Free Republic

Sometimes it takes an everyday chore for someone spoiled to realize they have it pretty good. Like, say, using a broom.

CHICAGO (CBS) — After a violent day in the South Shore neighborhood, a longtime resident questioned why there is no the outrage from black activists. “I see them coming out always downtown protesting against the police. But never do I see them inside the black community,” activist Tio Hardiman said. Hardiman of Violence Interrupters visited the South Shore neighborhood after seven people were killed in three separate shootings less than 12 hours apart on Thursday. Hardiman said he wasn’t joking when he suggested that “young people in the South and West Sides of Chicago be equipped with helmets and bullet-proof...

Last month, America lost a great defender of freedom, Michael Novak.Novak was committed to rightly ordered liberty and cared deeply about the principles and practices that produce it. His enormous body of work emphasized the cultural prerequisites for political and economic freedom, as he stressed that economic conservativism and social conservatism are indivisible.In the words of Heritage Foundation founder Ed Feulner, “Michael forced those of us trained in the dismal science of economics to explain that we should be more than ‘free to choose’—rather we should be free to make good free choices.”Last year, I was the recipient of the...

The potential threat of technological unemployment is one of the most hotly debated economic issues of our times: in boardrooms and trade union offices but also increasingly amongst policy-makers. The catch-all term ‘digital’ may have been added to numerous political concepts in recent years but beyond such branding there has been very little debate of substance about what a comprehensive policy response to this threat should be. We do not know whether some of the more sombre predictions about large-scale job losses will materialize but we do know that governments and others need to be prepared if and when substantial...

Portland officials estimate that more than 100 asylum seekers may be cut off from the state’s General Assistance program after July 1 and question whether the city can step in to help without violating federal law. Immigrants who have come to the United States legally to seek asylum from persecution have long received General Assistance in Portland. But it wasn’t until 2015 that assistance was solidified in Maine law. However, under the new law, asylum seekers can only receive benefits for 24 months. That means some asylum seekers will become ineligible for state assistance during the fiscal year that begins...

All addictions -- whether to drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex or cigarettes -- are very hard to escape. There is one addiction, however, that may be more difficult than any other to escape, in part because it is not even regarded as an addiction. It is entitlements addiction, the addiction to getting something for nothing. One indication as to the power of entitlements addiction is the fact that while great numbers of people have voluntarily given up drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc. -- almost always at great pain -- few give up an addiction to entitlements. For the majority of able-bodied people...

Immigrants are canceling their food stamps over fears they could be deported. Food banks and hunger advocates around the country from Tuscon to Baltimore have noticed a decline in the number of eligible immigrants applying for food stamps and a rise in the number of immigrants seeking to cancel their food stamps since President Trump’s inauguration two months ago, the Washington Post reported. Advocates on behalf of these immigrants say that their fear stems from the possibility that Immigration and Customs Enforcement would notice their participation in the food stamp program and deny them U.S. citizenship or deport them.***SNIP*** Advocates...

Welfare reform has been a high priority for Republicans and conservatives for many years, and now that President Donald Trump is in the White House, the possibility of such reform is finally feasible. In what was quite possibly the opening salvo on welfare leeches, Trump was ready to sign a bill passed by Congress that would allow states to perform drug tests on those applying for unemployment benefits, WITI reported. Under President Barack Obama, states weren’t allowed to test applicants for drugs unless they were applying for a job that already had mandatory drug testing. However, there’s a new sheriff...

Desperate Measures For the sake of absurdity, suppose that I issue a nationwide injunction against all welfare payments because they violate fundamental American principles of self-reliance, personal responsibility, and limited government. Should our government immediately cease payments? Should it vow to appeal my ruling and to pass legislation limiting my authority? Of course not! A proper response is to laugh me out of the courtroom. Furthermore, if our government did appeal my “ruling” or pass legislation, then it would be validating my false authority and setting the precedent that some random citizen can override the duly elected Congress and president....

A panel of black political commentators on CNN imploded Thursday into a screaming match as they discussed the effect of President Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts could have on the black community. As the panel discussed the cuts, Paris Dennard, a Trump supporter, pointed out that HBCUs, the acronym for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, were not included in the list of proposed cuts. But host Don Lemon found the HBCU argument to be less important than other social programs. “So a lot of people say HBCUs are important,” Lemon declared, “but there are a lot of people watching here...

Since Donald Trump's election, some leftists have been trotting out analyses showing that many states that voted for Trump are also states where federal spending plays a disproportionately large role in the statewide economy. In other words, many of those states that talk a lot about states rights and less federal government - it is pointed out - also receive an especially large amount of federal spending in that state. In many cases, this claim is correct. As this mises.org analysis shows, many states within the Trump heartland are what many might call "moocher states" because the residents there - taken...

Nigerian welfare scam Jonn Lilyea | March 13, 2017 | 25 Comments Bobo sends a link to the story of an Arlington, Virginia woman, Helen Agbapuruonwu, who has been collecting welfare benefits for the last six years, while her husband, Fidelis Agbapuruonwu, was earning a seven figure income as a lawyer with the DC firm of Mayer Brown. She’s been arrested while folks believe that Fidelis, a Nigerian immigrant, has “fled the country and is somewhere in Africa.” Police say a six-month investigation into Helen Agbapuruonwu, 41, found that the mother of four had collected benefits like food stamps and...

Helen Agbapuruonwu “fraudulently obtained public assistance in excess of $100,000 under false pretenses” police allege, and she has been charged “with felony welfare fraud and document forgery,” according to a police report. Fidelis Agbapuruonwu, who immigrated to the U.S. from Nigeria in the 1990s, worked as an associate at Mayer Brown in D.C., according to his LinkedIn profile. A spokesman for Mayer Brown told NBC 4 that Agbapuruonwu no longer works there. Agbapuruonwu received a Paul & Daisy Soros Scholarship for New Americans, which he used to pay for law school at Ohio State University. Court officials believe that Agbapuruonwu...

A new damning report shows that multiple Islamist fighters who have travelled from Sweden to fight in Syria and Iraq have been the beneficiaries of welfare payments from the Swedish government. The new report created by the by the National Defence University on behalf of the Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) shows that around 300 Islamists have claimed benefits by using others to give the government the impression that they are still in Sweden despite the fact that they are in Syria or Iraq fighting for jihadist groups, Swedish broadcaster SVT reports. Terrorist researcher and one of the authors of the...

Tucker Carlson takes on Senior News Anchor for Univision and Fusion Jorge Ramos over recent racially-provocative comments where he said the U.S. is "our" country. Donald Trump and his supporters believe the United States is a 'white country,' Ramos said. Carlson takes on Ramos US over whether citizens should be concerned about 'demographic revolution' and the Univision anchor's accusations of the criminalization' of immigrants.

Republican Governor Paul LePage dared to begin enforcing Maine's volunteer and work requirements for food stamp (SNAP) recipients to keep their benefits. The end result was more than 9,000 non-disabled adults getting dropped from the program. As CNS News' Eric Schiener reports, a Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) spokesman tells the Associated Press that 12,000 non-disabled adults were in Maine’s SNAP program before Jan. 1 - a number that dropped to 2,680 by the end of March... The rules prevent adults, who are not disabled and do not have dependents, from receiving food stamps for more than three...

A copy of a draft order reported by The Washington Post earlier this month and being circulated among cabinet members seeks to address what the order describes as a massive burden on the American taxpayer. The order calls for immigrants “likely to need certain types of public aid” to be identified prior to entry, and for immigrants already using those services to be deported. The draft order also requires strict financial responsibility for relatives who promised to support immigrants who are instead now relying on social aid. The potential savings estimated by the order are as high as “$100 billion,”...

Following a devastating election cycle where the American voting public sent a sharp rebuke to the status quo and policies of the Obama Administration, the left is now preparing to push for a universal basic income (UBI). Left-leaning Americans are largely opposed to President Donald Trump’s cabinet picks, all the way from Attorney General Jeff Sessions to the president’s pick to lead the Department of Labor: fast food executive Andy Puzder. Labor unions have blasted Puzder for past comments about the future of low-wage workers in the fast food industry. Puzder warned that the fight for a $15 minimum wage...

Now, this will do more to eliminating illegal immigration than anything else, including a wall that costs American taxpayers billions of dollars and increases the size of the central government in border patrol agents. A leaked draft of an executive order by President Donald Trump indicates that he is looking to eliminate the welfare state for illegals, which is nothing more than dangling a carrot in front of them to cross the southern border on the American taxpayers' dime. The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration is considering a plan to weed out would-be immigrants who are likely to require...

BELLEVUE, Pa. - Authorities are searching for a man caught on surveillance video robbing a Bellevue gas station at gunpoint. The armed robbery happened Monday night at the convenience store at the Shell gas station in Bellevue, police said. Amber Kalupson was working inside at the time of the robbery. “He didn't take the change. He just took the cash. And as he was taking it, he said, ‘Your paychecks are guaranteed. (Expletive) you. (Expletive) white people, and (expletive) Trump. I have to feed my kids,’” Kalupson said. Kalupson said the armed man entered the store from the parking lot,...