Free Republic

California owes the federal government $52.7 million after it “improperly” requested reimbursements for services provided to noncitizens, according to a recent inspector general report. The Golden State claimed Medicaid reimbursements for services it provided to “noncitizens with unsatisfactory immigration status,” the report reads. The category does not include those seeking asylum or refugees. States are prohibited from claiming such federal reimbursements except in medical emergency situations, which did not apply here, according to the report. An audit by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services inspector general’s office found California had been using an outdated calculation method to determine...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., recently revealed she’s worried former President Trump would throw her in jail if he wins the November election. Ocasio-Cortez spoke with podcast host Kara Swisher for her show, “On with Kara Swisher,” which published the interview Thursday. They touched on the power of technology corporations — including Ocasio-Cortez’s “tangle” with Amazon and tech moguls’ conservative fundraising — Israel, artificial intelligence and the upcoming presidential election. “I mean, it sounds nuts, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy threw me in jail,” she said. “He’s out of his mind. I mean, he did his whole first...

World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director Cindy McCain warned Sunday of the worsening humanitarian crisis in Sudan. In an interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” McCain stressed the importance of “safe and unfettered access” for the organization to deliver food to the war-torn country. country. “Sudan has the real possibility of becoming the world’s largest humanitarian crisis,” McCain said. “We cannot get food in — we can barely get food in — we certainly aren’t getting it in at scale, and you see the results of what can happen if people aren’t fed.” McCain noted that the situation is...

Rochester, N.Y. – A former manager at Big Lots in Irondequoit finds himself unemployed after he followed a shoplifter into a parking lot, hoping to assist the police in apprehending the perpetrator. Instead of receiving recognition for his efforts, Pat Guider was fired from his position. The issue of shoplifting is rampant in New York State, with retailers experiencing a staggering loss of $4.4 billion to theft in just one year. Not only does this harm businesses, but it also impacts the state’s sales tax revenue, resulting in a loss of $176 million. On May 10, a shoplifting incident occurred...

Judicial Watch published proof that the entire government was involved in the Mar-a-Lago raid. They refused to give Donald Trump a heads-up as they did with Joe Biden, who actually did commit a documented crime. This information came out last month, but it’s still relevant.The recording was uncovered in an October 2022 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security for all communications of the U.S. Secret Service internally and with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) regarding the raid on President Trump’s home and for any video or audio recordings made during the raid on...

Mayor Eric Adams boisterously asserted he had “no idea” a grand jury had convened for the federal corruption probe into his campaign fundraising. “I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer. I’m Eric Adams — the mayor! Ex-cop!” Hizzoner told clambering reporters upon his arrival at the 39th Annual 116th Street Festival in East Harlem Saturday. “No idea. No idea. No idea,” he added as his team shot down further questions from the media.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) continued to defend his comments on the marriage rate during the Jim Crow era during a contentious conversation with MSNBC anchor Al Sharpton. Donalds appeared on MSNBC’s PoliticsNation on Saturday after his event in Philadelphia earlier this week when he discussed how the black marriage rate was higher back then than it is now. His comments have come under fire by many on the Left, who have interpreted the remark to be about how Jim Crow laws benefitted black people at the time despite the fact that they kept them in segregation and prohibited them from...

As the number of states banning ranked-choice voting (RCV) is increasing, some are facing ballot measures this November that would implement the voting system. While 10 states have banned RCV and more may join them this November if voters vote for the ballot measures, six other states will have ballot measures to switch their elections to RCV. RCV is an election process whereby if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, then a runoff system is triggered. When voters cast their ballots, they rank each candidate in order of first-to-last. RCV is being introduced in states across the...

The house always wins. That’s what matters—fairness, impartiality, the very idea of a non-partisan application of the law be damned. Welcome to the end of the republic. I think that it was the great Miranda Devine, she of the “laptop from hell” fame, who first called the world’s attention to the latest wrinkle in the long-running “Get Trump” extravaganza in New York. Anyway, I first heard about it from her post on X Friday. “If this is legit,” she wrote, commenting on a letter purportedly from Acting Justice Juan Merchan to Donald Trump’s Counsel and the Manhattan DA’s office, “it...

A former Atlanta city attorney who was sentenced to seven years in prison over a massive $15 million pandemic loan fraud donated to Trump prosecutor Fani Willis’s campaign after applying for the government handouts, records show. Shelitha Robertson, 62, used some of her ill-gotten windfall for lavish purchases — including a massive 10-carat diamond ring and a Rolls Royce, according to federal prosecutors. But, she also donated $1,000 to Willis’s Democratic primary election campaign around the time she got the massive payouts from the Paycheck Protection Program, Georgia campaign filings show. **SNIP** A judge ruled that the relationship did not...

ABC News’ “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz confronted Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sunday over the Biden administration’s failure to secure the border. Partial transcript as follows: RADDATZ: But that’s been something you’ve been doing all along. You’ve been trying to do that with people. I want — I want to go back to an interview I did with you in March… MAYORKAS: Yes. RADDATZ: … of 2021, two months into your tenure as DHS secretary. You seemed totally confident then that you had that under control. Let’s listen to what you told me.

HARARE, ZIMBABWE — Leaders of the United Methodist Church expressed regret over last week's decision by the branch in Ivory Coast to leave the union following the church's decision to repeal a long-standing ban on LGBTQ+ clergy but pledged to accept it. … On May 28, Ivory Coast's church voted to split from the United Methodists. With over 1.2 million members, the West African country's church has one of the denomination's largest overseas followers. The United Methodist Church has about 5.4 million members in the United States, and about 4.6 million in Africa, Europe and the Philippines, according to church...

Now that former President Donald Trump's trial has wrapped up, all eyes are on Hunter Biden, who's facing trial in Delaware for federal gun charges. The sitting president's son is the first child of a president to be indicted on federal charges. According to Breitbart, Hunter Biden might have something to worry about, as the judge overseeing the case previously sentenced someone in a similar case to one year of prison. [snip] Judge Maryellen Noreika has experience sentencing defendants with similar crimes, including an instance recently in which she sentenced Zhi Dong for lying on his federal background check form...

... To be sure, the landscape is vastly different than it was in the late 1960s, even amid resurgent political violence driven predominantly by the far right. Nevertheless, the influx of potentially tens of thousands of protesters into Chicago during the Aug. 19-22 convention, some of whom have vowed to take to the streets without city permits, raises questions about how prepared Chicago police are for any ensuing unrest. While similar concerns arose ahead of the last Chicago DNC in 1996, as well as the NATO summit in 2012, divisions among the Democratic coalition are deeper this year, with progressives...

PHILADELPHIA—As a boy, Nathan Clark developed a fear that he would lose his limbs and be unable to fish and crab with his grandfather. Today, Clark is a triple amputee. He lost his limbs after using fentanyl and xylazine, an animal tranquilizer also known as “tranq” that rots flesh and bone. Less than five years after xylazine showed up in his dope bag, the 29-year-old can’t bathe or use the toilet on his own. “When they cut my legs off, the bone was black,” Clark said. The rise of xylazine in the illicit drug supply is creating a generation of...

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Border Patrol arrested Gerardo Henao 14 hours after President Joe Biden suspended asylum processing at the U.S. border with Mexico this week. But instead of being summarily deported, he was dropped off by agents the next day at a San Diego bus stop, where he caught a train to the airport for a flight to Newark, New Jersey. Henao, who said he left his jewelry business in Medellin, Colombia, because of constant extortion attempts, had one thing working in his favor: a scarcity of deportation flights to that country. Lack of resources, diplomatic limitations and...

CHICAGO -- At least 31 people have been shot, three fatally, in gun violence across Chicago so far this weekend, police said. On Friday night, two teens and a 12-year-old boy were wounded in a pair of shootings in Douglas. The first shooting happened about 9:20 p.m. in the 500 block of East 31st Street. Someone in a silver sedan opened fire, striking the 12-year-old walking with a group of people and a 15-year-old girl sitting in a car, Chicago police said. A 16-year-old boy was shot less than an hour later and about a half-mile away. He was standing...

A Travis County assistant district attorney was arrested Saturday morning on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon following an argument with a roommate, according to an arrest affidavit. Joseph Frederick III, 51, was booked in the Travis County jail at 3:49 a.m. by the Austin Police Department, according to Travis County inmate records. According to the arrest affidavit, Frederick and his roommate got into an argument Friday after Frederick said his roommate was making “googly eyes” at a guest in their apartment. An argument escalated and the roommate went into his bedroom, locked his door and packed...

It’s official: Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs is under investigation. The state attorney general announced that its criminal division will look into whether the governor’s office, Arizona’s Department of Child Safety, and a group home service were involved in a pay-to-play operation. Some of the contributions from the group home company, Sunshine Residential Homes, have raised the eyebrows of authorities and Arizona Republicans in the legislature (via Axios): AZ Governor Katie Hobbs accused in alleged 'pay-for-play' scheme involving group home operator https://t.co/l7yLEywWDr— FOX 10 Phoenix (@FOX10Phoenix) June 8, 2024The Arizona Attorney General's Office will investigate what a state senator described...

With his constitutional Presidential mandate expired, the ‘champion for democracy’, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky is facing the discredit by the Russian enemies. Recently re-elected in a landslide, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s has been repeatedly clear about how Moscow sees the Ukrainian leader as lacking legitimacy. For the first time, in a press conference in France alongside President Emmanuel Macron, Zelensky addressed the allegations and dismissed them. Reuters reported: President Volodymyr Zelensky said his legitimacy is recognized and determined by the Ukrainian people while criticizing that of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “‘President Zelensky’s legitimacy is recognized by the people of Ukraine....