Free Republic

The federal government pays more than $100 million a year to employees who aren’t doing their actual government jobs, but rather working for unions representing government employees against management — with taxpayers essentially funding both sides of the bargaining table. For decades, the government has tracked and reported those figures, but the Biden administration has removed the reports. Under the policy known as “official time,” hundreds of nominal government employees haven’t done anything but full-time union work in years, yet remain on the federal payroll. Not only is the policy expensive to taxpayers, but it also props up the power...

Democrat Sen. Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is warning that U.S. forces could be “in combat” if Congress fails to pass $61 billion in aid to Ukraine."Ukrainians in two years have been really remarkable," Warner said on a press call Thursday. "They've literally destroyed 87%. Russia's pre-existing ground forces have either been killed or wounded or are basically out of the conflict, and now the world is waiting to see whether the United States is going to honor its commitment to Ukraine."The Virginia lawmaker said he "fears" that if the U.S. doesn't pass additional war funding for...

The Biden administration is funneling $1 billion in taxpayer funds to America's northern and southern borders to make dozens of federal ports of entry more climate friendly. The General Services Administration (GSA) announced it would direct Inflation Reduction Act funds to support the climate initiatives at the border, even as the ongoing surge of migrants strains federal resources. While GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan and Andrew Mayock, President Biden's Federal Buy Clean Task Force co-chair, said the action would reduce "harmful emissions," the move was slammed by Republicans and experts. “As usual, the Biden administration is refusing to address a problem...

The Biden administration announced Thursday that it is giving Native American tribes across the country a total of $120 million to fight climate change.

Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra refused to explain Thursday why “hardworking Americans should pay” for foreign lawbreakers’ healthcare when grilled by Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso. Barrasso detailed how cities are being overwhelmed by illegal immigrants draining their resources and putting a massive strain on health funds and infrastructure, noting Denver Health saw more than 20,000 illegally present foreigners seeking medical care in 2023. Denver Health is “at a critical, critical point” as costs pile up, CEO Donna Lynne said, according to Becker’s Hospital Review. “Can you please explain why it is the responsibility of hard-working American...

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) reportedly said the House of Representatives would cobble together a Ukraine aid bill while speaking with Republican senators on Wednesday during a retreat on Capitol Hill. The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reported on the conversations that occurred at the Library of Congress during the annual Republican Senate retreat and emphasized the speaker “cautioned that what comes out of the House will look substantially different than the $95 billion foreign aid package the Senate passed last month.” Per Bolton, Johnson suggested a lend-and-lease program during the meeting but did not mention whether border security measures would be...

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) on Thursday again pressed Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to take up the Senate-passed national security spending package, which includes $60 billion for Ukraine, despite Johnson’s message to GOP senators this week that he’s moving in a different direction. McConnell didn’t express much interest in waiting weeks or maybe months for the House to come up with an alternative proposal to help Ukraine. “The chilling reality here is abundantly clear. Withholding critical weapons has not helped manage [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s escalation. It has only emboldened him,” McConnell warned on the Senate floor. That alternative...

The neon lights could soon be bright for Joe Biden on Broadway as Hillary Clinton teams up with actor and songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda to raise money for the president in the city that never sleeps. Clinton and the Hamilton musical creator will present a 'special Broadway performance' of 'Suffs: the musical' on April 3 to raise money for the Biden Victory Fund, the president's joint fundraising committee, and the Women's Leadership Forum. Tickets to the Times Square performance cost between $500 and $5,000 a person, according to the event invite. This is just the latest fundraising effort by the failed...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon will rush about $300 million in weapons to Ukraine after finding some cost savings in its contracts, even though the military remains deeply overdrawn and needs at least $10 billion to replenish all the weapons it has pulled from its stocks to help Kyiv in its desperate fight against Russia, the White House announced Tuesday. It's the Pentagon's first announced security package for Ukraine since December, when it acknowledged it was out of replenishment funds. It wasn't until recent days that officials publicly acknowledged they weren't just out of replenishment funds, but $10 billion overdrawn....

A New York commission that will recommend whether to give reparations for slavery and discrimination to black residents hasn’t even met yet - but it’s already sparked a rift among black New Yorkers over who should be eligible for payouts. **SNIP** Bertha Lewis, head of the Brooklyn-based Black Institute, told The Post that reparations must be considered for all black residents, because they have suffered from decades of systemic racism resulting from slavery - even if they are not direct descendants of slaves. “That’s a false narrative,” Lewis said. “I don’t give a f**k what California did.” “You can’t just...

A federal judge ruled on Friday against the Biden administration’s plans to re-direct money from border wall construction to other projects more to its liking, such as environmental remediation.

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.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is spending millions on encouraging “racially diverse trans women” in New Orleans to take PrEP, a HIV prevention medication. HHS pledged approximately $2 million to Public Health Foundation Enterprises, a public health nonprofit based in California now known as Heluna Health, to “develop, implement and measure the impact” of a social media campaign aimed at increasing the awareness of HIV-prevention medications among “trans women” in New Orleans, according to a federal grant listing. The goal of the program, which will include a year-long test run serving 200 “trans women,”, is to “adapt...

Vice President Kamala Harris announced Tuesday that college students would be able to collect federally-funded work study for registering voters. Harris’s announcement of the new policy was posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. The federal work-study program is intended to allow students to earn money for day-to-day expenses while at college, according to the Department of Education. “We have been doing work to promote voter participation for students,” Harris said. “For example, we have under the Federal Work-Study program now allow students to get paid through Federal Work-Study to register people and to be non-partisan poll workers. As we...

Kentucky’s attorney general is investigating a health care company that wired $200,000 to James Biden the same day he wrote a check for that amount to his brother and future president Joe Biden. James Biden worked as a consultant for Americore Holdings LLC, a Florida-based hospital chain that later collapsed. Americore declared bankruptcy in Kentucky in 2022 under federal law amid reports of massive staff departures, poor patient care, and poor equipment at one of the hospitals in the state. It’s not clear whether the probe by the office of Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, a Republican, extends to members...

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been accused of wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on no-bid contracts that pay for-profit companies 'exorbitant rates' to manage emergency shelters for asylum-seeking migrants. City Comptroller Brad Lander made the claim in an audit of migrant-related contracts released on Tuesday, identifying 340 asylum-seeker contracts representing an estimated contract value of $5.7 billion. Most of those contracts were procured on an emergency basis, allowing the city to waive the usual competitive bidding requirements, according to the audit.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) made a plea for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to pass aid to Ukraine, during a Friday interview. “We need Speaker Johnson to make sure that we get that aid,” Schumer said in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “If he put the bill on the floor, it would pass. There are a good number of Republicans in the House who know how important it is, and he has to see that history is on his back.” “He cannot have obeisance to Donald Trump,” Schumer continued. “He has to do the right thing here.”...

For over a year now, pro-Russian voices have circulated the conspiracy theory that Ukraine was close to signing a peace deal in the spring of 2022, only to be thwarted by the West. Although this narrative has repeatedly been debunked as disinformation, it stubbornly persists in some circles.The central premise of the theory is that, only a few weeks into the war, Ukraine was ready to sign a deal with Russia amid peace talks in Istanbul until Western powers, led by former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, ordered Kyiv to scrap the deal. It is thus argued that blame for...

The White House said Wednesday it is canceling $1.2 billion worth of student loans for some 153,000 people, moving forward with a piecemeal solution to its debt forgiveness pledge after the Supreme Court struck down an earlier scheme to cancel $430 billion. “With today’s announcement, we are once again sending a clear message to borrowers who had low balances: if you’ve been paying for a decade, you’ve done your part, and you deserve relief,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “Under President Biden’s leadership, our Administration has now approved loan forgiveness for nearly 3.9 million borrowers, and our...

Post-war reconstruction and recovery in Ukraine is projected to cost $486 billion over the next decade, up from $411 billion estimated a year ago, a UN-backed study published on Thursday has revealed.