Free Republic

Many of the highest-ranking members of the Biden administration came from the same shadowy firm. It is a relatively new name among revolving-door power brokers in Washington D.C., which makes it all the more surprising. Founded in 2017, WestExec describes itself as a “diverse group of senior national security professionals with the most recent experience at the highest levels of the U.S. government. With deep knowledge and networks in the fields of defense, foreign policy, intelligence, cybersecurity, international economics, and strategic communications, our team has worked together around the White House Situation Room table, deliberating and deciding our nation’s foreign...

Upcoming IPAWS National Test IPAWS will hold a national test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) on Wednesday, September 28th, 2016 at 2:20pm EDT.

WEA Trust, a nonprofit health insurer with ties to the state's largest teachers union, wants a federal court to validate its action denying federal funds to Wisconsin school districts that dropped the company. The issue stems from funds received through the federal Early Retiree Reinsurance Program. WEA Trust applied for and received $18 million from the federal program created to offset insurance costs for early retirees, but it only shared the money with districts that still participated in its insurance program, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Wednesday ( http://bit.ly/wkLdBP). At least 14 school districts that dropped WEA Trust are considering...

What if you paid $38,000 to lease a house and were then told you cannot move in until some studies are done to determine if it is safe, but you do not get your money back? Years go by while the landlord is holding your money. This is exactly what the Obama administration has been doing to the oil and gas industry since May of 2010. The same Obama who is crisscrossing the country touting “fair.” On Friday, a US District Judge, appointed by Obama, decided that the administration wasn’t playing fair. In October 2010, the Western Energy Alliance (WEA),...

The cost to provide security at the Wisconsin Capitol during weeks of protests over Gov. Scott Walker's budget and collective bargaining changes now top $8 million. In a letter to the state legislature's Joint Finance Committee, the head of the Department of Administration asks for nearly $8.1 million to pay dozens of law enforcement agencies, four state agencies and three University of Wisconsin campuses for their help in providing security during the large-scale protests last winter and spring.

"This is a disaster," Mark Miller, the Wisconsin Senate Democratic leader, said in February after Republican Gov. Scott Walker proposed a budget bill that would curtail the collective-bargaining powers of some public employees. Miller predicted catastrophe if the bill were to become law -- a charge repeated thousands of times by his fellow Democrats, union officials and protesters in the streets. Now the bill is law, and we have some early evidence of how it is working. And for one beleaguered Wisconsin school district, it's a godsend, not a disaster. The Kaukauna Area School District, in the Fox River Valley...

Much of the current controversy in Wisconsin involves the impending loss of most collective bargaining privileges for state employees, including public school teachers. The fact is that the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the largest teachers union in the state, has grossly abused that privilege for decades, resulting in the unnecessary siphoning of millions of dollars from Wisconsin public schools. Under current Wisconsin law, the identity of the insurance company that provides health coverage to school employees is a matter of collective bargaining in each school district. In the majority of districts around the state, WEAC negotiators have used that law...

Here are a few simple, startling facts for anyone concerned about the financial condition of Wisconsin public schools: WEA Trust, an insurance company established and closely associated with the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), siphons millions of crucial dollars from K-12 schools and their students every year. WEA Trust has grown very fat on public school dollars, with a net worth of $316 million and a team of 12 administrators all receiving compensation packages worth six figures per year. Sadly, this insurance swindle is endorsed by state law. We at Education Action Group believe it’s time for the citizens of...

[Madison, WI] As tens of thousands of public employees skipped work this week to attend protest rallies outside the Wisconsin State Capitol, many wondered if they would face any disciplinary action for unexcused absences. On Saturday, a group of men and women in lab coats purporting to be doctors were handing out medical excuse notes, without examining the ‘patients.’ “I asked this doctor what he was doing and he told me they were handing out excuses to people who were feeling sick due to emotional, mental or financial distress,” said Christian Hartsock. “They never performed an exam–he asked me how...

The state’s largest teacher’s union says teachers who have sex with their 18-year-old students should not necessarily face felony charges. The Washington Education Association filed a “friend of the court” briefing in the state Court of Appeals case of former Hoquiam High School choir teacher Matthew Hirschfelder, accused of having sexual relations with one of his 18-year-old students. “Eighteen- year olds aren’t kids,” union spokesman Rich Wood said. “They are minors. … And should consenting adults be subject to criminal charges? That’s the question behind this case and this law.” Hirschfelder has been charged with first-degree sexual misconduct with a...

Iran Booted From Defense Show for Displaying Missile Systems April 24, 2008 The Associated Press KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Malaysia's deputy prime minister says Iran has been ordered to leave an international defense show in Kuala Lumpur. Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said Iranian firms exhibited missile systems at the Defense Services Asia show that were "offensive" and contravened U.N. resolutions. Najib told reporters Thursday that Malaysian authorities had "no option" but to tell Iran to leave. The annual show began Monday with hundreds of exhibitors from about 50 nations.

Thursday, June 21, 2007 If the Washington Education Association truly put teachers and students first, they'd be cheering a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision along with the rest of us. The court stood up for teachers' free speech rights. Instead, the union is decrying last week's 9-0 ruling, calling the state law that was before the court "seriously flawed," and vowing to pursue more ways to get its way, despite what individual teachers want. There is nothing flawed about getting permission from educators before spending their paychecks on politics with which they might disagree. Only a bully would see things...

WASHINGTON -- Democracy is rule by persuasion, but the unpersuasive often try to coerce the unpersuaded. Recent days have provided two illustrations of this tendency, both of them pertaining to labor unions, whose decades of declining membership testify to their waning power to persuade workers that unions add more value to workers' lives than they subtract.

Democracy is rule by persuasion, but the unpersuasive often try to coerce the unpersuaded. Recent days have provided two illustrations of this tendency, both of them pertaining to labor unions, whose decades of declining membership testify to their waning power to persuade workers that unions add more value to workers' lives than they subtract. Failing unions, like failing industries, turn to government for protection in the form of coercion. Failing industries have traditionally sought corporate welfare in the form of tariffs (coercion of consumers). Unions seek laws to confer what their persuasiveness cannot convince people to consent to. Last Thursday,...

The Return Of The Women's Equality Amendment By Ashley Herzog April 10, 2007 I didn't plan on writing another column about feminism, but I keep discovering more examples of pernicious ideas the so-called "women's rights activists" are pushing on society. Last week, the Democrat-controlled Congress reintroduced the long-dead Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which gained popular support in the 1970s but died when Americans found out what it actually entailed. Thirty years later, feminists in Congress seem to think we've forgotten. The language of the ERA, now renamed the Women's Equality Amendment, is deceptively simple: "equality of rights under the law...

OLYMPIA -- The state's largest teachers union is pushing legislation that would, in effect, allow unions to spend fees paid by nonmembers on political campaigns without first getting permission. The bills, drafted by the Washington Education Association (WEA) and other labor groups, were introduced Wednesday in the House and Senate by a handful of Democratic lawmakers. Union leaders say they are merely trying to clarify a confusing statute. But critics said the union is attempting an end-run on the U.S. Supreme Court, which is currently reviewing the constitutionality of a Washington law that required unions to get permission before spending...

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court justices indicated today they are inclined to uphold a Washington state law preventing unions from using fees they get from workers for political activities. The case involves a few thousand teachers and other education employees who are in the bargaining unit and thus represented by the more than 70,000-member Washington Education Association — but who have chosen not to join the union. Workers can't be forced to join or pay for the union's political activism, but they can be charged a fee for labor negotiations that affect them. The narrow issue before the justices is whether,...

SPOKANE, Wash.--Teachers unions are supposed to promote the financial interests of, well, teachers--but not in Washington state. Here, the Washington Education Association is fighting some 4,000 nonmember teachers who don't want their paychecks raided each year and used for political activities that they don't believe in. "The right of free speech is being trampled" by the union political spending, complains Scott Carlson, a business teacher in Spokane. "And that's a right I hold very precious." Too bad the unions don't. The WEA derisively refers to teachers like Mr. Carlson who want their money back not as free-speech advocates but "dissidents."...

You've got to hand it to the people at the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. When they devise a gimmick to make a point, they go all out. The Olympia-based conservative think tank has been battling the Washington Education Association in court over the use of union dues to fund political activities. That's not legal, the EFF argues, and says union processes allowing members to reclaim the portion of their dues used on politics are too complicated. Most workers "give up and pay," the organization says, and opting out of the union doesn't solve the problem either. While it waits to see...

OLYMPIA—Today the Evergreen Freedom Foundation filed an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, urging the Court to accept review of Washington v. Washington Education Association. At issue is whether individuals can be required to subsidize political speech they oppose. The Washington state Supreme Court ruled in March that a state law requiring unions to obtain permission from teachers before using funds for political purposes was unconstitutional. “The Washington ruling is a dangerous precedent that undermines free speech rights all across the country,” said Michael Reitz, director of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation’s Labor Policy Center....