Free Republic

Welfare fraud under $25,000 in California could be decriminalized due to Senate Bill 560, which was introduced by State Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D) in February. The bill would decriminalize welfare fraud under that amount in the state for administrative errors, Fox News reported on Monday. According the outlet’s Bill Melugin, “Smallwood-Cuevas represents a large chunk of Los Angeles County, including Mar Vista, West LA, Baldwin Hills, Ladera Heights, Century City, Playa Vista, and part of downtown LA.,” he wrote in a social media post on Monday:

The U.S. no longer represents the values of freedom therefore it should send the Statue of Liberty back to France, a Socialist French Euro-deputy demanded Sunday. Raphael Glucksmann, of the Socialists and Democrats group, told a cheering convention of his Place Publique leftist movement how disappointed he is in the U.S. and why it should not keep what was originally a gift from France: Give us back the Statue of Liberty. We’re going to say to the Americans who have chosen to side with the tyrants, to the Americans who fired researchers for demanding scientific freedom: ‘Give us back the...

A transgender Minnesota lawmaker has argued that President Donald Trump’s expected executive order to ban those who identify as trans from serving in the U.S. military “will only make our military less ready.” State Rep. Leigh Finke (D), a biological man who identifies as a woman, became Minnesota’s first transgender legislator in 2023, Breitbart News reported. In a Monday segment with CNN’s Pamela Brown, the activist politician addressed reports of the incoming executive order, which is aimed at reinstating Trump’s ban on openly transgender enlistees and prohibition of military-funded medical transitions from his first term in office. “There is no...

Iranian member of Parliament Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani said in an interview this weekend that he believed his country had successfully developed a nuclear weapon, contrary to international law, but would not admit to it. Ardestani claimed that Iran would still claim to be abiding by the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” (JCPOA), the 2015 agreement brokered by American President Barack Obama that dramatically reduced sanctions on Tehran in exchange for promises not to expand its nuclear development. Iran has consistently violated the nuclear deal for years; President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018 but the other four countries...

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) became the third GOP member of Congress to be “swatted” during this week’s holiday recess, following earlier false reports to law enforcement of incidents at the homes of Reps. Brandon Williams (R-NY) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). “Last night, while at dinner with my wife, cowards ‘swatted’ my home in Naples. These criminals wasted the time & resources of our law enforcement in a sick attempt to terrorize my family,” Scott posted Thursday on X. The Republican senator also thanked the Naples Police Department and the Collier County Sheriff’s Department “for all they do to keep...

An opposition MP has been arrested and detained on suspicion of treason in Ukraine, with the nation’s security service claiming to have collected evidence of him spreading Russian propaganda. Nestor Shufrych, a member of the Opposition Platform — For Life party that was banned by President Volodymyr Zelensky through martial law measures last March following the Russian invasion, is facing 15 years in prison on suspicion of high treason. He is alleged to have spread the “Kremlin’s false narratives that the Ukrainian state is ‘an artificial entity’, that Ukraine and Russia ‘have one history’, and that Ukrainians and Russians are...

A Queens lawmaker has introduced legislation to spread the burden of dealing with the migrant crisis across New York State, as the Big Apple continues to struggle to handle the influx of asylum seekers. In one of the bills put forward by Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar in Albany Thursday, local governments would be barred from blocking asylum seekers from being housed in their counties through emergency orders.

The man busted for the hit-and-run crash that killed five young women getting ready for a wedding in Minnesota is the son of a fiery Black Lives Matter protest leader-turned-politician — who was ultimately booted by the Democrats over his shocking history of domestic violence arrests. Derrick Thompson, 27 — the son of ex-state rep. John Thompson — was busted on suspicion of murder Monday over the horrifying caught-on-camera crash that killed Sabiriin Ali, 17, Sahra Gesaade, 20, Salma Abdikadir, 20, Sagal Hersi, 19, and Siham Adam, 19. He already has a long history of convictions — including a felony...

We’ve been seeing people who might have normally identified themselves as liberals in the past now flipping over and voting for Republicans because the Democrats have moved so far to the left.Twitter CEO Elon Musk posted a graphic last year that explained it and why he was now voting Republican for the first time.pic.twitter.com/Q9OjlJhi7f— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 28, 2022He doesn’t think he’s moved; he thinks, as many Democrats do, that the party has left him.You see it in folks like Bill Maher — although still a Dem, he gets how far left they’ve moved with the woke insanity, for...

Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) on Sunday said she hopes President Biden will eventually visit Ukraine and meet with that country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. “I hope President Biden will actually someday to make here to meet with President Zelensky,” Spartz, the first Ukrainian-born member of Congress, told co-anchor Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Sunday made made it known that she agreed with a fellow GOP congress member who called former President Trump a "would-be tyrant." Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.) on Saturday condemned Trump following a rally in South Carolina, calling him a "disaster" and a "would-be tyrant." Rice accused Trump of being "consumed by spite."

House Transportation Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., will retire at the end of this Congress. DeFazio, who will step down after serving in the House of Representatives for 36 years, becomes the 19th Democratic lawmaker to retire or run for different office in 2022 elections, as the party tries to defend it's razor thin majority in the chamber. Twelve House Republicans are retiring or seeking another office next year.

A 21-year-old Kansas state lawmaker was arrested on Saturday for the second time in a month, prompting more calls for his resignation or ouster from office. State Rep. Aaron Coleman (D), who represents Kansas City, Kansas, in the state legislature, was arrested by a state trooper at around 1 a.m. on Saturday on suspicion that he was driving while intoxicated, according to The Associated Press. He was detained on Interstate 70 near Lawrence and taken to the Douglas County Jail. He was released after posting bond, according to the AP.

A Connecticut lawmaker compared Gov. Ned Lamont to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler over the state’s vaccine policy, saying “this is no longer land of the free.” State Rep. Anne Dauphinais, a vocal critic of Lamont, likened the Democrat to the genocidal dictator who killed millions of European Jews and others between 1933 and 1945 over Lamont’s COVID-19 vaccine policy for state employees, the Hartford Courant reported. “King Lamont aka Hitler dictating what we must inject into our bodies to feed our family!” Dauphinais wrote in a reply late Thursday to a Facebook post by CT News Junkie.

A Michigan lawmaker told a fellow legislator whom he briefly dated that he’d make it his “life mission to destroy” her and hoped her “car explodes,” court records show. Rep. Steve Marino, a third-term Republican from Harrison Township, also warned Democratic Rep. Mari Manoogian to “hide on the House floor” in a series of text messages as they discussed business for the House Commerce and Tourism Committee, according to screenshots in Michigan court records obtained by the Detroit News. “You’re truly the worst human being I’ve ever met,” Marino, 32, wrote Manoogian, a 29-year-old Birmingham Democrat whom the GOP lawmaker...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina’s elections board sent to prosecutors Wednesday the case of a state House member whom investigators allege failed to report over $140,000 in campaign contributions expenditures over several years. The elections panel voted unanimously to send their findings involving Democratic Rep. Rodney Moore of Charlotte and his campaign to the Mecklenburg County district attorney for possible charges. The board decided there is “clear and convincing evidence” that false campaign reports were signed while treated under oath as complete and correct, as well as that unlawful spending of campaign contributions occurred.

© Provided by The Hill Multiple siblings of Rep. Paul Gosar are coming out in support of his Democratic opponent, accusing the Arizona Republican of racism. The Phoenix New Times reported that Democratic House candidate David Brill unveiled a series of ads at a fundraiser on Thursday that feature Gosar's siblings denouncing the conservative four-term congressman. Six of Gosar's sblings - Tim, Jennifer, Gaston, Joan, Grace, and David - decry his views on policies such as health care and immigration, adding that their brother's positions have torn the family apart.

Democrat lawmaker and Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Tim Walz (MN-1) went off script during a meeting with constituents this week. The far left Congressman could no longer pretend that “the ACA is doing fine.” Walz may be regretting his vote for Obamacare, admitting it’s “failing his constituents in a lot of ways.” He’s right. Late last year, Minnesota’s insurance regulator said the state’s individual market was on “the brink of collapse” and raised Obamacare rates by 50 to 67% on Minnesotans. That is a disaster.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An Oklahoma state senator was booked Thursday on child prostitution charges for allegedly hiring a 17-year-old boy for sex, leading to calls for his resignation and a separate internal investigation into his years of work with a youth program. Ralph Shortey, a 35-year-old conservative Republican who has a wife and three young daughters, surrendered to authorities on charges of engaging in child prostitution, transporting a minor for prostitution and engaging in prostitution within 1,000 feet of a church. He was released after about two hours on a $100,000 bond. "I have no comment at this time,...

A Congresswoman who is “sick and tired” of drug testing welfare recipients has introduced a bill in Congress that would subject the rich to many of those same requirements. Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., unveiled Thursday the Top 1% Accountability Act, which would require those claiming itemized deductions of more than $150,000 on their tax returns to submit to drug tests or file for less generous tax deductions. The proposal is a shot across the bow at Republican governors in states, including Moore’s home state of Wisconsin, that require the recipients of certain welfare benefit programs to be drug tested in...