Free Republic

When the national news media descended on Ferguson, Missouri, in August, the city’s QuikTrip quickly became a symbol of civil unrest and racial tensions. The convenience store’s windows were smashed, the steel awnings were disfigured, and the building was looted and burned during street protests over the police shooting of unarmed black teen Michael Brown in a confrontation just a few blocks away. Today, with the help of QuikTrip’s corporate parent, the first structural casualty of the protests will be reconstructed into a jobs training center and given to the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis to manage. QuikTrip will...

It was on a year-long walk retracing the path of slavery between Africa and the United States that Teegrey Iannuzzi says she finally woke up. She was taking part in the Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage, a walk retracing the trans-Atlantic slave trade between South Africa and the American colonies. The trek began in 1998 and was organized by Leverett Buddhist Sister Clare Carter, who meant for the journey to unite people of various racial and religious backgrounds in a visceral understanding of slavery’s cost. Iannuzzi, now in her late 40s and living in Shutesbury, was already interested in...

A city will pay me to live there? How is that possible, you may ask. Well, it's true. There are cities in the US that will actually pay you to live there. Might they always be your first choice for where you would live? Maybe, and maybe not. But getting paid to move and live in a community, if even for a short while can be quite an adventure, save you a ton of money and might even surprise you with how much you enjoy living in that city. Find out now: How much house can I afford? Here are...

Early indicators suggest the $15 minimum wage will not be as positive as City Hall intendedIn a few weeks, Seattle’s new, highest in the country, $15 per hour minimum wage will go into effect. Like many liberal policies, it was passed by City Hall with the best of intentions. The only problem is, in the end, it may do more harm than good for many. Private businesses, unlike government entities (which, in theory, can always raise taxes or borrow), must make more than they spend in order to pay the rent, make payroll, keep the lights on, pay their business...

"The prime minister will visit the Kremlin following an invitation from Russian President Vladimir Putin," a government source said without giving reasons for the change of date. Tsipras, a former Communist, has made no secret of seeking closer ties to Russia at a time when Moscow is at loggerheads with the European Union over the conflict in Ukraine. A number of Greek officials have openly broached the prospect of Athens turning to Russia or China for financial assistance if loan talks with the EU end in failure.

|| By FITSNEWS || Wisconsin governor Scott Walker scored a big win in early-voting South Carolina this week … No, it wasn’t a major endorsement … or a smart staffing move … or another solid early polling performance in the Palmetto State. Walker – whose national profile was built by battling Big Labor – won thanks to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers’ petition to unionize Boeing’s North Charleston, S.C. plant. All of a sudden South Carolina – which boasts one of the nation’s lowest unionization rates – finds itself in the thick of a major organized labor...

At the 2013 Reagan Day Dinner, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, standing in front of an oil painting of Ronald Reagan bathed in holy light shining down on his head, began to recount his connections to the former president. He mentioned that his own wedding was held on the day of Reagan’s birth, and also that his recall election coincided with the anniversary of “the day he was born into eternal life, the day he passed.” Walker then began to recount his visit to the Reagan Library, in suitably awestruck tones. At that point the story began to take on even...

"... “Had norms not changed, the growth of childbearing outside of marriage that we have recently seen among today’s unmarried low-educated and moderately educated young adults would not have occurred, even given the rise in income inequality,” Cherlin writes. College-educated Americans were able to adapt to changing mores because the economy was kind to them. But a shifting job market and easing taboos combined to tear a hole in the rest of the country's social fabric. This is all in keeping with what researchers find when they actually go out and talk to single mothers. Women in low-income communities say...

"......."What I really hope for at the end of all this is that people understand that education is not an expense, it's an investment," MPS Superintendent Darienne Driver said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C., Monday after she and other education leaders met with President Barack Obama to discuss urban education issues. [Governor Walker's] budget has a far-reaching impact on all school districts. Beyond urban and suburban areas, rural school leaders say the extra aid the governor proposed for their districts is trumped by the loss in per-pupil aid. In general, the governor's budget proposes keeping school revenue flat....

The E.U. Experiment Has Failedby Bruce ThorntonThursday, March 5, 2015 The slow-motion crisis of the European Union is the big story that rarely gets the attention it deserves. Even an event like the recent terrorist attack in France that left 17 dead is often isolated from the larger political, economic, and social problems that have long plagued the project of unifying the countries of Europe in order to harness its collective economic power, and to avoid the bloody internecine strife that stains its history. On the economic front, the E.U.’s dismal economic performance over the last six years was summed...

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Republican opposition to “Obamacare” spawned the GOP wave in 2014 and can buoy his party in 2016. The possible presidential hopeful said Monday that the GOP should keep a bulls-eye on the health care law to energize and mobilize voters. “The biggest job-killer in the country is ‘Obamacare,’” said Cruz, speaking at “Politics & Eggs” at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College. Cruz repeatedly criticized the Affordable Care Act during his two-day visit to New Hampshire. On Sunday, at a Strafford County GOP event in Barrington and at the Grafton...

GOFFSTOWN — Sen. Ted Cruz laid out his policy of “opportunity conservatism” at a Politics & Eggs breakfast Monday morning at St. Anselm College’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics. “Our focus, I believe, on every issue ... should be how does it impact those struggling to achieve the American dream,” said the Texas Republican considering a run for the White House in 2016. “That is my focus every day.” Cruz called for a “laser focus on opportunity” for all domestic policies, and said he rejects the idea that the GOP is the party of the rich, calling it “the single...

RUSH: A 20-year-old guy has been charged with shooting a couple of officers, the two police officers in Ferguson, Missouri, and the claim is he wasn't aiming at the cops. It just happened. If you read the AP story on this, you have to go to the end of the story to find out his race. They do not make that prominent, but he is African-American. The shooter, the two cops in Ferguson, is indeed African-American. Get this. "A Ferguson convenience store that was looted and burned after the fatal shooting of [the Gentle Giant] will be rebuilt as a...

MADISON (WKOW) -- Two executives who run a Texas-based sand mining company - which paid $52,500 in fines to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in 2014 - are major backers of Gov. Scott Walker's political action committee Our American Revival (OAR), according to CNN. In an article detailing several big money donors published on Monday, CNN lists Bob Rasmus and James Whipkey - who run Hi-Crush Partners - as two of OAR's major supporters in Texas. In August of 2014, 27 News reported the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) ordered Hi-Crush Partners to pay $52,500 in July for...

<p>California is not suffering one drought, but four. Each is a metaphor of what California has become.</p> <p>The first California drought, of course, is natural. We are now in the midst of a fourth year of record low levels of snow and rain.</p>

Nonetheless. Fraser shortchanges the popular democratic spirit that, however disappointed and subdued it may have become, continues to run through American life and – let’s face it – helped to fuel the explosive rise of the Tea Party. In the first Gilded Age, Americans fought back against inequality and the oligarchs who threatened democracy. Over the past few decades, it seems like we’ve given up. Reading Steve Fraser’s new book brought to mind a note that a young woman student had appended to a final essay exam in one of my classes some twenty-five years ago. After doing a splendid...

It’s very fashionable to declare or pronounce, America is in decline- using such absurd anecdotal examples as the troubles in Syria (we didn’t do anything when Assad crossed the red line), Ukraine (we did not protect the Ukraine as promised in the Budapest Memorandum) gun shootings at shopping malls, troubled economy (when was our economy not troubled?- It’s troubled according to a developed countries standards- but compared to most of the world, it’s an exemplary example of market economics- giving the highest standard of living to the most people in the world). The other standard measurement used to support the...

Seems like there's an awful lot of doom'n'gloom out there: (excerpt from)   More Volatility Sends Market Down for a 3rd WeekThe stock market was hit hard on Friday, capping a third week of declines as investors reacted to a steep drop in oil prices and a jump in the value of the dollar. Utilities, major exporters and companies that make basic materials like steel had the biggest declines. The sell-off came at the end of a volatile week, and it sets the stage for a Federal Reserve policy meeting next week. Investors will be watching closely for clues about...

CONCORD, N.H. — Gov. Scott Walker introduced himself to New Hampshire Republicans here Saturday, outlining a three-pronged potential presidential theme focused on growth, reform and safety — and later called suggestions that he’s aggressively shifted policy positions in recent months “ridiculous.” Walker talked about cutting federal income tax rates to spur economic growth, returning control of education and transportation spending to the states and framing the threat posed by radical Islamic terrorism not as one of national security, but of the closer-to-home domestic theme of “safety.”

Seattle’s $15 minimum wage law goes into effect on April 1, 2015. As that date approaches, restaurants across the city are making the financial decision to close shop. The Washington Policy Center writes that “closings have occurred across the city, from Grub in the upscale Queen Anne Hill neighborhood, to Little Uncle in gritty Pioneer Square, to the Boat Street Cafe on Western Avenue near the waterfront.” Of course, restaurants close for a variety of reasons. But, according to Seattle Magazine, the “impending minimum wage hike to $15 per hour” is playing a “major factor.” That’s not surprising, considering “about...