Free Republic

"Today is a win for transparency in government and the taxpayers of Wisconsin. The Court of Appeals has agreed with the MacIver Institute that Sen. Erpenbach cannot carve out a special exemption to the open records law for whomever he chooses or try to hide public information when he works for Wisconsin taxpayers," Brett Healy, President of the MacIver Institute said. "Government employees and their unions should not be given a cloak of anonymity to hide their attempts to influence the legislative process. Today's decision requires them to play by the same rules as everyone else." The Court of Appeals...

The following document was prepared by members of the Durham, N.C., branch of Workers World Party and updated on April 8, 2014. The goal of this document is to help inform discussion at the March 29th Hard Times Are Fighting Times Conference on Socialism by placing current anti-racist struggles in the U.S. South and the U.S. labor movement in the context of historic national oppression and previous setbacks in the South. The goal is to avoid past mistakes and build greater unity in and between the anti-racist and union movements. To accomplish this we will first lay out some...

[Caption:] U.S. Senator John McCain, center, speaks as Democratic Senator from the state of Connecticut, Chris Murphy, second left, and Opposition leader Oleh Tyahnybok [All Ukrainian Union "Svoboda" leader], stand around him during a Pro-European Union rally in Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2013. Sen. John McCain (R. Ariz.) advocated for sending arms to Ukraine Tuesday [link at URL] on Fox News. McCain acknowledged the arms would not likely enable Ukraine to defeat the Russians in open war, but emphasized it could improve the Ukrainian military's morale and ensure that the Russians would have "a real fight...

The Russian government today claimed there are more than 100 American 'mercenaries' from a defense contracting company disguised as Ukrainian troops in the embattled former Soviet nation, a claim the American firm and top U.S. officials deny. ... The latest news relesae from Greystone, as posted on a company blog, is from September 2012, titled "New business in Russia" and simply says the company "provided executive protection services in Russia." In April 2012, the company announced it had been awarded a similar contract in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. ...

MOORHEAD, Minn. -- The minimum-wage boost that Minnesota legislators are expected to pass this week has restaurant and bar owners here wondering how the bill would affect their bottom lines in a border city already faced with tough competition from business-friendly North Dakota. At J.C. Chumley's in Moorhead, co-owner Josh Henstorf worries he would have to reduce employees' hours and raise prices, which may send customers to Fargo in search of a cheaper alternative. "I think it's going to do a lot more harm than good to the business, to the employees, to the end-users," Henstorf said of the wage...

Politics: This fall, Democrats will no doubt resurrect the "war on women" theme to try to hold the Senate. But they don't really care about all women, just the unmarried ones. The IBD/TIPP poll shows why. According to the Washington Post, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is building a huge computer database that will let it predict women's marital status. That way they can "pinpoint unmarried women as the target of specific, poll-test messages," according to one source quoted in the story. Despite all the talk among Democrats and the media about the "gender gap" that has supposedly resulted from...

DFLers, who generally frown on grandeur as part of their ideology, are going to build themselves a marvelous new office building. They have been deaf to the idea that it is wasteful and that there are countless ways to accommodate the few of them who are going to be displaced by renovation work on the Capitol. To save a few bucks -- cutting it from $94 million to $77 million -- they claim they are going to eliminate an adjoining parking ramp. But that was to have been principally for the public anyway, and the public has been ignored in...

The poll was conducted between March 19 and 23, a week before the White House declared “mission accomplished” on ObamaCare, so maybe it’s simply missing a recent surge in enthusiasm among lefties. The first rule of ACA polling, though, is that the numbers rarely move much no matter what’s going on with the law. They dipped after the Healthcare.gov Chernobyl in October, they bounced back a bit as sign-ups improved, but overall they’ve been steady at around -10 or -12 for years now. Hard to believe that an enrollment milestone will shift that trend markedly and durably, especially with premiums...

As most divorce cases usually are, the recently filed, already ugly divorce case between Congressman Alan Grayson and his with Lolita, has taken another turn for worse for the self-proclaimed "Congressman with Guts." During an interview with police over the recent incident at couples home in Orlando, Florida, in which Lolita Grayson accused the congressman of assaulting her, Grayson's soon-to-be ex-wife accused him of long-term spousal abuse. Orlando's WFTV Channel 9 obtained the audio of Lolita Grayson's interview with Police. "I'm done. My husband has always been hitting me for years," she told investigators. "He's been hitting me a lot....

BRANFORD -- There's a new keeper of the Kennedy flame. Ted Kennedy Jr. -- cloaking himself in the legacy of his father and uncles, from their familiar cadence to their crusade for social justice to their wavy hair -- finally acquiesced Tuesday to the overtures of Democrats who have long tried to lure the advocate for the disabled into running for office. The 52-year-old lawyer from Branford launched his candidacy for state Senate during a rally in his hometown, where retiring incumbent Edward Meyer introduced Kennedy as his heir apparent in what could become the most-watched race ever for the...

Corruption: A House panel votes this week to formally ask the DOJ to pursue criminal charges against former IRS employee Lois Lerner. It is time someone in this administration were held accountable for something. A staff report by House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa reveals testimony by IRS agents that the IRS has not deliberately targeted progressive groups. Now comes word that the House Ways and Means Committee is sending a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder accusing former IRS director of tax-exempt organizations Lois Lerner of committing at least three crimes in the IRS's targeting tea party and other...

The U.S. has already signaled that Iran's UN envoy pick is a no-go - and for VERY good reason. At the same time we are being entangled in these disputes; we do so and are to some degree continuing this because the UN is on U.S. grounds. The statement "get the U.S. out of the UN and the UN out of the U.S." has been oft-repeated...so here is a possible solution - with one caveat. The UN is moved to neutral territory (if at all possible), so we don't have to shell out a significant chunk for its operating expenses....

An audit of voter registration rolls in North Carolina uncovered tens of thousands of duplicate voter registrations in which the first and last names as well as last four digits of Social Security numbers matched for voters registered in both North Carolina and elsewhere. The odds of randomly producing a single match using these three variables is infinitesimal. Nevertheless, the audit found more than 150,000 matches. In 35,000 cases, votes were cast both in North Carolina and in other states for the November 2012 election. US Attorney General Eric Holder rejected calls for a more comprehensive investigation, calling the findings...

<p>Attorney General Eric Holder said on Friday that gun tracking bracelets are something the Justice Department (DOJ) wants to "explore" as part of its gun control efforts.</p> <p>When discussing gun violence prevention programs within the DOJ, Holder told a House appropriations subcommittee that his agency is looking into technological innovations.</p>

ST. PAUL, Minn.—Minnesota's minimum wage would rise to $9.50 per hour within a few years and continue going up unless a governor's administration applied the brakes, according to terms of an agreement announced Monday. The outline described by leaders of the House and Senate resolves one of the biggest remaining standoffs in a session on course for an early adjournment. The wage legislation could move through both Democratic-led chambers this week; it was scheduled for a Senate vote on Wednesday. Gov. Mark Dayton said he would sign the bill.

President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress are making a concerted election-year push to draw attention to women’s wages, linking Obama executive actions with pending Senate legislation aimed at closing a compensation gender gap that favors men. Obama on Tuesday planned to sign an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from retaliating against workers who discuss their pay. He also was to direct the Labor Department to issue new rules requiring federal contractors to provide compensation data that includes a breakdown by race and gender. The Democratic-controlled Senate this week planned to take up legislation that would make it...

April 6, 2014 Like a criminal wiping down a crime scene, the California State Senate has scrubbed its website and deleted the online archives of three Democratic state Senators that face criminal charges ranging from weapons trafficking to public corruption.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – A Republican candidate for California attorney general said Friday that state lawmakers who are found guilty of crimes that endanger the lives of others should face the death penalty. Phil Wyman, who spent 17 years in the state Legislature, said he was motivated by the case of Democratic Sen. Leland Yee. Yee faces federal charges that include an attempt to coordinate an international gun-running scheme from the Philippines. Wyman also criticized Democratic Attorney General Kamala Harris for being “silent as a mouse” on the corruption cases that have marred the state Senate this year. A campaign...

The March Battleground Poll says the same things about the ratio of conservative Americans to liberals that previous surveys have said: there are nearly 3 self-described conservatives for every 2 self- avowed liberals. Any politician claiming to be conservative would/should dance with glee upon being told that he would start an election campaign with a 3 to 2 edge. Nevertheless, the Republican establishment (GOPe) doesn’t seem interested in the promise these numbers hold. They want to continue to lust after the acceptance that acting and talking like a liberal will get them from their enemies in the media. Average Americans...

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) denounced this week’s Supreme Court ruling allowing individuals to donate to as many political causes and candidates as they please. “The worst thing about this decision is that it will hamper the Government’s ability to regulate speech,” Schumer complained. “Critics may end up almost as well financed as spokespersons for the government. That is a formula for dissent and disunity.” “The limits struck down by the Court cut the legal ground out from the Administration’s program of using the IRS to scrutinize and restrain groups that contribute to dissension and disunity,” the Senator added. “Fortunately, the...