Free Republic

...Is Paying Money To Tea Party Groups For Their Endorsement I made the part up about the "crying woman," but yes, that is the newest allegation from Ms. Bachmann. Michele Bachmann lives in a strange world. People talk about "moral relativism." Presumably they would claim she's not a moral relativist. But truth is an objective fact, is it not? Ms. Bachmann seems to confuse premises which are politically helpful to her for premises which are actually true. That seems like moral relativism to me -- the world is not as it is, but as I perceive it to be. I...

Before you put too much stock in the most recent PPP poll, you may want to review this April 2011 Hill article: A top union and a top liberal blog announced Tuesday that they’ll team up to sponsor polling through the 2012 elections. Daily Kos and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) said they will join forces to conduct issue and campaign polling in key states and races over the next two years… …The SEIU/Daily Kos poll will use Public Policy Polling (PPP), a Democratic firm that uses automated polling rather than live, over-the-phone survey methods. Moulitsas contracted with PPP...

Like most people, recently I’ve been asked to present photo identification on a number of occasions without regard to my race, religion, or national origin. The majority of the requests I’ve received have come in circumstances many would consider more or less routine: checking in for a flight and passing through airport security; registering as a guest at a hotel; using a credit card when purchasing something more expensive than a meal or tank of gas; and buying over-the-counter medications. In addition, I was required to show photo identification while visiting the Department of Justice here in Washington. In the...

Newt Gingrich Praised SEIU Head Andy Stern's Forward-Looking Vision In his book "Real Chance: From the World That Fails to the World That Works," Gingrich praises the SEIU head, who remains a close adviser of the President Obama. Pitching the need for conservatives to respect organized labor, while simultaneously pushing back against some of Labor's more cherished legislative goals, he wrote the following: Conservatives cannot cheer unions overseas and then be blindly anti-union here at home. There are legitimate historic reasons for workers to organize together, and there is a strong need for a healthy, competitive, union, movement that helps...

OAKLAND — As anti-Wall Street protesters attempt to regroup and settle in for winter after a series of police raids that stripped much of the movement of its signature camps, protesters on the West Coast are staging a comeback. On Dec. 12, Occupy movements from Seattle to San Diego say they will shut down their local ports, temporarily stopping the flow of capital on the West Coast. Organizers say they aim to disrupt the business of the “1 percent” — in this case, the corporations that own shipping terminals and do business at the ports. If successful, shutting down the...

The “take” so far from Michigan's forced unionization of supposed home health care workers for the Service Employees International Union is $28 million. That tally is going up on a monthly basis. The overwhelming majority of these dollars can be used for almost anything the SEIU desires, including advertising, issue advocacy, lobbying, get out the vote efforts and other political purposes. According to the Michigan Department of Community Health, the amount of "dues" taken out of subsidy checks that go to "home health care workers'” checks and passed on to the SEIU so far is as follows: 2007: $5,040,263 2008:...

Dozens of protesters staged sit-ins in front of lawmakers' offices Tuesday and several hundred more camped out on the National Mall as part of a new movement calling itself "Take Back the Capitol." U.S. Capitol Police said one person was arrested for unlawful entry at the office of Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Missouri. Borrowing language from the Occupy movement and drawing demonstrators "from Occupy sites from coast to coast," the movement says its goal is to affect congressional legislation. "For far too long, Congress has been catering to the 1% instead of representing the 99%," the movement says on its website,...

The “take” so far from Michigan's forced unionization of supposed home health care workers for the Service Employees International Union is $28 million. That tally is going up on a monthly basis. The overwhelming majority of these dollars can be used for almost anything the SEIU desires, including advertising, issue advocacy, lobbying, get out the vote efforts and other political purposes. According to the Michigan Department of Community Health, the amount of "dues" taken out of subsidy checks that go to "home health care workers'” checks and passed on to the SEIU so far is as follows: 2007: $5,040,263 2008:...

The “take” so far from Michigan's forced unionization of supposed home health care workers for the Service Employees International Union is $28 million. That tally is going up on a monthly basis. The overwhelming majority of these dollars can be used for almost anything the SEIU desires, including advertising, issue advocacy, lobbying, get out the vote efforts and other political purposes. According to the Michigan Department of Community Health, the amount of "dues" taken out of subsidy checks that go to "home health care workers'” checks and passed on to the SEIU so far is as follows: 2007: $5,040,263 2008:...

A colossal mountain (500lbs?) informs us as to why she and her cohorts are trying to see Senator Mario(sic) Rubio. She should be poster child for what Obama and the Dems intend for America. It will make you laugh and/or angry. Wish every American could see this. One question. How does someone so down and out manage to gain and maintain those 100's of extra pounds. Keep in mind that she votes.

Sources on Capitol Hill tell Big Government that SEIU has organized a major effort to ‘Take Back the Capitol’ this week with a collective of community, labor and Occupy groups that are dedicated to “show Congress what democracy looks like, shine a light on corporate greed and the human suffering it has caused, and demand justice for the 99%.” According to Congressional sources, Occupy protestors have been visiting one Congressional office after another and demanding to speak with representatives while loitering in their waiting rooms and chanting. ‘Trackers’ are also being spotted roaming the hills of various Congressional buildings.

A Tennessee couple helplessly watched their home burn to the ground, along with all of their possessions, because they did not pay a $75 annual fee to the local fire department. Vicky Bell told the NBC affiliate WPSD-TV that she called 911 when her mobile home in Obion County caught fire. Firefighters arrived on the scene but as the fire raged, they simply stood by and did nothing. "In an emergency, the first thing you think of, 'Call 9-1-1," homeowner Bell said. However, Bell and her husband were forced to walk into the burning home in an attempt to retrieve...

Economic Systems: The former head of the Service Employees International Union says capitalism is on the ash heap of history and sees China as our role model. We have seen his future, however, and it doesn't work. President Obama once reportedly told aides, according to the New York Times, that things would be easier if he were president of China. Presumably he meant there would be no pesky things like a Congress, free elections and a free press to deal with. Former SEIU chief Andy Stern, who may still hold the record for visits to the White House under this...

A federal judge has apparently granted at least a temporary reprieve to 372,000 elderly and disabled Californians who faced a 20 percent cut in their in-home care on Jan. 1. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken of Oakland issued a temporary restraining order Thursday that prohibits the state from taking any immediate steps to carry out the reductions — in particular, from mailing out notices to all recipients, starting next week. Wilken said a lawsuit by disability-rights groups and other advocates raised “serious questions” about whether the cuts would violate federal health and disability laws by forcing recipients into nursing homes....

Andy Grove, the founder and chairman of Intel, provocatively wrote in Businessweek last year that, "Our fundamental economic beliefs, which we have elevated from a conviction based on observation to an unquestioned truism, is that the free market is the best of all economic systems—the freer the better. Our generation has seen the decisive victory of free-market principles over planned economies. So we stick with this belief largely oblivious to emerging evidence that while free markets beat planned economies, there may be room for a modification that is even better." The past few weeks have proven Mr. Grove's point, as...

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....

Your National Right to Work Foundation is headed back to the United States Supreme Court... and the union bosses are in full panic. The Supreme Court announced last week that it will hear oral arguments on January 10 in Knox v. Service Employees International Union Local 1000, a case brought by Foundation attorneys. Fearing an embarrassing loss, union lawyers have now begged the Supreme Court to toss out the case after offering to pay back all of the money to objecting employees. Simply put, we caught the union bosses red-handed. Big Labor desperately wants to sweep the case under the...

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) founder and Service Employees International Union organizer Wade Rathke acknowledged that the tea party movement has been more effective than Occupy Wall Street in influencing American politics. Rathke was unequivocal about the Occupy movement, telling The DC that “in no way has it had the political impact that the tea party movement has.” Yet because Occupy organizing is “still in its embryonic stages” while tea partiers have been organizing for more than two years, he cautions that “comparing the tea party movement to OWS...

What do you get when you mix Democratic fat-cat donations, Big Labor favors, pharmaceutical lobbying and Beltway business as usual? Answer: another toxic half-billion-dollar Barack Obama-approved crony deal. Move over, Solyndra. Here comes Siga-Gate. This latest Chicago-style payoff on your dime involves a dubious smallpox drug backed by a liberal billionaire investor, along with a former union boss who was one of the White House's most frequent visitors. They're the "1 percent" with 100 percent immunity from the selectively outraged Occupier mobs that purport to oppose partisan government bailouts and handouts to privileged corporations. Ronald Perelman is the New York...