Free Republic

Just before the Memorial Day weekend, Senate Democrats quietly confirmed a longtime anti-Israel activist to serve on the United States Postal Service's Board of Governors, raising further questions about the Biden administration's embrace of those who serve on the front lines in the fight to delegitimize the Jewish state. Democrats confirmed by voice vote Friday evening Anton Hajjar, a longtime member of and legal adviser to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), a notoriously anti-Israel organization that promotes anti-Semitic canards. The group routinely and inaccurately refers to Israel as an "apartheid state," a term meant to stoke anger at Israel, and...

A woman who took out a loan trying to save her small business during the pandemic now says that loan could cause her to shut down. The owner just found out she owes thousands more dollars than she expected. CBS 2’s Tara Molina is Working for Chicago, helping people navigate these challenging times. She reports that owner says she just can’t afford to pay it all back. She’s on the hook for $36,000 today. Money she says she doesn’t have, and can’t be forgiven, all because of what she calls bad communication with the bank she turned to for help....

...People caught on fast. In some neighborhoods in Chicago and Miami, it seemed like everyone made a bogus application to the Small Business Administration’s Covid-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan program.... ...The SBA’s much-vaunted new computer system, built by an outside contractor for $750 million, proved blind to certain types of fraud and sometimes awarded grants even when it spotted disqualifying features. The agency pressured loan officers with little training to churn through applications quickly, while making it difficult for them to detect or report suspicious ones. ...

The federal government can’t take our money and give it to Joel Osteen or Robert Jeffress or Paula White—even in the wake of a pandemic,” I wrote back in May. But that’s exactly what Trump’s Small Business Administration has done by giving Paycheck Protection Program funds to churches. Paula White’s church took in between $150,000 and $350,000, Jeffress’s church grabbed between $2 million and $5 million and, now we know that Osteen’s megachurch pocketed $4.4 million. Other megachurches snagged millions of taxpayer dollars. As time passes, the inevitable abuses are coming to light. One megachurch televangelist even bought a private...

According to a Fox News report, $80 million in stimulus funds intended to help small businesses struggling through coronavirus economic hardship have gone instead to Planned Parenthood, the multi-billion dollar abortion business. Under the CARES Act’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), Congress allocated $349 billion in federal funds to provide assistance to small businesses with fewer than 500 employees. According to the Department of the Treasury, funds may be used to pay up to eight weeks of payroll costs including benefits” as well as “interest on mortgages, rent, and utilities.” In August 2019, Planned Parenthood rejected Title X federal funding after...

Shake Shack is returning a $10 million loan it received from the U.S. government under an emergency program that was touted as a way to help small businesses pay workers and keep their operations running during the coronavirus crisis. The burger chain was awarded the loan as part of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The $349 billion stimulus package, overseen by the Small Business Administration (SBA), ran out of funding last week. Over the last few days, there has been a growing backlash over the distribution of the funds. Several media outlets have revealed how large chunks of the package...

There are a lot of people on Wall Street and in Washington who see no problem with an America defined by big box stores and chain restaurants. California released a plan Tuesday to reopen businesses. One thing conspicuously missing from the governor’s slideshow was any sort of timeline, replaced instead by a six-point plan to remake society around fear of the coronavirus. Could be June, he said in a press conference, or even July or August. One thing conspicuously included was the observation that “things will look different,” including restaurants having to open “with fewer tables.” California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom...

While it looks like everyone is taking seriously the average worker’s needs, no one at the decision-making level has thought of the small business owner. If you’re a small business owner like I am, you’ve been closely following the stimulus efforts of the federal government, looking for a lifeline out of the mess of delayed payments, lost revenue, and furloughed employees. Unfortunately, while it looks as though everyone is taking seriously the average worker’s needs, no one at the decision-making level has thought of the small business owner. Congress passed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act on March 18, providing...

Has your business or non-profit been adversely impacted by the COVID-19 shut-down or slow-down? Will you be able to pay your employees? Or the rent? Will you be able to pay yourself? Congress is trying to help by giving away quite a bit of free money, and that should get your attention. There are still details to be worked out about how these new plans will be implemented, but here’s some initial info: The first and quickest option for relief is an Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) from the Small Business Administration. You can borrow funds necessary to meet expenses...

This is what my Banker sent me today. I urge any of you who are self employed or contractor to apply for this.

The Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA) attacked New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Twitter on Thursday, saying the 2020 candidate is "full of sh--" after he tweeted his condolences over the death of an officer on Long Island, and calling him out for comments made during Wednesday night's Democratic presidential debate. An off-duty Bronx police officer committed suicide in his home Thursday, the fourth to do so this month. De Blasio had this to say via Twitter following the news: "We're devastated by the news out of the NYPD this morning. An officer took his own life -- one...

The longest government shutdown in modern U.S. history is choking the economic lifeblood of many entrepreneurs. The Small Business Administration has stopped approving routine small-business loans that the agency backs to ensure entrepreneurs have access to funds, halting their plans for expansion and repairs and forcing some owners to consider costlier sources of cash. Honey Meadows, owner of the Westside School, a child-care center in Atlanta, plans to use a $405,000 loan guaranteed by the SBA to make needed improvements and refinance roughly $275,000 in existing debt. With SBA approvals at a standstill, Ms. Meadows can’t build a wheelchair ramp,...

One of the top abortion activists in the Senate has gone down in defeat. Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill fell behind to pro-life candidate Josh Hawley after announcing her opposition to U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and ultimately she lost her re-election bid today. A pro-abortion Democrat, McCaskill was considered one of the most vulnerable senators running for re-election in the November midterms. Josh Hawley, an attorney and former clerk to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, serves as Missouri’s attorney general. Prior to his time as the top prosecutor for the state, he was an appellate litigator and senior...

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump plans to nominate professional wrestling magnate and former Senate candidate Linda McMahon as his choice to head the Small Business Administration, transition officials told Reuters on Wednesday. The announcement was expected later on Wednesday. McMahon, 68, is a co-founder and former CEO of the professional wrestling franchise WWE, which is based in Stamford, Connecticut. She ran unsuccessfully for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut in 2010. She was an early supporter of Trump's presidential campaign. The SBA, which has at least one office in every U.S. state, provides support to small businesses such as extending loans...

Poll results have found that a majority of voters support the legislation known as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a measure that would restrict abortions past the fifth month of pregnancy. The survey’s results show that 64 percent of voters nationwide favor the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, with 43 percent strongly supporting it. Additionally, 78 percent of millennial voters support the legislation, as do 67 percent of women, 70 percent of blacks, and 57 percent of Hispanic voters. . . . In a letter published by the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List (SBA), President-elect Donald Trump pledged to...

Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server company got almost $1 million in government loans starting immediately after they were secretly asked to wipe Hillary Clinton’s name from her e-mails. Platte River Networks (PRN) got a $493,000 loan from the Small Business Administration in August 2014 and another $350,000 loan in September 2015: The first half-million dollar loan arrived not one month after PRN employee Paul Combetta was caught accidentally revealing his company was deleting evidence at Hillary’s request in July 2014. The second $350,000 loan came about one year later. After getting the first loan, PRN moved to a large office space...

The FDA is stockpiling military weapons — and it’s not alone AMERICA’S GUN CULTURE has been a subject of intense interest and controversy for years, with concerns frequently raised about shadowy militias, paramilitary extremists, and unstable zealots in possession of alarming quantities of explosives and firearms. Amid the current din over assault weapons and body armor, consider one domestic organization’s fearsome arsenal of military-style equipment. In the space of eight years, the group amassed a stockpile of pistols, shotguns, and semiautomatic rifles, along with ample supplies of ammunition, liquid explosives, gun scopes, and suppressors. In its cache as well are...

It is being (reported) that the United States Department of State, while Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State, blocked investigations into the Mosque that was attended by Omar Mateen, the Islamic terrorist that carried out the worst mass shooting in United States history at a Orlando nightclub on Sunday morning. According to the recent reporting Hillary Clinton’s State Department did not investigate the Orlando killers Mosque because it “unfairly singled out Muslims.” Which is more staggering proof that the lefts ideology of political correctness is indirectly leading to innocent citizens being murdered.

The head of the city’s sergeants union accused Police Commissioner Bill Bratton of hypocrisy Sunday and called for his resignation. “What I am seeing on a regular basis now in the NYPD lately is, it’s a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ attitude, and this is coming directly from Commissioner Bratton,” Sergeants Benevolent Association President Ed Mullins said on John Catsimatidis’s radio show on AM 970. […] The union chief complained that everyone in the department was aware of ticket-fixing before that scandal broke and that it was part of the culture — but now that it has...

The Small Business Administration removed the cap on government contracts set aside for women-owned and economically disadvantaged women-owned small businesses. Before this week, federal government contracts were capped at $6.5 million for manufacturing contracts and $4 million for all other contracts under the Women-Owned Small-Business Program. According to a rule change published Tuesday in the government’s official journal, the Federal Register, the thresholds placed on those programs have been lifted, effective immediately. The rule change aims to help the federal government meet its mandate of 5 percent of contracts going to women-owned small businesses. In 2011, the most recent year...