A $300,000 Salary Feels Like $100,000 in These Three Expensive Cities, Analysis Finds

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Residents of several cities in the United States require a salary much higher than $100,000 to feel as if they are earning six figures due to elevated costs of living and aggressive taxes, according to a recent analysis from SmartAsset.

The financial technology company found that residents of Honolulu, New York City, and San Francisco require salaries between $310,000 and $312,000 to earn the equivalent of $100,000 in an average part of the country since high earners in the three cities face tax rates above 40% and living expenses more than 80% above the national average.

“Those with a $100,000 salary earn more than double the median individual income for 2021, which might imply financial comfort on first glance. But when accounting for taxes and cost of living in America’s largest cities, those six figures will feel much smaller,” SmartAsset said in the analysis. “Ultimately, to have the purchasing power of $100,000, you will have to earn a substantially higher salary.”

Oakland, Los Angeles, and Long Beach followed the other cities with respect to the gross income needed to “feel like” one takes home $100,000. Residents of the cities see costs of living roughly 50% greater than the national average, partially due to expensive real estate, while income taxes approach 40% in Oakland and nearly 38% in Los Angeles and Long Beach. “California cities require the highest gross incomes of any state,” SmartAsset noted. (Read more from “A $300,000 Salary Feels Like $100,000 in These Three Expensive Cities, Analysis Finds” HERE)

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That IRS Hiring Binge? It’s Happening, Just as We Suspected

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In 2022, when the public learned that the Inflation Reduction Act earmarked an astonishing $80 billion for the Internal Revenue Service, the corporate press insisted everyone remain calm.

The $80 billion provided by President Biden’s massive social-welfare spending legislation would be used only on the other guys, members of the press argued. You know, the millionaires and billionaires. Don’t listen to the critics, advised our commentariat. It’s a conspiracy to think an IRS wealthier by $80 billion will translate into an auditor-hiring binge and an overabundance of scrutiny and red tape for workers and middle-class families. Indeed, credulous newsrooms claimed at the time, the $80 billion will mostly address “workforce attrition.”

On April 7, 2023, Politico scored a scoop: The IRS is on track to grow its workforce to levels not seen since the late 1990s. So much for “workforce attrition.”

“The IRS aims to employ 105,187 workers by 2025, swelling the agency ranks by nearly 50 percent within three years to workforce levels not seen for a quarter-century,” the report says, citing exclusively obtained IRS projections. Commissioner Danny Werfel and the Treasury Department are looking “to transform tax enforcement and administration with a new $80 billion windfall provided last August by Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act.” . . .

On another IRS matter, this week CBS News likewise scored a hot scoop: “Starting next year, a new IRS rule will require anyone earning over $600 on payment apps, like Venmo, in 2023 to receive a 1099-K form. The old threshold was earning $20,000 over 200 transactions.” (Read more from “That IRS Hiring Binge? It’s Happening, Just as We Suspected” HERE)

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Six More Bidens May Have Gained From Family Business Schemes: Comer; Guess Who’s Behind the 51 Intel Officials Letter Dismissing Hunter Biden’s Laptop?

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By New York Post. Six more members of the Biden clan may have benefitted from the family’s various business schemes, bringing the total number of kin implicated up to nine, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer revealed Monday.

The findings come after the Kentucky GOP congressman and other lawmakers on the panel examined suspicious activity reports sent by banks to the Treasury Department alerting of potential criminal activity in transactions involving President Biden’s family.

“Thousands of pages of financial records related to the Biden family, their companies, and associates’ business schemes were made available to members of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, which confirm the importance of this investigation,” Comer said in a statement.

“The Biden family enterprise is centered on Joe Biden’s political career and connections, and it has generated an exorbitant amount of money for the Biden family. We’ve identified six additional members of Joe Biden’s family who may have benefited from the Biden family’s businesses that we are investigating, bringing the total number of those involved or benefiting to nine,” he said.

Last month, Comer announced his committee had found evidence that at least three Biden family members and two associates received payments that originated from China in 2017, fewer than two months after Joe Biden left office as Barack Obama’s vice president. (Read more from “Six More Bidens May Have Gained From Family Business Schemes: Comer” HERE)

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Guess Who’s Behind the 51 Intel Officials Letter Dismissing Hunter Biden’s Laptop?

By PJ Media. For the past couple of years, we’ve been led to believe that the letter from 51 national security officials was some sort of spontaneous, grassroots effort by the intelligence community to warn us about the potential foreign influence behind Hunter Biden’s laptop.

The laptop has since been confirmed to be legitimate, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence confirmed that there was no foreign disinformation campaign involved. But new information from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and congressional investigators, with the help of two Obama-era CIA officials, has revealed a new twist in the story. The investigation has uncovered evidence linking the letter dismissing the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation during the 2020 election to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.

The unsettling revelation of evidence linking the dismissal of the laptop to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign raises grave concerns about the suppression and censorship of crucial information by big tech and the mainstream media leading up to the 2020 election. This could be one of the most significant instances of legitimate election interference in our nation’s history, with far-reaching implications that leave a dark cloud over the integrity of our democracy. The implications of this investigation are deeply disturbing and must not be ignored.

Jordan revealed to Just the News that a report on government weaponization is set to be released later this month, detailing the individuals involved in the letter and the evidence linking them to the Biden campaign. Jordan suggested that the letter may have been a significant interference in the presidential election and was motivated by political considerations. Jordan declined to provide more details as further witness interviews are being conducted this week.

“It was all done with politics, and it looks like there was some real connections with the Biden campaign,” Jordan said during an interview late last week on the John Solomon Reports podcast. (Read more from “Guess Who’s Behind the 51 Intel Officials Letter Dismissing Hunter Biden’s Laptop?” HERE)

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Putin Boasts of ‘Joint Military Exercises’ in Meeting With Chinese Defense Chief

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Russian President Vladimir Putin touted “military-to-military cooperation” with China while hosting the communist regime’s defense chief at the Kremlin.

“We also hold joint military exercises in various theaters of operation, including in the Far East, Europe, at sea, on land, as well as in the air,” Putin told Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu, according to the Kremlin transcript. “I do believe that this constitutes a major track for strengthening the trust-based strategic relationship between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China.”

Li traveled to Moscow less than a month after Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping made the trek as Russia and China seek to dramatize their geopolitical cooperation. The meeting on Monday coincided with separate military exercises in the Pacific by each state, while world powers clashed at the U.N. Security Council over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with democratic heavyweights in Japan.

“We have a very strong relationship that goes beyond the Cold War-era military and political alliances,” the Chinese defense minister said. “Under your strategic leadership and that of the President of China, we are actively developing cooperation in practical spheres. Our relations have already entered a new era.”

Xi has stopped short of taking direct steps to arm Russia in its campaign to overthrow the Ukrainian government, but Ukrainian forces have begun to find larger numbers and varieties of “dual-use” Chinese components in Russian arms, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s team. (Read more from “Putin Boasts of ‘Joint Military Exercises’ in Meeting With Chinese Defense Chief” HERE)

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14 Million Cases of Type 2 Diabetes Linked to These Foods, Study Says

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An estimated 14 million cases of type 2 diabetes were caused by a poor diet, a recent study published in Nature Medicine found.

Diets that lacked whole grains or had too much refined rice, wheat or processed meats were linked to the disease.

Those that included overconsumption of fruit juice or insufficient amounts of non-starchy vegetables, nuts or seeds also had some impact on diagnoses, though not as much. . .

“Our study suggests poor carbohydrate quality is a leading driver of diet-attributable type 2 diabetes globally, and with important variation by nation and over time,” said senior author Dariush Mozaffarian. . .

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health alerted the public that the number of young Americans with type 2 diabetes is projected to skyrocket nearly 700% by 2060 if current upward trends continue unchecked. (Read more from “14 Million Cases of Type 2 Diabetes Linked to These Foods, Study Says” HERE)

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Husband and Wife Worship Hindu “God” Every Day for a Year, Then Decapitate Themselves

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A husband and wife from India simultaneously decapitated themselves over the weekend using an improvised guillotine rigged in such a way that their severed heads rolled directly into a fire altar as a form of human sacrifice, officials said.

Farmer Hemubhai Makwana, 38, and his wife, Hansaben Makwana, 35, committed the sickening act sometime between Saturday and Sunday in the village of Vinchiya, located in the Rajkot district of the western state of Gujarat, local police said.

“The couple first prepared a fire altar before putting their heads under a guillotine-like mechanism held by a rope. As soon as they released the rope, an iron blade fell on them, severing their heads, which rolled into the fire,” said Vinchiya police sub-inspector Indrajitsinh Jadeja, according to Hindustan Times. . .

Jadeja said investigators were taking statements from relatives and trying to determine whether the twin beheadings were part of a black magic ritual.

The couple had been worshiping the god Shiva — one of the main deities of Hinduism — at an improvised temple they had set up on their property every day for the past year. (Read more from “Husband and Wife Worship Hindu “God” Every Day for a Year, Then Decapitate Themselves” HERE)

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If China’s Yuan Usurps The Dollar, The World Economy Will Be At Communists’ Whims

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In July 1944, 44 delegates from Allied countries came together during World War II in Bretton Wood, New Hampshire. The goal? Devise an international currency system to manage foreign exchange that would disadvantage no country and effectively facilitate post-war rebuilding and commerce. The outcome: The U.S. greenback would be the world’s reserve currency.

It has been almost 80 years since, and all nations have been better off with a United States dollar-dominated world. World gross domestic product (GDP) in 1940 was $7.81 trillion. For 2023, the world GDP is expected to be $112.6 trillion. That is an increase of 1,441 percent. Billions of people have been lifted out of poverty because of this.

China is working overtime to disrupt the dollar-dominated world economy. The significance of the dollar losing its premier position cannot be overstated. The Biden administration should not overlook this.

Most Americans may be unaware of crucial transactions occurring around the globe recently. And who could blame them? All the corporate media’s main headlines have been over the now-public indictment of former President Donald Trump, over factually weak allegations involving hush-money payments to a porn star.

The indictment of a former president is a crossing-of-the-Rubicon moment in American history. But displacing the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, as China and Russia have both made known is their objective, has analogous ramifications for the world. But while the world watches Trump’s indictment, they are missing China’s transactions with some of our major allies and trading partners in the yuan. Notably, China is doing this with nations that need better stewards. (Read more from “If China’s Yuan Usurps the Dollar, the World Economy Will Be at Communists’ Whims” HERE)

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GOP Senators Report Second Lab Leak From Wuhan Institute of Virology

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A multi-year investigation from Republicans on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee found a “preponderance of circumstantial evidence” that COVID-19 emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) through at least one leak.

The HELP Committee report, obtained by the Daily Caller ahead of its official Tuesday release, provides “a significant amount of evidence to disprove the theory” that COVID-19 emerged from the Huanan seafood market, Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall told reporters. It emphasizes that an accidental leak, brought on by unsafe laboratory conditions, is the most likely origin of COVID-19. The report also notes that Chinese Communist Party officials engaged in a systematic coverup that delayed the world’s response to the virus by weeks, if not months.

China’s vaccine development timeline suggests multiple leaks from WIV, according to the full report. Professor Zhou Yusen, a People’s Liberation Army doctor who mysteriously disappeared and died in 2020, filed for the first COVID-19 vaccine patent in February 2020. His development of the vaccine would have taken “at least two to three months,” according the report, signaling a start date of no later than November 2019. China asserts that COVID-19 was first detected on December 8, 2019.

“The virus is circulating in November. They’re closing schools in November and December,” Marshall noted. “The theory is there is an initial lab leak. They’re able to contain it, but they start developing the vaccine.”

“The timeline shifts a little bit earlier. I think that’s the theme here from this report. It shifts earlier. I think the two lab leak theory is the best conclusion we can get here,” he continued. (Read more from “GOP Senators Report Second Lab Leak From Wuhan Institute of Virology” HERE)

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Trump Could Be Eyeing This Woman for VP

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Former President Donald Trump may consider someone like Republican New York Rep. Elise Stefanik to be his vice presidential pick, Trump insiders told the Daily Caller.

Stefanik fits the profile of characteristics Trump’s team will be looking for in a VP. She’s rallied behind him in his impeachment proceedings and the New York indictment, and was the first member of GOP leadership to endorse him for president — throwing her weight behind his candidacy before Trump announced it himself. Her commitment could lead Trump to choose her on a basis of loyalty, which those close to Trump say is the most desired quality in a VP.

“Loyalty. That’s the necessary characteristic of anyone who wants to be VP. President Trump and the movement was dragged down by disloyalty in the White House,” a source close to Trump said.

The Caller granted anonymity to some sources familiar with Trump’s thinking to allow them to speak openly on a sensitive matter.

“I see no better fit than Elise Stefanik, but the president will take his own counsel,” Mike Caputo, a longtime friend and adviser to Trump, said. (Read more from “Trump Could Be Eyeing This Woman for VP” HERE)

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Oregon’s Ban on Christians Adopting Violates the First Amendment — And Good Sense

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Christians have a long history of caring for children in need. The Christian apologist St. Basil the Great opened what is regarded as one of the first orphanages in the fourth century. He dedicated a wing of his monastery to raising and educating orphans where the monastics acted as “surrogate parents.” And here, in what would later become America, some of the first orphanages were founded in the early 18th century by Catholic nuns and Lutherans.

Jessica is a mother of five children, a part-time ultrasound technician, and a devout Christian. She’s also a widow. Her late husband died in a car wreck several years ago. Then, after hearing a broadcast about one man’s adoption story, she felt convicted. The Bible describes God as a Father to the fatherless and a protector of widows. He had provided for her. Now she felt called to extend that same love to a child in need.

But when Jessica applied to Oregon’s Department of Human Services, the state put her through an ideological litmus test — one that ferrets out people of faith who disagree with the state’s views on the metaphysical differences between men and women. . .

Specifically, state regulations require prospective caregivers to demonstrate that they will “accept” and “support” a child’s sexual orientation and so-called gender identity and expression. This means caregivers must agree to use preferred pronouns, take their children to events such as LGBT pride parades, and even take young children to receive hormone shots as part of what the left calls “gender transition.” When Jessica explained that she would love any child, but she just couldn’t do anything that went against her Christian faith, the state turned her away. According to Oregon, people with traditional religious beliefs about our sexual differences are unfit to care for children.

This policy violates the First Amendment. It categorically excludes entire religious communities from the adoption and foster-care process, violating our constitutional protections for religious liberty. It also violates our rights to free speech by compelling Jessica to affirm by word and deed her beliefs in the state’s ideology. (Read more from “Oregon’s Ban on Christians Adopting Violates the First Amendment — And Good Sense” HERE)

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