Free Republic

Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that if the so-called “big, beautiful” spending bill became law, it would “throw poor people away.” Host Kristen Welker said, “One of the big issues in what is now called the big, beautiful bill act is Medicaid, and he makes the argument people should have to work in er to get Medicaid benefits. What’s wrong with that argument? Why shouldn’t people have to go to work in ER to get Medicaid?” Warnock said, “This is what the legislation does; they’ll throw poor people away. I believe in work. I...

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa slammed Afrikaner refugees who left for the United States on Tuesday, saying that it was “cowardly” for them to leave racial discrimination and threatened expropriation. Ramaphosa spoke the day after after the first flight of 49 white Afrikaners granted refugee status by the U.S. arrived in Washington, DC. As many as 70,000 more have sought to apply to enter the U.S. under the policy. Ramaphosa, who styles himself as a pro-business moderate, and is set to speak to U.S. President Donald Trump later this month, made the remark at a surprise visit to a local...

On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) argued that “the prices at the grocery store are going up because democracy is being taken away.” And “The impact on you in terms of your health care, 770,000 people in Illinois will lose health care as a result of what Donald Trump and Elon Musk and the Republican Congress are doing right now, it’s a danger to your way of life, and that’s what people need to understand.” Pritzker said, “When you lose, as is happening in my state –we’re losing our meat and poultry inspectors....

The IRS will lay off thousands of probationary workers in the middle of tax season, according to two sources familiar with the agency’s plans, and cuts could come as soon as next week This comes as the Trump administration intensified sweeping efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce, by ordering agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees who had not yet gained civil service protection. It's unclear how many IRS workers will be affected. Previously, the administration announced a plan to offer buyouts to almost all federal employees through a “deferred resignation program” to quickly reduce the...

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that the bipartisan talks aimed at preventing a government shutdown have ended — at least temporarily — and accused GOP leaders in the lower chamber of abandoning the discussions. “House Republicans have made a decision to walk away from the four-corners discussions that involved House Democrats, Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans related to funding the government in a manner that meets the needs of the American people,” Jeffries said during a press briefing in the Capitol. The assertion was a sharp contradiction from the comments coming from the top appropriators in both...

DISENFRANCHISEMENT: At least 50 voters in Levittown, PA at the Lower Bucks Government Services Center were denied the opportunity to vote in person today. Throughout the afternoon, certain individuals paced the line of voters making statements like “oh the lines really long we should just come back. What do you think?” In an attempt to encourage others to leave without voting. At approximately 3:45pm poll worker Michael Bannon allegedly began informing people that they would not be permitted to vote today, 75 minutes before @GovernorShapiro’s 5pm deadline. Around 4:30pm people who had been in line for over an hour were...

President Joe Biden made two extraordinary statements this week after Iran attacked Israel with nearly 200 ballistic missiles. First, he said that Israel should not attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, despite the fact that any of those missiles could soon be tipped with a nuclear warhead. Second, he said that Israel would not attack Iran “today” (Thursday), telegraphing its military plans. Biden’s statements were not brilliant ruses designed to throw off Iran’s defenses. There are three possibilities. One: Biden could have been trying to restrain Israel from responding to Iran, just as he did in April, when Iran first attacked Israel...

Ford Motor Company is hoping to boost sales of its electric vehicles (EVs) by giving away free at-home charging stations, executives announced this week. “Auto shoppers say they’re more likely to buy an electric vehicle if they could fill up at home. So we’re going to make it easy for our customers,” Ford CEO Jim Farley wrote on X: If you buy or lease a new [Ford] electric vehicle, we’ll include a complimentary home charger. This is part of something we’re calling the Ford Power Promise, which is about giving our electric vehicle customers convenience, peace of mind and expert...

In a move of desperation, the UK is planning to pay influencers on TikTok to try to persuade migrants from entering the country illegally in small boats run by people-smuggling gangs in France. In the latest scheme to try to reduce illegal migration, the Home Office has laid out plans to pay local influencers in countries such as Albania, Egypt, Iraq, India, Turkey and Vietnam to make TikTok videos to lay out the “reality of life in the UK for illegal migrants” to counteract messages on the platform from trafficking gangs used to advertise Britain as a destination for prospective...

Governor J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) claimed Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that Republicans were trying to take away Americans’ freedoms. Pritzker said, “Independents understand that, as Democrats do, that it’s the Republicans that are trying to take your freedoms away. It’s the Republicans that are trying to take away your Social Security and your Medicare. It’s the Republicans that are basically fighting against the working families of America.”

The percentages of Americans who believe in each of five religious entities — God, angels, heaven, hell and the devil — have edged downward by three to five percentage points since 2016. Still, majorities believe in each, ranging from a high of 74% believing in God to lows of 59% for hell and 58% for the devil. About two-thirds each believe in angels (69%) and heaven (67%).Gallup has used this framework to measure belief in these spiritual entities five times since 2001, and the May 1-24, 2023, poll finds that each is at its lowest point. Compared with 2001, belief...

Whoopi Goldberg told her co-hosts Monday on ABC’s “The View” that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would not strip actor Will Smith of his best actor win because he slapped comedian Chris Rock during the Oscars. Co-host Sunny Hostin said, “I was, you know, the slap heard around the world took away from this, but Questlove winning best documentary for his directorial debut of ‘Summer of Soul.’ I think Will Smith probably owes him an apology as well, but I think —

Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said Thursday that those in the military who decline the COVID vaccination “will be given an opportunity to talk to both medical providers as well as their own chain of command so that they can fully understand the decision that they are making,” but he stopped short of saying that they won’t be given a dishonorable discharge. “I had a COVID question. The House is considering some legislation right now that would prohibit dishonorable discharge for any troop who declines a COVID vaccine. I'm not going to ask you to comment on the legislation, but...

A top scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Monday that the world is shifting further away from the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, owing to factors like viral variants, social mixing, the flouting of public health measures and vaccine inequities. Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, epidemiologist and WHO COVID-19 technical lead, noted an 11.5 percent increase in global cases over the last week, with a 1 percent increase in deaths. Europe saw a 21 percent uptick in infections last week, while the Western Pacific experienced a nearly 30 percent increase, for instance. Though data reflects a slight dip...

With President-elect Joe Biden being voted the winner of the 2020 election by the Electoral College and President Donald Trump seemingly on the way out of the White House in January, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) predicted Tuesday that the president’s “substantial influence” will remain in the GOP. Romney told “CNN Newsroom” that looking ahead to the 2024 presidential election, he did not think “Trumpism is going away” because the people rumored to run then are also “trying to appeal to kind of a populist approach.”

On Wednesday Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) addressed Robert “Beto” O’Rourke’s confiscatory push on AR-15s and made clear, “[He’s] not taking my guns away from me.” Manchin then asked for someone to deliver that message to O’Rourke. Breitbart News reported that O’Rourke used the September 12, Democrat debate to tell AR-15 owners, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15.” Breitbart News reported that O’Rourke’s declaration was a game-changer which showed the Democrats’ intention to seize guns.

When Apple introduced the new iPad Pro, the company boasted that its slim slate is more powerful than 92 percent of PCs out there. Now that we've benchmarked the 12.9-inch iPad Pro for our review over at Laptop Mag, it looks like that claim could very well be legit. Credit: Tom's Guide The 7-nanometer A12X Bionic chip processor inside the iPad Pro packs four performance cores and four high-efficiency cores, and there's a new GPU that promises twice the graphics performance as the A10X processor inside the last iPad Pro. And the benchmark results are quite impressive. Geekbench 4 On...

Aug. 05, 2017 - 7:03 - The nation is no longer true to its Declaration of Independence

WASHINGTON — Despite the Republican strategy of passing piecemeal immigration reform, Sen. John McCain predicted today that comprehensive legislation can pass the GOP-controlled House. “I think this fall is very important,” McCain said at a forum hosted by AFL-CIO and the Economic Policy Institute. “Let’s say we enact it, comprehensive immigration reform — I don’t think it gains a single Hispanic voter, but what it does, it puts us on a playing field where we can compete for the Hispanic voter,” McCain told PBS’ Gwen Ifill. “If we don’t do that, frankly, I don’t see — I see further polarization...

Yesterday Charles Krauthammer said that Republicans have leverage right now with the president on this fiscal cliff deal because if tax rates go up on all Americans, Obama’s second term will begin in a recession as the higher tax rates will slow growth even more, and Krauthammer contends that Obama doesn’t want that. But Rush passionately disagrees noting that analysis disregards Obama’s entire first term. Rush believes that Obama doesn’t care about having a successful economy in his second term, that it’s all part of his push to transform this country into a welfare state because that’s what is fair...