Free Republic

The Obama administration is threatening to rescind billions of dollars in federal stimulus money if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers do not restore wage cuts to unionized home healthcare workers approved in February as part of the budget. The workers, who collectively contribute millions of dollars in dues each month to the influential Service Employees International Union and the United Domestic Workers The SEIU said in a statement that it had asked the Obama administration for the ruling.

Morning Devotional "Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings." - Ephesians 1:3 All the goodness of the past, the present, and the future, Christ bestows upon his people. In the mysterious ages of the past the Lord Jesus was his Father's first elect, and in his election he gave us an interest, for we were chosen in him from before the foundation of the world. He had from all eternity the prerogatives of Sonship, as his Father's only-begotten and well-beloved Son, and he has, in the riches of his grace, by adoption and regeneration, elevated us to sonship also,...

I took in a bit of Question Period when I was in Ottawa yesterday. I was in the Centre Block waiting for the elevator, and a kindly old lady gave me a huge smile, and said hello. I said hello back -- perhaps it was a fan. Not quite. She introduced herself to me: she was Jennifer Lynch, the Chief Commissar of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. I was surprised -- she looks nothing like her publicity photo, which must have been taken way back when she was a leftist activist working for Joe Clark. That was when she was...

Pet therapy dogs could carry pathogens from patient to patient, Canadian researchers say. The study was reported by researchers at the University of Guelph in a letter to the editor of the Journal of Hospital Infection. The study of 26 pet therapy dog-handler teams visited acute care facilities and long-term care facilities. Prior to each visit, the dog's forepaws and their handlers' hands were tested for MRSA, vancomycin-resistant enterococci and C.difficile.

Eric Peterson of Brookings is a rescuer times two. First, he rescued Eve, a 2-year-old American Pit Bull Terrier. Now, with a demanding training regimen behind them, he's ready to undertake some search-and-rescue missions - with a lot of help from his pawed pal and partner. Eve is now qualified in "tracking and trailing ." She and Peterson are part of the Brookings County Sheriff's Department K-9 Search and Rescue program. A scenario for her and Peterson might be a situation where a nursing-home resident suffering from dementia wanders off or a child wanders away from home and becomes lost.

It’s an old device in politics: Set up a straw man to criticize when you can’t win an argument on your own. Such tactics, unfortunately, are standard fare when it comes to efforts by a handful of special interest groups to bring about amnesty for illegal immigrants. Organizations such as the National Council of La Raza, the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the Migration Policy Institute know that most Americans disagree with their desire for amnesty. Most Americans want to see immigration laws enforced. So these groups create straw...

...I am awestruck by what our great God did for us and how He did it. It is truly what sets Christianity apart from every other religion. God could have chosen to take human flesh and come among us as a grown man, fully capable of taking care of Himself. But He didn’t. He came to us utterly helpless and vulnerable. He came to us the same way we have all come to be – through a mother. By inhabiting the womb He proclaimed the honor and dignity of motherhood. By choosing to submit Himself to the care and authority...

Now frosted lightbulbs are to be banned by EU in favour of energy-savers ... The EU is banning every type of opaque 'incandescent' bulb from September, from the conventional 100 and 60 watt 'pearl' bulbs to the more specialised frosted 25 watt and 40 watt bulbs shaped like candles and golf balls. At the same time clear 100 watt bulbs will also vanish. Instead, shoppers will have to buy low energy compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) or low energy halogen bulbs. Change: Traditional frosted bulbs (left) are to be replaced by energy-saving bulbsThe rest of the clear bulbs will be phased...

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE — As the nation awaits President Barack Obama’s selection of a nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, word of a presidential appointment closer to home has reached the south shore of Lake Tahoe. Josh Reid, one of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s three sons, has been chosen to fill the presidential appointee’s seat on the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency’s Governing Board. Reid, 37, is a resident of Henderson, Nev., and is a partner in the Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck law firm. He works in the firm’s Las Vegas-based natural resources group focusing on environmental, energy, and land...

NASA's critics have long asked: Why does the space agency need to design and build its own rockets and spacecraft? When the Justice Department or the Centers for Disease Control want to send employees somewhere, they don't specify the aircraft types, let alone design the airframes, engines and avionics. They just buy plane tickets. Even the military finds it cheaper to use civilian aircraft for certain missions. So why should space transportation be any different?

Reparations - The Law of Punishment and Reward Anyone who captures a free person, brings them to another country against their will, forces them to do manual labor without pay, while physically and psychologically abusing them – denying them equal rights to resources are creating a moral and ethical system by which redress is inevitable. Although the era supported this type of behavior and it was acceptable by the legitimate government one could argue that no wrong was committed – except the one who was subjected to the treatment. For them, it was not consensual therefore it's illegal and degrading....

Chief Justice Roberts must be lamenting the many qualified lawyers and judges who have no chance of being consdered for the Supreme Court. He has been the leading voice explaining that the government should not consider race or gender in such a decision. But the unanimity of opinion that the next justice can be neither white nor male prompted Benjamin Witte, a senior fellow at the liberal Brookings Institution, to write in the Washington Post an op-ed headlined, "The Best Judges Obama Can't Pick." Indeed, after the last election in which race nor gender was much of a concern -...

Satire is a form of humor that often involves seizing upon a particularly dumb argument and exaggerating it to such a ridiculous extent that the absurdity becomes obvious to everyone. Children, do not try this at home. Back when Republicans in the Legislature were repeatedly trying to pass concealed carry laws to flood the streets of our cities with even more guns, I regularly wrote columns ridiculing the gun lobby's absurd notion that more guns equal more public safety when the exact opposite is true. Here's a quote from my column back in 2003: "If guns are supposed to deter...

Specter was beside himself when the Republican voters seemed ready to toss him out of office for his vote in favor of the Obama stimulus plan, so he switched parties. Then he made it clear that he expected to reserve his right to be totally unreliable as a Democrat and be rewarded for it with a powerful subcommittee chairmanship currently in the possession of another Democratic senator.... But it does fit in with Specter’s theory, which is that his propensity to do whatever he wants should not only be tolerated, but constantly rewarded. That’s not character. It’s self-indulgence.

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Evangelical leader Dr. James Dobson said President Obama’s snub of Thursday’s National Day of Prayer left Christians “disappointed” – and a bit puzzled. “When a professional baseball team wins the World Series, or when the Super Bowl is played, or when college teams win the national championship, they’re invited to the White House to celebrate,” Dobson said at a Capitol Hill news conference. “That’s important, apparently. But celebrating prayer, which is our heritage, is ignored.” The founder and chairman emeritus of the Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family said evangelicals were "disappointed; not angry" that for the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration is expected to propose legislation by June calling for the U.S. Federal Reserve to play a central role in regulating systemic risk in the economy, trade association sources said on Friday. Now that the U.S. bank stress tests are over, the administration is refocusing on a drive to tighten regulation of banks and markets to prevent another financial crisis like the one that is currently ravaging economies worldwide. Systemic risk refers to problems in the financial system large enough to damage the overall economy. For instance, the government last year bailed out insurer American...

Democratic Party pundits have become annoyingly predictable. No matter what the question is, they work in a comment on how the Republican Party is dead. This is, of course, wishful thinking, as those of us ancient enough to remember 1977 can attest. Then, as now, Democratic pundits shed crocodile tears for the late, great Republican Party and engaged in mocking derision of any potential Republican standard-bearer.

Six months ago, California voters passed Proposition 8, denying legal recognition to same gender marriages. Petitions are now being circulated to put the issue back to the voters in June 2010. Before venturing into this thorny thicket again, the media should realize what a poor job it did in covering the fundraising for Prop 8. The reporting blunders include gross inaccuracies and one where the media did not recognize a good story right before their eyes. All the blunders could have been avoided had news organizations more fully understood the campaign finance reporting laws of California and/or been more diligent...

US banks have been given government assurances they will be allowed to raise less than the $74.6bn in equity mandated by stress tests if earnings over the next six months outstrip regulators’ forecasts, bankers said.v The agreement, which was not mentioned when the government revealed the results on Thursday, means some banks may not have to raise as much equity through share issues and asset sales as the market is expecting. It could also increase the incentive for banks to book profits in the next two quarters. The banks have 28 days to announce their capital-raising plans and until November...