Free Republic

Interest payments on the nation’s ballooning debt just eclipsed spending on defense and Medicare, worrying policy experts who have warned this threatens to undermine U.S. economic stability. In the first seven months of fiscal year 2024, which began in October, spending on net interest surged to $514 billion, surpassing spending on both national defense ($498 billion) and Medicare ($465 billion). In fact, interest costs have topped spending on veterans, education and transportation combined. Rising debt will continue to put upward pressure on interest rates," the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a nonpartisan group that advocates for lowering the...

President Donald Trump thanked Gov. Ron DeSantis for supporting him during a donor event hosted by the governor, raising over $3 million to benefit Trump’s 2024 campaign, Florida’s Voice has learned. The former president called into the Fort Lauderdale event and thanked DeSantis and the couple dozen supporters for their investment into his campaign efforts. The funding is going to Right For America, a super political action committee, a source familiar with the event told Florida’s Voice. A super PAC is technically separate from the campaign, and the organization supports Trump’s bid for presidency this year. Trump emphasized during a...

Washington’s addiction to deficit spending — a rare bipartisan habit — is unlikely to change, no matter the electoral outcome in November. A deep conviction exists on both sides of the political divide that fiscal consolidation, whether achieved through less spending or higher taxes, reduces growth. What this political consensus misses, however, are situations in which the classic trade-off is suspended — when smaller deficits can counterintuitively deliver more growth. Today’s macroeconomic environment is ripe for such an approach. Compared to the years before the pandemic, fiscal policy — government spending and taxation — has kept a foot on the...

JERUSALEM — The Israeli government is pushing forward on intensifying military operations against Hamas in Rafah, despite increasing international isolation, deepening tensions with President Biden and pressure from Israeli society critical of efforts to free hostages held in Gaza. Israel describes the southern Gazan city of Rafah as the stronghold of the last pieces of Hamas’s conventional army, and it sees the border area with Egypt as a loose sieve where weapons and supplies flow freely to Hamas. Biden has said he has a red line against an Israeli military operation in Rafah that causes wide-scale destruction and death for...

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will undergo a “minimally invasive” and “non surgical” procedure at Walter Reed Medical Center on Friday night, Pentagon spokesman Major Gen. Patrick Ryder said on Friday. He will transfer his authorities temporarily to his deputy, Kathleen Hicks, Ryder said. The procedure is related to a bladder issue Austin suffered as a result of a surgery he underwent to treat prostate cancer earlier this year.

Convicted fraudster and former Baltimore District Attorney Marilyn Mosby will avoid jail time for perjury and mortgage fraud after facing up to 40 years in prison. U.S. District Court Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby said the fact that Mosby is a mother of two daughters helped motivate her decision to sentence the former prosecutor to 12 months of home detention, three years of supervised release, and 100 hours of community service in lieu of prison, WBAL TV reported. Though Mosby has maintained her innocence, she was found guilty of taking advantage of the CARES Act — the first coronavirus relief bill...

Former President Donald Trump this week named several possible picks for his running mate in the 2024 presidential election, which he said he would reveal "sometime during the [GOP] convention" in July. [cut] The former president also declined to answer directly when asked about his top three contenders to serve as his running mate, but he did specifically mention Sens. JD Vance, R-Ohio, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., as well as Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY, and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson as possible choices. The convention begins July 15.

Claim: A new campaign commercial from Joe Biden — narrated by Hollywood star Robert De Niro — revives the left’s Trump “bloodbath” hoax. The 30-second ad features a clip of former President Donald Trump saying, “If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath.” The commercial displays the word “Bloodbath” in large font over the clip. Verdict: Misleading and false. The clip, which is from a March rally in Ohio, is taken out of context. Trump was using the word “bloodbath” to refer to the U.S. auto industry as well as the overall economy if he is not...

A U.S. Army Colonel reportedly shot and killed an alleged Chechen intruder outside the Colonel’s residence just north of Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, in North Carolina. The incident occurred May 3, 2024, but the details of the shooting were reported May 22 and 23, 2024. “Two Chechen men who spoke broken English were found near the [Colonel’s] home” and one of them, 35-year-old Ramzan Daraev, was allegedly taking photos of the Colonel’s children, according to FOX News,

The cost of living defines the 2024 presidential election, with voters in battleground states favoring former President Donald Trump and prioritizing the economy over abortion — Democrat President Joe Biden’s top campaign issue — a new survey found. The Swing State Project report released on Friday, a collaboration between the Cook Political Report, GS Strategy Group (a Republican polling firm), and BSG (a Democratic polling firm), found that the state of the economy ultimately outweighs the nation’s shifting abortion landscape going into November. The project surveyed 3,969 voters in seven battleground states from May 6 to May 13. “Right now,...

Colorado has long drawn on its high-altitude sunshine and wintry winds for energy. Now Gov. Jared Polis (D) is determined to tap into another renewable resource: one simmering under the Centennial State’s surface. “The low-cost workhorses of the clean energy economy will always be solar and wind energy, especially in places like Colorado that have great wind and great sun,” Polis told The Hill in a Zoom interview this week. But as states strive to cut down on fossil fuels like coal and natural gas, they are left with an incomplete solution to the energy transition puzzle and need to...

The House of Representatives on Thursday voted along bipartisan lines to advance legislation blocking the Federal Reserve from creating its own central bank digital currency (CBDC). Three Democrats joined all Republicans in voting for the bill — moderate Reps. Jared Golden, D-Maine., Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash. The CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act was led by House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., and backed by Republican members of the House Financial Services Committee. If passed in both chambers of Congress, the bill would be a significant step toward curbing the federal government's ability to regulate cryptocurrency, but it's...

JPMorgan Chase bank has apparently rolled back a policy that led to the de-banking of several conservatives and nonprofit groups, according to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). Fox News reported on Friday that the bank had rolled back its WePay service, and the Christian law firm is praising the move. The service “required merchants to refrain from accepting payments or using the service for activities related to ‘social risk issues,’ which the bank defined as anything ‘subject to allegation and impacts related to hate groups, systemic racism, sexual harassment and corporate culture,'” the outlet said. In May 2019, JPMorgan Chase Chief...

Trump Rallying, Despite Legal Hell, Shows That He Is the Leader America NeedsThe happy, positive warrior attitude is what MAGA needs in a leader.For the last month or so, aside from the regular Democrat lawfare over the last decade, President Trump has been put through a sham “trial” that could only make the Soviet Politburo blush. Trump has been ordered by the Democrat judge to be in attendance virtually every day, with the idea clearly being to keep him off the campaign trail and to help Joe Biden steal the election.However, that has not stopped Trump from being the warrior...

As the House voted Thursday to bar foreign nationals from voting in local Washington, D.C. elections, Democrats and their public-relations team in the corporate media have rolled out the big guns in attacking such election integrity efforts. They’re painting the legislation that ensures noncitizens cannot vote in elections as the next so-called “Big Lie,” sticking to their well-worn narrative that noncitizens already are prohibited from voting in U.S. elections and that such violations “don’t exist.” But one of the fiercest opponents of the election integrity legislation has said the quiet part out loud, as Democrats are wont to do. ‘Alien...

Congressional Democrats on Thursday accused oil companies of inflating the cost of gasoline and vowed to investigate them, pushing back on who's to blame for rising prices hurting President Joe Biden's reelection chances. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other top Democrats were flanked by supporters in matching blue shirts holding signs that read, "Stop gouging us at the pump." Schumer criticized recent billion-dollar oil company mergers, such as one between ExxonMobil and Pioneer Natural Resources, as potentially "disastrous for consumers." He said previous mergers in the industry decreased competition and led to higher prices. Schumer said he had already...

We are living through the most destructive bout of inflation in 45 years, one that threatens to become worse and perhaps just as ruinous in the long run as the last one.And yet daily and for years, we’ve been told it’s not so bad and that it’s nearly over anyway.How can we reconcile these two realities? They cannot both be true.An image of verified accuracy has been circulating all over social media lately: A list showing the price increases from the end of 2019 to now at major fast-food outlets. It fits with your own experience. It indicates that in...

The U.S.-built temporary "humanitarian pier" on Gaza's Mediterranean coast — announced by President Joe Biden in his March State of the Union address and completed last week — has quickly turned into a chaotic, dangerous place. In addition to American troops injured in non-combat accidents, the pier is not moving aid to residents in the enclave at the level hyped by Pentagon officials. Earlier this week, the Department of Defense said that none of the hundreds of metric tons of aid delivered across the pier to Gaza had made it to Gazans. Even worse, the pier has been the target...

FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker says Boeing is in the beginning stage of fixing safety issues.. The head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Thursday that Boeing has a "long road" ahead of it as the planemaker readies a plan aimed at assuring regulators it is adequately addressing safety concerns in its manufacturing. The FAA in February ordered Boeing to develop a comprehensive plan to correct quality-control issues after a door plug flew off a 737 MAX-9 mid-flight during an Alaska Airlines flight the month before. Boeing is slated to deliver that plan on May 30. ... FAA Administrator Mike...

This week, former South Carolina governor and GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley finally endorsed Donald Trump. And, boy, the news was an unpleasant surprise to a political media that’s convinced themselves Trump is the next Hitler. On outlets like CNN and MSNBC, Haley was disparaged as if she were a traitor to the American republic. The American left, it seems, continues to believe a sizable contingent of Never-Trump Republican voters can sink the former president. It’s all just wishcasting.