Free Republic

California legislators have grilled the state’s top librarian about huge sums of money tied to a statewide literacy program linked to country music legend Dolly Parton that are missing. And it’s the kids who may suffer. Greg Lucas, the state’s top librarian, has been accused of failing to account for almost $650,000 related to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library during, a literacy initiative meant to deliver free books to young children across the state. “You don’t have receipts requested six times. You don’t have bank statements requested six times from this committee,” Republican State Sen. Shannon Grove said during a budget...

The Obama Foundation is looking for 100 unpaid volunteers to work alongside the former president’s highly paid cronies at the $850 million Obama Presidential Center in Chicago when it opens in June. Officials are pitching the no-paycheck gigs as rooted in former President Barack Obama’s legacy of civic engagement. The recruitment campaign comes after Fox News Digital reported that the organization’s CEO, former top Obama aide Valerie Jarrett, was paid $740,000 in 2024. Foundation officials told Fox News Digital the volunteers will complement about 300 full- and part-time employees at the long-delayed center, which the organization is promoting as a...

My solution is simple and market based – make colleges co-sign or share default risk on any federally backed loan The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals just slammed the door on the Biden era’s SAVE student loan repayment plan. On Monday the court told a district judge to approve the Trump administration’s settlement with Missouri and kill the program for good. More than seven million borrowers who had been coasting in forbearance for a year and a half now face the music. They will have to switch to one of the old repayment options or start writing real checks. It...

https://x.com/SwipeWright/status/2032317362746048666 Colin Wright @SwipeWright·15h "Why did you identify this as one of the craziest grants?" "Because it references feminist and queer insights into prison abolition and LGBTQ studies.""Any other reasons?" "No." Legendarily based. @grokThis is the deposition of Nathan Cavanaugh, a young DOGE staffer at GSA. It's part of a lawsuit by the American Council of Learned Societies, American Historical Association, and Modern Language Association challenging the Trump admin's termination of NEH grants. Plaintiffs claim the process (quick keyword/AI scans for DEI/LGBTQ/feminist references like this prison abolition one) bypassed peer review and violated laws. The depo questions how DOGE flagged/cut...

Last week, Netflix made one of its biggest acquisition moves yet, buying InterPositive, an AI company co-founded by Ben Affleck. While the financial details were not initially disclosed, sources told Bloomberg the deal could be worth as much as $600 million.

Gov. Gavin Newsom had helped set up a state government agency for his wife and then a quasi-government non-profit to which he has directed millions of dollars which in turn helped promote yet another non-profit that puts millions of dollars in the pockets of the Newsoms. That convoluted arrangement may explain why Newsom won’t turn over his tax returns. Gov. Newsom promised to be the first California governor to release his tax returns every year, but media outlets have been grumbling that the last time he released a tax return was quite a few years ago when he was legally...

The scandal-plagued Obama Presidential Center in Chicago already stirred up plenty of controversy. Now the money trail surrounding it raises even more uncomfortable questions about how former President Barack Obama’s inner circle is cashing in while taxpayers get screwed over. New federal tax filings reveal the staggering salaries flowing through the Obama Foundation as construction of the $850 million Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park nears completion. The foundation will operate the massive 19.3-acre campus, which sits on publicly owned Chicago parkland. The project includes a museum, an athletic center, and a public library branch. It will not operate as...

As construction nears completion on the long-delayed $850 million Obama Presidential Center, federal tax filings show the Obama Foundation paid CEO Valerie Jarrett $740,000 in 2024 while several former Obama White House officials collected six-figure salaries as foundation executives. The Obama Foundation — which will operate the 19.3-acre center on publicly owned Chicago parkland — paid its CEO more than any other major presidential foundation. Salaries and benefits soared from $18.5 million in 2018 to $43.7 million in 2024, as staffing expanded to 337 employees and annual revenue reached nearly $210 million. Jarrett, one of the Obamas’ closest advisors, took...

The global order is no fan of Iran. Atlantic writer and former National Endowment for Democracy board member Anne Applebaum has consistently named Iran, alongside Russia and China, as one of the three greatest autocracies threatening the world. Senator Chris Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a speaker at the Council on Foreign Relations, drew an explicit parallel during the 2022 Mahsa Amini massacres, declaring, “Just as we stood together with the people of Ukraine during their revolution of dignity, the United States must continue standing with the people of Iran.” One might think that these...

A Black Lives Matter founder in Illinois was caught on camera in a violent office confrontation with a female worker who accused him of misusing the organization's money, a report said. The violent clash erupted into shoving, grabbing and a physical struggle along a corridor at the group's headquarters, according to a police report. Police in Waukegan, Illinois, were called to the Black Lives Matter Lake County Resource Center on January 12 after reports of a battery involving the group's founder, Clyde J. McLemore, and project manager Nyesha A. Hill. Surveillance footage and police reports detail a heated confrontation that...

Gov. Tim Walz denounced the Trump administration’s latest threat to withhold federal funds from Minnesota as another step in a “retribution” campaign as he unveiled a package of legislation Thursday intended to fight fraud in public programs, a persistent problem that provided an impetus for the federal government’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. The Democratic governor made the announcement a day after Vice President JD Vance said the administration would “temporarily halt” some Medicaid funding to Minnesota over fraud concerns, as part of what he described as an aggressive drive against the misuse of public funds. Walz’s proposals were in the...

Fire victims in Pacific Palisades say they are frustrated and confused after receiving brush clearance bills from the City of Los Angeles for properties where their homes once stood. What we know: Nearly 14 months after last year’s deadly fire destroyed thousands of homes across the community, some residents say they were mailed $31 notices citing alleged noncompliance with brush clearance rules — even though their lots remain empty and covered mostly in dirt. "This is one final blow. After everything that happened, they’re still trying to take money," said resident Christine Martinez, whose home was destroyed in the fire....

LATEST Feb. 18, 12:45 p.m. The CEO of California’s High-Speed Rail Authority is on voluntary leave after an arrest earlier this month at his Sacramento-area home, multiple outlets reported. Politico and the Los Angeles Times both reported that the rail authority confirmed Ian Choudri’s leave. The rail authority did not respond to SFGATE’s inquiry. “While CEO Choudri has informed the California High-Speed Rail Authority Board that he is not aware of any evidence of wrongdoing, he has voluntarily agreed to take a temporary leave to allow the Board and our parent agency, the California State Transportation Agency, to fully review...

California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom has unloaded on reporters at a Sacramento press conference about Planned Parenthood — accusing the mostly female journalists of inflicting a “horrific war on women” by not asking on-topic questions. The rant was part of a Siebel Newsom press blitz Wednesday after the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom was featured in a glossy Marie Claire profile that discussed her marriage, activist documentaries, as well as her husband saying she’d be an ”extraordinary” First Lady, as he continues. “I think she’d be extraordinary in that role, even if she married someone else and they...

In the dystopian novel 1984, George Orwell wrote, “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” The true meaning of that line was never more clear than watching the truly bizarre photo op of California governor Gavin Newsom heralding the success of the greatest boondoggle in history: his high-speed train to nowhere. Without laying a single yard of track after burning $12 billion, Newsom showed a diesel freight train on a conventional track to create the appearance of a working railroad.I have been writing about this boondoggle for...

Construction on part of the High-Speed Rail project came to a halt on Wednesday as crews battled a fire at the Church Avenue overpass in southeast Fresno. "There's a lot of plywood and lumber that's involved in this," Josh Sellers with Fresno Fire said. Workers, all unharmed, watched as firefighters attacked from above. "We have the railroad tracks here that we ended up having to close down and stop the trains because we have a ladder truck in place that's blocking the tracks," Sellers said.

U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk despaired Thursday his agency is “in survival mode” due to funding shortfalls driven by a lack of U.S. taxpayer dollars. Such is his fear for the future Turk launched a $400 million appeal for cash to help the U.N. Human Rights Office survive 2026, AFP reports. The unelected Austrian’s panicked plea comes after U.N. chief Antonio Guterres warned last Friday the world body is on the brink of financial collapse and could run out of cash by July, as he urged countries to pay their dues, as Breitbart News reported. The U.N.’s largest contributor,...

Do you remember that high-speed rail project in California that was supposed to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco and be completed in 2020? Well, it's finally ready to begin laying track on a much shorter section on a ludicrously bigger budget. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) proudly announced that the high-speed rail has entered the track-laying phase. In his words, “We are now in the process of starting to lay track.” (Emphasis added). This is not for the full Los Angeles-San Francisco line that was supposed to be done six years ago, but for a 119-mile stretch from Madera County...

The No. 1 job of a mayor, above everything else, is to keep his or her city functioning. Yet with people dying on the cold streets of New York and trash building up in parts of the city, New York is by no means functioning. Not even close. The snow and frigid temps have tested Gotham’s socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani and, alas, he has not risen to the occasion. Rather, he’s left the city a mess. Everest-size mountains of garbage have popped up. Unremoved snow, ice and road salt have damaged Con Edison electrical equipment, contributing to power outages. Most...

BALTIMORE (WBFF) — A nonprofit tied to Mayor Brandon Scott’s wife stopped operations after receiving roughly $100,000 in taxpayer money, leaving unanswered questions about whether those funds will be returned. ...