Free Republic

The Trump administration has started paying illegal migrants to $1,000 each to “self-deport” from the US, and the Department of Homeland Security said it will save taxpayers up to $1 million per family. Immigrants can avoid arrest by federal immigration agents if they choose to use the Trump administration’s CBP Home app. The DHS will pay for commercial flights out of the US, and then send cash once they confirm they’ve left. Despite shelling out the cash, DHS projects that taxpayers will save 70% over the cost of rounding up and deporting each illegal migrant. It costs taxpayers an average...

Elon Musk, director of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and his staff are sleeping in the federal personnel office to save taxpayers about $1 billion a day, a person familiar with the situation told the New York Times. Sleeping in office buildings is not unusual for Musk, who deployed the same cost-saving measure at Twitter and Tesla. “Very few in the bureaucracy actually work the weekend, so it’s like the opposing team just leaves the field for 2 days!” Musk posted on X over the weekend. “Working the weekend is a superpower.”

*** A full 59 percent of Americans aren’t in a position to use their savings “to pay for a major unexpected expense, such as $1,000 for an emergency room visit or car repair,” said a Jan. 23 report from the company.This is up from 56 percent a year back. “We are essentially a paycheck-to-paycheck nation,” said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate. *** To help alleviate the financial crunch, President Donald Trump issued an executive order for*** “emergency price relief” for families and tackling the cost of living crisis facing America on his first day in office. The 12-month...

Former Australian child star Rory Sykes, who was born blind and had cerebral palsy, died Wednesday in the California wildfires despite his mother’s frantic efforts to save him from their burning Malibu home as she claimed available water was “switched off.” Shelley Sykes said in a post on X her 32-year-old son had lived with her on a 17 acre property in Malibu and after she lost the water supply to hoses she was using to extinguish embers on the home’s roof. “It is with great sadness that I have to announce the death of my beautiful son @Rorysykes to...

President-elect Donald Trump provided a path on Thursday for House Speaker Mike Johnson to save his job as Speaker in the next Congress. Johnson’s Speakership is in jeopardy after he tried to rush a spending measure packed full of pork, which drew ire from Trump and Elon Musk, the president-elect’s designated chief of axing government waste. Trump’s roadmap for Johnson appears to set a series of reasonable demands, although achieving Trump’s requests might be difficult in the context of a potential government shutdown before Christmas. Johnson will “easily remain speaker” if he “acts decisively and tough” and eliminates “all of...

“Fat Beach Day” events are appearing across the United States, aiming to create spaces for the plus-size community to gather — including one Saturday in Far Rockaway. “We’re going through something culturally that is impacting us every day on an individual level and a systemic level,” Jordan Underwood, the event organizer told the Guardian. “We’re really trying to open up a space for people to be themselves.” “I’m so self-conscious at the beach, and I’m never around people that look like me,” Emma Zack, who started Berriez in 2018, told the outlet. “I’m excited we’ve created this space for folks...

A relatively small web forum I am a member of is shutting down soon. There are a lot of posts on it I and other members would like to archive to HD for reference. Saving individual pages is VERY time consuming, and we only have until the end of the month. Do any of our FReeper computer guru's have any experience with this?

South Africans will go to the polls on Wednesday, May 29, in what may be the last chance to save their country from the ruin wrought by the so-called party of liberation, the African National Congress (ANC). The ANC led the struggle against apartheid, and swept into office, with Nelson Mandela, in the country’s first fully democratic election in 1994. Since then, but especially since Mandela left office in 1999, the ANC has been running South Africa into the ground. Crime is soaring. Corruption is rampant. The country’s infrastructure is collapsing. Electricity is often unavailable, thanks to “load-shedding,” which are...

An Iranian nuclear scientist who returned home last week from the United States provided valuable information about the CIA, a semiofficial news agency reported Wednesday, adding that his spy's tale would be made into a TV movie

OXFORD, England (AP) — Humanity has only two years left “to save the world” by making dramatic changes in the way it spews heat-trapping emissions and it has even less time to act to get the finances behind such a massive shift, the head of the United Nations climate agency said. With governments of the world facing a 2025 deadline for new and stronger plans to curb carbon pollution, nearly half of the world's populations voting in elections this year, and crucial global finance meetings later this month in Washington, United Nations executive climate secretary Simon Stiell said Wednesday he...

FENTANYL KILLS. That’s what the billboard says. That’s all the billboard says—FENTANYL in a cold, light blue, KILLS in stark white against an all-black background. Below is a woman on a gurney, treated with the same dead-blue tones as the script above her. She’s covered to her armpits in a sheet, arms at her sides, awaiting an autopsy. Anyone who has seen a cop drama in the past 30 years knows the image. When an opioid user overdoses, their lips turn a cold, light blue. That was the color of my lips when I lay slumped in a pile outside...

Now that the Supreme Court has unanimously destroyed the dreams of Davos to use January 6th as a means to keep him off the ballot, Donald Trump has passed the easiest of the hurdles in front of his returning to the White House. Some things, politically, in the US still function. This ruling was a lay-up. The SCOTUS had to rule decisively here. Trump was never convicted of ‘insurrection.’ He was impeached and character-assassinated, sure, but none of that carries any weight of law. But, even if you somehow believe he was guilty of the crimes the Democrats accused him...

Ronald Reagan’s values, vision and vibrant personal optimism inspired a rebirth of American pride, growth and exceptionalism in the 1980s, after nearly two decades of social and cultural upheaval. "Reagan was deeply concerned about America in the late 70s," Virginia-based historian and author Craig Shirley told Fox News Digital. "America had gone through 17 long, horrible years beginning with the assassination of JFK." The quagmire of Vietnam, the author added, the failed presidency of Lyndon Johnson, the resignation of Richard Nixon, the Iran hostage crisis and the infamous social and economic "malaise" of the Jimmy Carter administration all created the...

The House on Thursday passed legislation aimed at preventing biological males from competing as transgender athletes in girls’ and women’s sports at schools across the country, after a debate in which several Democrats accused Republicans of "bullying" transgender students by calling up the bill. The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act passed in a 219-203 vote Thursday morning – all the "yes" votes came from Republicans, and all the "no" votes came from Democrats. Republicans defended the bill as an attempt to spare women and girls from having to compete against transgender women and girls – biological males...

OCEAN CITY – While a long-term decision on a proposed rule change to reduce offshore speed limits for recreational and commercial vessels to further protect endangered North Atlantic right whales hangs in the balance, a national environmental advocacy group this week filed an emergency rulemaking petition urging the federal government to institute the change immediately. In an effort to save endangered North American right whales, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has proposed a 10-knot speed restriction for recreational and commercial vessels 35 feet in length or greater, down from the current 65 feet. The proposed rule change would...

The Biden administration is launching a $6 billion effort to save nuclear power plants at risk of closing, citing the need to continue nuclear energy as a carbon-free source of power that helps to combat climate change. A certification and bidding process opened Tuesday for a civil nuclear credit program that is intended to bail out financially distressed owners or operators of nuclear power reactors, the US Department of Energy told The Associated Press exclusively, shortly before the official announcement. It’s the largest federal investment in saving financially distressed nuclear reactors.

President Joe Biden continues struggling with messaging to Americans about what his administration is doing to make things better for the difficult 2021 holiday season. The White House released a video on Tuesday evening of Biden trying to reassure Americans things were going to be fine, despite looming reports of shortages, and stubbornly high costs for ordinary goods.

All in-park overnight lodging will be closed for incoming arrivals beginning on Monday, December 7, 2020 and will remain closed until further notice. All overnight camping within Yosemite National Park will be prohibited beginning on Monday, December 7, 2020 until further notice. This includes all park campgrounds, wilderness camping, and overnight use along climbing routes. Overnight backpacking trips into Yosemite’s wilderness will also be prohibited. All visitors planning trips to Yosemite are asked to be our partner in recreating responsibly. Yosemite National Park conducts hundreds of search and rescue missions each year, many of which could be avoided with visitors...

With the trajectory of the U.S. economy uncertain, Americans saved a record portion of their monthly income in April. The savings rate for that month hit an all-time high of 33.5 percent, according to USA Today, citing Commerce Department data. In the months after, that rate fell, but the June rate of 19.5 percent remained nearly triple the normal rate. The average monthly rate of savings was 7.5 percent of income before the pandemic began. “We’ve never had this much savings,” Tom Porcelli, chief economist of RBC Capital Markets, told the newspaper. “It’s uncharted territory.” An analysis by Moody’s Analytics...

VIRGINIA BEACH Collin Dozier is rarely up late. But a fun night with friends riding their motorized skateboards at the Oceanfront had him headed home a little past midnight. As he drove over the Lesner Bridge on April 25, just a few hundred yards from his house, he noticed a parked car on the opposite side of Shore Drive. Its blinkers were on. Probably just broken down, he thought. But when he parked at his house, something told him to go investigate. So he hopped on his skateboard and road back up to the top of the bridge. There he...