Free Republic

Clark County, Washington, is strongly considering joining the group of local governments that have reformed their work rules to allow employees to exercise their second amendment rights.  Many states do not restrict citizens from exercising their rights to bear arms in public buildings, so it makes little sense to restrict employees from being able to carry as well.  From the Columbian: Commissioners Tom Mielke and David Madore on Wednesday requested that Chris Horne, the county's chief civil deputy prosecutor, investigate what revisions could be made to the county's workplace violence policy to allow employees to carry concealed firearms. Commissioner...

As the country's first 'Imperial President' threatens to rule by Executive fiat and just simply run-over the Republicans' feckless leadership, he's also made clear he intends to continue ongoing, previous strategies (lie, obfuscate, and withhold) he's utilized thus far. The latest example of unconstitutional+underhanded mischief from the habitually-dishonest Obama was unearthed by Megyn Kelly on Fox Monday night, when in the course of researching the ObamaCare Employer Mandate delay they found 'on one little nugget... found under a mountain of new regulations': any employer who dare “reduce the size of its workforce or its overall hours of service of its employees' will...

A trend is growing across the nation to restore the ability of public employees to protect themselves.  During the last hundred years, the legal ability of public employees to carry defensive weapons has been eroded along with the rights of ordinary citizens.   Originally intended to prevent minorities and immigrants from being armed, the philosophy of a disarmed population was put in place in employee codes at all levels of government, local, state, and federal. Much of this was resisted by people with a long cultural affinity for arms, and, as with the general prohibition on concealed weapons, was selectively...

Ladies and gentlemen, be careful who you volunteer for — you could be doing them a lot more harm than good. The federal government sometimes takes dim view of such generosity. Just ask Rhea Lana Riner. She owns a small Arkansas-based business that organizes consignment sales. Since August, the Labor Department has been threatening her with stiff financial penalties, saying her business practices are illegal. It has even been contacting donors to her events and encouraging them to instigate legal action against her. Why? Well, the department says Riner cannot legally allow the people who provide items for sale to...

WASHINGTON, December 20, 2013 — Federal employees are wondering whether the President will close the government on Christmas Eve. The order to close the government for Christmas Eve 2012 came on December 21, 2012. According to Government Executive, “Obama gave federal employees a half day on Christmas Eve in 2009, when it fell on a Thursday and Christmas on a Friday. He did not order any extra holiday time in 2010 or 2011.” **SNIP** As of the publication of this article, the White House has not given any indication about Christmas Eve closures.

The layoffs come three weeks after some of the sub shop's employees protested for better wages and benefits. BY MEG GRAHAM A River North sandwich shop gave its employees an unwelcome Christmas surprise on Sunday night, firing them all by email. The 20 employees of Snarf’s Sub Shop at 600 W. Chicago Ave. received the email last night around 5 p.m. Grid obtained it this morning. It reads as follows. 1. Due to increased competition and losses, ownership has decided to consider remodeling and reconcepting the store at 600 West Chicago Ave. 2. The store is closing, effective tomorrow, December...

In a letter sent to U.S. Government workers affected by the shutdown on October 1, President Obama told federal employees he will continue to work with Congress in order to get them back to work, thanked them for their service and blamed House Republicans for the government shutdown. "To the dedicated and hard-working employees of the United States Government: The Federal Government is America's largest employer, with more than 2 million civilian workers and 1.4 million active duty military who serve in all 50 States and around the world. But Congress has failed to meet its responsibility to pass a...

(CNSNews.com) – IRS employees were ordered by their superiors--including Lois Lerner who pleaded the 5th Amendment against self-incrimination rather than testify in Congress--to send certain Tea Party tax-exemption applications to the office of the IRS's Chief Counsel, which was headed by William Wilkins, who at that time was the only Obama political appointee at the IRS, according to a letter released today by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. “As a part of this ongoing investigation, the Committees have learned that the IRS Chief Counsel’s office in Washington, D.C. has been closely involved in some of the applications,”...

(CNSNews.com) – The number of Americans receiving subsidized food assistance from the federal government has risen to 101 million, representing roughly a third of the U.S. population. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that a total of 101,000,000 people currently participate in at least one of the 15 food programs offered by the agency, at a cost of $114 billion in fiscal year 2012. That means the number of Americans receiving food assistance has surpassed the number of private sector workers in the U.S.

In a response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Americans for Limited Government, the Internal Revenue Service revealed this month that 201 of its employees work full-time on union activities. “A lot of people are not aware that under federal law, a federal agency is allowed to enter into a collective bargaining agreement with a union that has provisions where employees of the agency, in this case the IRS, are allowed to do union work on the taxpayer’s time and get paid for it,” ALG president and Nathan Mehrens explained in an interview with The Daily Caller....

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service has provided Congress with another video featuring its employees, this one showing about a dozen of them practicing dancing on a stage. The video, which lasts under three minutes, comes weeks after it was revealed that agency workers produced two other videos, parodying the "Star Trek" and "Gilligan's Island" TV shows. It also comes with the IRS under fire for targeting conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status for tough scrutiny. All three videos were provided in response to a request by a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee, Louisiana Republican...

Newly minted college graduates soon entering the job market could be facing another hurdle besides high unemployment and a sluggish economy. Hiring managers say many perform poorly—sometimes even bizarrely—in job interviews. Human resource professionals say they've seen recent college grads text or take calls in interviews, dress inappropriately, use slang or overly casual language, and exhibit other oddball behavior.

Four Pittsburgh firefighters are suing seven companies that manufacture fire trucks or sirens, claiming they've lost hearing due to the blaring sirens. (snip) They're claiming that Mack Trucks Inc., Seagrave Fire Apparatus LLC and five other firms "knew or should have known the products ... were inherently dangerous, defective and hazardous to human hearing." The men claim they've suffered irreversible hearing loss "due to exposure to the intense noise." The firefighters are seeking unspecified monetary damages

The government-backed electric car company Fisker Automotive laid off about 160 workers Friday, or roughly 75 percent of the automaker's staff, as it has struggled to find financial backing that would allow it to continue building its high concept clean cars. The layoff announcement came as the innovative start up faces a looming repayment on a loan from the U.S. Department of Energy, and as reports have swirled that it could be preparing to file for bankruptcy. As with the failed solar firm Solyndra, the green car company was once an early pick by the Obama Administration to be part...

At a time when Michigan's public sector employees' retirement plans are underfunded by tens of billions of dollars, the state is tapping those funds to pay the bills of a Michigan movie studio that defaulted on its own bills. Michigan Motion Pictures Studios, which is being celebrated in the local media for having made the movie, "Oz: The Great and Powerful," in Pontiac, has missed its last three payments on $18 million in bond obligations. The movie opens across the nation today. Under a deal made in 2010 by then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm, the State of Michigan Retirement Systems is on...

Everybody's heard the complaints about recruiting lately. Even with unemployment hovering around 9%, companies are grousing that they can't find skilled workers, and filling a job can take months of hunting. Employers are quick to lay blame. Schools aren't giving kids the right kind of training. The government isn't letting in enough high-skill immigrants. The list goes on and on. But I believe that the real culprits are the employers themselves. With an abundance of workers to choose from, employers are demanding more of job candidates than ever before. They want prospective workers to be able to fill a role...

“It’s not meant for contractors… It wasn’t intended for contractors,” said Abney of the email, which details how folks should deal with the press because of sequestration (mandatory spending cuts). But, Abney conceded, he “can’t swear” that contractors—that is, civilians—did not receive the message either. In fact, at least some of the 6,000 contractors that work with JMC received the message. The message was “intended to remind our employees that they are not spokespersons for the government,” said Abney on the phone today. Abney says he was just reminding employees that the commander in chief—President Barack Obama—is their boss. Here's...

After a barrage of guidance, the IRS finally published its proposed regs on the Affordable Care Act’s “Employer Shared Responsibility” provision, along with a practical Q&A with real-life examples for employers. Here’s help making sense of it all. At this point, virtually every organization knows that all “large” employers — those with 50 or more full-time employees — must provide all full-time equivalent employees (FTEs) with health insurance or pay a “shared-responsibility” penalty. Obamacare considers individuals who work at least 30 hours each week to be an FTE, However, many employers will be surprised by at least one clarification the...

The president of the American Federation of Government Employees says a one-percent increase is "absolutely unconscionable." The head of the largest federal employee union said Saturday that President Obama's proposal to increase pay for federal employees by 1 percent was "absolutely unconscionable" and "simply not enough." "It is not enough to allow federal employees to make up lost ground from two-plus years of frozen pay. It is not enough to allow workers, most of whom earn very modest salaries ranging from $24,000 to $70,000, to maintain living standards. And it is not enough to send a message with any kind...

President Obama will propose a 1 percent pay raise for federal civilian employees in the administration’s fiscal 2014 budget proposal, the Washington Post has learned. At the same time, the House plans to vote soon on legislation that would extend the current freeze on basic pay rates through the end of calendar 2013. The freeze was originally set for two years and scheduled to expire at the end of last year, but it was extended until a temporary budget measure expires next month. When the measure expires, federal employees will receive a 0.5 percent raise for the remainder of 2013,...