Free Republic

In an effort to solve the problem of ingesting drugs when an addict's veins are too messed up to inject them, the city of Portland, Maine is now offering free "boofing" kits. Each kit includes a syringe without a needle to squirt the drug directly up the rectum. Users are advised that "compared to smoking or sniffing your drugs, boofing may hit harder or faster." Maine Access Points, a taxpayer-funded nonprofit based in Bangor, offers a free instructional video titled "All About Boofing" narrated by Kristin and Jessie. Users are advised to "insert the syringe thumb knuckle deep before you...

Hunter Biden’s conviction on felony gun charges increases the likelihood he could face stiffer penalties at his September tax-evasion trial should he be found guilty, an expert told The Post. One of Biden’s current mitigating factors for when he is sentenced by Judge Maryellen Noreika on the gun charges is the fact that he has no criminal history — something that won’t be true during his next trial in California overseen by Judge Mark C. Scarsi. Both jurists were appointed to the federal bench by former President Donald Trump. “It can undermine him in two ways. First, he cannot count...

Former President Donald Trump is putting American workers first— unlike the incumbent leader in the White House now. Trump discussed the proposal of eliminating taxes on servers' tips in his pitch for a new policy position that could inch him closer to victory in November. The former president introduced the idea during a rally in Nevada over the weekend where many Americans work at hotels, restaurants, and in the entertainment business and rely on tips to make ends meet. “This is the first time I've said this and for those hotel workers and people that get tips, you're going to...

Texas AG Ken Paxton and Montana AG Austin Knudsen have filed a joint lawsuit against the Biden administration over its rule to fund transgender procedures with taxpayer dollars under Medicaid and Medicare.

New Zealand is scrapping a scheme to price gas emissions from livestock — squelching a so-called burp and fart tax initiated under the previous left-wing government led by now departed authoritarian Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. New legislation will be introduced to parliament this month by the ruling conservative coalition to remove the agriculture sector from a new emissions pricing plan, thus responding to farmer pressure that the plan would make their business unprofitable. “The government is committed to meeting our climate change obligations without shutting down Kiwi farms,” said Agriculture Minister Todd McClay.

Now law is the $750 million in tax increases to fund Illinois’ largest spending plan in state history. But so is a measure increasing the state’s debt by $8 billion while giving schools more taxing authority. Pritzker signed the $53.1 billion budget Wednesday. Friday, he signed the tax measure that includes capping the credit businesses can get for claiming net operating losses and capping the discount retailers get for collecting and remitting sales taxes. Hours later, Pritzker defended another tax increase, the tiered tax on sports betting companies. “In fact, if you look at what we did, really our focus...

Gov. Kathy Hochul is pushing a New York City tax hike to replace the $15 congestion pricing tolls she indefinitely postponed — a last-minute funding Hail Mary that drew fierce opposition Thursday. Lawmakers and business groups slammed the prospect of a tax increase, especially after Hochul scuttled congestion pricing Wednesday because it would “break the budget” for the working class. “Proposing another tax is an insulting joke that will only exacerbate the affordability crisis that Gov. Hochul pointed to as her reason for killing congestion pricing,” Assemblyman Matt Slater (R-Putnam) told The Post. “The combination of corporate income, payroll and...

California has the highest income tax rate in the country (top tier of 14.4 percent). It has the highest statewide sales tax rate (7.25 percent, plus local sales taxes). It has the highest gas tax rate ($0.78 per gallon). Yet, it ranks third to last in the country in terms of road quality.The old joke is that California would tax the air we breathe if it could. Well, California’s latest tax proposal comes close. The state is recruiting drivers for a pilot program to track and tax the miles they drive.The plan is borne from the fact that Californians have...

NYC congestion pricing plan shelved indefinitely The first-in-the-toll nation program was expected to be a financial windfall for the cash-strapped MTA. By Andrew Siff and Jennifer Millman The MTA announced Wednesday it will indefinitely pause its plans to implement a first-in-the-nation congestion pricing system amid concerns about current economic conditions in the city and the pace of midtown Manhattan’s recovery. News 4’s Romney Smith reports. What to Know The MTA is pushing "pause" indefinitely on New York City's first-in-the-nation congestion pricing plan, according to an official briefed on the plans. The toll program, years in the making, had been set...

Consider the word “nonprofit.” Whoever came up with the idea of calling these organizations “nonprofits” was a marketing genius on the level of Steve Jobs. When someone hears the word nonprofit, they assume that such an organization is working for the public good; that it serves the homeless, protects the weak, exists for the benefit and the betterment of society at large. Hearing that something is a “nonprofit” immediately gives a sense that the organization is trustworthy and the people running it are driven by a charitable agenda. It’s a word that shuts down the critical faculties and grants an...

The Social Security Act, enacted on August 14, 1935, provided a new federally administered system of social insurance for the aged financed through payroll taxes paid by employees and their employers. Under the system, which applied only to workers in commerce and industry, people would earn retirement benefit eligibility as they worked. With some exceptions, benefits would be related to workers' average covered earnings, and workers could not have earnings and still be eligible for benefits. No benefits were provided for spouses or children, and lump-sum refunds were provided to the estates of workers who died before age 65 or...

Transcript available. Lots of footage, Russian sub-titled. Shows how Russia is now that the elections are over. No reading of comments from viewer. This is all narrating of Konstantin and footage illustrating. Basically a sh!t show.

Congressional Democrats on Thursday accused oil companies of inflating the cost of gasoline and vowed to investigate them, pushing back on who's to blame for rising prices hurting President Joe Biden's reelection chances. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other top Democrats were flanked by supporters in matching blue shirts holding signs that read, "Stop gouging us at the pump." Schumer criticized recent billion-dollar oil company mergers, such as one between ExxonMobil and Pioneer Natural Resources, as potentially "disastrous for consumers." He said previous mergers in the industry decreased competition and led to higher prices. Schumer said he had already...

States are seeking out ways to recoup losses from lost gas tax revenue. California, which relies on gas tax and other fuel tax revenues to support its roadway maintenance, is piloting the idea of a "road charge," which would charge drivers based on the number of miles they drive rather than how much gas they purchase. The pilot program was initiated due to the fact that the collection of gas tax revenue is estimated to decrease in the coming years, according to the California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA). CalSTA officials told FOX Business that a bill, signed in 2021, established...

One tax table is focused on taxing Americans on their ordinary income, the income you earn from your job or your business. The other tax table is focused on taxing your long-term capital gains, meaning assets that have grown in appreciation such as stocks or your business value held more than 365 days. * * * According to a report issued by the Treasury Department, led by Secretary Janet Yellen, Biden’s proposed fiscal year 2025 budget would increase the top marginal rate on long-term capital gains and qualified dividends to an astonishing 44.6%. Today, that top marginal long-term capital gains...

The ease and “fortuitousness” by which birth names evolve into perfectly descriptive and denigrative monikers seems like a God-has-a-sense-of-humor moment—a slimy-looking man that screams “greasy salesman” just happens to have a last name that can easily accommodate the word “scum” into it? Providence, no? And, there are few things slimier and scummier than taking an oath of office to represent the people, making promises to act in their best interest, and then reneging on them—but that’s just who Gavin Newscum is. From Susannah Luthi report at The Washington Free Beacon:Earlier this month, the governor repeatedly pledged he would not raise...

President Biden has called for increasing tariffs on imports of steel from China. President Trump has also called for increasing tariffs on all goods from China. Although these tariffs may help with shifting some demand to United States steel, there is a cost involved to the consumer: inflation. The economy was strong during the Trump administration, but Forbes analyzed the effect of tariffs during that time. The conclusion was mixed, but the tariffs may not have been as positive as originally believed.Most economists agree that tariffs don’t always produce a boost in U.S. manufacturing. In addition, the cost of goods...

May 17 (UPI) -- Attorneys for Hunter Biden asked a California judge to push the date for his upcoming tax trial to September or later. The trial, accusing Biden of taking part in a tax conspiracy is scheduled to begin June 20, a little more than weeks after he is set to appear in Delaware for a trial on gun charges. The Delaware trial is set to begin on June 3, with Biden's lawyers saying they expect his counsel to remain there until at least June 14 in their submissions to U.S. District Court Judge Mark Scarsi for the delay...

On Tuesday’s “PBS NewsHour,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen predicted that President Joe Biden’s tariffs won’t cause any meaningful price increases for typical families and responded to a question on her criticism of the Trump tariffs as “taxes on consumers” by stating that Biden’s tariffs are different because they’re “are a targeted group of strategic sectors where we have developed a real overdependence on China.” Yellen said that with the Biden tariff regime, “I don’t think that anything will occur here that would be noticeable to the typical American family. Mainly, these tariff increases serve to protect firms and workers that...

In today’s edition of Getting What You Vote For, the dummies in California are about to get hit with a 50 cent per gallon gas tax. Remember, California voters have handed the Democrat party full power over the former Golden State. Democrats run everything from the governorship on down. Democrats not only hold majorities in the state legislature, they hold veto-proof majorities. In other words… Republicans are powerless in California. And so… According to Triple-A, the average cost of a gallon of gas in California today is $5.29. That’s nearly $1.70 more than the national average. In some parts of...