Free Republic

In response to the legislature taking up a right-to-work bill, Maryanne Levine, the president of the Chippewa Valley School District local union drew a parallel to the actions of Adolf Hitler. “We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers’ salaries and take away their right to strike," Levine quoted Hitler as saying. "Those were the words of Adolf Hitler, May 2, 1933 … These are strong words, but that is exactly what they are doing and the path they seem to be taking (in Lansing)." Levine told the Macomb Patch...

Chris Dorff, president of Olsen Fish Co. in Minneapolis, holds pieces of dried ling cod from Norway before it is made into lutefisk. While America’s foodie culture has inspired a new generation of chefs who have created gourmet delicacies from ethnic food traditions, lutefisk — a dried white cod reconstituted in caustic chemicals — is one heritage dish that has remained stubbornly unimproved.(Associated Press) LITCHFIELD, Minn. — Dozens of Minnesota Scandinavians and the people who love them flock to the VFW Club in Litchfield every Thursday from November through January, where $20 will get you a big steaming hunk of...

WASHINGTON - Have you seen the latest development in President Obama's waste-ridden, clean energy program that's now under federal investigation at the U.S. Treasury Department? Three of the country's biggest residential solar panel installers -- SolarCity, SunRun and Sungevity -- have been subpoenaed by Treasury's Office of Inspector General for their financial records to determine if they had inflated the market value of their costs when they applied for federal reimbursement. The firms have reportedly received more than $500 million in federal grants and tax credits. Officials in two of them, Solar-City and SunRun, have been among some of Obama's...

By now you've seen the stories about NBC anchor David Gregory breaking Washington D.C. gun laws by brandishing a 30-round magazine during his abrasive interview with NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre last Sunday. From the anchor chair, Gregory pretty much said high capacity magazines should be banned. Now, because the possession of 30-round magazines are illegal in the District of Columbia, Gregory is under investigation by police; as he should be. Not only did he violate D.C. gun laws, but according to D.C. police [who have confirmed multiple times], he knowingly violated the law after being denied the use...

Chinese planes flew near Japanese airspace Monday to assert its claims to Japan's Senkaku islands (China calls them the Diaoyu islands). The move came just as Japan announced its new prime minister. Hugh White, a professor at Australian National University and a former Australian defense official, believes this is the latest sign the two countries are heading to war. And the U.S. will be dragged in. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, White says we are now witnessing the types of conditions that have historically led to war — despite conflict being in no one's interest. THIS is how wars...

The Amish Mafia reality show claims to show a small group of “protectors” within the Amish community who drive cars and blackmail bishops. And its complete fiction, critics say. Amish Mafia, which is being billed as a reality show, debuts on the Discovery Channel in December. It explores the world of Lebanon Levi and his gang of three men, Jolin, John and Alvin, the Patriot-News noted.The show starts out with a disclaimer that the Amish church denies that the group exists, and the episode then goes into interviews and re-enactments of the gang as they drink, drive cars, and gamble....

And not just the Bible, but Piers Morgan wants to amend the Constitution, too. It's a darn good thing that the CNN host needed work badly enough to emigrate to a place that he finds so disagreeable. What did we ever do without him?CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO I have no issue with the concept of amending the Constitution --- and neither did the founders, who accepted that it might prove flawed for later use. That's why they included the mechanisms for amending the foundational document of American law within it, mechanisms that have been used 17 times since...

Here's a New Year's wish I would love to see come true. However it is defined or however many people are part of it, it is time to send the giant never-ending "GOP Establishment" made up of some professional politicians, some moneyed nouveaux riche who -- by virtue of their contributions and the faux friendships it buys with politicians -- consider themselves political landed gentry and the endless scam artist consultants they support packing. As previously stated, I thought Mitt Romney to be a better candidate than did many observers. That said, the recent revelations in news articles that claim...

Round one to Obama, largely because the justice assigned to hear the arguments for an injunction against the contraception mandate going into effect was Sotomayer. This doesn't mean that the government can't be sued on First Amendment grounds, just that Sotomayer saw no compelling reason to prevent the law's implementation. The Hill: ******** The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to block the Obama administration's contraception mandate from taking effect. Justice Sonia Sotomayor rejected a request for an emergency injunction that would have shielded employers from the mandate. The request was filed by Hobby Lobby, an arts-and-crafts chain. The company's Catholic...

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Complete Headline: Hillary Clinton does NOT have brain cancer: Officials slam 'nonsense' claims debilitating illness was behind collapse and decision to step down The National Enquirer claims brain cancer is behind Clinton's recent collapse and that she is facing a barrage of medical tests State Department labelled the claims 'absolute nonsense' and insists she is recovering well at home The Secretary of State suffered a concussion after she collapsed in her home earlier this month On Friday, President Barack Obama nominated Senator John Kerry to replace Clinton after she chose to step down Government officials have vehemently denied claims...

But failure to reach a deal by year-end would also bring about deeper and more immediate pain for low- and middle-income Americans. No deal means the end of federal unemployment benefits, averaging $290 a week. Some two million people would be cut off immediately, and nearly one million more who would be cut off in the first quarter of 2013. It means the end of the 2 percent payroll tax cut, which, for the past two years, has reduced taxes for 125 million households, boosting pay by nearly $1,000 a year for the typical household making $50,000. It also means...

A war of words is brewing. But this one doesn't involve slinging insults. It’s a battle over what forms of writing – novels, poems, and non-fiction – will define English instruction for millions of American schoolchildren in the years to come. Sparking this war is the Common Core standards push – an effort to nationalize the standards and assessments upon which every public school in America would base its curriculum. The Obama administration has poured billions of dollars into the effort via federal “Race to the Top” grants. As always when it comes to federal largess, there are strings attached....

Just how much trouble is the federal budget in? The coverage by the MSM of the fiscal cliff negotiations is not enlightening on this point. For reasons that most of us in the American Thinker community and observers such as Thomas Sowell find inexplicable, the Republicans simply will not make the budget case in public. This is true whether it is Boehner and McConnell in Congress or Romney during the campaign. Instead we get snippets from our side when they get in front of a microphone of "$1.2 trillion" or "everything is on the table" or "keeping the Bush tax...

A newly discovered comet has the potential to put on a dazzling celestial display late next year, when it will be so bright you may be able to see it briefly in the daytime sky. The discovery of the object named Comet ISON was announced Monday (Sept. 24) by Russians Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok, who detected it in photographs taken three days earlier using a 15.7-inch (0.4-meter) reflecting telescope of the International Scientific Optical Network (ISON), near Kislovodsk. The new comet is officially known as C/2012 S1. When first sighted, Comet ISON was 625 million miles (1 billion kilometers)...

Hours after Adam Lanza executed 20 first graders and 6 adults in Sandy Hook elementary school, five minutes from my synagogue, Congregation Adath Israel of Newtown, I spoke with my good friend and colleague, Monsignor Robert Weiss, about the “culture of violence” in the United States. Sitting in the firehouse with our respective congregants, waiting to learn who had lived and who had died, what was there to say, really? A rabbi and a priest despaired about the common thread that we saw as bringing us together at that moment: a society that had so glorified violence and death through...

Abandon all hope, ye who watch the "fiscal cliff" drama. There has been serious pressure on House Republicans to buckle and pass the extension of the Bush tax cuts for 98 percent of income tax filers demanded by President Barack Obama. I would have cried, "Uncle." Polls show that voters are predisposed to blame Republicans if Washington falls off the fiscal cliff. I don't see how House Repubs can withstand the onslaught likely to follow Jan. 1, when, thanks to past budget deals, income taxes rise on all workers. Voters might well perceive -- as per a Democratic talking point...

My dear friend along the Christmas and winter theme I was thinking today about the wonders of... snow. Yes snow! Something one either hates or loves but whether you despise it or enjoy it, snow in it's self is an absolute wonder of Almighty God's ETERNAL creative genius (Job 38:22-23, Psalm 104:24, Prov. 3:19). As I was thinking of snow... the Bible verse from Isaiah 1:18 came to mind. "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall...

HANOI, Vietnam -- It has been 50 years since President John F. Kennedy ordered U.S. "advisers" to South Vietnam to help battle the communist North and 37 years since the end of that divisive war and the country's unification under Communism. Today, Vietnam is fighting a war with itself. A local TV program reminds a visitor of Chinese propaganda "operas" circa 1970. Performers, some wearing military garb with a backdrop of missiles and an American B-52 bomber going down in flames, commemorate the 1972 Christmas bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong ordered by President Richard Nixon. Banners and posters in the...

I have known a great many terrific individuals in the course of my 72 years. Some of them have been teachers, some have even been lawyers. But once you stick people in a group, my advice is to watch your back and hang on to your wallet. Take the United Nations. Please, as Henny Youngman used to say about Mrs. Youngman. As you probably know by now, the U.N. recently voted to grant the Palestinians non-member state status. In reality, it doesn’t mean much. But in this world, perception, more often than not, trumps reality. It so happens that the...