Free Republic

An executive order from President Donald Trump moving federal inmates who transitioned male to female... John Ratcliffe confirmed as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency by the US Senate... A Ukrainian drone attack tonight on an oil refinery in the Russian city of Ryazan... Ukrainian drones shot down in the Moscow Region... President Donald Trump signing an executive order leading to release of classified assassination files from the 1960's... A new opioid settlement involving Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family. The 7.4-billion-dollar deal replaces a previous... A US District Judge blocking President Donald Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship... In...

Teamsters union members working at Costco Wholesale locations across the country voted to authorize a strike on Sunday, with more than 85% of members in favor of hitting the picket lines. The union represents more than 18,000 Costco employees nationally. "Our members have spoken loud and clear -- Costco must deliver a fair contract, or they'll be held accountable," Teamsters General President Sean M. O'Brien said in a press release Sunday. "From day one, we've told Costco that our members won't work a day past January 31 without a historic, industry-leading agreement. Costco's greedy executives have less than two weeks...

An early hurdle to clearing out the swamp! The largest union of US federal government employees filed suit on Monday against President Donald Trump over his plans to create a cost-cutting “Department of Government Efficiency” headed by billionaire Elon Musk. The suit was filed in a district court in Washington by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and non-profit Public Citizen just minutes after Trump was sworn in as the 47th US president. Trump has tasked Musk, the world’s richest man, with slashing billions of dollars in federal government spending. Trump and Musk have claimed that $2 trillion could...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Tonight, Action News Jax learned about a federal indictment that claims the former leaders of the ‘Duval Teachers United’ stole more than $2.6 million from the union they spent decades leading. DTU Former President Terrie Brady and Former Executive Vice President Ruby George each face eight counts of wire fraud and three counts of mail fraud. Brady is also facing two counts of money laundering charges. The indictment alleges that between 2013 and 2022, Brady and George conspired to steal more than $1.2 million each from the union by selling back leave time that they did not...

A New Jersey law that removes a requirement for teachers to pass a reading, writing and mathematics test for certification will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2025. The law, Act 1669, was passed by Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy as part of the state’s 2025 budget in June in an effort to address a shortage of teachers in the state... Individuals seeking an instructional certificate will no longer need to pass a “basic skills” test ... Just months earlier, Murphy signed a similar bill into law that created an alternative pathway for teachers to sidestep the testing requirement....

The Dartmouth College basketball players who voted in March to unionize withdrew their petition on Tuesday, a move largely intended to preserve the favorable federal judgment that they had secured and that could have been in jeopardy once President-elect Donald J. Trump took office. The players were the first college athletes granted the right to unionize by a federal labor official and the ensuing 13-to-2 vote by the men’s team in favor of forming a union seemed like a pivotal moment in the mounting legal challenges to the college sports model. But Dartmouth refused to negotiate with the players and...

Teamsters President Sean O'Brien stunned Tucker Carlson when he revealed Kamala Harris told his own union's vice president: 'I'm gonna win, with you or without you.' The often combative union boss declined to endorse Harris or Donald Trump in November. He pointed out that he'd been given a platform at the Republican convention, but none at the Democrat convention. O'Brien pulled many of the Democrat skeletons out of the closet in the interview with Carlson, describing an 'arrogant' Democrat nominee pushing them to step in line. He spoke about a meeting his lieutenant Joan Corey had with Harris in June,...

Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters, recently revealed that during the 2024 presidential election season, Vice President Kamala Harris stormed out of a meeting with the union, telling O’Brien she’d “win with you or without you,” only to be crushed by President-elect Donald Trump in November. O’Brien recounted the incident during an appearance on “The Tucker Carlson Show” on Monday, during which he also talked about the union’s historic decision to pass on giving a presidential endorsement for the first time in three decades. According to a new report from The New York Post, Vice President Kamala Harris agreed to...

The clash over working from home is expected to be one of the major battles for the incoming Trump administration. The nation's biggest federal union is pushing back against claims by President-elect Donald Trump's supporters over teleworking for civil servants. The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 800,000 federal and Washington city workers, said assertions that staffers are abusing work-from-home flexibility are serving as cover for Republican lawmakers to try to tear down the government. The clash over telework is expected to be one of the major battles for the incoming Trump administration as conservatives push for the civil...

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Missouri business groups announced Monday that they have filed a lawsuit to try to stop a voter-approved law that will raise the state’s minimum wage and require employers to give workers paid sick leave. The powerful Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry, restaurant and grocers associations say the law violates a state constitutional requirement that ballot measures only address one issue because it included the minimum wage increase and paid sick leave. The law will increase the state’s minimum wage from the current $12.30 an hour to $13.75 in January and $15 in 2026. It gives...

Some union leaders are self-destructive idiots. America's ports have fallen behind. Not a single one ranks in the top 50 worldwide. A big reason is that dock unions stop innovation. Advertisement This fall, the International Longshoremen's Association shut down East and Gulf coast ports, striking for a raise and a ban on automation. They got the raise. Now union president Harold Daggett says longshoremen will strike again in January if they don't get that ban on automation. His statement in my new video makes it clear that he knows how badly his strike would damage other Americans. "Guys who sell...

... Last week, the NLRB ruled against Starbucks’ dress code policy at its New York City Roastery Reserve cafe, finding it violates labor law. The Board panel unanimously determined that the policy—which bans most personal, political, or religious pins and limits workers to the display of just one labor-related pin—is unlawfully broad and limits workers’ rights to organize. The dress code also barred workers from wearing shirts with graphics, including union insignia. In 2022, Starbucks Workers United filed the initial complaint, alleging that managers threatened employees with disciplinary action for wearing union-related apparel. The Board ordered Starbucks to rescind or...

As the Biden regime prepares to exit, it has orchestrated a move as a cunning attempt to undermine the incoming Trump administration’s agenda to streamline government operations. In a last-minute deal, the Biden regime has locked in telework protections for 42,000 Social Security Administration (SSA) employees until 2029. The agreement, reached with the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), ensures remote work privileges for these federal workers for the next five years, despite the Trump administration’s explicit plans to slash such arrangements, according to Bloomberg. The agreement, brokered between the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the Social Security...

Thousands of federal and government workers landed members a work from home deal ahead of the incoming Trump administration's efforts to force workers to return to office... The updated contract, which affects 42,000 government employees, will allow workers to stay hybrid until 2029. The deal was signed by President Biden's former SSA Commissioner, Martin O’Malley....

‘Why is it that all we hear from CTU is demands for more, but we never hear anything from the union about what its members owe the taxpayers (and parents) of this city,’ city newspaper asks Chicago public school teachers continue to demand high raises – despite 41 percent of them being deemed “chronically absent” from work. The Chicago Tribune editorial board recently criticized the Chicago Teachers Union, which continues to negotiate for a new contract. Initial versions had demanded free abortions, transgender surgeries, and even weight loss drugs. State records show 41 percent missed 10 or more days of...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Workers who clean airplanes, remove trash and help with wheelchairs at Charlotte’s airport, one of the nation’s busiest, went on strike Monday during a busy week of Thanksgiving travel to demand higher wages. The Service Employees International Union announced the strike in a statement early Monday, saying the workers would demand “an end to poverty wages and respect on the job during the holiday travel season.” The strike was expected to last 24 hours, said union spokesperson Sean Keady. Employees of ABM and Prospect Airport Services cast ballots Friday to authorize the work stoppage at Charlotte...

The Times Tech Guild, which represents more than 600 tech workers at The New York Times, announced on Monday that it had ended its weeklong strike despite not reaching a deal on a contract. The union has been on strike since Nov. 4 and has regularly picketed outside The Times’s Manhattan headquarters. The strike was planned to coincide with Election Day, when readership interest is high. The Times Tech Guild workers, which include software developers, designers and data analysts, will return to their jobs on Tuesday. Kathy Zhang, the unit chair of the union and a senior analytics manager at...

East and Gulf Coast dockworkers could resume their strike on Jan. 15 if a deal isn't reached.. The union representing dockworkers at East and Gulf Coast ports walked away from the negotiating table with port employers this week over concerns about automation as the two sides face a mid-January deadline to finalize a deal and prevent the resumption of a strike.. The International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) and the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX), which represents port employers, were on their second day of talks this week when the ILA union left negotiations ... the ILA union is refusing to agree to...

Now that that’s settled… From a historical perspective, there’s some virtue in killing all of your enemies. Julius Caesar didn’t and was killed almost immediately after having himself declared dictator for life. In 49 BC dictator meant something different than it does today. Dictator was an honorable, temporary position that was only implemented when the Republic faced some dire or existential threat that required a firm hand to fix. Although vested with almost absolute power, a dictator would often be appointed for a finite period, perhaps 6 months, to deal with the problem and then would return to being whatever...

Thousands of layoffs will continue as planned at Boeing, no matter how union Machinists vote on the latest contract proposal aimed at ending a strike now in its eighth week. Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union, including 17,000 members from the Boeing plant in Everett, will vote Monday on the offer union leadership announced Thursday. A simple majority of yes votes would end the strike, and send Machinists back to work. A no vote would extend the strike that has cost the company billions of dollars and led to Boeing launching a $21 billion stock...