Free Republic

Secret Service agents protecting Hunter Biden at his Malibu mansion spent more than $4.5million in taxpayer funds in a year while they kept round-the-clock watch, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal. More than $2.8 million in transactions were recorded on a government credit card and $1.12 million was spent on a variety of expenses including hotel rooms between 2021 and 2022, according to newly-obtained records. DailyMail.com obtained the list of financial transactions through a Freedom of Information Act request.

In many ways, Speaker Johnson didn’t bail out Democrats from a tough political predicament as much as he did his own Republican members.The outline of the spending agreement House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., cut with Democratic leaders sounds bad on its face. But the underlying reasons for that agreement seem far worse.As I wrote last week, “Speaker Johnson and Republican ‘leadership’ … bailed the Democrats out of the predicament they put themselves in last May.” To which I should make an important addition: In many ways, Johnson didn’t bail out Democrats from a tough political predicament as much as he...

Assistant U. S. Attorney Valerie Chu (619) 546-6750NEWS RELEASE SUMMARY – September 30, 2020SAN DIEGO – Federal officials today announced a historic nationwide enforcement action involving 345 charged defendants across 51 federal districts, including more than 100 doctors, nurses and other licensed medical professionals located in San Diego and across the country.These defendants have been charged with submitting more than $6 billion in false and fraudulent claims to federal health care programs and private insurers, including more than $4.5 billion connected to telemedicine, more than $845 million connected to substance abuse treatment facilities, or “sober homes,” and more than...

Friday, California's High-Speed Rail Authority published its draft 2018 Business Plan. Its 800-mile bullet-train project's estimated cost is now $77.3 billion, up from $64 billion two years ago, and its final completion has been pushed out another four years to 2033. The current estimate is now more than 70 percent above the $45 billion presented to voters in 2008. The related Associated Press story failed to disclose that original cost estimate, as did three leading California newspapers. The Authority's draft discloses that "More than $3 billion has been expended to date on construction in the Central Valley and planning for...

The mission for the Federal Emergency Management Agency was clear: Hurricane Maria had torn through Puerto Rico, and hungry people needed food. Thirty million meals needed to be delivered as soon as possible.

The Pentagon failed to account for $6.5 trillion in its financial statement, a recently-recovered Inspector General’s report on the 2015 fiscal year said. It reveals the audit of the Department of Defense was “materially misstated.” The army failed to provide “accurate, complete, timely and well-supported” documents that could have explained the use of trillions of dollars in quarterly and yearend adjustments. The US military made $2.8 trillion in wrongful adjustments in one quarter alone in 2015, and $6.5 trillion for the year, but could not provide anything that would detail what it spent the money on. There were a total...

The former executive director of a former Head Start program in Jersey City Tuesday admitted that he diverted more than $250,000 from programs for underprivileged children and used the money for personal expenses, including a Maserati and a mink coat, prosecutors said. Robert E. Mays, 38, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton in federal court to one count of wire fraud. According to court papers charging him, Mays in 2013 forged records and duped employees at the Jersey City Child Development Centers into believing that its board of directors had raised his salary 61 percent to $155,000...

The Department of Energy (DOE) announced $125 million in new spending Monday to fund 41 green energy projects ahead of the United Nations global warming summit set to take place next week. DOE is funding dozens of green technologies through the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E, program to find technological solutions to fighting global warming. ARPA-E projects are ones the government thinks show promise, but aren’t yet commercially viable. “As we look beyond COP21, the energy technologies the Department of Energy invests in today will provide the solutions needed to combat climate change and develop a global low-carbon economy...

Although the Pentagon has been required by law to pass an audit every year for almost 20 years, it has been unable to do so. The Pentagon is by far the largest government bureaucracy in the country, with a proposed 2015 budget request of $585 billion. With a budget that large, the Pentagon should be able to tell us how our tax dollars are spent – especially when its leaders keep asking for more money. But a news report in 2013 revealed that the Pentagon had been doctoring its books for years to conceal “epic” amounts of wasteful spending. The...

It’s the fault of those mean Republican budget cuts. The CDC had the cash to pay out $25 million in bonuses, but it just couldn’t put the money together to write up guidelines telling hospitals that nurses should have no exposed skin when treating Ebola patients. Will the Republican budget cutting madness never stop? "U.S. taxpayers gave $6 billion in salaries and $25 million in bonuses to an elite corps of health care specialists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since 2007, according to data compiled by American Transparency’s OpenTheBooks.com, an online portal aggregating 1.3 billion lines of...

(CNSNews.com) -- The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) plans to spend up to $10.4 million in taxpayer dollars to “empower” young girls in Malawi to use birth control. The grant is aimed at preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, particularly HIV - which disproportionately infects young females in Malawi - even though such efforts have failed in the past. As part of USAID’s “Girls’ Empowerment through Education and Health Activity” initiative, the grant will fund Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) and Family Planning (FP) education for girls ages 10-19. Sexual and Reproductive Health Services are defined in the...

When you work in Washington (and assuming you haven’t been corrupted), you run the risk of being endlessly outraged about all the waste. But not all waste is created equal. Some examples are so absurd that they deserve special attention. Forcing taxpayers to pay millions of dollars for pro-Obamacare and pro-IRS propaganda.Doing interviews – at a per-person cost of $6,000 – about erectile dysfunction and sticking the tab on us.Hiring bureaucrats to monitor school lunches and replace healthy turkey sandwiches with processed chicken nuggets.Giving disability benefits to a grown man who wants to wear diapers and live as an “adult...

Three leading House Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats are calling for an oversight hearing on the Federal Communications Commission's Lifeline program, a phone subsidy for the poor that has been disparagingly referred to as the "Obama phone" program. The program, which began long before President Obama took office, has been notorious for waste and abuse. The FCC enacted reforms last year aimed at trimming billions of dollars from the program, but recent reports indicate that people who are ineligible for the program are still receiving subsidies. The program gained more attention last year when conservatives seized on a viral video...

Coburn: Sequestration doesn’t have to hurt if we just cut the waste, duplication and ridiculous out of the Pentagon. CBS News ran this report tonight and I was literally stunned at some of the “ridiculous” Coburn has found in wasteful spending in the Pentagon: Sequestration could be Pentagon pork killer

Employee behind lavish Las Vegas conference out at GSA WASHINGTON -- Jeff Neely, the regional director responsible for much of the General Services Administration’s highly controversial $823,000 conference in Las Vegas in 2010, is no longer employed by the agency, a spokesman said. "GSA is in the process of completing its review of activities associated with the Western Regions Conference and pursuing all available avenues for appropriate disciplinary action against those responsible. Jeff Neely was placed on administrative leave based on his involvement in the WRC. As of today, he’s no longer employed with GSA,” Deputy Press Secretary Adam Elkington...

We had to know: What sort of muffin could we bake if we spent $16 a pop? How good is a $16 muffin? Find out for yourself Last week's news that the government supposedly paid $16 apiece for breakfast muffins at a Justice Department conference set off critics of government spending. Hilton Worldwide, the hotel company that hosted the 2009 confab in Washington, disputes the accuracy of the claim in a report by the Justice Department's inspector general. The hotel called it an accounting thing, explaining that the price included various drinks and gratuity charges, in addition to the muffins....

In Rhode Island, a different take on Medicare fraud has been discovered. Gary Winner, 49, was purchasing penis enlargers from an adult website and then repackaging them as medical devices that were sold to patients claiming the device helped, “bladder control, urinary flow and prostate comfort.” Winner paid $26 for the pumps then charged Medicare $284 for the device that treated erectile dysfunction. Word must have gotten around about this miracle cure. Winner reaped $2 million before he was caught. Medicare reimburses for products treating impotence and erectile dysfunction. Winner (pronounced “winner” for any of those who may have been...

At a Justice Department conference, auditors said Monday in a report that doesn’t come close to topping the Pentagon’s legendary $400 hammer and $600 toilet seat but does, the auditors said, expose “wasteful or extravagant spending.’’ Cynthia Schnedar, the Justice Department’s acting inspector general, said in the report that some conferences featured “costly meals, refreshments and themed breaks” and that Justice failed to “minimize” costs as required by federal and internal guidelines. Among the examples: Beef Wellington hors d’oeuvres at $7.32 per serving; a Cracker Jacks, popcorn and candy snack for $32 per person and coffee costing more than $1...

A $38.6 billion loan guarantee program that the Obama administration promised would create or save 65,000 jobs has created just a few thousand jobs two years after it began, government records show. The program — designed to jump-start the nation's clean technology industry by giving energy companies access to low-cost, government-backed loans — has directly created 3,545 new, permanent jobs after giving out almost half the allocated amount, according to Energy Department tallies. President Obama has made "green jobs" a showcase of his recovery plan, vowing to foster new jobs, new technologies and more competitive American industries. But the loan...

Senate Democrats are charging taxpayers for a trip to Hawaii, The Daily Caller has learned. The entire press staff of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee is in Maui, even though a field hearing there won’t happen until next Wednesday. The committee’s oversight field hearing, scheduled for August 17 at 9:00 a.m. at the Maui Beach Hotel, will focus on “Strengthening Self-Sufficiency: Overcoming Barriers to Economic Development in Native Communities.” Rick Manning from Americans for Limited Government, which first discovered the hearing, told TheDC it’s unbelievable that Hill staffers talking about fiscal responsibility would waste money on a trip to Maui....