Commentary: When the State Turns Against Parents

Montana Family

A 14-year-old Montana girl has been taken from her family by the state’s child protective services after deciding to identify as a boy and will soon be sent to Canada, according to the family.

The harrowing story of Todd and Krista Kolstad’s custody battle for their troubled teen—who is Todd’s biological daughter and Krista’s step-daughter—was recently told at length by news site Reduxx.

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TBI Identifies Remains of Another Cold Case Victim

Betty Lou Wisley

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) identified the remains in yet another cold case victim, according to a Thursday press release from the organization. 

Betty Lou Wisley, born on December 30, 1935 and originally from Clinton, Missouri, was identified as the Jane Doe whose body was discovered on August 29, 1987 in Roane County. Wisley had been dumped behind a dumpster. 

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Arizona House Speaker Toma Announces Run for Congress, Endorsed by Debbie Lesko

by Charlotte Hazard   Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma announced Thursday his bid for the state’s eighth Congressional district, and already has an endorsement from current Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz. “Today, I’m announcing my candidacy for Congress in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District,” Toma wrote on the social media platform X. “Our country is in trouble and Washington DC is a mess. If we, as conservatives, don’t get our act together, we will doom the country to another four years of Joe Biden.” After prayer and thoughtful talks with my wife and daughters, I have decided to run for Congress in CD8. Please read my statement below. pic.twitter.com/ANGCx5QNKB — Ben Toma (@RepBenToma) November 2, 2023 Toma currently serves in the Arizona state legislature in District 22 and serves as the Speaker of the House. “Just as I have led the Republican caucus in the Arizona State House, I will work tirelessly to unify our party in Congress and advance a conservative agenda to change the direction of our country,” he wrote. Lesko announced last month that she would not be running for reelection in the eighth district and threw her support behind Toma following his announcement. “I’m proud to endorse @RepBenToma,” Lesko wrote on X. “Ben Toma…

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Commentary: Kamala Harris Continues to Fail at the Border

By now it is notorious that President Joe Biden’s choice as vice president and possible successor, Kamala Harris, has dismally failed in her first assignment: to do something about the flow across the American border of Central Americans. She is the latest in a series of Throttlebottoms of both parties who have been nominated for the vice-presidency: Who can forget William Miller, Thomas Eagleton, John Sparkman, Estes Kefauver, Spiro Agnew, Geraldine Ferraro, and Sarah Palin? Yet even to a person of her limited education and intelligence, there are a number of measures that should have suggested themselves.

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Electric Vehicles Are Costing Auto Manufacturers Billions While Union Strikes Take Their Toll

by Nick Pope   Electric vehicle (EV) production is costing most American automobile manufacturers billions of dollars, with a range of factors driving their unprofitability as unionized auto workers are striking to demand more from management. Companies like Rivian, Ford and General Motors (GM) are currently losing money on each EV that they sell, while Stellantis appears likely to lose money up front on their EVs when they bring them to market in 2024, according to numerous reports. Rivian has struggled immensely, according to The Wall Street Journal, and the “Big Three” carmakers are facing down the ongoing United Auto Workers (UAW) strike, with the union making demands that threaten to push costs even higher. The UAW is seeking to exact major concessions, with EVs featuring as a key driver of the labor dispute. Prior to the strike, the average UAW worker in Grass Lake, Michigan, made about $45,000 per year, according to data from ZipRecruiter. The UAW is seeking a 36 percent pay bump over the course of a four-year contract, yearly cost-of-living adjustments, restoration of pre-bailout pension benefits for all of its employees, increased protections to ensure job security, limits on the use of temporary workers and a 32-hour work week, according to CBS…

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Commentary: Parents Must Teach Their Kids Discernment

Entertainment today is extremely accessible. We can watch videos and read articles whenever we want. Each of these pieces of media, however, has its own ideology. But often, we do not even notice this ideology that is being presented to us, or the underlying assumptions of the creators.

As Frances Schaeffer explained: “The results of [people’s] thought world flow through their fingers or from their tongues into the external world. This is true of Michelangelo’s chisel, and it is true of the dictator’s sword.” Everything people create is the product of their worldview, so being able to recognize the underlying beliefs in media and entertainment is an important skill.

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Commentary: Searching for Truth and Excellence in Youth Literature and Movies

A couple of months ago, a friend of my wife and of mine, a young Italian priest, was visiting with us. Our conversation veered toward youth books and movies. Our friend lamented what he perceived as a lack of substance in contemporary books and movies for young people. He said that the books kids read and the movies they watch should reflect the truth and impel them toward right living and virtue, instead of simply mirroring the symptoms of a wounded culture. Perhaps my friend was onto something.

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Commentary: A Case for the Lost Art of Memorization

Memorization and recitation became part of my life through a club I was part of in middle and high school. With the club, I had the opportunity to recite patriotic speeches and poems along with chapters from the Bible in front of an audience of veterans, law enforcement officers, and first responders just about every month. I loved seeing how the words recited touched the people listening.

Almost without fail, after we spoke, adults would come over to thank us, amazed by the fact that we could remember so much and recite it with such confidence. Often, people said something along the lines of “I never thought kids could do that” or “That’s more than I would ever be able to do.”

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Commentary: Seven Ways Schools Are Creating ‘Empty’ Children

In the early 1990s, New York Teacher of the Year, John Taylor Gatto, threw in the towel on teaching with his famous I Quit, I Think  letter to the Wall Street Journal.

Gatto’s reason for quitting was simple. He could no longer justify teaching “a curriculum of confusion, class position, arbitrary justice, vulgarity, rudeness, disrespect for privacy, indifference to quality, and utter dependency.” Such a system, Gatto opined, was turning our children into mindless robots.

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Commentary: The Question of Socialization in Homeschooling

Questions about the socialization of homeschooled children are by far the most frequently asked of a homeschooling parent. The misconception is that without the traditional school experience to provide social training, homeschooled children will grow up having no idea how to function and fit into society.

My own children have been peppered with questions about their socialization training, or lack thereof, by complete strangers while the adult doing the questioning ignores all social cues and boundaries about the appropriateness of such an inquisition of a child. I myself have also been questioned, sometimes quite aggressively, about the issue of socialization as it relates to my homeschooled children.

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Commentary: Three Traditional Skills Young Men Should Learn

It seems that no matter where we turn in modern life we can see how modern conveniences have chipped away at the skills so many used to pride themselves on. Of course, in and of themselves, modern conveniences aren’t bad—I’m grateful for many of them—but when so many of us young people today don’t know the skills of our forefathers, I can’t help but think that we are losing that hardy, independent mindset that early Americans often embodied.

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Commentary: Homesteading in Modern Day America

Six years ago my husband and I moved our family of 10 to a five-acre hobby farm and a new lifestyle. Prior to this, we’d been living in an 1,100-square-foot brick home built in the 1940s near the boundary of St. Louis. I loved that house. It had a breakfast nook and an enclosed sunporch we referred to as the “Three Season Room.” When we bought it, I was five months pregnant with our first child. Over the next 11 years, we had a total of eight children­—four of them in that very home as I was attended by a midwife. By the time our youngest kids, a set of identical twins, were born, it was clear we could no longer live in that house. We’d outgrown it.

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Commentary: The Importance of Reading Difficult Books

In his work The Western Canon, Harold Bloom wrote that a “reader does not read for easy pleasure or to expiate social guilt, but to enlarge a solitary existence.”

The apparent message in Bloom’s flourish is that a reader ought to be after something more difficult to attain than mere pleasure. Passive consumption of entertainment will simply not do. Instead, readers are to be fully engaged with the work in front of them, especially when the process is difficult. It’s through this difficulty that a reader inevitably enlarges what Bloom refers to as a “solitary existence,” or, put another way, an existential engagement with the human condition.

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Commentary: Getting Young People Back in the Pews

Only 54 percent of Christians aged 18–35 attend church once a month or more. Meanwhile, Christianity is rapidly declining in the American population, especially in the younger generations.

The secularization of society is evident wherever we turn, and it will only worsen as young people continue to turn away from Christianity. To survive, the church needs to continue through the generations and get young people back in the pews.

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January 6 Committee Subpoenas Former President Donald Trump

The House January 6 select committee has subpoenaed former President Donald Trump as part of its ongoing investigation into the riot at the U.S. Capitol shortly before Trump left office in 2021. 

The committee in its subpoena of the Republican former president demanded that he turn over documents related to the inquiry by early next month and that he appear to testify before the committee on Nov. 14. 

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Bannon Sentenced to Four Months in Prison for Contempt of Congress Conviction, $6,500 Fine

The sentencing of ex-Trump White House political adviser Steve Bannon for contempt of Congress concluded Friday morning with four-month imprisonment and a $6,500 fine.

The judge overseeing the case said that while Bannon poses a “very small risk of recidivism with regard to congressional subpoenas,” there must be a deterrence for others to commit “similar crimes,” NBC News reported.

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New Documentary ‘The Real Anthony Fauci – the Movie’ Has 125,000 Viewers on First Day

A new documentary about the face of the COVID-19 pandemic response in the United States, Dr. Anthony Fauci, received 125,000 views on its opening day Tuesday, according to a press release. 

The film, called The Real Anthony Fauci, is based on a book called The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

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Music Spotlight: Mackenzie Carpenter

NASHVILLE, Tennessee – Those who follow my column know I find a lot of my new artists from the Song Suffragettes or SiriusXM’s The Highway. On The Highway, They feature new artists who are often named as their “Highway Finds.” And while I’m not always crazy about every new musician they feature, when I heard Mackenzie Carpenter’s “Can’t Nobody” a few months back, it was love at first listen.

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CDC Immunization Advisory Panel Likely to Weigh Recommending Routine COVID Shots for Children

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) may have scheduled in its meeting agenda for Wednesday and Thursday a vote on whether to recommend adding COVID-19 shots to the standard Child and Adolescent Immunization Schedule.

The agenda’s wording is ambiguous, as Children’s Health Defense (CHD) President and General Counsel Mary Holland noted.

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Kari Lake Receives Endorsement from Ex-Democrat Tulsi Gabbard

Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake received a new endorsement Monday from former Hawaii Representative, ex-Democrat Tulsi Gabbard.

“For too long establishment leaders from both parties have sought to enrich themselves, play games, and build up their power while ignoring and even enabling the suffering of millions of hard-working Americans. Kari Lake is a leader who puts people first, is fighting for border security, energy independence, public safety, and other policies that actually make life better and more affordable for the American people,” said Gabbard.

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‘Guns Pointed at Me’: FBI Arrests Father of 11 in Front of His Children for Pro-Life Work

The Federal Bureau of Investigation this week arrested a pro-life father of 11 children, charging him with “conspiracy against rights secured by the FACE Act, and committing FACE Act violations.”

Paul Vaughn of Centerville, Tennessee, told The Daily Signal in a Friday phone interview that FBI came to the door of his home, “guns pointed at the door, banging on the house, yelling and screaming, ‘Open up. FBI,’ that kind of thing. When I opened the door and saw the guns pointed at me, I asked them what they wanted, who they were looking for, and they said they wanted me.”

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Kiggans and Luria Trade Blows on Abortion, Economic Policy

Representative Elaine Luria (D-VA-02) and challenger Virginia Senator Jen Kiggans (R-Virginia Beach) faced off in a Wednesday debate hosted by the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce. While many of the debate questions were more business-focused, the two candidates took repeated swings at their opponents’ weak points. Kiggans attacked Luria for aligning with Democrats and cited the economic impacts of their policy, and Luria warned that if elected, Kiggans would take a hard line on abortion and other reproductive issues.

The moderator asked Luria how she felt about the end of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and what the district should expect from Luria on energy. She responded by emphasizing the importance of nuclear power and added, “What they can expect from me: offshore wind development. You know, we’re not going to wake up tomorrow and stop using oil and natural gas. Of course we need adequate transmission of oil and natural gas to support our industry in the area.”

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Actress Angela Lansbury Dies at 96

Actress Angela Lansbury passed away Tuesday at the age of 96, her family announced.

“The children of Dame Angela Lansbury are sad to announce that their mother died peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles at 1:30 AM today, Tuesday, October 11, 2022, just five days shy of her 97th birthday,” her family said, according to NBC News.

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REVIEW: ‘You Say You Want a Revolution?’ Is a Comprehensive Assessment of the Groups and Ideologies Destroying America

Our great nation and its traditions, values, and institutions continue to be attacked from within. We live in a perilous time. A revolution isn’t coming – it’s already here. The all-out assault by the progressive elites has shattered major parts of American culture – chief among them, the rule of law. We are in the midst of a life and death struggle.

While the radical Left has captured virtually all major institutions, the final outcome is still in doubt. It is imperative that we have clear insights into the true nature of the conflict and identities, tactics, and ideologies of the organized groups and forces that mean to destroy America. James Pastor’s book helps provide these insights with a comprehensive summary and analysis of the current crisis.

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Commentary: National Archives Scraps ‘Transparency’ Mission When It Comes to Trump Documents

The Biden administration has turned what should be the most transparent of government agencies, the National Archives and Records Administration, into one of the least transparent agencies—rivaling even the FBI.  

Established in 1934, the National Archives has a mission to identify, protect, preserve, and make publicly available all historically valuable records.  

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Aaron Judge Hits 62nd Home Run, Breaks Roger Maris’ Record

Aaron Judge, the gentle giant of modern baseball, slugged his 62nd home run of the season Tuesday night to surpass one of the giants of baseball past, Roger Maris.

Judge hit the home run in a game against the Texas Rangers, according to the New York Post. Barry Bonds set the existing record of 73 home runs in a single season, though he earned an asterisk next to his name for his use of steroids, as did Sammy Sosa, who racked up 66 homers in 1998.

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Commentary: The Civil Disobedience of Raising a Family

In case you haven’t noticed, times have changed, and somehow, those who hold to traditional societal norms have become the new face of counter culturalism. As this is unfamiliar territory to those on the traditional end of the spectrum, a few lessons are needed in how to live up to this new moniker. One of those lessons is how to engage in civil disobedience.

If you’re like me, the phrase “civil disobedience” conjures up images of bra-burning hippies protesting Vietnam and demanding that society “make love, not war.” But in a world where up has become down and good has become evil, civil disobedience no longer means we must take to the streets and chain ourselves to some inanimate object. In reality, the best civil disobedience we, as members of the new countercultural movement, can perform is right in our own homes, raising our families.

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Kari Lake Leads Katie Hobbs with Millions in Ads from GOP Governors Association and Superior Independent Support

As the heated Arizona gubernatorial campaign between Trump-endorsed Kari Lake and Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs continues, Lake is pulling ahead with spending related to her campaign. Through a funding maneuver, Republicans figured out how to adjust their TV ad buys in order to get better purchasing power, allowing them to obtain more than double the spots Democrats had purchased. At the same time, independent expenditures (IEs) in the race greatly favor Lake over Hobbs by over four to one.

The Republican Governors Association (RGA) has spent over $4 million on ads attacking Hobbs. That strategy is shifting, as the RGA has decided to coordinate with the Yuma Republican Party in order to get more out of their money. Since candidates and their local political parties get better airtime rates than outside groups, the RGA will fund the Yuma GOP $6.5 million to buy a total of $7.1 million in ads through election day on Nov. 8. State law allows political parties to coordinate with candidates, not out-of-state independent expenditure (IE) organizations. The first ad attacked Hobbs on border security and the second ad on taxes and spending.

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Medical Boards Punishing Doctors Exercising Independent Judgment to Practice Medicine

Various medical boards, and now even a California bill, threaten doctors who have exercised their independence from the government’s narrative in their efforts to discuss the risks of the COVID mRNA shots and the benefits of early treatments for COVID-19 with their patients.

Certification boards such as the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM), the American Board of Obstetrics & Gynecology (ABOG), and the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) have all been named in a federal lawsuit filed in July by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons Educational Foundation (AAPS) in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.  

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At White House Conference, Biden Appears to Search for House Rep. Who Died Last Month

Joe Biden on Wednesday appeared to commit an awkward gaffe when at a White House conference he apparently attempted to search for a Republican representative who died last month. 

Biden was giving an address at the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition & Health, during which at one point he commended organizers for “including bipartisan elected officials” in the event. 

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Poll: Arizona Democrats Riding on Abortion Rights to Make Up for Poor Biden Approval

Democrats in Arizona say they’re more interested in November’s election, with abortion laws becoming their battle cry. But, they will have to outwork President Joe Biden’s mid-term approval ratings.

A recent Arizona Public Opinion Pulse poll from OH Predictive Insights found that 59% of Arizona voters think there should be limits on which abortions should be legal in the state, while just 9% say it should be illegal in all instances; the latter category supports a stricter law than the one that is currently on the books in Arizona. Meanwhile, 41% of voters said abortion should be legal in all circumstances.

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Nearly 80 Newspapers Cancel Comic Strip ‘Dilbert’ as Series Adopts More Anti-Woke Jokes

Scott Adams, the author of the hit comic strip series “Dilbert,” recently confirmed that the comic has been removed from 77 different newspapers across the country. Although the exact reason for cancellation remains unconfirmed, the series has notably adopted a more politically incorrect tone with its jokes in recent years.

As reported by the Post Millennial, Adams said that the strip is no longer being circulated by Lee Enterprises, a newspaper company that owns nearly 100 papers. Adams has been the author and illustrator of “Dilbert” since 1989.

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Job Creators Network Partners with Newt Gingrich for ‘American Small Business Prosperity Plan’

A small business advocacy group has partnered with former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich to announce a plan on Wednesday to boost small businesses, fix the economy and provide opportunities for all Americans. The group announced the plan at Washington, D.C.’s Capitol Hill Club with a variety of speakers, including Gingrich who appeared live from a virtual location.

The Job Creators Network says the purpose of their American Small Business Prosperity Plan is to give members of Congress and their midterm challengers specific policies that would move America toward a positive, pro-growth economic agenda.

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Medical Center Hides Pediatric Transgender Procedures After Exposure

Health care settings that advertise surgical and hormonal procedures for gender-confused youth as young as 13 are throwing their offerings down the memory hole, following exposure by critics of such procedures for children.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center took down the pages for its transgender clinic and pediatric counterpart after conservative author Matt Walsh posted videos Tuesday of its officials calling the clinics financially lucrative and warning that resistant VUMC employees would face “consequences” for not participating.

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Appeals Court Panel Allows DOJ to Continue Reviewing Documents from Trump Raid

A panel of three judges for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed the Department of Justice to continue reviewing documents the FBI seized from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, upending part of an earlier ruling from the district court judge.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon earlier this month enjoined further federal review of the documents and appointed New York Judge Raymond Dearie as special master to independently review them.

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Migrants Whom DeSantis Flew to Martha’s Vineyard File Class Action Suit Against Him

Some of the migrants whom Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis flew to Martha’s Vineyard have filed a lawsuit against him and state officials.

These migrants allege that the group boarded the planes under false pretenses. The governor sent two planes of illegal migrants to upper crust liberal enclave Martha’s Vineyard late last week, prompting horror from the area’s residents and outrage from Democratic politicians. Authorities promptly relocated the migrants from the wealthy area to a military base near Cape Cod.

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CDC: Administrative Federal Agency Charged with Americans’ Health and Safety Flooded With Credibility Problems

While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is only one example of an administrative federal agency run by unelected bureaucrats, it is one charged with ensuring Americans receive truthful health and safety information, a daunting role for an organization now engulfed with concerns about its credibility.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky wrote in a letter made public this week her agency did not conduct a type of analysis on reports made to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) regarding COVID shots during 2021. Her agency, however, indicated otherwise in its documents and through some of its other representatives.

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Packed House Shows for Renacci’s Kick Off to Pro-MAGA Forum Series in Medina

Former Ohio Republican congressman and current Chairman of American Greatness PAC Jim Renacci held his first in a series of pro-MAGA (Make America Great Again) forums at the Thirsty Cowboy in Medina, Ohio.

“Last night, 11 conservatives from different niches talked about uniting the conservative base and forwarding MAGA policies. I think it’s the start of something great. American Greatness can be achieved,” Renacci posted on Facebook following the meeting.

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Commentary: The ‘Gold Standard’ Private Pensions Exposed Now as High-Wire Busts

Like many retirees, Jesus Nunez knew he was due a pension but was having a hard time tracking it down. Now 66, the Burbank, Illinois, resident had worked as a painter and garage worker for the Checker Taxi Co. Inc from 1978 to 1986 and then another year for its successor concern. But when Checker Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009, he never got a notice about his anticipated retirement checks. He figures he’s due about $300 per month.

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