Tag: taxes

Trump Administration Moves to Protect U.S. Taxpayers — Foreign Visa Seekers With Costly Medical Conditions Like Diabetes and Obesity May Be Denied Entry Under New Directive

The Trump administration has quietly issued a sweeping directive instructing U.S. embassies and consulates worldwide to tighten visa‐issuance standards for applicants with costly medical conditions.

The new policy will give visa officers discretion to deny individuals with conditions such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and mental‐health disorders if their lifetime care is deemed likely to become a burden on U.S. taxpayers.

According to KFF Health News, the U.S. Department of State reportedly instructs consular officers to assess whether visa applicants, and in some cases, their dependents, could become a “public charge” due to medical costs over their expected lifespan. Conditions flagged in the guidance include, but are not limited to:

  • Cardiovascular diseases
  • Respiratory diseases
  • Cancers
  • Diabetes and metabolic diseases
  • Neurological or mental health disorders
  • Obesity, explicitly mentioned as a red flag due to its connection to sleep apnea, asthma, hypertension, and other expensive conditions.

“Does the applicant have adequate financial resources to cover the costs of such care over his entire expected lifespan without seeking public cash assistance or long-term institutionalization at government expense?” the guidance stated.

“Self-sufficiency has been a long-standing principle of US immigration policy … and the public-charge ground of inadmissibility has been a part of our immigration law for more than 100 years.”

The Trump administration frames this directive as a taxpayer-protection measure.

A spokesperson for the State Department told Fox News, “It’s no secret the Trump administration is putting the interests of the American people first. This includes enforcing policies that ensure our immigration system is not a burden on the American taxpayer.”

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The Obamacare secret at the heart of the shutdown: insurers made billions at taxpayer expense

The 42-day federal shutdown forced by Democrats thrust the economics of Obamacare into the limelight, and exposed an uncomfortable truth: An insurance industry whose executives are increasingly liberal donors has seen its earnings soar with the injection of taxpayer-funded subsidies that propped up Barack Obama’s signature health program from collapse.

The nation’s largest health insurance companies have seen good business since Obamacare was first passed in 2010 and fully implemented in 2014. This has come in no small part because of federal government subsidies to the insurance industry, which government estimates show totaled $1.8 trillion in 2023 alone.

Those subsidies were greatly expanded by the Biden administration during the COVID-19 pandemic as an emergency measure, but Democrats have fought to keep them permanent.    

Obamacare brought health insurance companies historic profits

A Just the News analysis of public financial records from four of the nation’s largest health insurance companies found that net earnings ballooned about 216% from 2010 to 2024. UnitedHealth Group in particular, which dominates the industry with a market share of around 15%, saw the largest explosion of profits. The other three companies, Elevance, Centene, and Cigna also experienced a marked growth in net earnings after the implementation of Obamacare. 

The healthcare legislation was also a boon for these companies’ stock prices. One study found the weighted average of health insurance stock prices has grown 1,032% from 2010—when the law was passed—and 448% from 2013—the year the legislation’s key provisions were implemented. 

This performance far outstripped the most popular S&P 500 exchange-traded fund, which grew 251% and 139%, respectively, the Paragon Health Institute reported last year. ETFs are designed to track the performance of specific stock indices and, as such, generally represent average market growth.

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Germany to funnel more cash into Ukraine’s corruption-plagued energy sector

Germany has pledged to provide Ukraine with an additional €40 million in an effort to prop up its power generation during the winter, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has said. The announcement comes as Ukraine’s energy industry finds itself mired in a corruption scandal allegedly linked to an ally of leader Vladimir Zelensky.

Speaking on Tuesday, Wadephul said Berlin was “helping Ukrainians survive another winter of war with an additional €40 million ($46 million).” The diplomat noted that this year alone Germany has already spent €9 billion on military aid for Kiev.

A day earlier, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) announced that it was investigating a “high-level criminal organization” which allegedly profited from contracts involving state-owned nuclear energy company Energoatom.

According to the authorities, the ring forced Energoatom officials and contractors to pay kickbacks for state contracts. Formal charges have so far been brought against seven unnamed individuals. The Ukrainian media has claimed that one of the suspects is Timur Mindich, a close associate and former business partner of Zelensky. The businessman allegedly fled Ukraine just hours before his home was raided by NABU agents.

Mindich’s personal and business ties to the Ukrainian leader are understood to date back to when Zelensky was actively involved in the entertainment industry.

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What to Know About Food Stamps as Congress Poised to End Shutdown

Americans who are in the federal food stamp program and have not received full benefits are poised to see the money soon, under a package the House of Representatives is due to vote on later Nov. 12.

Many of the 42 million Americans enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) have received partial or no benefits for November as the federal government has only paid about half of the approximately $8.5 billion needed to fund the program for the month.

Courts ordered the government to pay in full for November, but the Supreme Court blocked those rulings on Tuesday.

Here’s what to know about SNAP and the upcoming vote.

Some States Have Paid Full Benefits

Usually, the money SNAP beneficiaries receive on electronic EBT cards comes in full from the federal government, which conveys them through states.

Because the government has only paid $4.6 billion so far, a number of states have only been distributing partial benefits, with some SNAP participants not having received any money yet.

The plan in place now “would delay November benefits by weeks or months for recipients in multiple states and would create substantial risks of error,” states said in a Nov. 11 filing to the Supreme Court.

Others have paid full benefits to some people. Hawaii, for example, recently paid full benefits to about half of the 161,400 residents who receive food stamps, officials said in a court filing.

The state took this step following a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) memorandum sent on Nov. 7 that said the federal government would make funds available for full SNAP benefits for November to comply with a court order, according to the filing.

Still others, including Minnesota and Oregon, paid all beneficiaries the full amount they were due to receive after reading the memo.

“The money is now on the EBT cards of SNAP recipients, and the recipients have begun to spend it,” Jessica Amaya Hoffman, deputy director of the Oregon Department of Human Services’ Self-Sufficiency Programs, said in a declaration.

Later on Nov. 7, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government did not immediately have to pay full benefits for November, prompting the USDA to direct states to “undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November.” U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, who is overseeing one of the cases brought over food stamp funding, said on Monday that she was blocking the USDA from implementing the new memo. She has not yet issued a written order detailing her decision.

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Suffolk County Ordered to Pay $112 Million to Hundreds of Illegal Aliens After Obama Judge Rules They Were ‘Unlawfully Detained’

Suffolk County was ordered to pay $112 million to hundreds of illegal aliens after a judge ruled they were ‘unlawfully detained.’

US District Court Judge William F. Kuntz II, an Obama appointee, issued the ruling after an illegal from Guatemala living in Long Island filed a lawsuit claiming he was detained by ICE beyond his release date.

The judge ruled that the sheriff’s office in Long Island unlawfully held the illegal aliens since the state of New York doesn’t allow local law enforcement to do so.

The plaintiff was arrested in 2017 were police asked him about his immigration status.

According to PIX11, lawyers argued that the plaintiff’s cousin paid a $1,000 bail with the agreement that he would appear in immigration court yet he was never informed of the bail.

Police reportedly transferred the Guatemalan illegal to the Varick Street Detention Center in Manhattan and later transferred to a county jail in New Jersey.

The case ballooned after it became a class action lawsuit so now Suffolk County residents are on the hook for $112 million.

“This decision brings long-overdue accountability,” said plaintiffs’ attorney José Pérez, Deputy General Counsel at LatinoJustice PRLDEF. “The jury confirmed what we have argued all along, that Suffolk County’s actions trampled the basic due process rights guaranteed under the 14th Amendment.”

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“Clinton Corruption Files” – Bondi, Patel Give Congress New Evidence Detailing Clinton Foundation Corruption

US Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel have provided Congress with new evidence detailing Clinton Foundation corruption.

The IRS began investigating the Clinton Foundation in 2019 but abruptly stopped and cut off whistleblowers, according to memos obtained by Just The News over the summer.

“Can’t talk about the CF [Clinton Foundation],” one of the memos stated as it cut off the two Clinton Foundation whistleblowers.

On Tuesday, Just The News reported that Patel and Bondi have given Congress a new tranche of documents showing the Clinton Foundation took donor money from foreigners seeking influence.

Just The News reported:

Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel have produced to Congress a new cache of documents showing how Bill and Hillary Clinton’s foundation collected donations from foreign and domestic interests seeking influence – raising fresh concerns that such evidence was kept from federal prosecutors who tried to investigate pay-to-play allegations against the former first family a decade ago.

Officials told Just the News that the documents were transmitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee in recent days and detail numerous instances of foreigners and even a U.S. defense contractor seeking to curry favor with the Clintons through donations to their family charity, including when Hillary Clinton served as secretary of State. Bill Clinton was a U.S. president from 1993 to 2001.

The officials said some of the evidence was flagged by whistleblowers who claimed such evidence was kept from a corruption investigation that was being conducted in 2015 by the Little Rock, Ark., U.S. attorney’s office before it was shut down by the Obama administration’s Justice Department.

The documents will make clear that there was an effort “to obstruct legitimate inquiries into the Foundation by blocking real investigation by line-level FBI agents and DOJ field prosecutors and keeping them from following the money,” said one official directly familiar with the documents.

In 2018, the whistleblowers, Lawrence Doyle of DM Income Advisors and John Moynihan of JFM Associates, argued that according to their research, the Clinton Foundation was operating outside of its bounds as a 501c3 non-profit organization and instead operated exactly like the global fund in Geneva, Switzerland by brokering money and pharmaceuticals.

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Supreme Court Lets Government Continue to Withhold Funding From SNAP

The Trump administration may, for the time being, continue not to fully fund the food stamp program until Congress appropriates new funds, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled late on Nov. 11.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as the food stamp program, provides financial assistance for food purchases to about 42 million people.

The court extended until 11:59 p.m. on Nov. 13 an administrative stay it granted on Nov. 7 that blocked lower court decisions that ordered the Trump administration to redirect about $4 billion in tariff revenue to SNAP on top of $4.6 billion it already used from a contingency fund. An administrative stay gives members of a court more time to consider an urgent matter.

The new unsigned order in Rollins v. Rhode Island Council of Churches did not provide reasons for the decision.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson indicated she would have denied the extension and the federal government’s emergency application. She did not explain her dissent.

Jackson on Nov. 7 had placed a temporary hold on the adverse lower court orders until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit issued a written explanation outlining why it denied the administration’s appeal of those rulings. That explanation was released on Nov. 10, prompting the administration to request that Jackson extend her stay.

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Sunny Hostin Scolds John Fetterman For Voting In Favor Of Not Starving His Constituents

Sunny Hostin spent part of Tuesday’s broadcast of “The View” scolding Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) for voting with Republicans to bring the longest government shutdown in history to an end — and he pushed right back.

Hostin’s cohosts — most of whom have been pushing for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) ouster since he “caved” and voted to avert the last potential government shutdown in March — began by pressing Fetterman on whether or not he believed Schumer was still the right person to lead the Senate under the current circumstances.

“Senator Bernie Sanders said the vote was a horrific mistake. Governor Gavin Newsom called it pathetic and a surrender. Poll after poll found Americans on both sides of the aisle blaming Republicans,” Hostin said. “Even Marjorie Taylor Greene blamed the GOP. As you mentioned, Democrats had big wins last week, so you had momentum. Why give in now? Why bring a butter knife to a gun fight?!”

Hostin went on to argue that Fetterman was taking a major risk in trusting Republicans to follow through on promises to hold a vote on the Affordable Care Act subsidies and deliver back pay to furloughed federal workers, saying, “I believe you are wrong!”

“Well, first of all, MTG is quite literally the last person in America that I’m going to take advice [from] or to get their kinds of leadership and values from,” Fetterman shot back.

He went on to note that he had voted to keep the government open from the start, largely because he knew how a shutdown would impact people in his home state.

“I promise you, this isn’t a political game. It is viewed [that way] by many of us, but the reality is, 42 million Americans now [are] not sure where their next meal is going to come from because we vote like that. Or people that haven’t been paid for five weeks now and that kinds of chaos. Those kinds of workers have to borrow more than half a billion dollars from their credit union just to pay the bills,” he said.

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Bill to end government shutdown would let senators snooped on by Jack Smith seek up to $500K

A provision tucked into the government funding bill that passed the Senate on Monday would compensate GOP senators whose phone records were seized without their knowledge during former special counsel Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Up to nine Senate Republicans would be able to sue the government and be eligible for up to $500,000 in damages, plus attorneys’ fees, for each instance in which their call logs were coughed up to the feds. A payout for one incident apiece could cost taxpayers about $4.5 million.

Phone carriers would also be required to immediately notify senators and their offices if their devices, accounts, records or communications are sought — unless the lawmakers are the target of a criminal investigation.

In such cases, judges can issue a 60-day nondisclosure order if they find an imminent threat to “the life or physical safety of any person” or that the targeted senator poses a flight risk, that evidence would be destroyed, that witnesses would be intimidated or that the investigation would be jeopardized.

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Nothing says ‘Veterans Day’ than military families in a food line

According to reports at Military.com, which as a staple covers the daily lives and military families living on and off bases across the United States, thousands of military families are seeking food assistance due to the government shutdown, which is the longest in American history.

The shutdown reached a breakthrough on Monday night, as the Senate voted on a compromise bill to reopen the government. The measure must go now to the Republican controlled House and faces an uncertain future there.

In the meantime, it’s Veterans Day, which is typically marked by parades and school-based tributes throughout the country, but on military bases, apparently, it is passing amid consternation and stress, as servicemembers and their families face a month without pay.

The impact of the longest government shutdown in history, which as of Monday surpassed 40 days but potentially could reopen this week due to Senate Democrats reaching across the aisle, is hitting military families in every branch, state and pay grade.

Families that live paycheck to paycheck are asking for food, gas and diapers. National Guard and Reserve troops are struggling because canceled drills mean no pay. Nonprofits are shipping emergency groceries to keep cupboards from going empty. A previous Military.com report warned that troops may soon miss paychecks if the shutdown is not resolved.

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