Free Republic

The billionaires’ attack on the wealth tax initiative shows why it’s needed.As is the case with most election cycles, the claims and counterclaims about the ballot measures being voted on in California this time around are largely based on caricatures of the measures themselves. That’s especially true of the highest-profile measure, Proposition 40 — the California billionaire tax.What’s indisputable is that this is a “wealth tax.” It’s a one-time 5% levy on assets owned by Californians with more than $1 billion in net worth. That’s a departure from conventional state personal tax, which is levied on income such as wages...

Five of the 14 statewide ballot measures are related to taxes The one you’ve likely heard most about is Proposition 40, which, if passed, would make California the first state to introduce a wealth tax. Almost all of the tens of billions of dollars the tax is estimated to generate would be set aside for the state’s public health insurance programs Prop. 3 would make permanent a higher income tax rate for the state’s top earners that voters approved on a temporary basis twice in the past decade-plus. The tax — which expires in 2030 unless Prop. 3 passes —...

Bigger agencies, higher spending, and expanded workforces don't always make government more effective.My recent trip to Malibu from Los Angeles was my first post-wildfire drive through the Pacific Palisades and, my goodness, there's nothing like seeing something with one's own eyes to grasp the enormity of the devastation. The obliterated hulks along Pacific Coast Highway 21 months after the tragedy raise multiple issues, including ones related to the excruciatingly slow rebuilding process. This being California, the state has yet to grapple sufficiently with the reasons the wildfires started—and the failed response to them. But late is better than never, so...

New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez donated $1 million to Dr. Abdul El-Sayed who is running for U.S. Senate as a Democrat. Ocasio-Cortez has been campaigning for El-Sayed as the midterm elections are less than a month away. She has been on the road and has campaigned for El-Sayed and other Democratic candidates as her party is expected to have some midterm victories in tight races. El-Sayed is facing Republican challenger Mike Rogers.

FIRST ON FOX - The price tag for the beleaguered Obama Presidential Center is now projected to top $1 billion, nearly triple its original estimate, the foundation overseeing construction of the Chicago facility told Fox News Digital. Confirmation of the 10-figure cost marks another chapter in the troubled history of the much-delayed project, which opened five years behind schedule amid controversy over its use of public parkland and claims that subcontractors were stiffed out of millions of dollars. It comes as newly released financial records reviewed by Fox News Digital offer a fresh look at the finances of the Obama...

🚨 JUST IN: Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D)'s former aide LaMar Cook, already facing cocaine trafficking and gun charges, has been ARRESTED by federal prosecutors for SNAP FRAUD PARTY OF FRAUD. He's also accused of wrongly taking $30K in VACATION time, and must pay it back! Earlier this year, he was caught using his taxpayer-funded EBT card at supermarkets right outside Walt Disney World. Prosecutors say he claimed ZERO income and less than $100 in the bank to collect $500 a month in food stamps. Records reportedly showed he actually had thousands in the bank, plus about $12,000 in lottery...

‘Racial wealth gap’ – the catch-all phrase that would serve to justify anything the committees wanted When I read that “New California reparations law requires companies to disclose past profits from slavery,” I thought it was a joke. I’ve covered California Democrat’s years-long attempts to pass legislation to authorize reparations. In June, I reported “DOJ Case Applies to California: Reparations Program is Discriminatory and Illegal.” I thought once again, reparations in California is so stupid and factually ignorant – California wasn’t a slave state. Slavery has existed on every inhabited continent for at least 4,000 years of recorded history. And...

WASHINGTON — Rep. Ilhan Omar’s staff helped get her birthdate changed in public records once the Minnesota Democrat was elected to Congress in 2018, a switch that has since spurred frenzied accusations that she misrepresented her age to secure US citizenship. The alteration could offer a big clue as to what federal immigration agents were searching for when they raided her DC home Monday: If the congresswoman is actually one year older than she’s claimed to be, that would mean she couldn’t have legally become a US citizen in 2000, critics contend. Omar’s birthdate had been listed in the Minnesota...

...John Solomon’s Just the News published a declassified intelligence summary describing intercepted communications between Ukrainian officials and USAID personnel in Kyiv dating back to late 2022. According to the summary, the plan involved directing hundreds of millions of dollars meant for a Ukrainian infrastructure project toward a very different purpose. The declassified language states that roughly 90 percent of the funds would be routed to the DNC to help fund Joe Biden’s reelection campaign.. .

The Homelessness Industry: Oregon Version Cynical Policies in a Beautiful Place, Destroying Humans Human despair is being manufactured and monetized by corrupt health care organizations, in ways that defy belief. Health care companies, working with the neo-Marxists in Western blue states, are using local and state-level policies, and numberless NGOs, to produce ever more drug addiction, alcoholism, mental illness diagnoses, and homelessness. This is the homelessness industry in Oregon.

WASHINGTON — New York blew off 16,000 Trump administration ICE orders to detain suspected heinous illegal migrants accused or convicted in more than 50,000 criminal charges, disturbing new data show. The Department of Homeland Security said the municipalities across the Dem-driven state have refused to comply with its detainment requests 16,070 times since President Trump re-entered office fewer than two years ago — refusing to hand over criminal migrants suspected or convicted of everything from murder to kidnapping and sexual assault. “While sanctuary politicians continue to release dangerous criminals onto their streets, our brave law enforcement officers will continue to...

Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico pledged in writing to support the Equality Act. But as Republicans hammer his past statements supporting transgender youth, his campaign appears to be working on its message around whether he still supports it. … "If elected, James will review every bill he's asked to vote on and do what's best for the people of Texas," campaign spokesperson JT Ennis told The Washington Post.

A Biden-appointed federal judge has once again stepped in to shield dirty voter rolls from federal scrutiny, striking down the Justice Department’s nationwide effort to collect registration records and identify suspected non-U.S. citizens on the rolls. U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago, ruled that the Department of Justice overstepped its bounds by demanding unredacted voter registration lists and cross-referencing them using federal databases. According to the 78-page ruling, the DOJ began requesting complete, unredacted statewide voter registration lists (including names, dates of birth, addresses, and driver’s license or partial Social Security numbers) from 49...

(The Center Square) – An Ohio college that touted a “Free College Benefit Program” was actually illegally funded with millions in taxpayer dollars, according to indictments released Thursday. A grand jury in Jefferson County indicted three people for stealing $20 million from Eastern Gateway Community College, a state school which has now closed, Ohio State Auditor Keith Faber said. Michael Perik, Nicole Rowe Colclasure and Michael Geoghegan are accused of diverting Pell grants and other federal financial aid state funds through “fraudulent reimbursements and illegal incentive payments, “ Faber said Thursday. The “Free College Benefit Program” caused the school’s enrollment...

Employees at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago are unionizing over their working conditions, claiming their benefits have been cut and workloads are increasing just four months after the center opened in June. Workers circulated a letter to staff Wednesday announcing their intent to unionize, complaining about “increasing” workloads “vague responses” from administrators to a list of complaints they’d raised, the Chicago Sun Times reported. Some of the complaints suggested that the $900 million presidential center could already be facing financial trouble. Such complaints have led to a “high turnover rate,” with exiting employees “taking with them their institutional knowledge...

Here's your reminder that the judges are out of control: Post The Vigilant Fox 🦊 @VigilantFox A 19-year-old charged with stabbing a man in Pittsburgh so badly his intestines were hanging out was released the SAME DAY without posting a dime. Eight days later, he’s the prime suspect in ANOTHER stabbing. District Judge Dan Butler let Delvin Dobbins walk on a non-monetary bond. Just a promise to show up to court. Pittsburgh Police Chief Jason Lando couldn’t believe he was out. “How can that be? I mean, he just stabbed someone in the stomach a week ago.” And it’s happened...

Stealing from the taxpayer has now become a multi-billion-dollar industry in America - and the Trump administration is finally doing something about it. From the Department of Government Efficiency to Vice President JD Vance’s task force, the Trump administration has made combatting fraud a top priority. Here are just a few of the most astonishing fraud schemes uncovered so far. 750,000 fraudsters stealing $2.2 billion from ObamacareSince its passage in 2010, Obamacare has been a magnet for scammers, resulting in higher tax bills for Americans and higher premiums in the private insurance market. But the Trump administration is finally doing...

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), under President Joe Biden and former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, knowingly allowed millions of illegal aliens who overstayed their visas to remain in the United States, classifying them as “non-priority” aliens. A report from DHS Inspector General (IG) Joseph Cuffari details a clear lack of immigration enforcement embedded within the Biden administration — particularly regarding visa overstays. From 2021 to 2024, for instance, ICE received more than 3.1 million leads on visa overstays, about 104,000 of whom were classified as potential national security or public safety threats. Fewer than 500 of...

While California is already notorious for having a massive welfare state -- accompanied by massive amounts of welfare fraud -- a new report revealed the extent to which California handouts bankroll illegal aliens. The report from City Journal fellow Christopher Rufo, joined by Kenneth Schrupp and Austen Hufford, even described the programs as a "shadow welfare system." Among other benefits, foreigners can receive "health care, rental assistance, college grants, tax credits, low-cost car insurance, and even smartphones on the taxpayers’ dime," the report said. The team from the City Journal visited four welfare offices in California -- where employees admitted...

PDF LINKS AT SITE.................... Already in the crosshairs for spying on Congress, ex-prosecutor Jack Smith and his team monitored the activities of President Donald Trump’s legal defense team, journalists and campaign advisers using a pen register device that tracked the calls coming to and from his chief of staff Susie Wiles’ phone, according to newly declassified memos that reveal some of the FBI’s invasive tactics used to target Trump. Just the News reported last week that Smith obtained the phone records of several senators through a subpoena and secured a non-disclosure order from the court preventing the mobile carrier from...