Free Republic

Apparently taking the example of Washington, London committed Tuesday to deliver more military hardware and another £500 million in aid to Kyiv as UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak warned that Vladimir Putin will seek to expand further into Europe if Ukraine loses to Russia. Britain will supply Ukraine with 60 boats, 400 vehicles, over 1,600 missiles, and nearly four million rounds of ammunition as well as £500 million in additional military funding, in the largest single aid package from the UK since the Russian invasion of 2022 and taking the country’s total contributions to £3 billion during this financial year,...

Congress is facing the most significant and transformational opportunity to strengthen the U.S. defense industrial base (DIB) since the end of World War II. The heritage equipment that the United States has provided to Ukraine for its self-defense in the face of the brazen and illegal invasion by Russian forces in 2022 needs to be replenished to ensure the United States is postured to continue to deter its adversaries. The new hardware will be produced at factories across the nation. Of the $113 billion appropriated by Congress to date related to the conflict in Ukraine, as much as $68 billion...

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was “personally” grateful to “Speaker Mike Johnson for the decision that keeps history on the right track” after Johnson shepherded a $61 billion Ukraine aid package through the House Saturday. The image of scores of Democrats waving Ukraine flags and cheering on the House floor as the bill passed will forever sting the conservatives from whose ranks Johnson rose, only to serve them with the ultimate betrayal.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna told the Democrats who were kissing up to Ukraine and waving foreign flags on our soil after unanimously voting to send Ukraine another $60 billion to “put those damn flags away” on Saturday.As The Gateway Pundit reported on Saturday, The House of Representatives passed three bills to hand out money to Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, and other non-U.S. involved conflict zones around the world — with nothing for Americans.See the full list of RINOs who voted to secure Ukraine’s and other foreign borders before our own (at link).All of the 112 "Nay" votes came from Republicans. Every...

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...

Nearly six months after ending his Republican presidential campaign, former Vice President Mike Pence landed a new teaching job at Grove City College in Pennsylvania. In a statement posted last week, the conservative Christian college said it was establishing a Center for Faith & Public Life “to support the presence of Christian faith in public institutions.” Pence will help launch the initiative, serving as the Distinguished Visiting Fellow. “The appropriate role of faith in the public square is a major issue in this moment of our American life,” said Grove City College President Paul McNulty. “The Founders envisioned a free...

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...

A semiconductor company whose president was head of the now-bankrupt Solyndra solar energy company stands to receive $6.6 billion in funding from the Biden administration. Under a preliminary agreement, according to CNBC, a subsidiary of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) in Arizona will receive the funding under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act. The company’s president is Brian Harrison. The Washington Free Beacon reported that Harrison was CEO of Solyndra, which in the early 2000s was involved in the manufacturing of solar panels and considered at the forefront of the sustainable energy industry.

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...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the new owner of Highgrove House, previously owned by King Charles, Report informs, citing The London Crier.Highgrove House, near Tetbury in Gloucestershire, served as the country residence of King Charles III even after he assumed his new role as Britain’s reigning monarch.It was purchased in 1980 by the then-Prince Charles from Maurice Macmillan, son of the former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. During his first marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales, the family would spend weekends in Gloucestershire with Princes William and Harry before returning to Kensington Palace.Although there is no official statement from Buckingham...

CIAGATE MAR 19, 2024 5 In the first part of “Noetic Continental” series, CIAgate traced and exposed the activity of the Noetic International Inc., a CIA-affiliated company behind shadow UAVs’ supplies to Kyiv. If you missed it, please, read it first in order to gain deeper understanding of Part II. Part I: How CIA Foists Military Equipment Through Private War Companies This time we’ll talk about one dubious private military company (PMC) also involved in CIA’s corruption scheme in Ukraine. Besides, we will show how the agency uses Hollywood celebrities to empty the wallets of their fans. Preface It’s not...

The Biden administration’s well-funded push to build out a national network of electric vehicle (EV) chargers has so far resulted in only a handful of installations, according to The Washington Post. The bipartisan infrastructure bill of 2021 allotted $7.5 billion to subsidize thousands of EV chargers to help the administration’s goal of having EVs constitute 50% of all new cars sold in 2030, but only seven stations in total have been built in four states to date, according to the Post. The slow rollout of the EV charger funding is unfolding as the Biden administration has recently issued stringent emissions...

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...

Your tax dollars are about to fund renovations for a gay sex and bondage club.Our friends over at Libs of Tik Tok uncovered a $1 million expenditure designated for an LGBT club called “The Aviary.”The club is not so much for feathered fowl as it is for sex and bondage and dungeons and kink parties. Just Google it if you have questions.The Senate Appropriations Committee says the money will be used to renovate the LGBT center in Pennsylvania – at the request of Senators Bob Casey and John Fetterman.

Congress will vote Friday on a $1.2 trillion, 1,000-plus page spending bill revealed Thursday just before 3:00 a.m. The bill will start in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) will move the bill under “suspension of the rules.” Johnson repeatedly has used suspension of the rules — which requires two-thirds support but bypasses procedural opposition from conservatives — to advance legislation lacking broad Republican support. Suspension of the rules also enables Johnson to bypass a requirement that Congress receive at least 72 hours to review legislation before voting on it.

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...

California just filed its 2021-2022 audited financial statement, 350 days past the filing deadline. In its filing, the state admits that COVID-era unemployment fraud cost the state $29 billion that must be paid back to the federal government, and that in 2022, the state had $256 billion more in liabilities than it had in unrestricted resources. After accounting for restricted resources, such as purpose-specific state trust funds and bonds, the state still owed $55 billion more than it had. With massive stock market gains and unprecedented job growth in the high-earning tech field amid a post-pandemic recovery, 2022 was a...

The Brazilian newspaper O Globo revealed on Wednesday that prosecutors in the country are pursuing charges of money laundering and fraud against 25-year-old Jair Renan Bolsonaro, the youngest son of the nation’s eponymous ex-president. An attorney for the younger Bolsonaro appeared to confirm the charges in remarks to the Globo-affiliated G1 news outlet, objecting that the improper leaking of the details of the case to the media was “very detrimental to the defense, due process, the presumption of innocence and, thus, the image of those who have the right to defend themselves.” The Brazilian newspaper Estadao independently confirmed the criminal...

Sacramento County is joining a growing list of places around the United States offering no-strings-attached payments to its lowest-income residents. The Sacramento Board of Supervisors approved the basic-income pilot program last week. It's set to offer $725 a month to low-income Black and Native American families. The county is funding the program through a partnership with United Way. Sacramento County has partnered with United Way for other basic-income programs in the past. About 100 families received $300 monthly from the county in its first program, which began in June 2021 and lasted through May 2023. United Way is still tracking...

Hunter Biden business associate Eric Schwerin never noted a purported $40,000 loan from President Biden to his younger brother James — despite having access to the now-president’s checking and corporate accounts as his bookkeeper and tax preparer, a congressional interview transcript released Monday shows. Schwerin, 54, said during the Jan. 30 deposition with House impeachment investigators that “I don’t recall” Joe Biden having loaned out any money between 2009 and 2016, during which Schwerin helped the then-vice president prepare tax and financial disclosure forms. “Certainly through the 2016 tax period, I don’t recall any loans that he made,” said Schwerin,...