Free Republic

Starting in November, Dreamers can apply for health coverage through the Affordable Care Act for the first time. President Biden and Vice President Harris believe that health care should be a right, not a privilege. Today’s new rule builds on that belief.

Volodymyr Zelensky recently released a statement revealing that his regime and the government of Washington D.C. were in continued contact, “working on a bilateral security agreement” that would see “monetary aid” sent to Ukraine for an agreed-upon time of ten years.###Despite an individual’s personal feelings on the Russia-Ukraine war, the facts of the matter are that Ukraine is not a NATO country—and at this point, the cost-benefit analysis of being a member of the NATO pact is definitely not worth it for the American people—and Zelensky is not a good guy. This isn’t to say that Vladimir Putin is…but between...

Attorney generals for 17 Republican-led states have sued the Biden administration over its latest student loan debt forgiveness plan, arguing it does not have the authority to wipe out student loan debt for an estimated 30 million Americans. Under Biden’s new effort, called the Saving on a Valuable Education plan, “borrowers who originally took out $12,000 or less in loans and have been in repayment for 10 years are eligible to get their remaining debt canceled,” an April 8 news release states. The SAVE plan would also forgive debt for “borrowers in public service for 10 years who have made...

California’s unemployment insurance fund is “structurally insolvent” due to $55 billion in fraud and overpayment during COVID-19 crisis, leading to a growing $21 billion unemployment benefits loan from the federal government the state is unable to pay down. While the state seeks loan forgiveness from the Acting United States Secretary of Labor, who was California’s Secretary of Labor during the COVID-19 era and oversaw the state’s fraudulent payments — including nearly $1 billion to felons in prison filling out fraudulent paperwork — California Democrats have proposed quintupling unemployment insurance taxes and nearly doubling unemployment benefits.

Washington — The House approved a $95 billion foreign aid package Saturday, in a pivotal moment for House Speaker Mike Johnson as he tries to stave off a right-wing rebellion. The package consists of four bills that were voted on separately and will be combined into one before being sent to the Senate. The first three bills include $60.8 billion to help Ukraine in its war with Russia; $26.4 billion to support Israel, which is fighting Hamas and Iran; and $8.1 billion to counter China in the Indo-Pacific. Humanitarian aid for Gaza, which Democrats said was necessary for their support,...

City urged to work harder to assess cost, impactOver the past three years, San Jose has failed to consistently track the more than $300 million spent to fight homelessness and cannot adequately ensure that the money is helping to alleviate the crisis, according to a much-anticipated state audit. The financial audit, released this week by the California State Auditor, also found that San Jose lacks clear goals for its homelessness programs and has no cohesive plan for building the affordable housing needed for its estimated 6,340 homeless residents. “The biggest conclusion that the auditors came back with is that there’s...

On Thursday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power,” White House Council of Economic Advisers member Heather Boushey stated that President Joe Biden is fighting inflation and its impact by “lowering the cost of student debt for all of those borrowers” with the student loan plan he announced earlier in the week. Boushey said, “[T]he President has been focused on using all the tools that he has at his disposal to make sure that he lowers costs for families. So, this is the first President to be negotiating with Big Pharma over prescription drug prices. That’s going to lower prices for...

One of the worst kept secrets in Washington is no one actually knows just how much money the United States has spent in support of Ukraine. Over the past year, however, conservatives in Congress have been pushing President Joe Biden and his administration for the real number, and they’re finally getting some answers.In a letter sent to Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young on Tuesday, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, along with Sens. Roger Marshall, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and twelve other members of Congress, chronicled the immense difficulty Congress has...

Madison is among several blue cities and states that used taxpayer-funded Covid aid for programs for illegal immigrants. A Wisconsin lawmaker is demanding answers from the city of Madison in the wake of a report showing the leftist enclave doled out hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal Covid relief funds to illegal immigrants. “The decision to use pandemic relief money to assist illegal immigrants at the expense of Wisconsinites reveals the out of touch priorities of Madison politicians,” Republican state Sen. Duey Stroebel said Thursday in a statement. His office has filed an open records request “to investigate the...

@RepThomasMassie Unfortunately, this is not April fools. Johnson, Schumer & the deep state are writing the Ukraine bill. Then Johnson will suspend rules to pass it. “We’re putting that product together & we’ll be moving it right after the district work period,” -Johnson.

Migrant families in New York city have begun receiving prepaid debit cards as part of a controversial scheme that could see them receive up to $18,200 a year. Officials began distributing the cards to the first ten new arrivals at the city's Roosevelt Hotel shelter on Monday. The cards are preloaded with a week's worth of funds and will be rolled out to 115 families, equivalent to 450 people by the end of the week. Mayor Eric Adams is pressing ahead with the $53 million scheme, despite a furious backlash amid fears the cards are open to abuse. The debit...

President Biden on Saturday signed a $1.2 trillion government funding bill to stave off a government shutdown, capping a frenetic sprint by lawmakers to pass the final batch of appropriations measures. Biden praised the measure as a compromise, and “good news for the American people.” “This agreement represents a compromise, which means neither side got everything it wanted,” Biden continued, emphasizing that it rejected “extreme cuts from House Republicans and expands access to child care, invests in cancer research, funds mental health and substance use care, advances American leadership abroad, and provides resources to secure the border that my Administration...

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) passed a massive $1.2 trillion government funding plan despite the objections of the majority of House Republicans, violating the Hastert Rule and crossing the Rubicon into dangerous territory for the future of his speakership. House Republicans enacted the longstanding rule to prohibit Republican Speakers from colluding with Democrats to pass legislation. But Johnson sent the bill to the Senate despite the objections of 112 Republican colleagues, with only 101 Republican votes in favor, although Johnson and his leadership team applied significant pressure. Johnson also broke a House rule intended to give lawmakers time to review legislation...

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander has drawn outrage for claiming that giving each of the tens of thousands of migrants pouring into the Big Apple free legal representation could net billions in economic benefits for New York state. Lander’s office said in a report that coughing up individual lawyers to rep migrants could prevent roughly 53,000 asylum seekers from being deported across the Empire State — resulting in an estimated net benefit of $8.4 billion for local, state and federal governments. “Access to work authorization leads to higher wages. The higher earning power generates more tax revenue. Higher personal...

Ultra-conservative Republicans are railing against the 605 pages of earmarks that will be included in a $460 billion spending package to fund six agencies of government that will come up for a vote on Wednesday. The earmarks have already caused scandal within the Senate, where Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman's office rescinded support for a $1 million earmark for an LGBTQ center in Pennsylvania that hosts BDSM parties. The funding caused a backlash on social media, prompting Fetterman, who was long one of the staunchest pro-LGBTQ lawmakers in the Keystone State, to have the earmark removed.