Free Republic

The New York Times chronicled a Venezuelan family’s trek from Chile and Peru northward to the United States and inadvertently revealed the economic freebies and legal chaos enabling President Joe Biden’s migrant flood swamping the United States. The paper has been tracking the progress of a family of Venezuelans who traveled via the infamous and dangerous Darién Gap through Colombia and Panama, through three more countries to Guatemala, then through Mexico before entering into the United States where they were allowed into the country via Joe Biden’s shambolic “parole” system. The story follows the efforts of Henry Aguilar, a man...

BRUSSELS (AP) – Weapons stocks in the European Union are running low as member countries continue to sends arms and ammunition to Ukraine, the bloc’s top diplomat warned Monday as he urged EU nations to better coordinate their spending on military materiel. “The military stocks of most member-states has been, I wouldn’t say exhausted, but depleted in a high proportion, because we have been providing a lot of capacity to the Ukrainians,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a debate with European lawmakers.

The White House said on Friday that it could make double monthly child tax credit payments in February, if Democrats' spending plan to extend them doesn't pass Congress before year-end. "We've talked to Treasury and others about doing double payments in February. The president sees this as a priority as soon as Congress returns," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said. The U.S. Treasury paid the last monthly child tax credit payment, $16 billion in total, on Wednesday.

On Monday, Equifax settled with the US Federal Trade Commission over its 2017 data breach, which affected 147 million Americans. The settlement of up to $700 million includes as much as $425 million for individual compensation including $30 million for "Alternative Reimbursement Compensation." So naturally, AOC sent out this absurd tweet:

For a nation accustomed to instant gratification, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is a winner.Before President Donald Trump even signed the bill, companies were announcing employee pay raises, bonuses, and increased investments to grow their businesses and bring operations back from overseas.Among the first out of the gate was AT&T, which said it would give $1,000 bonuses to more than 200,000 nonmanagement employees and make an additional $1 billion investment in the United States. Boeing put $100 million toward training, education, and other workforce development. Walmart expanded paid parental leave and boosted starting wages to $11 an hour.Then in...

New limits are being imposed on media access to the detention center at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the commander of the military's Southern Command said Thursday, outlining rules that will limit what journalists can see and how often they can visit the already highly restricted site. Journalists will be allowed to visit the center on tours that will be organized once per quarter, lasting no more than a day, and they will no longer be able to visit inside the two detention center camps where a majority of the 107 current prisoners are held, Marine Corps Gen....

Minnesota human services officials didn't verify that low income people enrolling in health plans through MNsure were eligible for benefits they got, the state legislative auditor said Wednesday. The state Department of Human Services did not check key eligibility criteria, such as Social Security numbers, citizenship, income, and household sizes for Medical Assistance (Minnesota's Medicaid program), MinnesotaCare, and Children's Health Insurance Program recipients. That screening breakdown "resulted in ineligible persons receiving public health care benefits," the auditor said in its report. "They're not getting it right," Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles said. "We design these systems to make complex eligibility determinations....

Can you feed yourself on $4.50 a day? That’s the typical daily benefit for someone who gets food stamps. Millions of low-income Americans are dependent on the program, which is called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, for some if not all of their food money. SNAP benefits have just been reduced slightly, with the sunset of an economic-stimulus addition, and will likely be cut more by Congress before the year is through. Here in Clark County, Share and the Clark County Food Bank are inviting the community to get a sense of life on that kind of budget by...

A group of African students whose college tuitions are being paid by the U.S. government yesterday received a boost of additional funds to continue their educations – and an executive from the private contractor coordinating the program just happens to be the wife of a senior Obama administration official...the U.S. Agency for International Development under the current initiative has already spent nearly $2.1 million to send 16 students from the southeast African nation of Malawi to colleges in their homeland as well as in the U.S. and Kenya... World Learning's senior vice president for international development and exchange programs is...

Today New Yorkers, like all Ameri cans, are observing Labor Day -- and many have the day off. Great. No doubt, they earned it. But the holiday -- once meant to extol an honorable movement, affirm worker solidarity and celebrate gains won through collective bargaining -- is an ideal time to look at what has become of the labor movement in recent years. Alas, that doesn't merit celebration. Take a few of the latest developments. In Congress, union giveaways -- like the ever-upward minimum wage -- have helped feed a painfully high jobless rate, now stuck near 10 percent. Union-driven...

The latest Senate energy bill, quietly unveiled last week, looks like sweet compromise on radical measures like cap and trade, but buried within is a bitter poison pill that will could be swallowed in a vote that may come this week. Unlike the 1,200-page House of Representatives energy bill, which passed last year, this scaled-down proposal does not call for an 83-percent reduction in greenhouse gases (or any reduction in greenhouse gases) and contains no mention of a cap-and-trade scheme. Also contrary to the House bill, this one does not provide a family of four earning up to $55,000 with...

The White House Friday highlighted a new multi-million-dollar technology fund for Muslim nations, following a pledge made by President Barack Obama in his landmark speech to the Islamic world. The White House said the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) had issued a call for proposals for the fund, which will provide financing of between 25 and 150 million dollars for selected projects and funds. The Global Technology and Innovation Fund will "catalyze and facilitate private sector investments" throughout Asia, the Middle East and Africa, the White House said in a statement. Eligible projects would advance economic opportunity and create...

An organization that informs people of the Cash for Clunkers program has recently announced that several celebrities have showed their support in giving consumers the simple and easy summary of the program, that started just a few days ago.Though Americans have already shown great interest in program, which is officially known as CARS - Car Allowance Rebate System, the support Dancing With The Stars' Cristian de la Fuente and Ugly Betty star Angelica Vale does not hurt at all. "This government subsidy will make it easy for people to get a new car that is a lot less expensive to...

Many conservatives experience President Obama's budget as a radical lurch to the left. Obviously, they conclude, President Obama is a radical lefty. Unfortunately it's worse than that. President Obama is not leading from the left of his party. He is leading from the center. Scratch a liberal and you will find someone who believes in universal health care run by the government. But President Obama's budget doesn't do that, not yet. It just sets a clear course towards that long-term liberal goal. Scratch a liberal and you will find someone who believes in universal education from "early-childhood education" to graduate...

Reporting from Sacramento -- In the wake of crushing defeats for Republicans in last week's national elections, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Sunday that his party should regroup by moving away from some of its core conservative principles and embracing spending on programs that Americans want. "I think the important thing for the Republican Party is now to also look at other issues that are very important for this country and not to get stuck in ideology," the governor said in an interview broadcast on CNN. "Let's go and talk about healthcare reform. Let's go and . . . fund programs...

Since I work as defacto manager of a purchasing department in a small company, I am curious as to why we have a dearth of giveway calendars this year. Are others feeling the same? Usually by now, I have calendars galore to supply to everyone in the company who wants one-- or even wants more to take home.So far, this year, I have two-- one of which adorns my cube from a minor vendor who has annual sales to us in the lower five figures-- another which has been given to the best worker in my department from a vendor...

Didn't see one up, but Matthews has been giving me too many straight lines to pass up on!!!

Today President Bush participated in a roundtable discussion on the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit program at Greenspring Village Retirement Community in Springfield, Virginia. This afternoon he met with Republican leaders in the Roosevelt Room at the White House to discuss strategy in the War on Terror.Tonight at 10:00, MSNBC will broadcast the complete hour long interview of Brian Williams with President Bush (and Mike recommends it, so it's got to be good!)Enjoy your trip to Sanity Island on the Daily Dose!!

The latest effort on John F. Kerry's part emulate Jolly St. Nick involves a really dopey attempt to push more drugs. He wants to reimport them from Canada. Like many policy positions of The So-Called Democratic Party, it sounds really brilliant if you believe in a free lunch. Where it becomes a bad idea, is when it is applied to the real world. Every year the Canadian Government 'negotiates' with US drug companies to buy a whole bunch of perscription drugs at a much lower price than American consumers pay for them. I put the word negotiate in quotes because...

Before attending to this week's business I should like to defend myself from the machotypes who fell on me for saying in last week's column that a .30 caliber Weatherby magnum was capable of reaching a bird at 1200 yards. Allow me to quote from a memo to AmSpec's expert on the subject, my friend Chuck Fowler. Quoth: "A 165-grain bullet from a 30-378 Weatherby drops nineteen and a half inches at 500 yards. It screams out of the barrel at a blistering 3500 feet per second. I'm sure at 1200 yards it may drop twice again as much as...