Free Republic

This is a Special Report from the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism Republican delegates arriving in Tampa for the convention this week will likely find one thing more oppressive than the humidity: hordes of motley Occupiers, political puppeteers, Teamsters, Code Pink activists dressed as giant female body parts, open-borders extremists, vegan Marxists, and tattooed anarchists, all assembling for their quadrennial temper tantrum. One major target is the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, and anything ever associated with him. Plans include a tent city called “Romneyville” and protests against any companies assisted by Romney’s old firm, Bain Capital. The purpose, in...

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The retired, longtime president of the National Border Patrol Union was indicted Thursday for diverting thousands of dollars in union funds for personal use, federal prosecutors said. The indictment says Bonner used the position he held for more than two decades to obtain payment for supposedly union-related work and travel that were in fact personal. "These false claims included periods of time when Bonner was actually visiting his mistress in Chicago or family members, as well as trips to attend non-union activities such as hockey games and other sporting events," the indictment.

Paul Ryan spoke at the Iowa State Fair today, and his speech was interrupted by two women who first heckled and then stormed the stage. My first thought was, Where is the Secret Service? Apparently Ryan’s Secret Service protection hasn’t begun yet; the scene could easily have turned scary. Here is the video: Video here No word yet on who the women are, or what connection they have to the Democratic Party or the Obama campaign. One wonders whether the Democrats will turn to heckling and stage-storming as a routine matter. It might not be a bad strategy: by turning...

Unions hit Democratic convention where it hurts: In the wallet By: Robin Bravender and Anna Palmer August 9, 2012 06:44 PM EDT The Democrats are hitting up unions — their go-to cash cows — for last-minute donations to help pay for next month’s convention in Charlotte. The response from some big unions? Tough. Union leaders insisted from the start that they wouldn’t help fill the piggy bank for this year’s Democratic National Convention after the party picked a labor-hostile location and at the same time made fundraising tougher by banning corporate contributions and capping individual donations. And with the event...

The MSNBC Klux Klansters are VERY ANGRY tonite.... They were SURE they were going to win, and MSNBC/CNN reinforced that up to the moment the actual votes started rolling in. The woman walks up to Barrett and slaps him silly for daring to concede while people were still voting in the same building. TO MODS: WISN has not broken this video out from it's election blog, yet! Direct Video Link: http://livewire.wisn.com/Event/Wisconsin_Recall_Election_Coverage/31986124 UPDATED: 2 News' Terry Sater just spoke to the mayor about the 'slap.' Barrett said the woman asked if she could slap him for conceding. He said he'd rather...

From students using class schedules to "prove" that they live in Wisconsin (but not who they actually are), to multiple accounts of people being "bused" in, dozens of accounts of Democrat and Union attempts to commit voter fraud in Wisconsin have hit the news. One town even has turnout that was reportedly six times the votes normally cast in a "heavy" participation election- and that was at 10:30 am in the morning. First is a story from Milwaukee, in which students printed out a piece of paper in order to "prove" their identities. Last Friday, on a High School field...

So much for Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) stewardship of the Wisconsin economy and his promise that eliminating collective bargaining rights for public employees and massive budget cuts would turn the Badger State into a job growth miracle.A report today from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that Wisconsin is the only state in the nation to suffer “statistically significant” job loss during the 12 months from March 2011 to March 2012. In other words, while the rest of the nation is at least holding its own or seeing improvement in job growth, Walker’s Wisconsin experiment is a miserable...

Rev. T. Ray McJunkins of Springfield's Union Baptist Church and USAction's William McNary engaged in violent rhetoric to rile up a union crowd of thousands just yards away from an Illinois appearance by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. McNary challenged Walker to "knuckle up" while McJunkins said they're going to "cut off his head," likening Walker to Goliath.

What are parents to do when their child comes home from school with stories about "this creepy guy in my class" – and it turns out to be the teacher? That’s a very real concern for parents with children in New York City public schools, where 14 teachers of highly dubious character have been reinstated to the classroom – and two others have been given "desk duty" – thanks to appeals by their powerful teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers. NYDailyNews.com reports that 16 teachers "kept their jobs after being brought up on egregious charges, some sexual, some involving...

This just seems so unsporting. After all, these high-school students didn't make threatening calls to the unions that were singing their silly "Solidarity Song" in the capitol rotunda in Madison, to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic: CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO When about 300 Sheboygan Lutheran High School students and supporters piled into the rotunda of the State Capitol in Madison last Thursday after the boys basketball team clinched a trip to the finals for the Division 5 WIAA state championship, they had some time to spare.Sharing the rotunda with a small group of pro-union...

Protestors [sic] are assembling in New York and around the country to let billionaires, big oil and big bankers know that we’re not going to let the richest 1% force draconian economic policies and massive cuts to crucial programs on Main Street Americans. Out-of-touch Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor said he is “increasingly concerned by the growing mobs.” Mobs? That must be what Republicans refer to as the middle class, or maybe the millions of unemployed Americans across the country. As Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters, “The message of the American people is that no longer will the recklessness...

The angry longshoreman who unleashed a profanity and threat filled tirade on TV crews after last week's union stoppage in SW Washington has been arrested, thanks to his video appearance. Witnesses reportedly identified 45-year-old Ronald Patrick Stavas from the video that's gone viral. The Associated Press reports the Kelso longshoreman is accused of assaulting a guard and breaking into the EGT terminal on Thursday. He was arrested for first-degree burglary and second-degree assault. Bail was set at $50,000.

Top AFL-CIO union chief Richard Trumka -- President Barack Obama's guest of honor at his speech to Congress Thursday night -- urged Obama to "go to the mat" for Big Labor. Of course, Obama hasn't been shy about doing just that for the last three years. Trumka just wants more, more, more. Obama's "jobs" proposal appears to be full of it -- more special deals and bailouts for the union hierarchy. And unsurprisingly, Obama made no mention of the Boeing jobs in South Carolina the Acting General Counsel of his National Labor Relations Board is trying to destroy. Meanwhile, Big...

New polling shows reliably blue Pennsylvania, a state that hasn’t voted for a Republican for president since 1988, could be up for grabs in 2012. And in a wisdom-bending development, organized labor could help the state trend red. A new poll from the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa. shows 52 percent of Pennsylvanians want someone other than Barack Obama elected president in 2012. Just 41 percent say he deserves another term. But most telling in the Franklin & Marshall poll is remarkably high dissatisfaction with Obama in households where rank-and-file union members live....

At least 500 Longshoremen stormed the Port of Longview and broke out windows in the guard shack, according to Longview Police Chief Jim Duscha. As men wielding baseball bats and crowbars held six guards captive, others cut brake lines on boxcars and dumped grain, according to Duscha.

Millions of California workers don't have much to celebrate this Labor Day. State unemployment once again has crept up to a lacerating 12 percent, second-highest in the nation, and the specter looms of a double-dip recession. The high jobless rate doesn't do justice to the economic trauma working families face. Overall, almost one in four California workers – a Depression-era number – is searching for a full-time job. An emerging danger is a "lost generation" scarred by the hopelessness and despair of extended job loss. One-third of the unemployed have been out of work for a year or more. And...

Unions: An Ohio contractor was wounded by gunfire Wednesday by a shadowy man vandalizing his SUV with union threats. Where's Washington's outrage at such lawlessness? Had King Electrical Services owner John King been shot by, say, a Tea Partyer, there'd be no end to the public pontificating from Washington's politicians and media commentators about their rhetoric or protests inciting violence. It's quite a different story for the Lambertville, Mich., contractor who woke up in the dead of night a week ago found a silhouetted figure on his driveway spraying "SCAB" on the side of his vehicle. The figure fired a...

Verizon Communications Inc. reported a dozen cases of sabotaged cable lines and warned of delays in repairs and customer service on the second day of a strike involving about 45,000 employees. The telecommunications company said there have been 12 acts of sabotage to telephone lines and to Internet and television services in Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York since the strike began. Fiber-optic lines were intentionally cut in Tewksbury and several other municipalities on the East Coast, the company said.

A spokesman for the Wisconsin Democratic Party has threatened to sic union bullies on an independent news organization whose reporting he thinks is "biased."Graeme Zeilinski was upset that a WisconsinReporter.com reporter noted in an interview with the Heritage Foundation think thank that Wisconsin had, according to U.S. Department of Labor data, created nearly half of all the new jobs created across the country in June.In an email titled "What Happens Next," Zeilinski warned WisconsinReporter.com that:“What happens next is that I contact the publishers and editors of the papers that publish you as ‘unbiased,’ and let them know our deep concern...

A national scandal hit the news when Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal released a 413-page report describing how hundreds of Atlanta public school teachers and principals had been cheating during the past 10 years on standardized tests in order to falsely report that their schools were doing a good job and the kids were improving. A total of 178 teachers and principals (38 were principals), 82 of whom have already confessed, had fraudulently raised test scores so their schools would meet test targets set by the district and thereby qualify for federal funds. The truth came out after a 10-month inquiry...