Free Republic

As collections resume after five years, disaster looms for delinquent borrowers.At the outset of the covid-19 pandemic, federal student-loan borrowers won what appeared to be a reprieve. That five-year pause on payments and interest accumulation is now shaping up to be a curse in disguise. Last week, the Trump administration drew criticism for announcing that the Education Department would resume involuntary collections next month. But the squeeze delinquent borrowers will soon feel is an inevitable consequence of the suspension, exacerbated by the Biden administration’s prolonged refusal to let payments resume.That’s because nonpayment ballooned after the pause functionally ended last October,...

On April 16, 2025, Spain celebrated a green energy triumph. Just six days later, the lights went out across the entire country. April 16: Spain’s first weekday of 100% renewable power In a historic achievement, Spain’s national grid was powered entirely by renewable energy on Tuesday, April 16 – the first time this has ever happened on a weekday. Between 10:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., wind, solar, and hydro met 100 per cent of mainland electricity demand, according to Red Eléctrica (cited by PV Magazine). At 11:15 a.m., wind and solar alone produced 100.63 per cent of demand. April 22:...

Europe’s Next War Won’t Be in Ukraine—It’ll Be in the Streets The European Union is pouring weapons, money, and political capital into Ukraine at an astonishing rate. If you listen to Brussels, it’s all about protecting democracy and stopping aggression at the borders of Europe. But what they won’t tell you—what they can’t afford to admit—is that many are quietly dreading the day the war ends. Because when the war ends, the real trouble begins. The Guns Are Already Here Let’s start with the obvious: Not all the weapons being sent to Ukraine are staying on the battlefield. Despite all...

Spain and Portugal achieved net zero on Monday, but not the way anyone would want to achieve net zero: By going back to the cavepeople times with no electricity. According to the New York Times:A major power outage hit Spain and Portugal on Monday afternoon, abruptly shutting down daily activities, halting trains and subways, cutting off traffic lights, closing stores and canceling or delaying some flights.Hours after the power shut off around 12:30 p.m. Central European time, stranding tens of millions of people across the Iberian Peninsula, officials remained at a loss as to the cause, though several denied any...

Governor Newsom is causing another refinery to go down. Valero refinery is considering shutting down. It threatens to throw the inhabitants of the small city of Benicia into unemployment and poverty. Valero is planning to shut down next April instead of selling. No one wants to buy it. The Benicia Mayor said the plant brings in millions of dollars. No one wants to buy the plant because it would require a significant amount of money to keep it going. The state of California doesn’t want refiners in its state. They’ve pushed them out, and this is the result. Newsom doesn’t...

Bhavik Lathia, former digital director for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, complains that "there is an extreme imbalance in strategy that allows Republicans to say and do stuff--like cutting government waste, deporting criminal aliens, and cutting taxes--that really grabs voters' attention. Meanwhile, we're stuck on the opposite side of these issues. We need a strategic shift in Democratic messaging. That shift is 'dark woke.'" Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett agreed saying "we need a crass and rude attitude that will show voters that we're ready to fight for the soul of America. With this in mind, I'm calling out Rep. Marjorie Taylor...

Standard & Poor’s 500 downgraded its credit rating of city of Los Angeles general obligation bonds, citing its “weakening financial position and an emerging structural imbalance.” Los Angeles faces a $1 billion deficit, having burned through its once-record reserves in just two years. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is currently seeking a state bailout, but given that the state says it has “no capacity” for new spending commitments, it’s unclear if the funding will materialize. S&P warns that if trends continue, it could further downgrade the city’s credit rating, which would further increase borrowing costs due to higher associated risk...

Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) said Tuesday on CNN’s “News Central” that President Donald Trump’s tariffs “could have catastrophic economic consequences for our country.” Co-host John Berman said, “Do you know what tariffs the president is going to announce tomorrow? And do you think the president knows what new tariffs he’s going to announce tomorrow?” Markey said, “I think the president is making it up as he’s going along. I don’t think he knows. But when he calls it ‘Liberation Day,’ it could be Obliteration Day if he doesn’t act in a way that invokes the law of unintended consequences. So,...

Republicans just took a total victory over Democrats under the leadership of Donald Trump. Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer just took to the Senate floor to admit TOTAL DEFEAT! "Unless Congress acts, the government will shut down tomorrow at midnight. There are no winners in a government shutdown — but there are victims...I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option."

SNIPThe State Department ended a USAID initiative that has given hundreds of millions of dollars to the restoration of Ukraine’s power grid.Ukraine has been struggling with power outages because of Russia’s attacks on its power grid over the last few years. USAID will also drastically reduce its presence in Ukraine, according to NBC News.NBC News reported:The State Department this week terminated a U.S. Agency for International Development initiative that has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to help restore Ukraine’s energy grid from attacks by the Russian military, according to two USAID officials working on the agency’s Ukraine mission.Power outages...

WASHINGTON — The White House is seeking to send a message to reticent Senate Republicans to get on board with all of President Donald Trump’s nominees, warning of political consequences for those who defy him. “It’s pass-fail. You either support everyone or you don’t,” a senior White House official told NBC News. “The Senate needs to advise and consent, not advise and adjust.”

During an interview with MSNBC aired on Monday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken responded to a question on whether there should be more consequences for China over its cyberhacking by stating that we’re trying “to stay ahead of it, both in terms of our defenses, both in terms of taking action, as necessary, against China, making sure that others are doing the same thing, other countries, working from the same page.” Blinken stated, “[W]hat we’ve done over these past years is to shore up our defenses everywhere, including right here at this department, to do everything possible...

The Pacific Palisades area ravaged by wildfires in Los Angeles is one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the U.S., home to Hollywood A-Listers and multimillion dollar mansions. And ahead of this week's disaster, its insurance costs were among the most affordable in the country, according to a Reuters analysis of insurance and real estate industry data. That may be about to change. The scale of losses anticipated in the wildfires now ringing Los Angeles, as well as regulatory changes enacted late last year, could spell an end to relatively cheap homeowners' insurance in areas like the Palisades that are...

“It was a total systems collapse from the idea of not spending money on irrigation, storage, water, fire prevention and forest management, a viable insurance industry, a DEI hierarchy, you put it all together and it's something like a DEI Green New Deal hydrogen bomb." "Gavin Newsom was fiddling, he's almost Nero Newsom. And this has been something that is just unimaginable."

On Jan. 24, 2017, PBS aired a two-hour special on Rachel Carson, the mother of the environmental movement. Although the program crossed the line from biography to hagiography, in Carson’s case, the unbridled praise was well deserved – with one exception. Rachel Carson was an American hero. In the early 1960s, she was the first to warn that a pesticide called DDT could accumulate in the environment, the first to show that it could harm fish, birds, and other wildlife, the first to warn that its overuse would render it ineffective, and the first to predict that more natural means...

The hunters are becoming the hunted. Federal prosecutors involved in the Trump witch hunts and January 6 cases are exiting the Justice Department at a record rate. Many of Jack Smith’s prosecutors also fear they will go bankrupt defending themselves if Trump’s DOJ decides to launch an investigation into the Biden Regime’s weaponization of the department. The swamp is draining itself.

Trump’s inauguration must mark the moment when bad actors in the government pay the price for their very real insurrection. President-elect (that does have a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?) Donald Trump delivered a shock and awe election victory on November 5. Those most surprised are the corporate media, Hollywood, and the paid Democrat X-shills, all living in their social media bubbles. I wasn’t terribly surprised, as I have been tracking the polls on these pages for some time. Aside from the numbers, enthusiasm was on Trump’s side, culminating in four rallies the day before the election, which ended...

After a major political reporter has been caught sexting a presidential candidate, does anyone believe there are still real consequences for such tawdry and unethical behavior?By now the story of how New York Magazine’s star political reporter Olivia Nuzzi was caught up in a weird, mostly one-sided sexual obsession with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has saturated X feeds and gossip rags. Allegedly, Nuzzi bombarded RFK Jr., a man not exactly known for being chaste, with various provocative pictures of herself. Nuzzi has acknowledged that “some communication between myself and a former reporting subject turned personal.”Nuzzi is a skilled writer known...

House Republicans issued a blistering report Monday accusing President Biden of committing at least two offenses that would justify his impeachment — delivering a political black eye to Biden just hours before he speaks on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention. Republicans launched the investigation last September after evidence surfaced that Biden, 81, repeatedly interacted with his relatives’ foreign business partners during his vice presidency — and following allegations from two IRS investigators of a far-reaching Justice Department cover-up.Biden engaged in “abuse of power” and “obstruction of justice or obstruction of Congress” by corruptly abetting and concealing a...

Whether it could prove a tactical masterstroke MailOnline examines the invasion so far and assesses what may come next On Tuesday, August 6, around 1,000 brave Ukrainian soldiers supported by a few tanks launched what seemed like a reckless at best - and catastrophic at worst - incursion into Russia's Kursk region. Within 48 hours of the first reports of the border breach, Russia's stonefaced army chief Valery Gerasimov - who reportedly dismissed intelligence reports indicating a Ukrainian troop buildup along the border two weeks prior - declared the invasion had been stopped in its tracks. Now, one week later,...