Free Republic

CLAIM: President Joe Biden recently aired his oft-repeated claim he “used to Drive an 18-wheeler.” VERDICT: False. “Biden’s claim remains untrue. There is no evidence he ever drove an 18-wheeler,” CNN reported Wednesday: Biden has repeatedly embellished or invented biographical tidbits. In 2021, he claimed during a tour of a Mack Trucks facility: “I used to drive an 18-wheeler, man,” then added, “I got to.” At a separate 2021 event, he told college students studying truck technology, “I used to drive a tractor-trailer,” adding, “I only did it for part of a summer, but I got my license anyway.” Biden’s...

President Joe Biden, 81, “has no impairment,” Attorney General Merrick Garland claimed in the octogenarian’s defense on Tuesday. While testifying under oath before a House appropriations subcommittee, Garland said “the president has no impairment” because he “watched” Biden conduct meetings. About one-third of Democrats doubt Biden’s mental fitness, a Harvard/Harris survey recently found. Another poll revealed 82 percent of Americans harbor concerns about his physical and mental health. Only about one-quarter of voters say Biden is physically or mentally fit to serve a second term, Quinnipiac found. “I have watched him expertly guide meetings of staff and of cabinet members...

Republican presidential candidate former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) said Friday on CNN’s “Inside Politics” that “no president should ever be above the law” when asked about the Supreme Court hearing arguments on former President Donald Trump’s claims of presidential immunity. Anchor Dana Bash said, “I want to start with what’s happening with Donald Trump today. He’s back in Florida for one of the federal cases against him. Meanwhile, in another, the January 6, case, the Supreme Court announced this week that it would hear arguments in April about whether or not he will get his push for immunity. This means...

CONCERN has mounted over Russia’s central bank governor after she suddenly cancelled an appearance at an exhibition without explanation. It comes amid circulating rumours that Elvira Nabiullina, 60, has undergone an unspecified surgery at the Kremlin. Russia's central bank has declined to comment on the rumours, Reuters reported. The Kremlin has also refused to comment on the surgery rumours, appearing annoyed at the question. “I do not consider this question appropriate at our conference call,” Putin’s spokesman told journalists today. "This is absolutely personal information about health and we have neither the scope nor the desire to comment on it."

The tale President Joe Biden tells is that his “Bidenomics” had a positive impact on the economy by reducing the budget deficit and getting inflation under control. The problem is that it’s just not true. On the one hand, we have the claims made by the White House and the Treasury, but on the other hand, we have the cold hard facts. Unfortunately for the White House, the final budget data for fiscal year 2023 tells the story of out-of-control spending, even outpacing rising revenues, and the devastating effects that can have on an economy through inflation.

In North Carolina, lawmakers outraged that breast cancer patients were being denied reconstructive surgeries passed a measure forcing health insurers to pay for them. In Arizona, legislators intervened to protect patients with diabetes, requiring health plans to cover their supplies. Elected officials in more than a dozen states, from Oklahoma to California, wrote laws demanding that insurance companies pay for emergency services. Over the last four decades, states have enacted hundreds of laws dictating precisely what insurers must cover so that consumers aren’t driven into debt or forced to go without medicines or procedures. But health plans have violated these...

When a stubborn pain in Nick van Terheyden’s bones would not subside, his doctor had a hunch what was wrong. Without enough vitamin D in the blood, the body will pull calcium from the bones. Left untreated, a vitamin D deficiency can lead to osteoporosis. A blood test in the fall of 2021 confirmed the doctor’s diagnosis, and van Terheyden expected his company’s insurance plan, managed by Cigna, to cover the cost of the bloodwork. Instead, Cigna sent van Terheyden a letter explaining that it would not pay for the $350 test because it was not “medically necessary.” The letter...

Although artificial intelligence is in its early stages in the health-care industry, it already has triggered legal action. A class-action lawsuit filed on Tuesday alleges that UnitedHealthcare used an artificial intelligence algorithm to wrongfully deny coverage under Medicare Advantage health policies. The insurer made health-care determinations using its nH Predict algorithm, overrode physician recommendations, and denied elderly patients’ claims for stays in extended-care facilities, according to the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota. The plaintiffs also alleged the technology lets the company “aggressively deny coverage, because they know they will not be held accountable for...

It may just be a discovery of biblical proportions. Scientists have placed humans at the site of what is believed to be the “ruins of Noah’s Ark,” in the eastern mountains of Turkey. The findings, released earlier this week, of rock and soil samples determined that “clayey materials, marine materials and seafood” were present in the area between 5500 and 3000 BC, according to the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet. The study is comprised of three Turkish and American universities that have been investigating the theory of the site since 2021. The “Mount Ararat and Noah’s Ark Research Team” group was created...

The number of Americans claiming unemployment benefits climbed slightly last week amid broader strength in the U.S. labor market. Claims rose to 227,000 for the week ending July 29, up 6,000 from the previous week, ahead of more comprehensive jobs data to be released Friday by the Labor Department. Despite the uptick, U.S. employers cut just 23,697 jobs in July, the lowest number in 11 months, according to employment research firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas. “Companies, weary of letting go of needed workers, are finding other ways to cut costs. Many have slowed hiring, but wages continue to rise, particularly...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) claimed Sunday that there have been over 400 “mass shootings” in the United States thus far in 2023. His claim was based on Gun Violence Archive’s misleading “mass shooting” data, as reported by ABC News. (Breitbart News pointed out that Forbes used the same misleading data, claiming over 400 “mass shootings” in the United States at this point in 2023 as well.) Newsom tweeted: This weekend marked the 400th mass shooting in the US this year. Absolutely insane. Everyone deserves the Right to Safety. Time for a Constitutional amendment to end these tragedies. https://t.co/9MQlm24XBZ —...

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits jumped to a 1-1/2-year high last week, pointing to widening cracks in the labor market, which together with subsiding inflation could allow the Federal Reserve to halt further interest rate increases next month. Cooling price pressures were underscored by other data from the Labor Department on Thursday showing producer prices rebounding modestly in April, leading to the smallest annual increase in producer inflation in more than two years. The reports suggested that demand was slowing and raised the risks of a recession later this year. “The Fed looks closer to...

CLAIM: President Joe Biden reacted to the Allen, Texas, outlet mall attack by claiming “there have been roughly 200 mass shootings” in America thus far in 2023. VERDICT: FALSE, as long as one adheres to the standard definition of a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more individuals were killed by one attacker in one incident. Biden said, “American communities have suffered roughly 200 mass shootings already this year, according to leading counts.”

A second firm hired by the Trump campaign to investigate fraud in the 2020 election said all of Trump’s fraud claims were false, the firm’s founder told The Washington Post The Trump campaign hired Simpatico Software Systems and its founder Ken Block to investigate fraud claims all over the country after the 2020 election. “No substantive voter fraud was uncovered in my investigations looking for it, nor was I able to confirm any of the outside claims of voter fraud that I was asked to look at,” he told the Post. “Every fraud claim I was asked to investigate was...

President Joe Biden falsely claimed food prices are coming down after Tuesday’s inflation report revealed prices at the grocery store actually increased in January. Delivering a Tuesday afternoon keynote address at the National Association of Counties, Biden falsely claimed inflation, including food prices, is coming down. “Today’s report on inflation shows the good is that inflation in America is continuing to come down,” Biden claimed. “Food prices at the grocery store are coming down.”

New first-time applications for jobless benefits fell last week, even as major technology and media companies announced thousands of layoffs, according to data released Thursday by the Labor Department. In the week ending Jan. 21, initial claims for unemployment insurance totaled 186,000 after seasonal adjustments, down 6,000 from the previous week’s total of 190,000. Roughly 197,500 Americans filed to begin new cycles of jobless benefits each week over the past month, still well below pre-pandemic averages. New weekly jobless claims are not necessarily a perfect reflection of layoffs, as some Americans who have lost their jobs may not have applied...

Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women, may have been transgender, a New York Times (NYT) article claimed, drawing criticism from a political strategist who called it “historical vandalism.” Titled “Did the Mother of Young Adult Literature Identify as a Man,” the NYT piece claims the famous author may have been non-binary or transgender. Peyton Thomas, the author of the story, identifies as transgender and claims Alcott might also have even been transgender.

A defiant Congressman-elect George Santos complained Tuesday night that “everybody wants to nitpick” him for lying to voters about his job experience, education and religion, insisting there was room for debate about the extent of his flagrant falsehoods. Santos, a 34-year-old Republican who was elected Nov. 8 to represent Long Island’s North Shore in the House of Representatives, made the comments on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” after coming clean to The Post a day before about his grand deception. When guest host Tulsi Gabbard asked Santos if he “had no shame,” the Republican turned the question back on the...

More than 1.5 million people in the US are waiting for their asylum claims to be heard, as the Supreme Court weighs the merits of the Trump-era Title 42 health policy — and could order it ended as soon as Tuesday. The number of pending asylum applications has exploded in the past decade, according to an analysis of federal data by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, and fears have grown that lifting Title 42 could unleash a fresh surge of migration across the US-Mexico border The number of asylum seekers — 1,565,966 — is split between the...

Vice President Kamala Harris is seemingly contradicting public health officials this week, asserting that “most” people will only need a coronavirus shot once a year, despite the fact that they are pushing the updated shot on individuals — even those who got their last jab as recently as two months ago. “One shot, once a year—that’s all most people will need to stay protected from COVID year-long,” Harris said this week, urging people to make a plan: One shot, once a year—that’s all most people will need to stay protected from COVID year-long. Make a plan to get your shot...