President-elect Donald Trump just announced his sweeping plan to slash the size of the federal government through a new government agency run by businessmen Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
The temporary agency, which Trump has named the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), will be tasked with slashing government bureaucracy, ending nonsensical regulations, and cutting wasteful expenditures, initiatives the American people appear all too happy to see put into action.
Read More
President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday nominated billionaire Jared Isaacman to lead the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during his second administration.
Read More
The state of California won’t cooperate with President-elect Trump’s mass deportation plans, according to Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif.
“There’s an important distinction here. No state’s government, not Texas, not California, not any state in the nation has a constitutional authority to impose federal immigration law. That is the responsibility of the federal government,” Padilla said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
Read More
Citing discrimination against nonminorities in farming assistance programs, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty has filed an amicus brief in support of plaintiff Robert Holman’s litigation against the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
He’s a corn and soybean farmer.
Read More
The U.S. Department of Defense’s annual audit once again resulted in a disclaimer.
That means the federal government’s largest agency – with a budget of more than $840 billion – can’t fully explain its spending. The disclaimer this year was expected. And it’s expected again next year. The Pentagon previously said it will be able to accurately account for its spending by 2027.
Read More
In 2021, near the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, investigators tailed a Jeep Cherokee stolen from an airport Avis to a New York City apartment they called a “fraud factory” – no furniture, just an air mattress, a computer, stacks of loan and tax forms, and a shredder.
Two men who had first met in prison – Adedayo Ilori, 43, and Chris Recamier, 59 – were using stolen identities and fake paperwork to falsely claim they employed 200 people, bilking the federal government’s pandemic-relief programs of more than $1 million, according to federal prosecutors. They used the stolen money to splurge on big-ticket purchases, such as cryptocurrency, leasing luxury apartments and a Mercedes, the evidence showed.
Read More
The federal government this week began fortifying Washington, D.C., for Inauguration Day, which is roughly three months away.
The effort has begun with crews erecting fencing around the White House, including nearby Lafayette Park, the National Park Service, which is leading the effort, said Tuesday.
Read More
Twenty-five Republican governors want to know how many illegal foreign nationals have been flown into their states by a Biden-Harris administration plan they argue is burdening their residents and creating an unsafe environment.
Those being flown in have arrived through more than a dozen parole programs created by U.S. Department of Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The governors only inquired about one: the CHNV parole program, created to fast track previously inadmissible citizens of Cuba, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela moving into the country.
Read More
Vice President Kamala Harris gave a speech last week to accompany the release of her 82-page economic planning document. While her words were intended to evoke optimism, the implications of the plan are troubling for America’s future.
To begin with, the plan must be placed in context.
Read More
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday the state has the jurisdiction to prosecute Ryan Wesley Routh for attempted murder and will be more transparent in its investigation than the federal government.
Read More
Tonight, the presidential candidates will have their first debate. But there is one critical election issue the American people are not debating at all. They agree that non-U.S. citizens should not vote in U.S. elections.
This is a convenient opinion for Americans to hold as it is also the law.
Read More
The state of Utah wants the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its lawsuit against the federal government.
At issue is the federal government’s control of unappropriated lands, lands that Utah says the federal government is holding indefinitely.
Read More
The national debt surpassed $35 trillion on Monday for the first time in U.S. history as exorbitant federal spending continues under President Joe Biden.
Since Biden was inaugurated, the national debt has increased by over $7 trillion, from $27.7 trillion on January 20, 2021 to now over $35 trillion as of July 29, 2024. If the debt were to be divided among the roughly 258.3 million adults in the U.S., each adult would have roughly $135,500.
Read More
Based on data from a U.S. Treasury report, the federal government has amassed $142 trillion in debts, liabilities, and unfunded obligations. This staggering figure equals 93% of all the wealth Americans have accumulated since the nation’s founding, estimated by the Federal Reserve to be $152 trillion.
Unlike other measures of federal red ink that cover an arbitrary period, extend into the infinite future, or ignore government resources, the figure of $142 trillion applies strictly to Americans who are alive right now and includes the government’s commercial assets. Thus, it quantifies the financial burden that today’s Americans are leaving to their children and future generations.
Read More
A medical internship program is under fire for allegedly racially discriminating against otherwise qualified applicants, requiring that applicants must “identify” as black or African American.
Do No Harm filed a complaint on behalf of a member on Thursday requesting the federal government investigate an internship offered by the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM). The anonymous member was qualified academically and met all other requirements but was rejected because of his race.
Read More
Last week, in Murthy v. Missouri, the Supreme Court hammered home the distressing conclusion that, under the court’s doctrines, the First Amendment is, for all practical purposes, unenforceable against large-scale government censorship. The decision is a strong contender to be the worst speech decision in the court’s history.
(I must confess a personal interest in all of this: My civil rights organization, the New Civil Liberties Alliance, represented individual plaintiffs in Murthy.)
Read More
Some of you may remember that four years ago this week I debated Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Bartholet who called for a “presumptive ban” on homeschooling. The online event was hosted by the Cato Institute and drew thousands of participants, including many homeschooling families who were incensed by Bartholet’s proposal.
Now, Scientific American is joining the crowd of busybodies eager to constrain a family’s right to raise and educate their children how they choose. “The federal government must develop basic standards for safety and quality of education in homeschooling across the country,” read a recent editorial in the magazine.
Read More
The federal government loses up to $521 billion a year to fraud, according to a first-of-its-kind estimate from a Congressional watchdog.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office, which serves as the research arm of Congress, estimated annual fraud losses cost taxpayers between $233 billion and $521 billion annually, according to a new report published Tuesday. The fraud estimate’s range represents 3% to 7% of average federal obligations.
Read More
The federal government reported hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in improper payments last fiscal year and trillions over the last two decades.
According to a new report from the Government Accountability Office, the federal government reported $236 billion in improper payments in fiscal year 2023. The true number, though, is actually much higher, but federal reporting is often lacking.
Read More
Not since Prohibition has the federal government sought to ban a product as popular as the internal combustion engine.
This week, the Environmental Protection Agency released its final emissions standards rule, requiring that 70% of new vehicle sales be pure battery-powered electric or hybrids by 2032.
Read More
For the first time in my 94 years on earth, I fear for the future of our democracy. I see the federal government using its enormous powers with contempt for the governed instead of with the consent of the governed as our founders envisioned.
Fundamental change in America is occurring by executive order or the force of the government’s police powers instead of through the legislative process required by the Constitution. From this, I fear that free market capitalism may be replaced by big government socialism. I also fear the erosion of our rights and freedoms, including parental rights, freedom of speech and religion, and due process.
Read More
The federal government is sending more than $210 million for projects across the state, from building a park over downtown Atlanta’s Connector to removing a flyover ramp in Savannah.
The largest project is a $157.6 million Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods Grant award to jumpstart the first phase of construction of the Stitch, a four-acre park over Interstates 75 and 85.
Read More
Just when it seemed impossible for things to get tougher for small businesses, the federal government decided to make things worse.
Small businesses have had a tough run for the last few years. Record inflation, high interest rates, and workforce shortages have led to widespread pessimism among small businesses. The last thing they need is more government interference, but that is exactly what is happening.
Read More
The college horror stories are endless. A mandatory Title IX training session at Harvard instructs students that “fatphobia” and “cis-heterosexism” perpetuate violence and that using the wrong pronouns constitutes abuse. Yet, hatred against Jews is tolerated at the school.
In California, community colleges teach that if someone claims they are not a racist, they are in denial and that colorblindness “perpetuates existing racial inequities and denies systematic racism.” A Michigan college held a “queer” abortion stories event earlier this year. The once-venerable University of Chicago is planning to host a “kink and consent” workshop for students, in which the practice of sex play with ropes will be taught.
Read More
Michigan is very much in play for November.
Our new poll shows a dead heat, with Trump and Biden tied at 43% each and 14% undecided for this key swing state. With Trump leading comfortably right now in Georgia and North Carolina, a win in Michigan could well tip the entire election to the 45th president.
Read More
Former President Donald Trump on Thursday expressed support for Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott’s efforts to secure the southern border amid perceived federal apathy toward the unprecedented surge in illegal border crossings.
Read More
The invasion of illegal aliens on our southern border is getting worse by the day. Texas is at the forefront of this problem, comprising almost half of the nation’s border with Mexico. After years of failure by the Obama and Biden administrations, our state has finally decided to act to protect our citizens.
A new law was signed by the governor, making illegal immigration a state crime and empowering local and state law enforcement to carry out this new law. This should have happened years ago. The border crisis is not new. Inaction by the governor has continued to allow illegal aliens, including documented terrorists, into our state.
Read More
Government employees in the United States topped 23 million for the first time in December, according to the employment numbers released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In November, according to BLS, there were 22,951,000 people employed by the local, state and federal governments in the United States. In December, there were 23,003,000.
Read More
The federal government spent $1,058,839,000,000 in the first two months of fiscal year 2024 — October and November — according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.
At the same time, according to the MTS, it collected $678,264,000,000 in taxes — thus running a two-month deficit of approximately $380,576,000,000.
Read More
The national debt continues to rise sharply to record levels during the ongoing debate in Congress over the next federal spending bill.
The federal government has already piled another $383 billion onto the debt so far into the 2024 fiscal year, which began on October 1.
Read More
Idaho is asking the Supreme Court to intervene and allow the state to enforce its pro-life law despite the Biden Administration’s efforts to block it by allowing abortions in emergency rooms, according to court documents.
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act is meant to ensure that all patients who request emergency room treatment are examined, but Idaho argued in its court filing Monday that the law turns “protection for the uninsured into a federal super-statute on the issue of abortion, one that strips Idaho of its sovereign interest in protecting innocent human life and turns emergency rooms into a federal enclave where state standards of care do not apply.”
Read More
In May 2021, L. Gordon Crovitz, a media executive turned start-up investor, pitched Twitter executives on a powerful censorship tool.
In an exchange that came to light in the “Twitter Files” revelations about media censorship, Crovitz, former publisher of the Wall Street Journal, touted his product, NewsGuard, as a “Vaccine Against Misinformation.” His written pitch highlighted a “separate product” – beyond an extension already on the Microsoft Edge browser – “for internal use by content-moderation teams.” Crovitz promised an out-of-the-box tool that would use artificial intelligence powered by NewsGuard algorithms to rapidly screen content based on hashtags and search terms the company associated with dangerous content.
Read More
Another game of shutdown chicken ended last weekend with the status quo and the ousting of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) says its time to end the senseless — and costly — practice of shutdown politics.
Read More
The House passed a 45-day stopgap measure Saturday afternoon, according to multiple reports. The House has adjourned until Monday.
Read More
The federal government handed over nearly $76 billion to colleges and universities from COVID-19 federal funding packages, despite the colleges and universities having billions of dollars in their endowment funds, according to data compiled by OpenTheBooks.
The Cares Act, The Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSSA) and The American Rescue Plan Act contained over $5 trillion in federal COVID-19 relief funds, of which nearly $76 billion was handed over to colleges and universities, according to data compiled by OpenTheBooks, a government transparency watchdog organization. Sixteen of the universities with the largest endowments received nearly $4 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funds.
Read More
The federal government is borrowing an average of $5.3 billion per day this fiscal year, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office estimated Tuesday. The new estimate come just days after a top international creditor downgraded the U.S. credit rating.
“The federal budget deficit was $1.6 trillion in the first 10 months of fiscal year 2023, the Congressional Budget Office estimates – more than twice the shortfall recorded during the same period last year,” CBO said. “Revenues were 10 percent lower and outlays were 10 percent higher from October through July than they were during the same period in fiscal year 2022.”
Read More
Allegations that the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been politicized and weaponized against Republicans are in the news. It is commonly acknowledged that most federal employees lean left and vote Democratic, but this is usually said to make little difference. Prior to the 2022 election, a survey by Government Executive magazine said federal workers preferred Democrats 47 percent to 35 percent in House races, and 37 percent to 33 percent for the Senate.
Read More
by Theo Wold James Landis is widely credited with crafting the theoretical architecture supporting President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s radical reconstruction — and expansion — of the federal government. Landis shrewdly both established and legitimized the regulatory state, including Roosevelt’s creation of new federal administrative agencies, by offering the regulatory state…
Read More
The federal government wasted over a half a trillion dollars in improper payments during the first two years of the Biden administration, a new analysis from a spending watchdog group found.
The analysis comes from Open The Books, which reports that 82 programs across 17 agencies made improper payments in fiscal year 2022 alone, averaging $20.5 billion per month, or $683 million per day.
Read More
A Catholic college is raising money to end its affiliation with the federal government and become financially independent, arguing the government has become “hostile to faith,” according to its website.
Belmont Abbey College (BAC), located in North Carolina, is operating a campaign called “Made True” that aims to raise $55 million to cut ties with the federal government and restore its purpose as a faith-based institution, its website reads. The money will “create innovative new financial structures and stewardship programs” with the intent of graduating students without debt as well as create public policy and health science programs that align with the college’s mission.
Read More
Retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn on Friday filed a suit against the federal government seeking damages over what he called Washington’s “wrongful and malicious” prosecution of him.
“As a direct and proximate result of Defendant’s actions, General Flynn suffered harm,” his attorneys wrote in a filing with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. “He was falsely branded as a traitor to his country, lost at least tens of millions of dollars of business opportunities and future lifetime earning potential, was maliciously prosecuted and spent substantial monies in his own defense.”
Read More
Historically, the Federal Government had limited involvement in Public Education. That changed in 1965 when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) into law.
ESEA doubled federal expenditures for K-12 education and gave the federal government much more input into education. That has been the debate ever since, central control of education versus state/local control.
Read More
House Republicans think federal agencies have become a weapon against their own apolitical employees and the constitutional rights of Americans. House Democrats think House Republicans have become a weapon against the prerogatives of federal agencies.
The parties traded laundry lists of grievances stemming from agency and congressional investigations, from the Benghazi attack to the Russia collusion hoax, at the first hearing Thursday of the House Judiciary Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
Read More
Article III Project founder and President Mike Davis says he doubts House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan will hold Big Tech accountable for its abuse of power for colluding with the federal government.
“Jim Jordan has no intention of actually holding big tech accountable,” Davis said on the Wednesday edition of the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show. “He pretends like he is fighting against Big Tech, but behind the scenes he’s making these key decisions like opposing bipartisan reforms last Congress and appointing someone who is pro Big Tech.”
Read More
Two recent proposals that the federal government are considering in the name of consumer safety have Uncle Sam coming after products millions of Americans use every day. While a potential gas stove ban has received several headlines in recent days, millions of Americans may not know that the government has also had a role in beginning the phasing out of a chemical that is a component in so many products that it will likely impact every American in the country.
Read More
A hospital in Yuma, Arizona, is owed $20 million for medical services provided to illegal immigrants.
“We’ve calculated that over a six-month period, from December 2021 to May 2022, we had $20 million in charges that we’re unable to bill anyone for, for services we provided to migrants alone,” Dr. Robert Trenschel, president and CEO of Yuma Regional Medical Center, told The Daily Signal during a phone interview Wednesday.
Read More
Americans listed the federal government as the top problem facing the country for the seventh year in a row, according to a new poll.
Of over 1,000 respondents, 19% mentioned the government as the top problem with the country, saying they are dissatisfied with “some aspect” of the government, according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday. The government was ranked as more of a problem than inflation and the economy in general, with 16% dissatisfied with inflation and 12% dissatisfied with the economy in general.
Read More
The House Republican Conference is currently working on legislation that may ban the use of TikTok by federal government employees, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.
“We’re working on something right now,” said a Republican aide familiar with the matter. The proposal is said to be proceeding through the Judiciary Committee, which is set to be led by Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio in the next Congress when the GOP gains a majority.
Read More
Interest on federal debt is set to skyrocket, potentially surpassing defense spending by as early as 2025, CNN reported Tuesday.
The federal government made $475 billion in net interest payments in the fiscal year 2022 — which ended in September — up from $352 in fiscal year 2021, according to the Treasury Department. The number exceeds the $406 billion spent on transportation and veterans’ benefits, and is on track to eclipse the roughly $750 billion spent on defense this year between 2025 to 2026, according to CNN, citing financial analytics firm Moody’s Analytics.
Read More
Newly released polling data shows that a majority of Americans say the federal government has too much power.
Gallup released the poll Wednesday, which showed that 54% of Americans said the federal government is “too powerful.” The survey found 39% said the federal government has the right amount of power while only 6% said it has too little.
Read More