Free Republic

The Department of Education announced Thursday that it has saved American taxpayers more than $1 billion by aggressively eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse within federal student aid programs. The department’s new report takes aim at previous policies, claiming that while citizens must present identification to board a flight or rent a car, the Biden administration had required identity verification for less than 1% of students applying for federal financial aid. "That ill-informed decision created a prime opportunity for fraudsters to exploit the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) form and steal taxpayer funds," the department stated in a press...

Taxpayers are yet again helping fund disruptive activism in Los Angeles — this time the radicals planning to chaos across the city and county for Saturday’s “No Kings” protests, which organizers claim will be the biggest yet. One the leading groups participating in the event is the Liberty Hill Foundation, a social justice nonprofit that receives $14 million in Los Angeles city funding for tenant outreach and housing programs. Public filings show the group has donated tens of thousands of dollars to the ACLU of Southern California, raising further questions about taxpayer-supported organizations being used for radical political advocacy. ACLU...

Los Angeles homeless people are being put up in brand new apartments in ritzy neighborhoods that cost taxpayers up to $1.5 million per room, the California Post can reveal. At least $2.6 billion of taxpayers cash has been spent buying and renovating hotels, motels and dorms for the huge unhoused population in the city and county since 2020. The properties were all purchased with $1.3 billion from Governor Gavin Newsom’s Homekey initiative, which then renovated with another $1.3 billion in funding from the city and county of Los Angeles. Some of the suites, which are staggered across neighborhoods such as...

Eunisses Hernandez has been called a hypocrite for repeatedly calling for police to be abolished — then using taxpayers’ money to pay for own her security in public. The socialist Los Angeles councilmember has built her political brand crusading against cops, winning election on an abolish-the-police platform and even voting ”no” to the city’s budget three years running because she claims the $2.4 billion needed to keep them takes funding from her priorities. But when it came time to securing the 36-year-old’s own public event, Hernandez turned to the LAPD — despite just months earlier voting against the use of...

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth appeared to confirm Thursday that the Trump administration is contemplating asking Congress to approve $200 billion in supplemental defense funding amid the war in Iran.On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon had asked the White House to make the $200 billion request to lawmakers in order to replenish America’s munitions stockpile, though it was not clear when or whether the Trump administration would decide to do so. “As far as the $200 billion, I think that number could move, obviously,” Hegseth told reporters. “It takes money to kill bad guys. So we’re going...

Kamala Harris is cutting California loose from her book tour, cancelling the remainder of her currently scheduled stops in the state. On Tuesday, the former presidential candidate pulled out of book tour stops for her memoir “107 Days” in Sacramento, San Diego and Anaheim. The appearances had been scheduled for next month. Ticketing company Ticketmaster refunded ticketholders and explained that the cancellations of “A Conversation with Kamala Harris” were due to a “scheduling conflict.” Harris’ last event had been in Oakland on March 3. She remains scheduled for an event in Denver, Colorado, on April 2, but her subsequent stops...

FIRST ON FOX: Former President Barack Obama once declared that his presidential center would be a "gift" to Chicago, but taxpayers are on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in hidden costs related to the beleaguered project. A Fox News Digital investigation shows taxpayers are now stuck footing the bill for surging public infrastructure costs required to support the project — and no government agency can provide an accounting of the total public cost, despite months of queries and FOIA requests. "Illinois Republicans saw this coming a mile away. Now, right on cue, Illinois Democrats are leaving taxpayers...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) ordered all public housing authorities and owners receiving department-funded housing Friday to verify tenant citizenship and eligibility after an audit conducted with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) flagged tens of thousands of deceased and ineligible tenants nationwide. HUD said the audit identified nearly 200,000 tenants requiring eligibility verification, including nearly 25,000 deceased tenants and nearly 6,000 ineligible non-American tenants across federally funded housing programs. Under the directive, HUD said all public housing authorities and participating owners have 30 days to take corrective action or face potential sanctions.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is investigating whether Colorado providers helped nearly 3,000 people swindle taxpayer money from Uncle Sam, The Post has learned. The investigation comes after an internal HUD audit found that benefits were granted to 221 dead people, while another 87 were otherwise ineligible. The department also said that another 2,519 beneficiaries will need to undergo additional verification. “From deceased tenants to individuals receiving HUD housing benefits who were never supposed to, the Department has questions for HUD-supported housing providers in Colorado, and we expect prompt answers and enforcement action,” a HUD spokesperson told...

A member of the city council in New York recently outlined a plan to allocate almost $200 million in taxpayer funds to be used to legally defend illegal immigrants from ICE and the Trump administration.If you watch the video below, it is crystal clear that this woman and the people like her believe that their power supersedes the power of the federal government and federal immigration laws.It’s almost like these people think that New York City is a country within the country and that it belongs to them.From Stu Smith on Twitter/X:NYC Council Member Tiffany Cabán, a Democratic Socialists of...

A Queens principal who counts former Jay-Z manager Damon Dash and his wife as close pals turned her school into a slush fund for friends, whistleblowers charge. Aneesha Jacko of PS 35 Nathaniel Woodhull in Hollis has spent tens of thousands in taxpayer funds to buy books published by pals, hired others as consultants, and boldly touted their brands on a sprawling lobby mural that is practically a billboard, staffers said. “It absolutely blows my mind that she is still allowed to run our school,” a faculty member said of the principal, who took PS 35’s helm in October 2020....

Chicago taxpayers could be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars for the costly Obama Presidential Center after new tax filings show the Obama Foundation has only deposited $1 million into its promised $470 million reserve fund. That’s the conclusion of an in-depth report by Fox News as it looked at what it described as a “sweetheart deal” to create the reserve fund “to spare taxpayers should the project ever go belly up.” **SNIP** He said that “the city never should have signed over the large section” of the park. “They put a million dollars into a $400...

When the Obama Foundation snagged a sweetheart deal to build its beleaguered Obama Presidential Center on a Chicago public park, it pledged to create a $470 million reserve fund to spare taxpayers should the project ever go belly up. But new tax filings show the foundation has only deposited $1 million into the fund and has not added to it in years, with critics saying the empty promise could potentially leave Chicagoans on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars. Under its agreement with the city, the foundation was required to create the fund, known as an endowment, in...

Taxpayers will no longer pay for the education of noncitizens in the U.S. illegally, the U.S. Department of Education said Thursday. The department said “it will end taxpayer subsidization of illegal aliens in career, technical, and adult education programs.” A news release said that this change takes place due to an interpretative rule issued Thursday in which “the Department rescinded a Dear Colleague letter from the Clinton Administration that enabled non-qualified illegal aliens to access federal public benefits in contravention of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA).” Title IV of PRWORA “generally limits eligibility for ‘federal public...

Why should taxpayers have to fund a government that hates them? There is plenty of evidence that taxpayer dollars are funding the anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles and elsewhere. Here’s how that happens: domestic agitators set up “non-profits” and other kinds of “non-governmental organizations” with deceptively innocuous names. They apply for monetary grants from state and federal agencies. Government agencies use their discretion to award outside groups. These groups then pay rioters to cause mayhem on the streets. Voila! Government-funded pop-up revolutions are ready to go! This isn’t anything new. Politicians have been diverting taxpayer funds to their favorite “public...

South Africa can expect roughly 44% of its population (28.7 million) on social grants, relying on only 12% (7.4 million) taxpayers. This imbalance between the number of grant recipients and taxpayers highlights a significant concern for the nation’s fiscal health, as nearly half of South Africa’s 64 million people depend on social assistance. The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) data for 2023/24 underlines the scale of reliance, which includes a range of grants for elderly people, children, disabled individuals, and others in need. Moreover, 9 million individuals receive the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant, initially introduced in 2020...

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is up for re-election next year. She may be vulnerable to primary challenges within her party, and some polls show Republicans within striking distance of her in the general election setting. She underperformed in 2022, when former Congressman and current EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin gave her all she could handle. At a recent hearing on Capitol Hill, Hochul demonstrated her ignorance about a string of heinous crimes committed by illegal immigrants who were shielded and protected by her reckless 'sanctuary' policies. Rep. Elise Stefanik, who may run for governor in 2026, made the most of...

WASHINGTON — (AP) — President Donald Trump's administration this week provided deportation officials with personal data -- including the immigration status -- on millions of Medicaid enrollees, a move that could make it easier to locate people as part of his sweeping immigration crackdown. An internal memo and emails obtained by The Associated Press show that Medicaid officials unsuccessfully sought to block the data transfer, citing legal and ethical concerns. Nevertheless, two top advisers to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered the dataset handed over to the Department of Homeland Security, the emails show. Officials at the Centers for...

President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., he would be “playing right into the hands of the Democrats” if he votes against Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill.” “If Senator Rand Paul votes against our Great, Big, Beautiful Bill, he is voting for, along with the Radical Left Democrats, a 68% Tax Increase and, perhaps even more importantly, a first time ever default on US Debt,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Saturday afternoon. “Rand will be playing right into the hands of the Democrats, and the GREAT people of Kentucky will never forgive him! The GROWTH we are experiencing,...

An evenly divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that states cannot provide funding to religious charter schools, turning away from a potential decision that would have fundamentally changed K-12 education.The 4-4 split meant the justices upheld the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s ruling that both Sooner State law and the US Constitution prohibit taxpayer funding from going toward religious schools. Justice Amy Coney Barrett had recused herself from arguments, having taught at the University of Notre Dame’s law school for about 15 years. The school’s religious liberty clinic had been representing one of the parties in the case, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic...