Free Republic

A tax bill that would raise revenue $2.1 billion by boosting taxes on high-wage earners, smokers and corporations is headed for debate by the Senate. The bill, which also helps support a development plan pushed by the Mayo Clinic in Rochester officials say could bring thousands of jobs to Minnesota, is expected to be on the agenda once state Senators return to chambers at 11 a.m. The bill passed the state House by a 69-65 vote early Monday morning, May 20. It is one of the last major tax and spending bills the Legislature is taking up as it finalizes...

In an interview with the Detroit Metro Times, United Auto Workers President Bob King suggests that the forced unionization of home-based caregivers is more important than Michigan's becoming a right-to-work state. “[T]here was a whole series of legislation that [Snyder] said was not on his agenda that he signed,” King told the Metro Times. "There were [university] research assistants being denied collective bargaining rights. There were home health care workers, who were given some really strong assurances that collective bargaining rights would not be taken away from them. “And that’s much more serious, honestly, than right-to-work; denying them the right...

A rapid increase in nursery places has led to a generation of violent “little savages”, psychologist Oliver James has warned. James, the best-selling author of books on child-rearing, said ministerial proposals to allow child carers to look after more youngsters would fuel aggression in the under-threes, which would have lasting effects. Shoving youngsters in to nurseries was simply “warehousing” them so that the government could push mothers back to work to reap income for the Exchequer, he argued. … James pointed to a study in America, which tracked youngsters for 15 years. It showed a correlation between the hours placed...

As I discussed in my previous article "'Early Education or Early Indoctrination" our educational curricula could soon come under the control of the United Nations. The United States government supports their attempts at globalizing our American education system and indoctrinating our children in an early education program (0-5 years of age). But attempts to place our children in school from birth are being deterred small business: the daycare industry. Parents currently have the option of either putting their children in an "early education" school focus from birth until kindergarten or an in-home day care or center. But that too might...

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- After a bit of confusion in the courtroom Tuesday morning, jurors returned the toughest verdict they could against day care owner Jessica Tata -- guilty of murder. But their work is not done. Now they must decide how long Tata should be in jail. "We, the jury, find the defendant, Jessica Tata, guilty of murder," the jury foreman read. Tata showed no emotion as the verdict was read. "She's never lost sight of the real victims, the real people who we have concern for are the families that lost their children," said defense attorney Mike DeGeurin. Tata...

Disturbing video from a Mississippi day care center shows a 9-year-old boy beating several much younger children, including an 11-month-old, whom he punches and bites. The frightening footage, taken at the Kiddie City Child Care Center in Vicksburg, shows the bully attacking the baby and then patting the boy on the back as it cries and adults come in to check on them. Throughout the video, the child can be seen waiting until day care workers aren’t looking to launch another attack. In another instance, the 9-year-old drop kicks a young girl to the floor while a day care worker...

Under the guise of granting higher wages and healthcare benefits to daycare providers and personal care attendants, Connecticut’s Democratic-led state House has passed a bill that will force these workers to collectively bargain with the state. However, the director of the Connecticut chapter of Americans for Prosperity (AFP)said on Friday that the measure, proposed as an amendment to another bill, will force daycare providers to unionize with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). According to JR Romano of AFP in Connecticut, the bill is “a direct assault on female business owners.” State Sen. Edith Prague (D- Working Families Party) and...

MINNEAPOLIS -- A woman who became suspicious and called 911 after dropping her son off at a suburban Minneapolis day care provider's home stayed on the line as she went back to the house and discovered three people shot to death, according to transcripts of the call. The Brooklyn Park Police Department released the transcript of the call that took place Monday, minutes after investigators believe a lone male fatally shot DeLois Brown and her elderly parents.

A group of Minnesota home-based child care providers have filed a federal lawsuit to halt an order forcing them to unionize. Jennifer Parrish from Rochester filed the suit Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota with free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation Legal Defense Foundation. Gov. Mark Dayton's executive order would designate the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and Service Employees International Union officials as the collective...

Connecticut child care providers will be unionized following a vote announced Tuesday. The providers voted 1,603-88 to join the union, according to Matt O'Connor, a spokesman for CSEA/SEIU Local 2001. The American Arbitration Association, a neutral group, on Tuesday counted the secret ballots that had been returned through U.S. mail. O'Connor noted that the union had been trying for six years to organize the providers who care for children in providers' private homes. Nationally, 15 states have similar unions. Overall, about 96 percent of the Connecticut workers are women, O'Connor said. There are about 4,000 providers, covering all 169 cities...

ST. PAUL, Minn.—A Ramsey County judge on Monday blocked a unionization vote by Minnesota child care workers that was to get under way this week, saying the issue must go through the state Legislature. Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that the Democratic governor exceeded his powers with the executive order setting up the election. "If unionization of day care is to become the law of Minnesota, it must first be submitted to the lawmaking body of the state," Judge Dale Lindman said after hearing three hours of testimony. Lindman also said he was "bothered" that less than half of the...

Dayton, a Democrat, ordered the election two weeks ago so that providers could vote on whether to be represented by a union in "meet and confer" talks with the state. The order allows in-home providers who participate in state-subsidized Child Care Assistance Programs to vote on whether to be represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) or the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), depending on where in the state their business is. Ballots are scheduled to be mailed Dec. 7 to about 4,300 of some 11,000 in-home providers in Minnesota. They would be counted Dec....

We have been given expensive ringside seats to quite a public backscratching. Unions - AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and SEIU, Service Employees International Union - have been patting their old pal, Governor Dayton, on the back and saying, "You can do it" and "Atta boy, go get 'em." And lo, Dayton, who is beholden to unions, looked out his window one day and decided he saw some people he could bring into the collective fold. Now, how the governor has the constitutional authority to order anybody to take a vote on joining a union...

Minnesota lawmakers got some answers Monday about a vote to unionize in-home child care providers, but with just more than two weeks before ballots are mailed, key questions remain. Chief among those emerging from a House committee meeting: Will any agreements reached between state-subsidized providers and the state apply to those who don't receive subsidies, and if so, shouldn't those who don't receive subsidies be allowed to vote? Meanwhile, there is an effort in Ramsey County to block a budget allocation for a nonprofit group linked to the union organizing child care providers. Gov. Mark Dayton touched off the flurry...

Governor Dayton reportedly made a promise to union leaders to sign the executive order in exchange for their support in the last election. Greedy union bosses want to skim union dues from taxpayer-funded subsidies designed to help poor parents pay for childcare services. And childcare providers are just the beginning. In other states, family members caring for relatives with disabilities have also been forced to join a union.

A woman who amassed roughly $3 million in taxpayer subsidies from her Milwaukee child care centers was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Milwaukee on 16 counts of wire fraud and theft, charged with stealing more than $275,000. Latasha Jackson, who also is listed as Latasha Wilder, bought a Jaguar convertible and built a mansion in Menomonee Falls with an indoor swimming pool and indoor basketball court - while regulators ignored red flags for 10 years that she could be cheating the system, the Journal Sentinel's "Cashing in on Kids" investigation found. The indictment of Jackson is the...

Should people be forced to be part of a union just for receiving checks to look after their own story? Fox Business Network interviews Robert and Patricia Haynes, who discuss the Michigan law that forces them to join a union because they care for their kids with cerebral palsy.

Gov. Mark Dayton has ordered a vote among home-based child care providers about whether they should unionize. His executive order issued Tuesday sets an election for December. It affects thousands of self-employed providers. The state Bureau of Mediation Services will oversee the election. Dayton says if a union is authorized during the vote, membership would be voluntary. Dayton's decision furthers an already politically charged debate over union rights. The Democratic governor and majority Republican lawmakers have clashed for months about Dayton's authority to call an election and whether a union should exist.

Minnesota ranks as the fifth least affordable state for prekindergarten child care, after New York, Montana, Massachusetts and Wisconsin. Minnesota is among the most expensive for child care partly because the industry is highly regulated by the state, according to Ann McCully, executive director of Minnesota Child Care. For example, Minnesota requires a lower ratio of staff to children than other states, which requires centers to spend more money on personnel. McCully said it can be difficult for centers to make a profit or simply break even.

Jen and Keith Gorney have chosen to serve their children raw milk from a local farmer. They've also chosen to send two of their kids to an Eden Prairie daycare for half day sessions. They didn't realize those choices would work against each other. The Gorneys learned that USDA guidelines require centers that serve meals to serve pasteurized milk with those meals. The Gorneys wanted to bring water to serve as a substitute but that is not allowed. They understand the daycare has no choice. If they do not follow guidelines they could lose their state license.

I've never seen this much attention given to child care," Clarissa Johnston, a 24-year home day care provider, told a Minnesota Senate committee hearing Thursday night. The reason for the attention was the possibility that Minnesota's 11,000 in-home child care providers might be unionized. The providers who testified were deeply divided over the issue. During the three-hour hearing, they argued passionately for and against being organized into labor alliances. Proponents contended that forming a union would enable them to negotiate the state rules and regulations that govern their operations and affect their wages, benefits and working conditions. "Recognize our right...

Even before a vote is possible, the battles lines have been drawn over a potential vote on unionizing in-home daycare providers. At a rally at the Capitol Tuesday, daycare providers against a union vote wanted to make their sentiment known to the Governor as he considers potential next steps in a possible union vote. Becky Swanson is an in-home daycare provider and she says she's against any union effort, "I feel it's very important that Governor Dayton listen, and stop now, and don't put it to a vote. It's not necessary."

Just as students head back to college and families finish summer vacations comes the latest bad news from pest control companies: Bedbug infestations are getting worse and becoming more common in some places, including dorms, hotels, nursing homes, hospitals, office buildings, and schools and day-care centers. According to a survey released Wednesday by the National Pest Management Association and the University of Kentucky, pest control companies say there has been double-digit growth in infestations in the past year. About 54 percent of pest companies reported treating bedbugs in college dorms, compared with 35 percent in 2010; 80 percent reported treating...

The Delaware American Civil Liberties Union has filed court papers to stop sex offenders from being evicted from a safe house that is located near a new day care center. The ACLU, along with an attorney representing the safe house and three sex offenders, has asked a judge to issue a temporary restraining order to prevent the city from evicting the residents. “The state has asked the residents to leave, and if they don’t leave they will be arrested,” attorney Daniel Wolcott, Jr. told Fox News Radio. Wolcott is representing the owner of the safe house and three sex offenders....

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A daycare center was evacuated after a gang-related shooting on Albion Street killed one person and injured two others, according to Metro Police. Children at the Little Hearts Day Care were moved to another location after the shooting occurred at 3003 Albion St., which is also across from Hadley Park. Metro Police said the shooting was gang-related and there were several shots. Police said eight people were involved and four are currently accounted for. One person is in custody and is being questioned by police. Police have closed Albion Street and 29th Avenue North and 30th Avenue...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Michelle Obama dropped in on lunch and circle time at a Washington child care center on Wednesday and used the occasion to announce a new national initiative to encourage child care centers to promote healthy eating and exercise habits starting with the littlest Americans. The first lady watched as toddlers ate a healthy lunch of fish, fruit and salad greens, did the bunny hop with youngsters in a P.E. class and clapped along with singing time at CentroNia, a bilingual child care center that stresses just the kinds of healthy practices that Mrs. Obama is trying to...

UAW President Bob King has a unique perspective on day care worker “pay cuts.” During a press conference yesterday, King denounced Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration for ending the Department of Human Service’s practice of taking “dues” out of government subsidy payments that low-income families use to pay home-based day care providers. According to the Detroit Free Press, King described the governor’s action as part of an agenda “to destroy the middle class.” The truth is, many home-based day care providers around the state are rejoicing that their pay is no longer being reduced for public-sector “union dues” — especially since...

State of Michigan to Stop Illegal ‘Union Dues’ Withdrawals From Checks to Home-Based Day Care Providers ‘Fantastic news’ needs to be coupled with legislative action to prevent similar schemes in the future, says Mackinac Center attorney MIDLAND — A spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Human Services today told the Mackinac Center for Public Policy that on March 18 the department will stop withdrawing so-called “union dues” from subsidy checks to home-based day care providers who supply child care services to low-income families. The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation filed suit against the DHS in 2009 to stop the illegal withdrawals....

MONTREAL - Montreal police believe attacks against five Jewish institutions in the city on the weekend could be related. Const. Raphael Bergeron says three synagogues, and a Jewish school and daycare located in the west-end areas of Cote St. Luc and Hampstead Montreal-West, had windows broken. He says the attacks took place sometime between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. No arrests have been made.

Marcus Glass loved to flaunt cash. The 24-year-old child care provider who collected $2.1 million from the taxpayer-funded Wisconsin Shares program posed for nearly a dozen pictures, if not more, splaying thick stacks of big bills across his lap, or fanning them out in various stances. There's no way to know whether the money in the photos is his - his attorney wouldn't comment on the pictures - but what is clear is that Glass and money he reaped from the program are now under criminal investigation. Law enforcement officials say that in his three years in the business, Glass...

"http://therothshow.com/2010/09/day-care-centers-and-sex-offenders-all-living-together/#more-1298 Laurie Roth September 28, 2010 therothshow.com My eyes are still rolling into the back of my head and my head is still shaking at the thought of what I heard this week on my national radio show.   Danny Zanoza of http: www.rffm.org  and Dave Smith,  Director of Illinois Family Institute have discovered through there intense digging that in Illinois there are at least 90 licensed day care centers who have the same addresses as those who are listed on a sex offender registry.  What!DHS is responsible for licensing these child chare facilities which are actual homes,  where over 170,000 children are...

Government Bureaucracy Fails To Protect Children There are many forms of child abuse...verbal, physical and perhaps the most abhorrent is sexual. The stories of teachers who are having sexual relations with their students is a case in point. Just 20 or 30 years ago, such crimes were rare. Today, they are so numerous, many are no longer reported on by the media. Also, children fall prey to sexual abuse from stepparents, foster parents, big brothers, big sisters, even parents themselves (in some cases), and other authority figures. Those who sexually abuse children violate a sacred trust and scar innocent lives....

Sep 3, 2010 10:04 pm US/Central New Trier Daycare Center Raises Eyebrows Some Critics Say Perk For Teachers Is Excessive During Tough Times, But Superintendent Says It Will Help Retain The Best Educators Got A Concern? Send It To Jay Levine Reporting Jay Levine WINNETKA, Ill. (CBS) ― They're at it again, say North Shore taxpayers. The same school district that had its $174 million renovation referendum roundly defeated by voters just spent more than $500,000 on a daycare facility exclusively for teachers' kids. CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine went out to see what that kind of money buys...

My wife left her job when we had our first child and has been home for the birth and rearing of all 7. Has it been hard at times? Do we sacrifice some things? Sure. But isn't that what marriage and family are supposed to be about in the first place? What kind of rude, self-centered drones are we thrusting on the world? Ones whose first memories are that their parents didn't love them enough to spend time raising them.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who for more than a year has been nearly silent on her role in the forced unionization of more than 40,000 home day care providers, boasted of her involvement at a national union convention in 2008, Mackinac Center Communications Specialist Kathy Hoekstra reports in a video released today. "In Michigan, because of the partnership between AFSCME and the governor's office, this means that 45,000 new AFSCME members, quality child care providers, will be on the ground providing care to children," the governor said in a speech at the 38th international convention of the American Federation of State,...

A fear that the "stealth unionization" of home-based day care workers could just be the start of a bigger effort was acknowledged in court on Tuesday by a union lawyer. Patrick Wright, senior legal counsel for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, had said months ago that doctors that accept Medicaid, grocers that take food stamps and landlords that take housing assistance could be the next groups targeted in state efforts to unionize anyone who gets state subsidies. The Mackinac Center has a lawsuit that it has appealed to the state Supreme Court about the state unionizing roughly 40,000 home-based...

<p>A Texas day care center is facing a state probe over allegations it took a group of 6-year-olds to see an R-rated movie.</p> <p>Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, confirmed to Fox News Radio that Young Expressions Childcare in Bellmead is under investigation.</p>

"He's got the whole world in his hands?" To one atheist, it's more like ‘He's got the whole world under his thumb." David Smalley, the editor of American Atheist magazine and a self-described "civil rights activist," wrote in a personal blog post June 7 that Christian daycare "a form of child abuse." "In short, by starting your child off in a Christian environment, you are heading them down a path of forced ignorance," Smalley wrote. "At least let your child begin in a secular world, and if he or she chooses Christianity after an age of accountability, then so be...

Perhaps sensing its future may truly be at stake, representatives of the Michigan Home Based Child Care Council (MHBCCC) complied with lawmakers' requests for comment at a legislative committee meeting. It was at least the fourth attempt since last fall to get the MHBCCC on the record about its role in the stealth unionization of Michigan's 40,000-plus home-based day care owners and providers. Sen. Bill Hardiman (R-Kentwood), chair of the appropriations subcommittee on human services, has been particularly interested in hearing from the council. He and his counterpart in the Michigan House tried to eliminate funding for the MHBCCC in...

Over at the Washington Examiner, Mark Hemingway highlights a case which shows just how the Employee Free Choice Act might work in practice if it were ever enacted. The act would make union organizing radically easier by replacing federally monitored elections with alternate methods, such as the following: One day last fall, approximately 40,000 private day care owners in Michigan woke up to discover they had become members of a public sector union. Most had no idea what was coming. Here’s how it happened: The United Auto Workers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees worked with...

Video at link Stossel: Michelle Berry runs a day-care business out of her home in Flint, MI. She thought that she owned her own business, but Berry's been told she is now a government employee and union member. It's not voluntary. Suddenly, Berry and 40,000 other Michigan private day-care providers have learned that union dues are being taken out of the child-care subsidies the state sends them. The "union" is a creation of AFSCME, the government workers union, and the United Auto Workers.

Michelle Berry runs a private day-care service from her home on the outskirts of this city, the birthplace of General Motors. "The Berry Patch," as she calls the service, features overstuffed purple gorillas, giant cartoon murals, and a playroom covered in Astroturf. Her clients are mostly low-income parents who need child care to keep their jobs in a city that now has a 26% unemployment rate. Ms. Berry owns her own business—yet the Michigan Department of Human Services claims she is a government employee and union member. The agency thus withholds union dues from the child-care subsidies it sends to...

The barren economy of this rustbelt state is weakening the labor movement, but well-connected unions continue to shape Michigan's politics. So it's not surprising that some are willing to take extraordinary measures to help repopulate union ranks--even to the extent of making the state an accessory to a scheme to shanghai more than 40,000 home-based day care entrepreneurs and providers into a government-employee union. This development was first brought to the attention of the Mackinac -Center for Public Policy, where we work, in early 2009, when the center was approached by Sherry Loar, owner of Baby Steps Childcare Center in...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - Authorities have charged a North Carolina woman with selling moonshine out of her day care center. The Charlotte Observer reports Tuesday that North Carolina Alcohol Law Enforcement arrested 57-year-old Gwendolyn Brown-Johnson last week at Parkview Community Center in Charlotte. Agents say children were in the day care center when they sent in an undercover agent to buy two gallons of moonshine. Brown-Johnson told the paper she was set up by a neighbor. She says she was just holding a package for a man in exchange for $80 and didn't even know what was in it. Agents...

Officials say a sport utility vehicle that may have been involved in a police chase has crashed into an Indianapolis day care center. It's unclear whether any children were injured. According to television reports, multiple ambulances were called to the scene of Stepping Stones Child Care on the city's north side around 12:15 p.m. Tuesday. Police Sgt. Matthew Mount says it appears that the SUV was involved in an armed robbery and was part of a police chase before crashing into the day care center.

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Al Qaeda's umbrella group in Iraq claimed responsibility for the twin suicide bombings in the heart of Baghdad that killed at least 155 people, including 24 children trapped in a bus leaving a day care center. The Al Qaeda branch, known as the Islamic State of Iraq, said in a statement posted on the Internet late Monday that its "martyrs ... targeted the dens of infidelity."

Julie Powell was furious. Her 18-month-old son, Carter, whom she had dropped off at a Billings child care business, had wandered into traffic on Central Avenue, where he was rescued by a passing motorist. Worse yet, Powell said, no one at the business mentioned the incident when she arrived later to pick up Carter and his brother Konnor, 3. "The police called us to find out if we knew what happened," Powell said. "I went and picked up the kids and nobody told me about it. They let me pay for the day." The name of the business: Toddler Escape...

Apparently baby-sitting, bomb making and growing marijuana could be one big family activity in Lake Elsinore. Benjamin Kuzelka, 23, walked into a hospital Wednesday with a severe hand injury, possibly due to an explosion, police said. Hospital officials tipped off law enforcement, and deputies went to his home on Audelo Street. That's where they found materials used to make explosives, as well as a sophisticated marijuana grow, police said. Kuzelka was arrested at the hospital. His mother, 55-year-old Rebecca Kuzelka, and brother, 21-year-old Grey Kuzelka, were also arrested. All three were arrested on suspicion of felony child endangerment, possession and...

They are from the government, and they don’t want you to help. Lisa Snyder’s neighbors in Middleville, Mich., left for work every morning before the school buses arrived. So she told her friends she’d watch their three kids at her house before school. She didn’t get paid for it. She didn’t get reimbursed for Cheerios or juice boxes. So what did Lisa get for her trouble? Threatened with prosecution. The state declared her yard an illegal day-care operation. She either had to stop, get licensed or go to jail. “We’re just friends helping friends,” Lisa says. But that’s not good...

MIDDLEVILLE -- A Grand Rapids-area mother who helps neighbors in the morning by watching their children for a short time before the bus comes has been told she's breaking the law. Lisa Snyder's house is at the corner bus stop on Thornbird Drive just outside Middleville. Two of her friends, who need to leave for work, bring their children to her home in the morning before the bus arrives to take them Thornapple Kellogg schools. Snyder said she doesn't think she's doing anything wrong, but she was notified by the Michigan Department of Human Services that she has to stop...