Free Republic

Congressional Republicans are making a last-ditch effort to gut the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) green energy subsidies via President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill.” The House Ways and Means Committee unveiled a draft bill Monday afternoon to repeal several IRA subsidies including those for electric vehicles and so-called clean hydrogen while preserving tax credits for carbon sequestration, biofuels and advanced manufacturing, which primarily benefit solar and battery storage projects. Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma’s Energy Freedom Act would take an even more aggressive approach by proposing a...

The dollar keeps losing value with accelerated devaluation appearing inevitable, stocks seem inflated, and bonds don't seem good either. Gold and silver seem poised to go much higher, but the fees seem high for precious metal IRAs. Thoughts?

Wagner Group commander Dmitry Utkin was reportedly among the 10 people killed in a plane crash north of Moscow that also is believed to have claimed the life of Yevgeny Prigozhin. Utkin, a former Russian military intelligence officer, has Nazi tattoos on his body. He helped co-found the militant group and came up with the name “Wagner,” which derived from Adolf Hilter’s favorite composer, Richard Wagner. According to reports, Utkin and Prigozhin were just two of Wagner's top men who were listed as passengers on the flight.

The office of Russia’s infamous troll factory believed to be at the vanguard of Russia’s information war has been set on fire in St. Petersburg overnight. An investigation revealed last year that the secretive troll factory had rebranded itself as a media conglomerate with 16 news websites generating more than 30 million pageviews every month. Its operational hub, a website called FAN (Federal News Agency), is based a stone’s throw from the troll farm’s original location in northern St. Petersburg. The Fontanka.ru news website cited police as saying that an unknown suspect broke the agency’s ground-floor window and threw a...

A survivor of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings said she still carries the psychological scars of the atrocity 50 years on. Twenty-one people died in The Mulberry Bush and the Tavern in the Town after a vague IRA warning gave inadequate time to evacuate. Another 220 people were injured. Robyn Tighe, who had just turned 19 when she was caught up in the blasts, told a new BBC documentary: "I’m a survivor with scars." Memorial services are being held in Birmingham on Thursday to mark the anniversary of the bombings, for which no-one has been held responsible. Although six men...

In the wake of the election of President Donald Trump to serve a second term in office, along with presumptive Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, many are now asking about what the future will hold for the oddly named Inflation Reduction Act. Trump made it repeatedly clear on the campaign trail that he is not a fan of that law, which was passed on straight party-line votes in both houses of Congress, or of the hundreds of billions of dollars in green energy subsidies contained in it. But a full repeal of the IRA seems unlikely to succeed,...

(The Center Square) – Medicare premiums and senior citizens' prescription drug costs have surged since passage of the $891 billion Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, according to data compiled by an advocate for seniors on the federal health care program. The legislation promised financial relief for millions of people with Medicare by expanding benefits, lowering drug costs, and strengthening Medicare for future seniors. Medicare Is for Seniors' "Misery Index," as the report is known, says prescription drug costs instead have risen nationally by 31%, leaving seniors with new expenses and fewer options. Those costs will rise again under the new...

Irish President Michael Higgins accuses Israel of leaking the full text of a letter he sent to Iran’s new president as he was sworn in in July, an allegation rejected and denounced by the Israeli embassy. The July 11 letter congratulating Masoud Pezeshkian — whose existence was made public on July 26 by Ireland’s Foreign Ministry but whose full text was then published online on July 29 — drew backlash for its friendly nature; its claim that Iran will play a “crucial role” in achieving Middle East stability, cooperation and “peaceful resolving of disputes”; and its omission of Tehran’s major...

The Democrats let President Joe Biden back into the wild this week after he disappeared during the Democratic National Convention, hid in California and then napped on the beach in Delaware. It was a nearly three-week absence, and his latest appearance in a key swing state proves why they’re happy to have him missing in action. During an event in Wisconsin, Biden finally admitted that the “Inflation Reduction Act” was deceptively named and didn’t actually reduce inflation. In fact, it increased prices through excess spending and was a giant, corrupt handout to the so-called “green” energy industry. It’s why I’ve...

The $400 billion federal clean-energy lending program that has faced criticism for moving too slow is stepping up efforts to push cash out the door before the election. The Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office was turbocharged by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which gave it hundreds of billions of dollars to lend to clean-energy businesses. So far, it has only used a tiny fraction of that capacity. Biden administration officials fear that if Donald Trump is elected, the office would stop making loans. The program was largely dormant while Trump was president. “The election is everything,” said Adam Forgie, the...

Footage of Prigozhin shows how the slain leader predicted Ukraine's shock offensive. THE slain chief of the notorious Wagner mercenary group predicted Russia would come under siege from Ukraine before Vlad had him killed. Warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin died when his plane was blown out of the sky in August 2023, allegedly on Putin's orders. He led the private Russian military unit that was called in to assist the Kremlin's quest to illegally conquer Ukraine and became increasingly frustrated with how war efforts were organised. Fed up with the Ministry of Defence, Prigozhin eventually threatened a coup against Moscow - a...

As Russia’s ruling elite one-by-one fall down stairs or out windows, another star is rising. Now speculation is mounting that “Putin’s Chef” is preparing to step out of the kitchen. He started out with a catering business. He quickly became part of President Vladimir Putin’s inner sanctum. He’s now behind Russia’s cyber warriors and a host of online trolls. And he has his own mercenary army. Yevgeny Prigozhin is becoming increasingly bold. He’s spruiking his Wagner Group mercenaries as Russia’s most effective fighting force. He’s waging a verbal war against key Putin appointees. He’s winning public support among extremists who...

'The program is in a death spiral,' former domestic policy adviser to former President Trump says In a move critics say is designed to shield the Biden-Harris administration from election fallout, the administration has leveraged taxpayer funds to mask upcoming increases in Medicare premiums. Under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was intended to cap out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries, insurers are poised to significantly hike monthly premiums, with average bids for Part D plans expected to triple by 2025. In response to potential voter backlash, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) rolled out a three-year "demonstration...

Sectarian violence was rekindled in Northern Ireland on Saturday night as police were attacked with petrol bombs following a pro-unionist demonstration that took place in the city. At least 10 police officers were injured in Londonderry on Saturday evening after they came under assault by a reported group of Irish nationalist youths during “several hours of disorder” on Nailors Row.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) and Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) called out grant recipients from the Inflation Reduction Act that they say are "anti-American."

Progressive activist groups from across the country are preparing to protest outside the Democratic National Convention “with or without permits” come August. Coalition leaders have attested their right to be within “sight and sound” of the convention’s center stage at the United Center, citing First Amendment rights in a federal lawsuit filed last month. On Saturday, leaders reaffirmed their commitment to be heard outside the DNC, despite the city’s denial of protest permits closer to the convention’s site. A couple of hundred people representing 78 activist organizations gathered Saturday for a day-long “working conference” hosted by the March on the...

The phrase “pension benefits” may come up a lot in the next several days as negotiations between the United Auto Workers union and the Big Three automakers go down to the wire to avert a strike. But for most private-sector US workers, pensions disappeared long ago. In a traditional pension, employers contribute, invest and manage retirement funds for their workers, who then receive guaranteed monthly checks for life after they retire. But over the past several decades, employers have either closed or frozen their pensions and turned instead to retirement savings vehicles like the 401(k), which put much more of...

Before anybody can claim that I am circulating a conspiracy theory, or citing an unreliable “news” source, I am going to quote President Biden’s State of the Union address and his own website (whitehouse.gov) as the sources of this information. I will then encourage readers to circulate this information as widely as possible via social media, letters to the editor, and talk radio to educate the public between now and Election Day. The State of the Union address says in part, “Under my plan nobody earning less than $400,000 will pay an additional penny in federal taxes. ... It’s time...

Although it sounds too far-fetched to be true, Americans don’t actually own the stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and other assets held in common retirement vehicles such as Roth IRA and 401(k) accounts. In reality, Americans own what are called “security entitlements.” Back in the old days, before digitalization fundamentally transformed the mechanics of financial transactions, this was not the case. But that was then. This is now. Most Americans have probably never heard of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), which is “a comprehensive set of laws governing all commercial transactions in the United States.” Even fewer Americans are familiar with...