Feds Have Showered Washington State with Tax Dollars to Fix Homelessness, but It Keeps Getting Worse

Homeless Person

A plethora of federal agencies have spent well over $200 million attempting to alleviate homelessness in Washington state over the past 17 years, only for the number of people living on the streets to keep rising.

Federal agencies like the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Health and Human Service (HHS), among others, have spent hundreds of millions of dollars since 2007 on grants to third parties intended to mitigate homelessness in Washington, federal spending data shows. Despite the nine-figure sum of taxpayer dollars spent, the number of homeless people in Washington grew by about 20% between 2007 and 2023, according to a report produced by HUD.

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Federal Diversity Trainings Cost Taxpayers in 2023 Millions of Dollars

The Biden administration spent millions on diversity trainings for federal agencies, including some for the armed forces, in 2023.

Taxpayers were on the hook for the more than $16.3 million the federal government spent on diversity trainings taking place in 2023, according to a government spending database. Past government diversity trainings have instructed federal workers that asking an Asian colleague for help with a math problem could be racist, that men can become pregnant and that “social pain” can be the same as physical pain.

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Ranchers Suing Colorado, Federal Agencies over Wolf Reintroduction

A pair of trade groups representing Colorado ranchers are suing state and federal wildlife agencies to delay reintroducing gray wolves to the Western Slope. 

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court by the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association and Gunnison County Stockgrowers Association, comes before the state’s deadline to reintroduce gray wolves by the end of this year.  

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Commentary: Two Tiers of Justice Aren’t Democrats v. Republicans, But Bureaucratic Insiders v. the Rest of Us

The elite set of individuals that sit atop our federal agencies have completely weaponized our entire government apparatus. It is no longer a one-off “mistake,” but rather the intentional creation of a two-tier system of justice that has gone unchecked. The resulting impact is a death knell for American faith in all three branches of government.

Allow me to preface with one important factor: This is not an indictment of the men and women who are our “boots on the ground.” They remember every day why they signed up to serve. They investigate real crimes, protect the public from acts of terror, and root out rampant corruption. These men and women across the country serving in all agencies remain heroes and are equally as frustrated with the leadership at the top of our federal government.

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Pentagon, FBI Collaborated on AI, Facial Recognition Tech for Federal Agencies, Documents Show

The Department of Defense (DOD) and the FBI collaborated on an artificial intelligence-driven facial recognition technology program provided to at least six federal agencies and a Pentagon agency that supports civilian police forces, The Washington Post reported.

The facial recognition software could be used to identify individuals whose features were captured by drones and CCTV cameras, the Post reported, citing documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request as part of an ongoing lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed against the FBI.  The documents reveal federal authorities were more deeply involved in development of the technology than was previously known, sparking concerns over Americans’ privacy rights.

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Federal Agencies Must Ban Chinese-Owned TikTok, White House Memo Says

Government agencies have less than a month to ban the popular Chinese-owned app TikTok from federal devices, according to an Office of Management and Budget memorandum issued Monday.

OMB Director Shalanda Young issued the memorandum for executive departments and agency heads about implementation guidance for banning TikTok on government-issued devices, Reuters first reported.

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Commentary: Abolish the IRS

Outside of IRS building

The American public has long held an unfavorable view of the Internal Revenue Service, as evidenced by several historical surveys. A Gallup poll taken more than 25 years ago in October 1997 found that 69 percent of the American public held the opinion that the IRS “frequently abuse[d] its powers.” Fast forward to October 2022, when another Gallup poll was taken on the American public’s job-performance rating of 11 federal agencies. The poll ranked the IRS dead last, with only 34 percent of Americans regarding the job performance of the IRS as “excellent/good.”

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Federal Agencies Withholding Data Behind Pilot Heart Condition Change, COVID Vax Stroke Reversal

Federal agencies are withholding the data behind recent decisions that relate or may relate to COVID-19 vaccines and severe adverse events, fueling speculation that they are putting both vaccinated and unvaccinated lives at risk. The Federal Aviation Administration told Just the News it widened the acceptable range of heart rhythms for commercial pilots, who were initially subject to industry-wide vaccine mandates, in light of “[n]ew scientific evidence” that it has yet to specify.

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Feds Use Facebook to Study COVID Vaccine, Testing, and Mask Messaging

healthcare worker giving vaccination

Legislation that would use federal agencies to “nudge” social media platforms to reduce the spread of “harmful content” isn’t going anywhere in the waning days of the 117th Congress. 

As evidenced by the ongoing release of the “Twitter Files,” however, that’s no impediment to the government — and the research universities that so heavily depend on federal funding — enlisting Big Tech to promote favored narratives and throttle competing arguments on contentious topics.

Federal agencies and U.S. universities together have funded or sponsored a dozen studies mentioning Facebook and COVID-19, according to the National Institutes of Health’s ClinicalTrials.gov database.

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With Migrant Caravan en Route to Texas, Border Was ‘Not a Focus’ in Biden Talks with Mexican Leader

Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Joe Biden

As another caravan of Central Americans and Haitians heads north to the U.S. southern border, the Biden administration is making little apparent effort to comply with a federal judge’s order to reinstate the Remain in Mexico Policy, while also claiming to be focusing on border security.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has repeatedly sued the administration over immigration, says the administration is inviting illegal aliens to the U.S. while also making it harder for Border Patrol agents to do their jobs.

A caravan of roughly 2,000 Central Americans and Haitians left Tapachula, Mexico recently — the same day President Biden met with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Instead of sending a clear message to the caravan to turn around, the leaders sent an implicit message that the border is open and the Remain in Mexico Policy remains inoperative.

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