emerged that while in West Africa, Brown attended a lavish state banquet in Ghana this week as part of the VP’s delegation. 

‘Dr. Brown, shame on you… absolutely shame on you. You give us these fiery speeches only to turn around as Judas did Jesus and betray us…. Him being in Ghana with Kamala Harris, whose administration has done nothing to help black folks is a symbolic gesture,’ a member of the public said at Wednesday’s meeting.

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Reparations for Black Californians could top $800 billion

It could cost California more than $800 billion to compensate Black residents for generations of over-policing, disproportionate incarceration and housing discrimination, economists have told a state panel considering reparations.

The preliminary estimate is more than 2.5 times California’s $300 billion annual budget, and does not include a recommended $1 million per older Black resident for health disparities that have shortened their average life span. Nor does the figure count compensating people for property unjustly taken by the government or devaluing Black businesses, two other harms the task force says the state perpetuated.

Black residents may not receive cash payments anytime soon, if ever, because the state may never adopt the economists’ calculations. The reparations task force is scheduled to discuss the numbers Wednesday and can vote to adopt the suggestions or come up with its own figures. The proposed number comes from a consulting team of five economists and policy experts.

“We’ve got to go in with an open mind and come up with some creative ways to deal with this,” said Assembly member Reggie Jones-Sawyer, one of two lawmakers on the task force responsible for mustering support from state legislators and Gov. Gavin Newsom before any reparations could become reality.

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Taliban Releases Photos Of The U.S. Equipment They Seized From Biden’s Disastrous Pullout

Afghanistan’s extremist Taliban government released photographs late last week of some of the U.S. military equipment that it seized in the wake of President Joe Biden’s disastrous pullout from Afghanistan.

The photos come after Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 left up to a maximum of $24 billion worth of weapons and equipment in the hands of the Taliban.

“300 destroyed vehicles in the 205th Army Corps were restored,” Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense wrote on Twitter. “As many as (300) types of intermediate military vehicles that were destroyed and unusable were restored and ready for use by the technical team of the Abu Dojaneh Brigade of the Badr Army.”

“Repaired vehicles include 150 International Kamaz trucks,” the statement continued. “125 Arada Humvee, 2 assault tanks, 4 Aradeh Taylor, 10 Aradeh Purcliff, and 15 are Humvee ambulances.”

“It should be mentioned that hundreds of other vehicles have been restored due to the efforts of the engineering and technical teams of the Ministry of National Defense,” the statement said.

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Congress Has Been Captured by the Arms Industry

On March 13th, the Pentagon rolled out its proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2024. The results were — or at least should have been — stunning, even by the standards of a department that’s used to getting what it wants when it wants it.

The new Pentagon budget would come in at $842 billion. That’s the highest level requested since World War II, except for the peak moment of the Afghan and Iraq wars, when the United States had nearly 200,000 troops deployed in those two countries.

$1 Trillion for the Pentagon?

It’s important to note that the $842 billion proposed price tag for the Pentagon next year will only be the beginning of what taxpayers will be asked to shell out in the name of “defense.” If you add in nuclear weapons work at the Department of Energy and small amounts of military spending spread across other agencies, you’re already at a total military budget of $886 billion. And if last year is any guide, Congress will add tens of billions of dollars extra to that sum, while yet more billions will go for emergency aid to Ukraine to help it fend off Russia’s brutal invasion. In short, we’re talking about possible total spending of well over $950 billion on war and preparations for more of it — within striking distance, in other words, of the $1 trillion mark that hawkish officials and pundits could only dream about a few short years ago.

The ultimate driver of that enormous spending spree is a seldom-commented-upon strategy of global military overreach, including 750 U.S. military bases scattered on every continent except Antarctica, 170,000 troops stationed overseas, and counterterror operations in at least 85 — no, that is not a typo — countries (a count offered by Brown University’s Costs of War Project). Worse yet, the Biden administration only seems to be preparing for more of the same. Its National Defense Strategy, released late last year, manages to find the potential for conflict virtually everywhere on the planet and calls for preparations to win a war with Russia and/or China, fight Iran and North Korea, and continue to wage a global war on terror, which, in recent times, has been redubbed “countering violent extremism.” Think of such a strategic view of the world as the exact opposite of the “diplomacy first” approach touted by President Joe Biden and his team during his early months in office. Worse yet, it’s more likely to serve as a recipe for conflict than a blueprint for peace and security.

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Biden Official Confirms Administration Wants Taxpayer Dollars For Child Sex Changes

Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra said that the Biden administration wanted to use a taxpayer-funded insurance program for children to fund sex changes.

“Is the president serious — he wants to take our Childhood Health Insurance Program and pay for this?” Republican Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland asked Becerra during a Tuesday hearing held by the House Appropriations Committee about the Biden administration’s budget request for fiscal year 2024, referring to “gender-affirming” treatment of children that has been restricted by several states, including Tennessee.

The Childhood Health Insurance Program (CHIP) provides low-cost health-care coverage for children in families that are not eligible for Medicaid, but who are unable to afford private health insurance, according to Healthcare.gov.

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New York Lawmakers Want To Use a ‘Netflix Tax’ To Pay for the Subway

After New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) approved a budget authorizing a 5.5 percent fare increase to address chronic budget shortfalls, the state assembly flew into action coming up with ways to avoid that. New York’s latest tax scheme would attempt to pay for the MTA by hiking taxes on everyone from streaming services like Netflix to small delivery businesses to digital workers —basically, on everyone except the actual riders of public transportation.

Under its 2023 budget, the MTA is set to run a $600 million deficit, even after using nearly $1.8 billion in federal pandemic-related aid. Things will get even worse once that federal aid runs out—in 2025, the MTA is set to run a $3 billion deficit. 

In place of fare increases, Gov. Kathy Hochul has now proposed an increase on the top payroll tax rate paid by employers: from 0.34 percent to 0.5 percent in New York City and surrounding counties served by MTA trains and buses. State legislators have countered with a hodgepodge of proposals, including a 2 percent increase on the top statewide corporate tax rate, applying state and local sales taxes to streaming services, and a new $0.25 “delivery fee” on delivery transactions within New York (with some exceptions).

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Pentagon Leaders Say New Budget Will Help Prepare For War With China

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told Congress at a Thursday hearing that the Pentagon’s 2024 budget request will help the country prepare for a future war with China.

Milley insisted the Pentagon’s massive $842 billion budget request is meant to deter war but said it will also prepare the US military to fight one. He told the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense that deterring and preparing for a conflict “is extraordinarily expensive, but it’s not as expensive as fighting a war. And this budget prevents war and prepares us to fight it if necessary.”

The Pentagon identified China as the “most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security strategy” in the 2022 National Defense Strategy, and lately, US military leaders have been speaking more explicitly about how they’re preparing for a direct war with China despite the risk of nuclear war. President Biden has also vowed to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack.

Milley said China’s actions “are moving it down the path toward confrontation and potential conflict with its neighbors and possibly the United States,” echoing similar warnings made by Chinese officials.

Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang warned earlier this month that if the US doesn’t change course on its military buildup in the Asia Pacific and other policies aimed at China, it will lead to “conflict and confrontation.” The Pentagon’s budget request will further expand the US military footprint in the region by funding a buildup plan known as the Pacific Deterrence Initiative.

“This budget includes a 40 percent increase over last year’s for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative to an all-time high of $9.1 billion,” Austin said at the hearing.

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California Reparations Task Force member vows their ‘recommendations will be breathtaking’

A member of the California Reparations Task Force vowed the committee’s “recommendations will be breathtaking.”

Lisa Holder, a task force member and president of the far-left Equal Justice Society, published an opinion piece advocating for the reparations committee and writing that Californians “must be prepared for remedies on a scale approaching the Great Society programs of Medicare and Medicaid.”

“Reparations is a paradigm for understanding harm and repair as it relates to people who suffered a human rights injustice because of government action,” Holder wrote. “Harm and repair are the two sides of the spectrum.” She added that reparations will “likely” include “monetary compensation to Black people who are descendants of enslaved and persecuted Black Americans.” 

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