Free Republic

What kind of business could possibly survive by simply hitting refresh buttons every 10 minutes while no business comes across their desks? If you guessed public sector, congratulations, and claim a bonus for specifying ObamaCare. St Louis’ KMOV News looked into an ObamaCare contractor with a billion-dollar contract after hearing employee complaints that the well-motivated workforce is getting paid to do nothing — a whole lot of nothing (via Daniel Halper):CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO “A billion dollar government contract involving hundreds of local workers at an Obamacare processing center … But now employees on the inside are...

The Ferndale school district's collective bargaining agreement made headlines recently because it gives preference to applicants of "the non-Christian faith." Under media scrutiny, Ferndale officials said they "somehow missed" the discriminatory language. Fortunately, they have now removed it. But large portions of Ferndale's contract still appear to be in violation of other state laws. Ferndale is one of an estimated 60 percent of Michigan districts that have worked to preserve collective bargaining language that is prohibited by state law. A series of recent reforms were passed in an attempt to make it easier for district officials to retain and reward...

Serco has been awarded the DHS contract to design and implement a Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge Solutions II (EAGLE II) contract.

The government contract for the company that built the glitch-prone website for Obamacare has ballooned to three times its original cost, and some Republicans are demanding the resignation of the cabinet secretary who oversees it. **SNIP** The government says that the cost grew as more states lined up for Obamacare, President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. **SNIP** “Health care reform is more than a website,” Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, told reporters Thursday. “Across the country, people are getting health insurance.”

The U.S. Army is refusing to suspend contracts with dozens of companies and individuals tied to Al Qaeda and other extremist groups out of concern for their "due process rights," despite repeated pleas from the chief watchdog for Afghanistan reconstruction. In a scathing passage of his latest report to Congress, Special Inspector General John Sopko said his office has urged the Army to suspend or debar 43 contractors over concerns about ties to the Afghanistan insurgency, "including supporters of the Taliban, the Haqqani network and al Qaeda." Sopko wrote that the Army "rejected" every single case. "The Army Suspension and...

AN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — Bay Area Rapid Transit workers walked off the job early Monday morning after last-minute negotiations failed to produce a new contract agreement. The strike ensured a nightmarish commute to start the week, leaving about 400,000 BART riders to find another way to get work. The unions were seeking a 5 percent annual raise over the next three years. BART spokesman Rick Rice said the transit agency had rolled out several offers over the course of negotiations, including an 8 percent salary raise over the next four years. But the unions dismissed the proposals as “surface...

<p>The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Monday that farmers may not use Monsanto’s patented genetically altered soybeans to create new seeds without paying the company a fee.</p> <p>The ruling has implications for many aspects of modern agriculture and for businesses based on vaccines, cell lines and software. But Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court, emphasized that the justices meant for the decision to be narrow.</p>

Chicago police sergeants on Monday overwhelmingly rejected a proposed contract that Mayor Rahm Emanuel had called a blueprint for restoring financial soundness to the city’s woefully underfunded pension systems. The sergeants union voted 876-134 against the contract, a result that left Emanuel expressing disappointment and the leader of the Fraternal Order of Police crowing. **SNIP** For weeks, the mayor had been citing the proposed sergeants’ contract as a “blueprint” or “road map” for negotiations with other city unions. After Monday’s result was announced, Shields suggested Emanuel “needs to find the GPS for Chicago.”

The news that Sarah Palin will no longer be a paid contributor to Fox News puts an exclamation point on the end of an era, or at least a chapter, in U.S. political history. She could land somewhere else, and she still has her Facebook friends, but it’s hard to imagine she’ll find a more visible or influential platform than Fox. The former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee has been fading from the scene for some time, as she inadvertently highlighted when she complained on Facebook during the Republican convention in August that the network had canceled her...

Hispanics upset about DNC contractLocal Latino groups say a Hispanic state GOP leader shouldn’t have been vendor By Franco Ordoñez Modified: Thursday, Sep. 13, 2012 CHARLOTTE, N.C. Some Hispanic Democrats are angry that one of the few major contracts for minority businesses at the Democratic National Convention went to a Hispanic leader of North Carolina’s Republican Party. Convention organizers made a big effort to contract with minority-run businesses. But some Hispanics see contracting with the chairman of North Carolina’s Republican National Hispanic Assembly as anathema to the mission of the Democrats, especially considering the partisan differences on major issues such...

WASHINGTON—The union representing nearly 45,000 airport screeners has reached a first-ever collective bargaining agreement with the Transportation Security Administration. The agreement, reached Thursday, comes more than a year after TSA head John Pistole agreed to grant screeners limited union rights for the first time since the agency was formed in 2001. It includes a new process for resolving disciplinary matters and a better system for increasing pay based on performance, said John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA workers. "What this contract will do is provide for increased uniformity on fair treatment and the...

A Pledge signed by every Congressional candidate must be circulated and signed BEFORE the November election. Now is the time. We need a concrete plan that will not just "hopefully" allow us to linger on and die slowly like the rest of the world. Major tax code overhaul would -ignite- the economy...

Oshkosh - Facing cuts in defense spending, Oshkosh Corp. is gearing up for one of the biggest new military truck contracts on the horizon - worth billions of dollars and eight years of work at the truck maker's factory. The Army and Marines want thousands of Joint Light Tactical Vehicles that would be a replacement for the military's Humvees. At least five companies will probably seek the contract, which analysts say could be worth as much as $20 billion. With defense spending on the decline, the competition will be especially intense. "Honestly, this could get kind of vicious," said Jim...

The mastermind behind the Republicans' dramatic return to congressional power after 40 years in the minority, Newt Gingrich commanded a conservative assault on big government to achieve his long-held dream of becoming House speaker. ...it was a disappointing GOP showing in Tuesday's election that ultimately brought him down. He fulfilled his vision through his "Contract with America," a campaign blueprint he helped craft that called for tax cuts, welfare reform and other changes aimed at shrinking the federal government. "When I said revolution, I meant revolution. When I said real change, I meant real change," Gingrich said in the midst...

Fox does a piece on how the bid for this defense contract went to a Brazilian company.

The scourge of smallpox has been all but eradicated for decades, with the only live samples of the source bacteria locked away in laboratories in the US and Russia. Nonetheless, the US maintains a large stockpile of proven smallpox vaccines just in case anyone gets access to the disease, and can quickly distribute it to the American population and prevent an epidemic, even after exposure. There is no reason to spend another dollar developing a new smallpox vaccine — and yet that is exactly what the Obama administration did, and in a most peculiar manner: Over the last year, the...

A $90 million contract aimed at creating jobs as well as strengthening local governments in Colombia has been awarded to Chemonics International by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The Consolidation and Enhanced Livelihoods Initiative, or CELI, as it is known, seeks to sway Colombian citizens from participating in drug-related activities and to instead pursue legal livelihoods. A U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor previously reported, USAID earlier this year separately awarded a $110 million contract to a different vendor to achieve similar goals across Colombia (see: U.S. Contractor to Help Colombia Establish 'Presence' in Former Coca-Eradication Zones, April 27,...

Gannett; Link only

Newt Gingrich to detail new ‘Contract With America’By Sandhya Somashekhar Former House speaker Newt Gingrich on Thursday will outline a set of sweeping changes to government that he says will foster a “national renewal” in the United States and return the country to its founding principles. Gingrich, who is trying to revive his presidential campaign after a series of stumbles early on, will unveil the 26-page plan at a press event in Iowa. It is modeled on the 1994 “Contract With America” that Gingrich helped write while in Congress. The new plan, which Gingrich has dubbed a “21st Century Contract...

We, the American people, promise to defend and advance a simple ideal: liberty and justice . . . for all. Americans who are willing to work hard and play by the rules should be able to find a decent job, get a good home in a strong community, retire with dignity, and give their kids a better life. Every one of us – rich, poor, or in-between, regardless of skin color or birthplace, no matter their sexual orientation or gender – has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That is our covenant, our compact, our contract...