Free Republic

House Republicans brought the receipts to this week's "USAID Betrayal" hearing exposing the U.S. international aid agency's widespread waste and abuse of American tax dollars. Amid intense examination of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)'s spending spree, Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY), a majority member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, listed off more ways USAID has wasted taxpayer money. [snip] According to the congressional committee's findings, USAID spent: $11.75 million on measuring the effectiveness of DEI promotion efforts in Nepal (Award ID #AID367C1500001); $750,000 on Princeton University's DEI survey in the Middle East (Award ID #7200AA21C00087); $859,000 on hiring...

The Small Business Administration on Friday ordered all companies that get preference for government contracts due to their status as “socially disadvantaged” minorities to provide detailed financial information to show they are not defrauding the program, The Daily Wire has learned. The change represents a move to reevaluate a decades-old program that Washington insiders have long recognized as openly corrupt. The 8(a) program is one of the largest and oldest DEI initiatives in the country, affecting contracts at almost all federal agencies. SBA administrator Kelly Loeffler said there is mounting evidence that minority contracts had become “a pass-through vehicle for...

Minnesota once prided itself on its Scandinavian-style safety net – high taxes, generous benefits and a shared belief that no child should ever go hungry. But that image lies in ruins after a billion-dollar fraud spree that siphoned taxpayer money away from the needy and poured it straight into luxury mansions, high-end cars, overseas real estate and designer lifestyles. What authorities first hoped was a one-off pandemic scam has now been exposed as something far bigger – and far uglier. Federal prosecutors say that over the past five years, scores of scammers – many operating inside Minnesota’s Somali diaspora –...

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), said Sunday the Trump administration is holding “discussions” on extending subsidies offered under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). “There are discussions around extending the subsidies, if we deal with the fraud, waste and abuse that, right now, is paralyzing the system,” Oz told host Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Kennedy didn’t hold back as he read aloud what Democrats are fighting to restore. “We found that under President Biden, they were spending $3 million for circumcisions and vasectomies in Zambia,” he said. “We took that out. The congresswoman says, ‘We’re gonna shut down government until you put that back in.’” And that was just the beginning. “We found $500,000 of American taxpayer money for electric buses in Rwanda...” “We found $3.6 million for pastry cooking classes and dance focus groups for male prostitutes in Haiti. I kid you not. I’m not making this up. It was in the budget...

As Democrats threaten government shut-down over Medicaid cuts; as Americans are bracing for another increase in their healthcare costs; and as patients wait an average maximum of 132 days to see a primary care doctor, Americans can’t seem to wake up from the nightmare called U.S. healthcare. The rise in insurance premium costs is estimated at 7–10 percent next year. This is on top of already unaffordable family spending with the average American family expending $32,066 on healthcare in 2024 according to Milliman Medical Index. Faced with increasing pressure on their bottom lines, employers are passing these additional expenses on...

Seen from the sky, the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in California’s Mojave Desert resembles a futuristic dream. Viewed from the bottom line, however, Ivanpah is anything but. The solar power plant, which features three 459-foot towers and thousands of computer-controlled mirrors known as heliostats, cost some $2.2 billion to build. Construction began in 2010 and was completed in 2014. Now, it’s set to close in 2026 after failing to efficiently generate solar energy. In 2011, the US Department of Energy under former President Barack Obama issued $1.6 billion in three federal loan guarantees for the project and the Secretary of...

The Obama library — which isn't a library — has ballooned to a construction cost of more than $615 million, up from the original estimate of $300 million when the edifice was proposed in 2019. As 2024, the estimate had soared to $615 million, with the cost adding up to a whopping $615,674,047. But according to the Chicago Tribune, other estimates have already placed construction costs past the $700 million mark. Along with these massive cost overruns, the Barack Obama Presidential Center has had a very troubled history already, and it hasn’t even been completed yet. Originally, the Obama Center...

If you thought the Trump Administration was finished making cuts to government spending, think again. No other institution on earth can spend money like the U.S. government—the effort by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to get spending under control and cut waste has never happened on this level before. On Sunday, the DOGE team announced another round of major cuts, nearly $2B worth: Contracts Update!Over the last 5 days, agencies terminated 163 wasteful contracts with a ceiling value of $1.9B and savings of $647M, including, a $35M USAID contract to “acquire contractor support to establish and manage a flexible,...

A UN conference to boost support for global development aid begins on Monday as US funding cuts jeopardise the fight against poverty. But key player the United States is snubbing the biggest such talks in a decade, underlining the erosion of international cooperation on combating hunger, disease and climate change. UN sustainable development goals set for 2030 are slipping from reach just as the world's wealthiest countries are withdrawing funding for development programmes. President Donald Trump's gutting of the US development agency USAID is the standout example, with Germany, Britain and France among other rich economies making cuts when faced...

Former White House chief of staff and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel confirmed Wednesday that he is considering a run for president in 2028 on the Democratic ticket, taking advantage of a vacuum in leadership. Crain’s Chicago Business reported: “’Of course’ it’s fair to say he’s considering running for president, declared Rahm Emanuel, hands for the moment neither waving nor pointing but resting on the table. ‘I’m looking at the (Democratic) field and, most importantly, what I have to contribute.’” Emanuel was the architect of Democrats’ victory in the 2006 midterm elections, when they ran socially moderate candidates in swing districts...

Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson 🚨BREAKING: President Trump’s D.C. military parade for the Army’s 250th will feature missiles, rocket launchers, F-22 flyovers, and 7,000 troops. 8:45 AM · Jun 7, 2025

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) assailed the Big Beautiful Bill's cuts to Medicaid as "an unfair assault on the heath of America's most vulnerable people. Millions will be denied coverage. Others will be forced to work in order to get health care. When voters find out what Republicans are doing they will vote them out of office." Rep. Erin Houchin (R-Ind) defended the legislation, saying "if you think about the four things that we're doing in Medicaid to strengthen it, you'll see that we're removing any payments that are illegal, ineligible or duplicate, and we're ensuring that able-bodied adults have a...

President Trump’s “Golden Dome” plan has riled the three countries whose weapons technology poses the greatest threat to American territory, with China, Russia and North Korea claiming the missile-defense project is driving a dangerous new arms race. -snip- North Korea slammed the Golden Dome on Tuesday as the “largest arms-buildup plan in history.” China and Russia in a joint statement earlier this month called the project “deeply destabilizing.” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, in a briefing to journalists Tuesday, said the plan “represented a direct disruption to the foundations of strategic stability.” All three countries have also denounced Trump’s...

Democrats are busy fearmongering and predicting widespread tragedy that would emanate from the “Big Beautiful Bill” if it passes, but they should maybe think about taking a deep breath and listening to what Dr. Mehmet Oz has to say. They claim that the evil GOP wants to take away healthcare for the elderly and the disadvantaged with the measure, but Republicans counter that what they are really trying to do is get rid of the eye-opening waste and fraud that programs like Medicaid and Medicare are victims of. And there’s a whole lot of grift going on, according to Oz,...

They burned Elon’s businesses to the ground. They vandalized Teslas across the country. They assaulted Tesla employees and Tesla drivers… …all because Elon found waste and fraud in government …and the GOP won’t even vote on the cuts I can’t wrap my head around this.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) provided an update to one of the biggest scams uncovered by Elon Musk’s team on Wednesday evening. DOGE says it has saved approximately $105 billion in a “combination of asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings,” and other workforce reductions. The Democrats are angry that DOGE is saving American taxpayers money, so they devised a scheme to stop Elon Musk and his team. There are currently nearly a dozen lawsuits challenging DOGE over its authority, data access, and privacy laws. There is also a secret resistance...

Russian forces managed to capture around 68 square miles of Ukraine in April. But it cost them 4,800 vehicles and more than 36,600 dead and wounded troops, according to one statistician who collects data mostly from official Ukrainian sources including the general staff in Kyiv. In the same month, Ukrainian losses were “minimal,” concluded analyst Konrad Muzyka of Rochan Consulting in Poland. Ukraine sprawls across 233,000 square miles, 19% of which is under Russian occupation. At the current rates of advance and loss, the Russians would capture the rest of Ukraine in the year 2256 at the cost of 101...

Dr. Mehmet Oz, newly sworn in as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), has exposed billions of dollars in fraud, waste, and abuse plaguing America’s healthcare safety nets. Appearing on America’s Newsroom with Bill Hemmer, Dr. Oz laid out a clear and urgent mission: protect the most vulnerable — not enrich bureaucrats, fraudsters, and corrupt insiders. “Right now, my main focus, without any question, is to wage a war on fraud, waste, and abuse — because that’s what’s required. All hands-on deck,” Dr. Oz said.

A federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction to block the Department of Government Efficiency from further access to sensitive personal information at the Social Security Administration. The order blocks the agency from granting DOGE access to systems containing personally identifiable information including Social Security numbers, medical records, mental health records, tax information and family court records. A federal judge has once again blocked Department of Government Efficiency staffers, operating inside the Social Security Administration, from accessing sensitive personal data of millions of Americans. U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander on Thursday granted a preliminary injunction to block the so-called...