Free Republic

CARSON CITY — An estimated 25,000 Nevadans will lose their unemployment benefits on Jan. 2 if Congress fails to reach a deal on the federal budget, state officials said. The state Division of Employment Security said today those people are receiving benefits under a federal program that extends state payments. Another 1,000 jobless will exhaust their regular state benefits each week thereafter and not be eligible for the extension, division Administrator Renee Olson said.

School plans to layoff 25 faculty and staff members The University of the District of Columbia is asking the city for $4 million to pay for the severance packages of dozens of professors and staff members it wants to lay off. UDC plans to lay off 25 faculty and staff members, and eliminate seven departments and two dozen majors. School officials say it's expensive to eliminate positions because of a strong union presence. The school already eliminated 30 positions. A university spokesperson said the school expects the city to pay for the severance packages because the city ordered UDC to...

[Note: This editorial published on Nov 10, 2012] We are now rushing down a course that is going to create incredible economic hardships for millions of Americans. The increase in the amount of debt that has been added to our economy is astronomical. And there is no end in sight. We now have over $16 trillion of debt, and with Obama’s policies it will be almost impossible to reverse that course. Debt is the problem. Big debt is a big problem. There are only four ways to tackle it: increase taxes to bring in more dollars, reduce spending to save...

Several news staffers at the Madison-based radio station WTDY have been laid off, including talk-show host John "Sly" Sylvester. A company memo says the layoffs included all but one member of the news, traffic and on-air staff at 1670 WTDY-AM and 106.7 WTDY-FM. The WTDY website has been replaced by a holiday message, and the station began airing Christmas music Wednesday. Station operations manager Randy Hawke says officials will announce the new format after the holidays. Sylvester tells WISC-TV ( http://bit.ly/UMT7Mh) he was surprised to hear he and six or seven others were being let go. He says his show...

Kaiser Permanente officials have confirmed 530 union employees in Southern California have been laid off. At least 85 position were eliminated at the Fontana and Ontario medical centers, officials said Friday. Officials at the health-care provider did not release the locations of the other 445 positions. The layoffs do not include physicians.

Comcast Corp's NBCUniversal entertainment unit is laying off about 500 employees at cable channels, Jay Leno's late-night TV show and the Universal Pictures movie studio, a person with knowledge of the matter said on Monday. The cuts add up to about 1.5 percent of the company's workforce of 30,000 employees, the source said. A large portion of the layoffs occurred at the G4 cable channel, a network about video games and the gaming culture, the source said. Two of the network's shows were recently canceled. Other layoffs occurred about two months ago at "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," which...

....In the short term, the GOP must fight the count. Romney should never have conceded, and he must now find a reason to "unconcede." It's alarming advice to give the GOP, but in this the party must behave as the Democrats do. Try to imagine, for example, how the Obama campaign would have reacted if the numbers in Florida were reversed; if Scot Brown seemed guilty of practicing law without a license and won anyway; if a half-dozen major precincts responsible for electing Republicans claimed turnouts of 99% or more; if the Romney campaign had rather obviously both solicited and...

Some Philadelphia neighborhoods outdid themselves in Tuesday's presidential election. In a city where President Obama received more than 85 percent of the votes, in some places he received almost every one. In 13 Philadelphia wards, Obama received 99 percent of the vote or more. Those wards, many with large African American populations, also swung heavily for Obama over John McCain in 2008. But the difficult economy seemed destined to dampen that enthusiasm four years later. House Speaker Sam Smith, musing over "staggering" turnout in some city precincts and reacting to wrong information that "90 percent of the precincts in Philadelphia...

LAS VEGAS (CBS Las Vegas) — A Las Vegas business owner with 114 employees fired 22 workers today, apparently as a direct result of President Obama’s re-election. “David” (he asked to remain anonymous for obvious reasons) told Host Kevin Wall on 100.5 KXNT that “elections have consequences” and that “at the end of the day, I need to survive.” Here’s an excerpt from the interview. Click the audio tab below to hear even more from this compelling conversation: . . . I’m just one guy with 114 employees — well was 114 employees — watch what happens in the next...