Free Republic

Energy Secretary Chris Wright hinted that he would soon take action canceling billions of dollars' worth of Biden-era green energy loans that he said do not promote American energy security and are too risky for taxpayers. In an exclusive interview with the Washington Free Beacon, Wright took aim at how the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office dished out billions of dollars in loans during the final months of the Biden administration. While Wright stopped short of naming particular projects he may cancel loans for, he said the Trump administration would only look to support projects that directly benefit Americans...

Paediatric gender dysphoria has rapidly emerged as one of the most divisive and urgent issues in medicine today. In the past decade, the number of children and adolescents identifying as transgender or nonbinary has soared. In the US alone, diagnoses among youth aged 6 to 17 nearly tripled—from around 15,000 in 2017 to over 42,000 by 2021—signalling a seismic shift not only in culture but in clinical practice. Children diagnosed with gender dysphoria—a condition defined by distress related to one’s biological sex or associated gender roles—are increasingly being offered powerful medical interventions. These include puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and, in...

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...

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”...

Democrats on Thursday were bracing for a sustained attack on their fundraising operation by Republicans, as President Donald Trump targets ActBlue. Trump plans to direct Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the major online donation platform for what the administration cast as “unlawful ‘straw donor’ and foreign contributions to American elections” in a presidential memorandum on Thursday. “President Trump is taking action to address malign actors and foreign nationals who seek to illegally influence American elections, undermining the integrity of our electoral process,” a fact sheet detailing the memo obtained by POLITICO states. “ActBlue has become notorious for its lax...

The first RICO racketeering charges against members and associates of the migrant terrorist group Tren de Aragua were filed this week in New York. A statement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said that the case is part of "Operation Take Back America," which it said is a "nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Justice Department to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime." According to the statement, the charges filed...

Fighting against the wishes of their voters is a classic Republican pastime — and this week is no different.When they apparently thought nobody was looking, a cabal of GOP senators comprised of Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Utah’s John Curtis, Kansas’ Jerry Moran, and North Carolina’s Thom Tillis — who’s up for reelection next year — quietly sent a letter on Wednesday to Senate Majority Leader John Thune regarding ongoing negotiations over the party’s reconciliation package.Their concern? That the final version of the legislation containing priorities backed by President Trump (tax cuts and border security) will also include provisions fully repealing President...

Three Key Takeaways: Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) uncovered a disturbing 800% increase in Social Security numbers issued to noncitizens under the Biden administration, raising concerns about voter fraud and government benefits being accessed by illegal aliens. The investigation revealed a system where illegal aliens could easily receive work authorization and Social Security numbers without interviews or identification, allowing them to access taxpayer-funded programs like Medicaid and potentially vote in U.S. elections. Musk emphasized that the Biden administration’s border policies have fueled human trafficking networks, with cartels profiting from transporting migrants into the U.S. under dangerous...

Rumors are swirling around ActBlue, a key fundraising platform for the Democrats, which has repeatedly given money to progressive politicians and far-left groups like Black Lives Matter. Critics, including lawmakers and investigative journalists, have noticed suspicious financial activity that may indicate a vast network of fraud. For context, the House Administration Committee recently uncovered evidence that illegal donations from China, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela might have been laundered to Democratic campaigns through ActBlue. In response, the committee sent a letter to ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones to begin an investigation. In any case, Walter Curt, a prominent investigative journalist, took to...

Today, we’re releasing our preliminary findings: ActBlue made its fraud-prevention rules “more lenient” twice in 2024—even though there is extensive fraud on the platform, including from foreign sources. ActBlue admitted that this change led to between 14 and 28 additional fraudulent contributions in the first month alone—potentially totaling thousands of dollars in fraudulent contributions to Democrat campaigns and causes.

WASHINGTON — Elon Musk on Tuesday called for the arrest of leaders of “fake” organizations that receive federal funds — saying they represent a politically connected “uniparty” that’s engaged in “money laundering” of taxpayer resources. The Department of Government Efficiency chief’s call for legal action comes as he spearheads efforts to trim annual federal spending by $1 trillion to halve the deficit. “With respect to the non-governmental organizations, these sort of fake NGOs, I think there needs to be a number of arrests,” Musk said in an interview on Fox News’ “The Five.” “These are fake charities [run by] mostly...

Democrats run an economy of 'Grifterism,' where Billionaires, Productives, and Dependents fuel a system designed to keep the ruling class in power while stifling real economic freedom.I am a political junkie and a political conservative. Like so many conservative political junkies, I spend a good portion of my waking hours trying to understand what the words and actions of Democrats actually mean. Like the Politburo of the former Soviet Union, the words of Democrats often bear little resemblance to the actions their words embody. “Equity” is an excellent example, as when Democrats say “equity,” they really mean highly inequitable policy...

Billionaire entrepreneur and Trump advisor Elon Musk dropped a bombshell this weekend during a fiery 100-minute town hall in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he campaigned for conservative judge Brad Schimel in the state’s upcoming Supreme Court election on Tuesday.Joined by Antonio Gracias, a private equity titan and a key member of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team tasked with rooting out waste in the federal government, Musk unveiled a shocking chart: a dramatic spike in Social Security Numbers issued to non-citizens, soaring from 270,000 in 2021 to a mind-blowing 2.1 million in 2024.That’s almost 5 million non-citizens now embedded...

Here are two examples of how Democrats stole tens of billions of dollars from taxpayers.This is why they hate DOGE so much.Original: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2024/03/28/ev-charging-stations-slow-rollout/Archive: https://archive.ph/k6JkEBiden’s $7.5 billion investment in EV charging has only produced 7 stations in two yearsMarch 29, 2024President Biden has long vowed to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations in the United States by 2030. Those stations, the White House said, would help Americans feel confident purchasing and driving electric cars, and help the country cut carbon pollution.But now, more than two years after Congress allocated $7.5 billion to help build out those stations, only 7 EV charging...

Do you want your taxpayer dollars funding studies on preventing pregnancy in “transgender boys” or HIV stigma in Thailand? Fortunately, Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary also considers that a waste, so he’s cutting numerous idiotic woke studies. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Trump’s new agency heads have uncovered billions of dollars of egregious fraud and waste, including the previously unknown agency whose employees lived “like kings” and the Social Security funding for 150+ year olds. Now HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is looking to streamline the massive, unwieldy, unconstitutional, and harmful federal healthcare agencies. It’s time...

More great news just dropped for those watching the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) tear through government waste. The department announced that dozens of wasteful federal contracts, representing $237 million in savings, have been terminated, doing so DOGE highlighted several wasteful grants, including $10M for “gender equity in the Mexican workplace.” For context, DOGE was established by an executive order to implement cost-efficiency measures across federal agencies, and has focused on reducing federal spending by terminating or renegotiating contracts and grants, particularly those involving waste, fraud, or abuse. This trend was exemplified by the announcement DOGE made on March 26,...

Despite federal law expressly prohibiting it, national abortion chain Planned Parenthood appears to have pocketed millions of dollars in “Paycheck Protection Program” COVID relief funds, and now Congress wants answers. U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Chair Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chair Rand Paul (R-Ky) report they have “asked the Small Business Administration (SBA) to share how the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) unlawfully received millions of dollars in funding from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and had 34 loans forgiven by the Biden administration.” “Ernst and Paul...

According to a Wall Street Journal report Tuesday, the Trump administration is looking into turning off the federal funding pipeline to one of its most controversial recipients, the euphemistically named Planned Parenthood, as they investigate where the money is actually going.

The Economist has a fantastic article on aid. (The Economist doesn’t have bylines. Henry Curr tweeted the article (x’d it?) and credits Cerian Jones.) At half the dinners I go to, someone says, well, yes, a lot of the USAID money was mis-spent, but what about the poor starving children in Africa? If you are in that situation, this is the article for you.This article is about about the centerpiece of aid: “development” aid, designed to boost economic growth, not about the politicized “nonprofits” that USAID was supporting and their bloated staffs, funneling aid money to political advocacy and employment,...

I've argued for years that the open border was an intentional plan to destroy America by welcoming in millions of foreign invaders. The goal was to create a welfare state and get them all to vote Democrat, so eventually no Republican could ever be elected again.I've also argued for years that the Democrat politicians who supported this plan were on the payroll of China, the Chinese Communist Party and the Mexican drug cartels. (snip) I believe many federal judges are on the take.