Free Republic

The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Dr. Lisa Cook, who has a history of Black Lives Matter bullying and radical monetary policy beliefs, to the Federal Reserve board of governors. The Senate voted 51-50 to confirm Cook, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie.

To mask up or not mask up? That’s the pressing question for commuters and travelers across the country after a federal judge struck down a national public transportation mask mandate on Monday.

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will extend for two weeks the nationwide mask requirement for public transit as it monitors an uptick in COVID-19 cases, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was set to extend the order, which was to expire on April 18, by two weeks to monitor for any observable increase in severe virus outcomes as cases rise in parts of the country. The move was being made out of abundance of caution, the person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to preview the CDC's action.

WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors on Wednesday charged two men they say were posing as federal agents, giving free apartments and other gifts to U.S. Secret Service agents, including one who worked on the first lady’s security detail. The two men – Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 36 – were taken into custody as more than a dozen FBI agents charged into a luxury apartment building in Southeast Washington on Wednesday evening.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody (R) announced on Tuesday a lawsuit over the Biden administration’s extended mask mandate on planes and transportation hubs, noting that the rule is not grounded in science. “The state of Florida joined by 20 other states has filed an action against the Biden administration and multiple parties within to challenge the mandatory mask mandate within transportation hubs and on airplanes,” Moody announced alongside the governor.

This date marks half a century since the hanging of Victor Feguer — the last man executed by the federal government in the 20th century. (And the last executed in the state of Iowa, period.) A drifter holing up at a Dubuque, Iowa, boarding house, Feguer phoned up a random doctor claiming a woman needed medical attention. Think about that the next time someone gets nostalgic for house calls. Dr. Edward Bartels showed up only to be kidnapped by Feguer, and eventually murdered in Illinois. Feguer was picked up in Alabama, trying to sell the doctor’s stolen car; his motive...

Seattle police officers fatally shot a man Saturday who "reportedly rammed his car into the Federal building and fired a rifle downtown," the police department said. Police responding to multiple 911 calls reporting gunshot sounds Friday evening found the man "where he had crashed his vehicle into the Federal building," the Seattle Police Department said in a release. Officers tried to speak with the reportedly still-armed man, according to the release, and "for reasons that remain under investigation, opened fire striking the suspect." The man died at the scene. Police have not released his identity.

Federal government unions are going to be asking for pay raises due to the spike in fuel costs and the subsequent huge inflationary spike in goods that is going to result from that. The media will try to suppress this, not report on it, or downplay it. Meanwhile, the private sector is going to suffer horribly until the mid-term elections (where there will probably be cheating again) because the government can NOT raise interest rates very much due to resulting collapse in the housing/car/stock/other markets. Get ready.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal appeals court has declined, for now, to allow the Biden administration to require COVID-19 vaccinations for federal employees. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled 2-1 Wednesday to maintain a block on the mandate that a Texas-based federal judge had issued on Jan. 21. The administration had asked the New Orleans court for an injunction allowing the federal worker mandate to move forward pending appeal. President Joe Biden announced in September that more than 3.5 million federal workers were required to undergo vaccination, with no option to get regularly tested...

https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2022/02/white-house-to-propose-4-6-raise-for-feds-in-2023/

The U.S. federal prison system was placed on lockdown nationwide following a deadly incident at a Texas prison, officials said Monday. “Multiple inmates were observed fighting at the United States Penitentiary Beaumont” in Texas, said the Federal Bureau of Prisons in a news release. Prison staff then “immediately secured the area” but found inmate Guillermo Riojas and inmate Andrew Pineda with life-threatening injuries, prison officials said. They were transported to a nearby hospital, where they were both pronounced dead, the bureau said. Meanwhile, it added, “Two additional inmates were transported to a local hospital for further medical assessment and treatment.”...

This is a comparison of Wednesday’s Federal Open Market Committee statement with the one issued after the Fed’s previous policymaking meeting on Dec. 15.

My workplace is considered a federal contractor because it has some federal contracts. As you may know, courts have blocked Brandon's vaccine mandates for federal workers/contractors. As my workplace wants to re-open and a big portion of the staff are jabbed, they are going to implement their own mandates. Well even though the whole Brandon mandate was illegal and the courts blocked them, it gave an excuse to employers to mandate them.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams called for additional federal infrastructure spending on top of the already massive legislation signed into law by President Biden last year. "We need even more infrastructure investment than we received in last year's historic legislation," Adams said during remarks at the U.S. Conference ff Mayors Winter Meeting Thursday.

former girlfriend of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) testified before a federal grand jury on Wednesday as part of a sex crimes investigation into the congressman, according to NBC News. The House Republican is reportedly being investigated for several possible crimes, including obstruction of justice, the sex trafficking of a minor and violating the Mann Act, a federal law barring the transportation of prostitutes between states or countries, legal sources familiar with the investigation told the network.

Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., defended federal involvement in elections, citing Alexander Hamilton while claiming election loss "cannot be left up to the states." This week marked one year since the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that occurred on the day that Congress set to certify President Biden’s win in the 2020 election over former President Donald Trump. The controversy around the post-election days focused on Trump’s efforts to challenge election losses in key states, including Georgia where State Secretary Brad Raffensperger famously rebuffed the then-president’s effort to find more votes.

Federal agencies don’t count what politicians don’t want to know. President Biden and other Democrats continuously invoke “science and data” to sanctify all their Covid-19 mandates and policies, but the same shenanigans and willful omissions have characterized Covid data.During his update on his Winter Covid Campaign on Tuesday, President Biden declared, “Almost everyone who has died from COVID-19 in the past many months has been unvaccinated.” This was true from the start of the pandemic in early 2020, until the vaccines’ efficacy began failing badly in recent months. Oregon officially classifies roughly a quarter of its Covid fatalities since August...

resident Joe Biden claimed there is no "federal solution" to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. He then jetted off to Delaware for the rest of the week. Today, he called a lid at 10:13 am. ... The admission has prompted calls from lawmakers on Capitol Hill and around the country to end federal vaccine mandates, which are destroying the economy. ... Joe Biden, who ran for President on the promise of ending the COVID-19 pandemic: "There is no federal solution. This gets solved at a state level. ... If there’s no federal Covid solution, why is there a federal vaccine mandate?...

South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem called on President Joe Biden to rescind all federal COVID-19 mandates after he said on Monday that, “There is no federal solution,” to the pandemic. “After a year, we finally agree @potus. The federal government isn’t the solution. That’s why from the start, SD took a different approach by trusting our citizens to be responsible and make the right decisions for themselves & their families. Now rescind all the federal mandates,” Noem tweeted on Tuesday. The post followed Biden’s comment on Monday during a virtual meeting with the nation’s governors. Joe Biden, who ran...

On Christmas Eve, Dr. Anthony Fauci turned 81. However, he is not retiring just yet. If he did, Fauci would reap the largest federal retirement package in U.S. history. Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com estimate Dr. Fauci’s annual retirement would exceed $350,000. Thereafter, his pension and benefits would continue to increase through annual cost-of-living adjustments. Fauci has 55 years of service as a federal employee. For the second year in a row, Fauci was the most highly compensated federal employee and out earned the president, four star generals, and roughly 4.3 million of his colleagues. As director of the National Institute...