Free Republic

"A lot of private sector people, when they get into government, they don’t take the time necessarily to see what the good work is or why it’s structured the way it is,” Gates said on ABC News’s The View Tuesday. “So I’m a little worried particularly with this USAID stuff. My foundation partners with USAID on nutrition and getting vaccines out.”

A group of Senate and House Democrats were blocked from entering the headquarters of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on Monday. The Democratic lawmakers, who are opposed to President Trump’s efforts to shut down the agency, left without incident after a brief exchange with security officials. The group, led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), were told the front office of the administrator of USAID was not available to meet. A select group of USAID employees with the front office administrator were in the office Monday, an official told lawmakers outside the doors, but were not free to...

1) If you want taxpayer dollars from the government, be a serial grifter like Bill Kristol. 2) Create an institute dedicated to “defending democracy.” 3) USAID then gives you money to “defend democracy.” Spend a portion of what they give you on kickbacks to Democrats’ campaigns and unpaid PR, and push their agenda domestically or internationally. 4) Pay yourself a salary through the institute and profit.

Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde’s sermon to President Trump during an inaugural prayer service, coupled with her church’s advocacy for humanitarian immigration programs, reveals a striking hypocrisy — one that could be seen as self-serving and even a conflict of interest. That’s because the federal contracting arm of the church, Episcopal Migration Ministry (EMM), is paid to bring in people on resettlement programs that Trump has temporarily paused and targeted for re-evaluation. EMM budget figures for 2024 are not available yet, but in 2023 it earned $53 million from various taxpayer-funded government programs to resettle 3,600 individuals. Unlike everyday immigrants, these...

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has told members of the press that members of Congress should be focusing less on arresting and deporting illegal alien criminals and more on slavery reparations. Johnson was asked on Thursday about whether he would he would honor an invitation to appear with a handful of U.S. mayors before the U.S. House Oversight Committee to testify about so-called “sanctuary cities” like Chicago, New York, Denver and Boston. Rather than answering the question, Johnson chose to play the race card instead and went off on a diatribe about slavery, reparations and how the U.S. today represents “what...

USAID has stopped all projects in Ukraine for 90 days (just watch how Nazar is enjoying how the Ukrainian leeches that suck up American aid money are now in a panic). While working for USAID, Ukrainian leftists were writing articles telling their countrymen that Ukraine must sell its land, enterprises must be privatized, LGBT is good (I remember disgustingly how “America” House in Kyiv had some exhibition about how LGBTQ soldiers were defending Ukraine), Saint Floyd and BLM were righteous, and most of all the Republicans were devils (I met personally such Ukrainian leftist filth often in Kyiv, in particular...

President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for interior secretary told a Senate panel Thursday the U.S. can leverage development of fossil fuels and other energy sources to promote world peace and voiced concerns about the reliability of renewable power sources promoted under the Biden administration. Former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum described Trump’s aspiration to achieve U.S. “energy dominance” as a way to counter demand for fossil fuels from autocratic nations — Russia, Iran and Venezuela — that have fewer environmental safeguards. Burgum also said the U.S. needs to make more “baseload” electricity from coal and other sources as it seeks to...

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass got into office promoting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and promising to tackle homelessness and pollution — but she never promised to drain the swamp. Now she stands accused of adding to it, through “legalized corruption” and a number of eye opening scandals which have come to light after renewed scrutiny in the last two weeks following the revelation Bass and her cronies defunded the Los Angeles Fire Department by $17 million, contributing to them being underprepared to tackle the wildfires currently destroying the city. These include: The deputy mayor raided by the FBI over...

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass claims that her $17.5 million cut to the LA Fire Department budget did not impact the department’s ability to prevent or fight fires. But the LA Fire Chief told CNN that “the $17 million budget cut… did absolutely negatively impact” the Department’s ability to respond to the fires...

Wildfire-ravaged California should not receive a blank check from the federal government for emergency aid, House Speaker Mike Johnson declared Monday. “I think we’ve got to have a serious conversation about that,” Johnson (R-La.) told reporters as the House returned to work following a three-day weekend.“Obviously, there has been water resource mismanagement. Forest management mistakes — all sorts of problems. And it does come down to leadership,” the speaker explained.“It appears to us that state and local leaders were derelict in their duty in many respects. So that’s something that has to be factored in. I think there should probably...

At least one of the wildfires currently consuming everything in its path in L.A. County was set by an arsonist, and don't be surprised to find out that arson and/or electrical wires are responsible for all the fires that are out of control. Politicians are pointing fingers in every direction except themselves, with (of course) global warming being the ultimate cause. If only America became a poor, socialist country with too little and too unreliable energy, we would achieve a utopia. The reality, though, is simpler: mentally ill homeless people, poor land management, misplaced budget priorities, and insane DEI-obsessed policies...

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm dropped nearly $125,000 in taxpayer money on pricey hotels and other expenses during her electric vehicle-boosting summer 2023 road trip — flanked by a gas-guzzling car — while her staff improperly exceeded their daily, federally determined allowances, according to the department’s watchdog. Granholm’s team submitted 42 travel vouchers worth $124,824 for the taxpayer-funded tour — but 36 of the them had lodging costs valued over the government’s per diem rates to the tune of $9,487.50, the watchdog found. Some of the travelers also received higher reimbursement amounts than they were supposed to and several travel reports...

Ah, fact-checking. Where would we be without it? Take, for instance, a recent story that made the rounds on social media. According to these reports, Oxfam — the British NGO — found that a huge chunk of the World Bank’s spending on climate change-related issues was “missing.” Thank heavens for fact-checkers like the Australian Associated Press — a Poynter Institute-accredited fact-checker from down under — which set us all straight: “An Oxfam report did not find that $US41 billion has gone ‘missing’ from the World Bank’s climate change fund, contrary to claims online.” What a relief. Instead, the AAP noted,...

Democratic political strategist James Carville called for an audit of Vice President Kamala Harris' 2024 campaign spending on his podcast Politics War Room on Thursday. The Harris campaign, with the help of the Democratic Party, raised over $1 billion, during this year's election cycle, according to the Associated Press. Despite her remarkable financial backing, which was accumulated in a few short months after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, Harris lost the November 5 election to President-elect Donald Trump. Groups affiliated with Trump and the Republican National Committee (RNC), meanwhile, raised just over $1.8 billion, according to the...

Audit results reveal that the City of Denver, Colorado, lost track of nearly $150 MILLION they spent between January 2022 and March 2024 on homeless shelters And they wonder why we voted for @DOGE ? By the way, it's now clear & obvious that Democrats use homelessness to launder money back to themselves. This is why the crisis will never be cured. You don't write checks totaling $150 million without knowing exactly where it'll end up. Not only should Mayor Mike Johnston get arrested for planning to harbor illegals, but he should now get arrested for laundering money. ... They...

New York’s City Council is set to vote Thursday to authorize a controversial a task force to study reparations for black residents — a move that could lead to a call for billions in tax payer spending, as it has in other cities. The city legislation would charge a nine-member task force with examining the “impact of slavery and past injustices for African Americans in New York City” and determining what, if any, monetary or nonmonetary reparations are necessary. Minority Leader Joseph Borelli (R) told The Post he would leave the city before he paid reparations. “I’ll move before I’ll...

With less than two months before the 2024 election, and just over four months until the next inauguration, Joe Biden has currently spent 40.3% of his presidency on vacation, more than any other president in history. As Breitbart reports, the Republican National Committee (RNC) Research team posted a video on August 31st showing Biden relaxing in a chair on a Delaware beach. “Biden spent today — his 16th straight day on vacation — lounging on the beach,” the post read. “He has spent a total of 532 days (40.3% of his presidency) on vacation. Who’s running the country?” Biden has...

Imperial College London research has found limits to how quickly we can scale up technology to store gigatonnes of carbon dioxide under Earth's surface. Current international scenarios for limiting global warming to less than 1.5 degrees by the end of the century rely on technologies that remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from Earth's atmosphere faster than humans release it. This means removing CO2 at a rate of 1–30 gigatonnes per year by 2050. However, estimates for the speed at which these technologies can be deployed have been highly speculative. Now, findings from a new study led by Imperial College London researchers...

New York State Public Service Commission has approved the implementation of the Energy Affordability Guarantee pilot program. The PSC’s decision provides a plan for the design and implementation of an energy affordability pilot program for low-income households who fully electrify their space and water heating through the EmPower+ program. This pilot program will provide approximately 1,000 EmPower+ program participants with tailored bill assistance to ensure they pay no more than six percent of their annual household income toward electricity costs. To be eligible for the guarantee, the customer’s home must meet the income eligibility standard for low-income programs, which is...

KYIV, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Ukraine will need $20 billion in investments to develop its renewable power sector under a plan which seeks to boost its share in the country's energy mix to 27% by 2030, the government said on Tuesday. The country's energy sector has lost half of its generating capacity as a result of Russian missile and drone attacks, which intensified in spring 2024, forcing it to rely on its nuclear plants as well as solar and wind generation. The plan approved by the government aims to add around 10,000 megawatt of new generation facilities. The share of...