Free Republic

I have to ask, think this through, what has been the reason for a series of embassies to ever close in our past history? Are we so scared of a group that was once defeated that we cower in fear like this? Or does Obama have other plans? Embassies, closed, this many, at the same time...only in time of war, folks, only in time of war

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new round of military base closings is going nowhere in Congress.</p> <p>The House Armed Services readiness subcommittee passed a bill Thursday rejecting the Obama administration's request for more domestic base closings.</p> <p>Military leaders are cutting the number of troops and argue the drawdown will leave them with more installations than they need. The money saved by closing unused facilities can be spent on training and other essential operations.</p>

PHILADELPHIA — Like many public schools here, University City High School is underused, underfinanced and underperforming. William R. Hite Jr., the schools superintendent, says the closings will help keep the district solvent. More Photos » Nearly 80 percent of its 11th-grade students read below grade level in statewide tests this year, while 85 percent failed to make the grade in math. Last year, about only a quarter of its students participated in precollege testing like the SAT. Largely because of the lure of local charter schools, the school is one-quarter full, with fewer than 600 students for its nearly 2,200...

Hostess Brands Inc. said it likely won't make an announcement until Friday morning on whether it will move to liquidate its business, after the company had set a Thursday deadline for striking employees to return to work. The maker of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread had warned employees that would file a motion in U.S. Bankruptcy Court to unwind its business and sell off assets if plant operations didn't return to normal levels by 5 p.m. EST Thursday. That would result in the loss of about 18,000 jobs.Snip The Teamsters meanwhile are urging the smaller union to hold a...

IRVING, Texas — Hostess Brands Inc. is permanently closing three bakeries following a nationwide strike by its bakers union. The Texas-based maker of Twinkies and Ding Dongs says the strike has prevented it from producing and delivering products. Hostess warned earlier this month that the strike, by about 30 percent of its workforce, could lead to bakery closures. It said Monday that it will close bakeries in Seattle, St. Louis and Cincinnati that collectively employ 627 workers. The company has about 18,300 employees. Thousands of members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers

Tonight, Rabbi David Wolpe gave the closing benediction. And he missed two key references: Jerusalem, and the State of Israel. He focused instead on the false leftist definition of tikkun olam, fixing the world. Tikkun olam is actually a kabbalistic concept that suggests that Jews have a responsibility to fulfill the commandments in order to rectify the cosmic cataclysm that occurred with creation. But leftists like to equate tikkun olam with the entire leftist program, no matter how many Jewish commandments that leftist program violates. Here’s Wolpe's transcript: Dear God, we are grateful that our nation is founded on the...

All Food Lion stores on the First Coast, including a dozen in Jacksonville, are closing, company officials announced Wednesday night. The stores will be closed within 30 days, the company said. Stores in Clay, St. Johns, Nassau, Baker and Alachua counties are also closing. In addition, the Food Lion in Waycross is among the Georgia stores slated to be closed. The company will convert its Food Lion in Lake City to a Harveys store. All of the other stores in Florida are closing.

CINCINNATI (AP) — Macy's Inc. says it will close five Macy's and four Bloomingdale's stores that are underperforming. Clearance sales will begin at the stores Sunday and run for 10 weeks. More than 830 workers will be affected by the closings — 375 at Macy's stores and 463 at Bloomingdale's. But many may have the option of taking jobs at new stores the company plans to open. The closing Macy's stores are in Topeka, Kan.; Laurel, Md.; Parma, Ohio; Antioch, Tenn.; and Texas City, Texas. The Bloomingdale's closures are in Atlanta; Oak Brook, Ill.; North Bethesda, Md.; and in the...

About 100,000 postal service employees can breathe a shallow sigh of relief. The U.S. Postal Service has agreed to delay shutting 252 mail processing centers and 3,700 local post offices until mid-May, The Associated Press reported Tuesday. SNIP - - - - - - Last Thursday, a group of 18 Senate Democrats signed a letter to congressional leaders asking them to add language to legislation that would halt closings for six months.

LONGMONT -- The closing of Longmont's Butterball plant at the end of the year marks the end of a 51-year run for Longmont's turkey plant. More importantly, it means 349 people are joining the ranks of the unemployed. One of them is Abundio Canales, 63, a Longmont resident who has operated machinery at Butterball for 19 years. Both he and his wife work at the plant, and both will start the new year looking for work. Canales said he plans to learn English better and would like to take some computer classes, but he's concerned about his wife being able...

The closing of Longmont's Butterball plant at the end of the year marks the end of a 51-year run for Longmont's turkey plant. More importantly, it means 349 people are joining the ranks of the unemployed. ... Carolina-based Butterball announced it was shutting down its Longmont facility at the end of the year, blaming high grain and fuel costs that had made its westernmost production plant no longer financially viable.

A little over a year and a half ago I bought a small profitable business... About 6 months ago it stopped being profitable. 4 months ago my wife was told it was time to quit her job due to health reasons. It's lost money ever since. For over a year I poured my heart, sweat, and lately tears in to it. Working full time jobs trough the whole thing.. A month ago I lost my last full time job.. I have not found a replacement that allows me to work the business in the evenings. The store can't support it's...

PRELIMINARY REPORTIt is public knowledge that the final move of our Wounded Warriors from Walter Reed to Bethesda Naval Hospital and Ft. Belvour will be Sunday, August 28,2011. THE DC CHAPTER OF FREEREPUBLIC WILL BE THERE and all patriots are invited to help show our Wounded Warriors and their families that they are loved and that we support them where ever the are. Not knowing specific details at this time we have permitted all four corners of all 4 gates from 6AM till 10PM. Once we know which gate(s) they will be leaving from, we will start setting up at...

WASHINGTON – Maj. Walter Reed's sword was symbolically handed over to the Navy at a ceremony Wednesday marking the closure of the Army hospital bearing his name, where hundreds of thousands of the nation's war wounded have been treated for more than a century. The tone was somber at times, but mostly celebratory, as more than a thousand former and current staff members and patients — some of them wounded troops from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in wheelchairs who have lost limbs —gathered under a white tent to say goodbye to the Army's flagship hospital. The Army band played,...

Civil liberties and abortion rights advocates are criticizing a bill introduced by State Rep. Matt Baker (R-Tioga) that increases rules for abortion clinics. They argue that the measure is a thinly veiled attempt at restricting abortions, saying a similar bill in Texas forced 18 of 20 clinics to close. Proponents of the legislation and pro-life activists argue that HB 574 is necessary to close gaps in abortion regulation, brought to light in the now infamous case of abortion provider Dr. Kermit Gosnell. Baker’s would require freestanding abortion clinics to follow the same standards as ambulatory surgical facilities, including increasing the...

ASBURY PARK, N.J. -- As President Barack Obama was set to depart on an overseas trip Friday, he faced some sobering news back home -- a school bearing his name was to be shuttered because of low enrollment. The Barack H. Obama Elementary School in Asbury Park, N.J., will close its doors this summer as part of a school district consolidation plan resulting from a declining number of students there, the Asbury Park Press reported. Students at the school, previously known as the Bangs Avenue School until it was renamed for Obama two years ago, will be reassigned to two...

Goodyear's plant manager placed its bad-news call to City Hall at 7:58 a.m. Thursday: The Union City plant where 1,900 employees make radial tires will close by year's end. "We were just all surprised, I guess," City Clerk Carolyn Moran said, adding most everyone in this border town of 10,200 knows someone who works at the plant four miles north of City Hall. Union City sits at the Kentucky line, 115 miles northeast of Memphis. The area unemployment rate is 9.9 percent. Goodyear's fourth-quarter earnings report, released Thursday, disclosed the Akron, Ohio-based company will take a one-time $160 million charge...

he bank shakeout is about to pick up steam. So says Meredith Whitney, the analyst who made headlines around this time three years ago by predicting the demise of Citi's (C) dividend. Whitney predicts in a report released Monday afternoon that profit-strapped U.S. banks will close 5,000 branches over 18 months. That would amount to about 5% of bank offices, and would mark a new twist in a decades-long consolidation process. There were more than 12,000 U.S. banking institutions as recently as 1992, but deregulation and global competition have fed the rise of megabanks like Bank of America (BAC) and...

Robert R. Reilly is the author of The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist. A former director of Voice of America, he now serves as a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council. Reilly recently agreed to answer 10 questions about his book and other topics of interest for The Daily Caller: 1) Why did you write the book? I was fascinated by Bernard Lewis’ book What Went Wrong, in which he chronicles the decline of the Muslim world. I wanted to find out why it went wrong. And, like most Americans, I...

The city attorney's office says it will start by gathering information about who is complying Hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries face a deadline Monday, but questions remain about how exactly that deadline will be enforced. More than 400 dispensaries are under orders to close in accordance with the city's news medical marijuana ordinance. Eventually, the city hopes to whittle the number of pot shops down to 70 and to limit outlets to industrial areas. Some estimates peg the number of medical marijuana dispensaries operating last summer in Los Angeles at 1,000. City officials said hundreds were not registered.