Free Republic

Across corporate America, relations between companies and their labor unions range from chilly to ice-cold. Not at Kaiser Permanente – the California-based healthcare giant. Kaiser has long been seen as having the nation’s best labor-management partnership. Now the partnership finds itself in crisis as 34,000 Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers prepare to strike on Monday, in what would be the largest walkout in this fall’s strike wave. It certainly caused a strong reaction in Semanu Mawugbe, a Kaiser nurse in Los Angeles. “It’s a slap in the face,” he said, noting that the 1%-a-year offer was well below this year’s 5%-plus...

The COVID-19 crisis underscored the urgency of digitizing sovereign money and ensuring universal access to banking services. It pushed two related ideas—the issuance of central bank digital currency and the provision of retail deposit accounts by central banks—to the forefront of the public policy debate. To date, however, the debate has not produced a coherent vision of how democratizing access to central bank money would—and should—transform and democratize the entire financial system. This lack of a systemic perspective obscures the enormity of the challenge and dilutes our ability to tackle it. This Article takes up that challenge. It offers a...

CNN political analyst Carl Bernstein said Friday on “Anderson Cooper 360” that there are a group of people in former Vice President Mike Pence’s inner circle that are “willing and want to talk” to the select committee investigating the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Bernstein said, “The attorney general of the United States has decided to go forth with these prosecutions. There was grave doubt about whether he would do that or not. So, he and his department are committed to going after not just Bannon, but others who might defy this committee, and that sends a message...

Joe Biden’s fans are trying to replace the viral Let’s Go Brandon trend in an attempt to give a whole new definition to it. Will Thank you Brandon be the next big thing? Thank you Brandon is a phrase extensively used among Joe’s fans to counteract #LetsGoBrandon or Lets Go Brandon. For those of you who don’t know how the trend emerged, it all started with Brandon Brown’s interview with NBC Sports reporter Kelli Stavast. The journalist wrongly interpreted the crowd’s chant “F*** Joe Biden” as “Let’s Go Brandon.” The viral phrase soon became the Right’s favorite and Joe supporters...

President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that Belarus had not consulted him before raising the possibility of cutting Russian natural gas flows to Europe, adding that such a move would risk harming ties between Minsk and its key ally Moscow. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko threatened on Thursday to retaliate against any new European Union sanctions against Minsk over a migrant standoff https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/poland-reports-violent-clashes-overnight-migrants-attempt-new-border-breach-2021-11-11 on the Belarus-EU border, suggesting he could halt the transit of gas and other goods via Belarus. His warning briefly lifted spot gas prices in Europe, which gets about a third of its supplies of the fuel from...

A new study reveals that a lot more trash — including PPE — is ending up in our oceans. It a price being paid in our waters and on shores, where millions of pounds of plastic trash generated during the fight against COVID is ending up.

The transgender William Shakespeare once said “All the world's a bedroom, and all the boys and girls merely unknowing transgenders.” The LGBTQ agenda has burst out of the bedroom and is now explicitly coming for the children. Moving hours away from the nearest leftist shithole (Dallas) may buy you a year or two, but it won’t save you. The transgender story hour is coming to a town near you and you’re going to pay for it with tax dollars. Recently, the Denton Public Library announced it would be hosting a Transgender StoryTime for children aged 2-8. The goal here obviously...

When the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other powerful entities control (and outright change) the language surrounding the COVID injection, the pandemic, and related topics, how can we as citizens trust what we hear from the public health officials and media? It’s becoming more and more difficult, to be sure. We’ve seen throughout the pandemic, of course, that anyone and everyone questioning today’s contentious issues – such as whether to inject kids with a brand new drug that has absolutely no long-term safety data – are soundly pigeonholed as conspiracy theorists, “anti-vaxxers,” “domestic terrorists,” or “right-wing COVID-19 pandemic deniers.”...

PHILADELPHIA, Tuesday, Nov. 12. The Inquirer has the following from Fortress Monroe, derived from rebel sources: In anticipation of the arrival of the great expedition, the rebels have been engaged in erecting batteries upon a point at Hilton's Head, and opposite the neck of land. The principal fortification on Hilton's Head was denominated "Fort Walker," and situated on low land, and partially concealed by trees and underbrush. Adjoining it were other batteries of smaller size, but so constructed as to prove a formidable bar to the entrance of vessels. Fort Beaufort was of considerable importance, having been mounted with heavy...

Guest post by Lawrence Sellin Reports coming out of China indicate that another laboratory leak of COVID-19 has occurred at another China institution. According to a just-received Chinese language text and supported by other sources in China, there has been a presumed laboratory leak of COVID-19 at East China University of Science and Technology on November 12, 2021. (image of text) (A cursory translation of the above indicates that the school has been closed due to a new COVID-19 being released and the whole school has to be tested.) Allegedly, laboratory workers tested positive for COVID-19 after conducting experiments involving...

Since I was a young man, I always loved to lift weights. I remember back in high school, when I was preparing to try out for the freshman football team, training with the other guys on an old Universal weight machine. But football wasn’t my game (at least tackle football–flag was a blast in grade school!) as a 115-pound guy can get his bell rung quite easily, as I soon found out. Basketball was more my game, and I logged likely thousands of hours playing at my school or local parks–often late into the evening–until my dad would come looking...

If the Democrats want to suffer catastrophic defeats in the 2022 midterms, they need to follow one simple strategy: blame all their losses on White Supremacy. It was White Supremacists who elected Trump. It was White Supremacists who elected Glenn Youngkin. And it is because of White Supremacy that parents are upset with what is happening in their children’s schools. It’s all because of White Supremacy! As long as Democratic leaders continue to misunderstand what tens of millions of Americans are thinking and why they are voting as they do, they will continue to lose elections. Not only so, but...

It’s official. The next generation of Utah’s congressional district boundaries has been set for the next 10 years. As expected, Gov. Spencer Cox on Friday signed off on the new congressional map approved by the Republican-controlled Utah Legislature in a special session earlier this week. Cox’s signature on HB2004 finalizes the map that splits Salt Lake County, the state’s most populous, into four congressional districts — a map that Republican lawmakers drafted while largely ignoring a different set of maps drawn by the Independent Redistricting Commission. The map slices Utah’s capital, the Democratic stronghold of Salt Lake City, and dissects...

Glen de Vries had been aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft on 13 October, spending more than 10 minutes in space after launching along with Shatner and others.A businessman who travelled to space with William Shatner last month has died after a small plane crashed in New Jersey.Glen de Vries, 49, had been aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft on 13 October, spending more than 10 minutes in space after launching along with Shatner and others. He was killed along with another person in the New Jersey crash, state police said.https://twitter.com/blueorigin/status/1459248268806967299The plane, a single-engine Cessna 172, went down on Thursday...

This year, lawmakers have unleashed a barrage of proposals aimed at Big Tech. Their latest attempt is perhaps the most bizarre: Since they’re unhappy with the state of digital markets, they're trying to rewrite American antitrust laws to look more like Europe’s. Last month, Senators Amy Klobuchar and Chuck Grassley unveiled the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which dictates how technology companies can present information on their own platforms. Contrary to its name, the bill would negatively impact innovation and choice in digital markets, while simultaneously bringing antitrust law, and the American economy, closer to the EU’s competitor-focused model....

Rep. Madison Cawthorn, a conservative Republican firebrand, shook up next year’s congressional race on Thursday night when he announced he would run for a different congressional district — effectively pushing a more traditional state lawmaker who was expected to run out of the race. “North Carolinians don’t settle for the status quo. We defy it. We made history together last year when you sent me to Washington to shake up the swamp and fight for you,” Cawthorn said in a video he tweeted on Thursday. He cited the fact that redistricting has created a “brand new” 13th Congressional District, which...

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An Ohio cold case that puzzled investigators for more than 50 years has finally been solved in Massachusetts. On July 11, 1969, a 20-year-old man vanished after stealing $250,000 from a bank in Cleveland. The man walked out of the bank with the money in a paper bag, and it took bank employees two days to realize what had happened. By then, the bank robber was long gone, having created a mystery that would take five decades to solve. Ted Conrad has been one of America's most wanted men since he committed the crime in 1969 while an employee at...

On Nov. 19, a partial lunar eclipse will reward patient sky observers with a view of a subtly changing moon and is a must-see event as it's the last lunar eclipse of the year. The moon may even take on a reddish hue. Lunar eclipses occur when the moon passes into the Earth's shadow. In this case, the partial eclipse phase will last 3 hours, 28 minutes and 24 seconds, and the full eclipse for 6 hours and 1 minute, making it the longest partial eclipse in 580 years, according to Indiana's Holcomb Observatory. At maximum eclipse, the moon's face...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located. This thread is a non-political respite. No matter what, you won’t be flamed, and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack...