Free Republic

It has been reported that of the tens of millions in Fire Aid money distributed so far since the January benefit concerts for Los Angeles’ wildfire victims, all has gone to nonprofits, not directly to residents impacted. Sue Pasco, the editor at Circling the News who also lost her home in the Palisades fire, spoke with Fox 11 on the discovery. She said that a reader had sent her a message saying, "I’ve never seen any Fire Aid money. How do I apply for Fire Aid money?" What she discovered was that the initial $50 million given in the first...

Eighty billion dollars flushed down the toilet, as air traffic controllers were stuck using equipment dating from the Carter era. Democrat frontrunner for 2028 Pete Buttigieg, is the kind of guy who could give California's Gov. Gavin Newsom or Los Angeles's mayor, Karen Bass, a run for the money. Amid news of an aircraft near collision over North Dakota, following a disastrous similar military-civilian crash in Washington, D.C. in January, we learn this about how he ran the cabinet office he headed, the U.S. Department of Transportation. So while he was 'breast-feeding' his twins and telling us about his 'husband,'...

Los Angeles was devastated by wildfires back in January, and the area is still feeling the impacts of the disaster. So when $100 million was raised by two FireAid concerts at the Intuit Dome and Kia Forum in Inglewood, California, featuring acts such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, Billie Elish, and Jelly Roll, you'd have thought the money would make its way to fire victims. Well, it's not that simple. Sue Pascoe, editor-in-chief at Circling The News, has the story of how this money ended up not going to fire victims, but instead making its way to...

WASHINGTON — Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg failed to replace outdated air-traffic-control systems while in office — with his agency instead shelling out tens of billions of dollars on a DEI agenda, according to federal spending records and airline-industry insiders. What his department was really interested in was handing out hundreds of diversity, equity and inclusion grants totaling more than $80 billion over four years — at least half of the DOT’s entire budget for a typical fiscal year, records show.

Despite some claiming they spent money out of their own pockets, several Democrats spent thousands in campaign funds to visit illegal alien and alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, according to reporting by the New York Post. Democrats rallied around Abrego Garcia after they claimed he was wrongly deported by the Trump administration to his home country of El Salvador in March. Several Democrats, including representatives Maxwell Frost, D-Fla.; Robert Garcia, D-Calif., Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., Maxine Dexter, D-Ore.; and Glenn Ivey, D-Md., flew to El Salvador to advocate for Abrego Garcia’s return. The New York Post...

Anaheim will direct $250,000 to an assistance fund created to help families affected by the recent surge in federal immigration enforcement that will give grants for rent, utilities and other household expenses. Last month, the city partnered with the nonprofit Anaheim Community Foundation to launch Anaheim Contigo, which accepts donations from the community to fund emergency assistance grants for families affected by the sweeps. The $250,000 in new money for Anaheim Contigo, approved by a split 5-2 City Council on Tuesday, July 15, would significantly bolster the fund, which had received $35,000 in donations to date. ... Councilmembers Natalie Meeks...

Mayor Eric Adams on Friday struck a handshake deal with the City Council on a record-breaking nearly $116 billion budget — which would create a new department to regulate e-bikes, sources said. The tentative agreement includes $6.1 million for a new “Department of Sustainable Delivery,’’ which would be staffed by 60 people and dedicated to e-bike regulation and enforcement after a recent push by the Adams administration to rein in the two-wheelers. City Hall also agreed to give the council a major boost in funding for immigration services to the tune of $54.5 million, a source familiar with the deal...

The Adams administration has inked a nearly $1 billion no-bid contract with the hotel industry for emergency shelter space — despite boasting that the migrant crisis is tapering off, The Post has learned. Taxpayers are on the hook for the $929.1 million reupped with the Hotel Association of New York City Foundation as the total city population still includes a whopping 86,000 people, including homeless individuals and asylum seekers. “These hotel units will be used by social services vendors to house emergency shelter clients who have entered the [Department of Homeless Services] shelter system,” the agency said in a notice...

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is up for re-election next year. She may be vulnerable to primary challenges within her party, and some polls show Republicans within striking distance of her in the general election setting. She underperformed in 2022, when former Congressman and current EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin gave her all she could handle. At a recent hearing on Capitol Hill, Hochul demonstrated her ignorance about a string of heinous crimes committed by illegal immigrants who were shielded and protected by her reckless 'sanctuary' policies. Rep. Elise Stefanik, who may run for governor in 2026, made the most of...

To be honest, I for one am completely underwhelmed by the “largest deportation operation in American history.” Wake me up when we start deporting more illegals than Obummer and Crooked Joe, but, here’s a tip for ICE: Start at the shelters and hotels of Massachusetts.A new item out at Fox News reveals that state governor Maura Healey’s administration is on-track to spend more than one billion dollars on its “Emergency Assistance” program, which largely services illegal migrants, just in Fiscal Year 2025. Here’s the story:Gov. Maura Healey’s administration has already spent $830 million so far in FY25 – which started...

NY state governor Kathy Hochul announced the state of NY will pay $50 million dollars in lawyers' fees for migrants.

SACRAMENTO, California — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday suggested California consider withholding tens of billions in annual federal tax dollars amid reports Donald Trump is preparing funding cuts targeting the state.Newsom’s suggestion came after CNN reported the president was considering a “full termination” of federal grant funding for California’s universities.“Californians pay the bills for the federal government. We pay over $80 BILLION more in taxes than we get back,” the Democratic governor said in an X post Friday afternoon, referencing a recent analysis from the Rockefeller Institute that California contributed about $83 billion more in federal taxes in 2022 than...

DAVID BROOKS, NEW YORK TIMES: Yes, I'm not sure it was wreckage. There was wreckage if you're at NIH. There are wreckage at certain agencies, but the guy only saved $65 billion out of a multitrillion-dollar budget. So, as a budget matter, you would not say he had a big effect, but he did manage to destroy NIH and USAID. And the USAID one is the one I haven't gotten over. And so there's folks at Boston University who count, how many people have died because of what DOGE did at USAID? And USAID was a very ill-managed organization. That's...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has refused to bail out Los Angeles, which is facing a $1 billion deficit, in his latest budget proposal, as the state itself faces a massive $12 billion deficit. The Los Angeles Times reports: Deeper in the budget proposal, no salvation was found for L.A. And at a news conference Wednesday, Newsom said flatly that he did not plan to provide cash to help dig the city out of its budget hole. The city is facing a $1-billion shortfall due to inflated personnel costs, higher than ever liability lawsuit payouts and below-expected revenues. “The state’s...

Minnesota Democrats are doubling down on their radical agenda, pledging to “fight until the very end” to provide free health care to illegal immigrants, on the backs of hardworking taxpayers. As everyday Minnesotans struggle with rising premiums, longer wait times, and an overstretched health care system, progressive lawmakers are prioritizing illegal immigrants over legal residents. Dozens of Democrats from Minnesota’s Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) rallied outside the state House chamber on Friday to oppose a new policy that would end free health care for undocumented adult immigrants by year’s end, while still allowing coverage for children to continue. Protesters held signs...

It’s no secret Joe Biden’s team spent its final days shoveling money out the door, and in ways designed to limit Donald Trump’s ability to claw it back. Officials working under Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright have now completed a review of the Loan Programs Office (LPO)—the government entity that brought you Solyndra— and the extent of the shenanigans is remarkable. Figures and documents provided to me show a loan free-for-all: More than $90 billion showered on entities in a matter of months, a lot of it to companies of questionable taxpayer value. The highlights of DOE’s review: Unprecedented...

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) provided an update to one of the biggest scams uncovered by Elon Musk’s team on Wednesday evening. DOGE says it has saved approximately $105 billion in a “combination of asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings,” and other workforce reductions. The Democrats are angry that DOGE is saving American taxpayers money, so they devised a scheme to stop Elon Musk and his team. There are currently nearly a dozen lawsuits challenging DOGE over its authority, data access, and privacy laws. There is also a secret resistance...

On Friday President Trump released a budget blueprint for the next fiscal year that would take a chainsaw to social, environmental and education programs. Some of the sharpest cuts are directed at housing programs that are meant to serve the poor, housing insecure and unhoused. In California, millions are served by these funds and state and local governments depend on them to operate affordable housing, rental assistance, homeless service, planning and legal programs. In a letter to the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, the president’s budget director, Russel Vought, laid out $163 billion in annual spending cuts coupled with “unprecedented increases”...

Elon Musk & DOGE reveal Department of Education officials were using TAXPAYER DOLLARS to rent out STADIUMS and CAESAR'S PALACE for parties.. BLATANT THEFT. @elonmusk : "As soon as we started requiring them to upload receipts, all this spending STOPPED." ANOTHER reason to abolish the DoE! ... Everyone in governmenr does that. They have all of these conferences where they go and drink and eat and talk to each other and have little “panel discussions” to regurgitate information everyone always knows. I figured everyone knew about this grift? The community colleges in California would do 1-2 week retreats in Hawaii...

While media pundits and other high-profile Democrats have relentlessly fearmongered about President Trump’s plans to “gut” entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicaid, it turns out Gavin Newsom was quietly doing exactly that. From Kristen Hwang at CalMatters just yesterday: In 2022, California made sweeping changes to its Medi-Cal program that reimagined what health care could look like for some of the state’s poorest and sickest residents by covering services from housing to healthy food. But the future of that program, known as CalAIM, could be at risk under the Trump administration. In recent weeks, federal officials have signaled that...