Free Republic

Traditional education has taken a real beating the last 75 years. The entire Education Establishment lined up to demonize everything that teachers and schools had done for many thousands of years. The result is the vastly dumbed down classrooms we have now in K-12 education.But how, at this point, can we resurrect a vanishing paradigm? As we will see, there is one example left, as if preserved in a time capsule.Apparently, giving children lots of knowledge is what our socialist professors hate about traditional education. So these ideologues came up with a parade of insults, all designed to stop schools...

Some call it pay inequity, others call it wage gap. Whatever you call it, Dan Price has caused quite the media frenzy regarding his recent announcement that he'll slash his $1 million annual salary down to $70,000. As reported by both The New York Times on April 13, 2015, and also by CNN on April 14, 2015, the 30-year-old CEO of Gravity Payments has upped the pay of every employee to at least $70,000 while cutting his own down to the same amount. -snip Nonetheless, it appears that the reporting media seems to have missed that while Gravity Payments annually pulls in $2.2 million, even...

LIKE many other oil-field workers, Chris Sabulsky spent years working a schedule known as "14 on, 14 off": two weeks at an oil or gas well somewhere followed by another 14 days at home in East Texas, fishing for bass and crappie. But now Mr Sabulsky, 48 years old, is spending his days sending out résumés, calling acquaintances to see if they know of job openings, and pondering his future. His job managing hydraulic-fracturing, or fracking, operations at well sites evaporated in February after the oil-price plunge last year. Fracking, which uses water, chemicals and sand to free oil and...

The Food and Drug Administration is tearing into several Kind fruit and nut bars, blasting the company's claims they are healthy.Apparently there is a federal criterion for what is considered healthy, and Kind doesn't meet it, according to a recent FDA warning letter to the company.The agency singled out the labels for four Kind bars: almond and apricot, almond and coconut, peanut butter-dark chocolate and protein, and dark chocolate-cherry cashew and antioxidants.The agency took aim at several claims that the bars were "healthy," including that they were low in sodium and were a good source of fiber.

Retiring Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid wants a job at the network that is home to Brian Williams, Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz and Chris Matthews. Reid, the Nevada lawmaker who is planning to retire next year, told CNBC's John Harwood, "I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm not going to lobby. I'm not going to practice law. I'll keep busy. I may want one of your jobs here — to be an analyst on TV and say all these good things that you always say about me."

A bill that sets up a regulatory framework in Oklahoma for ridesharing programs such as Uber and Lyft passed the state Senate on Wednesday, but not before a provision protecting gay and transgender passengers from discrimination was removed. The version of the "Oklahoma Transportation Network Company Services Act" that passed the Republican-controlled Senate on a 35-11 vote defines such companies as those that use a digital network or software application to connect passengers and drivers. The House-passed version of the bill included language that prohibited the companies from discriminating against customers based on sexual orientation or gender identity. But Sen....

A Maryland pedestrian bridge frequented by fishermen, dog walkers and families who go there to watch the trains passing below collapsed Wednesday after a Metro contractor’s excavator smashed into the 50- to 60-foot structure. The span was open, but empty, at the time, and nobody was hurt. The actions of the contractor, Skanska, are under review. A large section of the bridge’s concrete base and walkway — which traversed Green Line and MARC train tracks in Prince George’s County — crashed onto a construction vehicle below, leaving the bridge’s mangled chain-link safety fencing hanging awkwardly in the air.

Praying at an outdoor Mass at Wyoming Catholic College College officials believe there are growing threats to religious freedom The decision means no federal aid to finance the annual $28,000 tuition It's part of a national debate over religious liberty vs. bias The college is urging students to seek loans from private banks LANDER, Wyo. — An insurrection is brewing here at Wyoming Catholic College, a tiny redoubt of cowboy-style Catholicism where students learn about horseback riding and Thomas Aquinas, and take grueling mountain hikes conducted entirely in Latin. Citing concerns about federal rules on birth control and same-sex marriage,...

General Motors Co will not have to face dozens of lawsuits accusing it of concealing an ignition-switch defect that has been blamed for more than 200 deaths and serious injuries, a U.S. bankruptcy judge ruled on Wednesday. Plaintiffs in the lawsuits said the company violated their constitutional rights by failing to disclose the defect, while GM had argued it was protected from claims on vehicles pre-dating its 2009 exit from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The decision by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber means GM may avoid potentially billions of dollars in liability, as well as the cost of defending those lawsuits,...

American college students are being forced off of their student health plans across the United States, and onto the state and federal exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. Back in 2013, President Obama came under fire for claiming “if you like your plan, you can keep it” in regards to Obamacare’s new plans. This was taken by most Americans as a promise that new plans would not threaten the health insurance they already had. For more and more college students however, this promise seems to have been broken as schools stop offering insurance. According...

Todd Macaluso, who helped represent Casey Anthony, faces 20 years in prisonA prominent San Diego personal injury attorney pleaded guilty Tuesday to defrauding clients, forging their signatures to gain millions of dollars from investors, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. Todd Macaluso, 52 -- a lead player in personal injury, plaintiff’s and aviation law -- once helped represent high-profile defendant Casey Anthony, a Florida mother acquitted in her 2-year-old daughter’s death. Now, he has admitted in his plea deal to bankrolling his law practice through “funding agreements” with investors. Under the plan, Macaluso would offer them the right to...

The leaders of the Legislature's budget committee on Wednesday abandoned Gov. Scott Walker's plan to strip the state Natural Resources Board and the state Agriculture Board of their policy-making powers. They also removed 13 other pieces of policy from Walker's budget, including one that would exempt research at the University of Wisconsin System from the open records law. Another one that was dropped would have had property assessment duties shifted from most municipalities to counties. In other action, the Joint Finance Committee voted to cut staff for Secretary of State Doug La Follette and reshape how courts are funded. Wednesday's...

Some of the world's biggest banks, including JP Morgan, Bank of America and US Bancorp, are withdrawing from the student loan market. That's according to a series of reports over the past couple years.It couldn't come at a worse time.That is because it coincides with a rise in students who want student loans.And, the amount of money those students want to borrow is also going up because the price of of a college education keeps rising.This chart tells the story: Federal Reserve Bank of New York -- Staff Reports April 2014 NY Federal Reserve report shows borrowers, and their average...

Fast food workers in the city and around the country are walking off the job today to demand $15 an hour. Protesters started lining up at the McDonalds on Flatbush Avenue and Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn early this morning. It's the latest day of action organized by the Fight for $15 movement. Many workers taking place in today's protest say that they work 40 hours a week and still don't make enough to cover their rent and the basic costs of living. "Every month, I make two-thirds of my rent, and that's the only thing I can do, is...

"...Mr. Walker is the top presidential choice for 24 percent of GOP primary voters, according to the poll out Wednesday from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling. ....Mr. Walker was viewed most favorably by GOP primary voters; 57 percent had a favorable opinion of him, compared to 13 percent who had an unfavorable opinion. He also led among a swath of the potential primary electorate, winning over GOP voters who identified themselves as “moderate,” “somewhat conservative” and “very conservative.”....

It’s poor-paying jobs, not unemployment, that strains the welfare system. That’s one key finding from a study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, that showed the majority of households receiving government assistance are headed by a working adult.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender characters may be showing up on television with increasing regularity, but they are still a relative rarity in mainstream movies released by the major Hollywood studios. In its third annual report about LGBT representation on film, GLAAD, the gay advocacy group, found that of the 114 releases from the major studios in 2014, only 20 of them, or 17.5 percent, included characters identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual. [Snip] Among the inclusive films, the report found, 65 percent of them featured gay male characters, less than a third featured bisexuals and about one tenth included...

It's mid-April, and Karlyn Bowman - the astute public opinion analyst at the American Enterprise Institute - has noticed something significant. Tax Day "comes and goes without a ripple," she recently wrote. There's not much fuss. Discontent with the income tax has ebbed. To buttress the point, Bowman cited intriguing survey data. A recent Gallup Poll found that only 1 percent of Americans rated taxes the nation's top problem. In a Pew poll, respondents ranked "reforming" the tax system 16th out of 24 problems. Indeed, Gallup reports that roughly half of Americans think their income-tax burden is about right. Of...

With the federal budget debate underway in Washington, both political parties are certainly sparring over different fiscal visions for the country. There is, however, a chance for rare bi-partisan agreement: repealing the federal death tax. This unpopular tax has long had an adverse impact on small, family business owners who want the next generation to continue the family legacy. Currently, the federal government seizes over 40 percent of an individual’s estate when they die. While the President wants to destroy so many of those legacies and raise taxes, Congress has the chance to go in a different direction. Federal lawmakers...

Marco Rubio announced his candidacy for president yesterday. He may be half of the makings of the 2016 GOP dream ticket. The Republicans have two big problems to solve if they hope to win the White House next time around. No, I am not talking about cracking the Latin American ancestry vote. It would be good for the party to do that, though probably more essential in the long run than right away. And there are questions about whether putting a Cuban-American on the ticket does that anyway. Cubans are already among the country’s highest turnout populations (67.2% in 2012,...