IRS Whistleblower Says Biden Admin is Interfering w/ Hunter Biden Tax Probe

Molly Bruns
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IRS Whistleblower Says Biden Admin is Interfering w/ Hunter Biden Tax Probe

(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) An IRS whistleblower claimed that several Biden administration stooges are attempting to block charges against first son Hunter Biden and are engaging in “preferential treatment and politics” in the investigation.

According to Breitbart, the Department of Justice opened an investigation into alleged tax fraud, money laundering and violation of lobbying laws by the younger Biden.

Mark Lytle, attorney for the whistleblower, stated that his client is hoping to speak with congressional investigators to show them the evidence of political interference.

“The agent has provided evidence that at least two Biden DOJ political appointees in U.S. attorneys’ offices have declined to seek a tax indictment against Hunter Biden despite career investigators’ recommendations to do so and the blessing of career prosecutors in the DOJ tax division,” said a letter from Lytle to the DOJ.

The whistleblower also asked for Trump-approved prosecutor David Weiss to act as a special counsel in the probe as a preventative measure against interference from Biden officials—that request was denied.

Hunter previously attempted to settle the DOJ’s probe, paying a $1 million IRS tax bill in 2021 in order to evade conviction.

There are many questions about President Joe Biden’s possible involvement in the litany of his son’s crimes.

A witness was reportedly asked to identify the “big guy,” a joint venture between the Bidens, their business associates and CEFC China Energy Co., where the now-president received 10% equity in the company.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., discovered that the Biden family collected $1.3 million from CEFC in 2017, which Hunter confirmed and the president falsely denied.

Comer’s investigation also revealed that the Bidens’ exchanged favors for the money while acting as vice president.

The investigation revealed at least nine violations including tax evasion, money laundering and wire fraud, in addition to the charges by the DOJ.

Tech Titan Oracle Dumps Affiliation w/ Censorship Organization GDI

Robert Jonathan
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Tech Titan Oracle Dumps Affiliation w/ Censorship Organization GDI

(Robert Jonathan, Headline USA) The software leviathan Oracle is deleting its partnership with the far-left nonprofit group that attempts to censor, with the help of the Biden administration, online conservative news outlets.

The U.S. State Department and an allied nonprofit called the National Endowment for Democracy reportedly funneled approximately $655,000 of taxpayer money to the so-called Global Disinformation Index.

U.K.-based GDI purports to do a risk assessment on news websites for their degree of disinformation.

“After conducting a review, we agree with others in the advertising industry that the services we provide marketers must be in full support of free speech, which is why we are ending our relationship with GDI,” an Oracle executive told the Washington Examiner.

Oracle “proudly” began collaborating with the U.K.-based GDI in August 2021.

As an example of gross bias, in its findings of about 69 English- and Spanish-language news websites, GDI claimed that NPR, HuffPost and BuzzFeed, all extremely far-leftist outfits, were among those considered least risky.

The 10 most-risky were conservative-leaning.

At its core, GDI allegedly tries to convince marketers to pull advertising from disfavored sites, which critics have deemed an economic blacklist that could, in a worst-case scenario, put these sites out of business.

“In other words, GDI influences advertisers to pull their dollars and thus silence speech dissenting from left-wing orthodoxy,” The Federalist explained.

In a counter-narrative to Big Tech tendencies that provides a glimmer of hope for online free speech and the traditional marketplace of ideas, Microsoft advertising subsidiary Xandr previously cut ties with GDI and its “dynamic exclusion list,” at least temporarily, pending an ongoing investigation

“[I]internal data provided by ad industry whistleblowers showed that conservative websites no longer are labeled by Xandr as ‘false/misleading,’ ‘hate speech,’ or  ‘reprehensible/offensive,'” the Examiner explained.

The National Endowment for Democracy has also ended its GDI collaboration.

Elections have consequences, as it is often said. Thus, it is certainly conceivable that these arrangements would have stayed in place without GOP control of the U.S. House and the resulting weaponization of government subcommittee hearings.

“As I wrote to Secretary Blinken in March, U.S. taxpayers should not provide funding for international organizations focused on blacklisting and targeting right-leaning American news organizations,” U.S. Rep. Ken Buck has said, according to the Examiner.

“However, the Global Disinformation Index has in the past chosen to accept and request U.S. funding from the State Department, therefore I believe that U.S. taxpayers deserve full transparency from GDI regarding information about who else has funded their efforts to silence conservative speech,” the lawmaker added.

Left-wing company NewsGuard also purports to track and log alleged disinformation on the Internet with a tool that similarly rates news and information websites.

Particularly since former President Trump came on the scene, projection has become the Left’s trademark. America has repeatedly witnessed misinformers/disinformers loudly lamenting disinformation or self-styed democracy protectors championing censorship and authoritarianism.

Sen. Tim Scott Previews Reaganesque Campaign Theme: ‘New American Sunrise’

Ben Sellers
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Sen. Tim Scott Previews Reaganesque Campaign Theme: ‘New American Sunrise’

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) The morning session of the Heritage Foundation’s leadership summit brought a study in senatorial contrasts between two Republican lawmakers, Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Tim Scott of South Carolina.

The differences extended beyond the obvious—Lee as one of the nation’s whitest senators and Scott as the only African-American GOP senator currently in office—but also stylistically.

Scott himself seemed to recognize this fact. “Mike Lee graduated cum laude. I graduated ‘Thank you, Lawdy,” said Scott, whose remarkable story recounts how his grandfather, a former sharecropper in the Deep South, lived to see his grandson sworn in as a U.S. senator.

While Lee’s speech waded into the weeds with a history lesson on the federal administrative state’s ascendancy—beginning with a specific 1937 Supreme Court state that allowed the government to reimagine the Constitution’s commerce clause—Lee focused more brooadly on themes that were apt to play well to a general audience on the 2024 presidential campaign trail.

“We understand that the seed of greatness, not the sea of grievance, is our future,” he said.

Tim specifically criticized the contemporary Left’s attack on traditional values, which included the promotion of government dependency via Critical Race Theory and undermining national security interests through open borders.

“It’s almost like they’ve created a blueprint to ruin America,” he said.

But he also channeled former President Ronald Reagan with what is sure to be a future campaign slogan, discussing a “new American sunrise.”

“We are the country that continues to prevail over the forces of evil,” said Scott, who recently formed an exploratory committee to weigh entering the crowded GOP primary field for next year’s presidential election.

His notes of optimism were a welcome balm for a conference that dwelled heavily on the existential struggle to regain the country in what has seemed more than ever to be a losing battle on many fronts.

That included Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s revelation that during the 2020 election, only one court case of the dozen waged in his state to push mass mail-in ballots might have resulted in the Lone Star State getting flipped blue—and permanently altering the American political landscape.

“If the ballots go out, game over—and we lose,” Paxton said, noting the loss of Georgia as an example.

The conference seemed heavy on its emphasis of Reagan’s principles while seeming to tiptoe around the elephant NOT in the room, former President Donald Trump.

While Trump was not on the speaker list, his top intra-party rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was due to deliver a keynote speech at the conference on Friday, giving what was expected to be a major policy speech.

But Trump’s influence also resonated, particularly in the speech by Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, who immediately followed Scott.

Vance called for accountability for the neocons of the George W. Bush era who took America into the quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Heritage President Kevin Roberts also struck a defiant, populist tone in his early remarks.

“No more bringing butter knives to gunfights,” he said. “We’ve learned that.”

Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., also were due to speak Thursday afternoon.

Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/realbensellers.

BlackRock gets Federal Civil Rights Complaint for Racist Hiring Practices

Molly Bruns
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BlackRock gets Federal Civil Rights Complaint for Racist Hiring Practices

(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Deep state corporate ally BlackRock faced allegations of racism in response to the company’s commitments to diversity in the form of a civil rights complaint.

Conservative advocacy group founded by former Trump administration adviser Stephen Miller, America First Legal, filed a civil rights complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Daily Wire reported.

In the complaint, the group cited a program prioritizing the hiring of racial minorities and females into senior leadership positions.

An annual report released by the company emphasized the importance of “cultivating diversity, equity and inclusion” in their leadership team via “hiring, retention, promotion and development practices.”

The company also has a “BlackRock Founders Scholarship,” which awards recipients with $17,500; only “black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Native American, LGBTQ+ or disabled,” employees were invited to apply.

AFL argued that the programs violate the Civil Rights act of 1964.

“The practice of hiring based on skin color or sex is not only illegal but is un-American,” America First Legal Vice President and General Counsel Gene Hamilton said in a statement. “Corporate giants like BlackRock continually erode the American way of life in more ways than one. We are proud to stand against these unlawful practices and to fight to bring some measure of accountability.”

BlackRock, which recently saw massive losses due to their diversity and environmental, social and corporate governance efforts, has not responded to the complaint.

AFL filed a similar complaint against Anheuser-Busch after the company announced their partnership with Dylan Mulvaney, a man who pretends to be a woman on social media.

“Iconic American brands, like Anheuser-Busch, have become shells of their founders’ visions due to weak-kneed corporate leadership who routinely cave to idealogues whose thirst for an ever-changing notion of ‘social justice’ is relentless,” Hamilton said in another statement.

Most civil rights complaints in this vein are filed against universities in respect to race and sex and how they play into the admissions process.

Woke ESPN to Face Brunt of Disney’s Upcoming 4,000 Job Reduction

Jacob Bruns
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Woke ESPN to Face Brunt of Disney’s Upcoming 4,000 Job Reduction

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) The corporate media hacks at ESPN, a branch of Disney, are continuing to pay for pushing woke policies, with another round of layoffs upcoming, Breitbart reported.

Disney, which has been locked in an ongoing political battle with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, will lay off 4,000 employees in the coming weeks, and many of those will be from ESPN.

An unnamed source said that, though the layoffs will take place across Disney as a whole, a good number of them will come from the “entertainment division,” of which ESPN is a part.

“The cuts will include Disney’s TV, movie, theme parks and corporate teams, affecting every region where Disney operates,” the source reported.

“Some workers will be notified of their layoffs as early as Monday,” the source added. “In all, Disney will eliminate about 15 percent of the staff in its entertainment division, which includes movie and TV production as well as streaming.”

Insiders also noted that “no one is immune” to the upcoming layoffs.

Aside from Disney’s own far-left policies, ESPN has spent years pushing left-wing propaganda, particularly via “The Undefeated,” ESPN’s anti-white, identity-politics wing.

In March, for example, ESPN included transgender swimmer Lia Thomas in its Women’s History Month tribute.

“The fact that they are now … asking us to celebrate Lia Thomas as one of the women we should be stopping to pause and celebrate on women’s month. They’ve gone too far,” said former Fox News host Megyn Kelly.

The sports media dynasty also forced out an employee, college football reporter Allison Williams, for not getting the jab because she wished to have a child with her husband.

Perhaps most egregiously, ESPN colluded with the NFL to lionize former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, whose kneeling protest set off years of race rioting.

Whitmer Kidnap Case Prosecutor Attacks Reporter, Continues to Spread Misinformation

Ken Silva
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Whitmer Kidnap Case Prosecutor Attacks Reporter, Continues to Spread Misinformation

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) At a public event last week featuring Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, independent reporter Eric VanDussen asked Nessel why her office has repeatedly falsely said that four men on trial for assisting in the plot to kidnap the state’s governor were part of the “Wolverine Watchmen.”

VanDussen’s question was a good one. An FBI agent in the case has already testified that the defendants weren’t members of the Wolverine Watchmen, and defense counsel has raised concerns that referring to the defendants as Watchmen—the main group that allegedly conspired to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer—will prejudice a jury against them.

However, VanDussen was treated with hostility for his valid question.

“With all due respect, you have a lawsuit against me, so I am going to decline to answer that question right now,” she said, referring to an open records lawsuit VanDussen has filed against the state, which has attempted to keep records about the case secret. “But will be happy to respond in court.”

Days later, the prosecution continued to attack VanDussen, while also continuing to spread the false claim that the defendants—Michael Null, William Null, Shawn Fix and Eric Molitor—were Watchmen.

Prosecutor William Rollstin called VanDussen an “agitator” at a hearing Wednesday, accusing him of working with the defense, rather than being an independent journalist.

“If I had to guess, I’ll bet Mr. VanDussen’s in the courtroom today. He was out at the townhall meeting last Friday … And [the attorney general] was questioned by Mr. VanDussen about the Wolverine Watchmen,” Rollstin said. “And remember, Mr. Vandussen is working very closely with [the defense]. He’s somewhat of an agitator, if you will.”

Rollstin then doubled down on referring to the defendants as Watchmen.

“The defendants are part of the Wolverine Watchmen to the extent that they’re all co-conspirators,” he said.

Wednesday’s hearing wasn’t the first time Rollstin has spread false information about the Whitmer case.

Last month, he falsely accused one of the alleged plotters of issuing a $1,000 bounty against an FBI informant who betrayed him.

“Barry Croft is a person the court is more familiar with … There was a contract we discovered. An offer was made for $1,000 for one of our informant’s addresses,” Rollstin said. “And I don’t think they were going to drop off flowers. This is serious business.”

However, Rollstin’s accusation was already debunked in federal court in February 2022, when federal prosecutors were trying to have undercover FBI agents testify under false names.

“The government can’t, in good faith, be arguing that after the government seized all of Mr. Croft’s electronics and while he was awaiting his first appearance in the District of Delaware that he somehow was arranging for people on the outside to offer ‘bounties’ and that he was also clairvoyantly disclosing discovery which he wouldn’t receive for months to come,” the defense said in a stinging rebuttal on Feb. 25, 2022.

A federal judge agreed with the defense last year, ruling that the undercover agents had to testify under their real names: special agents Timothy Bates and Mark Schweers.

Headline USA has written to the FBI and Michigan’s attorney general, asking for evidence that Croft was involved in a bounty. Neither party responded to this publication’s email queries.

VanDussen, for his part, hasn’t directly responded to the prosecution’s attacks against him. But he has referred to Rollstin’s statements in court documents as “disingenuous,” “cavalier,” and “blatantly false.”

At Wednesday’s hearing, the presiding judge told the defense they should file a motion if they want to have their concerns about the prosecution’s misinformation addressed.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Dems Fight for More Gun Laws, Failing to Enforce Those on the Books

Corine Gatti
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Dems Fight for More Gun Laws, Failing to Enforce Those on the Books

(Corine Gatti, Headline USA) A string of high-profile shooting incidents has reignited the calls for an assault-style weapons ban, expanded background checks and other measures to ensure public safety. But those in Democrat-run cites are choosing not to enforce gun laws.

Many left-leaning prosecutors are not enforcing the criminal penalties of gun laws broken in their own backyards — and it’s questioning the credibility of liberal gun grabbers.

In Philadelphia, illegal gun possession cases had been typically convicted 65% of the time, that rate has dropped drastically to only 42%, and gun possession arrests increased by more than 100% between 2015 and 2020, the Washington Examiner reported.

Leftist District Attorney Larry Krasner and his officials believe that investigating the underlying causes of gun violence is the only way to make lasting progress, rather than concentrating on the possession of illegal guns.

Krasner’s office argued that the enforcement of illegal gun possession laws was ineffective in combating gun violence but was “obviously racist” since gun possession is a felony offense in Philadelphia, while the same offense is a misdemeanor elsewhere in Pennsylvania. As a result, individuals in Philadelphia often receive harsher sentences than their counterparts living outside the city limits.

“Basically, we don’t have a crisis of lawlessness, we don’t have a crisis of crime, we don’t have a crisis of violence, and that is a category that includes gun violence,” Krasner claimed in 2021, reported Fox29.

Facts argued against Krasner’s gaslighting. His claims came a day after Philly police released video that reportedly showed three teens beat and rob a 70-year-old man.

Washington D.C. is no better. Despite fewer arrests to review, prosecutors are still taking on a smaller share of them. According to the Substack DC Crime Facts, last year, prosecutors in Washington DC declined to pursue criminal charges in 67% of arrests.

Meanwhile, in New York City, while leftist Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been witch-hunting Donald Trump, he has downgraded many felonies to misdemeanors during his watch. And with the same soft-on-crime approach, it is no surprise that gun violence in other leftist enclaves like San Francisco, Detroit, Baltimore and Chicago also remains a persistent issue despite having strict gun control laws in place.

Texas AG Paxton: Vote Fraudsters 1 Case Away from Stealing His State from GOP

Ben Sellers
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Texas AG Paxton: Vote Fraudsters 1 Case Away from Stealing His State from GOP

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) In the opening session of the Heritage Foundation’s two-day leadership summit at the National Harbor in Maryland, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said that losing even a single case might have permanently flipped his state blue, likely altering the political landscape on a national level.

Paxton said his office, with just a handful of attorneys, was juggling 12 cases at one from woke blue counties that were trying to permit unfettered mail-in ballot distribution with no signature verification.

“If the ballots go out, game over, we lose,” Paxton warned his team. “…They will just count the ballots until they get to the right number.”

Even one court loss in a large county could have flipped the Texas legislature, giving radical leftists the political power they needed to permanently codify anti-integrity measures statewide.

That would likely deliver Texas’s 38 electoral votes and two key Senate seats to Democrats with no ability to reverse course, as it has in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and other battleground states won by former President Donald Trump in 2016.

“What a genius strategy to whoever put this together, whether it was George Soros or somebody else,” Paxton said.

His remarks came just days after Fox News settled a libel lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million—a chilling outcome from a court in Joe Biden’s hometown that potentially opens the floodgates to other lawfare attacks.

Paxton acknowledged the stigma attached to even discussion vote fraud because the use of unverified signature ballots eliminates any possibility of proof.

However, he said it continued to be an issue of existential necessity in Texas and elsewhere.

“If we do not get that fixed, they will accomplish what they set out to do with voter fraud,” he said. “… There’s lots of voter fraud going on. … We have proof of it.”

As for his own state, the battle continues due to the election of radical judges, prosecutors and district attorneys who are refusing to abide by the law.

“I wish I could say that this story was over for me in Texas,” he said. “… Soros has done a very good job.”

Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/realbensellers.

Small Businesses Petition against Biden Tax Hikes

Wire Editor
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Small Businesses Petition against Biden Tax Hikes

(Casey Harper, The Center Square) More than 11,000 small business leaders have rallied together in a petition to protest the tax hikes proposed in President Joe Biden’s latest proposed budget.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses organized the effort and recently launched a paid ad campaign against the tax increases.

“Thousands of small business owners from across the nation signed the petition to say the proposed tax increases will be detrimental to their businesses,” said Kevin Kuhlman, NFIB Vice President of Federal Government Relations. “The White House is claiming they are ‘closing a loophole’ by subjecting small business income to a new 5% tax, but that claim is false and misleading. Small businesses are not a tax loophole and ask their elected officials to reject the proposed tax hikes.”

As The Center Square previously reported, the budget includes several proposed tax increases, including a minimum 25% tax on anyone with more than $100 million, an increase of the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6%, a hike of the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, a billionaire’s tax, and more.

Biden’s tens of billions of dollars to beef up IRS auditing and enforcement has raised concerns as well with economists saying small businesses will likely be targeted heavily by the audits.

The Tax Foundation released an analysis of the proposed budget, saying it will lead to lower GDP and fewer jobs while raising about $2.5 trillion in revenue.

“President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget outlines several major tax increases that would add up to nearly $4.8 trillion in new taxes targeted at businesses and high-income individuals,” the group said. “After $833 billion in expanded tax credits, it would raise nearly $4.0 trillion in new taxes on net.”

Seattle Public Schools Have $131M Deficit

Wire Editor
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Seattle Public Schools Have $131M Deficit

(Adam Andrzejewski, RealClear Wire) So far through February 2023, Seattle Public Schools has made $67.5 million more in expenditures than it has received in revenue, part of a total projected deficit of $131 million, according to Chalkboard Review.

According to the article, the spending comes in three main categories: regular education, special education, and support services.

Falling enrollment and ballooning support staffs have both contributed to the district’s insolvency. Student enrollment has plummeted from 52,730 in the 2019-20 school year to 49,387 in the 2023-24 school year.

Despite fewer students in the buildings, the number of staff has increased from 5,609 in 2014 to 7,273 last year. These expensive bureaucrats have steadily increased costs despite having fewer students needing their help.

According to The Center Square, the school district is considering cutting $33 million in spending from the central office. It is also looking at another $11 million in school-based cuts.

These measures, while necessary and appropriate, still don’t come close to solving the problem. The most effective and succinct solution — consolidation — has been ruled out for now by the superintendent.

School districts are just as liable as local and state governments to overspend and exercise poor financial judgement. For the sake of our children, it’s important they rein in ballooning costs and spend wisely.

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