Free Republic

The team said they are not asking for state taxpayer dollars, but are still seeking a commitment to local infrastructure and reasonable property tax certainty.

Intel shares rose 7% on Thursday after Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration is in talks with the chipmaker to have the U.S. government take a stake in the struggling company. Intel is the only U.S. company with the capability to manufacture the fastest chips on U.S. shores, although rivals including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Samsung also have U.S. factories. President Donald Trump has called for more chips and high technology to be manufactured in the U.S. The government’s stake would help fund factories that Intel is currently building in Ohio, according to the report. Earlier this week, Intel...

A group of four Senate Republicans warned against a “full-scale” repeal of energy tax credits passed by Democrats in 2022. “While we support fiscal responsibility and prudent efforts to streamline the tax code, we caution against the full-scale repeal of current credits, which could lead to significant disruptions for the American people and weaken our position as a global energy leader,” wrote Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), John Curtis (Utah), Thom Tillis (N.C.) and Jerry Moran (Kan.). Their letter, addressed to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), is notable since a bloc of four senators could be enough to block...

In the weeks leading up to Donald Trump’s anticipated return to the presidency, a rift has emerged within his supporter base regarding the US H-1B visa program, which facilitates the employment of skilled foreign workers in the United States. This discord intensified following the appointment of Sriram Krishnan, a venture capitalist from Chennai, as Trump’s chief adviser on artificial intelligence. Current analysis indicates that Trump appears to align himself with the DOGE faction, which includes prominent figures such as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, in the ongoing debate surrounding the US H-1B visa program. Notably, Trump has publicly expressed his...

Several Indian-American organisations are stepping up to jointly address the recent spate of attacks against Indian immigrants and professionals on social media platforms. “We are working closely with Indian American organisations and other immigrant-serving groups to address this alarming trend. Hateful rhetoric and division will inevitably surface again, so we’re coordinating efforts to protect our communities and change the broader narrative around immigrants. Our goal is to move beyond demonisation and ensure immigrants are celebrated for their contributions, resilience, and role in shaping America,” Chintan Patel, executive director, Indian American Impact Fund, a political organisation representing Indian and South Asian...

A private trade association founded by the Biden administration’s energy loan czar Jigar Shah has become a gatekeeper for companies seeking billions of dollars in financing from Shah’s office. The Cleantech Leaders Roundtable has seen a surge in its influence and revenue since its former president, Shah, was tapped to lead the powerful $400 billion Department of Energy Loan Programs Office (LPO) in 2021. The group, which didn’t have a website until three years ago, now regularly hosts sold-out receptions featuring Shah for its paying members across the country. Last week, the DOE Loans Program Office and Cleantech Leaders co-hosted...

At $1.5 million per job, this new incentive package from the state is at least 15 times the norm. For this much money, the state could have just handed out a million bucks to 827 people, instead of creating 550 jobs.Gov. JB Pritzker announced Thursday that the State of Illinois will provide an $827 million incentive package for Rivian to invest $1.5 billion to expand its electric vehicle factory in Normal, Illinois. The expansion is expected to create at least 550 full-time jobs within the next five years, and will build Rivian’s next model EV, the R2. Rivian initially got...

President Joe Biden keeps lecturing corporate America to “pay your fair share” of taxes. It turns out he’s right that some companies really are getting away scot-free from paying taxes.But it isn’t Big Tech companies in Silicon Valley or the Wall Street financial company “fat cats” or big banks or Walmart. They pay billions in taxes.The culprits here are the very companies that President Biden is in bed with: green energy firms.It turns out that despite all the promises over the past decade about how renewable energy is the future of power production in America, by far the biggest tax...

Political science students study many forms of government: democracies, communist states, oligarchies, and the like. But the Lord Dominator of Georgia, Brian Kemp, has excelled at perfecting his Kleptocracy, a less-familiar government form that is widely found in the corrupt states of Africa, Banana Republic Land, and Chicago. A Kleptocracy (from the Greek word kleptes, "thief") is a government run by leaders who redistribute the wealth and land of citizens to benefit themselves via outright theft. Click the image below to see full-screen. In medieval times, Robin Hood robbed the rich to feed the poor. But Kleptocrats flip the...

The Economic Development Fraud Watchdog group, Good Jobs First, has released a scathing report on the $1.5 billion subsidy package the State of Georgia has approved for the "unproven" electric vehicle company – Rivian. Greg LeRoy, the watchdog's Executive Director, offered the following analysis of the Georgia Rivian deal, what he believes to be the largest subsidy package for an auto assembly factory in U.S. history. The Rivian incentives are grossly over-priced and Georgia taxpayers will never break even on the deal. It will cause upward pressure on local property tax rates and may also reduce the quality of public...

Batman battles numerous supervillians, but none is more clever than the Riddler, the best criminal mastermind in Gotham City. The Riddler has no superhuman powers, but he excels at creating elaborate riddles, puzzles, and traps that constantly fool and evade Batman and the police.Now in the real-world state of Georgia, dear FReepers, there's a taxpayer fraud scam so ingenious and intricately woven that it's likely the work of a gang of Riddlers. Indeed, the schemers have spun their crime to the public as a great commercial success — which, of course, has only fueled the fraud's growth. The fraud...

When the law is used to create and protect monopolies Disney is the result. They will be back at the public trough soon asking for further favors. We can end the corporate monopoly on the underlying characters and let the market decide if the characters created almost a 100 years ago should be woke Neanderthals. Free speech and all that stuff. No law should be used to create a monopoly and then the profits siphoned into some political campaign. "Disney’s copyright for Steamboat Willie will expire on January 1, 2024 and this original iteration of Mickey Mouse will fall into...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida House of Representatives on Thursday gave final passage to a bill that would dissolve Walt Disney World’s private government, handing Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis a victory in his feud with the entertainment giant over its opposition to a measure that critics have dubbed the “ Don’t Say Gay ” law. The move could have huge tax implications for Disney, whose series of theme parks have transformed Orlando into one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations, and serves to further sour the relationship between the Republican-led government and a major political player in the...

The Florida Senate passed on Wednesday legislation to end Disney’s special tax and governing jurisdiction. The Senate passed S. 4-C, which is the legislation that would dissolve the Reedy Creek Improvement District, otherwise known as the special tax and governing jurisdiction for the Walt Disney World Resort. The legislation passed with 23 votes in favor of the bill, and 16 against the bill. The Florida legislature authorized the special district in 1967 to boost economic development and tourism; however, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Florida Republicans proposed the legislation to eliminate the special district after Disney has continued to oppose...

U.S. employers say it's a hard time to find and keep talent. Workers are decamping at near-record rates, while millions of open jobs go unfilled. One reason for this labor crunch that has largely flown beneath the radar: Immigration to the U.S. is plummeting, a shift with potentially enormous long-term implications for the job market. In the middle of the last decade, the U.S. was adding about 1 million immigrants a year. But those numbers, which slowed down during the Trump administration, hit a brick wall when COVID-19 erupted in 2020.

The George W. Bush Institute, the Chamber of Commerce, and the billionaire Koch brothers’ network of donor class organizations are banding together with other mass migration groups to demand President Joe Biden expand overall immigration to the United States. The groups, along with others, have teamed up to create the Alliance for a New Immigration Consensus that will lobby Biden and members of Congress to pass amnesty for illegal aliens, increase security at the southern border, and increase the ability of businesses to import foreign workers. AD “Employers are also struggling to find workers to fill jobs in many industries,”...

Rep. John Curtis (R-UT) says a plan that gives amnesty to illegal aliens and expands pipelines for foreign visa workers will be a boost for business. Last week, as Breitbart News reported, Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL) and six House Republicans introduced “The Dignity Act” to provide green cards to the nation’s 11 to 22 million while expanding visa programs to more readily outsource American jobs. Curtis is co-sponsoring the bill alongside Reps. Dan Newhouse (R-WA), Pete Sessions (R-TX), Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon (R-PR), Tom Reed (R-NY), and Peter Meijer (R-MI). The bill is backed by the United States Chamber of Commerce and...

Founder's Corner Dear All:Biden Administration Defends Trump's H-1B Wage Rule In January 2021, former President Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a final rule that would have rid us of the random H-1B visa lottery. The lottery would have been replaced by a system that prioritizes applications by the highest wage offered. Sadly, the Biden administration pushed back the rule’s implementation to the end of the year. If perpetually pushing back the rule change isn’t bad enough, there’s more to bemoan. A group of immigration attorneys in cahoots with cheap labor aficionados like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National...

Three judges have rejected a sneak claim by business groups to double the inflow of foreign visa-worker graduates into the jobs needed by American college graduates. “This is a terrible decision for the [visa worker] community,” lamented a June 9 tweet by Cyrus Mehta, a New York-based immigration lawyer. “The DC Circuit just killed the hopes of not counting dependents against the green card cap,” mourned David Bier, a migration advocate at the business-funded Cato Institute. “What that does is it lowers the supply of [foreign] workers coming in,” Kevin Lynn, founder of U.S. Tech Workers, told Breitbart News July...

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has picked amnesty advocate Rep. John Katko (R-NY) to lead a team of GOP legislators that will “focus on solutions to secure our borders.” “John Katko is the typical corporate Republican,” said one person active in the immigration debate. He added: He speaks a great game on illegal immigration, and is sorrowfully bad on legal immigration to the United States. He has never found a guest worker program he does not support, he’s never found a legal immigration program he does not think should be expanded, and I don’t think that he considers immigration...