Free Republic

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...

Senate Judiciary Committee Member John Kennedy, R-La., channeled actor Jack Nicholson Tuesday to describe his response to the latest coronavirus stimulus bill pushed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "Go sell crazy somewhere else, we're all stocked up here," Kennedy told "Hannity," quoting Nicholson's character Melvin Udall in the 1997 movie "As Good As It Gets."

In the midst of this economic crisis caused by the coronavirus, there is broad bipartisan support in Congress to provide payments to American taxpayers to offset the economic impact of the coronavirus. Among other components of the nearly-$2 trillion relief package negotiated in the US Senate, the agreement announced Wednesday morning reportedly will include checks of $1,200 to most American adults. These funds are supposed to help those who are out of work to pay for food and lodging and to stimulate the contracting US economy, encouraging people to spend even while they are stuck at home. Unfortunately, the Senate...

In terms of social pressure, it’s hard to imagine a more important ‘must-pass’ piece of legislation than the recently passed $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill. Right or wrong, the government is essentially forcing businesses to close and people to be out of work in order to fight the spread of coronavirus, and thus any shred of morality on the part of said government officials would dictate that the government has a responsibility to at least help care for those out of work folks until the crisis has passed, even if that means borrowing trillions to do so. Still, there...

VIDEO Many people are unaware that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in addition to serving in Congress, is also an orchestra conductor. Sometimes she combines the two jobs as when she denounced the Stimulus bill while simultaneously conducting the 1812 Overture.

Furious lawmakers voiced serious concerns on Capitol Hill late Thursday that a Republican House member could “go rogue” and possibly scuttle a vote on the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package, and potentially endanger other House members in the process, Fox News has learned. Fox News is told there is deep worry on both sides of the aisle that Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., could try to sidetrack House plans to quickly approve the coronavirus bill via a “voice vote” -- a verbal exercise in which those in favor shout yea, and those opposed holler nay. The loudest side would prevail. “It’s...

In September, White House Spokesmodel Jay Carney was asked about the mounting stories of companies cutting employees and hours to get under the arbitrary magic numbers created for Obamacare’s many mandates. In typical progressive fashion, Carney dismissed reality and substituted his own. “There’s a difference between anecdotes and data,” he said. He’s right, of course. And he should know … his boss has governed by anecdote, not data, not facts, since he took office. Putting Obamacare aside for the moment, the most egregious example in the history of the United States of the bluster of anecdotes over reality came in...

President Obama's demagoguery and fear-mongering on his sequester cuts are breathtaking, even for him. Lest you think I am engaging in hyperbole, let me give you the dictionary definition of a demagogue. One definition is "a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument." Obama's ordinary MO is to stir people against one another, to stoke the flames of envy among some against others in lieu of rational argument to rally support for his causes. Obama has had four years to try his ideas. They have all failed, in every...

The left continues to pile on Mitt Romney for allegedly outsourcing jobs while at Bain Capital. Yet the mainstream media seem curiously uninterested in reporting on “outsourcing” by the Obama Administration, which has (1) outsourced stimulus monies to create jobs in foreign nations, (2) outsourced U.S. foreign policy to U.N. and (3) outsourced our kids and grandkids financial future to pay for his unprecedented spending binge. The Obama Stimulus has turned out to be an exercise in Venture Socialism . Unlike Venture Capitalism, in which investors risk their own capital to help companies launch and grown, Venture Socialism is when...

Picking out the most disturbing moments of Barack Obama's presidency is kind of like trying to choose the wettest parts of the ocean. Other than his "Even a blind squirrel sometimes gets a nut" moment where he said "yes" when the SEALS asked if they were allowed to kill Osama Bin Laden, his entire presidency has been one long, slow motion bamboo shoot sliding under the country's fingernails. So, everyone reading will probably be able to think of a few national nightmares that aren't included. 7) Obama bows to a Saudi King: Had Obama spent his childhood entirely in the...

The Club for Growth wrote a white paper on Governor Romney back in 2007. Most of the information below is from that repory, but since Romney has been outspoken on several issues then, weve updated his record to reflect those positions. ...During his initial 2002 campaign Romney refused to sign an anti-tax pledge, but he pledged to balance the budget without raising taxes and touted his fulfillment of that pledge throughout his term. But the details suggest that he broke his verbal committment. Romney did not impose any broad-based tax hikes he imposed a slew of fee hikes. He opposed...

(CNSNews.com) - The jobs created and saved by the economic stimulus law that President Barack Obama signed on Feb. 17, 2009 cost at a minimum an average of $228,055 each, according to data released yesterday by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Snip.......

For the past two years, economists writing on these pages and elsewhere have debated the merits of federal stimulus programs. President Obama's compromise on the Bush tax cuts this week might be seen as at least partial recognition that keeping marginal tax rates from rising across the board is the best stimulus now, especially if the deal leads eventually to making the cuts permanent. The economic data rolling in confirm that recent temporary, targeted stimulus programs have not worked, and that their enactment was a triumph of Keynesian wishful-thinking over practical experience. In September 2009, we reported on this page...

I run this in light of the resignation of yet another Obama economic guru … Larry Summers. It’s a great analysis of how the stimulus didn’t solve anything other than fatten the pockets of Washington elites. But then if you are unemployed … you already knew that. Britt Hume … on the money as it were.

On February 13, 2009 the Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (aka the stimulus bill) was passed by Congress at the strong recommendations of President Obama. It was promised to jump start the American stumbling economy with “shovel-ready jobs.” It was absolutely essential to avoid another sharp economic slide and it was to be passed with expediency, or so we were told. And then on that fateful February day the $862 billion, 1073 page stimulus bill passed without a single Republican vote. So after 18 months of stimulus, where are we now? Well, obviously the stimulus bill did not pull...

The Honorable Tom Coburn, M.D. United States Senate Subject: Oversight of DOJ Funds for Recreational Activities Dear Senator Coburn: The Department of Justice (DOJ) awards an array of law enforcement and criminal justice grants to states, localities, and private and not-for-profit organizations to help prevent crime in their communities. From fiscal years 2008 through 2009, DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP) awarded over 7,900 grants totaling over $4.2 billion. [Footnote: In fiscal year 2009, OJP also awarded an additional 3,883 grants under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Pub. L. No. 111-5, 123 Stat. 115 totaling more than...

President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and the White House economic team put on the full court press this week. The message: that the $787 billion federal "Recovery Act" program has created some 3 million jobs so far and will save another 500,000 positions by year's end. And what do economists think? Depends on what your definition of "save" is. The stimulus has propped up some public sector jobs, by steering millions to state budgets that would otherwise be cut. The public sector did not start shedding jobs until Dec. 2008 -- over a year after the economy faltered --...

When I look at the business performance of GM and the source of the money GM returned to the treasury, the TV ad turns my stomach. It is an exercise in deceit. They have learned well from their allies in Congress the art of the spin. Two considerations come to mind:

Just called my Senator, Pat Roberts of KS. I urged him to vote NO on this so called "Jobs" bill. Everyone please do the same! Notice how the Democrats frame the bill with the first thing mentioned being "Tax cuts for small businesses". This is a joke, and the last thing Republicans need to do now is fall for the same crap President Bush did. Let the democrats stew in their aysmal legislative failures alone.

Last week, Congressman Thad McCotter introduced a Bill HR 4500, The Freedom From Rationed Health Care Act, that invalidates a little known, hidden part of the Stimulus Bill. That hidden part of The Stimulus Bill created the rationing and enforcement boards. ..In my discussion with Judge Napolitano on the Glenn Beck Show, I hammered on the facts that (1) the Rationing and Enforcement Boards were already created and passed into law through the Stimulus Bill (2) the President had already appointed the members, funding them to the tune of $20.6 BILLION. When I pointed out that these boards were charged...