Free Republic

Award Winning Actor Robert De Niro really does make it hard for a politically engaged conservative who has enjoyed his movies to like him anymore. In the era of Trump, we’ve all come to expect political rants from De Niro as he accepts industry awards or gives interviews for television and in print. He did it again during the 26th Annual Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards Sunday. De Niro was honored with the SAG Life Achievement Award. Typically, the honoree fakes enough humility to convince the audience that he or she is just a regular person lucky enough to...

WASHINGTON - December 18, 2019 - National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen García released the following statement regarding the U.S. House vote on impeachment: “As educators, we teach students to ask questions and seek answers because the truth matters. Over the last several months, as the impeachment inquiry has unfolded, students across America have received a real-time civics lesson. What they have witnessed is a set of clear and incontrovertible facts that were brought to light confirming the allegations that the President failed to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States. At this historic moment, and given the...

The #RedforEd teachers’ movement appears to be moving towards Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) as their choice for the 2020 Democrat nominee. The Sanders campaign highlighted that connection in its recent statement announcing its $34 million 4th quarter fundraising haul, noting, “‘Teacher’ was the most common occupation of Sanders’ fourth quarter donors, the five most common employers were Amazon, Starbucks, Walmart, the United States Postal Service and Target.”

SANTA FE — New Mexico state spending would rise significantly for the second consecutive year under a budget proposal unveiled by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Monday that would boost state spending by $596.3 million — or roughly 8.4% — over current levels. The nearly $7.7 billion spending plan includes a proposed 4% salary increase for New Mexico teachers and more money for school districts with a large number of “at risk” students, as the state continues to grapple with the fallout of a landmark legal ruling about its public education system. It would also provide additional dollars to hire...

The lead contractor for a Mississippi River bridge is involved in a now-public feud with the state of Iowa over whether the bridge is buildable. The I-74 bridge is meant to replace a bridge on the same location connecting Moline, Ill, and Bettendorf, Iowa. Known as the Iowa-Illinois Memorial Bridge, the bridge is a pair of suspension bridges located near the geographic center of the Quad Cities. The original bridge was designed by engineer Ralph Modjeski. The first span opened in 1935 as a toll bridge. In 1961, an identical twin span, built from the same blueprint, opened to facilitate...

Pennsylvania Turnpike users can expect 6% toll increases in 2020 and 2021 but then — if the state Legislature follows through with plans to change how the state funds public transit — the rate of annual increases gradually will go down to 3% in 2028. Nikolaus Grieshaber, the turnpike’s chief financial officer, outlined the agency’s financial future recently in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about the 6% toll hike that begins Jan. 5. The increase marks the 12th year in a row that rates have gone up and will increase the fee for a car traveling the length of...

Will County billboards that warned motorists about bridges stoked public-safety fears and helped convince state lawmakers of the need to approve a $45 billion infrastructure plan. The billboards and their impact arguably deserve to rank among the top political stories of the year, if not the decade. Construction unions paid to display the messages “Cross bridge at your own risk” and “Bridge ahead in critical condition” on electronic billboards near Interstate 80 bridges over the Des Plaines River in Joliet. The billboards heightened motorists’ fears about crumbling infrastructure and generated bipartisan support for the $45 billion Rebuild Illinois program. Marc...

On a single day in December 2015, Gary Jones, who resigned last month as president of the United Automobile Workers, spent more than $13,000 of the union’s money at a cigar store in Arizona. His purchases included a dozen $268 boxes of Ashton Double Magnums and a dozen boxes of Ashton Monarchs at $274.50 each. “Hi Gary, Thank you & Happy New Year,” read a handwritten note from the store. The purchases, documented by a federal complaint filed against a union leader in September, were part of more than $60,000 in cigars and cigar paraphernalia that Mr. Jones and other...

Biden, who often touts himself as a “union man” on the campaign trail, made the promise while speaking at a rally organized by the progressive organization Fight for 15 in Los Angeles, California. During his remarks, which came only hours before the Democrat presidential primary debate, the former vice president channeled his more progressive rivals when stating that fight for $15-an-hour was about more than economics. “It’s not just the numbers, and by the way there’s been a war on fast food workers for a long, long time,” the former vice president said, before lambasting companies like Chuck E. Cheese...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The new North American trade deal addresses most concerns of U.S. labor unions, Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO union federation, said on Thursday, but even so he expects it could take more than a decade to reverse job losses resulting from the original 25-year-old trade pact.

Bernie Sanders faced pushback from union members in Las Vegas on Tuesday over how the Democratic presidential candidate would fund a government-subsidized health care plan that would force union members to forfeit the benefits they’ve spent years bargaining for. The 77-year-old independent U.S. senator from Vermont addressed a town hall meeting hosted by Culinary Union Local 226 and its parent union, Unite Here. Though union members in the crowd were widely supportive of Sanders – shouting “Bernie! Bernie!” as he wheeled out his stance on immigration, criminal justice and climate change – a group of about 12 people began to...

School-bus drivers Billie McClinsey and Brad Mayer didn’t like being represented by the Teamsters and wanted to put the matter to a vote. That should have been straightforward. Federal law provides that if union opponents collect signatures from 30% of their co-workers, they can ask the National Labor Relations Board to schedule a vote. But the process is frequently made convoluted and oppressive. As a result, Messrs. McClinsey and Mayer are trapped—likely indefinitely—in the union they oppose. The NLRB is soliciting comments on proposals to lift barriers that limit workers’ right to remove a union. Messrs. McClinsey and Mayer work...

Cierra Brown is trying to do all she can on her own, but it rarely feels like she’s doing enough. Cierra Brown estimates her commute to work would only take about 25 minutes if she had a car. That’s part of the reason she returned to McDonald’s in January: Her car had broken down and she needed money. But at McDonald’s, Brown only earns $9.50 per hour as a cashier, which barely helps cover rent and is far from enough to solve her vehicular woes. Without a car, one of Brown’s main headaches is getting to work. Her typical bus...

ONAWAY, Mich. — The United Auto Workers union is based in Detroit, but its spiritual home lies 250 miles to the north, in a dense and remote forest on the shores of Black Lake. Here, 40 miles from the nearest Starbucks, the U.A.W. owns a spartan retreat known to few people outside the auto industry, though it opened nearly 50 years ago. Covering 1,000 acres, the gated compound includes cabins, lodges, a banquet hall and a recreation center with an Olympic-size swimming pool. An eternal flame marks the hilltop resting place of the ashes of Walter Reuther, who built the...

Back in April, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ludicrous Green New Deal inspired a group of New York City construction workers to unionize, becoming one of the first unions in the solar power industry. It didn’t last long, though. On Monday, the union’s employer, Bright Power, decided to fire the whole staff and replace them with subcontractors. All this happened while the union was trying to negotiate for their first contract, too. “We have come to the conclusion that our resources have been spread too thin with so many different kinds of work all being done in-house,” Jeffrey Perlman, Bright Power CEO, said...

Union workers can say a lot while under the protection of American labor law. For example: “Go back to Africa, you bunch of —ing losers!” That was only one of the racial epithets shouted in 2012 by picketing Ohio tire workers at a group of replacement employees, many of them black. When the tire company fired one offender, its decision was overturned by an administrative judge. That ruling was upheld by the National Labor Relations Board in a 2016 decision, Cooper Tire . These kinds of precedents, employers say, put them in a bind between labor law and workplace standards—even...

Montgomery County police were asked to step in last week when union employees tried to deliver a workplace petition to the county’s Department of Health and Human Services administrative offices in Rockville. ... County Executive Marc Elrich said his administration inherited years of complaints over workloads, staffing levels, and management response to workplace grievances. “There are deep-seated issues that go back years and have never been resolved,” Elrich said in a phone interview on Monday. “I expect people to listen and take this seriously, because this is something we knew when we inherited HHS.” Several employees and union representatives drove...

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Talk about missing the forest for the trees! The Ohio Nurses Association [ONA], a union with 11,000 members, has endorsed legalizing assisted suicide. From the Cincinnati Enquirer story: ONA President Deborah Arms said the proposal recommends “educating the public about medical aid in dying, supporting legislation to protect the rights of dying patients to control the circumstances and conditions of their death and providing resources and education to nurses about the nurse’s role in caring for patients regarding MAID [Medical Assistance in Dying] or any form of treatment limitation.” Meanwhile, in other news: Ohio is in the midst of a...

Pete Buttigieg is getting a hard look from anxious Democrats. ... As a result, he’ll be getting more scrutiny for his ideas, and on Friday he released what he called “An Economic Agenda for American Families.” For a candidate who wants to occupy the moderate lane, Mr. Buttigieg’s policy details veer notably left. Some highlights: • $700 billion—presumably over 10 years, but the plan doesn’t specifically say—for “universal, high-quality, and full-day early learning.” That includes giving “lower-income families” free care “from birth through age five.” • $500 billion “to make college affordable.” That means free tuition at public universities for...