Free Republic

Two state Republican lawmakers are leading an eleventh-hour charge to change the makeup of the Milwaukee Area Technical College Board, saying they want to build a stronger partnership with the business community. The legislation would increase official representation of area businesses from two to five of the nine MATC board seats, and would change who appoints board members. The proposal faces a backlash before a key Assembly committee vote Thursday that could keep it from reaching the floor of the Legislature before the regular session ends March 15. Critics argue that businesses already are represented in the experience of board...

Knox Endorses Heil in NRA Elections As magazines containing ballots for the 2012 NRA Board of Directors Election have been arriving in people’s mail boxes over the past week (if you got a ballot, you’re eligible to vote – if you didn’t you aren’t) I have been receiving requests for guidance as to which candidates I feel are worth supporting. This year I am only endorsing one candidate, Maria Heil, and asking voting members of NRA to cast ballots with only Mrs. Heil’s name marked. While I do not know Mrs. Heil personally, she comes highly recommended by friends whose...

About 15 percent of black students in St. Paul were suspended at least once last year, compared with 3 percent of whites. To address the problem, the district decided in 2009 to spend about $450,000 of $58 million it received through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to institute the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) program. The program requires administrators and teachers to periodically evaluate their school rules and determine which ones call for suspensions and which call for lesser punishments. They're also encouraged to be more explicit about what is expected of students in order to be successful...

Do you live in North Carolina? You may have an election today! Please visit your local county's GOP or board of election website. I live in Wake County. http://www.wakegop.org/ Most important, the balance of power on the School Board could be shifted today.

It probably would not surprise you to learn that the Obama administration is apparently using the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) as a battering ram to aid powerful (and financially supportive) unions. The target is the Boeing Corporation. And Judicial Watch has launched a full investigation into the matter. On Monday, August 15, we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the NLRB to obtain records concerning the agency’s decision to file its lawsuit against Seattle-based Boeing for opening a $750 million non-union assembly plant in North Charleston, South Carolina to manufacture its Dreamliner plane

Medicare Payment Board Draws BrickbatsBy Julie Rovner Tue., July 12, 2011 3:00am (EDT) One thing both Democrats and Republicans agree on is that they can't solve the deficit problem without slowing the growth of the massive Medicare program for the elderly and disabled. But here's an irony. Republicans and a growing number of Democrats also seem to agree that they don't like the one aspect of last year's Affordable Care Act that actually would effectively reduce Medicare spending. It's called the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB for short. Republicans hate it. A lot. "I believe it is a rationing...

A toxic political strategy is spreading across the land, one that involves Medicare. It threatens to bamboozle voters and allow the 2012 election to turn on a lie. Democrats are making the obscenely false claim that they will "save Medicare as we've known it." On Wednesday, Democrats used this deceptive strategy to take the special election in the 26th congressional district in western New York. Sadly, this corrupt strategy is likey to be repeated. Voters need to know the facts. The truth is, the Obama health law, passed by Democrats last year, already eviscerated Medicare — though seniors won't feel...

Aaron Titus, a Washington, D.C. lawyer, received a phone call at 4:33am on Wednesday. The automated call informed the lawyer that it was a snow day and schools would be open two hours late. It was a message Titus knew prior to sleeping that night. The next day, Titus, angry at the invasion, decided to get even with the school board. The 31-year-old father arranged for an automated message of his own. By researching a robocall company online, he taped a message and listed phone numbers to various school board members. One of the numbers was to the Superintendent, William...

An examination of both the board of NPR's non-profit foundation and its national board of directors recently found that their members are overwhelmingly - almost uniformly - adherents to various left-wing ideologies. National Review's Matthew Shaffer conducted the examination. He found that "nearly all have demonstrably liberal political sympathies, with heavy support for the Democratic party, pro-abortion-rights groups, and environmental activism in particular." It is important to remember that these two boards do not dictate content. Still, even if their politics are only incidental to NPR's liberal slant, the near-uniformity of their political views suggests that NPR attracts people with...

Germany Accuses US of Indirectly Manipulating Dollar By: Reuters German Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle on Saturday took issue with what he called a U.S. policy of increasing liquidity, saying it indirectly manipulated exchange rates. The U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to embark on a fresh round of asset purchases to prop up the economy. AP "There was criticism of the American policy of monetary easing, or creating more liquidity," Bruederle said after a meeting in South Korea of finance officials from the Group of 20 economic powers. "I tried to make clear in my contribution to the discussion that...

When it comes to accounting, the devil is in the details. A new Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rule taking effect in December requires greater transparency for union pension plans and threatens to bankrupt organized labor. In order to survive, unions need a bailout and fast. This presents a political problem -- if unions go bankrupt, so do Democrats. Eleven of the top 20 largest political contributors are labor unions, and nearly all of that money is spent campaigning against Republicans. By bailing out unions, Democrats are bailing out themselves. Unions have known for years that their multiemployer pension plans...

Riverside resident Jeff Hall's run for a seat on a local water board has so far been under the radar. He didn't submit a statement about himself for the official voter guide, nor did he attend a candidates forum hosted by the League of Women Voters, and the only way he is represented on the ballot is with his name -- no title or occupation are listed, unlike most other candidates on the fall ballot. Next to nothing is known about Jeff Hall, the candidate. But Jeff Hall, the head of a neo-Nazi group, is well-known in Riverside. As leader...

Ohio - -(AmmoLand.com)- I’m Linda Walker, Central Ohio Chair of Buckeye Firearms Association, and I’m running for the board of directors of the National Rifle Association. I have been part of Buckeye Firearm’s leadership team nearly from the beginning of the organization. I have spent a lot of time in the Statehouse fighting for our Second Amendment Rights through both hearings and meetings. I generally attend every hearing for firearms legislation, which has amounted to hundreds of hours in Ohio’s Statehouse. Part of being on “the team” has entailed attending one-on-one meetings with various State Representatives, Senators and candidates; working...

A Pentagon advisory board is expected to recommend that Defense Secretary Robert Gates eliminate the Joint Forces Command as part of a drive to cut Pentagon bloat. The Defense Business Board (DBB), the Pentagon’s independent board of economic and business advisers, has been tasked by Gates to recommend options for reducing the Pentagon’s overhead, or indirect operating expenses. The board is also expected to offer recommendations on making the Pentagon’s business operations more efficient.

When President Obama was asked by NBC's Matt Lauer why he had not yet called the CEO of BP about the Gulf oil spill, he said he assumed CEO's just told presidents things they wanted to hear. On Wednesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs had another answer. Gibbs said Obama hasn't called CEO Tony Hayward because -- according to what Gibbs called the "executive structure of corporate governance" -- the CEO alone isn't the final word on company decisions, which are made by the board of directors.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors took a symbolic jab at Arizona Tuesday for passing a controversial law last month that gives law enforcement authorities in the Grand Canyon State broad powers to check a person's immigration status. Critics fear the law will lead to racial profiling. San Francisco supervisors, on a 10-1 vote, approved a nonbinding resolution that calls for a boycott of Arizona-based businesses. It asks for, but does not demand, that city departments refrain from entering into new contracts or extending existing ones with companies headquartered in Arizona, unless severing those ties would result in significant costs...

WASHINGTON: An American doctors organisation has quietly decided to revoke the certification of any member who participates in executing a prisoner by lethal injection.

Huntington Indiana's election board met yesterday evening to discuss the actions of County Clerk Fran Felts. Reported here earlier this week, this meeting was set after an earlier cancellation.

A regulation barring New York City teachers from wearing political campaign buttons in public high schools does not violate their constitutional right to free speech, a federal judge has ruled. Rejecting the teachers' argument that high school students would "spontaneously understand" that the buttons were not part of the curriculum, Southern District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan held that the plaintiffs had "offered no admissible evidence to undermine" the city's argument that "displays of political partisanship by teachers in the schools" could "influence children and impinge on the rights of students to learn in an environment free of partisan political influence."...

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Officials say a Somali national tried to board a commercial airliner in Mogadishu last month with powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe that together could have caused an explosion. The hallmarks bear chilling similarities to the terrorist plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner. Police spokesman Abdulahi Hassan Barise says the suspect was arrested before the Nov. 13 Daallo Airlines flight departed. It was scheduled to travel from Mogadishu to the northern Somali city of Hargeisa, then to Djibouti and Dubai.

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is spending $347 million to construct what they refer to as a “state of the art” brand-new court tower. Yet, many taxpayers are unaware of the details behind this project and the reason why this project continues may be found in the money.Maricopa County is facing a $138.2 million budget shortfall. In response, numerous county employees have been laid off in recent months, including 40 Superior Court employees that would staff some of these offices to be featured in the court tower. Also, county law enforcement has been cut by 15% and Sheriff...

Censorship in Texas: Fighting Academic and Religious Discrimination by James J. S. Johnson, J.D.* "Stop the presses!" That was one of the effects of the decision of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) in Austin, Texas, on April 24, 2008, when the Institute for Creation Research Graduate School (ICRGS) was told that it could not move its 27-year-old Master of Science program to Texas, nor could it recruit students from Texas to apply to its California graduate school. Why? Because ICRGS does not teach science from an evolution-only viewpoint...

Texas Hold ’Em Part III: Calling Ronald Wetherington’s Bluffs About Human Evolution in His January Texas State Board of Education Testimony As a final installment in my “Texas Hold ‘Em” series calling the bluffs of Texas evolutionists, I’d like to highlight one section from Discovery Institute’s rebuttal to Ronald Wetherington’s Testimony before the Texas State Board of Education (TSBOE). Wetherington, who is a professor of anthropology at SMU, testified extensively to the TSBOE about human evolution, his area of expertise. Wetherington stated regarding human origins that we have “arguably the most complete sequence of fossil succession of any mammal in...

Natural Selection Studies Based on Bad Statistics March 30, 2009 — Hundreds of studies claiming to show natural selection may be wrong, say scientists from Penn State and Japan.  PhysOrg reported today that “several statistical methods commonly used by biologists to detect natural selection at the molecular level tend to produce incorrect results.”  Many studies of human evolution have relied on these flawed methods.  If the methods were wrong, the conclusions are unreliable.  “Of course, we would never say that natural selection is not happening, but we are saying that these statistical methods can lead scientists to make erroneous inferences,”...

Using Religion to Suppress Debate on Evolution By John G. West Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute Evolution was back in the headlines this week as the Texas State Board of Education voted 13-2 to require students to "analyze and evaluate" major evolutionary concepts such as common ancestry, natural selection, and mutations, as well as adopting a critical thinking standard calling on students to "critique" and examine "all sides of scientific evidence." The vote was a loss for defenders of evolution who had pushed the Board to strip the "analyze and evaluate" language from the evolution standards and gut the overall critical...

Darwinists Trick Themselves in Texas The New York Times got the preview story wrong, and the Washington Post editorial writer probably was too rushed to question the charges of "creationism" coming from the National Center for Science Education, the Darwin-only lobby. So this week's important decisions by the Texas Board of Education (TBOE) on how to teach evolution were predicated in the media by the big question of whether teachers should provide both "strengths and weaknesses" of Darwin's theory. Those words might sound benign, readers were told, but they really are "code words" (take the press' word for it) for...

Texas State Board of Education Votes To Require Students to Analyze and Evaluate Evolution By: Staff Discovery Institute January 22, 2009 AUSTIN, TX--The Texas State Board of Education today voted to require students to analyze and evaluate common ancestry and natural selection, both key components of modern evolutionary theory. The surprising vote came after the Board failed to reinstate language in the overall science standards explicitly requiring coverage of the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories. "The Texas Board of Education took one step back and two steps forward today," said Dr. John West of the Discovery Institute. "While we...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California's utilities, refineries and large factories must transform their operations to cut greenhouse gas emissions as part of a new climate plan before state regulators. On Thursday, the California Air Resources Board was expected to adopt what would be the nation's most sweeping global warming plan, outlining for the first time how individuals and businesses would meet a landmark 2006 law that made the state a leader on global climate change. It would hold California's worst polluters accountable for the heat-trapping emissions they produce _ transforming how people travel, utilities generate power and businesses use electricity. At...

<p>NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Snow is falling in the New Orleans area.</p> <p>The National Weather Service says a mixture of sleet and snow is falling Thursday morning from Baton Rouge east across much of southeastern Louisiana.</p> <p>The winter weather closed some schools and created hazardous driving conditions.</p>

The upcoming battle over what public science textbooks should teach promises to be no less contentious than the battles of the past. The Texas State Board of Education held a public hearing Wednesday, November 19, 2008, about the state’s science standards, which Board members will vote on early next year. Some interest groups are outraged that certain individuals still do not believe that particles developed into people all by themselves, and they are gathering their arguments to influence the Board, whose decision will affect millions of schoolchildren’s science curricula. One such group—Texas Freedom Network (TFN), billing itself as “A Mainstream...

“May you live in interesting times.” No one knows with certainty if this proverb is a famous Chinese curse or not. However, one can certainly accept the fact that these times are indeed interesting…meaning troubled…in many spheres including economics and international broadcasting. While the fine points of US international broadcasting are debated among a fairly small circle of interested participants and observers, the globalized financial markets appear to be poised on the brink of collapse. What’s the connection? Not long ago, a book was published with the title “Dow 36,000.” This book was authored by James Glassman, the most recent...

Moderator- Following is a suggestion to add a feature to this board. Feel free to move this as it is clearly not news. I post it here because I hope that it will generate the greatest amount of feedback. I have no programming experience whatsoever so I don't know if it is possible or if it were possible if it can be done cost effectively, but the suggestion would be to rate the stories posted on a scale from 1 to 10 and then show the top rated stories in a sidebar similar to the "Breaking News" sidebars on the...

Extreme Financial Crises in the State of Nevada! In a time of extreme financial crisis in the State of Nevada those most critical of the Governor and other elected officials fail to be looking in those areas most responsible for wasteful spending. The first person that comes to mind is Jim Rodgers. Rodgers continually asks for more money for education, but when was the last time he asked one of his reporters to investigate the Clark County School District and the rampant wasteful spending? In what appears to be a case of “school board gone wild”, the school district keeps...

The government is to sponsor a theological board of leading imams and Muslim women in an attempt to refute the ideology of violent extremists. The committee, to be announced this week, will issue pronouncements on areas such as wearing the hijab and the treatment of wives and is part of a government strategy to counter radicalism. It will rule on interpretation of the Koran and promote the moderate strain of Islam practised by most British Muslims. It will also comment on controversial issues affecting Muslims living in Britain, including whether or not they should serve in the armed forces. Its...

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry's appointment of Don McLeroy as chairman of the State Board of Education drew mixed reactions from some members and observers of the board, which sets policies for the Texas public school system. McLeroy, a Republican dentist from Bryan, has served on the board for the past eight years and is a past vice chairman. One supporter called him a "solid conservative," while a critic labeled him an "ideologue" with an agenda. Perry spokesman Robert Black on Tuesday called McLeroy "a principled leader who will do a great job." McLeroy was re-elected last fall to the...

Senator Hillary Clinton... rarely discusses her Wal-Mart tenure... In 1986, Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, had a problem. He was under growing pressure from shareholders -- and his wife, Helen -- to appoint a woman to the company's 15-member board of directors. So Walton turned to a young lawyer who just happened to be married to the governor of Arkansas, where Wal-Mart is based: Hillary Clinton. Clinton's six-year tenure as a director of Wal-Mart... remains a little known chapter in her closely scrutinized career... Fellow board members and company executives... say Clinton used her position to champion personal causes,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz lashed back at critics Monday who he alleged were conducting a "smear campaign" against him and vowed he would not resign over what he termed unfair charges. In a statement to an investigating bank panel looking into whether he broke ethical and other rules in a pay-and-promotion deal he directed for his girlfriend, Wolfowitz said the treatment of the issue has become "circus like." Video More video Iraq war architect clings to his World Bank job amid a corruption probe. CNN's Zain Verjee reports (April 20) Play video "I, for one, would...

Universal Health names ex-Sen. Rick Santorum to board By Gabriel Madway Last Update: 5:06 PM ET Apr 16, 2007 SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Universal Health Services Inc. said late Monday former Senator Rick Santorum has been appointed as a director. Santorum, who served in the Senate from 1995 until 2007, becomes the King of Prussia, Pa.-based hospital operator's ninth board member.

Madison - The executive director of the state Republican Party filed a notarized complaint today that members of the state Elections Board broke the open meetings law, seven weeks after Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher said he had evidence showing a violation. Rick Wiley, who heads the party, submitted a complaint that says members of the board agreed to vote to punish the campaign of Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green before an Aug. 30 meeting. Because those members constituted a majority of those voting, their agreement was illegal, Bucher has said.

Gov. Schwarzenegger signed legislation Wednesday creating a sex-offender management board to improve the state's oversight of sex offenders and foster communication between law-enforcement officials. The bill closely resembles a bill Schwarzenegger vetoed last year. The 2005 parole of convicted rapist David Allyn Dokich to Mead Valley, an unincorporated community south of Riverside, highlighted a lack of communication between state and local agencies. The sheriff's department had little notice of Dokich's arrival. Under AB 1015, a 17-member board will oversee the management and treatment of sex offenders. The goal is to reduce recidivism and protect the public. In his veto message...

I am looking for a site (fee-based is fine) that will allow me to set up a message board with lots of features such as that provided on FR (threading, password protection, private messaging, etc) with the whole site also being password protected (no lurking w/o password). I realize I could host this on my own site but frankly I don't have the time but I am willing to pay say the $10/month you see on http://www.bulletinboards.com/ I also don't want to deal with popups/ads etc. This is intended to be a simple no nonsense site. This site appears to...

A local Iraqi casts his vote during the Diyara Agricultural Union elections Aug. 12. The 1,200 member union elected seven councilmen to decide the direction of the union, which will enable farmers in the southern Baghdad and northern Babil province region to make profits they haven't seen in years. DoD photo by Cpl. Michael Molinaro. FOB KALSU – The Diyara Agricultural Union held its first elections in the history of the program at the Diyara secondary school Aug. 12.Farmers from the region voted for seven members to sit on the board of directors that will be depended upon to...

SACRAMENTO Caught in a political dustup over English-learning students and their own philosophical divide, members of the state Board of Education decided Wednesday to put their trust in the state's top political leaders to restore funding after the body was stripped of its entire operating budget. The loss of the board's $1.6 million annual staff budget came as political retaliation for its split vote in April not to allow alternative textbooks for English-learner students. The board rejected pleas from bilingual education advocates to allow schools to use different textbooks for students learning English. That vote angered the Democratic Latino Caucus,...

The state board that oversees flood control in the Central Valley plans to meet in a closed session Friday to discuss whether it violated an open meetings law. The California Reclamation Board has been criticized for approving a permit for 11,000 luxury homes near Lathrop even though the board's attorney warned that the action was illegal because the project wasn't on the agenda for that April 21 meeting. The Natural Resources Defense Council has asked the board to rescind that vote and reconsider the matter after giving proper public notice. The board says the NRDC petition amounts to "pending litigation"...

6/13/2006 - SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill (AFPN) -- The results of an investigation into the C-5 Galaxy crash at Dover Air Force Base, Del., on April 3 found that human error was the cause, Air Mobility Command officials released today. The accident investigation board determined the pilots and flight engineers did not properly configure, maneuver and power the aircraft during approach and landing. Following a normal takeoff and initial climb, the C-5 aircrew observed a No. 2 engine “Thrust Reverser Not Locked” indication light. They shut down the No. 2 engine as a precaution and returned to Dover AFB....

SEATTLE — When Boeing names an airplane design after a Muppet, it must be pretty different. Two small teams at the company are re-imagining the airplane in futuristic configurations that sprout wings, tails and engines in unexpected shapes and places. The research, illustrated in internal documents, aims in two directions: low-cost airplanes, and environment-friendly planes that will be quieter, use much less fuel and leave fewer pollutants in the upper atmosphere. In the latter category is the "Kermit Kruiser," a low-noise concept airplane with main wings radically swept forward rather than back, and sporting miniature wings on the front. Then...

The state board that investigates lawyer misconduct says it is on record pace for disciplining Minnesota attorneys this year. The Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board says the number of sanctions, ranging from public reprimands to disbarments, is up and it is only spring. If the trend continues, it could lead to the highest number of sanctions leveled against Minnesota lawyers in over five years. St. Paul, Minn. — Many of the complaints the Lawyer's Board investigates get dismissed. Those include a large number filed by clients upset simply because their attorney lost. Every year, however, there a few attorneys the board...

LISBON — Charles A. Wilson Jr. doesn't have enough valid signatures on his nominating petitions to run in the Democratic primary for the 6th Congressional District race, The Vindicator has learned. The Columbiana County Board of Elections is left with no other choice but to disqualify Wilson's candidacy for the seat at its meeting today. Wilson has only 48 valid signatures on his nominating petitions, according to two Democratic sources and one Republican source with knowledge of his petitions. Congressional candidates need 50 valid signatures from registered voters in their districts to get on the ballot. Wilson, a state senator...

THE 'BORED,' BEFUDDLED POLITICS OF JOHN KERRY RETURNSCALLS FOR ALITO FILIBUSTER FROM 'SKI SLOPES' POURQUOI JOHN KERRY EST DANGEREUX POUR L'AMÉRIQUE   by Mia T, 01.28.06 JIM LEHRER: To the analysis of Shields and Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks. Mark, how do you read the John Kerry sudden push for a filibuster, what is that about? MARK SHIELDS: Well, I think there an unfortunate call for it, the venue is not ideal -- JIM LEHRER: The ski slopes. MARK SHIELDS: Yeah, the Swiss connection.... Windsurfing in the Persian GulfPOURQUOI JOHN KERRY EST DANGEREUX...

Unfair Labor Practice On December 22, 2005 NJSCA/FOP 200 Parole Officer State Representative Joseph Martin sent an email to the State Parole Board Chairman John D’Amico regarding three very serious labor related issues. Those issues involved the State Parole Board administration forcing parole officers to become essential status without negotiation, the recent epidemic of involuntary transfers against the negotiated contract, and the grievance procedure (a recent grievance decision in particular). Later that same day, State Parole Board Executive Director Michael Dowling scheduled a meeting with the Parole Officer State Representative for 12/23/05 at 9:00am. The following administration staff were present...