Free Republic

Latin America since USAID defunding: 🇨🇱 Kast ("far right") wins in Chile 🇧🇴 Paz ("far right") wins in Bolivia 🇵🇪 Fujimori ("far right") wins in Peru 🇪🇨 Noboa ("far right") wins in Ecuador 🇭🇳 Asfura ("far right") wins in Honduras 🇨🇷 Fernandez ("far right") wins in Costa Rica Extremely telling development

The United Nations is going broke as the U.S. and China withhold payments to the institution in a jostle for control. Washington has failed to pay billions of dollars owed to the international body and exited dozens of its programs and agencies, including the World Health Organization, to combat what President Trump describes as wasteful spending and bad policymaking. The U.S. is more than $4 billion in arrears to the U.N. China has compounded the U.N.’s liquidity crisis by slow-walking its own payments, even as Beijing declares itself the organization’s leading defender and, in a jab at the U.S., the...

Two New York Democrats running in a hotly contested congressional primary pledged federal funding for “Drag Story Hour” — as records show city and state taxpayers have paid nearly $700,000 to boost the program. Incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman and his opponent, former city Comptroller Brad Lander, both told an LGBTQ Democratic club that they support dishing out federal money to subsidize the program, which invited drag queens into schools to read to young children. “Unfortunately, the Majority does not allow funding from Members of Congress to support LGBTQIA+ programming,” Goldman wrote in on a questionnaire from the Jim Owles LGBT...

Whitmer won't give them money to keep operating, which suggests that abortion doesn't really matter anymore Livonia — Gov. Whitmer refused an emergency request by Planned Parenthood of Michigan for $5 million last week, telling them to go find the money elsewhere. The retaliation by Lansing Democrats was swift, led by State Rep. Laurie Pohutsky. Pohutsky, a strong advocate for Planned Parenthood, exploded in anger. “You can’t say you’re going to fight like hell and then not do the bare minimum when they’re in need,” she told The Detroit News. Two prominent Democrats fighting? Heavens to Murgatroyd, this must be...

The Senate is heading home until June without finishing a reconciliation bill, after Republican tensions over the package coincided with President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-TX) against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman posted on X: “BREAKING NEWS: THE SENATE will go home until June, leaving the reconciliation bill unfinished. THUNE just told senators in the room. All because of the DOJ weaponization fund. House is expected to follow suit soon.” Brendan Pedersen, a senior reporter with Punchbowl News, posted on X: “Thune asked if Senate Rs are responding to politics...

Sen. Thom Tillis is facing backlash from conservatives after reportedly trying to delay a major Senate vote so Sen. John Cornyn could spend more time campaigning against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in next week’s high-stakes Republican runoff. According to Axios, Tillis privately warned fellow Republicans he would oppose moving forward this week on a reconciliation package that includes funding for ICE and Border Patrol operations, arguing the timing could politically hurt Cornyn ahead of the May 26 runoff. Conservatives immediately blasted the move as another example of the Senate establishment putting political survival ahead of border security and President...

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek signed legislation this week to permanently direct millions in state taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood, the state’s largest abortion business. The taxpayer funding is designed to replace federal Medicaid funding blocked by the Trump administration. House Bill 4127, which Kotek signed in March, requires the Oregon Health Authority to create a payment mechanism using state funds to backfill reimbursements lost since July 2025. It also establishes a permanent contingency plan should Congress cut off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood indefinitely. Oregon is the first state to enact such a long-term replacement plan. All Republicans in the...

Hantavirus, the WHO, and the Conflicts in Weighing MortalityYesterday, almost 2,000 people, mostly young children, died of malaria because they could not access effective and relatively cheap treatment quickly enough. About 4,000 people died of tuberculosis (TB), including many young adults leaving orphans. This happens every day. Progress in reducing these numbers is stalling, as partly due to the continuing economic damage from the Covid-19 response. In the past two weeks three tourists unfortunately died among about 150 passengers and crew on a cruise ship MV Hondius off the west coast of the African continent where most of those malaria...

Either NPR is so high on its own ego that it believes it can get support from George Soros-backed groups for its lefty spin-jobs without anybody noticing or it’s so obtuse that it thinks nobody with a skeptical mind will even take the time to look. NPR immigration correspondent Sergio Martínez-Beltrán came out with a dense, 1498-word pro-illegal immigration sob story May 5 attacking the Trump administration for daring to enforce immigration law in Minnesota. “Minneapolis grapples with the impact of Trump's largest immigration crackdown yet,” read Martinez-Beltran’s narrative-twisting headline. He didn’t even bother to wait past the first paragraph...

He’s being placeholder-ed in an awkward position. Mayor Zohran Mamdani could be forced to release his executive budget Tuesday with “placeholder” estimates on key sources of revenue, after he tried to rely on dysfunction-riddled Albany to reach a deal on its own spending plan and bail out the Big Apple, insiders revealed. The potential fill-in-the-blanks city budget plan is exactly what Mamdani tried to avert when he delayed its release from May 1 in hopes that Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers would reach a deal on its own long-delayed budget and give the city a windfall of new tax...

On the 76th day since Department of Homeland Security funding lapsed, Congress passed a bill Thursday restoring the flow of federal dollars to most of its agencies — without solving any of the policy disagreements that led to the record-breaking shutdown. The House approved by voice vote the partial DHS funding measure the Senate passed more than a month ago. President Donald Trump is expected to swiftly sign the bipartisan legislation, fully funding the Coast Guard, TSA, Secret Service, FEMA and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, along with other offices within DHS that don’t deal with immigration enforcement. Now...

The House on Thursday passed a bill to fund the bulk of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), minus Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a major step toward ending the record-breaking, 10-week shutdown. The bill passed by voice vote less than an hour after Republican leaders sent out a notice that the chamber would consider the legislation amid increasing pressure from the White House, Senate, and Republican rank-and-file. The bill passed the Senate last month and now goes to President Trump’s desk for his signature. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) had sat on the bill for weeks, but...

We're not quite to the ultimate goal yet, but the momentum is there to get the employees of the DHS back to receiving their paychecks. On Wednesday, the House passed a procedural vote on funding for the Department of Homeland Security and FISA along party lines, after removing a third component of the package: House Republican leaders on Wednesday cleared a major hurdle when they corralled members into adopting a rule to tee up consideration of two major pieces of legislation: reauthorization of the nation’s foreign spy powers and a budget blueprint to fund immigration enforcement. The House voted 216-210...

According to the political ideology that I subscribe to (libertarian), I’m supposed to be in favor of ending government funding of NPR. And from a theoretical point of view, I agree with that position.But for me, the real world always supersedes any theory. NPR, along with its government funding, is a long standing tradition in this country, just like the national parks, the national museums, and the Post Office. So even though it goes against libertarian theory, I support a continuation of all of those things.I like to call myself a “bad” libertarian because I am always happy and willing...

There are mixed emotions here: It’s good that the Department of Homeland Security shutdown is ending. It’s ridiculous that Congress had to go through multiple rounds to fund just one agency, making the latter part of this saga a Republican circus. Make no mistake, this was a Democrat-caused shutdown. They supported it, kept TSA workers without pay, causing many to quit, and left our homeland vulnerable to terror attacks during Operation Epic Fury. We haven’t even considered the natural disaster scenarios that could’ve occurred; FEMA would’ve been paralyzed. Alas, the House GOP is going to support John Thune and the...

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is calling for Republicans to provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with enough funding to last a decade. He believes Republicans can do that without the support of a single Democrat. "We can do it with just 50 votes," Cruz said. Lawmakers in the Senate agreed early on Friday to advance funding for DHS that includes the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Coast Guard, the Secret Service and seven other agencies — even as gridlock over ICE remains firmly in place.

The House of Representatives has formally rejected a Senate-passed funding measure that would have reopened most of the Department of Homeland Security while leaving Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection without resources. Speaker Mike Johnson labeled the Senate’s late-night proposal a “joke” and confirmed the House will instead advance a clean 60-day continuing resolution to fund the entire department. The partial shutdown of DHS, now stretching into its sixth week, continues because Democrats have demanded new restrictions on immigration enforcement as the price for any deal. President Donald J. Trump issued an emergency directive directing the use...

Sadly, we dive into the chaos of procedures, party disputes, and institutional rivalries. The Senate approved a funding measure by voice vote to reopen most of the Department of Homeland Security, except for Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The frontline troops are financed through the big, impressive bill. Its civilian staff is not. The Senate passed this around 3 am and then left town. They aren't expected to return until April 13. Speaker Johnson: This gambit that was done last night is a JOKE!He's absolutely LIVID. pic.twitter.com/hGl7sWHtjX— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) March 27, 2026Meanwhile, House members were outraged that they...

The US Senate has voted to end a partial 40-day government shutdown, approving funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) - but with immigration enforcement excluded. The almost six-week funding lapse has had a knock-on effect on air travel in the US. Airport security workers' salaries are paid by the DHS, and hundreds have quit since the shutdown began. Democrats had refused to agree a funding deal without reforms to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, but the Senate reached unanimous agreement in the early hours of Friday morning after stripping ICE and parts of border protection...

Senators approved a compromise measure early Friday to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security through the end of September, taking a major step toward ending the 42-day partial shutdown that has seen hundreds of airport security workers quit after missing paychecks and snarled travel nationwide. The agreement, passed by voice vote before senators departed Washington for a two-week recess for Easter and Passover, will be considered by the House later Friday morning. The last-ditch deal does not include any of the demands Democrats have placed on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — including that agents be barred from...