Free Republic

Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) said Wednesday on CNN’s “Inside Politics” that he will not support the House spending bill because it has “real Medicaid benefit cuts.” Hawley said, “It ought to be just a basic foundational principle, it is wrong to cut health care for the working poor, and that’s what we’re talking about here with Medicaid. My state is a Medicaid expansion state, over 20% of Missourians, including hundreds of thousands of children, are on Medicaid.” He added, “I don’t like the idea of decreasing funding for rural hospitals. I’m worried that the House bill goes way too far...

The husband of former Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) allegedly bilked taxpayers out of more than $20,000 in a COVID loan scheme and used the money for his “personal benefit and enjoyment,” according to the DC US Attorney’s Office. Cortney Merritts, 46, was charged in a federal indictment Thursday with two counts of wire fraud related to allegedly fraudulent applications he filed with the Small Business Administration in 2020 and 2021 that allowed him to collect – and never repay – government funds from the pandemic-era Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Merritts received an $8,500...

"We are coming together to support those affected by the recent hurricane. All proceeds from this event will be donated to hurricane relief efforts, providing much-needed aid and resources to communities in need.” Former President Donald Trump will join Tucker Carlson at a live event in Glendale, AZ to benefit victims of Hurricanes Helene and Milton on Oct. 31, just days before the Nov. 5, 2024, presidential election. The event is part of a tour organized by the Tucker Carlson Network that brings Carlson together with notable Republican and conservative leaders at designated cities across the US. The Glendale stop...

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) sharply criticized Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) in a Thursday interview, saying the Republican Party would benefit “tremendously” if Gaetz were not around. “Tremendously,” McCarthy told CNN’s Manu Raju in an exclusive interview, when asked how much the GOP would benefit if the Florida congressman weren’t around. “People have to earn the right to be here,” McCarthy continued. “I mean, he’ll admit to you personally, he doesn’t have a conservative bent in his philosophy. And just the nature of what he focuses on.”

Hundreds of companies — including household names like Apple, Amazon, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Match Group, Uber, Tesla and Zillow — pledged they would pay for workers to access abortion care if their states denied it in announcements that drew fierce criticism from conservatives. How did many of these same workers feel about that? Research released Tuesday indicates they were just as polarized as politicians. Companies that publicly announced an abortion benefit saw a rise in interest from potential applicants, but they also made some existing male workers unhappy, as evidenced by poor ratings of their management.

Former senior White House adviser Cedric Richmond on Sunday dismissed criticism that the Biden administration’s move to cancel some student loan debt is unfair, saying that “everything doesn’t benefit everybody” reiterating that the plan will help the country’s working class. “Remember, everything doesn’t benefit everybody, but it’s about the common good, and this president is focused on working families and empowering people to reach their full potential, and I think that this does exactly what he’s trying to do,” Richmond said on “Fox News Sunday.” The Biden administration announced last week it’s forgiving up to $10,000 in federal student loan...

Tucker Carlson examines the Wuhan lab leak theory in the origin of coronavirus Well, I think it escaped from the lab because we have the Chinese government basically telling us that it did. Wuhan is the only level four laboratory in all of China. So that's where you would put a dangerous pathogen, whether you were a genetically engineering it to be a weapon or not, that's where you would be experimenting on it. So, it makes sense that the epicenter of the epidemic, that the lab there would be the source of that virus.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration dove back into Capitol Hill’s confusing COVID-19 negotiations on Tuesday, offering a $916 billion package to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that would send a $600 direct payment to most Americans — but eliminate a $300 per week employment benefit favored by a bipartisan group of Senate negotiators.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Governor Tom Wolf sent a letter to Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation reaffirming his support for an extension of the federal $600 weekly unemployment benefit that expired last month, his office said Friday in a press release. With Senate Republicans failing to pass a bill continuing the program, President Trump on Aug. 8 authorized a plan that will reduce and delay payments to workers in need, end the benefit for 30,000 Pennsylvanians and increase the burden on states, Wolf said.

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria’s right wing coalition government on Monday doubled down on plans to cut benefits for foreigners including refugees, risking fresh legal challenges and opposition from the rest of the European Union.Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s conservatives, in government with the far right, won last year’s parliamentary election with a hard line on immigration, pledging not to allow a repeat of the 2015 migration crisis in which Austria took in one of the biggest shares of asylum seekers in Europe. They see benefit cuts for new arrivals as a deterrent. In March the Constitutional Court struck down a local model...

Veterans can now verify their online shopping eligibility at VetVerify.org. The Exchanges are also accepting some veterans as beta testers before opening the doors to all veterans. See updates below for more information.

Senator Alan Simpson (R-Wyoming) needs to get his facts straight about social security. You pay 6.5% as an employee, Your employer pays 6.5%. You pay 1.5% to Medicare, Total 14.5%. If you are self-employed you must pay the 14.5% yourself. How could he say, because senior citizens expect their social security and medicare benefits when they retire, they are greedy? “Alan Simpson, Senator from Wyoming, Co-Chair of Obama’s deficit commission, calls senior citizens the Greediest Generation as he compared “Social Security” to a Milk Cow with 310 million teats.”

The British government’s sole assessment of the shadowy Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal indicates there are “lots of risks and no benefit,” according to documents seen by Global Justice Now. In February a freedom of information (FoI) request was made to the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) to find out whether risk assessments had been carried out in relation to the secretive deal, which is currently in its 13th round of negotiations. The BIS reported that the only assessment had been carried out by the London School of Economics (LSE), which found “little reason” to believe...

Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas on Monday called for calm, saying Israel was “benefiting” from Palestinian violence, and has ordered Palestinian Authority security forces to arrest rioters and prevent the outbreak of violence in PA villages. The reason, he told members of his cabinet, had nothing to do with cooperating with Israel, but to prevent Israel from “taking advantage of violence to attack innocent Palestinians and to drag the entire region into violence.” A PA cabinet official told Arab media that while it was understandable that Palestinians would want to attack Israelis “because of their crimes, we must remember that...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday tried to calm tensions with Israel before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's congressional address, yet insisted the Obama administration's diplomatic record with Iran entitles the U.S. to "the benefit of the doubt" as negotiators work toward a long-term nuclear deal.

A shoplifter, a recovering drug addict and a young couple barely able to feed their kids are among the stars of Benefits Street - a smash hit reality show featuring welfare recipients that has stirred up a storm of controversy in Britain. The program zooms in on a rough Birmingham street where 9 out of 10 people are said to live off state payouts, chronicling over five episodes the lives of jobless neighbours as they struggle with their daily problems. The show has struck a strong chord in a nation fresh out of recession and still reeling from its most...

SIERRA VISTA — They have served their nation. Some in heated battles. Others during times of cool tensions. As individuals, they may have been drafted — a concept foreign to today’s generation — or enlisted. For many, their service may have been for a few years. Yet for others, it was a decades-long career. Be they soldiers, Marines, sailors, airmen or Coast Guardsmen they have special benefits, although many do not know what they are and how to apply for them But on an upcoming important day — Veterans Day — celebrated most years in Sierra Vista on Nov. 11,...

**SNIP** Lautenberg died in June after nearly three decades in the U.S. Senate. Many people would agree that he is owed a debt of gratitude but not everybody agrees that his widow Bonnie should receive $174,000, funded by taxpayers. Lautenberg was worth nearly $60-million. “I don’t think it’s right. I mean most us can’t afford death benefits like that. You know we would be happy to have a little bit saved just to bury ourselves,” Wayne resident Carol Dabaghian said. The payoff was buried in the government shutdown bill. It is a death benefit that is almost always approved and...

A Capitol follower who happened to be at a hearing on HB 2318 in Salem had their interest piqued when they heard Democrats pushing Benefit Corporations, and dancing around the questions being asked. A 2011 article in left-leaning The Nation magazine described Benefit Corporations as having “the purpose of making a ‘positive impact on society and the environment,’” “Benefit Corporations can’t be held liable by courts for failing to place profits over everything else. This is an important shift in law.”

Ten Republican Senators have signed on to a letter asking FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the FCC's network neutrality rules. The 10, which includes Kay Bailey Hutchison (Tex.), the ranking member on the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees the FCC, were putting their collective muscle behind a second request by Sen. Dean Heller, who says the FCC did not respond to a July 12 letter following President Barack Obama's executive order asking independent agencies to "join executive agencies in reducing regulations that place unnecessary burdens on American businesses and the American people," as the senators...