Tag: taxes

DOGE Team Terminates 256 Wasteful Contracts Worth $14.3 Billion – Including $850k USAID Contract for “Resilience Adviser” in Somalia

Although they are not making as many headlines as earlier this year when they were first introduced, the DOGE Team is hard at work and continues to save money for American taxpayers.

Earlier this week DOGE announced they had eliminated another $14.3 billion in bogus contracts, including international contracts tied to USAID.

The DOGE team terminated one contract tied to USAID worth $850,000 for a “resilience adviser” in Somalia.

Let’s hope the DOGE team digs deeper into that slush fund. Where do you suppose the money really went?

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US Support For Israel Comes At A Staggering, Multifaceted Price

When asked about the cost of their government’s support of the State of Israel, some Americans will say it’s $3.8 billion a year — the amount of annual military aid the United States is committed to under its current, 10-year “memorandum of understanding” with Israel. However, that answer massively understates the true cost of the relationship, not only because it doesn’t capture various, vast expenditures springing from it, but even more so because the relationship’s steepest costs can’t be measured in dollars.

Since its 1948 founding, Israel has been far and away the largest recipient of American foreign assistance. Though the Ukraine war created a brief anomaly, Israel generally tops the list every year, despite the fact that Israel is among the world’s richest countries — ranked three spots below the UK and two spots above Japan in per capita GDP. Driving that point home, even when using the grossly-understating $3.8 billion figure for US expenditures on Israel, America gave the Zionist state $404 per person in the 2023 fiscal year, compared to just $15 per person for Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries on Earth and America’s third-largest beneficiary that year.

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Feds seize $1M OC home at center of corruption scandal

The U.S. government has seized a home in unincorporated Tustin at the center of the corruption scheme involving former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do. The home was purchased by Do’s daughter Rhiannon Do for a little more than $1 million in 2023.

The downpayment came from taxpayer money awarded to a nonprofit led by Rhiannon Do. That money was supposed to be used to feed needy seniors.

The backstory: Andrew Do was sentenced to five years in prison last month for accepting bribes disguised as payments to his two adult daughters, including the $385,000 downpayment for Rhiannon Do’s home in unincorporated Tustin.

The forfeited assets: As part of Do’s sentencing, Judge James V. Selna found that he had an interest in the Tustin home, another property, and $2.4 million in bank accounts. Selna ordered the immediate transfer of the assets to the federal government.

What happens now? Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said the Tustin home would be “sold just like any other property,” and the money will be returned to Orange County.

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German MPs demand more money for Ukraine – Bild

A group of German lawmakers from the Green Party has called on Chancellor Friedrich Merz to urgently increase military aid to Ukraine, saying Berlin must contribute more in light of a slowdown in US arms deliveries, according to a letter obtained by Bild.

The letter, signed by Bundestag deputies Robin Wagener, Sara Nanni, Sebastian Schafer, and Anton Hofreiter, criticized the federal government’s recently announced increase in military assistance from €7.1 billion to €8.3 billion as insufficient.

The lawmakers pointed to the US decision to pause certain weapons shipments to Kiev as a critical factor, arguing that Berlin should raise the figure to at least €8.5 billion and commit to maintaining that level through 2029.

The Green MPs, who have been among Kiev’s most vocal supporters in the Bundestag, reportedly said the government still has room to maneuver within the approved budget framework, and argued that the constitutional limits on debt spending could be sidestepped through special exemptions.

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Waste Of The Day: COVID Loans For 11-Year-Olds

A weekly allowance or a lemonade stand are great ways to teach young kids how to manage their money. A loan from the Small Business Administration is not. 

Yet according to the Department of Government Efficiency, the SBA issued 5,593 loans in 2020 and 2021 worth $312 million to businesses whose listed owners were 11 years old or younger. Either America’s children have suddenly become expert entrepreneurs or, more likely, another round of fraud from the Covid-19 pandemic has been uncovered. 

DOGE also claimed that the SBA gave 3,095 loans worth $333 million to borrowers who were listed as 115 years or older, bringing the total age-related fraud to $645 million. 

An SBA spokesperson confirmed to the fact-checking site Snopes that “According to our preliminary analysis, SBA can confirm that over 5,500 loans, totaling about $312M, were distributed to businesses whose only listed owner was 11 years old or younger at the time of the disbursement.” 

The White House did not offer additional context to Snopes or FOX News, and it’s unclear how the loans were actually used. Isabel Casillas Guzman, the SBA administrator at the time when the loans were paid, also did not return Snopes’ request for comment. 

Snopes noted that it’s possible the loans were paid to adult borrowers, but the recipients appear as children in the government database because of poor recordkeeping.

Either way, the mistake is serious. The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee recently claimed that at least $79 billion of fraud during the pandemic was “readily preventable,” but government officials were not verifying Social Security numbers before paying out loans. 

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Florida Bans State Funds for Groups Accused of Speech Policing

Florida has moved to shield public funds from being used to support what many see as efforts to police speech under the guise of media bias monitoring.

Under the state’s new fiscal year 2026 budget, taxpayer dollars can no longer be spent on advertising or marketing firms that contract with groups like NewsGuard, Ad Fontes, or the Global Disinformation Index (GDI).

The measure was signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis on Monday.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

A press release from the Independent Media Council emphasized that the restriction is aimed at blocking state agencies from doing business with companies that rely on “politically biased media monitoring services.”

The council stated, “These monitoring groups purport to be impartial, but consistently skew their ratings to target conservative and independent media from receiving advertising from major brands.”

NewsGuard, one of the most prominent organizations caught in the spotlight, has received federal backing in the form of a $750,000 grant from the Department of Defense.

This funding helped the group develop its “Misinformation Fingerprints” technology, which it now offers to social media platforms, artificial intelligence developers, and tech firms as a tool for tracking so-called misinformation.

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Oregon hospital gives sex toys to criminal psych patients at taxpayer expense

It has been revealed that Oregon State Hospital, the state’s highest security psychiatric facility, distributes taxpayer-funded sex toys to its patients, according to a local news investigation.

The report from KGW found that the state-run hospital dispersed 65 sex toys to patients in 2024 at the cost of $2,900, while 42 sex toys were provided to patients the year prior.

Oregon State Hospital predominantly houses criminal mentally ill patients who were deemed unfit to stand trial or found guilty except for insanity on charges ranging from misdemeanors to serious violent crimes such as murder and sex offenses.

Patients are able to access a wide variety of sex toys with brand names such as Throttle Stroker, Her Pocket Bullet, The Vortex, Vibrating Helping Hand Pro, Vibrating Shower Stroker, Double Dancer, and Waterproof Prostate Massager, according to a 10-page catalog obtained through a public records request. A hospital spokesperson, Amber Shoebridge, told the network that these sex toys are paid for with public tax dollars, which range in price from $14.78 to $84.99.

“The need for sexual expression doesn’t disappear in institutional settings,” Shoebridge told KGW in a statement. “Oregon State Hospital provides access to sexual aids as a way to offer patients an ethical, therapeutic, and private form alternative for a lack of sexual expression.”

According to the report, Oregon State Hospital’s sex toy policy appears to be rare, as psychiatric hospital officials in other parts of the country said they were unaware of similar programs when reached for comment.

“I’m at a loss for words,” said Tiffany Edens, a crime victims advocate and rape survivor. “It’s like you are going into the sex toy store. They’re not appropriate for people who are in a state hospital,” she said, commenting on the catalog.

“You are feeding into people’s fantasies – people that have no business to have these types of toys,” Edens added.

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Baywatch Pay Watch: Half-Million-Dollar Checks, Six-Figure Overtime For LA lifeguards

If it wasn’t clear that the city and county of Los Angeles are in dire need of spending resets, taxpayers can look no further than the county lifeguards paid to watch over its pools, lakes and ocean.

OpenTheBooks.com reported on outrageous overtime spending on the LA police, fire and particularly overpaid employees in the city’s Department Water & Power amid out-of-control wildfires in January, and the anti-immigration riots in June.

Lifeguards, too, enjoy big overtime payouts and generous benefits. The top-paid lifeguard in LA county was compensated more than $500,000 in 2024; and over the past 5 years, a single lifeguard was able to pull down $702,000 – in overtime alone!

BY THE NUMBERS

We reported that in 2021, the top-paid lifeguards earned up to $510,283 — back then, we found 98 lifeguards earned at least $200,000 including benefits.

Now, out of over 1,500 lifeguards, 134 of them earned at least $200,000 including benefits. Thirty-four of them had $300,000 or more in their compensation package.

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USAID Gave Known Con Man $800M Contract To Do Kamala’s Work On ‘Root Causes Of Migration’

President Joe Biden’s USAID awarded an $800 million contract to a business operating out of a Virginia home even after it formally ruled that its key manager lacked “honesty or integrity” — a reference to the fact that, according to a May 12 guilty plea, he had secured USAID contracts through bribery for a decade.

The contract was for addressing “issues affecting the root causes of irregular migration from Central America to the United States” — the work that Biden assigned to Vice President Kamala Harris, but which she never appeared to address, a Daily Wire investigation found.

The Department of Justice announced Friday that Walter Barnes III, the founder of government contractor Vistant (previously known as PM Consulting Group, or PMCG) and Roderick Watson, a USAID contracting official, pleaded guilty to a bribery scheme in which Barnes and two others conspired to pay Watson $1 million in exchange for $544 million in contracts.

What has not been reported is that the Biden administration continued to steer contracts to Vistant/PMCG even after it knew of the massive corruption: the migration contract, even larger than the $544 million in the indictment, and others that are still active.

The $800 million contract went to a joint venture between Barnes’ company and CollaborateUp, a tiny consultancy run out of a suburban home in Falls Church, Virginia, where its CEO, Richard Crespin — who runs the company while also working at a think tank — lives. The Virginia home was the address listed on the $800 million contract.

In announcing its $800 million contract, CollaborateUp said it would address the “irregular migration from Central America to the United States” by addressing “climate change.” Its website also touts its work “advancing DEIA” and combating “misinformation.”

This year, it added Mark A. Green, a former Republican congressman who served as Donald Trump’s appointee to lead USAID during his first term, to its payroll as a “senior advisor,” according to its website.

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Taxpayers WHACKED with $66k legal bill for E-Karen’s failure

The eSafety Commissioner’s failed legal battle against Elon Musk’s social media platform X and Canadian activist Chris Elston — better known as Billboard Chris — will cost Australian taxpayers approximately $66,000.

The Administrative Review Tribunal on Tuesday threw out a takedown order issued by Commissioner Julie Inman Grant in response to a controversial post by Elston criticising the World Health Organisation’s inclusion of radical transgender activist Teddy Cook on a policy panel.

In February 2024, Elston shared a post on X stating: “This woman (yes, she’s female) is part of a panel of 20 ‘experts’ hired by the WHO to draft their policy on caring for ‘trans people’. People who belong in psychiatric wards are writing the guidelines for people who belong in psychiatric wards.”

Inman Grant deemed the post “degrading” and issued a takedown notice to X on March 22, threatening the company with a $782,500 fine if it failed to remove the post. X blocked the content, but subsequently challenged the decision alongside Elston.

On Tuesday, the Tribunal sided with X and Elston, ruling the takedown order invalid. Deputy president Damien O’Donovan stated that there was no evidence Elston intended for Cook to see the post.

“In the absence of any evidence that Mr Elston intended that Mr Cook would receive and read the post, and in light of the broader explanation as to why Mr Elston made the post, I am satisfied that an ordinary reasonable person would not conclude that it is likely that the post was intended to have an effect of causing serious harm to Mr Cook,” the ruling read.

An eSafety spokesperson confirmed the legal challenge had so far cost “approximately $66,000”, and acknowledged the Tribunal’s guidance.

eSafety said it would continue an agenda to “protect Australians from online abuse” while taking the Tribunal’s findings into account.

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