Free Republic

The price of products Amazon Inc. displays in its online store may soon include the listed price and how much was added to the value due to President Donald Trump’s tariff impositions. Punchbowl News reported on Tuesday that, according to a source familiar with the matter, the e-commerce giant will start showing the figure added to the value because of the duties right alongside a product’s total price. The move is reportedly an effort by Amazon to inform customers cost rises have nothing to do with it and everything to do with the Trump White House. Response to the reported...

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Policy and Purpose. The Constitution vests all executive power in the President and charges him with faithfully executing the laws. Since it would be impossible for the President to single-handedly perform all the executive business of the Federal Government, the Constitution also provides for subordinate officers to assist the President in his executive duties. In the exercise of their often-considerable authority, these executive branch officials remain subject to the President’s ongoing supervision and control....

President Trump is about to unleash DOGE on the only government agency that has never passed an audit: the Pentagon. With an annual budget rapidly approaching a trillion dollars per year, no other pot of discretionary spending comes close. Moreover, the Pentagon recently failed its 7th consecutive audit, underscoring an ongoing breakdown in financial accountability that would never be tolerated at a publicly traded company. An agency receiving nearly a trillion taxpayer dollars to defend our nation should be held to at least the same standard. Imposing some fiscal discipline through targeted cuts is a good place to start. Big-ticket...

Video of interviewTranscript here is a sample Dr. Kathleen Hicks (40:43): Audits and waste, fraud and abuse are not the same thing. So let’s decompose these pieces for a moment. Jon Stewart (40:49): Then please educate me on what the difference is. Dr. Kathleen Hicks (40:50): Sure. So an audit is exactly what you just described. Jon Stewart (40:52): Yes. Dr. Kathleen Hicks (40:52): Which is do I know what was delivered to which place? Jon Stewart (40:55): Right. Dr. Kathleen Hicks (40:56): The ability to pass an audit or the fact that the DOD has not passed on audit...

January 20, 2025 MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES SUBJECT: Restoring Accountability for Career Senior Executives Career Senior Executive Service (SES) officials are charged to “ensure that the executive management of the Government of the United States is responsive to the needs, policies, and goals of the Nation and otherwise is of the highest quality,” as required by section 3131 of title 5, United States Code. SES officials have enormous influence over the functioning of the Federal Government, and thus the well-being of hundreds of millions of Americans. As the Constitution makes clear, and as the Supreme...

Last month, Joe Biden issued a broad pardon for his son Hunter that not only spared him sentencing on gun and tax charges but also barred his prosecution for any federal crimes he might have committed from January 1, 2014, through December 1, 2024. On his way out the door today, Biden granted similarly sweeping pardons to Gen. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; and all nine members of the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S....

Wildfire-ravaged California should not receive a blank check from the federal government for emergency aid, House Speaker Mike Johnson declared Monday. “I think we’ve got to have a serious conversation about that,” Johnson (R-La.) told reporters as the House returned to work following a three-day weekend.“Obviously, there has been water resource mismanagement. Forest management mistakes — all sorts of problems. And it does come down to leadership,” the speaker explained.“It appears to us that state and local leaders were derelict in their duty in many respects. So that’s something that has to be factored in. I think there should probably...

Louisiana implemented new educational choice scholarships, accountability systems, and programs during 2024. The Louisiana Giving All True Opportunity to Rise scholarship program, or GATOR, was signed into law this year to provide educational scholarship accounts to families across the state so they can have more choice in what schools their children attend. The funds can also be used for tutors, online school tuition, curriculum or even to fund a hybrid program where a student attends a private school part time. Although the program is a major project for the department of education, it doesn't officially start until 2025 as some...

Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) expressed deep concerns about facing accountability for her opposition to Trump’s cabinet nominees, during her participation in the controversial No Labels National Meeting. Her remarks, dripping with alarm and self-pity, laid bare her growing fear of primary challenges from conservative voters fed up with RINO lawmakers undermining the MAGA agenda. Senators who attended the event are: Bill Cassidy (R-LA) Susan Collins (R-ME) John Curtis (R-UT) Tim Kaine (D-VA) Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) Thom Tillis (R-NC) Todd Young (R-IN) [snip] “My friend Joni Ernst, who is probably one of the more conservative, principled Republican leaders...

The Sooner State Republican decried how social media has hampered lawmakers’ ability to negotiate on legislation behind closed doors.Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., complained on Thursday that social media has ruined Congress’s ability to make secretive deals on legislation before it is released to the public.Mullin made the comments during a panel at a conference hosted by the No Labels party, which purportedly aims to “give power to the middle, in Washington and across America.” The event featured guests from across the political spectrum, including Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Todd Young of Indiana and Democrat Sen. Tim...

President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet choices — some of which have caused quite a stir — do not represent “retribution,” but “justice,” Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) said during an interview Thursday on Breitbart News Daily. Host Mike Slater asked Davidson what he personally thinks of Trump choosing now-former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) as his attorney general. snip... “Now they’re like, ‘Oh, this is, this is retribution,’ and it’s like, ‘No, no. It’s justice. You really did do these things,” he said, laying out specifics of what the left has done. “You really did target pro-life Catholics. You really did target parents...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Biden administration's Justice Department (DOJ) on Friday, demanding that it provide records relating to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s corruption investigation into President-elect Trump. In a release, the Republican AG alleged that former Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who led a team investigating Trump regarding a false Trump-Russia election collaboration, "destroyed records." "Past Special Counsels, including — notoriously — Robert Mueller, destroyed records at the end of their investigations to avoid accountability," Paxton said in a release. "It is not clear why nobody was prosecuted for doing...

California is beyond saving ... California Supreme Court .. block an anti-tax initiative from appearing on the ballot. This initiative, known as the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act, was backed by the business community and sought to make it more difficult to increase taxes in California. Among other things, it would have required the legislature to obtain voter approval for any new or increased state taxes. There's nothing groundbreaking about it, as voters in other states have used the ballot box to approve or deny tax initiatives before. But Gavin Newsom and the Democrat-controlled legislature were having none of...

The man arrested in the horrific caught-on-camera attack in which a woman was lassoed with a belt from behind, dragged unconscious and raped acted with an eerie precision, according to a police source. “I definitely think he’s done it before,” said a Bronx detective, who asked to remain anonymous because he wasn’t cleared to talk to the news media. “It was too clean. Normally, the first time out they make huge mistakes. This was no mistake. This guy was precise.” Kashaan Parks was arrested Saturday and charged with walking up behind the victim — then tossing a belt around her...

(Read three articles free every month if you register) At the turn of the twentieth century, Saturday Evening Post editor and Yale dropout George Lorimer bitingly summed up academia when he said “colleges don’t make fools, they only develop them.” On the heels of yet another multibillion-dollar Biden administration college bailout, it seems we haven’t learned the lesson: colleges might not make fools, but they’re certainly trying to make fools of us. The bailout projects come from a Biden campaign promise: “I will eliminate your student debt.” Half-slogan, half-bribe, this resonated with millions burdened by the unpayable debt brought on...

Maryland Governor Wes Moore (D) on Wednesday called for “full accountability” following the collapse of the Francis Key Scott Bridge in Baltimore that left six people presumed dead. Moore said on CNN there “needs to be a full and thorough investigation.” “What led up to this? What made the ship lose power? What made them lose the ability to be ability to steer the ship? Do we have the right infrastructure that’s in place to be able to protect the people of our state,” he said. “So I think there needs to be a full reckoning, a full accountability, and...

resident Biden is facing criticism after a bombshell report revealed that all federal agencies are less than 50 percent occupied - wasting billions in taxpayer dollars - over a year after he declared the COVID-19 pandemic over. According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) memo to Sen. Joni Ernst, obtained by DailyMail.com, not a single federal agency has over half of its workforce in the office. That's a staggering statistic since federal agencies spend about $2 billion taxpayer dollars per year to operate and maintain federal office buildings - and over $5 billion annually in leases. The shocking findings comes...

Court Commissioner Barbara Spencer said Raad Almansoori, 26, refused to consent to extradition and will stay in Arizona to stand trial for attempted murder, dashing Bragg’s hopes of getting the accused killer back to Manhattan over the objections of Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, KSAZ-TV reported. Manhattan prosecutors said they now plan to petition Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs to intervene. “Nothing can happen on the fugitive case other than there could be what’s called a governor’s directive which is the document that would hold you instead of the governor’s warrant or you would choose to sign a waiver,” Spencer told...

You might think that the leftists who run California would be worried about the rapid decline of that state, but no: they are doing all they can to accelerate it. ***Heather Mac Donald outlines California’s latest descent into racialist madness: What would happen if lawmakers reinvented the criminal-justice system to target “systemic racism” instead of crime? California is about to find out. Thanks to a 2020 law called the California Racial Justice Act, every felon serving time in the state’s prisons and jails can now retroactively challenge his conviction and sentencing on the ground of systemic bias. To prevail, the...

The mother of one of the accused Kansas City Super Bowl parade shooters set up a GoFundMe for him, saying he needed help through a “tragic time.” Teneal Burnside created the online fundraiser for her son Lyndell Mays, 23, showing him lying in a hospital bed recovering from nine bullet wounds from the shootout he allegedly confessed to starting. “He is in the ICU fighting for a recovery from several surgeries from going to the Chiefs’ Super Bowl celebration with his older sister,” the now-deleted fundraiser said. “Getting shot multiple times at a time that was [meant] to bring so...