Free Republic

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court's decision striking down President Joe Biden's program to forgive student loan debt for about 43 million people could hurt not just individual borrowers, but also the U.S. economy, as billions of dollars of consumers' disposable income are taken out of circulation. The ruling could spark a "modest headwind" against economic growth, Bernard Yaros, an economist at Moody's, a financial risk assessment firm, told ABC News. "None of this is enough to tip the economy into a recession," Yaros said. "But this is no doubt a hit." Thomas Simons, an economist with the equity research firm...

A peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Information Warfare (JIW) confirms a “Loss of Control” breach has occurred in the NYSVoter Database. A peer-reviewed paper of their results in a respected journal is a hard-won and “significant milestone,” according to Marly Hornik, Executive Director of the NY Citizens Audit. The audit of the voter rolls was led by Marly Hornik and Andrew Paquette, Ph.D., Director of Research, who submitted the paper to JIW. Paquette “co-founded the International Game Architecture and Design Academy (now BUAS) in the Netherlands after a career in the feature film and video game industries. He received...

Although the Biden administration’s sweeping student loan forgiveness plan and the legal troubles around it have gotten the most headlines, the U.S. Department of Education has already canceled more than $66 billion in education debt under existing programs. More than 2 million borrowers, including defrauded students and those who work in the public sector, have benefited from that relief over the last few years. $42 billion in debt canceled for public servants. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program allows certain nonprofit and government employees to have their federal student loans canceled after 10 years, or 120 payments. A number of...

BUCKINGHAM, Virginia — Lindsey Taylor loved running elections here. The previous registrar had spent nearly three decades in the job, and Taylor, 37, hoped to do the same when she was first hired in 2019. She loved her staff and the volunteer poll workers, and she took pride in the detail-oriented work. She implemented dozens of new laws in 2020, ran elections through the pandemic and impressed many in the rural, conservative, tight-knit community of Buckingham County. But then the voter fraud claims started. In January, the GOP assumed control of the Buckingham County Electoral Board that oversees her office,...

Sen. John Fetterman’s health is reportedly improving but he could remain hospitalized for up to two more weeks as doctors work to get his medication “exactly right.” “John Fetterman is making progress in his recovery from clinical depression and could leave Walter Reed within next two weeks,” CNN congressional reporter Manu Raju tweeted on Tuesday. “The senator’s physician recently informed him that he will be ‘as good or better than his best days post-stroke,’” Raju added. Fetterman’s lengthy hospitalization at Walter Reed has been the result of his doctors “trying to get his ‘medication balance exactly right,’” according to Raju....

Some 40 million people have had their student-debt payments paused because the government thinks they need the help. But one big financial technology company, which refinances student loans, disapproves of the public policy and wants the payments resumed immediately to help its bottom line. SoFi Technologies, a financial technology company involved in the student loan refinancing business, is suing the Department of Education over the student loan payment pause. In a suit filed in federal court late last week, the company alleges that the latest extension of the COVID-era pause on student loan payments, interest and collections “is unlawful on...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Niara Thompson couldn’t shake her frustration as the Supreme Court debated President Joe Biden’s student debt cancellation. As she listened from the audience Tuesday, it all felt academic. There was a long discussion on the nuances of certain words. Justices asked lawyers to explore hypothetical scenarios. For Thompson, none of it is hypothetical. A student at the University of Georgia, she grew up watching her parents struggle with student loans and will graduate with about $50,000 of her own student debt. Thompson and her father are each eligible for $10,000 in relief, she said. It would move...

Federal agencies responsible for protecting the U.S. Capitol did not "fully process" or share critical information — including about militia groups arming themselves ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — a failure that stymied the response that day, according to a new 122-page report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. The FBI and the U.S. Capitol Police had seen "threats that were true or credible" days ahead of the assault on the Capitol building, the report said. But much as with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a failure by multiple agencies to share information and connect dots left those...

HARRISBURG, Pa. (CBS) -- Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman remains in the hospital to receive treatment for clinical depression but is staying up to date on Senate business, his communications director Joe Calvello said in a statement Monday. Fetterman checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Feb. 15 to receive treatment. "John is doing well, working with the wonderful doctors, and remains on a path to recovery," Calvello said. "He is visiting with staff and family daily, and his staff are keeping him updated on Senate business and news. Our team is moving full speed ahead and working...

Lynn Rivers, a Democrat from Michigan, opened up about her diagnosis with bipolar disorder during a radio call-in show when she first ran for Congress. Her opponents had been hinting she had mental health problems. She decided, spur of the moment, to let it out. That was 1994. Ms. Rivers was elected, despite a Republican tidal wave, and served four terms. Now another Democrat, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, has announced that he has entered a hospital to be treated for clinical depression. Politicians of both parties are praising him for his openness. Mental health experts say he is a...

WASHINGTON (AP) — When Patrick Kennedy was in Congress, he would sneak in his treatments for substance abuse over the holidays, in between congressional work periods. And he refused mental health treatment recommended by his doctors, worried he would be recognized in that wing of the hospital. On Thursday, the office of Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat who was elected to the Senate after a bruising campaign during which he suffered a stroke, announced he had checked himself into the hospital for clinical depression. The U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, tweeted praise for Fetterman, saying he hopes his “courage...

WASHINGTON — At John Fetterman’s desk in the Senate chamber, there is a newly installed monitor that rises or lowers, depending on whether he sits or stands, and provides closed captioning so he can follow the proceedings. At the center dais, a custom desk stand has been built to accommodate the same technology for when he takes his shifts presiding over the Senate. The sergeant-at-arms has arranged for live audio-to-text transcription for the committees on which Fetterman serves, and plans to expand the service to all Senate hearings. But his adjustment to serving in the Senate has been made vastly...

More than one in three of the 535 senators and representatives in the U.S. Congress showed up to the new session with FTX baggage, having received campaign support from one of the senior executives of the fraud-ridden crypto giant. CoinDesk has identified 196 members of the new Congress – many of whom were just sworn in last week – who took cash from Sam Bankman-Fried or other senior executives at FTX including new Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), down to a list of recipients new to high-level politics. After the lawmakers...

WASHINGTON — A new special counsel investigation into the discovery of classified documents in President Joe Biden’s home and office puts both him and his attorney general in awkward positions as another special counsel investigates his predecessor for his own mishandling of secret papers. Although the circumstances of the cases involving Biden and former President Donald Trump are markedly different, as a political matter, the new inquiry will muddy the case against Trump, who is already using it to argue that he is being selectively persecuted by the administration of a president he plans to challenge in 2024. Attorney General...

An experiment in bipartisan government in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives is less than a week old, and cracks are beginning to appear. If the compromise falls apart, the chamber will be plunged into chaos. Republican and Democratic leaders, at Speaker Mark Rozzi’s request, must find a way to move forward together, if they plan to serve the people of Pennsylvania this session. It’s time for Mr. Rozzi to honor the commitments he made in accepting the role of speaker, especially his pledge to change his registration from Democrat to Independent as a symbol of unity. After last week’s display...

Nishad Singh, the former head of engineering at the collapsed exchange FTX, met with the US federal prosecutors seeking a cooperation deal, according to a Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the matter. Singh, Bankman-Fried’s former roommate in the Bahamas and a significant donor for Democrats’ election campaigns himself, could reportedly provide insight into the campaign finances of FTX. Since 2020, he has donated over $9.3 million to Democratic candidates and committees, with the largest recipient being Mind The Gap, a political action committee founded by SBF’s mother, Barbara Fried, which last year received a $1 million donation. According to...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Manny Diaz, the former Miami mayor who had pledged to rebuild the Florida Democratic Party after years of losses, abruptly announced his immediate resignation as party chair on Monday amid growing calls for his ouster. Diaz’s departure came after Florida Democrats suffering some of their worst losses ever, including the re-election of Gov. Ron DeSantis by 19 points over Charlie Crist, the election of a supermajority in the Florida Legislature and the flipping of several counties including once-reliable blue Miami-Dade County. Diaz, in a statement to Democrats Monday, said he was unable to carry out his plans...

Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams‘ campaign owes more than $1 million to vendors following her second failed attempt to win the state’s governorship, according to a new report. Despite raising more than $100 million during her campaign, Ms. Abrams, hailed by many in her party as an organizing and voter-mobilizing star, has left her 180 former campaign staffers in a lurch by cutting off their pay a week after the Nov. 8 election, according to the political news website Axios. “People have told me they have no idea how they’re going to pay their rent in January,” a former staffer told...

Republican Rep.-elect George Santos comes to Congress in January with a degree from Baruch College and stints at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, according to his campaign biography. But a New York Times investigation revealed Monday that nobody by Santos' name, or a deviation of it, graduated in 2010 from Baruch. Nobody at Citigroup nor Goldman Sachs had a record of Santos working at their offices....

Kari Lake's election case will be going to trial, after attempts to throw it out by Governor elect Katie Hobbs were squashed on Monday. Lake was the Republican nominee for governor in Arizona and has launched legal action to have her defeat overturned or have the election rerun because of problems at polling stations. The two phases that will be moving forward to trial are her chain of custody challenges and intentional malice regarding widespread printer breakdowns - leading to her loss to Democrat Katie Hobbs. She tweeted this evening: 'Our Election Case is going to trial. Katie Hobbs attempt...