Free Republic

New Mexico’s program is just the tip of the iceberg.While experts have long dismissed large-scale Medicaid fraud as improbable, evidence from New Mexico tells a different story. This discovery presents an unprecedented opportunity to offset part of the $880 billion budget deficit without cutting healthcare services for enrollees.As the most powerful stakeholders, insurers frame fraud as an issue with hospitals, physicians, and enrollees while quietly escaping scrutiny themselves. A 2020 Health and Human Services report claimed that fraud in Medicaid fee-for-service stood at 12.3%, compared to just 0.3% in Medicaid managed care, reinforcing the industry’s message that managed care is...

It could be the end of the line for the "train to nowhere." Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has released a scathing report exposing what he said is the unfeasibility of California's long-troubled high-speed rail project — and is threatening to pull the plug on a plan that already has the federal government on the hook for $6.9 billion while Californians are underwriting an additional $9 billion. Duffy said that the federal government is moving to terminate around $4 billion it has currently obligated to the project unless the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) can prove it is tenable. He blasted...

Preaching climate justice while arriving in a half-a-billion-dollar superyacht? That’s the kind of cinematic irony Lauren Sánchez served at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, pulling off a Leonardo DiCaprio moment of her own. The Amazon founder’s fiancée made her Cannes debut while being honored at the prestigious Global Gift Foundation charity gala for her environmental efforts through the Bezos Earth Fund and her work in social justice with This Is About Humanity, an organization that reunites families separated at the US-Mexico border. Interestingly, the soon-to-be Mrs. Bezos was joined by tech tycoon Jeff Bezos and their permanent third wheel, the...

The United Nations warned Wednesday there is a 70 percent chance that average warming from 2025 to 2029 will exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius international benchmark. The planet is therefore expected to remain at historic levels of warming after the two hottest years ever recorded in 2023 and 2024, according to an annual climate report published by the World Meteorological Organization, the UN's weather and climate agency. "We have just experienced the 10 warmest years on record," said the WMO's deputy secretary-general Ko Barrett. "Unfortunately, this WMO report provides no sign of respite over the coming years, and this means...

Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered some shocking data points about American foreign aid spending before the Trump administration reformed the system. During testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, the top diplomat revealed that the White House discovered a foreign aid regime that was distracted and inefficient. Only 12 cents of every dollar spent by USAID reached recipients. ... while a mere 12 cents went to recipients, the other 88 cents was pocketed by third parties. ... Rubio noted that the United States is still giving “more humanitarian support than the next 10 countries combined” even after...

In the 76 day period between Trump winning and Biden leaving office $93 billion was sent from the DOE, who GAVE IT AWAY WITH NO OVERSIGHT, TO ENTITIES WITH NO FINANCIALS“The 76-day period you're talking about, that's the period between the time that President Trump was elected and President Biden left office — How much taxpayer money went out the door of the Department of Energy?From the Loan Program Office in Loans and Commitments $93 billion. Well over twice as much as in the previous 15 years”— You’re you're telling me that the Department of Energy in the 76-day period...

Gov. Newsom of California is determined to see the high-speed rail system completed or at least started, but the bad news just keeps rolling in like a freight train (pun intended). Newsom is in the process of pushing for next fiscal year's budget and as part of that process he has announced a plan to make sure the bullet train project gets money from the state climate fund.California Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to tap at least $2.5 billion from the state’s climate fund to pay for state firefighting crews and the long-troubled high-speed rail project.In his budget proposal unveiled last...

https://x.com/doge/status/1923564122463199470Department of Government Efficiency@DOGEContract Update!Over the last 3 days, agencies have terminated 262 wasteful contracts with a ceiling value of $1.2B and savings of $230M, including a $13.8M marketing research DEI contract to provide “analytical and initiative support on building the case for health equity”.May 16, 2025 · 567.1K Views

President Donald Trump on Thursday said he would skip Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Istanbul and downplayed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision not to attend. Speaking in Doha, Trump said the Russia-Ukraine war "has to stop." The president lamented the lives lost and money spent on the war effort. "We spent $350 billion there – just handed. Nobody even knows where the money is. There’s no accounting. There’s no one. It’s just give him money," Trump said, referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. "I have to hand it to him. I think he’s the greatest salesman, maybe in history. Every time...

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...

On April 14 I recorded a podcast with Tom Nelson. He has since posted a slightly edited version on his YouTube site. Go to this link if you would like to watch it — about an hour long. The main subject is the sordid history of EPA’s Endangerment Finding and efforts of people including myself to get it rescinded. The good news on the Endangerment Finding front is that EPA under new Administrator Lee Zeldin is very much on the job of eliminating the EF. Of course, once it has been rescinded it will face a blizzard of legal challenges....

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s green-energy lunacy keeps socking New Yorkers, with the latest blow coming from the Empire Wind One offshore turbine project. Team Trump has blocked it for now, and that’s great news (despite Eric Adams’ pleading that it should go forward): If it went into operation, New Yorkers would be forced to pay a brain-busting 2.5 times the market rate for energy, an independent analysis found. The project won a sweetheart contract to provide energy at $155 per megawatt hour, as opposed to the wholesale-market rate of around $50, an effective subsidy on the order of $9 billion over...

Hawaii Democrats have advanced a bill that would clear the way for individuals and insurers adversely affected by an “event attributable to climate change” to sue companies and other entities for spreading climate “misinformation.” S.B. 1166, introduced by Democratic Hawaii State Sen. Chris Lee, aims to “provide a new, specific cause of action for any person other than an officer or employee of a state or local governmental entity” and insurers to file suit against companies or other entities that supposedly misinformed the public about the nature of climate change. Lee introduced the bill on Jan. 17, and it is...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation Monday to close a $2.8 billion budget gap in the state's Medicaid services and ensure coverage through June for 15 million people, including immigrants, who receive health care via the program.

Barack Obama’s Ivanpah Solar Electric Power Plant has officially failed and will begin shutting gone operations early 2026.. - $1.6 BILLION in federal loans. - $535 MILLION grant. - $600 MILLION tax credit. - MASSIVE investor write-offs.. A SCAM paid for by US Taxpayers for NOTHING ... Obamala himself is not bankrupt. Indeed, he remains awash in undrowned private chefs. Never leave your wallet unattended in the presence of Democrats. ... His first scam was Solyndra. ... Ivanpah: $2.7B to boil birds in the desert. California Bullet Train: $100B to almost connect two places no one’s trying to go. One...

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...

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...

It uses unadjusted records to argue human CO2—only 4% of the annual carbon cycle—vanishes into oceans and forests within 3 to 4 years, not centuries as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims. During the 2020 COVID lockdowns, a 7% emissions drop (2.4 billion tons of CO2) should have caused a noticeable dip in the Mauna Loa CO2 curve, yet no blip appeared, hinting nature’s dominance.

ActBlue was founded in 2004 as a Democrat Party political action committee (PAC) ostensibly to organize and raise campaign funds from “small donors.” On its website, ActBlue describes itself as “the home for small dollar donors” that “operates as a conduit, which means donations made through ActBlue to a campaign or organization are considered individual donations.” As such they are subject to considerably less legal scrutiny than large dollar donations. In 2008, essentially the first presidential election in which ActBlue participated, they raised and spent $54.6 million on behalf of Democrat candidates. In 2012, they increased the amount raised and...