Free Republic

We've fought in Afghanistan for 16 years now. Are we making progress? After 9/11, we invaded, overthrew the Taliban, killed Osama Bin Laden and -- stayed. Afghanistan is now America's longest war, ever. President Trump's solution? He'll send several thousand more soldiers. Erik Prince says he has a better idea -- fight terrorists with only 2,000 American Special Operations personnel, plus "a contractor force" of 6,000. Prince is the founder of Blackwater, the private military contractor. The military uses contractors to provide security, deliver mail, rescue soldiers and more. Private contractors often do jobs well, for much less than the...

Inflation ticked higher once again in March, with consumer prices up 0.4 percent over the previous month and 3.5 percent compared to one year earlier. The latest data marks the third month in a row that the consumer price index (CPI), a closely watched gauge of inflation, has come in hotter than expected, likely throwing cold water on hopes that the Federal Reserve would begin cutting interest rates soon.

An undercover journalist with a group called Sound Investigations was informed by an alleged Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official and former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) official that FBI agents had attended the January 6th, 2021, protest at the U.S. Capitol. The source also disclosed techniques employed by intelligence agencies to weaken political opponents in the U.S. The undercover journalist had secretly recorded a man named Gavin O’Blennis, a self-described “contracting officer” for the CIA and former FBI official, as shown on his LinkedIn page, discussing January 6th on a hidden camera, among other topics. However, even though he claims...

CIAGATE MAR 19, 2024 5 In the first part of “Noetic Continental” series, CIAgate traced and exposed the activity of the Noetic International Inc., a CIA-affiliated company behind shadow UAVs’ supplies to Kyiv. If you missed it, please, read it first in order to gain deeper understanding of Part II. Part I: How CIA Foists Military Equipment Through Private War Companies This time we’ll talk about one dubious private military company (PMC) also involved in CIA’s corruption scheme in Ukraine. Besides, we will show how the agency uses Hollywood celebrities to empty the wallets of their fans. Preface It’s not...

A new IRS inspector general report said the nation’s tax collection agency continued to give 19 contractors access to sensitive systems despite having background reports that were returned as “not favorable.” Despite having the unfavorable rating returned as recently as July 13, 2023, “These contractors still retained their access to one or more sensitive systems because the IRS did not take action to suspend or disable the contractors from the IRS’s systems, as required,” according to a report issued this week by the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration. IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel — who took over the agency...

(Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) "The Russians tried repeatedly to settle...major thing they wanted was for us to keep NATO out of Ukraine. The Big Military Contractors want to add new countries to NATO...Why? Because that country has to conform its military purchases... Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Boeing and Lockheed get a trapped market... We committed 113 billion dollars...we then committed another 24 billion since then... Biden's asking for another 60 billion. But the big, big expenses are going to come after the war when we have to rebuild.... Mitch McConnell was asked "Can we really afford to spend 113...

Author and journalist Michael Shellenberger has said that “U.S. and U.K. military contractors” have used “sophisticated psychological operations and disinformation tactics… against the American people” in sworn testimony in the U.S. House of Representatives. In a hearing of the Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government chaired by Jim Jordan (R-OH) on suppression of free speech by the government, Shellenberger presented the information he received from a whistleblower about the origins of the so-called “Censorship Industrial complex.” Shellenberger, one of the “Twitter Files” authors, coined the phrase “Censorship Industrial Complex” to describe the network of government and private entities...

...a United Nations program that, unknown to most Americans, has been showering millions of dollars in cash to help foreign nationals on their way to cross the U.S. southern border. In late 2021 and early 2022, the UN program drew outrage among advocates of regular immigration law enforcement, including congressional Republicans of border states, after they learned, in part from Center for Immigration Studies video, photos, and analysis, that UN debit cards and vouchers for transportation, shelter, and medical and legal advice to gain asylum “protection” all along Latin America’s migration trails were easing travel in the most voluminous ongoing...

A statewide grand jury in Florida has issued its latest report, detailing how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) profit billions from securing federal contracts to resettle illegal aliens across all 50 states. Among the findings in the statewide grand jury’s report is that from October 2022 through September 2023, over 900,000 border crossers and illegal aliens were released into the United States interior after arriving at the southern border. The overwhelming majority, the report notes, do not have valid asylum claims but are still able to take full advantage of federal welfare programs meant for struggling Americans. In particular interest to the...

The defendants allegedly advertised online by offering nude Asian models for photography with rates ranging between $350 an hour and $600 an hour. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Three people were arrested for allegedly operating a "high-end brothel network" in Virginia and Massachusetts that catered to politicians, military officers and high tech and pharmaceutical executives, the Justice Department said. The defendants allegedly persuaded and enticed primarily Asian women to travel to Virginia and Massachusetts for prostitution, the U.S. Attorney's Office of Massachusetts said Wednesday. The defendants also allegedly rented high-end apartments to use as brothels, which cost as much as $3,664 a month, and...

In two particularly egregious cases, Schiff channeled millions in funding to Smiths Detection and Phasebridge, Inc., two defense companies within his district – with $6 million steered to Smiths Detection and $3 million to Phasebridge. Both moves would have been barred under reforms adopted in 2010. This financial maneuvering coincided with Schiff receiving $8,500 in contributions from PMA Group PAC and two family members of Paul Magliocchetti, founder and owner of the lobbying firm retained by both defense companies.

Russia's most powerful mercenary said on Sunday that his Wagner fighters would not sign any contract with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, publicly refusing an attempt by the defence ministry to bring his fighting force under its sway. -snip- The defence ministry on Saturday said Shoigu had ordered all "volunteer detachments" to sign contracts with his ministry by the end of the month, a step it said would increase the effectiveness of the Russian army. Though the ministry did not mention Wagner in its public statement, the Russian media reported that it was an attempt by Shoigu to bring the mercenaries...

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is on a tear this week, dismantling the court rulings that have supported AB5, the so-called California gig workers law. Crafted to target rideshare companies and the trucking industry, since AB5 was signed into law in 2019, it has upended the careers of approximately 4.5 million freelancers, independent contractors, and the self-employed, and destroyed the independent contractor model in the state. On Monday, the Ninth Circuit overturned a Superior Court of Alameda decision that deemed California’s Proposition 22, which allowed rideshare drivers to maintain their status as independent contractors, unconstitutional. Proposition 22 was...

Companies that rely on the gig economy model for workers scored a big win in courts Monday after an appeals court overturned a lower court ruling that previously found Proposition 22 illegal. Proposition 22 passed by a wide margin in November 2020, exempting app-based gig economy drivers from California’s terrible AB5 law and allowing them to continue to work as independent contractors. However, almost a year later, it was ruled unconstitutional by a California court. But a legal challenge to that ruling carried on, and a year and a half later, those app-based companies scored a victory, according to the...

Mysterious January 6 figure Ray Epps lied to the January 6 Committee about when he left the Capitol grounds on the day of the riot, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson argued Monday. Carlson, releasing never seen video footage from January 6, 2021, alleged that Epps misled the January 6 Committee in a sworn testimony. Carlson claimed to have Epps’s text messages that he sent to a relative about leaving the Capitol grounds later than he disclosed to the committee.

As a private citizen over the past year, Vindman watched the slow Russian buildup along Ukraines borders and, he said, became concerned about how Kyiv would support and sustain a long conflict. Vindman and his twin brother Yevgeny, also an Army officer, were born in Ukraine and immigrated to the U.S. as children.Since the invasion last year, the Biden administration has approved hundreds of Bradley fighting vehicles, Strykers, Humvees, mobile howitzer systems and now Abrams tanks for shipment to Ukraine. But those machines must be taken from Ukraine to Poland or other NATO countries for major repairs, costing Ukrainian forces...

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A new year is here, and with it, a new workplace phenomenon that bosses and employees should prepare for: quiet hiring. Quiet hiring is when an organization acquires new skills without actually hiring new full-time employees, says Emily Rose McRae, who has led Gartner's future of work research team since its 2019 inception, focusing on HR practices. Sometimes, it means hiring short-term contractors. Other times, it means encouraging current employees to temporarily move into new roles within the organization, McRae says. "The reality for the next year is — whether or not we go into a recession — everyone's a...

The U.S. Department of Labor has published a new proposal on how workers should be classified saying that thousands of people have been incorrectly labeled as contractors rather than employees, potentially curtailing access to benefits and protections they rightfully deserve. The reaction in markets for major gig companies was immediate. Shares of Lyft and Uber tumbled about 13%. in early trading. The misclassification of workers has negatively impacted delivery workers, custodians, truck drivers, waiters, construction workers and more, according to the department. “While independent contractors have an important role in our economy, we have seen in many cases that employers...

The Biden administration introduced a new regulation Tuesday that would make it harder for employers to misclassify workers as “independent contractors” to avoid minimum wage and overtime laws. The proposal from the White House would replace an earlier, more business-friendly rule created by the Trump administration that set looser guidelines around who could be considered a contractor in the workplace. Labor Department officials said the previous administration’s rule increased the likelihood of workers being exploited. Employers often mislabel their workers as contractors in order to evade workplace laws or shift certain costs of employment onto workers. Gig companies like Uber...