Free Republic

DOGE: While teachers scrape by, union "executives" like Randi Weingarten gorge themselves on salaries nearly eight times higher, raking in close to $600,000 a year. They neither teach a single child nor train a single teacher. They are not educators, they are parasites, draining a system they pretend to serve. ... She also flies in a private jet.

Democrats love to portray themselves as the compassionate ones. They just want to help people, especially the poor and downtrodden. When you ask them about illegal immigration, they will tell you that these are just poor people looking for a better life for themselves and their families. That's why they were perfectly okay with a wide-open southern border and letting millions of people into the country. It was all about compassion. However, as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) continues to dig into the twisted story of America's finances, we are finding out that the compassion ruse is just that,...

The response from the EU is exactly what we would expect to see from the end of the 80-year-old Marshal Plan.EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyden has three big concerns with the new trade/tariff reset. I strongly suggest everyone to read the EU concerns slowly to fully absorb decades of hypocrisy now surfacing:#1 The EU will not be able to compete for U.S. market share with 20% general tariffs and 25% auto tariffs.#2 The EU must deploy countermeasures against the risk of losing industrial capacity and manufacturing to the United States.And #3 The EU must defend itself against China...

One of the seven small federal agencies that President Donald Trump ordered downsized or eliminated on Friday was rife with corruption, with its employees hiring friends and relatives, commissioning paintings of themselves, and using government credit cards to indulge in constant luxuries. The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) occupied a nine-story office tower on D.C.’s K Street for only 60 employees, many of whom actually worked from home, prior to the pandemic. Its managers had luxury suites with full bathrooms; one manager would often be “in the shower” when she was needed, while another used her bathroom as a...

Board members of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a private nonprofit created by Congress, filed a lawsuit seeking to halt what they call an illegal takeover by the Trump administration that steps on congressional power. The institute and five board members accused Trump administration officials — including the Department of Government Efficiency, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others — of illegally taking over the institute, including a dramatic physical takeover of the building this week. The lawsuit, filed late Tuesday, detailed efforts from officials, which included enlisting private contractors, Washington police and the Justice Department, to gain access to...

An anisakid worm (circled in red) in a canned salmon fillet. (Natalie Mastick/University of Washington) ============================================================================================= Canned salmon are the unlikely heroes of an accidental back-of-the-pantry natural history museum, with decades of Alaskan marine ecology preserved in brine and tin. Parasites can tell us a lot about an ecosystem, because they're usually up in the business of several species. But unless they cause some major problem to humans, historically we haven't paid them much attention. That's a problem for parasite ecologists, like Natalie Mastick and Chelsea Wood from the University of Washington, who had been searching for a way to...

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif) warned "Trump is provoking the folks who depend on the government taking care of them to rise up and strike back. By breaking the covenant between them and the government they've relied on their whole lives he's put them in a desperate situation where their only option is to fight back." "Just think of the single moms who need money to take care of their children," Waters urged. "The retirees waiting for their Social Security checks to put food on the table. The government employees who depend on their paychecks to support themselves and their families....

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom's Department of Finance on Wednesday notified state lawmakers that California will need a $3.44 billion loan to cover costs associated with the state's Medicaid program known as Medi-Cal. The letter did not specify why exactly the program fell short on funds. While experts note there are many factors that go into Medicaid costs, some are pointing to the money the state spends providing health insurance to undocumented people.

They’re getting out of Dodge. Migrants shacked up at Big Apple shelters are jittery over promised ICE raids on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration Monday — and many are ditching their tax-funded digs to duck deportation. “It is better to leave before,” Venezuelan migrant Kervin Nava, 31, said outside a Long Island City shelter Sunday. “I am making arrangements, somewhere else.” One Manhattan migrant who asked to be identified only as Rafael said the fear has gripped his shelter. “It’s in God’s hands, but there are people who have started leaving the hotels because they’re scared,” he told The...

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) walked away from the counter at a cafe without paying, with Walz’s daughter revealing that “someone will be up” to pay. Video footage posted to X appeared showed the two men walking away from the counter after Walz’s daughter tells them she will “wait” for the tea and informs a worker behind the counter that a campaign staffer is coming to the counter to pay. “I’ll wait for your tea,” Walz’s daughter says as the two men walk away.

Last night’s debate made clear what DSA and the hundreds of thousands of voters who supported Uncommitted in the primaries have been saying for months: Biden must drop out. Biden was elected in 2020 because young people, people of color, and the working class rejected Donald Trump’s far-right politics. It was these voters who prevented a second Trump term with the highest turnout in an election in decades. Yesterday, these same voters witnessed a man who is unfit to lead. During the debate, both candidates repeatedly fought to appear the most pro-cop, pro-war, and anti-immigration, and ignored questions on issues...

Legal challenges by conservative lawmakers and activists against guaranteed basic income programs are heating up nationwide. And one of their arguments is surprising: Some say the programs are discriminatory because they are not universal. Numerous cities and counties are experimenting with guaranteed basic incomes to support their most vulnerable populations. They typically offer no-strings-attached monthly payments between $500 and $1,000 to specific groups, like new moms, Black women, or trans people, all of them low-income residents. Guaranteed basic income programs differ from their idealistic cousin — a universal basic income. UBI, made famous by Andrew Yang during the 2016 presidential...

A group of migrants staying at an encampment in Denver sent a list of demands to the mayor’s desk. That group said if their demands are met, they will voluntarily stay in city-funded shelters and leave their encampment where families, including young children, still live in tents. he migrants have been lobbied by Denver Human Services to get off the street and into shelters — an offer that remains, according to city officials. But they are holding out and said the city has reneged on its deal with them, while the city maintains it will continue to offer services to...

When the Romans expanded their empire across three continents, they probably seemed like the neat-freakiest people to attempt global domination. The Romans brought aqueducts, heated public baths, flushing toilets, sewers and piped water. They even had multiseat public bathrooms decked out with contour toilet seats, a sea sponge version of toilet paper and hand-washing stations.

Tuberculosis carried by illegal migrants has already infected Texas cattle, but a longtime veterinarian says flesh-eating parasites could be next. Mass migration exposes the United States’ food supply to diseases and parasites that could ultimately affect national security, animal health experts told The Epoch Times. With unfettered illegal immigration—some 9 million encounters since 2021—the normal guardrails for inspection are ignored, raising the likelihood of unwanted diseases being brought across the border. Dr. Michael Vickers has been a veterinarian for about 50 years and served on the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC), The threat to the food supply is already apparent...

New documents show the rising public cost of sheltering migrants in Massachusetts, as the state grapples with a strain on its emergency shelter system. The state has 17 contracts totaling $116 million to house migrant families through June, including a no-bid $10 million contract for a company providing meals, CBS News Boston reported, citing documents obtained by the outlet. In some cases, the state is paying hotels $64 per person each day for meals, including $16 for breakfast, $17 for lunch and $31 for dinner. Last August, Massachusetts Governor Maura T. Healey declared a state of emergency, saying the state...

CHICAGO -- Mayor Brandon Johnson is pushing a plan that would end natural gas hookups in new buildings and homes as the city aims to phase out fossil fuels that intensify the climate crisis, but the idea is already drawing resistance from some unions. Johnson plans to introduce a "clean" buildings ordinance Wednesday that would end new gas hookups for cooking, heating and hot-water tanks and require electric power instead. The idea has been kicked around Chicago in recent years. In October 2022, City Hall announced that outside advisers, including advocacy organizations, had recommended a ban as part of a...

The migrant crisis in Denver has plunged the city's main public hospital deep into the red after patients received $136 million in treatment they couldn't pay for. Denver Health lost $2 million in 2022 - but that was substantially-reduced by a $20 million cash injection from the state. In 2022, the hospital system lost $35 million, with bosses warning of 'dire consequences' for the hospital if 2024 is as bad as the previous two. The rise in costs has coincided with the unprecedented number of immigrants who crossed America's border and arrived in Denver. Around 36,000 have arrived so far...

When House Speaker Mike Johnson and 60 GOP members of Congress went to Eagle Pass, Texas, recently for a photo-op, they were probably shocked that the first question they were asked was for a show of hands of those who would shut down the government if President Biden doesn’t shut the border. You see, that question actually frames unrestricted immigration at the southern border as the existential national crisis which it is. No wonder Texas Republican Rep. Pat Fallon lost it and immediately shouted, “We’re not gonna do ‘show of hands.’ We’re not in a classroom. We’re not doing ‘show...

Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler believes migrants — but not Americans and their children — are the “lifeblood ” of the United States. Nadler, who is the top Democrat on the House judiciary committee, made the visceral claim at a hearing Thursday as he denounced criticism of migration into the United States and his home city of New York: