To support illegal aliens fighting their expulsion from the country, American taxpayers in a variety of towns and communities are being charged well over $66 million, frequently through a group connected to billionaire George Soros.

According to an analysis by the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), taxpayers in around 50 cities, towns, and counties are paying a significant portion of the costs associated with maintaining illegal aliens in their neighborhoods.

In particular, the Vera Institute of Justice has significantly increased the number of towns and counties it contracts with to represent illegal immigrants who are fighting deportation with taxpayer money.

Investigation information:

“Vera adopts a plain, uncomplicated approach. It lobbies liberal counties and localities to provide money to pay for attorneys to assist immigrants in deportation hearings. Vera encourages interested communities to sign up for its Safety and Fairness for Everyone group (SAFE). This group of local gov.’ts across the nation uses taxpayer money to pay attorneys to represent noncitizens who are fighting deportation orders.”

“Vera entices local governments by paying matching grants to a fraction of the expenses related to a deportation defense fund’s first year of operation. For instance, a city might choose to join the SAFE Network and take a $100,000 payment from Vera, but local authorities would have to give out $100,000 of government money to do so. As a result, the participating city would effectively have twice as much money available to it during the first year. (In our example, Vera’s matching gift makes $100,000 become $200,000).”

Along with having connections to Soros’ Open Society Foundation, the Vera Justice Institute also receives significant financial support from well-known corporations including the Rockefeller Family Fund, the Tides Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

According to IRLI investigators, “cash-stripped American families are handing out around $66,145,000 for attorneys to attempt to keep illegal immigrants, foreign criminals, as well as other immigration violators” with contracts like those pursued by the Vera Institute of Justice. According to the investigation:

“States, towns, and cities, across America have decreased spending on necessary services like public transportation and police protection as a result of massive budgetary shortfalls. Nevertheless, more and more jurisdictions are creating deportation defense funds. And the price is astronomical for American taxpayers.”

“What’s worse is that those immigration violators tend to cost us more the longer they stay in America, putting a financial strain on public education, the criminal justice system, and our transportation infrastructure,” the speaker said.

President Biden’s deadly pullout from Afghanistan in 2021 left the Taliban in control of military hardware, including missiles, aircraft, biometric devices, and communications equipment worth at least $7.2 billion, according to a report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

The assessment, which Congress demanded following the pullout that claimed the lives of 13 American soldiers, revealed that Biden’s choice to leave Afghanistan resulted in $7.2 billion worth of military hardware falling into Taliban hands. The initial findings were reported Monday by The Wall Street Journal. “The electronic database used to track the items crashed in early 2021, making it impossible to determine the final total of military equipment abandoned in Afghanistan.”

The analysis showed that over the span of the 20 years since the United States attempted to democratize the country, American taxpayers have spent $18.6 billion on weaponry for the Afghan military.

According to the report, some top Afghan officials didn’t anticipate that Biden would actually carry out the hurried evacuation. “Many Afghans had the sense that the United States was just giving Afghanistan over to a Taliban government-in-waiting.”

The Pentagon was also criticized in the report for declining to assist with the probe. The Pentagon cited “a lack of oversight” as the reason for its lack of cooperation.

The Journal claims that the Defense Department was also reticent:

“According to the assessment by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, years of subpar accountability on weapons and equipment delivered to Afghanistan and a dearth of systemic planning were significant contributors to that country’s military breakdown. The Department of Defense is also criticized in the study, which Congress mandated, for its tardiness in responding to requests for information, missed deadlines, and inadequate responses.”

The investigators made the noteworthy claim that a lesson may be learned from the mistakes the United States made in Afghanistan and avoid making the same errors in Ukraine.

The danger that some equipment ends up on the black market or in the wrong hands is likely inescapable given the protracted conflict and the extraordinary volume of weapons being delivered to Ukraine, the research stated. The impulse to prioritize getting money out the door in a time of crisis is natural, but doing so frequently leads to more issues than it resolves.

More than $110 billion in taxpayer money has been set aside by American lawmakers for border protection in Ukraine.

Mayor Eric Adams (D) said that moving to Florida is “very enticing and beautiful” when you compare it to New York’s taxes and that while high taxes are a “serious” issue, “it’s challenging” given New York City’s population and the “obligations” that come with having people coming to the city from distant places, on Wednesday’s episode of WABC’s “Sid & Friends in the Morning.” Adams was responding to a question about why people keep moving from New York to Florida if Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is as bad as Adams says he is.

Here’s where it gets challenging for you, host Sid Rosenberg asked: “You’re going to have to explain, Mayor, why everyone is leaving New York and moving to his state if all those things are true, and he’s such a poor Governor and he’s so anti-American in all those areas. If he really is such a mess, how can you explain that?”

“Well, I believe you look at some pretty key areas,” Adams said in response. “When you consider our laws, our tax rules in this state, and the tax laws in Florida, it is incredibly alluring and beautiful. We pay some of the highest income tax rates in states like New York and California. That’s a very real problem, and it’s real. But it’s challenging when your city has 8.5 million inhabitants. The Statue of Liberty has long been in New York City’s port. You and I, along with other members of our family, traveled great distances to arrive here, and as a result, we have a lot of responsibilities. However, this area has also historically been prosperous and wealthy.”

“He rants about crime,” he continued. “Many people are unaware that Florida actually has a higher murder rate than New York City when you look at the statistics. Here murders decreased by double digits last year, and they have decreased by 12.5% this year. But if you compare Florida to our state, they had 7.3 murders per 100,000 people in ’21 compared to ours was 5.5. Therefore, despite the fact that crime in New York is a problem, the statistics don’t stack up against Florida.”

Could there finally be a slowdown in the American labor market?

From payrolls to vacancies to unemployment claims, every piece of official data on the labor market shows that demand for labor is still extremely strong and supply is still limited. With market indicators indicating the Fed now has at least three-quarters of a point to go before pausing, this has caused investors to reevaluate the notion that the Fed is ready to implement only two more quarter-point raises before pausing.

There are, however, some new indications that the labor market may be slowing down. The online job portal ZipRecruiter released its fourth quarter numbers on Wednesday. Although revenue exceeded estimates, it decreased by 4% from the same quarter a year earlier. A direct contrast to the hiring surge in the fourth quarter of 2022 and “a continued downturn in the hiring market” were blamed by management.

Perhaps even more significant is that ZipRecruiter’s management stated it anticipates sales to decrease between 13 and 15 percent for the entire year and between 23 and 20 percent from last year’s level in the first quarter.

Tim Yarbrough, the chief financial officer, said the following on a conference call to discuss the results:

“The first signs of what would turn out to be a steady fall in the number of jobs listed appeared in June 2022. The macroeconomic environment is getting more challenging as we begin 2023. Employers are becoming less willing to pay for employees, and many businesses are implementing layoffs as a result of financial constraints. We observed that online job posts in our area did not exhibit a more normal seasonal rebound from the lows of the December holiday period.”

Ian Siegel, the chief executive and co-founder, had a similar message:

“And to start, I just want to be as explicit as I can about the fact that the macroeconomic downturn we are currently experiencing is real. Additionally, internet hiring has actually decreased nationwide, particularly among SMBs. Consequently, if you look at other job companies of our size, they’re making the same point that we are today. And in line with what you might anticipate from a macro downturn, there is an increase in job applicants. It will take these job seekers longer to find employment when there are fewer available positions, and that is exactly what is happening right now. In light of this context, we assumed—using the data that was available to us from January—that the recruiting market would be more accommodating throughout 2023.”

Not just ZipRecruiter is observing these indications of a slowdown. In a blog post published two weeks ago, LinkedIn’s head of Economics and Global Labor Markets, Rand Ghayad, said that hiring through the country’s largest employment-focused social networking platform fell by 23 percent in January over the previous year and by 0.7 percent from December.

On Wednesday, shares of ZipRecruiter decreased by 26%. The stock has increased by 4.1 percent so far this year.

After a delegation of Republicans renewed their “support to provide Ukraine with everything it needs” to fight Russia on Tuesday, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer and 22 other House Republicans demanded more transparency from federal agencies on the taxpayer dollars that is flowing to Ukraine.

US taxpayers have already committed over $113 billion in aid to Ukraine’s fight with Russia, which is based on many years of territorial claims going back to World War II.

“It is vital that government entities handling these funds verify that they are used for their intended objectives in order to minimize and limit the risk of fraud, waste, and abuse,” wrote the 23 House republicans. “The Committee needs records and information to better understand how the Departments of Defense, State, and the U.S. Agency for International Development oversee these funds.”

The members justified their audit by citing current corruption in Ukraine. In the midst of US help, Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky has fired a number of key officials for reportedly indulging in bribery, using government cars for personal use, and buying overpriced food supplies for Ukrainian military.

One day after the officials were fired, John Kirby claimed there were no “signs that our funding assistance has fallen prey to any type of corruption in Ukraine.”

“I would even go so far as to say the same thing about security assistance,” Kirby stated on January 25, 2023.

Conservative House Republicans rebutted Kirby’s statements in the letter. “Yet, based on Mr. Kirby’s words, the US National Security Council appears to be unaware of this corruption problem, raising fears that US agencies are not undertaking supervision of taxpayer support to Ukraine.”

The call for openness comes as Rep. Michael McCaul and four Republican House members visited Ukraine on Tuesday to express their support for Zelensky’s choice not to negotiate a peace treaty.

Zelensky told senators that US taxpayers should be spending more money on military assets such as expensive F-16 fighter planes and longer-range artillery on his wish list.

“We talked mostly about Zelensky’s requirements for winning this battle,” McCaul stated. “We have solid bipartisan support to provide Ukraine with what it needs to win.”