Free Republic

But as I said in the first sentence of this article, the biggest issue here is that what Biden is set to do is illegal. There is no federal provision that allows him to “forgive” student loan debt on the backs of taxpayers via the stroke of his pen. Nancy Pelosi is on record saying Biden doesn’t have that power. The Department of Education has said Biden doesn’t have that power. For the president to still attempt this move wouldn’t just be a pushing of the envelope. Rather, it would be a conscious, deliberate decision to commit an impeachable offense....

Career federal employees whose work involves making policy would no longer be hired under competitive procedures and would lose their civil service protections from being fired as well as eligibility to be represented by a union, under an executive order that President Donald Trump issued Wednesday. The order would shift those employees from what is called the "competitive service"-covering the bulk of the 2.1 million executive branch employees-into the "excepted service," which in general applies to political appointees below the level requiring Senate confirmation. "This is the most profound undermining of the civil service in our lifetimes," American Federation of...

Should being an active Christian bar you from public service? Yes, say many pundits today. It would seem that the left wants to impose a religious test to bar anyone who truly believes in Jesus from serving in government. The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg left a vacancy on the Supreme Court. In the days following her death, all of the candidates on President Trump’s shortlist to replace her were dedicated Christians, and the left once again bared their anti-Christian bigotry. The Constitution says there can be no religious test applied to those seeking office at the federal level...

LOS ANGELES — Thousands of custodians, security guards, gardeners and other service workers at University of California campuses started a three-day strike Monday to address pay inequalities and demand higher wages. Strikers gathered at sunrise on the 10 campuses throughout the state, wearing green T-shirts and carrying signs that call for “equality, fairness, respect.” The strike was called last week by American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, which represents 25,000 service workers, after the union and the university could not agree on a new contract and mediation efforts failed. Nurses and other medical workers will join...

After months of behind-the-scenes lobbying, multiple marathon hearings and several revisions to the legislation, New Jersey lawmakers finally approved a controversial bill on Thursday to bail out the state’s nuclear power plants. The bill (S2313/A3724) cleared the state Senate by a 29 to 7 vote and passed the Assembly 60 to 10 with one abstention. It now goes to Gov. Phil Murphy’s desk. The measure would effectively impose a surcharge on ratepayers to prop up nuclear power plants owned by Public Service Electric & Gas—the state’s largest energy company—if a state board determines the plants need financial assistance. A typical...

Hillary Clinton announced Friday that she wants to enlist 5 million new volunteers into a “national service reserve” aimed at 18- to 30-year-olds. “What if we strengthen the culture of service in America? So it wasn’t just something we did one day a year, but it became a regular part of our lives,” she asked in a Florida rally on the topic of national service Friday. The former secretary of state argued that her volunteer plan would help combat growing self-segregation in America, where people surround themselves with people who think, talk, look and read the same news as them....

After seven years of the Obama administration, Americans are fed up with their politicians. Americans think their elected leaders have created winners and losers and that the average American is the loser. They think everyone is taking advantage of the system except for them. The electorate is revolting. One presidential candidate they should not be peeved at is Marco Rubio. This has come to the forefront because Sen. Rubio is not a wealthy man. One candidate, Donald Trump, has disparaged him for his lack of financial success. That is particularly fascinating coming from someone who grew up amid great wealth...

Monday, September 14, 2015 Government workers outnumber manufacturing workers in Illinois By Michael Lucci / Illinois Policy Institute - The top-producing states of the Midwest’s manufacturing powerhouse are Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. But Illinois is the only one of the Great Lakes states where government workers dramatically outnumber manufacturing workers, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As of June 2015, Illinois had only 574,000 factory workers, compared with nearly 750,000 state and local government workers. That means Illinois had only 3 manufacturing workers for every 4 state and local government workers. http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2015/09/government-workers-outnumber-manufacturing-workers-in-illinois.html

When we read about the accumulated wealth of our leaders most of us simply shrug.  Accumulated wealth after a lifetime spent in public service is now taken as a given. I think of the Hasterts, the Pelosis ($34 million or so) ); Ted Stevens,  and of course we can't forget to mention the Clintons.  Prosecution of our ruling class for violations of ordinary laws (which the rest of us must live by) is almost non-existent. (And where is the senator who is not a millionaire?) We tend to accept that there are two classes in America: our nobility, who are...

Family members of the two masked men shot to death after allegedly robbing a store in Reading spoke out Tuesday. "It's not fair," said Virginia Medina, mother of 24-year-old William Medina, who police said robbed Krick's Korner store alongside 18-year-old Robert De Carr on Monday. The two men were shot and killed by a private citizen while leaving the store, and family members want to see charges pressed. "[William] had no right to lose his life over something that man could have called the police for," said Medina. "He took the law into his own hands and walked away scot-free."...

SAN ANTONIO --The talk of the Knights of Columbus convention here, which I attended as an invited speaker, were missionaries from the Philippines. The Marikina Valley Council in Luzon traveled by foot for an hour and a half, each way, to establish a relationship with an indigenous Dumagat tribe living in the remote mountains despite the physical and language challenges. Severo S. Del Rosario doesn't really understand what the big deal is. They were just doing what good Christian men do: helping, sharing their goods and skills and spreading their faith. Offerings of food and clothes -- the men and...

This is the second in a series on unions in America.Public Servant is defined in Webster’s dictionary as a government official or employee. When I was growing up that perception was accepted on a near-universal basis. Christopher Stevens, our deceased Libyan Ambassador, would fulfill that role in most people’s eyes. Certainly members of the military are truly public servants. But because of public employee unions, our former public servants are really at odds with the public. We have felt that our public employees were against us for a long time as they have used their unionized power to collect massive...

A former finance official stole more than $53 million in city funds from former President Ronald Reagan's boyhood hometown in Illinois in a fraud that spanned more than two decades, US prosecutors said on Tuesday. Rita Crundwell, 59, who had served as comptroller of Dixon, Illinois since 1983, used the money to buy three homes, more than a dozen cars, trucks and other vehicles, and to invest in a horse farm that has 311 quarter horses, the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago said. Crundwell was arrested in mid-April and charged with stealing $30 million...

On the same day Rick Santorum achieved his highest poll numbers of the presidential campaign, he also leveled his sharpest criticism of a GOP rival. One hour and thirty minutes into his town hall meeting in Cedar Rapids on Wednesday night, Rick Santorum lowered the boom on Ron Paul. Prompted by a question from an attendee, Santorum said Paul’s promises are unrealistic and scary. Paul has promised, if elected president, to cut five federal departments. Santorum says those are among several promises Paul would not be able to fulfill. “Ron Paul has passed one bill in 20 years. What makes...

No license is required. SOUTH CHARLESTON -- National Fishing and Boating Week runs from June 4 -12 and as part of it, the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources is offering its 21st annual Free Fishing Weekend. The weekend is June 11-12 and allows both state residents and out-of-state residents to fish in West Virginia without a license. “It is a great opportunity to remind people of the fun of fishing, especially with family and friends. If you already have a license, take someone fishing. It may be your children, spouse, or co-worker and introduce them to a lifetime of...

"After gathering information, listening to voters and reaching out to people committed to helping elect Republicans I’ve come to the decision that while running for Congress and representing the people of California’s 36th District would be the highest honor of my life at this time my heart is not in it enough."

FDR was a radically progressive president. Yet, he bore a sense not thoroughly distorted, for what has afforded the American blessing of government of, by, and for the People. His convictions stand with Scott Walker, against collective bargaining in public employment, for its undue influence in our republic. In an August 16th, 1937 letter, to Luther Steward, president of the National Federation of Public Employees, Roosevelt wrote this on the very matter (emphasis ours). The desire of Government employees for fair and adequate pay, reasonable hours of work, safe and suitable working conditions, development of opportunities for advancement, facilities...

this is an update and further thoughts on the death of a local teen. please pray and consider helping this family in their grief. read here...

A significant part of Barack Obama's plan to "change" America involves having the federal government take control of public school curriculum, plus compiling a database of personal information about each student. The takeover is planned to be accomplished by talking directly to the kids in their schools and by attaching extraordinary strings to the $128 billion of stimulus funds shoveled into education. Obama's announced Sept. 8 speech from the White House Website to every schoolchild in America kicked up a storm of controversy. A study plan for his speech produced by the U.S. Department of Education, which exposes the political...

These days, the media seems awash in reports of various elected officials and civil servants who are either in the business of raking in as much money as they can on the public dime, trying to score a vacated Senate seat (President Barack Obama’s, which was filled by one Roland Burris…read and listen to the transcript of his groveling and scheming to get the Senate seat HERE) or of municipal and state employees who are making obscene amounts of pay relative to their counterparts in the private sector (check out this chart of 2007 San Francisco city employee pay HERE).