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Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) unveiled a gambit to burst a legislative logjam and unleash a four-vote flood including a standalone vote on tens of billions in American taxpayer aid to Ukraine. The plan appears to exploit the sense of urgency in Congress for sending aid to Israel in the wake of Iranian missile attacks in a scheme to bypass Republican animosity towards continuing to fund Ukraine’s war against Russia. Johnson unveiled his plan to his colleagues during a Monday night House Republican Conference meeting. His plan is to hold a single vote on a rule — the product specifying which...

War on food is spreading in U.S. through land-use restrictions, geoengineering and waves of propaganda Remember, it really is all about depopulation The World Economic Forum warned us several years ago that its ultimate goal was to destroy the middle class. How else would you explain their slogan: “You will own nothing and learn to like it“? This mantra is playing out in real time in the state of Oregon, and other states, in various forms which we will get into in this article. Small farmers are under attack in the Beaver State, which has begun shutting down family farms...

Maintenance costs have risen for many US weapons, including some crucial systems by Ukraine or likely to be deployed in a conflict with China. In particular, operating and support costs for the M982 Excalibur — a GPS-guided 155-mm artillery shell supplied to Ukraine — nearly doubled between 2011 and 2022 to roughly $100,000 per shell, according to a Government Accountability Office report. Such problems are baked into the military procurement system. The sticker price of a weapon, such as a jet fighter, only reflects a fraction of what it will cost to maintain that weapon over its lifetime. "Operating and...

The past several years, I have heard and/or read of how bad a businessman President Donald Trump is and has been during his life. I went online to look for examples and it seems the stories that he is a bad businessman are from leftist outlets - CNN, NPR, MSNBC, the New Yorker, NYT, and so on. (Side note - does Forbes swing to the left?) So I need assistance from my fellow Freepers and from Freeperland. Is there an unbiased source of information concerning President Trump's wealth, how he obtained it, how he has grown his wealth, etc? Thank...

Rudy Giuliani has filed for bankruptcy, days after being ordered to pay $148 million in a defamation lawsuit brought by two former election workers in Georgia who said his targeting of them led to death threats that made them fear for their lives. In his filing Thursday, the former New York City mayor listed nearly $153 million in existing or potential debts, including close to a million dollars in tax liabilities, money he owes his lawyers and many millions of dollars in potential legal judgements in lawsuits against him. He estimated his assets to be between $1 million and $10...

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Thursday in the wake of a $148 million civil court ruling and a mountain of unpaid legal bills. Giuliani, 79, estimates he currently owes $153 million — an amount that will likely balloon due to several other pending lawsuits and when millions of dollars in pending legal bills are factored in, according to the Manhattan federal court filing. The $148 million settlement was the biggest financial blow to Giuliani, but he also owes the IRS more than $700,000 and more than $260,000 to New York State tax authorities,...

Bird, once valued at $2.5 billion by investors, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Florida federal court Wednesday. In a release, Bird said it will use the bankruptcy proceeding to facilitate a sale of its assets, which it expects to complete within the next 90 to 120 days. Bird’s electric scooters are touted as an environmentally friendly alternative to driving and other forms of public transit. ... Bird’s bankruptcy proceedings come after the New York Stock Exchange delisted the company in September. Bird failed to comply with the exchange’s requirements after it was unable to keep its market capitalization...

A group of Republican senators introduced a bill Thursday that would decouple funding for Israel from billions of additional dollars the White House requested for Ukraine.The Israel Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2023 was introduced by Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio and Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas.“Ukraine and Israel are distinct, important issues, and Congress should have the opportunity to consider and vote on prospective aid packages individually,” Lee said in a press release.“If the Biden administration’s case for additional Ukraine aid is not strong enough to stand on its own,...

President Biden is weighing a wide-ranging supplemental funding request for roughly $100 billion that would include funding for Israel and Ukraine, according to people familiar with the matter. The sweeping measure would also include funding for border security and assistance to countries in the Indo-Pacific region, including Taiwan, the people said. Biden administration officials said the package, which would include funding for the full fiscal year, hasn’t yet been finalized. The administration is expected to send the package to Congress in the coming days. Bloomberg earlier reported the $100 billion funding figure.

Gareth Joyce, the CEO and a board member of California-based electric bus maker Proterra, continues to serve on a top White House council advising President Biden on trade policy even after his company filed for bankruptcy.

Pharmacy giant Rite Aid is negotiating terms of a bankruptcy plan that could see a significant number of its more than 2,100 drugstores permanently close, according to a report. People familiar with the company's talks with creditors told the Wall Street Journal that Rite Aid has proposed to close as many as 500 stores in bankruptcy, and either sell or let creditors take over its remaining operations. One group of bondholders wants to liquidate a larger number of stores, and there is an ongoing discussion on the number of stores to be closed, the Journal reported. Given the conversations remain...

Total US Revenue October 2022 through August 2023. (11 months) $3.97 trillion $ 3.97 ÷11 = $.3609 trillion per month × 12 months = $4.33 trillion Total Revenue for the current fiscal year. Social Security & Medicare Taxes are 37% of the Total Revenue or $1.60 trillion Thus all Revenue from All Sources except Social Security and Medicare is $2.727 trillion Total debt is now $33 trillion Total Revenue ÷ Total Debt = 8.26 % Note Social Security and Medicare are currently running a deficit, meaning they do not create a surplus to help the General Fund. If inflation causes...

Payments to Social Security recipients may increase a bit more than expected in 2024, but an advocacy group says they'll still fall short of what retirees need. The Senior Citizens League said Wednesday that the Social Security cost of living adjustment, or COLA, will likely be 3.2% for 2024. That would add about $57 to monthly benefits, raising them to $1,790 for the average recipient, according to the group's estimates. The cost of living adjustment is calculated based on an average of the inflation readings for the months of July, August and September. Specifically, it's based on the Consumer Price...

The public is constantly told that when Congress passes new spending programs, they will be paid for… yet the U.S. is over $32 trillion in debt, not counting unfunded liabilities like Social Security, Medicare, and federal employee benefits. When Democrats passed Obamacare, they said it would substantially lower premiums and it would reduce the deficit; instead, premiums skyrocketed, so the subsidies and other costs had to skyrocket. One way Democrats pretended that they would be able to pay for Obamacare without the taxpayer feeling it was that they said the government would make money if they took over student loans....

@TheRightMelissa BREAKING: Alex Jones says a TSA whistleblower has told him TSA employees were instructed on Tue that masks are coming back by October for travelers & full Covid restrictions/lockdowns by December due to a new “dangerous variant” out of Canada.

On Aug. 14, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Social Security into law. Eighty-eight years later, our Social Security system is among the most successful and popular government programs in history. Nearly every worker pays premiums (Federal Insurance Contributions or FICA) for Social Security. In return, they receive insurance benefits when they retire, become disabled, or lose a family breadwinner. Social Security is secure, efficient, and the most important source of retirement income for the vast majority of Americans. Social Security does have one major flaw, though: Its benefits are too low. The average Social Security benefit is only $1,700...

It’s a tale as old as time… well at least for the past fifteen years or so when we look at the EV industry. EV battery and vehicle platform specialist Proterra is the latest company to join an infamous list of electrified tech companies who have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. What does this mean for the other companies dependent on Proterra’s EV tech? Proterra Inc. (PTRA) is (was?) an American automotive and energy storage developer that would be celebrating two decades in the industry next year. We at Electrek have contributed consistent coverage of the California-based company over the...

Proterra, the electric bus company at the center of an apparent conflict of interest involving Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, has filed for bankruptcy, Reuters reported Monday evening. Granholm drew immense scrutiny when it was revealed that she maintained her financial positions in the firm, for which she used to sit on the board of directors, after she assumed her post as the leader of the Department of Energy (DOE) and began to direct policies which could have favored her own financial interests. Granholm eventually closed her position in the firm late in May 2021, and netted capital gains amounting to...

Presidents and politicians have ignored the serious fiscal problems within our nation — and we will soon face a reckoning. While the press and the American people focused on the Justice Department’s latest indictment of President Trump, another no less significant event was taking place on Tuesday afternoon. Specifically, Fitch Ratings announced it had officially downgraded the United States’ credit rating. The action by Fitch comes a dozen years after Standard and Poor’s downgraded the federal government’s debt rating, meaning that two of the three credit rating agencies have stripped Washington of its vaunted “AAA” status. It is but the...

Biden’s massive spending spree (aka, Build Back Better) has a new name: Build Back Bankrupt! According to Epiq, Commercial Chapter 11 Filings Increased 68 Percent in the First Half of 2023. NEW YORK – July 03, 2023 — The 2,973 total commercial Chapter 11 bankruptcies filed during the first six months of 2023 represented a 68 percent increase over the 1,766 filed during the same period in 2022, according to data provided by Epiq Bankruptcy, the leading provider of U.S. bankruptcy filing data. Individual Chapter 13 filings increased by 23 percent during the same period. Overall commercial filings registered 12,107...