Free Republic

Imagine a vast ledger, chronicling the transactions of a mighty republic, now riddled with deliberate gaps and omissions, gaps no auditor may probe, no citizen may question. This is no fanciful dystopia, but the present reality, quietly authorized by what is known as Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56 (SFFAS 56). While initially crafted, perhaps, with honorable intentions to shield 'classified' operations from hostile eyes, SFFAS 56 now threatens the very transparency and public accountability that sustain a free government. Federal agencies are allowed to use SFFAS 56 to hide spending they desire to be 'classified' from the American...

the left has been complaining about the treatment Judge James Boasberg has gotten from President Donald Trump’s administration for blocking his use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants who have been linked to Tren de Aragua and other such gangs. The latest move from Boasberg, who has ordered deportation flights to stop .. where he said he believed the Trump administration’s lawyers “acted in bad faith” and that the arguments he was getting from them were “pretty sketchy.” ... One of the individuals testifying was Jesse Panuccio, a former acting associate attorney general of the U.S. during Trump’s...

Brown University has opened an investigation into a student for sending emails to administrators asking them what they do in a day. The 20-year-old sophomore at the university, Alex Shieh, sent emails to all 3,805 administrators at Brown asking them to “Describe what tasks you performed in the past week.” Now the school is investigating him for inflicting “Emotional/Psychological Harm” on the staff, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. School officials accuse Shieh of obtaining confidential information and are requiring him to send proof he has deleted the content, essentially requiring the student to incriminate himself,...

It is astonishing what the media and other Democrats get outraged about and what they don’t. In FY 2024, the U.S. had an almost $2 trillion deficit, almost 7% of the total GDP, in a supposedly good economy. Total debt is over $36 trillion, and our economy has a GDP of less than $30 trillion, which includes massive amounts of government spending. Total federal spending in FY 2019, before COVID was $4.4 trillion. Today it is around $7 trillion, up over 50% while inflation is up a little over 20%. So, government spending is up two- and one-half times inflation....

Republican Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst appeared Monday on Newsmax to say that members of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have obstructed and even threatened her efforts to oversee how it distributes money. VIDEO AT LINK................... During an appearance on “The Record with Greta Van Susteren,” Ernst talked about her past problems with USAID and complained about a lack of transparency in how its funds are distributed. Funds, she said, often do not go toward their initially intended purposes. This alleged redirection of funds prompted Ernst to question USAID about its operational practices, a move she said was...

Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson 🔥HOLY SMOKES: President Trump vows to declassify documents related to the JFK, Bobby Kennedy, and MLK assassinations. 4:57 PM · Jan 19, 2025

Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson 🚨 TRUMP: "I'm going to give you a report on drones about one day into the administration because I think it's ridiculous that they're not telling you about what's going on with the drones." From Trump War Room 7:18 PM · Jan 9, 2025

Americans nationwide have every reason to be optimistic that positive change is on the horizon for the nation’s healthcare system. Though new government figures show costs $4.9 trillion per year and 17.6 percent of GDP, straining families, businesses, workers and public-sector budgets, President-elect Trump and his healthcare nominees are poised to deliver access to quality care at far lower costs, by fully realizing his price transparency legacy. Using power vested by the Affordable Care Act, Trump issued hospital and health insurance price transparency rules during his first administration that empower consumers, including employers and unions, with actual prices for their...

In a startling revelation, a recent report found that former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's wife, Chirlane McCray, oversaw nearly $900 million in taxpayer funds without recording how the money was spent. The funds were allocated primarily through the former First Lady's "ThriveNYC" mental health initiative— a program launched to address the city's mental health and homelessness crisis. However, audits and investigations into the program revealed a lack of transparency, with many expenditures unaccounted for and little oversight into how the money was being spent. The revelations came during a city council meeting where legislators noted the program’s...

In the face of critical legacy media reports and opposition on Capitol Hill, President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is working to forge a more direct line of communication with the American people through a playbook-style newsletter. The Trump transition is launching a newsletter on Tuesday with the goal of establishing “transparent communication” with the public on Trump’s future policies and plans, The Daily Wire has exclusively learned. That newsletter is specifically aimed at Americans looking for real information about the transition process, who are frustrated with the mainstream media’s aggressively critical reporting on Trump. “For far too long, the American...

The Sooner State Republican decried how social media has hampered lawmakers’ ability to negotiate on legislation behind closed doors.Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., complained on Thursday that social media has ruined Congress’s ability to make secretive deals on legislation before it is released to the public.Mullin made the comments during a panel at a conference hosted by the No Labels party, which purportedly aims to “give power to the middle, in Washington and across America.” The event featured guests from across the political spectrum, including Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Todd Young of Indiana and Democrat Sen. Tim...

In a recent address to the people of South Jersey, Rep. Van Drew called for transparency and urgent action regarding the growing concerns over unidentified drones entering U.S. airspace.

In a recent interview, former Trump administration official Kash Patel announced that under President Donald Trump’s second administration, Americans should brace for unprecedented government transparency. Patel, reportedly Trump’s likely choice for deputy director of the CIA, stated that “massive declassification” will be among their top priorities, aiming to release troves of information previously shielded from public view. According to NDTV, during Trump’s first term as U.S. President, he planned to appoint Kash Patel as the CIA’s deputy director in the final weeks of his administration. In a recent interview with Benny Johnson, Patel revealed that massive declassification will occur in...

By year-end, Americans will be required to hand over data on their small businesses to the federal government’s law enforcement database... The Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) is an aggressive domestic program to federally register millions of unsuspecting small business owners under the guise of an “anti-money laundering initiative.” By the end of this year, Americans will be required to hand over their small businesses’ private data — such as owners’ names and home addresses — to the federal government’s law enforcement database, operated by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), housed under the Department of the Treasury. Such small businesses...

The Massachusetts Republican Party has demanded “transparency” from Gov. Maura Healey’s (D) administration over an alleged “$1 billion in secret migrant crisis spending” by submitting a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on Tuesday. Healey has tripled the Bay State’s budget for spending on migrant shelters but is stonewalling requests for an accounting of how she has spent the previous $1 billion on migrant housing, Breitbart News reported in August. In one case, the Boston Globe revealed that the state shelled out a whopping $16.3 million to rent out a Boston hotel for illegals but did not reveal where the...

<p>5) Secret Service was initially not going to send snipers to the rally, according to local law enforcement.</p>

Just a week after the country’s top soldier told parliamentarians the military must be more open with Canadians, his organization broke the law by refusing to release a copy of a speech he presented in public. At issue is an ongoing attempt by this newspaper to obtain a written copy of a March 7 speech that Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre gave calling for increased openness and transparency. Typically, the Canadian Forces posts copies of such public speeches on its website and issues the material to news outlets. But Eyre’s office declined to do that and insisted...

People will see…. it might take a little more time than I would prefer, but the truth will come out and people will see. A judge in Florida is starting to take apart the secrecy operation that Ron DeSantis and his DC Bush clan constructed during their block Trump operation. DeSantis moved from Congress to the Florida Governor position in 2018; the intent was always to run for President in 2024 and take apart the Trump constructs returning the Republican apparatus to traditional corporate controls. Part of their lengthy approach was to import some of the Washington DC silo/secrecy functions...

The federal government pays more than $100 million a year to employees who aren’t doing their actual government jobs, but rather working for unions representing government employees against management — with taxpayers essentially funding both sides of the bargaining table. For decades, the government has tracked and reported those figures, but the Biden administration has removed the reports. Under the policy known as “official time,” hundreds of nominal government employees haven’t done anything but full-time union work in years, yet remain on the federal payroll. Not only is the policy expensive to taxpayers, but it also props up the power...

Guys, we're almost there! We're this close to finally replacing journalists with machines!Since no one in DC wants to let you know what Congress is voting on until after the vote, and since our corporate press is too lazy and complicit to worry about it, Elon Musk is stepping up to the plate.Grok, the AI on X, is being outfitted so that it can read, comprehend, and explain the 1,000-page bills that Congress seems to love because it allows them to hide a TON of pork.