Free Republic

It’s been hilarious watching the left have a meltdown about Elon Musk taking over Twitter and bringing in a lot of changes. One of the things that he seems intent on doing is making the company a more viable and efficient workplace. I wrote last month about how it was more like a spa at the headquarters than a work environment, where people could work remotely if they chose to but if they came in they had meditation rooms, yoga areas, free food, and red wine on tap. ... That’s likely one of the reasons that the company wasn’t making...

Summer break is in full swing in Austin and the district wants to remind parents that starting Monday they will feed any person under the age of 18 breakfast and lunch free of charge... "One in four students in Travis County are living in a food-insecure household—that means that they don't know where their next meal is coming from."... Parents can simply drop their kid off at the school to eat or join them. "Kids can come on their own, we would prefer they come with an adult for supervision. Adults can also eat with us. Breakfast is $2.25 and...

Of the 5,052,222,946 school lunches served in Fiscal Year 2016, 73.3 percent of them — the highest percentage on record — were either free or reduced price meals, according to data posted on September 8, 2017 by the Agriculture Department’s Food and Nutrition Service. Free lunches comprised two-thirds (66.6 percent) of all lunches served in that school year; and reduced-price lunches comprised 6.7 percent. Students paid full price for the remaining 26.7 percent in Fiscal 2016, the latest year for which data is available. (FY 2016 covers the 12-month period beginning in Oct. 2015 and running through Sept. 2016. It...

Every conservative and every American worth his salt knows that there is no such thing as free lunch. And that big government does not make us more free. Too bad they get all balled up when they talk about globalism (big government on steroids) and free trade (government control of trade on steroids).

Senator Bernie Sanders, presidential candidate and America’s leading socialist, announced today that he would be introducing a bill to make college “free” for students seeking bachelor degrees. Had Milton Friedman been alive today, he would have no doubt thrown cold water on Sanders’ proposal. First, he would have likely addressed the fallacy known as the free lunch myth. You can watch him do so below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZMxvlKxyk0 Secondly, and more specifically, he would have discussed the economics of higher education. You can watch him do so below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3-_r_t7AZU It’s unfortunate that there isn’t a conservative/libertarian intellectual with the communication skills of...

FERGUSON • Tiahesia Palmer was checking out some of the free services, but her son wanted a haircut. So the Ferguson resident signed up Isiah, 7, to get his head shaved at the haircut tent at Saturday’s “Day of Hope.” He took off his ballcap and sat silently while a woman with the Elaine Steven Beauty College cleaned up around his ears. Palmer smiled. Wearing an “I-heart-FERG” T-shirt, she was happy that her community had attracted the event. Hundreds attended the festivities at Forestwood Park in Ferguson to receive free goods and services. The city and about 40 local churches,...

Gwyneth Paltrow is slashing her food budget to raise awareness about hunger. But sometimes even the best intentions are met with criticism, eye rolls and sarcasm. Last week, the Oscar winner announced that she had accepted The Food Bank for New York City challenge to live on food stamps for one week, with a grocery budget of $29 or about $1.38 per meal. According to the #FoodBankNYCChallenge, needy families are given $29 per person as part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, after Congress cut food stamps twice since 2013. Once Paltrow accepted the challenge, she tweeted...

HUMANSVILLE, Mo. - If you've ever tried to concentrate on an empty stomach, you know how much of a relief a new federal school lunch program may be for some families. In some low income areas, every student may be able to eat free breakfast and lunch. In Humansville, about 90% of the kids that go through the lunch line are already on free or reduced lunches. But the Community Eligibility Provision may now allow all Humansville students to get free breakfast and lunch. For many in the small town, it's likely a challenge to cover the grocery bill. "A...

According to local reports, New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange (NMIX) educational programs have been an utter failure over the past few weeks. The Farmington Daily Times reports, that officials from the NMIX have not been able to incentivize the locals to come out and find out about the wonders of Obamacare. Said Bloomfield Chamber of Commerce President Janet Mackey, “We advertised for three weeks before, put it on our reader board and hand-delivered invitations to various doctor's offices and small businesses. We only had seven people RSVP, and since we were also going to be providing dinner, we thought with...

<p>Meet Erin Wotherspoon, a 24-year-old broke actress and self-described foodie. This summer, she became a serial first-dater in order to check off her Toronto restaurant hit list and blog her reviews. “The plan?” she wrote on her Tumblr. “Join a slew of dating sites to find a man, any man, even a woman to finance this delectable venture into the maze of Toronto’s hottest resto nabes.”</p>

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — At Florin High School, every student gets a free lunch, even if they can afford to pay for it, and CBS13 has discovered that a lot of that free food ends up in the trash. Throwing away food is just the beginning of a drain on your taxpayer dollars. Last year, 14 percent of students paid for their own meals because they didn’t qualify for free lunch. “The federal government [now] allows, if 80 percent or more of the school is eligible for free lunch, the paid students, we would feed them for free,” said Michelle Drake...

WASHINGTON — Francis Nkam was happy in Cameroon. He had gone to college, had gotten his bachelor’s degree in education and was teaching high school. But greater opportunity called in America, and rather than spend the money on a visa application, Nkam entered the visa lottery...On his seventh try, Nkam won a visa, and he immigrated to the U.S. in 2003... Supporters of the Diversity Visa Program say it opens up pathways for people such as Nkam from underrepresented countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean countries. Critics, though, say it’s rampant with fraud in the application process. Now the...

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Black activists marked the 42nd anniversary of the War on Drugs with a protest in front of the White House aimed at ending a targeted action that has led to the disproportionate arresting, conviction and incarceration of Blacks for decades. The Institute of the Black World 21st Century, an organization dedicated to the empowerment of the Black community, mobilized a network of community groups last Monday for the “day of direct action.” Workers on their lunch breaks and a few tourists paused to snap cell phone photos of the group of activists as they marched, led by...

School is all about teaching children how the real world works. So if there is no such thing as a free lunch in the real world, should the same principle apply in our schools? West Virginia Delegate Ray Canterbury seems to think so. During a recent debate over West Virginia’s Feed to Achieve Act, Canterbury suggested that kids who cannot afford lunch should have to work for it instead. "I think it would be a good idea if perhaps we had the kids work for their lunches: trash to be taken out, hallways to be swept, lawns to be mowed,...

It is an old saying that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but a record 18.7 million American schoolchildren would not have learned that lesson when they attended school in fiscal year 2012. That is because U.S. taxpayers—via the U.S. Department of Agriculture—were picking up the tab for their lunch. According to new data from the USDA, during the average school month in fiscal year 2012, 18.7 million students in U.S. high schools and grammar schools were given completely free lunches, courtesy of the department’s National School Lunch Program. That was up from the record of 18.4...

ALBANY LOBBYING FOR "NY SAFE ACT" (Day of Action) Governor Cuomo and our legislature passed the "NY SAFE ACT." It will reduce gun violence in our state. Predictably, it is under attack by the National Rifle Association and allied groups. :::We are joining with the SEIU 1199 to lobby in Albany. This free bus trip will last from 8:00 to 4:30 with breakfast and lunch included. Meet up at 250 S Clinton St. Park in the M Lot at the corner of W Fayette and S Clinton Sts. (Parking in that lot may be validated. No sure yet.) Show your...

Many high school students enjoyed free lunch given to them by a local rabbi and while they were eating they listened to a lecture from the rabbi. Students at Great Neck North High School can hang out at fast food restaurants, go to the houses without supervision or do almost anything they want for lunch. But listening to a Torah lecture in an Orthodox Jewish synagogue should require parental consent, according to the school.

Once again the Nanny State backfires. Just when you thought it was safe to consume a big mac, along comes America’s First Nanny Michelle Obama. Mind you her favorite food is a cheeseburger and fries. But that’s not good enough for Johnny. You see while Johnny maybe a functional illiterate because he’s been deliberately dumbed down in a government indoctrination center, also known as a public school, Ms. Obama is insistent that this programmed failure is going to eat healthy, the way she doesn’t and how do we do this? By fiat or decree the same way her husband does...

Milton Friedman explodes the myth that government can provide goods and services at no one's expense

To the age-old childhood lament that the pizza at school is grease-laden, the cheese like rubber and the insides of the quesadilla like something eaten yesterday and regurgitated, add a new and more serious concern: School meal programs are larded with middle-income families that are, in Wisconsin alone, siphoning untold tens of millions of dollars away from ever-larger federal appropriations meant to help impoverished families.The practice is so common and ingrained that scores of middle-class families — when granted anonymity — have admitted during interviews that their children are being fed through government nutrition programs designed to help their less...