Free Republic

When Obama carried out his Solyndra con game, he broke the same law that Martha Stewart went to prison for breaking In 2009 the Obama administration gave $535 million to Solyndra, claiming that it would create 4,000 new jobs. However, instead of creating those 4,000 new jobs, the company went bankrupt. It was later revealed that the company’s shareholders and executives had made substantial donations to Obama’s campaign, that the company had spent a large sum of money on lobbying, and that Solyndra executives had had many meetings with White House officials. It was also revealed that the Obama administration had...

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has “quietly” put an end to most work at the Office for Access to Justice (ATJ), one of the lesser initiatives of the Eric Holder era, according to a Thursday New York Times report.The tiny ATJ was founded in 2010 under then-Attorney General Eric Holder. Its last published organization chart, from 2015, shows only three appointees and their support staff. ATJ distributed grants and drafted “statements of interest” aimed at supporting the right to competent legal representation for the poor and indigent secured by the U.S. Constitution and the Supreme Court’s famous 1963 decision in...

Two years after the LAPD touted a multimillion-dollar purchase of a fleet of eco-friendly electric BMWS, the vehicles are being used for personal trips to grab lunch and -- in one instance -- a visit to a nail salon, according to a local report. [Snip] A CBS investigative team, which reviewed mileage logs and followed the BMWs when they left LAPD garages, found that officers appeared to have a loose interpretation of those guidelines. One BMW went straight to a Yoshinoya drive-thru and returned to a police station, CBS reported. Another headed for Loyola Marymount University and picked up someone...

Waste Management said Wednesday that it will give $2,000 in special bonuses to about 34,000 employees. The company said the cash bonuses will be given to its North American employees who are not on a bonus or sales incentive plan, including hourly and other employees.

When David Norquist came to the Senate for his confirmation hearing to be Defense Department comptroller in May, he declared, “It is time to audit the Pentagon.” He laid out a get-tough approach to members of the Armed Services Committee who were eager after years of delays for the military to finally get its financial books in order. The new push would include “calling out” individuals in the Pentagon who were creating weaknesses in the financial reporting of an estimated $2.4 trillion in assets. Norquist, the brother of Republican tax activist Grover Norquist, was quickly confirmed the same month and...

Some examples of alleged waste in the report: NIH spent $2 million studying how children perceive food, and specifically whether 5-year-olds will still eat food that has been sneezed on. A $200,000 grant to study fish consumption in Tanzania, and $500,000 to help locate ancient church cemeteries in Iceland. The U.S. Embassy in Britain spent $75,000 to have British citizens travel to America to watch volunteers. The U.S. wind energy industry still received $6 billion in annual federal subsidies. Three federal agencies combined to spend almost $500,000 on a medieval smells exhibit at a museum.

University of California regents meeting on Thursday admonished UC President Janet Napolitano for agreeing to a plan that led to interference in a state audit on the operation of her office. “Her decision and then follow-on actions of her direct reports reflect negatively on the University of California community, which is committed to the highest ethical standards in furthering the University’s mission of teaching, research and public service,” board chairman George Kieffer said in a statement after the regents met behind closed doors for nearly five hours.

He forages in rubbish to put half-eaten food and still-usable items to good use. In the process, Daniel Tay has found a happier way to live - and is inspiring others to do likewise. (VIDEO-AT-LINK) SINGAPORE: He spots an open cake amid the used cans, old clothes and other rubbish. “There are three rules when it comes to eating food from a dump,” explains Mr Daniel Tay, 38, as he puts them into action. First, he examines the cake for mould, then sniffs it and finally licks it. This time, however, he does not take a nibble as he usually...

Gather ’round, children, if you want to hear a scary story. Last time around, I pointed out that while everyone “knows” that there is a lot of waste in American health-care spending, we engage in widespread self-deception about the true magnitude of the problem. That half, approximately, of all U.S. health spending is wasted, is simultaneously scientifically uncontroversial, ignored by health-policy experts, and totally absent from public debate. But that’s not the worst part. In fact, it could be good news in a way: The magnitude of the problem suggests that there’s a lot of room for improvement; more important,...

But the days of having to pick up after your dog could soon be a thing of the past, thanks to a bizarre new gadget. The £22 ($29) Piqapoo is a soft clip that holds a collection bag, and clips onto your dog's tail, collecting waste so you don't have to.

1940 Republican Party Film The Truth About Taxes The Truth About Taxes is a 1940 campaign film for presidential candidate Wendell Willkie which argues that President Roosevelt’s New Deal policies waste money and weaken the nation. The film was produced by the Republican Party.

Saturday’s “Frankenfest” will include a “Franks-N-Steins beer garden and a special Frankenstein speakers bureau,” according to the excerpt. Other federally-funded programs throughout the year in Indiana will include talks about the book’s key themes and film and writing festivals. . . . Another $173,000 from the endowment awarded to Indiana will fund a two-week institute on Frankenstein, Cinderella and their adaptations in Arkansas.

The National Institutes of Health is spending over $400,000 on a study tracking the eye movements of Latinos and their children at grocery stores in a bid to fight obesity. The study at San Diego State University is using "eye-tracking technology" to determine how overweight people make their decisions on what to buy at the grocery. Researchers hope they can identify strategies for changing groceries to nudge people into choosing options they consider healthier.

The National Institutes of Health is spending nearly $200,000 on a study that seeks to improve older women's sex lives through mindfulness meditation. The University of Pittsburgh received the funding for the project, which began last month. Mindfulness, a New Age meditation technique of thinking about thoughts, will be used as an intervention to get women older than 50 more active in the bedroom.

A multi-billion-dollar government program launched by Obama to help families hit by the housing crisis squandered millions on parties, employee bonuses, cars, and superfluous data storage. The program is known as Hardest Hit Fund and operates under the Treasury Department, which does little to oversee it and sits by as federal audits expose pervasive fraud and waste. The findings of the latest probe were released this month by the inspector general of another reckless Treasury gem, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), Obama’s disastrous initiative to rescue the nation’s ailing financial institutions. The findings are documented in an exhaustive 93-page...

The increase marks the latest in a slew of new taxes and fees Chicago residents have had to swallow over the past three years to shore up dire financial conditions in the city, its schools system and Cook County caused largely by government officials skipping payments into pension funds. The Chicago Sun-Times has reported for months that the mayor is considering raising taxes on downtown businesses, high net-worth individuals or both to preserve his vaunted longer school day and school year. Though Chicago homeowners are still reeling from the $588 million property tax increase he pushed through the City Council...

Police have a tough and dangerous job. Armored military vehicles and military-grade body armor aren’t just useful for soldiers, they make it possible for police to protect Americans. During his address Monday to the annual meeting of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation's largest police union with 330,000 members, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that President Trump is overturning Obama’s ban on supplying surplus military equipment to police. It is an issue that the Fraternal Order of Police and other police organizations cared about deeply during the campaign last year. Indeed, they based their endorsement of Trump during the...

You can see it at the Illinois State Fairgrounds. Illinois is falling apart and politicians don’t care. The Coliseum, the most popular fair attraction, is closed. I noticed how dirty it was inside. No maintenance, not even a power washing of the dirty concrete. Water leaks from the roof during storms. Last year, there were puddles in the aisles. A steel beam fell last October and the building was closed. The state had from last October until this August to repair it. It remains closed and could be closed for years until lawmakers decide to come up with the money...

<p>A warehouse maintained by contractors for the Environmental Protection Agency contained secret rooms full of exercise equipment, televisions and couches, according to an internal audit.</p> <p>EPA’s inspector general found contractors used partitions, screens and piled up boxes to hide the rooms from security cameras in the 70,000 square-foot building located in Landover, Md. The warehouse -- used for inventory storage -- is owned by the General Services Administration and leased to the EPA for about $750,000 per year.</p>

The three new Zumwalt-class destroyers are in trouble. Originally envisioned as a fleet of more nearly three dozen destroyers, and the weapons that justified them, the Zumwalts have faced delays, cuts and staggering cost increases. As the ships teeter on the verge of white elephant status, could they become relevant again by taking on a new role, that of a stealthy ship killer? The Zumwalt-class destroyers were originally envisioned as a fleet of thirty-two destroyers designed to attack targets far inland with precision-guided howitzer shells. Designed in part to support amphibious landings by the U.S. Marine Corps, the Zumwalts were...