Free Republic

I know a lot of people on this site are against public schools, and rightly so. I just wanted to share a Charter School that does deserve credit for what they are doing. Basis Charter Schools, http://basisschools.org/ is leading a revolution in the education industry. One of my children will be attending there this year for 5th grade. He just tested into Algebra 1, for 5th grade!! There is no way that a typical public school would allow him to do that. My other child just finished 6th grade. She took Algebra 1, Latin, separate courses in Chemistry, Biology, and...

A narrow stairwell at Florida Memorial University leads to rooms filled with collages and paintings from around the country. While the artwork varies in style, there’s one common theme: almost all of the pieces depict a young man in a hooded sweatshirt. This is the headquarters of the Trayvon Martin Foundation, established by Martin’s parents after the Miami Gardens teen was killed by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. Zimmerman was acquitted last year after a racially charged, contentious trial. The historically black university hosted a ceremony Thursday that started and ended with prayer and was filled with spiritual references. The...

1. When was Ronald Reagan first sworn in as President of USA?a) 20 January 1981b) 4 November 1980c) 20 January 1989d) 4 March 1981 2. When was Ronald Reagan born?a) 6 February 1911b) 3 April 1912c) 4 July 1916d) 25 November 1921 3. Where was Ronald Reagan born?a) Honolulub) Los Alamosc) New Hampshired) Tampico 4. Which college did Ronald Reagan attend?a) Eureka Collegeb) Bethany Collegec) Trinity Colleged) Brown College 5. When did Ronald Reagan marry Nancy Davis?a) 4 March 1952b) 9 May 1956c) 6 June 1946d) 14 December 1948 6. What was Ronald Reagan's preferred nickname until the late...

Republican Party elders have learned well from their political idol, Barack H. Obama. After observing the total lawlessness of President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder over the past five and half years, as both men ignored all checks and balances without consequence, ruling Republican elites have seen fit to adopt their strategy of overt lawlessness. Unburdened from ethics, state election laws, or voter accountability, national GOP party masters adopted and replicated Obama and Holder’s “best practices” in the deep red state of Mississippi. With obscene amounts of “walking around money” (vote buying cash) in hand, the GOP united with...

Asians in Democrat-run cities had better be on guard: the Democrats’ War on Asians is about to get under way. For the past few years, Democrats have been whining about the war on women they imagine Republicans are conducting. Their empty charges can’t be proved but they don’t have to be because they’re nothing more than fund raiser letter material designed to separate liberal women from their money. Nevertheless, the Democrats have actually started their own war and this one is on Asians. To the Democrat Party, Asians are a blazing red reminder that success is not given to people...

Two principals in widely separated states tried to use police against parents with gun permits.   Both principals ended up on the losing side, when the parents refused to fold, and took them to court.  In the most recent case, the principal at Stratton Elementary School in Massachusetts contacted police after the father showed the principal his gun permit.   The father had come to talk to the principal about a drawing the son had made.  From whdh.com: The principal said the boy had drawn a phallic symbol, but 40-year-old Robert Goodwin said his son had actually drawn a gun similar...

The Muskegon Heights School District has been in deficit nine consecutive years, dating back to the 2004-05 school year, according to the Michigan Department of Education. Mosaica Education, a national charter public school operator, ran the Muskegon County school district for two years, but made no progress in ending the cycle of debt and now is ending its contract with the district. This had a few state lawmakers and State Superintendent Mike Flanagan questioning whether the state should hand an entire district over to charter public school operators, according to an article posted on the Michigan Radio website. Muskegon Heights...

The Vancouver School Board has decided that students may ask teachers and staff to address them by the pronoun of their choice, to accommodate transgender students for whom “he” and “she” do not fit. Offered as possible replacements by the board: The newly coined pronouns xe, xem, xyr, which are pronounced to rhyme with the genderless plurals, they, them, and their, only starting with the “z” sound. The policy, passed amid some controversy late Monday, is the latest in a 150-year-old linguistic tradition, born of frustration at a grammatical quirk of the English language — that pronouns must agree in...

The American Left has been expert in indoctrinating a new generation with false history. We have seen this with Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick’s Showtime TV series on the Cold War, and especially with the writings and pseudo-history of the late Howard Zinn. While conservatives — with some laudable exceptions — concentrate largely on policy issues, the left knows that it is not sufficient to work only for its own political agenda. The left realizes it needs to capture the realm of culture, which includes the portrayal of the American past.The left believes that if the American past is to...

As Rachel Jeantel’s high school graduation neared, she reminded herself of the promise she was keeping. Her slain friend, Trayvon Martin, would have wanted her to finish school, and she had promised his parents and other supporters that she would do it. And she did. The world met Jeantel during the investigation of Martin’s murder. It was disclosed that she was the last person to speak to him before he was killed by George Zimmerman. Over the course of two days, she testified as a key witness in the trial, withstanding questioning that lasted for six hours. She faced a...

Truth is one of the most powerful forces on earth. And perhaps the force most feared by compromised politicians. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's crushing defeat came at the hands of a virtual unknown college professor, one who overcame a 26 to 1 funding disadvantage in which 377 Political Action Committees (PACs) contributed to Cantor’s 2014 campaign vs. 0 (zero) PAC contributions into Brat's 2014 campaign. It's been borderline hilarious watching so many media talking heads, politicians and campaign consultants grasp at explanatory straws. It reminds me of Mark Twain's quote, "If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If...

The appalling homosexual brainwashing recently revealed at an Oakland primary school is hardly an isolated incident. The outrage at Glenview Elementary was apparently organized at least in part by a local outfit calling itself Queerly Elementary. The group’s mission is stated clearly on its website: Queerly Elementary provides services and resources to help school communities embrace lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer diversity. No one who is not profoundly sick wants children to embrace sexual perversion, or as its militant advocates call it, “lesbian, gay, etc., etc. diversity.” Yet the group’s logo makes it explicit that the purpose is to...

Public school administrators have called the costs for the teachers' pension fund a budget breaker. They won't be happy to learn the costs are increasing. The Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System (MPSERS) saw its unfunded liability increase to $25.8 billion in 2013 from $24.3 billion in 2012, according to the annual actuarial valuation report from the accounting firm, Gabriel Roeder Smith & Company. The pension liability in 2009 was about $12 billion. James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, said the additional unfunded liability is from the low rate of returns during...

First published on FrontPage Magazine. By Enza Ferreri It's not enough that in Britain non-Muslim children in publicly-funded schools, Islamic and non, are served halal meat - from animals whose throat is cut without proper stunning, according to the Islamic rite -, often without knowing it (and even British forces have been discovered to be subjected to the same treatment). Now schools in the UK are increasingly becoming the battleground of a war between radical Islam and the hopeless, dhimmi British "authorities", if this is the right term to use in the face of limp-wristed inaction. I'm not the...

Lt. Jerry Bledsoe as shown on video Second Amendment supporters continue to use the First Amendment to support their rights.   It was only a few weeks ago that a New York Times blogger, Patrick Blanchfield, linked to Gun Watch to bolster his compelling case that open carry of firearms is protected political speech under the First Amendment.  Here is a case where the ACLU in Missouri has obtained a settlement against a police officer and department for suppressing First Amendment rights that were used to support Second Amendment rights.  From the ACLU in MO: CAPE GIRARDEAU, MO—Police Officer Jerry...

It’s here in America, too. How bad? It’s anyone’s guess. But it’s prevalent in Muslim communities. According to one human rights activist, it’s a crisis. Back in 2010, I reported that here in America, the Academy of Pediatrics suggested that American doctors be given permission to perform a “nick” on girls from Islamic cultures. The norming of savagery. Because of our opposition to their “well-intentioned” abomination, the Academy of Pediatrics withdraw its “2010 Policy Statement on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) that Endorsed Pediatricians’ ‘Nicking’ of Girls’ Genitalia.” In one particular case in Australia , defense lawyers tried to slither out...

The Michigan Education Association is following through with its vow to threaten the credit of employees who don't voluntarily pay dues despite their desire to exercise their right under the law and leave the union. Bangor Public Schools kindergarten teacher Kimberle Byrd received a notice from a collection agency for unpaid dues in the amount of $394.20 with the Michigan Education Association listed as the creditor. Byrd said she thought she was out of the union when her union contract expired in 2013. The notice from the collection agency. A new contract with a tentative agreement for teachers in the...

The vast majority of those who support more infringements on the Second Amendment do so from ignorance.    Those who actively push for a disarmed public are offering people who do not own guns a variation on the theme of something for nothing.   It goes like this:  Let us take something from *them* (people who value the second amendment) and we will make *you* safer.   The best part of this deal: it costs you *nothing*!   It is another form of spending other peoples money. I remember an old joke to this effect from the Vietnam war....

In the story out of Texas, the boy's mother drives him to the hospital.  The deputy interviewing the young man found out how he was injured.  From thevindicator.com: Deputy Hobson stated that upon interviewing the young man as to how he got injured from the bullet, the young boy told Dep. Hobson that he had held a cigarette lighter under a .22 caliber bullet to see what would happen. The bullet exploded sending bullet fragments through his left middle finger and lodging in the left eye lid. There are a couple of lessons here.   The first is not...

#YesWeCode looks to close the coding inequality gap Shortly after Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in February 2012, liberal activist Van Jones was talking with his friend Prince—yes, that Prince—about the circumstances of the shooting. More “I think he made the observation,” Jones told TIME, “that when African-American young people wear hoodies people think they’re thugs, but when white kids wear hoodies you assume that they’re going to be dot-com billionaires,” a reference to the outerwear favored by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his ilk. “We just started thinking: ‘Well, how do we turn that around?’” Out of that...