Free Republic

First daughter Ashley Biden has paid off a tax lien for more than $5,000 in Pennsylvania after missing payments during her father’s vice presidency and presidency. The Keystone State’s Department of Revenue recorded that the $5,079 lien had been satisfied as of Jan. 3 and “should be removed” from records in Philadelphia County’s Court of Common Pleas, Fox News reported Tuesday. Ashley Biden, 42, had the legal claim placed on her property in a Dec. 1 notice previously obtained by The Post for failing to pay $1,691 in income taxes in 2015 — when Joe Biden was Barack Obama’s No....

Evidence including sworn impeachment inquiry testimony, confirmed emails and financial records increasingly show that President Joe Biden’s meetings with his son’s foreign clients were closely followed by payments and agreements that advanced his family’s business deals. House Republicans on Thursday subpoenaed new financial records belonging to Hunter Biden, his associates, and companies in a growing effort to find evidence that Joe Biden benefited personally from his son’s foreign dealings. Rep. Greg Steube agreed on the "Just the News, No Noise" television show on Thursday that Joe Biden played a “rainmaker” role in Hunter Biden’s business ventures. “We’ve known that all...

The Federal Reserve quietly lost a fortune in 2023 as interest it pays out to banks swamped the interest it earns on its bond portfolio, data released by the central bank Friday showed. The Fed said it lost roughly $114.3 billion in 2023, its largest-ever annual loss. The losses occurred because the money the Fed pays banks for reserves held at the central bank exceeded the interest earned on the mortgage bonds it holds. The Fed has been raising the interest rate paid on reserves alongside the hikes on the benchmark federal funds rate to stem the worst inflation in...

The media U.S. mortgage payment was down nearly $400 in December from its October peak, enticing some homebuyers back into the market, according to a Thursday report from real estate group Redfin. The median mortgage payment was $2,361 for the four week period ending in Dec. 31, Redfin found. That’s $372, or 14 percent, less than it was in October and the lowest average monthly payment in nearly a year. The weekly average mortgage rate, which hit a 23-year high of 7.79 percent in October, also fell to 6.61 percent at the end of December after the Federal Reserve signaled...

Amazon One: an easier way through your day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH_SVNVIfzk Amazon Rolls Out Palm-Scanning Contactless Payments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WaOq3wQlxI Amazon One, the new contactless way to pay with your palm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL48Gq2l_NY Amazon launches palm scan payment technology | NewsNation Now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBsm7EcS6Gs Amazon rolls out palm scanning payment at Whole Foods https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf7por-57yI Whole Foods shoppers will soon be able to pay with the palm of their hand https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-KZTrXLlCY You'll soon be able to pay with your handprint at U.S. Whole foods https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVwlkHHxzEM Palm-payment technology coming to all U.S. Whole Foods https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbZW_oCUlsg

High home prices and climbing mortgage rates continue to hamper affordability, pushing prospective buyers’ monthly payments to their highest level on record, according to a new report. Home prices posted their largest increase since December in a four-week period ending July 19, rising by 2.1 percent, the report from real estate brokerage Redfin showed. The second straight price jump in the last five months moved up the sale price of a typical home to $382,500. Rising prices, combined with stubborn mortgage rates that are nearing 7 percent, have pushed monthly payments for the typical home to a record high at...

Sometimes I wonder how Republicans get out of bed every morning without severely injuring themselves. Take a minute to hear the truth from a strange but accurate source: sex cult leader Osho. “Democracy basically means government by the people, of the people, for the people. But the people are retarded. So let us say government by the retarded, for the retarded, of the retarded.” I feel this. James Comer (R-Ky.) promised he was going to release evidence of financial misconduct by the Biden family. What we got instead of bank records is a memo written by the House Oversight Committee...

The cost of living crisis in the United Kingdom has seen nearly three-quarters of a million Britons miss a housing payment last month, according to data compiled by a leading consumer body. Research conducted by the British consumer advocate agency Which? found that an estimated 700,000 people in the UK missed or defaulted on a rent or mortgage payment in April. The consumer body reported that the problem paying for housing was “particularly high” among renters, with their figures finding that among those surveyed, one in 20 tenants had difficulties paying their housing bills, including energy costs and local council...

Monthly housing payments hit a record high this week after mortgage rates rose for the first-time in more than a month, according to data from real estate brokerage Redfin. The average 30-year fixed rate mortgage jumped to 6.39 percent this week, pushing up the typical homebuyer’s monthly payment to $2,538. At the same time a year ago, the average mortgage rate stood at 5.11 percent. This week’s rise in mortgage rates followed a dip in the number of new homes under construction, which could put even more pressure on would-be buyers. “There’s not much on the shelves to choose from,...

With a record 16% of American consumers paying at least $1,000 a month for their cars, it's no surprise that drivers are starting to fall behind on their bills. The percentage of borrowers at least 60 days late on their car payments is higher today than it was during the peak of the Great Recession in 2009.There are multiple factors driving this trend. Car financing costs are climbing as the Federal Reserve continues its aggressive campaign of interest rate hikes to combat persistent inflation. At the same time, used car values are dropping, leaving debtors at risk of owing more...

Student-loan borrowers are at risk of resuming student-loan payments in under two months without the debt relief they were promised. Just over a month after President Joe Biden announced up to $20,000 in student-debt cancellation at the end of August for federal borrowers making under $125,000 a year, he made available an online application for borrowers to apply for the relief. Since then, 26 million borrowers have submitted forms to get the relief — but due to decisions from federal courts, those borrowers are now in legal limbo. On Thursday, a federal judge in Texas sided with two student-loan borrowers...

Philip Bump of The Washington Post–the reporter who argues that information about the Paul Pelosi break in/assault should be hidden from the public–would be proud of the Biden Administration. They are actively hiding evidence of what they are doing with the $1.1 billion they have been sending to the Taliban.Wait, what? We are sending money to the Taliban? You know, those folks kicking girls out of school, executing our allies, killing people for being gay, and having just killed a bunch of our troops?Those Taliban?Yes, those Taliban.408 days have passed since Taliban banned teenage girls from school.Afghanistan is the ONLY...

The Department of Labor announced Thursday that 1,000 people have been charged for receiving $45.6 billion of fraudulent unemployment insurance (UI) payments since March 2020. The pandemic overwhelmed state offices responsible for distributing benefits, with 57 million people filing initial UI claims within five months of March 2020, the DOL-OIG reported. Fraudsters were successfully able to take advantage of the chaos, filing for claims in multiple states, using fraudulent emails and using the Social Security Numbers (SSN) of dead people and federal prisoners.. Federal and state governments together paid out roughly $794 in unemployment benefits between March 2020 and July...

More than $87 billion in unemployment benefits funded by the federal government was likely siphoned from the system during the Covid-19 pandemic, much of it due to fraud, according to a U.S. Department of Labor report. Congress authorized many new programs in the pandemic’s early days to support millions of workers who’d lost their jobs. Those programs, which ended on Labor Day this year, raised weekly benefits, extended the duration of aid and expanded the pool of jobless Americans eligible for payments. The federal government issued $872 billion in total benefits as of Sept. 30, according to an estimate from...

LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — A perfect economic storm of inflation, soaring gas prices and the unintended consequences of the federal pandemic relief programs is closing in on many car owners. “We’re talking, on average, 15,000 repos a day nationwide,” said Mark Zane, owner of a repossession company and president of the Nevada Association of Licensed Repossessors. Zane says repossessions were all but non-existent during the pandemic because banks were working with car owners to defer payments or help them get caught up. Those days are ending, however, and banks are taking the necessary steps to start the repossession process on...

In an effort to make it easier for customers to pay bills they receive by mail, the Pennsylvania Turnpike is linking with a national network that will accept cash at hundreds of convenience stores, drug stores and other outlets. The turnpike is partnering with the KUBRA Cash Payment Network to allow motorists to pay tolls or other turnpike fees at places such as 7-Eleven, CVS, Dollar General, Family Dollar, Sheetz and Walgreens, among others. The program — which includes a $1.50 surcharge for each transaction — is an attempt to make it easier for customers to pay and reduce the...

In the final chapter of his 1967 book "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community," Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proposed a bold approach to eliminating poverty. "The solution to poverty," he wrote, "is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income." Five decades later, the approach is being tested across the U.S. The idea is simple but controversial. People receive a set amount of money periodically with no strings attached. Advocates believe that this gives recipients, often in the most marginalized groups, freedom to spend it in ways that are most beneficial...

President Joe Biden called for the renewal of monthly government payouts to families, noting its success at reducing child poverty. “That child tax credit was really helpful and we gotta get that renewed,” Biden said Sunday, during a visit to Philabundance, a hunger relief organization in Philadelphia.

The Treasury Department and IRS said Monday they sent out the fifth batch of monthly child tax credit payments, disbursing more than $15 billion in payments to families that include about 61 million children. The agencies said they have sent out a total of about $77 billion in monthly payments since the program began in July. Families are eligible for payments of up to $300 per month for children under age 6, and up to $250 per month for children ages 6 to 17. The monthly child tax credit payments came about as a result of the coronavirus relief law...

On Tuesday, 146 GOP lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced the Illegal Immigrant Payoff Prohibition Act of 2021, to prevent the U.S. attorney general from making settlement payments to individuals and families who entered the United States illegally. The bill comes in response to reports that the Biden Administration “is planning to pay illegal immigrants who were separated from their families at the border up to $450,000 each, possibly a million dollars per family.”While Biden emphatically denied the payment reports, his deputy press secretary later contradicted him by confirming to Fox News that “the President is perfectly comfortable...