Free Republic

In Karen Keller’s kindergarten classroom, boys can’t play with Legos. They can have their pick of Tinkertoys and marble tracks, but the colorful bricks are “girls only.” “I always tell the boys, ‘You’re going to have a turn’ — and I’m like, ‘Yeah, when hell freezes over’ in my head,” she said. “I tell them, ‘You’ll have a turn’ because I don’t want them to feel bad.” Although her approach might anger some parents, Keller is sticking to her guns: It’s all part of a plan to get girls building during “free choice,” the 40 minutes of unstructured play time...

Full title: 'Christmas is a charade': Pope says atrocities such as Paris massacre have made festivities meaningless in a world which has chosen 'war and hate'... The Pope has called Christmas a 'charade' during a sermon in which he reflected on recent atrocities around the world. Among the acts of inhumanity he denounced were the Paris attacks, which left 129 dead, and the bombing of a Russian airliner over Egypt, which killed all 224 people on board. Christmas festivities will seem empty in a world which has chosen 'war and hate', Pope Francis said yesterday at the Vatican.

Gavin and Tom delivered their fraud right on schedule ahead of Paris, just as I predicted they would. They claim that October had the highest temperature anomaly ever recorded for any month....Somehow, they managed to calculate Earth’s temperature within 0.01 degrees – even though they had no temperature data for about half of the land surface, including none in Greenland and very little in Africa or Antarctica.

Although the Obama administration currently refuses to temporarily pause its Syrian refugee resettlement program in the United States, the State Department in 2011 stopped processing Iraq refugee requests for six months after the Federal Bureau of Investigation uncovered evidence that several dozen terrorists from Iraq had infiltrated the United States via the refugee program.

The United States passed its first official refugee legislation to address the plight of displaced Europeans following World War II. Most refugees are displaced from their country of origin to a neighboring country, and then resettled to a third country through international organizations. The United States resettles more refugees than any other country, refugees who go on to contribute to our communities and our economy.

The Russian air force just pulled off one of the biggest and most complex heavy bomber missions in modern history—sending no fewer than 25 Backfire, Bear, and Blackjack bombers on a coordinated, long-range air raid against alleged ISIS forces in Syria. The Tuesday mission, which launched under the cover of darkness from a base in Ossetia in southern Russia, signaled a significant escalation of Moscow’s air war in Syria—and heralded the rebirth of Russian heavy bomber squadrons that once had withered from a lack of funding.

Ignored in news coverage of the Paris massacre is the single most pertinent piece of background: A 2014 opinion poll found that ISIS had an approval rating in France (at 16%) almost as high as President Francois Holland (at 18%). In the 18-to-24-year-old demographic, ISIS’ support jumped to 27%. Muslims comprise about a tenth of France’s population, so the results imply that ISIS had the support of the overwhelming majority of French Muslims (and especially Muslim youth), as well as the endorsement of a large part of the non-Muslim Left. Reporting the survey, conducted by the polling organization ICM for...

[Snip]...On Tuesday, November 10, the Minnesota Student Association (MSA) — the undergraduate student government at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (UMN) — rejected a resolution for a moment of recognition on future anniversaries of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks…."I am well aware that 9/11 was a devastating tragedy but I am also fearful for the welfare of our Muslim and Middle Eastern students on campus, of which I identify with."

On Friday, MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell actually fact-checked Hillary Clinton’s suspicious tale of trying to join the Marines in 1975: "Those comments are being mocked by Republicans today and they’re getting two Pinocchios from Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler....Why on earth would she go to a Marine recruiter in 1975?...It doesn't make sense." Her guest, Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was so taken aback that the Florida congresswoman attacked Mitchell for asking questions: "With all due respect, Andrea, why on earth are we talking about this?" Mitchell hit back: "Because she brought it up in New Hampshire the...

A Syrian passport has been retrieved from one of the suicide bombers who blew himself up outside the Stade de France stadium in Paris last night, according to two French police officers. The second of the suicide bombers is believed to have been as young as 15 years old. Meanwhile, witnesses reported hearing at least two of the terrorists at the Bataclan Theatre speaking perfect French.

Last month the Pentagon sent a tough signal to its fastest-growing rival in Asia when a U.S. Navy warship sailed close by an artificial Chinese island in the contested waters of the South China Sea. The message: The U.S. will stand by its allies as they confront China's increasingly muscular military. This month, the Defense Department picked Joint Base Lewis-McChord for a friendlier exchange between the two world powers. The Army is opening up the South Sound base for a weeklong exercise with its Chinese counterpart, the People's Liberation Army. It's fairly small compared with some of the standard engagements...

When this Philippine coastal town rid itself two decades ago of a giant US naval base, it wanted to shake off a colonial past and reject the “ugly Americans.” Yet today the town is once again welcoming American military personnel and viewing the US as a vanguard against an increasingly pushy China. The US Navy began using the base in Subic Bay last year to deliver materiel and personnel for annual joint military exercises. Some 6,000 US personnel came to Subic in April, and are set to return for exercises in 2016 in agreement with Philippine authorities, according to a...

A tip from the public led police in California's capital city to arrest a 28-year-old man Wednesday in the stabbing of a U.S. airman hailed as a hero for helping thwart a European terror attack.Air Force Staff Sgt. Spencer Stone was knifed three times in the torso on Oct. 8 in a fight near a bar in Sacramento, shortly after nightclub patrons applauded the 23-year-old for his role in tackling a gunman with ties to radical Islam on a Paris-bound passenger train in August.

If you’re Social Justice Warrior, you’re a liar. You actively spread absurd falsehoods about the nature of men, women, sex, and culture that can’t withstand even the slightest scrutiny. You change history and conceal facts to fit preferred narratives, even when it costs human lives. You claim the best of intentions yet achieve the worst of outcomes. And through it all, you hate the very nation and political system that have granted you the liberties you so grotesquely abuse...SNIP...If you disagree — if you think that political correctness is gaining momentum — then consider a few facts. First, the top...

How scary are your jack-o’-lanterns? Scarier than you think, according to the Energy Department, which claims the holiday squash is responsible for unleashing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Most of the 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkins produced in the U.S. end up in the trash, says the Energy Department’s website, becoming part of the “more than 254 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) produced in the United States every year.”

The fast-food breakfast wars are upon us. With McDonald's starting all-day breakfast, Burger King responding in kind, Wendy's flailing in the breakfast arena, and Taco Bell revamping its morning menu, the competition is more intense than ever. But in the midst of the battle, some weaknesses are rising. We tested three main breakfast items from the major fast-food chains. We tried breakfast from McDonald's, Taco Bell, Burger King, and Wendy's — here's who does it best Marina Nazario and Hollis Johnson Oct. 28, 2015, 9:02 AM 1,083,325 35  facebook  linkedin  twitter  email  print fast food...

Infrastructure: California's high-speed rail project will never make its current 2022 arrival time, according to the Los Angeles Times. Doesn't this strike anyone in charge of this costly boondoggle as ironic?...Officials still haven't settled on a route, they're behind schedule in acquiring land, getting permits and financing, and the project faces several lawsuits. Boring on the 36 miles of planned tunnels isn't likely to get started until 2019, the Times notes, and by any reasonable estimate it will take another 7 to 14 years to complete. Even that's probably optimistic, since several parts will traverse known fault lines, vastly increasing...

SNIP:...The crowning achievement of Alinsky was recruiting both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama — who are now at the pinnacle of power in the Democrat Party. Obama was trained in political and community organizing at the Alinsky-founded Industrial Areas Foundation in Chicago. Hillary developed a personal relationship with Alinsky after expounding on Alinsky methods in her senior thesis at Wellesley College in 1969.

Islamic supremacist Imraan Siddiqi complained to Sears about the hats, and it was apparently his complaint alone that was enough for them to remove the hats from sale. After he succeeded in strong-arming Sears into removing the hats, he screamed “Allahu akbar”:

An Oklahoma congressman has sent a second letter to the Secretary of the Army demanding access to Ranger School records for the classes that have involved female soldiers. Republican Rep. Steve Russell, an infantry battalion commander who is Ranger qualified, has continued his quest as a third woman prepares to graduate from the Army’s most demanding combat leadership school Friday at Fort Benning. In a second letter to Secretary John McHugh dated Oct. 7, Russell said he is concerned that some of the documentation he has requested has been destroyed. “I was somewhat puzzled by the Army officials informing me...