Free Republic

Having watched Big Labor buy the White House for Joe Biden in 2020, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has taken a page out of the same playbook. Last month, the governor, who reportedly has designs on the Oval Office himself one day, handed a taxpayer-funded sweetheart deal to one of his state’s largest public employee unions. The state’s new collective bargaining agreement with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 31 gifts its 35,000 state employee members a nearly 20 percent pay raise over four years, including a 4 percent raise this year. That adds up to...

Ford reported that it’s going to lose $3 billion on electric cars in 2023. Unlike most automakers, Ford reports its electric vehicle numbers separately, but experts estimate that most car companies are losing similar amounts on the dead end business. Ford’s investment in Rivian’s electric cars can’t be helping. Last year the startup electric pickup truck maker was spending $220,000 to make the electric vehicles that it sells for $81,000. That’s bad news for George Soros and for CalPERS: California’s massive public employees retirement fund and a ticking time bomb which owns hundreds of thousands of shares in Rivian. GM...

Friends, countrymen, let me explain what has been happening for years and is only now coming to head with all of the present scandals. A couple of years ago, my wife and I went to look at a house for sale. A Federal employee and his Filipino wife were selling and in the conversation, the man admitted he was retiring to the Philippines. It didn't register at the time, but now it is really hitting me. It is very inexpensive to live in the Philippines, servants are cheap, housing is a steal and food prices are rock bottom. Almost all...

Corruption, greed, incompetence, bureaucratic bungling: Those are the things most likely to be found when the charade of public union outrage is peeled back to reveal the inner workings of collective bargaining. There is no doubt America is engaged in an ideological battle. On one side are the public sector unions and “workers” demanding the taxpayers cough up more to fund their fat paychecks and bloated pensions. On the other side are the majority of Americans who work in the private sector, fund their own retirements and health care, and have no entitlement programs they haven’t designed themselves. The public...

According to a recent GWU Battleground poll, 74 percent of likely voters are “extremely” or “very” concerned about the current level of government spending. And 58 percent think the level of spending is unsustainable. Is the public right? Is Washington bankrupting America? Some facts from the video: Spending per household has risen over 40 percent in the last 10 years – and is set to do so again in the next 10 – pushing debt (and interest on the debt) to unprecedented levels. But that’s just a result of past spending. Add in our government’s $106 trillion in future spending...

Even when I considered the Left my political home I knew how effectively the movement could sabotage itself in its presentations of its ideas. When I was in high school and saw Michael Moore’s anti-gun pseudo-docmentary “Bowling for Columbine” I walked out of the theatre with the exact opposite point of view that the notorious neo-communist propagandist had hoped to instill. I became pro-gun rights. Why? Because Moore was stupid enough to admit this fact: Canada has about the same level of gun ownership (per capita) as the United States but a fraction of the gun violence. Ergo sum: the...

Reagan taught us how to defeat the Marxists. Marxists are easy to defeat if you defund and bankrupt them. Marxists win ONLY if you agree to play along. Their system is easily overwhelmed by demand. Anytime you give something away for free, there is always a run on that item. This leads to rationing. It has happened in every Socialist nation. North Korea is constantly in cycles of starvation because they work at the minimal level with no incentive while placing the maximum stress on the government to provide. Same thing in Cuba, the Soviets fell and all the Eastern...

FARMERS BRANCH – ... residents crowded into the council chambers to discuss whether the city should restrict illegal immigrants through such measures as making it illegal for landlords to lease property to them; fining businesses that employ them; making English the city's official language; and halting funding for children of illegal immigrants to participate in ... youth programs. Those ideas, by council member Tim O'Hare, were borrowed from ordinances adopted by Hazelton, Pa., and under consideration by cities in California, Florida and elsewhere. Mayor Pro Tem Ben Robinson had more ideas. He suggested that the council also consider prohibiting the...