Tag: taxes

Cost of California’s High-Speed Rail Goes Up Again

It was also supposed to be carrying 65.5 million to 96.5 million intercity riders a year by 2030. Yet now 2040 is the date for “full service to start.” Skeptics don’t believe we’ll ever see the train run with paying customers aboard.

“In my judgment, the Draft 2026 Business Plan describes a project that has reached a dead end,” says Louis S. Thompson, a 15-year member of the California High Speed Rail Peer Review Group that was established by legislation.

In a letter to lawmakers, Thompson, who was also on the team that created Amtrak, said that after so many changes in the project—cost, design revisions, longer estimated trip times—it’s “not, not even remotely, the system the voters approved in Proposition 1A” in 2008.

Early last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom, that “Steel Driving Man,” promised there soon would be some visible manifestation of the train’s “progress.” A few months later, HSRA CEO Ian Choudri promised, “We are going to be laying high speed tracks next year.”

The HSRA “expects to achieve several other procurement milestones in 2026,” but not track laying and there is no hard deadline for it to begin to be found in the plan. There is only a three-and-a-half-year timeline, which starts in July for the “Track & Systems Design & Construction” of the first section in the Central Valley.

In other words, the HSRA has provided itself cover should it fall short of its 2026 promise.

California’s perpetually unfolding mess has caught the attention of the editorial board of a newspaper one state over after a recent “60 Minutes” report “shined the spotlight on what has become the most embarrassing and costly government infrastructure boondoggle in US history.”

“Has there ever been a greater fraud perpetrated on the taxpayers than California’s high-speed rail travesty?” asked the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “Where are the folks at ‘American Greed’ when you need them?”

That is, of course, a reference to the CNBC documentary series “American Greed: Scams, Scoundrels and Scandals.” It won’t happen, but it would be fitting, if the HSRA borrowed the program’s name for the subtitle of its 2027 business plan, which this year is shamelessly being called “Transforming California’s Future.”

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Meet The Convicted Fraudster Running A Million Dollar Medicaid Business

After the federal government approved a waiver allowing Ohio to expand Medicaid by paying housekeepers to spend time at elderly people’s houses to help with tasks like “homemaking” and “chore services,” taxpayers across the country footed a shocking $2.5 billion worth of bills between 2018 and 2024, according to a trove of Medicaid data released for the first time by the Trump administration.

The demand for free home care was so high in Ohio that taxpayers spent more on that “personal services” category, Medicaid’s term for non-medical in-home help, than any other outpatient service. The program allows for people who aren’t medical professionals to get paid by the government for work done inside private residences, where what was performed, and even whether anything was done, is essentially unverifiable.

The state’s largest outpatient Medicaid category therefore relies on trust. So who’s facilitating payments from the government?

The Daily Wire spent weeks analyzing the Medicaid data released by the Trump administration as part of its effort to weed out wasteful government spending. I went to Ohio, and found clusters of home healthcare providers that bill the government millions of dollars in desolate buildings filled with empty offices.

At 1415 East Dublin Granville Road, one of the Columbus buildings we visited in our investigation, we found True Home Healthcare LLC.

All that appeared on its door was a tattered piece of printer paper that read, “SORRY WE MISSED YOU, OUT FOR A QUICK BREAK.”

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US greenlights bomb deal for Ukraine

The administration of US President Donald Trump has approved the potential sale of precision-guided bomb kits worth $373.6 million to Ukraine, following congressional pressure over stalled arms deliveries.

The move was announced by the State Department on Tuesday, greenlighting a possible Foreign Military Sale of 1,532 JDAM-Extended Range (JDAM-ER) tail kits and related support equipment to Kiev. The equipment could be used to convert heavy bombs into GPS-guided munitions that can hit targets dozens of kilometers away. Boeing, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, is listed as the primary contractor.

The deal does not guarantee that the weapons will be delivered, while the figures represent the maximum quantity and value of the purchase, with details subject to further negotiations and congressional review.

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“Existential”: Israel Quadruples Foreign-Influence Budget To Massive $730M

With the ranks of its foreign sympathizers plummeting all around the world and all across the political spectrum, the State of Israel is quadrupling its budget for so-called “public diplomacy,” bringing its 2026 spending on foreign influence campaigns to a massive $730 million.

With the country’s growing unpopularity threatening US financial, military and diplomatic support, Israel’s foreign minister has said an intensified effort to mold global opinion is an “existential issue.” Both inside and outside of Israel, the country’s public diplomacy effort is also referred to by its Hebrew name: hasbara. Even before the 2026 ramp-up in spending, Israel’s spending on hasbara was already striking. 

Recent disclosures about 2025 hasbara spending shed some light on how Israel goes about shaping public opinion. Per the Jerusalem Post, that year’s outlays included a $50 million social media ad campaign carried out on Google, YouTube, X and Outbrain. Another $40 million covered the hosting of foreign delegations. “We flew a lot of delegations to the country – whether it’s pastors, whether it’s politicians, universities,” Israeli Consul General Israel Bachar told the Jerusalem Post. “Everyone who returns from the country understands better and is more supportive. But you have to fly out a lot of people.”

“We must as a country invest much, much more,” Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar argued in December. “It should be like investing in jets, bombs and missile interceptors. In the face of what’s arrayed against us and what’s invested against us, it’s far from enough. This is an existential issue.”

An April Pew Research survey found that 60% of American adults now view Israel unfavorably — that’s up 18 points from 2022. Underscoring the mammoth challenge faced by Israel’s hasbarists, the proportion of Americans who have a very unfavorable view of Israel now stands at 28% — triple what it was in 2022. Most alarming for Israel is the cratering of support among Republicans, with 57% of those under 50 now viewing Israel unfavorably.  

The erosion of US support has taken place over a span that has included Israel’s stunningly-destructive rampage across Gaza in response to the Oct 7 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel, and this year’s US-Israeli war on Iran which has caused fuel prices to rocket higher while threatening a global economic catastrophe.

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Texas city CANCELS ‘unconstitutional’ Muslim-only day at water park under pressure from public, elected leaders

The Texas City of Grand Prairie has canceled their planned “Muslims only” day at an indoor water park. Epic Waters said their planned, discriminatory day has been removed from the schedule after Governor Greg Abbott said he would consider pulling state funding from the town over their unconstitutional practices.

A spokesperson for the water park said “After further review and in the best interest of the City of Grand Prairie, the June 1 EID event at Epic Waters Indoor Waterpark has been canceled.”

Abbott on Wednesday demanded that the City of Grand Prairie cancel a “Muslims only” event scheduled at a city-owned water park, warning local officials they could lose more than $530,000 in state grant funding if the event is allowed to move forward.

In a post on X, Abbott wrote that a city-owned facility had “openly advertised a ‘MUSLIMS ONLY’ event” and called the situation unconstitutional. “A city-owned water park in Grande Prairie openly advertised a ‘MUSLIMS ONLY’ event — closed to the general public,” Abbott wrote. “That’s religious discrimination. It’s unconstitutional.”

Abbott added that he had signed HB 4211 into law, which he said bans “Muslim only no-go zones” in Texas. “I signed HB 4211 into law — banning Muslim only no-go zones in Texas,” Abbott wrote. “The City must cancel the event and commit to never allowing something like it again by May 11th, or lose $530,000 in state grants.”

He continued, “Let this be a lesson to local officials: Facilities funded by ALL taxpayers are not just for a subset of Texans.”

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Not Just Minnesota: Reporter Uncovers Stunning Fraud Red Flags in America’s Second-Biggest Somali Enclave

There’s no doubt that the fraud revelations that rocked Minnesota in late 2025, and into 2026, marked a mind-blowing scandal.

What do you mean Minnesota’s leadership somehow missed blatant — and costly — fraud happening right under their noses? That’s preposterous!

And yet, if you are a particularly disillusioned cynic, your response to the entire scandal might’ve been, “It’s a deep blue state run by Democrats. What did you expect?”

Well, Ohio is decidedly not a deep blue state — let’s call it nominally red or purple, for now — and yet the state and its Republican governor apparently missed some massive red flags that strongly suggested fraud in the Buckeye State.

The Daily Wire did a deep dive investigation into troves of data released by the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency, showing what companies were billing to Medicaid.

This is how the outlet’s Luke Rosiak put his findings:

“I’ve spent the past two months diving into the numbers. What I found was the most blatant waste of federal dollars that I have encountered in my two decades as an investigative reporter.”

According to The Daily Wire, Ohio spent $1 billion on “home health care” in 2024, which was the last year data was available. This alone was cause for concern for the investigators, as that effectively meant any oversight of these healthcare workers effectively ended when the actual job began in the home.

Rosiak described it as an “infinite number of small black boxes inside a black box,” as far as accountability and oversight went.

Despite that lack of oversight, home health care workers still had to provide something that they could bill for, and the data dump revealed that one such billable service was “companionship and conversation.”

Yes, taxpayer dollars are being spent for family members to… speak to one another. Inside of their home. Or, at least, that’s the worst-case interpretation of it, which is perfectly fair given the lack of details otherwise provided.

Rosiak also noted that, despite the money being spent on very important health services like “conversation,” Columbus still wasn’t getting much healthier — in body or diversity of business practices.

“As people have realized the United States government will pay them to hang out with their own families, northeast Columbus has seen its economy replaced by businesses that bill Medicaid,” Rosiak wrote. “And Columbus, a city with the second largest Somali population in the country, has become, on the surface, the most unhealthy city on the planet.”

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BOMBSHELL: Detroit 2020 Election Document Investigation Reveals WHOPPING 12.4% of Absentee Ballots Are MISSING OFFICIAL ENVELOPE Required By Law From 51 Taxpayer-Subsidized Housing Addresses

New Jersey resident Yehuda Miller, Check My Vote founder Phani Mantravadi, and Patty McMurray of The Gateway Pundit have joined forces with over 100 incredibly dedicated volunteers in one of the largest citizen-led election integrity investigations in American history.

Our incredible team of volunteers and election experts is currently reviewing nearly one million documents from Detroit and Wayne County’s November 2020 election — the same records a judge finally forced the City of Detroit to turn over after they repeatedly denied Yehuda Miller’s FOIA requests.

This is long, grueling, and often tedious work. Many of the documents arrived in completely out-of-order. Our team — led by Phani Mantravadi’s (founder of Check My Vote) technical expertise — built a custom website to organize and display them. Thanks to Phani Mantravadi, we now have successfully digitized and sequenced over 155,000 absentee ballot envelopes by counting board, allowing our volunteers to meticulously examine every single one for irregularities and fraud.

Please consider giving to this VOLUNTEER effort, with over 100 individuals dedicating up to 12 hours a day to help us complete this project before the midterm election. We have a GiveSendGo account set up to help fund this project, and we humbly ask you to consider making a contribution to support our work, as we receive no outside or government funds.

Volunteers are entering critical data — flagging every questionable, fraudulent, or illegally accepted ballot envelope that Detroit officials rubber-stamped in 2020.

Before we release our findings to the public, we check, double-check, and, in some cases, even triple-check our work to ensure accuracy.

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REPORT: Area Where Zohran Mamdani is Planning to Build Government-Owned Grocery Store Already Has 45 Markets Within Walking Distance

The neighborhood where NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani is planning to build a government owned grocery store already has almost 50 markets within walking distance, raising further questions about his far left pipe dreams.

Is the new store even necessary? Mamdani probably does not care about that. This is merely a campaign promise and he likely sees it as something on which he has to deliver.

What is often not discussed is the competition this government owned store is going to create for all of these other privately owned stores.

Ask any business owner, and they will tell you it is near to impossible to compete with the government, which always has more resources and money.

FOX News reports:

NYC grocers sound alarm on Mamdani’s supermarket plan: ‘We’ll lose customers’

A proposal by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to open a city-run grocery store is facing pushback from East Harlem grocers who say the area is already saturated with supermarkets and bodegas.

The plan, part of a broader effort to address rising grocery costs in the city, would establish publicly run stores across New York’s five boroughs — but the push to improve affordability could come at a cost for small businesses already on thin margins.

The first store is expected to open next year in La Marqueta, an existing public market space at Park Avenue and 115th Street in East Harlem. The city will spend roughly $30 million to build the store.

Roughly 45 grocery stores sit within a 35-minute walk of the proposed grocery site, according to a Fox News Digital analysis.

The existing stores include a mix of major chains like Whole Foods and Lidl, as well as smaller neighborhood markets and bodegas.

The area is also well served by public transit. There are multiple subway and bus lines giving residents several ways to reach nearby stores if they are not in reasonable walking distance.

Some local grocers say the added competition of the city-owned store could hurt their businesses.

“Of course it will affect this store,” said Sarah Kang, manager at a CTown Supermarkets location about a 35-minute walk south, or one subway stop, from La Marqueta.

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GOP bill earmarks $1B in taxpayer funds for ballroom Trump said donors would cover

Senate Republicans have expanded the scope of their immigration enforcement funding package to include $1 billion for security upgrades in the White House ballroom project and $1.5 billion for the Justice Department’s investigative and prosecutorial efforts.

The filibuster-proof budget reconciliation package that Republicans hope to pass this month provides a total of $71.8 billion through fiscal 2029, designed to last through President Trump’s term.

The bulk of the money, $69.3 billion, will go to the Department of Homeland Security to fund immigration enforcement agents and operations.

Democrats filibustered the annual Homeland Security Department appropriations bill over their objection to funding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol functions of U.S. Customs and Border Protection without significant policy changes.

That led to a record 76-day department shutdown, which ended last week after Congress passed a spending bill that funded the department, except for ICE and Border Patrol.

The budget reconciliation package is designed to fill those gaps. It provides $38.2 billion for ICE and $26.1 billion for CBP, as well as $5 billion in additional funding for the Department of Homeland Security, to be used largely at its discretion.

Much of the language describing the allowable uses of the funding is purposefully broad.

Still, it has a few specifications, including that $3.5 billion of the Border Patrol funding be set aside for upgrades of border surveillance and screening technology and “new platforms for rapid air and marine response capabilities.”

The $1 billion for the White House ballroom also falls under the Homeland Security Department. The funds are directed to the Secret Service for “security adjustments and upgrades” related to the project.

The Secret Service is planning to build an annex underneath the ballroom, along with other military-grade security infrastructure. The ballroom itself will include security features, such as bulletproof glass and counter-drone technology.

The bill says the $1 billion cannot be used for nonsecurity elements of the ballroom project. However, that figure is more than double the projected $400 million cost of the East Wing renovation.

Mr. Trump has raised the bulk of the funding needed through private donations, and some Republicans may object to taxpayer funds being spent on the ballroom project.

The reconciliation package also includes $1.5 billion for the Department of Justice, giving it wide latitude to spend the money.

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Taxpayers Foot STAGGERING £629 MILLION Bill For Foreign Nationals In UK Prisons

UK taxpayers are forking out £629 million a year to house 10,487 foreign national offenders in British prisons — a bill that could pay for 16,500 police officers or 15,000 NHS nurses.

While Labour claims it’s deporting record numbers, an ex-prison governor has torn into the “staggering” cost and the “incredibly slow process” that leaves dangerous foreign criminals draining public resources instead of being sent home. 

This is the direct result of years of open-borders policies that prioritise criminals’ “rights” over British safety.

Reform UK’s Prisons Adviser and former prison governor Vanessa Frake laid it out clearly on GB News. “The cost to this country for foreign national prisoners is staggering,” she said. “It’s a very long, drawn-out process, which kind of goes from three main areas.”

Frake detailed the excuses that keep foreign offenders here: “The problem is a lack of identity documents for these people. Quite often they get rid of their passports, so the Home Office then has to write to the country that they originate from, and that process is very slow.”

“Sometimes the country refuses. And there are of course the ECHR claims. Those under Article 8, right to life, right to family for those who have family in this country and of course, there is administration errors as well,” Frake further explained.

She added that even recent deals fall short. “They’ve just done a deal with Albania to send 200 prisoners back, but that comes with certain conditions, like improving their prison service, giving them electric Volkswagens, etcetera.” 

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