Free Republic

Governor Jerry Brown announced May budget revisions today that added $38 million in funding for the Long Beach-headquartered California State University (CSU) system, boosted community college funding by $600 million and provided $5 million in funding for application assistance for undocumented immigrants statewide.State Senator Ricardo Lara said Brown’s additional funding was a good start, but more needs to be done to help undocumented immigrants. Local officials responded to the news with measured enthusiasm. State Senator Ricardo Lara said Brown’s additional funding was a good start, but more needs to be done to help undocumented immigrants. “I applaud Governor Brown for...

Billionaire investor Stan Druckenmiller said an aging population will present a “massive, massive problem” in 15 years. “The young people are not going to be talking about cutting back,” Druckenmiller said at a New York event hosted by Addepar, a technology company that provides software to financial advisers, fund managers and family offices. “There will be nothing to cut back.” Druckenmiller, 61, has argued for several years that the mushrooming costs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will bankrupt the nation’s youth and eventually result in a crisis worse than the financial meltdown of 2008. The government will have to...

House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday that this week's fatal Amtrak crash wasn't caused by a lack of federal funds and mocked a reporter for even asking about it. "Are you really going to ask such a stupid question?" he said at a news conference as a reporter started to ask about Democratic complaints that the government shortchanges the railroad.

Students in a program that provides otherwise unavailable funding to undocumented students will present their research findings Thursday afternoon in Powell Library. Ruth Batres said she discovered the UndocuBruins Research Program at UCLA and realized it was an opportunity for her to conduct research and spread awareness about violence against women in her hometown, Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. “I wanted to do something to help my aunt and my cousin and others like them,” said Batres, an undocumented fourth-year Latin American studies student. Students receive a $1,000 stipend each quarter from the UndocuBruins Research Program which is funded by the UC...

NEW YORK, May 14 (Reuters) - U.S. corporate spending on capital projects could fall this year to the lowest level since 2011, with steep reductions by the energy industry and companies in other sectors cutting spending amid broad concerns about global growth. Among the S&P sectors, only the materials and financials sectors expect to spend more in 2015 than they did last year, according to a Thomson Reuters analysis of spending outlooks from the 255 S&P 500 companies that have offered guidance on their capex for the year.

Amtrak likely faces hundreds of millions of dollars in claims from victims of the derailment of a northeast regional train at Frankford Junction in Philadelphia Tuesday night, according to personal-injury lawyers who specialize in transportation accidents. Because Congress capped such payouts for Amtrak in 1997, money to compensate victims probably will fall short of what is needed, these lawyers say. Under the Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act, damages paid by the government to people injured in Amtrak derailments and families of those passengers killed was limited to $200 million per crash. But with eight killed and about 200 of the...

Senator Ron Johnson (WI) released the following statement regarding his vote on S. 744, the Immigration Reform Bill: "America is a compassionate society, and no one wants to separate families by deporting moms and dads or husbands and wives. As a result, I support immigration reform and a path to legal status for people whose only crime was to enter the country illegally when they came here to work. I also recognize that our current immigration laws are not working – not for American workers, not for employers, and not for immigrants who want to come to America and play...

In frantic damage control mode, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos ran to the safe zone of the left-wing Politico to announce the he will recuse himself from ABC’s February GOP debate in New Hampshire. He also admitted that the total amount he contributed to the Clinton Foundation was a whopping $75,000, not the $50,000, as originally reported. The chief anchor and political correspondent at ABC News now admits he should never have donated money to the Clinton Foundation, and that he should have disclosed his donations to ABC News viewers. As of now, probably as they gauge the fallout, ABC News stands...

A township view 200 years in the making has changed, after a historic tree town officials thought was protected by municipal ordinance was lawfully cut down by a developer. The swamp white oak tree at 29 Ocean Street had been designated a "bicentennial tree" in Millburn – one that town officials believed to be at least 200 years old. It was one of 23 trees designated as such in the town's 2014 Environmental Resource Inventory Report. The township had an ordinance prohibiting the removal of the historical trees, and named trees to the protected list via resolutions. "I looked at...

Lyndon McLellan fought the law -- and apparently, he won. The North Carolina business owner for months has been battling the federal government after IRS agents last fall seized $107,000 from him, under a controversial practice known as civil forfeiture. But his attorneys at the Institute for Justice announced Thursday that the IRS and Department of Justice have moved to dismiss the case and give him back his money. “What’s wrong is wrong, and what the government did here was wrong,” McLellan said in a statement Thursday. “I just hope that by standing up for what’s right, it means it...

Footage recorded from a body cam has revealed the moment a police officer was dragged along as he tried to stop a car outside a Georgia petrol station. The officer had responded to a shoplifting call at the station in Savannah when he spotted a man suspected of involvement in a fraud case, Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police said. Brandon Christopher Adams, 23, is wanted on a warrant for aggravated assault on a police officer after the officer's arm became trapped between the seat and the seat belt and he was dragged along.

How Marco Rubio charged thousands in personal expenses on his Republican Party credit card including $4,000 flooring for his Miami home – and hired his ex-Dolphins cheerleader wife Republican presidential front-runner Marco Rubio charged thousands of dollars of personal expenses on a party-issued credit card, used his home as the base for his political committee and hired his wife, who billed $5,700 in 'gas and food' expenses, a Daily Mail Online investigation into his finances has revealed. Car repairs, fancy dinners and even a $134 haircut were among the items he charged on the American Express card, which was supposed...

wo senior Secret Service supervisors were probably drunk when they drove through emergency barriers onto the White House grounds on the night of March 4, shoving a protective barrel aside and passing inches from a package that officers feared might contain a bomb.. That's the conclusion of a scathing 55-page report issued Thursday by John Roth, the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security. The misconduct by two veteran agents is the latest embarrassing episode for the troubled presidential protective service, and it led to a further shakeup of top ranks. One of the supervisors involved, Marc Connolly, who...

The Catholic Church in America sometimes looks as if it’s on a suicide mission. Individual bishops or institutions don’t seem able to tell friend from foe, invite enemies into their midst, ignore threats, give the impression that the best they can hope for is that people won’t be too angry at the Church. Which they would rather be thought of as doing nice, uncontroversial things like providing social services, and not overemphasizing more difficult moral matters.A recent instance: President Obama was lavishly welcomed and participated in a panel discussion on overcoming poverty at Georgetown University on Tuesday. No one has...

A portrait of the engineer at the helm of a speeding Amtrak train that derailed in Philadelphia began to emerge on Thursday as the man's lawyer said his client could not remember the crash and rescuers pulled an eighth body from the wreckage. With the engineer facing intense scrutiny over his role in the accident, Philadelphia police said they launched a criminal investigation into Tuesday's crash of the New York-bound train. Bostian was described as quiet and unassuming by people who crossed his path in Forest Hills, a middle-class section of Queens where he resides. Three workers at the nearby...

This week we're starting with: Implements, Strange and Wonderful! I'm a sucker for 'gadgets' related to cooking and serving food - I have wonderful tools that I've never even used yet, and acquired quite a few 'Like on TV' failures that went immediately to the trash or to Goodwill. I now have every possible sort of sandwich toaster, for instance - including a couple of the old 'Toast Tite' ones; and yes, I bought that Hamilton Beach breakfast sandwich machine, and the ubiquitous red Quesadilla maker - both of which actually work very well, and get a lot of use!...

There have been few progressives as angry about off-shore investment accounts as Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL). In 2011, not coincidentally while Mitt Romney readied his presidential campaign, Grayson wrote at the Huffington Post that Barack Obama should order “the IRS to audit every one of the Fortune 500″ corporations. Grayson wanted to stop them from “evading taxes through transfer pricing and offshore tax havens.”Grayson may have known more about that than first thought. Adam Smith of the Tampa Bay Times found out that Grayson himself had incorporated two funds in the Caymans later that same year, the same kind...

Art Barrios is city planning commissioner for the town of El Monte in California. For now. The former city councilman and mayor candidate is under fire from CAIR, a Muslim “civil liberties advocacy organization”(yeah, right), and the local media for sharing an article from THIS website regarding China’s policy toward Islam. Now he is paying a steep price. For this posting, Barrios is now under fire and his job is in question, thanks to pressure from, and demands by, CAIR: “While Mr. Barrios has the right to his bigoted views, it is unacceptable for a person who holds such views...

If you needed any more proof that you can make absolutely anything with a 3D printer, check out this video from GE. To showcase the versatility of 3D printing as a manufacturing process, a team of engineers at GE recently built a fully-functional, backpack-sized jet engine made entirely from 3D-printed parts. And it’s not just for show either — the team actually fired the engine up and took it up to 33,000 RPMs to demonstrate how robust the parts are. Now, obviously, since this is a jet turbine we’re talking about here, it wasn’t printed in ABS with the latest...

We have great news from Austin! The Texas House passed the Convention of States resolution (HJR 77) today by a vote of 80-62! We couldn't be prouder of our team in Texas -- they responded to our call to action, overwhelming the Texas legislature with calls and emails of support. This victory would have been impossible without their dedication, patriotism, and tenacity. Next our resolution will move to the Texas Senate. Be looking for a specific call to action within the next few days explaining exactly who to contact and what to say!