Free Republic

Labor unions are all about two things: money and control. The problem is that they go about achieving their aims through coercive means, often political, sometimes violence. In New York, for example, the union bigwigs have contrived to get their allies in the legislature to enact a bill designed to keep workers from learning about their right to opt out of paying dues to public-sector unions under the Supreme Court’s 2018 Janus v. AFSCME decision. I discussed that bit of skullduggery here. In Vermont, the same political alliance has placed on the ballot a proposed amendment to the state constitution,...

On the University of Texas campus, students, staff and visitors will see the same sight at noon, Monday through Thursday: faculty members silently marching through campus for 15 minutes, wearing black and holding signs. "There's a part of it that really is just a place to put our grief, so there's a piece of this that really is ritualistic in that way," said Karma Chávez, UT chapter president of the American Association of University Professors and professor of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies. Since Sept. 21, Chávez and other faculty members have protested changes at UT Austin that include department...

Oct 18 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed a summit next month with US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping ‌to negotiate an end to the four-year-old Ukraine conflict that would ‌favour Moscow, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the discussions.The proposed summit ​comes amid warming ties between Trump and Putin especially after the US President announced a deal to buy Russian diesel and signed an order on Friday waiving key sanctions on Moscow.Citing a former Russian intelligence officer briefed on the matter, the ‌paper said that Putin's suggestion ⁠came in...

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First off, for those of you who do not watch the NFL, do not watch television, cut their cable, and so on - we get it. We hear from you guys every time there is something sports related posted. If you can help yourselves, please refrain from telling all of us you do not watch the NFL or television anymore. We know. We've heard it before. Now for anyone watching tonight's game, did you catch the two political ads for Ken Paxton? At first, I thought why am I seeing this in Tennessee. Than I realized that this game being...

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Sunday threatened severe retaliation against Israel if Iranian energy infrastructure comes under attack, warning that such an operation would have devastating consequences. IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohabbi issued the threat in a post on X, which was subsequently removed for violating the platform's rules. “Any attack on Iran’s energy infrastructure, although it will immediately be repaired by our young scientists, will turn the occupied territories into scorched earth forever and drive its usurpers into the Sinai Desert," Mohabbi wrote. “The world will see what happens," he added. .....

Daily Readings from the USCCBMemorial of Saints John de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues, Priests, and Companions, MartyrsSomeone in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.” He replied to him, “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?” Then he said to the crowd, “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.” Luke 12:13–15Imagine if you were exceptionally rich. Would great wealth change your life? For many people, it would. In today’s Gospel, Jesus addresses material wealth directly, identifying greed...

Border czar Tom Homan said Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., could be denaturalized and deported if investigators find that she committed immigration fraud, repeating his assertion that no one is above the law after her home was raided and cellphone seized. “Of course, if you lie during the naturalization process, there is a process to denaturalize somebody. We’ve done it before… And certainly, if the evidence points that way, that could happen,” Homan told “The Big Weekend Show” on Saturday. Omar will “be held to the same standards you and I are held [to]. If she violated the law, then she’ll...

The billionaires’ attack on the wealth tax initiative shows why it’s needed.As is the case with most election cycles, the claims and counterclaims about the ballot measures being voted on in California this time around are largely based on caricatures of the measures themselves. That’s especially true of the highest-profile measure, Proposition 40 — the California billionaire tax.What’s indisputable is that this is a “wealth tax.” It’s a one-time 5% levy on assets owned by Californians with more than $1 billion in net worth. That’s a departure from conventional state personal tax, which is levied on income such as wages...

New data released this week by the Episcopal Church shows both a modest decline in attendance and a large loss in membership alongside leading indicators including baptisms, confirmations, marriages, and receptions conducted within the mainline Protestant denomination. Parochial report data for the reporting year 2025 shows attendance declined between 2024 and 2025 by 6,033 persons (1.5%) from 413,034 to 407,001, the first decline following a multi-year post-COVID rebound. Access the data on the Episcopal General Convention website here. Membership across both U.S. and overseas dioceses, which was not reported for the 2024 year, now stands at 1,425,065, a decline of...

Brivael Le Pogam@brivael·Oct 17To every American, and to everyone watching France burn from abroad:Do not blame the French people for this.We never asked for it. We never voted for it. And the one time we were clearly asked, we said no.Here are the numbers your media won't show you.70% of the French say there are too many immigrants in France today.79% want a tougher immigration policy.77% disapprove of the government's record on immigration.83% want foreign criminals and long-term unemployed foreigners sent home.And no, it's not just the old. 69% of French 18 to 24 year olds support suspending legal immigration...

Today, the Justice Department announced charges involving 16 aliens in North Carolina, New York, and Idaho, including an illegal alien, in connection with illegal voting, false claims of U.S. citizenship, and related election crimes. The cases include voting by aliens in federal elections and false claims of U.S. citizenship to register to vote or to vote.Case details are as follows:Eastern District of North Carolina10 aliens have been charged for illegally voting in the 2024 elections. Eduardd Omar Majano Sosa, 22, an illegal alien from El Salvador, has been charged with one count of falsely claiming citizenship to vote and one...

The United States is delaying the delivery of Patriot interceptor missiles already paid for under a NATO-coordinated weapons purchasing initiative, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with Bloomberg on Oct. 18. Washington has approved only some of the missiles purchased through the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) initiative, which allows NATO allies to finance the purchase of U.S.-made weapons for Ukraine, Zelensky said, according to Bloomberg. "The American side approved the delivery of only some of them, but not the rest. And this is not a technical issue," Zelensky said. The Ukrainian president said the U.S. is currently supplying...

Shocking images have emerged showing the destruction in Paris as rioters ignored President Emmanuel Macron's calls for peace on Sunday.

“An Austrian Airlines flight traveling from Ben Gurion Airport to Vienna was forced to make an emergency landing in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Sunday after an anonymous bomb threat raised fears that an explosive device might be aboard the aircraft. The security alert prompted the flight crew to abandon its scheduled route and divert to the Bulgarian capital, where the circumstances surrounding the threat came under investigation. The emergency came just days after a similar bomb scare involving a Delta Air Lines flight arriving in Israel from New York. The emergency came just days after a similar bomb scare involving a...

Packers killing Cowboys. Ten years in a roll, it's getting boring. Go Pack Go!

The Taraia Object expedition, a joint effort by the Archaeological Legacy Institute, Purdue Research Foundation and Purdue University, found no conclusive evidence to confirm a hypothesis that wreckage from Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10-E was in a lagoon on a remote atoll in the South Pacific. The findings mark a new chapter in the ongoing effort to understand what happened to Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan on her round-the-world flight attempt in 1937. While the findings rule out one of the latest hypotheses, they also provide valuable information that will help inform future efforts to solve one of aviation’s greatest...

Trump administration lays groundwork to challenge unfavorable midterm results. First came the letter from acting Deputy Atty. Gen. Trent McCotter — just three weeks before the Nov. 3 election — demanding that Los Angeles County’s top election official launch a sweeping investigation into thousands of voters the Trump administration alleges are “likely noncitizens” and withhold their ballots in the meantime.The letter arrived with a thumb drive purporting to contain the list of voters in question, and a handwritten note providing the password. Dean Logan, head of the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office, said accessing the device would break security protocols,...

CEDAR CITY, Utah (ABC4) — A woman in Cedar City has been arrested after crashing her vehicle into a bowling alley and causing an estimated $100,000 in damages. Chantell Strong, 40, was arrested one a count of criminal mischief causing more than $5,000 in losses and a count of reckless driving. Cedar City Police Department officers were called to the bowling alley near 3000 N Minersville Highway for a motor vehicle incident involving property damage. They arrived to find a vehicle, driven by Strong, that had crashed through the building and was stuck on concrete and could not remove itself....