Free Republic

Later today, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate, and Robert Velasco, the acting CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, will announce a new partnership between FEMA and CNCS designed to strengthen the nation's ability to respond to and recover from disasters. They'll be joined by Cecilia Muñoz, the Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, and Walter Maddox, the mayor of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. You can watch live right here at 11:00 am ET.

The Jerusalem District Court sentenced David Mizrachi of Kiryat Arba to three months' community service for running over a terrorist who stabbed his wife. Mizrachi, 57, was convicted in June of serious assault as part of a plea bargain, and the sentence was handed down Tuesday. The incident took place at the gas station at the entrance to Kiryat Arba in November of 2009. The terrorist, Wasim Maswada, came to the Paz gas station armed with an axe and a knife. He entered the convenience store that Mizrachi ran along with his wife, Tamar, and stabbed Tamar in the neck...

Score one for the Coca-Cola Company. Diet Coke unseated Pepsi as the second most popular carbonated soft drink in 2010, according to data from Beverage Digest. -snip- The switch marks a sea change in the industry. According to John Sicher, the editor and publisher of Beverage Digest, Pepsi has held the second position "for decades." Sicher attributed the decline in Pepsi's market share to its Pepsi Refresh Project marketing campaign, which is focused on community service.

January is National Mentoring Month, and we can’t think of a better way to learn how you can make an impact through mentoring than attending one of our orientations. We’ve lined up dates and locations for our Orientation to Mentoring sessions in the Des Moines area throughout January. This one hour training is the first step for those who are interested in mentoring.During this orientation those who attend will receive: An overview of Serve Our Youth Network and our different opportunities for mentoring (Amachi, Informal Mentoring at Polk County Youth Services and Second Chance Juvenile Mentoring Initiative).An overview of mentoring...

January is National Mentoring Month, and we can’t think of a better way to learn how you can make an impact through mentoring than attending one of our orientations. We’ve lined up dates and locations for our Orientation to Mentoring sessions in the Des Moines area throughout January. This one hour training is the first step for those who are interested in mentoring.During this orientation those who attend will receive: An overview of Serve Our Youth Network and our different opportunities for mentoring (Amachi, Informal Mentoring at Polk County Youth Services and Second Chance Juvenile Mentoring Initiative).An overview of mentoring...

Here is another great joke (I sort of use the word loosely here...you'll see why) that was sent to me via email thats too good to not share: One day a florist went to a barber for a haircut. After the cut, he asked about his bill, and the barber replied,'I cannot accept money from you. I'm doing community service this week.' The florist was pleased and left the shop. When the barber went to open his shop the next morning, there was a thank you card and a dozen roses waiting for him at his door. Later, a...

A large billboard in a local Metro station cautions passersby to “Cover your cough” and “Wash your hands frequently” when you have a cold. Nearby, a sign in a bus shelter instructs citizens: “Do not cross street until bus has left.” These signs have been erected courtesy of “Mommy Government” to help you, the presumed adult-child citizen of the Infantilized Republic of America. It’s a picture of the most serious internal threat to America: the decline of self responsibility and its replacement with dependence on paternalistic government, namely, on handouts from other coerced individuals and on a nit-picking Napoleonic code...

First lady Michelle Obama thought about sending her daughters away to summer camp, she said recently, but instead decided on another program -- the "Camp Obama" world tour. "This has been such a, you know, busy year for them," she said, "We're having 'Camp Obama' and, you know, they're going to travel a little more with us, and we're going to do some historic things." It's not your everyday sleepaway camp, but a world-class adventure: This week, the first tweens have toured Rome's Coliseum and Russia's Kremlin -- exotic locations for sure, but the president said his daughters haven't skipped...

At a campaign rally in Colorado Springs last July, that former community organizer, Barack Obama, grandly told an enraptured audience: "We've got to have a civilian national security force that is just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded" as the U.S. military. Now, understand, he wasn't talking about a "security" force in the sense of an armed militia. He was talking about a network of social service workers. When I first heard that, I wrote it off as a politician's extravagant, feel-good campaign rhetoric. After all, the Department of Defense includes about 3 million men and women...

We’ve all seen it. In our schools, our children’s schools, public meetings, television shows, leadership seminars, political speeches, and even in legislation supported by the President, the message is clear: we should all be doing community service. The fact is that the call to service is greater now than at any time in our country’s past, and the pressure to provide it even greater. The pressure to conform to the growing demand to volunteer your self, in body and bankbook, can be daunting. When confronted with a group of peers, all telling you how much you are needed, it can...

THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG Thursday, May 7th, 2009 at 5:10 pm Service, Coming to a Town Near You (White House Photo, 4/21/09, Samantha Appleton) A few weeks ago, President Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act into law, ushering in a new era of service and volunteering for our nation. Facing unprecedented challenges, the President has asked all Americans to engage in service opportunities help create a better nation. The Corporation for National & Community Service was charged with dramatically expanding opportunities for Americans to serve, and in a sign of how seriously they are taking...

President Barack Obama is picking a Nike vice president to lead the federal agency that oversees the country's national service programs. Obama's selection of Maria Eitel comes Tuesday as the president plans to sign a bill to triple the size of AmeriCorps and expand other programs that the corporation administers. Eitel is nominated to be chief executive officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service, a job that requires Senate confirmation. Eitel is also the president of Nike Inc.'s charitable arm, the Nike Foundation. She served under President George H.W. Bush as deputy director of media relations and later...

Congress appears ready to pass an Obama administration plan that could create mandatory public service requirements for all American youth, fulfilling a campaign promise. The bill, HR 1388: The Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, otherwise known as the "GIVE Act," has already passed the House by a vote of 321-105. On Tuesday, the Senate voted closure on the motion to proceed by a margin of 74-14 in a move that makes its ultimate passage likely. The bill, promoted by the Obama administration as a means of encouraging America's youth to participate in voluntary community service, has received little scrutiny...

The House of Representatives passed the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act (GIVE), creating a mandate for community service among high school and college students. The bill spends $6 billion on beefing up government-paid and sponsored national service programs, and paves the way for future mandatory service by establishing a commission to explore the feasibility of such a plan. The stated goal of the Obama Administration is to require service programs in secondary schools, as well as for a period of three months to a year of service before, during, or after one’s college education. Leaving aside the already heavily...

WHILE YOU WERE BEING DISTRACTED BY THE AIG SHAM OUTRAGE AND YOUR OWN CLASS ENVY…. the Obamessiah administration continues on with its plans behind the scenes. As we mentioned earlier in the week, The Obamessiah is pushing to community organize all of us into his own league of Socialist Brownshirts. The House passed the “Give Act” on Wednesday. How many GOP members caved and stabbed us in the back this time, you must be asking? 70. Full list of turncoats below the fold. Only one Democrat voted against it - Robert Berry of Arkansas. Kudos to him. The rest of...

First lady Michelle Obama says community service isn't "just an escape for the wealthy," and that it can help do for young people what it did for her husband. She says it helped set Barack Obama on a path to being elected president. Mrs. Obama on Tuesday continued her effort to encourage volunteerism by visiting more than 100 disadvantaged youths who came to the National Mall to begin building a "green" house for a Texas family whose mobile home was destroyed by a hurricane. The students participate in YouthBuild, a nationwide program in which poor 16-to 24-year-olds work toward their...

"Hey, Comcast Team!" yells my 19-year old stepson, Kip, pointing to a billboard in downtown Boston. His red City-Year sweatshirt sports a Comcast logo. As he passes the billboard, he grins from ear to ear. Way to go, Comcast. (Other City-Year sponsor firms include Microsoft, KPMG, Deloitte and Touche, T-Mobile and Timberland.) Support for youth volunteer programs like City-Year isn't just about good branding, or Corporate Responsibity 101. Speaking of education in his address to the nation, Barack Obama stumped for the Serve America Act, a bill that would make participants eligible for educational awards. "I know that the price...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senators Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) today introduced the “Serve America Act,” a bill to expand national and community service opportunities for all Americans. Senators Mikulski, McCain, Dodd, Cochran, Reid, Gregg, Durbin, Wicker, Murray, Snowe, Kerry, Lincoln, Cardin, Rockefeller, Schumer, Whitehouse, Menendez, Bayh and Landrieu are also sponsors of the legislation. The goal of the legislation is to encourage 175,000 more Americans to give a year of service to address specific national challenges such as strengthening our schools or increasing economic opportunities, thereby expanding the number of such service participants to 250,000. The legislation...

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell is lending his stature to an initiative from the incoming administration to connect volunteers with causes that need them. President-elect Barack Obama's "Renew America Together" initiative will officially launch a Web site on Martin Luther King Day, January 19, to help people answer the call. Obama's inauguration is the following day. The Web site, www.USAservice.org, will allow people to offer their time or resources and be contacted by people in the community who need that type of help. Powell said the site will follow the model of craigslist.org, a worldwide virtual bulletin board where...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Former secretary of state Colin Powell helped promote a mass volunteer initiative on behalf of US president-elect Barack Obama Friday, calling on Americans to make long-term commitment to serve their communities. Obama and his family, along with vice president-elect Joe Biden and his wife, are set to officially launch the "Renew America Together" initiative on the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday January 19 -- the day before Obama's inauguration -- by taking part in community service activities in Washington. "Volunteering is something you give to your community and to our society," Powell said at a press conference....

With the hospice care volunteer work she's done in Belize, Kara Pennino is one of those millions of youngsters challenging the myth of the selfish teenager. But while the Rochester, N.Y., high school senior always figured her service work might impress a college, she never imagined it could help make college more affordable. So she was stunned earlier this month when she got her acceptance letter from Drew University in New Jersey. She stopped reading after "Congratulations" to celebrate with her teary-eyed mom. It was mom who noticed the second letter — telling Kara she'd won a new community service...

Wow! With Wii Community Service, it's almost like you're really helping. With community service mandates for high school and college in the works, Nintendo is developing "Wii Community Service." Benny Haha, the developer in charge of the Wii Community Service project, said the popular home video console that detects movements and reproduces those movements virtually is a 21st century approach to forced volunteerism. "The youth who so passionately backed the change of Barack Obama now must contemplate the mandates on community service, which may mean they will be forced to unsatisfying things, like work in the elements and, like, lift...

Most people on the left are not opposed to freedom. They are just in favor of all sorts of things that are incompatible with freedom. Freedom ultimately means the right of other people to do things that you do not approve of. Nazis were free to be Nazis under Hitler. It is only when you are able to do things that other people don't approve that you are free. One of the most innocent-sounding examples of the left's many impositions of its vision on others is the widespread requirement by schools and by college admissions committees that students do "community...

Through the holidays and beyond, high school students will be working feverishly to serve the needy — packing food baskets, ladling meals at soup kitchens, collecting toys for children in hospitals — all in the name of amassing the community service credits they need for graduation. Cynics call these programs a form of forced altruism. Proponents say that they widen students’ horizons while getting service work done. Either way, the backlash has begun: not only do college admissions officers roll their eyes at bogus-sounding claims, but high schools are scaling back the requirements, acknowledging that a lot of the so-called...

Overwhelmed by piles of junk mail, 'Mailman Steve' quit bringing it to the people on his North Carolina route. Customers are grateful. The Direct Marketing Assn., however, is not amused. Sick of junk mail? Pay homage, then, to overstressed, overworked mailman Steven Padgett, who has confessed to a cardinal sin among the letter carriers tribe: He failed to deliver. "Mailman Steve" -- a pudgy, kindly 58-year-old who toiled along a route in a rapidly growing neighborhood here -- was given probation in federal court this week for squirreling away at least seven years' worth of undelivered junk mail, which he...

"We finally had a glimpse of what the President-Elect wanted to accomplish, and now that glimpse is gone as soon as we started scrutinizing the specifics…." Take a look at this unbelievable story! Spread it around!!!

The Republicans should ask why community service is not mandated for government benefits such as food stamps, section 8 vouchers, etc. Please help me compile a list of welfare programs for which "community service" requirements could be added. Instead of Obama enslaving our children, why not ask the welfare recipients, who are part of the Democratic base, to do something in return for their benefits? I'm sure the Dems would not go for this. The purpose of making this proposal is to highlight their hypocrisy.

Hat Tip: Buy Danish, commenter at Hot Air "When you choose to serve -- whether it's your nation, your community or simply your neighborhood -- you are connected to that fundamental American ideal that we want life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness not just for ourselves, but for all Americans. That's why it's called the American dream." The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as...

By Edward Hudgins, Ph.D. October 24, 2008 -- Winston Churchill famously observed that, “socialism is the equal sharing of misery.” In the same spirit, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama believes that we should all be equally subject to servitude. He recently indicated that because men are forced by the government to sign up for the selective service, women should be forced to do so as well. Obama’s collectivist and anti-individualist views suggest what we can expect from his administration. They also highlight the crucial need to defend freedom based on the moral right of individuals to live for themselves and...

Is it 297 or 643 times we've heard Barack Obama toot: "I turned down more lucrative jobs and went to work for a group of churches"? As the Church Lady herself remarked: "Well, isn't that special?" Young Obama nobly sets forth in 1983 for a paltry $12,000 plus a $2,000 old car. Blessed be he. And ignored be these: the 2,929 who graduated that same year from West Point, Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy -- people every bit as bright, from schools at least as selective and even more demanding than Obama's Columbia alma mater, and making, almost to...

In Barack Obama’s July 2, 2008 speech calling America to national service, Obama proposed “a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as our military. This has prompted some in the blogosphere to raise the specter of a huge new domestic paramilitary organization. Others suggest that he may have been talking about our “current non-military security agencies - FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA, DHS, etc.” I think that both interpretations are probably wrong. If you listen to the whole speech –- or even the couple minutes before his security force proposal — I think...

At Qualcomm Stadium, to which thousands of evacuees fled throughout the day Monday to escape approaching fires, the hazy and acrid air pinched the throat. Despite those reminders of the nearby inferno, the stadium seemed an oasis of order.  Hundreds of volunteers and city workers stacked up towers of pizza boxes, water bottles and blankets. Steaming cups of coffee were on offer as well as free massages and reflexology sessions.  A clown twisted balloons for children, several autism specialists were available to give parents of disabled children a break, and an electric guitarist jammed with his speaker turned low. -snip-Carl...

NASHUA, N.H. - Aiming to create the first generation in which all Americans serve their country, Democratic presidential hopeful Chris Dodd is offering a range of initiatives to encourage — and in some cases compel — community service. "All Americans should serve our country," the Connecticut senator said in remarks prepared for delivery Saturday. "Endowed as we are with so many gifts, is it too much to ask that we each give something back to this remarkable place?" He proposes making community service mandatory for all high school students, doubling the size of the Peace Corps by 2011 and expanding...

Boy Scouts of America Build Bonds Through Service During National Family Weekhttp://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20061106005993 http://tinyurl.com/yaxrph November 06, 2006 11:59 AM Eastern Time Nation’s Leading Youth Organization Provides Community Service Opportunities to Strengthen Families IRVING, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--With the holiday season approaching, more and more Americans will participate in family activities celebrating tradition, togetherness, reflection and gratitude. But for many families, the holiday season is more than a time for enjoying each other, but a time for giving back to their community and those less fortunate. According to a recent study by Family Cares and the Points of Light Foundation, family volunteering increases commitment...

A PEEPING tom has been sentenced to 350 hours of community service for installing a camera to spy on two women, including his girlfriend, in the bathroom of his Sydney home. Harley Bateman, 28, was convicted last year of installing a camera for indecent purposes and filming for indecent purposes. Ordering Bateman to perform 350 hours of community service, Deputy Chief Magistrate Graeme Henson said he accepted that his behaviour was "isolated" and did not represent "a long-term threat" to the community. Central Local Court was told that the Randwick tow truck driver had rigged up a camera system in...

Giant 'Bra Fence' Sparks Controversy Official Says Fence Offends Asian Cultures, South Africans POSTED: 1:15 pm EDT July 29, 2005 UPDATED: 1:24 pm EDT July 29, 2005 A New Zealand man is resisting demands to take down hundreds of women's bras strung on his farm's fence after their night of drinking, according to a Local 6 News report. "It was probably a novelty for the first six months but I think it's passed and we need to move on," said chairman Bill Gordon. "This town has got lot of Japanese students who get educated here. They are very offended by...

LONDON (Reuters) - British youngsters convicted of crimes that do not carry a jail term could be made to wear U.S.-style "chain-gang" uniforms when they perform community service sentences. Home Office minister Hazel Blears outlined plans for young offenders to be identifiable when doing community service because she said the public needs to see criminals punished. "People feel very strongly that they don't often see justice being done," Blears told Sunday's Observer newspaper. "I would like to see a very quick connection to community punishment, that people see being done. I want them to be identified."

One day a florist goes to a barber for a haircut. After the cut he asked about his bill and the barber replies: I'm sorry, I cannot accept money from you; I'm doing community service this week." The florist is pleased and leaves the shop. Next morning when the barber goes to open there is a thank you card and a dozen roses waiting for him at his door. Later, a cop comes in for a haircut, and when he goes to pay his bill the barber again replies: "I'm sorry, I cannot accept money; I'm doing community service this...

I seldom use the words, “moral imperative,” and, when I do, they carry behind them an urgent necessity for rational individuals to respond to an imminent threat to the inalienable rights of man. In this Presidential election, however, I see a clear moral imperative to defeat the power grab of a man who would endanger the sacred liberties of every man dwelling in America, but especially of the most autonomous and industrious among us. I shall enumerate, in brief, a horrid threefold menace that a would-be Kerry administration poses to our freedoms across the board. - Kerry’s national health insurance...

Woman contends supervisor of community service workers demanded sex in exchange for falsifying hours By Claire Osborn AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Saturday, November 1, 2003 A woman has sued the City of Austin, contending that it was negligent in employing a park worker who is accused of coercing sex from young women assigned to work in the parks as community service for misdemeanor criminal convictions. The former employee, Freddie Urias, faces criminal charges of sexual assault, official oppression and tampering with a government record. His case is in pretrial hearings. According to the lawsuit filed in state District Court, Urias sexually assaulted...

<p>Hundreds of minimum-security prisoners will soon be picking up litter and doing other chores along state roads. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the Department of Corrections are working to expand the program now operating at five state prisons to all 25.</p>

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. SOUTH FORK FOREST CAMP (AP) - It's easy to see why Oregon convicts describe this Coast Range prison camp as a uniquely appealing place to pay their debt to society. Where else, they ask, do convicts get to feed trail mix and granola to visiting deer? Nearly 200 inmates bunk here in cabin-like dormitories. There are no clanging steel bars, cramped cells or forbidding fences topped with razor wire. Surrounded by forested peaks, the camp's mountain air is richly scented by firs and cedars. "If you can't do time at South...

In The State of the World's Children 1997, UNICEF reports that "Romania has launched a pilot project in Bucharest to give juvenile offenders who would normally be sent to reform school the opportunity to remain with their families, receive counseling by social workers and carry out community service work in public institutions." Curiously, this penal reform would require youthful miscreants in socialist Romania to be treated in much the same way an ever-increasing number of school districts treat law-abiding American high school students. Across the nation, students are being sentenced to "community service" as a prerequisite for a high school...

<p>More than 90,000 students at 14 state-owned universities would each be required to perform 25 hours of community service annually under a legislative proposal announced Monday.</p> <p>The measure, proposed by Rep. Mike Veon, a Beaver County Democrat, also would apply to thousands more students at 14 community colleges in the state, including the Community College of Allegheny County.</p>

A civil liberties group says a Maryland public school system violated the rights of two students by denying them community service credit for participating in a religious program for Indian children. In its lawsuit, the Virginia-based Rutherford Institute says Montgomery County Public Schools violated the students' rights to religious freedom, free assembly and equal protection as guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Montgomery County schools require all students to complete 60 hours of community service before they graduate. Students who complete more than 200 hours receive a special award. According to the Rutherford Institute, two students - Joshua and...

<p>Complete eight hours of volunteer community work a month or be evicted.</p> <p>That's the ultimatum being given to hundreds of thousands of able-bodied, unemployed residents of public housing complexes across the nation and in metro Detroit as part of a new federal law that takes effect Oct. 1.</p>

<p>BALTIMORE &#8212; A national gathering of the United States' "armies of compassion" closed out its three-day meeting yesterday with a lesson from a baseball legend.</p> <p>Teamwork is the way to success, and teamwork comes from personal connections, retired Baltimore Orioles star Cal Ripken Jr. told the National Conference on Community Volunteering and National Service.</p>

FL First Lady Columba Bush Receives Helen A. Davis Award From the Children's Home ~~First Lady Honored for Her Community Service Benefiting Children~~ For Immediate Release Tuesday, April 16, 2002 Contact: Leslie D. Steele (850) 488-5394 TAMPA - - First Lady Columba Bush was awarded the Helen. A. Davis Award for her outstanding service benefiting children at the Children's Home 13th Annual Recognition Luncheon in Tampa today. "I am extremely honored to receive this award," Mrs. Bush said. "Children are our most important resource. I enjoy working with young people, and I'm constantly encouraged by their decisions to take...

In their pure forms, Americans reject socialism and fascism. Those political systems are to extreme and un-American. But over time we have adopted many ideals of socialism, having accepted that capitalism is also too extreme and a mixed economy is morally superior. Politicians have long recognized that they can increase their power by selling a socialist ideal and then defining a government initiative to quot;meet the needquot;. However, some politicians harbor more ambitious goals. Remember when charity and community activities were personal choices? Then we were inundated with the need to contribute more, and sold on the concept of duty...