Tag: taxes

Planned Parenthood Dropping $47 Million Bomb on Midterms in Attempt to Protect Their Taxpayer Funding

Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, has announced a massive $47 million political spending spree through its Super PAC, Planned Parenthood Votes, aimed directly at trying to flip vulnerable Republican seats in the 2026 midterm elections.

This near-record investment, second only to the $50 million the group dumped into the 2022 cycle, represents a calculated effort to target lawmakers who supported efforts to cut off federal Medicaid funding to the organization last year.

As detailed in reporting from The Hill, the funds will fuel ads, voter outreach, and mobilization in battleground House districts across Arizona, California, Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, while also targeting key Senate contests, including Michigan, where Democrats hope to challenge former GOP Representative Mike Rogers, and potentially Maine.

The money bomb announcement came just days after the expiration of a one-year provision in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act that had temporarily barred Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid reimbursements for non-abortion services.

That measure, signed into law last year, had forced the closure or consolidation of dozens of clinics and cut off hundreds of millions in federal dollars, proving once and for all that the organization heavily relies on taxpayer dollars, despite its primary role being performing hundreds of thousands of abortions annually.

With the ban now lifted as of early July, Planned Parenthood has regained access to those funds and is channeling significant resources into ensuring pro-abortion politicians regain or maintain power to protect and expand that pipeline.

Planned Parenthood Votes Executive Director Sarah Standiford framed the effort as an “existential moment” where voters must “take back our right to decide, our lives and our future state by state.”

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Spain: 70% Of Tested ‘Unaccompanied Minor’ Immigrants Are Actually Adults

The Spanish city of Madrid has delivered a stark confirmation of long-standing suspicions about unaccompanied foreign immigrants claiming to be minors. When this group undergoes rigorous medical age verification, 70 percent turn out to be adults over 18.

This is not a handful of isolated incidents but a systemic pattern that has become the norm in Spain’s capital. The findings, detailed in official data and reported by Spanish outlet El Debate, underscore a growing “farce” in the handling of unaccompanied minor claims across the country.

In 2024, authorities in the Madrid region opened 848 age-determination proceedings for individuals claiming to be unaccompanied foreign minors — a sharp increase from 482 the previous year. More than half of these cases were archived because the claimants abandoned the process before completing the key medical test, which is a wrist X-ray for bone age assessment.

Of the 378 individuals who underwent the test, only 112 were confirmed as minors, while 266 were determined to be adults — approximately 70 percent.

The number of detected frauds tripled compared to the prior year. Since 2018, Madrid has handled more than 11,000 unaccompanied foreign minors in its protection system. In 2024 alone, 2,442 new young people entered the system. The regional government has already filed 29 police complaints after its own checks revealed adults improperly placed in minor-protection facilities.

Nationally, the Fiscalía General del Estado reported 7,562 pre-procedural age-determination cases in 2024. Of these, 2,457 concluded the individuals were adults, while many others either abandoned proceedings or received the benefit of the doubt.

Real benefits for fraud

As Remix News has reported in the past, claiming minor status grants significant advantages under Spanish and EU rules, including placement in specialized protection centers with housing, education, healthcare, and legal safeguards.

There is also significantly greater difficulty in deportation; and, in many cases, pathways to family reunification or residence permits unavailable to adults. Many claimants disappear from centers once age verification begins, avoiding confirmation of their true age.

Similar fraud seen across Europe

This Madrid revelation is far from unique. Remix News has extensively covered parallel cases of age fraud by migrants claiming unaccompanied minor status throughout Europe, often involving the same nationalities, notably Algerians, Moroccans, Tunisians, and Afghans.

France has seen some of the starkest figures. In the Marne department, bone analyses of 240 individuals claiming to be unaccompanied minors found that 80 percent (192 people) were actually adults.

French MP Charles de Courson highlighted the financial burden in a parliamentary speech, “Eighty percent of unaccompanied migrants in France’s northeast Marne department who declared themselves thus are not minors, with the cost of caring for these 160 false minors costing €5,000 per month, which equals for €60,000 per year for each one.”

A separate 2019 experiment by the Paris prosecutor’s office examined 154 formally identified “minors” and found 91.6 percent (141) were adults via medical exams. Prosecutors noted that adults were systematically exploiting the protective regime established for minors under a 1945 law.

Belgium reported comparable results. A study of data from Justice Minister Koen Geens showed that of 4,563 migrants declaring themselves minors, authorities doubted 2,546 claims. Age tests on a sample revealed that 73.7 percent were over 18. Flemish MP Tom Van Grieken stated bluntly: “Asylum seekers guilty of age fraud should be denied the right to asylum.”

Sweden recorded an even higher rate: health authorities found 84 percent of tested “child migrants” were actually 18 or older. In Germany, forensic examinations in Münster showed around 40 percent of examined “unaccompanied minor refugees” were demonstrably adults, with many sharing suspicious January 1 birthdates — a common indicator of fabricated identities.

Remix News has also documented specific incidents in Spain itself that align with this pattern. In one Madrid case reported in October 2025, a Moroccan man accused of raping a 14-year-old girl claimed to be 17; age verification determined he was likely 23, with 14 prior convictions, leading to his case being transferred to adult court.

A European Parliament fact-finding mission to Spain’s Canary Islands similarly found that roughly half of unaccompanied minors there were actually adults, highlighting failures in age assessment amid high illegal arrivals.

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Tax-Payer Funded NPR Publishes Article on How to Avoid Trump’s Image on Passport

The taxpayer-funded NPR published an article Wednesday explaining how passport applicants can avoid receiving a commemorative passport featuring President Donald Trump’s image.

The special passport, released to mark America’s 250th anniversary, became available Monday at the Washington Passport Agency. It can only be obtained in person and by appointment.

Among those seeking the new design was Alabama resident John Hall, who told NPR he drove to Washington in his “MAGA red” Hyundai hoping to get one because he is a supporter of Trump and wanted the commemorative passport. He was unable to secure an appointment before returning home and said he plans to come back for one of the agency’s upcoming passport events.

Not everyone shared that reaction. Kim Zaninovich of Richmond, Virginia, told NPR she was unhappy after receiving a passport featuring Trump’s image, saying she did not realize there was another option. She described the illustration as showing an “angry look” and said she would have preferred a standard version.

According to NPR, applicants who do not want the commemorative edition can avoid it by requesting a passport with extra pages. NPR added that the State Department said the anniversary design is only offered in the standard 28-page passport book, meaning the larger version does not include Trump’s image.

Despite NPR’s claim that the commemorative passport is only available in the standard 28-page book, the State Department says the anniversary passport is issued only in the standard 26-page passport book, while applicants who request the 50-page version receive the existing design instead.

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Why are taxpayers paying for pipelines private companies used to build?

Canada’s pipeline sector, once entirely funded by private investment, is now leaning on taxpayer subsidies after years of federal regulatory hurdles.

On Tuesday’s episode of The Ezra Levant Show, Noah Jarvis, Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, joined Ezra to discuss two newly floated pipeline proposals — one from Alberta to the Port of Vancouver championed by Prime Minister Mark Carney, and another to Ontario backed by Premiers Doug Ford and Danielle Smith. 

Both projects are expected to require significant government subsidies, in sharp contrast to a decade ago, when private companies competed to build pipelines without a dime of public money, including proposals that were later killed by federal decisions, such as Northern Gateway and Energy East.

“The government is very much in the way right now,” Noah said, pointing to the Impact Assessment Act, passed by the Trudeau government in 2019, and the industrial carbon tax as key barriers driving up the cost of producing Alberta oil.

Noah cited a recent Fraser Institute report suggesting the industrial carbon tax, if it climbs to $140 per tonne, could add roughly 20 percent to the cost of producing a barrel of Alberta oil. Canada, he noted, is the only country that levies such a tax on its oil and gas producers. He urged Smith and Ford to pressure Ottawa to repeal the Impact Assessment Act and roll back the carbon tax, rather than turning to subsidies. 

Ezra questioned why neither proposal has any backing from producers, calling the Vancouver route’s estimated $30-billion price tag “insane,” and describing the Ontario pipeline as “at best, PR gimmicks, and at worst, government white elephants.”

“You don’t have to spend all this money,” Ezra said. “Just get rid of those blockages and blockades and regulations.”

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Department of Labor Announces Gavin Newsom’s California Owes OVER $22 BILLION to U.S. Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund – The ONLY State Still in Debt, Slamming Businesses with Higher Federal Payroll Taxes

The radical left’s favorite golden boy is running the once-great state of California straight into the ground.

The Trump Labor Department announced Wednesday that California Governor Gavin Newsom’s failed administration owes more than $22 billion to the U.S. Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund.

This staggering debt comes from loans California took during the COVID-19 pandemic to pay unemployment benefits — benefits that were looted by massive fraud under Newsom’s watch. California is now the only state in the entire country with an outstanding federal unemployment insurance loan balance.

As a direct result, California business owners are being forced to pay higher federal payroll taxes to bail out Sacramento’s incompetence and corruption. Every other state that borrowed during the pandemic has repaid its loans. Not Newsom’s California.

During and after the pandemic, California raked in record budget surpluses, at one point nearing $100 billion. Instead of using that taxpayer windfall to repay the federal loan like responsible states did, Newsom and the Democrat supermajority in Sacramento sat on the money, spent it on other priorities, and let the debt balloon with interest.

The state has paid $1.8 billion in interest since 2021, with Newsom’s latest budget proposing another $668 million in interest payments this year while putting zero dollars toward the actual principal.

The bill keeps growing. The California EDD’s UI Fund Forecast officially projects the outstanding loan balance to reach $22.0 billion by the end of 2026.

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US Debt Exceeds 100% of GDP for the first time since World War II

The United States has crossed a milestone that Washington has spent decades pretending would never arrive. Federal debt held by the public has now exceeded 100% of GDP for the first time since the aftermath of the Second World War. According to the latest government data, debt held by the public reached approximately $31.27 trillion while the nation’s annual economic output totaled roughly $31.22 trillion, pushing the debt-to-GDP ratio to 100.2%. The Congressional Budget Office now projects debt held by the public will average 101% of GDP this year and continue climbing to 120% by 2036 if current law remains unchanged.

The media continues to compare today’s numbers with the end of World War II, but that comparison completely misses the point. After 1945, the United States emerged as the world’s dominant industrial power. Soldiers came home, factories shifted from producing tanks to automobiles, the population expanded rapidly, and economic growth far outpaced government borrowing. Debt declined because the nation was producing wealth. Today we are doing precisely the opposite. Washington continues borrowing during periods of economic expansion, not because the country faces an existential war, but because politicians refuse to tell voters that promises have become mathematically impossible to keep.

The numbers expose just how unsustainable the fiscal position has become. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the federal deficit will total roughly $1.9 trillion this fiscal year, equal to 5.8% of GDP. By 2036, annual deficits are projected to exceed $3.1 trillion, or 6.7% of GDP. Federal spending will consume 23.3% of GDP this year, while revenues amount to only 17.5%. Washington is spending approximately $1.33 for every dollar it collects. That gap is no longer the result of recession or emergency stimulus. It has become the permanent operating model of government.

The real crisis is not simply the debt itself. It is the cost of carrying that debt. Net interest payments exceeded $1 trillion for the first time last year, consuming roughly 14% of all federal spending. Interest on the debt now exceeds what Washington spends on national defense. Every increase in long-term interest rates compounds the problem because trillions of dollars in Treasury securities must continually be refinanced at higher yields. Governments cannot borrow indefinitely without eventually becoming captive to their creditors.

This is exactly why I have repeatedly explained that the sovereign debt crisis, not inflation, will define this decade. Every government has embraced the Keynesian fantasy that deficits do not matter as long as borrowing remains possible. They assume they can simply issue another bond and postpone the consequences for another administration. That strategy works only until confidence begins to disappear. Sovereign debt crises are never caused by running out of money. They begin when lenders question whether governments possess either the ability or the political will to restore fiscal discipline.

Our computer has never suggested that the sovereign debt crisis would begin with a sudden default. It unfolds gradually through rising interest costs, capital migration, declining confidence, and governments searching for new ways to finance themselves. That inevitably leads to higher taxes, inflationary policies, capital controls, and expanding regulation of private wealth. Politicians will never admit they overspent. They will instead insist that the problem is wealthy citizens who have not contributed enough, corporations that have not paid their “fair share,” or investors who moved capital abroad. Governments always blame the people before accepting responsibility for their own fiscal recklessness.

Crossing 100% of GDP is not merely another statistic. It marks the point where the United States officially joins the group of heavily indebted nations that believed perpetual borrowing could replace sound fiscal policy. Unlike 1946, there is no peace dividend waiting on the horizon, no manufacturing boom capable of overwhelming the debt, and no political appetite to reduce spending. Every election promises more benefits, more subsidies, and more borrowing. That is why this cycle will end as every sovereign debt cycle throughout history has ended, with a crisis of confidence rather than a shortage of promises.

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USA’s Somali refugee programme is a costly hoax

Somali ‘refugees’ across America recently celebrated Somalia’s ‘independence,’ leading some to wonder why they don’t simply go back to their own country that they claim to love so much.

But not only aren’t the Somalis who came to America as refugees while fleeing a fake ‘genocide’ and using fake family reunification claims in the 90s not leaving (though they frequently make return trips back home to buy property and run for office in their own home country) but more Somalis continue arriving and claiming refugee status from the country they love so much.

In 2024, Somalis were responsible for nearly 5% of refugee claims and while the Trump administration has cracked down on the refugee fraud machine, Europe has seen a flood of Somali ‘refugees’ with 38,000 Somali refugee applications filed between 2023 and 2025.

This is at odds with the regular expressions of pride in Somalia from elected officials like Rep. Ilhan Omar who hail their country as one of the greatest in the world, and also demand that the United States, which they regularly belittle and insult, continue admitting Somali refugees.

When the Trump administration began to unwind the TPS (Temporary Protected Status) that kept Somali illegals from being deported, Somalis and their political allies launched a furious campaign to explain why a status usually used for a country that has experienced a major disaster should still apply to Somalia 35 years after the original civil war that triggered it.

The 2,471 Somalis being protected from deportation by TPS and the 1,383 Somalis with pending TPS applications.could not be sent back to Somalia, we’re told, because it’s so awful.

The Minnesota State House delegation for Minneapolis, which has done more to celebrate the glory of Somalia’s independence than any other place in America, issued a revealing condemnation of the end of TPS. “TPS for Somalia was first designated in 1991 due to ongoing civil conflict and extraordinary conditions and has been continuously extended for more than three decades.”

The statement by, among others, Somali politicians Rep. Mohamud Noor and Rep. Anquam Mahamoud, did not actually directly state that Somalia was a disaster area, but only indirectly referenced that “conditions in designated countries meet clear statutory standards related to conflict and instability.” Is Somalia “unstable” and in a state of “conflict”? They don’t say.

Attorney General Keith X. Ellison and 15 other state attorney generals filed an amicus in the Somali lawsuit against terminating their 35-year-old ‘Temporary Protected Status’ because “civil war has raged in Somalia for the ensuing thirty five years, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths, child soldiers, extrajudicial killings, sexual and gender-based violence.”

While Somalia’s government has been fighting Al-Shabab, its own local Jihadist movement, the Somalia colonist population in America is a major source of funds for the Al Qaeda linked group, and there have been relatively few civilian casualties from the fighting with civilian deaths accounting for only 2% of the casualties in 2025 (and Islamic terrorist groups often misrepresent Jihadists as civilians, so the numbers are likely lower still) and on par with some of the deaths due to Islamic terrorism suffered by western countries and Israel in particularly bad years.

100 civilians dying in terrorist battles among a population of 20 million is not a basis for a national state of emergency or a finding that no Somali Muslim can live safely in Somalia.

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Big Tab: OMB says fraud losses ‘in the hundreds of billions’ annually

The Biden administration called the government’s only estimate of annual fraud losses “not plausible.” Now, the Trump administration says fraud costs taxpayers hundreds of billions annually.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office estimated in April 2024 that the federal government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion annually to fraud. It was the first and only government-wide estimate of its kind, representing 3% to 7% of average federal obligations.

The estimated losses work out to between $1,431 and $3,200 for each of the nation’s estimated 162.8 million individual income tax filers, according to IRS data.

The wide range reflects different risks over the five-year period the estimate covers. GAO used a Monte Carlo simulation to account for uncertainty in fraud data, including fraud that goes undetected, noting that higher-risk environments such as pandemic-era spending are associated with estimates at the upper end of the range.

The Biden administration rejected the estimate. Jason Miller, then the deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, said in April 2024 that the estimate was “not plausible” and would “create confusion and promote misleading generalizations that have no factual connection to specific federal programs.”

The Trump administration has taken a different view. An OMB spokesman told The Center Square that while “it’s hard to know the exact figure, annual losses to fraud have been enormous, certainly numbering in the hundreds of billions.”

But none of GAO’s three recommendations has been fully implemented. As of March 2026, OMB had no update on two recommendations aimed at improving fraud-related data collection. A third recommendation, directed at the Treasury Department, also remains open.

Rebecca Shea, director of GAO’s forensic audits and investigative service, told The Center Square that the agency has no plans to update the spending-side estimate, in part because GAO recommended Treasury develop an approach for doing so going forward.

She also said the Department of Government Efficiency’s claimed savings of $215 billion, tracked on the agency’s public savings log known as the wall of receipts, and GAO’s fraud estimate are not measuring the same thing.

“From what is available on the wall of receipts, their savings estimates are based on a wider range of activities than fraud,” Shea said. “For example, DOGE’s website also notes savings from asset sales, contract and lease cancellations and renegotiations, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings and workforce reduction.”

David Walker, former U.S. comptroller general and chairman of the Federal Fiscal Sustainability Foundation, a nonprofit focused on limiting federal spending and debt, echoed that assessment.

“DOGE tried to do work to deal with that, but they didn’t do what needs to be done,” Walker told The Center Square. “They didn’t do it the right way, and they grossly overstated how much money they quote unquote saved.”

Walker said that contract and grant cancellations do not automatically translate to savings.

“Just because you cancel a contract or a grant doesn’t mean you’ve saved the money, because only Congress can cut spending,” he said.

Daniel Kowalski, a former Trump administration OMB official and director of the Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, was more blunt.

“DOGE was not focused on fraud as much as it was focused on efficiency,” he told The Center Square. “It was the Department of Government Efficiency and not the Department of Fraud Elimination. I don’t think there’s a way to map DOGE onto the GAO fraud report.”

Kowalski said the GAO estimate is credible.

“It’s the best number available,” he said. “I would not be surprised if the fraud number was closer to the high end of the GAO estimate – 7% of program costs or $500 billion-plus a year.”

Walker said two root causes drive the problem.

“We have inadequate internal controls before the money goes out, because once the money goes out, you’re probably not going to get it back,” he said.

Walker singled out self-certification as a particular vulnerability.

“Fraudsters have no problem saying that they’re qualified for something, even though they know they’re not,” he said. “You shouldn’t be able to self-certify. That’s ridiculous.”

Kowalski said organized crime has moved aggressively to exploit those weaknesses.

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Waste Of The Day: Stolen Education Grants

Topline: A North Dakota woman was convicted last month of five counts of theft for stealing $131,000 in state grants meant for after-school programs.

Key facts: Faith Dixon, 47, was one of the top recipients of $2 million that the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction awarded in October 2021 for its Out of School Time program to support children impacted by school closures during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Her nonprofit, Faith4Hope, instead sent the funds to her then-husband’s food stand, her brother’s music and production company and her sister-in-law’s dance studio, according to court documents reviewed by InForum.

Dixon’s lawyers claimed she disbursed the money in “good faith” to help children, despite the conflicts of interest. But assistant attorney general Jeremy Ensrud showed some of the funds were spent on Dixon’s own “day-to-day living expenses.”

Dixon’s ex-husband pleaded guilty to theft last year. He admitted the grants to his food stand were not spent on providing culinary classes to children, as he promised the state.

Dixon’s other family members truly did spend their grants on helping children, Ensrud told InForum.

Last October, Dixon took a plea deal that would have sent her to prison for only 4 to 11 months, but she backed out because she had received “bad legal advice.” Now, she will serve 4 to 10 years.

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DSA Democrat Running for Governor of Wisconsin Wants Taxpayer Funded Gender Transition Care for Children

Francesca Hong is another DSA Democrat who is running for governor of the state of Wisconsin and she wants taxpayers to fund gender transition care for children.

As we have pointed out repeatedly, the left absolutely refuses to let go of this issue. They are determined to continue pushing the trans agenda, even for minors. They do not care what the public thinks about it, they are full steam ahead.

Would the people of Wisconsin actually endorse this position and put this person in the role of governor?

Breitbart News reports:

Socialist Candidate Francesca Hong Wants Taxpayer-Funded Gender Transition Care for Kids

Democrat gubernatorial candidate and State Rep. Francesca Hong said she supports using public funding to expand gender-affirming care, including for transgender youth.

During a January appearance on the Take 2 Podcast, Hong called for expanding access to gender-affirming care, saying Wisconsin should invest in clinics that provide the treatment, including for transgender youth.

“We have to look at expanding health care, especially gender-affirming care. And right now, when our hospitals are under threat of providing gender-affirming care, which hospitals have paused right now,” Hong said. “We have to make sure that communities are coming together to stand up for trans rights. Look at ways that we can invest in clinics to still provide that care, and be vocal about uplifting trans joy, and defending trans lives.”

Hong also added elected officials should continue defending transgender youth and resist pressure to back away from supporting transgender rights.

“It’s important that elected officials not cave to the pressures of not standing up for trans folks,” she said.

Like the rest of her communist DSA comrades, Hong also wants to stop immigration enforcement.

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