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Two Weeks to Flatten Became Eight Months to Change the Election In 1845, Congress established Election Day as the Tuesday after the first Monday of November. The Act sought “to establish a uniform time” for Americans to cast their ballots for president. Historically, voters needed to provide a valid reason – such as illness or military service – to qualify for absentee ballots.But Covid served as a pretext to overturn that tradition. Just 25% of votes in 2020 occurred at the polls on Election Day. Mail-in voting more than doubled. Key swing states eliminated the need to provide a valid...

It is not a surprise that the ill-advised COVID economic shutdowns would harm small businesses that large corporations. Yes, The Fed’s M2 Money printing press went wild with COVID emergency refief. And so did the discrepancy between the top 1% and the bottom 50% in terms of “Share of Total Net Worth Held.” The top 1% is in blue and the bottom 50% is in red. M2 Money is in green. Compared to pre-COVID, the top 1% increased their share of total net worth from 29.7% to 31.9%, an increase of 7.4% since January 2020. The bottom 50% fell from...

Missouri state Rep. Tricia Derges (R) was convicted on Tuesday after she applied for nearly $900,000 in CARES Act funds for what she said were COVID-19 testing costs incurred by nonprofit Lift Up, but the organization never provided any testing services, according to a press release from the Department of Justice (DOJ). Derges was also found guilty on Tuesday in separate schemes in which she fraudulently marketed a stem cell treatment and illegally prescribed drugs to patients. “It has truly been an honor to serve the citizens of the 140th District,” Derges wrote in her resignation letter, where she made...

A new report released from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) showed that the Internal Revenue Service failed to correct issues found in earlier pandemic benefit programs and ended up sending Recovery Rebate Credit payments to deceased or otherwise ineligible individuals in the latest round of aid resulting from the American Rescue Plan. According to the TIGTA's final audit report issued last week, "the IRS issued more than 1.2 million payments totaling $1.9 billion to potentially ineligible individuals," and blamed the improper payments on "deficiencies TIGTA previously reported based on its review of the IRS’s implementation of the...

...This year, DTE cut electricity to Owens and thousands more in Michigan, despite receiving a $220m bailout made available through Cares Act tax changes during the pandemic. Nor is DTE alone: a new analysis of 16 large electric utilities found they collectively received a $1.25bn bailout, but still cut power to nearly 1 million struggling customers in the US between February 2020 and June 2021. ...The companies received enough funding to forgive their customers’ debt hundreds of times over, but instead many handed out executive bonuses and increased shareholder dividends: DTE bumped investor payouts from $714m to nearly $800m over...

A COVID-19 relief package, reportedly negotiated between a handful of Senate Republicans and Democrats, includes a bailout for Defense Department contractors while excluding a second round of stimulus checks for Americans. A draft of the relief package, obtained by The Daily Poster, reveals that the spending bill does not include a plan by Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to provide Americans with $1,200 stimulus checks but does provide a bailout for defense contractors. Slipped into the package, seemingly on the final 525 pages, is an extension of a CARES Act provision that allows federal agencies to pay...

The backdrop for President Trump’s visit to Duluth, Minnesota, last week featured two powerful American symbols. Air Force One, a symbol of American leadership and strength, and three loaded logging trucks, personifying one of the nation’s most important agricultural products and the many hard-working small-business owners that make up the logging industry. The forest products and logging sector was deemed critical during the COVID pandemic as the nation continued to rely on sustainably harvested timber to produce everything from home building materials to toilet paper. Logging has a rich American history going back to building the original settlements, ship building,...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this weekend that House Democrats plan to pass a new $2.4 trillion relief bill “that puts money in people’s pockets.” So it’s worth highlighting how the $2.2 trillion Cares Act that passed in March has disproportionately helped blue states that imposed stricter coronavirus lockdowns and have been slower to recover economically. The Bureau of Economic Analysis on Thursday published its second-quarter state personal income report, and the data show how lockdowns affected earnings and government income transfers. Personal incomes last quarter grew a whopping 34.8% as transfer receipts (854%) more than offset lower earnings (minus-27.5%). But...

COLUMBIA, SC The South Carolina Supreme Court agreed on Thursday to hear what could be a landmark case over whether Gov. Henry McMaster can legally spend $32 million in COVID-19 federal relief aid on private school tuition grants this school year. Oral arguments have been scheduled for Sept. 18. A key question for the court to decide is whether public money can be used to subsidize private schools in South Carolina. Last month, the governor was temporarily blocked by Circuit Court Judge Edgar Dickson from spending the money out of his discretionary education account, a total of $48.5 million. Dickson...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had a bitter exchange with "PBS NewsHour" anchor Judy Woodruff Tuesday over the ongoing stalemate on Capitol Hill between lawmakers negotiating a so-called "Phase 4" coronavirus aid bill. At one point in their interview, Woodruff asked Pelosi about the "flexibility" GOP lawmakers are showing in terms of allocating more money for state and local governments, as well as Republican arguments that "much of the money" allocated in the CARES Act "has not even been spent yet."

Unemployment benefits expire tomorrow The $600 a week unemployment benefits are scheduled to end tomorrow. The Cares Act — the $2.2 trillion stimulus package — authorized $600 a week of enhanced unemployment benefits. The Cares Act references July 31, 2020 as the official expiration date of these unemployment benefits, which are also known as Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation. However, the U.S. Labor Department says that states can pay unemployment benefits no later than the week ending one week before July 31, 2020. Since July 31 is not a Saturday or Sunday, this means the week prior becomes the end date...

Gov. Tom Wolf’s refusal to release federal CARES Act aid to Lebanon County over a decision by its commissioners to defy his COVID-19 restrictions is an “incredible insult” to its residents, the county’s Republican state legislators contended Friday. Sen. Dave Arnold and Reps. Sue Helm, Russ Diamond and Frank Ryan characterized Wolf as a “petty tyrant” a day after the governor admitted to withholding the CARES funds over the county commissioners’ rebellion. State Rep. Stan Saylor, R-York, joined their ranks in an independent statement. Lebanon is the only one of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties that has not received its CARES allotment,...

The two out of three Lebanon County Commissioners who voted to reopen the county during the coronavirus pandemic before they got the directive from the state should have listened to the rules, Gov. Tom Wolf said at a press conference on Thursday. The county is losing out on $13 million in federal funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, known as the CARES Act, according to a letter written by Lebanon Valley Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Karen Groh. Approved by Congress in March, the act was passed to help ease the looming financial burden of...

Former Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julián Castro said that Congress should pass direct rental assistance to avoid a housing crisis amid the coronavirus pandemic. The CARES Act, signed in late March, included a moratorium on evictions for tenants in units with federally-backed mortgages or other assistance who were unable to pay rent, which only applies to about a fifth of renters. The rest are subject to local eviction moratoria, which have begun to expire. Castro, who served under President Obama, told NBC News that Congress should allocate $100 billion in direct housing assistance. “We should invest $100 billion...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — WorkForce West Virginia has received 35,000 fraudulent claims for unemployment since June 1. Gov. Jim Justice and WorkForce West Virginia acting Commissioner Scott Adkins detailed the fraud during Justice’s coronavirus media briefing Friday at the state capitol. According to Adkins, the fraud is coming through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program that was created the CARES Act. The program provides unemployment benefits for residents who usually aren’t eligible for unemployment like those who are self-employed. Adkins said the scammers are using personal information obtained earlier this year from national data breaches. He said they’ve been able to...

It is no secret that tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs when the government shut down their businesses – restaurants, bars, etc. Of course, some of those job losses would have occurred even without government interference – people do not want to rub elbows during the pandemic. However, it is fair to say that massive government intervention did contribute to additional losses of income to millions. It is also no secret that showering the voters with money in an election year is a tactic employed by politicians all around the world. Some of the emergency $600 weekly...

In the aftermath of the passage of the CARES Act, American taxpayers are receiving much-needed assistance from Uncle Sam. Yet even as $1,200 checks from the federal government have made their way into American pockets, they may soon find that some states feel they are in just as desperate a financial situation as the taxpayers they serve are.  Most states have either a legislative or constitutional requirement to maintain a balanced budget, and in practice each state operates as though it is bound by a balanced budget requirement. While this is a good policy to ensure that states budget responsibly,...

My daughter used to be a conservative until she went to college. It has been less than a year, and she's now using liberal talking points in all her political debates with me. Yesterday she sent me an article titled "The Treason of the Ruling Class" by Chris Hedges (I can't link it here due to a FreeRepublic's restriction). I have made it my mission now to try to research and provide my daughter with facts because she doesn't get them from the websites that she's visiting. I have been reading FreeRepublic for years, but this is my first time...

People are becoming outraged upon discovering the types of businesses and organizations that are receiving COVID-19 bailouts through the CARES Act and subsequent legislation. Left-leaning media outlets are receiving millions of dollars. The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington was given $25 million. Elite universities like Harvard got the bailout money. After public outcry, Harvard, Stanford and a few of the other universities returned the money. Even the Los Angeles Lakers received millions, but they also returned it. Planned Parenthood affiliates improperly received $80 million and now the government wants it back. There’s another category of businesses receiving...

The Department of Labor reported Thursday that another 2.4 million Americans filed for unemployment last week continuing a nine-week stretch of new jobless claims shattering the previous record for the most first-time filings in a single week. More than 38 million Americans have now filed for unemployment since pandemic lockdowns initiated an economic self-destruction wreaking havoc on American livelihoods and contributing to the great anxiety that the pandemic presents to a nation in distress. The April jobs report released from the Department of Labor this month shows the U.S. reached record levels of unemployment within the span of just two...