Free Republic

(NewsCore) - A seven-day operation led to the arrest of more than 2,900 illegal immigrants with criminal records, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials said Wednesday. "The results of this targeted enforcement operation underscore ICE's ongoing commitment and focus on the arrest and removal of convicted criminal aliens and those that game our nation's immigration system," said ICE director John Morton.

MINNEAPOLIS - A developer who wants to open a microbrew pub in Minneapolis has a unique business plan. For a $1,000 investment, neighbors can be part owner of the Smokehouse Brewpub and get free beer for life. Developer Jamie Robinson says free beer is among the equity options for the $800,000 restaurant and bar. The project needs $175,000 for a down payment and is targeting investors $1,000 at a time. Kelly Neisen has seized the opportunity. Neisen says as a homeowner she has a stake in seeing her neighborhood succeed. Minneapolis council member Gary Schiff says people crave something authentic,...

The residents, quaintly enough also known as taxpayers, don't want that island. They have formed their own ironic offspring known as Local Taxpayers for a Livable Community, distinguished from TLC by the fact that they are not funded but, in fact, are the funders. My hope for LTLC is that they are not too late in the sense that a wild horse has already left the barn. Let us understand our civics, shall we? The people who pay the bills, the taxpayers, watch, seemingly helplessly, as millions of dollars in federal funds - their money - is won by outfits...

The United Nations is in the final stages of obtaining approval to build a new high-rise on the Robert Moses Playground, located near the U.N. headquarters in New York City. The building, excluding the price of land and security, is estimated to cost $350–$475 million and would provide a home for U.N. offices that are currently dispersed throughout New York. Heritage Foundation fellow Brett Schaefer points out that with America paying for 22 percent of the U.N.’s budget, taxpayers could be on the hook for a large portion of the new building’s cost.

Police say a drunken crowd tossed a dead squirrel around and tipped over a car in La Crosse this past weekend. Lt. Brian Thomson says some college-age people began throwing a dead squirrel back and forth in the street near the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse campus on Saturday night, the second night of the city's annual Oktoberfest celebration. Police say a drunken crowd tossed a dead squirrel around and tipped over a car in La Crosse this past weekend. Lt. Brian Thomson says some college-age people began throwing a dead squirrel back and forth in the street near the University...

"They sent us letters. They phoned it in. They asked their retailers, you know, in their neighborhood, where do I find a card that says this?” Hallmark Creative Director Derek McCracken told NPR. “And again, loss of job, like any loss, is a grieving process. And so we have to acknowledge as soon as possible what had happened and then try to support them. So that's where we kind of offer more cards on the, you'll get through this, versus dwelling on the loss of the job itself.”

The history of the federal program is a cautionary tale about changing public behavior - even when the public agrees with the goals. It was created by former Minnesota Rep. Jim Oberstar in 2000. Oberstar was appalled at the steep increases in childhood obesity and diabetes. At the same time, he learned that 75 percent of children's trips away from home were in motor vehicles, up from 40 percent in the 1960s. "We have a generation of mobility-challenged children," he said.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa - Some workers at a Sioux City mail processing center could be paid even if they don't work after the facility closes. The U.S. Postal Service is closing the center on Friday and transferring the work to Sioux Falls, S.D. Spokesman Richard Watkins said that about 100 workers have taken other mail jobs and 40 others are on standby status. Those standby workers will have to take other postal service jobs before their contract expires in 2015. In the meantime, Watkins said, they could be asked to report to the Sioux City post office and sit in...

House Democrats took to the floor on Wednesday, characterizing a provision for disaster-relief in the GOP's short-term spending measure as “stingy” and a “disgrace.” Democrats oppose the provision for $3.7 billion in disaster relief because Republicans have offset the funds by cutting from a fuel-efficiency program, the Department of Energy’s Advanced Vehicle Manufacturing Loan Program. Democrats say they won't support the bill because the cuts will hurt job creation. In a floor speech, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) deemed the Republican’s FEMA bill “frugal and cheap.” Criticizing the bill for its offsets from the DOE program, Ellison said the bill “is...

I've never seen this much attention given to child care," Clarissa Johnston, a 24-year home day care provider, told a Minnesota Senate committee hearing Thursday night. The reason for the attention was the possibility that Minnesota's 11,000 in-home child care providers might be unionized. The providers who testified were deeply divided over the issue. During the three-hour hearing, they argued passionately for and against being organized into labor alliances. Proponents contended that forming a union would enable them to negotiate the state rules and regulations that govern their operations and affect their wages, benefits and working conditions. "Recognize our right...

The Obama Administration is setting up the rules and regulations to establish a federal Health Insurance Exchange in every State. This will put all insurance and health care delivery under federal control. The Exchange could best be called a "lobster trap". Once installed, it'll be almost impossible to get out. The deadline for your comments is next Wednesday, September 28. Please take this opportunity to say NO.

On Thursday, September 22, environmentalists want you to feel guilty about driving cars. In other words, it’s annual “World Car-Free Day.” Instead of celebrating the many ways that the automobile has liberated and improved the lives of ordinary people, environmentalists want to suggest that rejecting the car for a day is somehow virtuous. The governor of Massachusetts is going even further by advocating a car-free week – notwithstanding the governor’s real-world choice to drive around in an SUV this week.

According to the criminal complaint, Sule broke into the man's home in the 6800 block of Seventh Street Northeast in Fridley about 8 p.m. Sept. 19, 2010, and made the man go with him to a bedroom. After repeatedly telling the man, "I love you, I want to kiss you," Sule sexually assaulted him, the complaint said. The man, who died earlier this year, told police he tried to fight back but was weak from ongoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments. His attorney argued Sule did not know the implications of agreeing to the swab because officers asked him in English,...

ST. PAUL, Minn.—Former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman is getting behind Mitt Romney in the GOP presidential race, and gaining a role within the ex-Massachusetts governor's campaign. Romney's campaign announced Wednesday that Coleman would come aboard as a special adviser on policy. Coleman joins former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty as a Romney backer.

MADISON, Wis.—Nearly one-in-five of the jobs listed on a state website touted by Gov. Scott Walker as a resource for unemployed Wisconsin residents are actually located in neighboring states, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. More than 32,000 job openings were posted on the Job Center of Wisconsin's website as of Tuesday, but about 18 percent of them were in Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa and Michigan. It was unclear how many of those roughly 6,000 jobs could be filled through telecommuting, though many appeared to require on-site work. Walker ran on a promise to add 250,000 private sector jobs...

Even before a vote is possible, the battles lines have been drawn over a potential vote on unionizing in-home daycare providers. At a rally at the Capitol Tuesday, daycare providers against a union vote wanted to make their sentiment known to the Governor as he considers potential next steps in a possible union vote. Becky Swanson is an in-home daycare provider and she says she's against any union effort, "I feel it's very important that Governor Dayton listen, and stop now, and don't put it to a vote. It's not necessary."

Carrie Kizer is not amused. An executive assistant for Berkshire Hathaway Inc. CEO Warren Buffett in Omaha, Neb., she has been fielding media requests for two days from reporters looking to talk to Warren Buffett's secretary. The calls have been coming ever since the president in announcing a plan to raise taxes on investment income said Monday morning, "Warren Buffett's secretary shouldn't pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett."

It's a formula many officials at all levels of government hope to see repeated across the country. On Monday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Peter Rogoff, lead administrator of the Federal Transit Administration, joined Gov. Mark Dayton at the Union Depot to tout President Barack Obama's $447 billion jobs bill, which is moving through a divided Congress. The bill, they said, would invest heavily in infrastructure projects such as roads, rail and bridges, putting more unemployed Americans back to work, if only for a few months to a few years at a time. At its heart, a key question:...

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's budget director said Monday that the president's new deficit-reduction plan would impose "a lot of pain," and is clearly true of White House proposals to cut $320 billion from projected spending on Medicare and Medicaid in the coming decade. Obama proposed higher premiums and deductibles for many Medicare beneficiaries and lower Medicare payments to teaching hospitals and rural hospitals. He would start charging co-payments to frail homebound older people who receive home health services. And he would reduce the growth of federal payments to states for treating low-income people under Medicaid.

With a two-year budget of more than $22 billion in state and federal funds, the Human Services Department is involved in the lives of more than a million Minnesotans who rely on state programs for health care, food support, welfare, mental health treatment, home care, nursing homes and child care aid. The agency also licenses 24,000 medical and social service providers.