Free Republic

WASHINGTON - The nation's largest labor organization on Tuesday criticized plans to expand guest worker programs for immigrants seeking to come to the United States, parting company with longtime Senate Democratic allies who pushed successfully to include them in broad-based immigration legislation. "Guest worker programs are a bad idea and harm all workers," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in a statement released the day after the Senate Judiciary Committee cleared an immigration bill. "They cast workers into a perennial second-class status, and unfairly put their fates into their employers' hands." Sweeney's statement praised numerous provisions of the overall immigration legislation,...

WASHINGTON, March 1, 2006 – Cadets representing 11 National Guard Youth ChalleNGe programs from 10 states were on hand here today to accept awards for excellence in the their programs. Cadets from 11 National Guard Youth ChalleNGe programs from 10 states attended the 2006 National Guard ChalleNGe Program Award Luncheon. The awards program, presented by the United Service Organizations of Metropolitan Washington, recognized excellence in several key components of the ChalleNGe program. Photo by Samantha L. Quigley  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Although the programs were being honored, Army Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, chief of the National...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8, 2006 – In the old Star Wars movie "The Empire Strikes Back," Luke Skywalker gets a new, fully functional right hand after Darth Vader chops his off with a light saber. Today, thanks to work under way through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, servicemembers who have lost limbs in the line of duty could experience something almost as revolutionary in the years ahead. Among the cutting-edge technology DARPA is developing is a highly advanced, mechanical arm that works and looks just like a human one, Jan Walker, a DARPA spokesperson, told the American Forces Press Service....

WASHINGTON (AP) - A $40 billion budget-cutting bill nearing final House passage would badly hurt welfare and children's services programs in California, according to an analysis Friday by a group that advocates for low-income people. Among the bill's costs to California, according to the Center for Law and Social Policy in Washington: -$2 billion over the next five years to comply with new welfare rules requiring many more recipients to participate in work training and other programs. -$1 billion in child support payments that would go uncollected over the next five years because of cuts in funding for child support...

Following up on his Wall Street Journal article Tuesday defending the Iraq war, Sen. Joseph Lieberman is reminding Bush administration critics that it's wrong to claim that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. attacked in 2003. "The so-called Duelfer Report, which a lot of people read to say there were no weapons of mass destruction - concluded that Saddam continued to have very low level of chemical and biological programs," Lieberman told ABC Radio host Sean Hannity on Wednesday. "[Saddam] was trying to break out of the U.N. sanctions by going back into rapid redevelopment...

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - An advocacy group on Wednesday gave the state mostly C and D grades - and no A's - for health, economic and education programs affecting children. Children Now said many California children live in poverty and lack adequate education and health care. The Oakland-based group issued a report card covering nine subjects: health insurance, dental insurance, childhood obesity, adolescent health, infant health, family economic security, early education, K-12 education and after-school programs. The group gave the state three B's, three C's and three D's. The state received a B-minus for children's health insurance programs, although the...

WASHINGTON -- In recent weeks, Air Force chapels raised thousands of dollars to provide comfort for those affected by Hurricane Katrina. Chapel communities contributed more than $376,000 for Hurricane Katrina survivors since the storm hit three weeks ago, according to the Air Force Chief of Chaplains Office here. “The Air Force chapel communities are being very generous and making sure our fellow Airmen and families are being taken care of,” said Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Brett Oxman, who works budgeting issues for the chaplains office at the Pentagon. The donations came from around the world, ranging from Edwards Air Force Base,...

The achievement gap between minority and white students has long been a stain on the bright mosaic of culturally and racially diverse school districts.From North Jersey to Cleveland to San Diego, whites as a group generally score considerably better on standardized tests than their minority peers. Whites also tend to enroll in more honors classes, while minorities are more prevalent in remedial courses.Now, one Bergen County district is introducing a sweeping concept that it hopes will bridge its gap by addressing a wide range of possible roadblocks to academic success.The initiative includes dozens of ideas. Some are in the talking...

More than a third of the software installed on PCs worldwide during 2004 was pirated, with losses from unauthorized software increasing by $4 billion from 2003, according to a study released this week by the software trade group Business Software Alliance. Thirty-five percent of all software installed on PCs was pirated, down from 36 percent in 2003, according to the study, conducted by research firm IDC. Estimated losses from software piracy climbed, however, from $29 billion to $33 billion, as both the legal and unauthorized software markets grew from 2003 to 2004. IDC estimated that $90 billion worth of software...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - After years of neglect, scores of transportation projects statewide would receive a badly needed infusion of $1.3 billion under a plan outlined Wednesday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The proposal is a key part of Schwarzenegger's revised 2005-2006 state budget that is due out on Friday. Facing a shortfall estimated at $8.6 billion, Schwarzenegger proposed in January a $111.7 billion spending plan that included more than $4 billion in borrowing and the transfer of $1.3 billion in sales tax money from transportation programs to other uses. The governor told an audience of mayors and city council members from...

It is my belief that about half of the Americans who call themselves liberal do not hold the great majority of positions held by mainstream liberal institutions such as the New York Times editorial page, People for the American Way, and the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. So here is a test of this thesis to be given to anyone who believes he or she is a liberal. If you feel I have omitted a liberal position or have unfairly characterized any of them here, please email me. This is still a work in progress. Thank you, Dennis Pragerdennisprager@dennisprager.com...

- Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today released the 2005 Congressional Pig Book, a sweeping compendium of the pork-barrel projects in the federal budget. Congress spent more tax dollars on pork this year than in any other year in history. For fiscal 2005, appropriators stuffed 13,997 projects into the 13 appropriations bills, an increase of 31 percent over last year’s total of 10,656. In the last two years, the total number of projects has increased by 49.5 percent. The cost of these projects in fiscal 2005 was $27.3 billion, or 19 percent more than last year’s total of $22.9 billion....

What do Democrats want? Many answers, or partial answers, can be found in the 90th anniversary issue of the New Republic, in the post-election issue of the American Prospect, and in various other writings by smart Democrats unhappy with the defeat their party suffered in 2004. These writers avoid the left blogosphere's wacky claims that the election was stolen. They understand that both parties played to win and turned out many new voters. John Kerry got 16 percent more votes than Al Gore. George W. Bush got 23 percent more votes in 2004 than in 2000. Most of these Democrats...

For many Bay Area school districts, persuading voters to pass parcel taxes in Tuesday's election isn't about selling new and innovative programs in these lean economic times -- it's about pleading to keep what they have. From Walnut Creek to Milpitas, superintendents and school boards in 17 districts are trying to maintain everything from music programs to school nurses to lower class sizes as they calculate budgets for next fall. Declining enrollment and unrealized monetary pledges from Sacramento have squeezed many districts in recent years. "We've been a high-performing district ... we have high expectations for our students," said Superintendent...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's $2.5 trillion budget is shaping up as his most austere, trying to restrain spending across a wide swath of government from popular farm subsidies to poor people's health programs. Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday defended the plan against Democratic criticism that Bush had to seek steep cuts in scores of federal programs because he is unwilling to roll back first-term tax cuts that opponents contend primarily benefited the wealthy. The budget's submission to Congress on Monday will set off months of intense debate. Lawmakers from both parties can be expected to vigorously fight to...

Large numbers of teachers believe themselves incapable of meeting the learning expectations placed on their institutions by the No Child Left Behind Act. Like the characters in "Atlas Shrugged," they find themselves having to deal with problems they did not create within the constraints of a system designed to fail. In order to remain in their chosen profession, those caught in the middle must place blame elsewhere in order to find an "out." Those who refuse to "work within the system" disappear. Mediocrity rises to the top and excellence disappears. Public education has cried "wolf" one too many times, claiming...

CAMBRIDGE, Md., Oct. 20 -- Slot machine gambling could once again dominate the General Assembly's agenda when lawmakers return to Annapolis in January, legislative leaders predicted Wednesday, even as they reiterated their sharp divisions on expanded gambling. . . . Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) has made the legalization of slots his keystone initiative since taking office but has failed repeatedly to build consensus for a plan. Ehrlich has run into strong resistance not just from House leaders, but also from rival factions within the business community, each of which wants to carve its own cut of the proceeds...

Gang-related murders soaring L.A., other cities in crisis as youth programs lack funds to fight crime. By Beth Barrett Staff writer Even as violent crime declines overall, gang-related murders have soared across the country and now represent a major law enforcement crisis in the Los Angeles area, other major cities and even rural communities, according to a study released Tuesday. While funding of juvenile programs was being cut, gang activity has been spreading rapidly from Los Angeles to the rest of the country, and homicides linked to juveniles in gangs have soared from 692 nationally in 1999 to more than...

Emerging post-holidays from the pile of stories virtually ignored by America’s media, comes the Bush version of Dickens. It seems George and Laura don’t just ask others to help faith-based groups, they pitch in themselves, as kids who’d gathered for Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree program found out on a Monday afternoon in Alexandria, Virginia, this past December. Prison Fellowship was founded by Chuck Colson, and its Angel Tree program makes sure children of prisoners receive presents during the holidays. The program has many volunteers, but they aren’t usually accompanied by a crowd of more than 40 reporters as the President...

Today Linux, Tomorrow the World? By James V. DeLong The term "open source" is linked with software, and most particularly with Linux, the operating system which, it is hoped or feared, can challenge both Microsoft's position on the desktop and its ambitions to extend its empire into server space. The theory is that Linux and other open source programs are written by hordes of volunteers, each contributing his/her widow's mite of code, communicating at zero cost over the Internet, and self-organizing their efforts without need for either the incentives of markets or the commands of organizational hierarchies. The proof that...