Free Republic

The AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) recently announced that they will spend a combined $88 million during this year’s election cycle. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) plans to spend about $50 million. Organized labor’s enormous war chests are largely derived from member dues—money that is deducted from workers’ paychecks and sent directly to the “representing” union. While some states have enacted paycheck protection laws that allow a worker to decide whether or not his dues are used for political purposes, a majority of states give workers no choice in how their dues...

...The cause of this late date is government largesse—and Virginia is left footing the bill. From 2002 to 2008, state spending has grown by nearly 33% from $26.5 billion a year to $35.3 billion a year. To sustain this bloated government, Virginians have been saddled with over $3 billion in new taxes over the past eight years. This amounts to a $380.70 tax increase on every man, woman and child in the Old Dominion State in that time period. Under the leadership of the new governor, some ideas have been floated that would ease the burden suffered by Virginia taxpayers,...

The last redoubt of concern for the common man is ridiculously awash in the cash that keeps eluding the object of its affections but then, maybe that’s where it comes from. The Almanac of Higher Education shows us that colleges and universities took in about a trillion dollars this year and spent roughly that amount. Most of these institutions have multi-million dollar endowments, even some community colleges. Most parents do not. Professors make about $100,000 a year with tenure while the untenured lecturers and associates range between $45-80,000 a year. Ironically, this is where most share-the- wealth schemes originate. The...

...Government workers receive generous pensions, driving up costs A key factor in the underfunding of government employee pensions is the inflated benefits promised to individual workers. On average, government workers with defined benefit plans are owed $2.85 in retirement benefits per hour worked compared to a private sector worker with a defined benefit pension plan who receives $0.41 in pension benefits per hour worked. Reform is difficult and easily demonized The biggest opponents to pension reform are the current recipients of generous pension benefits, many of which are union members. Over 35 percent of government workers are represented by a...

This year, the national Cost of Government Day fell on August 19th—meaning that Americans had to work 231 days to pay off the cost of government this year. But President Obama’s home state spent 234 days paying off the cost of government this year, which didn’t arrive until today, August 22nd. Tied with Utah and Wyoming this year, Illinois ranks as 35th state to reach their Cost of Government Day. What’s worse, since 2003, residents have been subjected to an $8.49 billion tax hike; this equates to $657.12 for every citizen of the state...

Michigan State University professor Sharif Shakrani was read an expert's quote that appeared on the eighth page of his study the Mackinac Center says appears to be plagiarized. Shakrani said he got the two-sentence quote through his research online. But the study doesn't say where he found that quote. The two-sentence quote was part of more than 300 words that appear to have been taken virtually word-for-word from a Stateline.org March 22, 2010, article entitled, "Still too many schools?" Except for a few very minor alterations, a three-paragraph chunk of the Stateline.org piece appeared in the MSU study. Some examples...

There are two golden rules for gun safety. Rule one, never point a gun at something you don’t want to destroy. Rule two: keep your finger off the trigger until you’ve decided to destroy it. “Muzzle discipline” means more than avoiding placing hapless humans in your sights. You should also refrain from potentially destroying your non-gun hand, your right foot, your neighbor’s extremities, the plexiglass range lane divider and anything else that might cause “issues.” To that end, follow the rabbi’s advice. Imagine there’s a five-foot flame coming out of the gun’s muzzle. By the same token, “trigger control” means...

While it strives for respectability, the Muslim Students Association (MSA) has a dark side. For example, a 2007 report by the New York Police Department describes MSAs as "part of a growing trend of Salafi-based radicalization." The report lists MSAs as an example of "Salafi Influences and Incubators," stating: "Extremists have used these university-based organizations as forums for the development and recruitment of like-minded individuals - providing a receptive platform for younger, American-born imams, to present a radical message in a way that resonates with the students." But the organization's role in radicalizing other Muslims is just part of the...

This week Ars Technica played right in to the FCC’s hands when it published, “Your fears confirmed: ‘up to’ broadband speeds are bogus.” As the FCC pushes for government regulation of the Internet, they use tricky tactics to try to confuse the consumer and sway popular opinion against service providers. One of these measures is this week’s deluded FCC study “Broadband Performance,” in which the FCC measures household Internet speed and implies you’re not getting what you paid for. They found: “Therefore actual downloaded speeds experienced by US consumers appear to lag advertised speeds by roughly 50 percent.” First, the...

...The money quote: "If you're running for governor and you want to be a good governor, you've got to tell the people the truth before the election...I want to be a governor that tells the truth all the time, before and after the election." Seriously? This is coming from the guy with the secret plan to raise taxes after the election. The guy who scrambled to quash the comments of his rogue budget director who blurted out the administration's plan for a $6 billion post-election tax increase. Bill Brady is the candidate in this race who has been consistently honest...

...In 2010, Cost of Government Day falls on August 19. Working people must toil 231 days out of the year just to meet all costs imposed by government - 8 days later than last year and a full 32 days longer than 2008. In other words, in 2010 the cost of government consumes 63.41 percent of national income...

The debate about climate science, and the sloppiness with which the cost/benefit ratios of climate change and its proposed solutions are considered, are literally sucking all the air out of environmental discussion. While we argue about what global warming will or won’t mean for our New England forests 100 years from now, the emerald ash borer is out there today...

One of the points of contention in recent textbook battles in Texas is the issue of slavery and how it will be explored in classrooms. Those opposed to revision argue that it will be whitewashed. Actually, if the complete history of slavery were explored, those purists might be surprised at what they find. For one thing, few texts even mention the enslavement of Christians by Muslims. “The Barbary pirates, using what would now be called a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam as their pretext, regularly kidnapped Christian livestock from Italy, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica and from the ships of all...

This has been a page that I have been running and updating for the better part of this year. The page link can be seen here. However, 75 days before Election Day, I thought it might be a good idea to know where we stand in our task of taking the House and Senate.

While Americans are still stinging from the slap in the face we received from President Obama’s condescending scolding late Friday evening, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) released a statement indicating that the Ground Zero “mosque should be built someplace else.” Color me surprised! Up to now, Harry Reid has been in lock-step with President Obama and Nancy Pelosi as they’ve rammed every bit of their intensely unpopular agenda down our throats to transform America. So what’s up? Could it be Reid’s poll numbers? Despite his huge treasure chest of campaign funds from the Democratic Party, he is virtually tied with Sharon...

The art of interpretaing the Constitution & the original intent of the founders is not rocket science. As Justice Joseph Story stated, it’s mostly just good ole plain & obvious common sense: In the first place, then, every word employed in the constitution is to be expounded in its plain, obvious, and common sense, unless the context furnishes some ground to control, qualify, or enlarge it. Constitutions are not designed for metaphysical or logical subtleties, for niceties of expression, for critical propriety, for elaborate shades of meaning, or for the exercise of philosophical acuteness, or juridical research. They are instruments...

Until recently, campus roommates were a non-negotiable item for incoming college freshmen. If a study-holic was matched with a party animal, too bad. But now, things are changing. When incoming freshmen receive their new roommate assignments, the first thing they do is look them up on Facebook. At the University of Florida, for example, the school decided to give in to the social media phenomenon by using a Facebook application called RoomBug so that students could check out prospective roommates’ habits i.e. their neatness and sleep schedules. More than 25 percent of this year’s incoming freshmen have used this service...

America's current mass immigration mess is the result of a change in the laws in 1965. Prior to 1965, despite some changes in the 50's, America was a low-immigration country basically living under immigration laws written in 1924. Thanks to low immigration, the swamp of cheap labor was largely drained during this period, America became a fundamentally middle-class society, and our many European ethnic groups were brought together into a common national culture. In some ways, this achievement was so complete that we started to take for granted what we had achieved and forgot why it happened. So in a...

One wonders sometimes if America would prosper if Academia didn’t. “Higher education employment continues to follow stable growth patterns as overall U.S. employment recovered only slightly in the first half of 2010,” according to HigherEdJobs. “From the first half of 2008 (the initial six-month period of the recession) to H1 2010, higher education employment grew 4.2 percent while the total number of U.S. jobs declined 5.6 percent, or about 7.7 million jobs.” “Job postings in academia jumped year-over-year almost 36 percent in H1 2010 after declining by almost an identical amount in 2009, suggesting colleges and universities are continuing to...

We have been happy with our homeschool curriculum to date using the K-12 Curriculum. But we just hit American History before 1865. It is pabablum about Native Americans respecting the land blah blah. Don't even need to read the rest. Glancing thru the rest, it seems like a pretty standard left-wing treatment of the subject. So my question is, do any FREEPERS have recommendations for American History Curricula and are solidly conservative and factual. Appropriate for a bright 5th or 6th grader. We like to teach off a curriculum if possible rather than a text book or scattered books.