Free Republic

This past election season, I tried an experiment with the twelve 6th-graders in my history class: I challenged them to develop a fictional candidate and persuade the rest of us to vote for him by creating a commercial. My hidden agenda was to find out which of the kids' political positions were influenced by their parents and whether, if given the opportunity to evaluate their positions from scratch, they might choose differently. The students were ready -- dare I say waiting -- for it. See, our school happens to be in Hyde Park, that ivy-covered, venerated neighborhood otherwise known as...

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD and SANDY COHEN 2 hours ago LOS ANGELES (AP) — The health care overhaul might get a Hollywood rewrite. The California Endowment, a private foundation that is spending millions to promote President Barack Obama's signature law, recently provided a $500,000 grant to ensure TV writers and producers have information about the Affordable Care Act that can be stitched into plot lines watched by millions. he aim is to produce compelling prime-time narratives that encourage Americans to enroll, especially the young and healthy, Hispanics and other key demographic groups needed to make the overhaul a success. "We...

Philadelphia city council members have approved a resolution that calls for socialist historian Howard Zinn’s book “A People’s History of the United States” to be taught in public high schools. The resolution was backed by council members Jim Kenny and Jannie Blackwell, who believe that Zinn’s far-left socialist vision of American history is currently missing from high school textbooks. “Howard Zinn’s ‘A People’s History of the United States’ emphasizes the role of working people, women, people of color, and organized social movements in shaping history; not simply the version retold by those powerful enough to ensure history remembers their actions...

So here I am sitting watching the History channel, instead of NFL and they are talking about the mystery of 3, the ancient Egyptians, monoliths, and different dimensions. Out of nowhere they make a leap to a discussion of the White House and President 0bama authorizing the Brain Initiative. So I am a little more than caught off guard. Being the curious sort I immediately jump on my computer to look up this 'initiative,' and why our government would be so interested in our brains. Much to my surprise the website comes up on the first try and initially looks...

I’m sure glad our Kern County (Cal) Superintendent of Schools thinks Common Core is cool. I just don’t buy the line about all the decisions being made locally or that children can be okay with wrong answers. Until they know the basics – including knowing how to write cursive – an excellent exercise in character building and left-right brain interaction – they need time to grow straight and true as children should. The other evening, I helped a 4th grader with a 4 equation, 4 unknown math problem designed to determine if “a” was a larger or smaller number than...

MADISON — Some kindergartners, first-graders and second-graders in Madison public schools are apparently preparing for futures in either political cartooning or time on a psychiatrist’s couch. Kati Walsh, an elementary art teacher at the Madison Metropolitan School District in July posted some of her students’ drawings of Gov. Scott Walker in jail. Walsh suggests her young Rembrandts’ ideas for their sketches popped up out of thin air. “One student said something to the effect of ‘Scott Walker wants to close all the public schools’… So the rest of the class started drawing their own cartoons and they turned very political....

If you come from a broken or dysfunctional family, or bad neighborhood, how enticing and deceptive this indoctrination is… Via The Blaze: Fourth-grade students in Illinois are learning that “government is like a nation’s family” because it sets rules and takes care of needs such as health care and education. So says a worksheet for social studies homework that was distributed to students at East Prairie School in Skokie, Ill, complete with a drawing of Uncle Sam cradling a baby that represents the citizens. Students are then prompted to answer 10 questions comparing government and families, including how their family...

Prepping US Armed Forces to cope with extremists doesn't sound bad until you discover that an example of the type of extremists our troops may have to suppress are people who oppose taxes or tyranny. According to the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute training guide, America's Founding Fathers were “extremists who unjustly opposed legitimate ruling authorities.” The training guide says that “In U.S. history, there are many examples of extremist ideologies and movements. The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule and the Confederate states who sought to secede from the Northern states are just two examples. The...

Note: Videos and photos included. SNIPPET: "In 1967, at the Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California, World History teacher Ron Jones was asked about the Holocaust by a student. "Could it happen here?". According to the press release accompanying the latest retelling of the events that followed, "Jones came up with an unusual answer. He decided to have a two week experiment in dictatorship. His idea was to explain fascism to his class through a game, nothing more. He never intended what resulted, where his class would be turned into a Fascist environment. Where students gave up their freedom...

I stumbled across this research paper this morning. Somewhat old, but very interesting. Our tax dollars go towards government research into how they can better bludgeon "proper thinking" into our tired, battered brains. Well, I'm tired of it, anyway.... don't know about you. Name of the attached paper:  "Social consensus through the influence of committed minorities"  (April 2011). Written by:  A group of academics representing three departments at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y.:  Dept. of Computer Science, Dept. of Physics, and the Dept. of Mathematics. Work Contracted by, and for delivery in April 2011 to:      a. The Army...

President Obama told attendees at an LGBT Pride Month celebration that the U.S. needs to get marriage equality "done now," but that he believed the nation had reached a "turning point" on gay rights. "We´re not going to have to wait that long," Obama said. "From Minnesota to Maryland, from the U.S. Senate to the NBA, it´s clear we´ve reached a turning point." The president said that progress could be traced "from the courage of those who stood up." "Eventually America gets it right. That doesn´t mean we can be patient," Obama said.

The hot new video at MRCTV.org is 1995 footage of Attorney General Eric Holder, when he was the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. In his remarks before the Woman's National Democratic Club, broadcast by CSPAN 2, Holder said people should be ashamed to own guns, just the way that cigarette smokes now "cower outside of buildings" to smoke. "What we need to do is change the way in which people think about guns, especially young people, and make it something that's not cool, that it's not acceptable, it's not hip to carry a gun anymore, in the way...

This time of year, as college students return home for the summer, many parents may notice how many politically correct ideas they have acquired on campus. Some of those parents may wonder how they can undo some of the brainwashing that has become so common in what are supposed to be institutions of higher learning. The strategy used by General Douglas MacArthur so successfully in the Pacific during World War II can be useful in this very different kind of battle. General MacArthur won his victories while minimizing his casualties -- something that is also desirable in clashes of ideas...

Under President Obama, “justice” is anything but blind. Neither is it deaf. In fact, based on recent revelations, it appears to be watching your every move and listening to your every word. Still, if you happen to be a federal employee, now it’s even listening for your silence. The only thing this Obama White House seems to generate is scandal. Well, here’s yet another to add to the growing list. In addition to the Benghazi cover-up, IRS targeting of political dissenters and the illegal seizure of media phone records, whistleblowers within DOJ have contacted Liberty Counsel to express grave concerns...

Parents of children attending a Red Hook, New York, middle school are outraged after a recent anti-bullying presentation at Linden Avenue Middle School. The workshop for 13 and 14-year-old girls focused on homosexuality and gender identity. They were also taught words such as "pansexual" and "genderqueer." Parents say their daughters were told to ask one another for a kiss and they say two girls were told to stand in front of the class and pretend they were lesbians on a date.

Barack Obama held a campaign stop at Manor Technical High School in Austin, Texas today. He used the high school kids as props for his speech. Obama also told the high schoolers that he will need their help to push his agenda. “Every once in a while I’m going to need your help to lean on your elected representatives…” (VIDEO-AT-LINK) Here’s the transcript via the White House website: Now, there are three things that we’ve got to focus on to create more jobs and opportunity for the middle class. First of all, we’ve got to make America a magnet for...

Saying that too many of our children are ill-prepared for the world of the future, President Obama urged Congress to enact federal funding for pre-schools. “We need to replace the idiosyncratic influences of our ‘do-it-yourself’ methods of child rearing with a more cohesive approach,” the President said. “Leaving so much of the responsibility on each individual family is a formula for chaos. Different parents seek to instill different value systems. The result is that clashes of these value systems impede coordinated progress toward the collective well-being of all.” “In addition to providing an environment for the inculcation of better values,...

A U.S. Army officer sent an email to dozens of subordinates listing the American Family Association and Family Research Council as “domestic hate groups” because they oppose homosexuality — and warned officers to monitor soldiers who might be supporters of the groups. “Just want to ensure everyone is somewhat educated on some of the groups out there that do not share our Army Values,” read an email from Lt. Col. Jack Rich to three dozen subordinates at Fort Campbell in Kentucky. “When we see behaviors that are inconsistent with Army Values – don’t just walk by – do the right...

MADISON – The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction runs several programs that heavily emphasize racial issues in public schools. white privilege and prejudiceSome feel that one of those programs – an Americorps operation called VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) – may go a bit overboard by encouraging white students to wear a white wristband “as a reminder about your (white) privilege.” Geared towards high school students, the program “seeks to build capacity in schools and districts serving low-income families to develop an effective, sustainable, research-based program of family-school-community partnerships,” according to its Facebook page. That sounds reasonable enough. But...