Free Republic

The tragic event of the killing of MIchael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri have led to protests and rioting against police brutality. It brings to the surface (again) the institutional racism that has always been in our country. I think white privilege causes some to look at Ferguson as an excuse for criminal activity rather than a political protest. William Chamberlain tweeted a comment about the looting comparing it to the Boston Tea Party. I made this image.I think this leads to many questions: •What are the similarities between the events? •What are the differences? •What are the issues that each...

During the last media push for laws to disarm the population, NRA executive VP Wayne LaPierre said that a good guy with a gun is what is needed to stop a bad guy with a gun.   A recent shooting outside the Harry Stone Montessori school in Dallas is a perfect illustration of his point.  In this case, an armed citizen was present.   He happened to be an off duty police officer.   The "Gun Free School Zone" law would have worked perfectly to assure the attacker of an unarmed victim if the legally armed citizen had not been...

While the state of Michigan has questioned the accountability of charter public schools, some conventional public schools appear to get a free pass. This week, the Michigan Department of Education released its list of “Priority” schools, or those in the bottom 5 percent of academic achievement in the state. Lansing Eastern High School and Pontiac High School made the “Priority” list again for the 2013-14 school year, meaning the schools have been on the MDE’s academic watch list for five consecutive years. Gary Naeyaert, executive director of the Great Lakes Education Project, said no charter school could have stayed on...

FERGUSON, Mo. -- Michael Brown Jr. was on the verge of starting college, eager to launch himself into the adult world. Instead, on Monday he'll be mourned at his funeral, more than two weeks after his fatal shooting by a white police officer— an act that ignited days of violent protests and reawakened racial tensions that still linger in the nation. Brown, who was unarmed when he was killed, became an instant symbol of racial injustice as protesters flooded into the streets after his death. Civil rights leaders said the shooting in this predominantly black St. Louis suburb revived long...

Where does all this stuff that you’ve heard about this morning – the victim feminism, the gay rights movement, the invented statistics, the rewritten history, the lies, the demands, all the rest of it – where does it come from? For the first time in our history, Americans have to be fearful of what they say, of what they write, and of what they think. They have to be afraid of using the wrong word, a word denounced as offensive or insensitive, or racist, sexist, or homophobic. We call it “Political Correctness.” The name originated as something of a joke,...

As conservatives, we seek to build on past successes wherever we can rather than start anew. Fortunately, when we look at the question of education, the next conservatism quickly finds a lot to build on. The existing conservative movement has done some things right in this area. The most important achievement is the home schooling movement. Today, over a million American children are getting real educations at home instead of being propagandized in the public schools. Unfortunately, a new problem has cropped up which the next conservatism needs to take on now, before it gets bigger. Political Correctness, which is...

Parents sending their three- and four-year olds to preschool are facing increasing pressure to use government schools, as secular, elitist educators use government funding as a back door to remove parental choice from pre-school options. Alabama’s First Class program is growing quickly, using federal funds from the popular Head Start program to extend restrictive government regulations to preschools who agree to accept public money.  Hiding under the blanket of “ensuring quality”, these regulations cover every aspect of pre-school education. First Class funding casts a net over preschool programs, supporting those that agree to restrictive government regulations. An extensive list of...

The unbearable sadness of climate activism: Nicole Thornton remembers the exact moment her curious case of depression became too real to ignore. It was five years ago and the environmental scientist – a trained biologist and ecologist – was writing a rather dry PhD on responsible household water use. Fair enough. That would make anyone depressed. Thornton had always been easily upset by apathy towards, and denial of, environmental issues. But now she began to notice an oddly powerful personal reaction to "the small stuff" – like people littering, or neighbours chopping down an old tree. So, she's a bossy...

Superior Court Judge Robert Hobgood appeased liberal wishes today and ruled against a school vouchers program designed to provide poor and minority kids in North Carolina the opportunity to attend the same private schools as better offer children. Siding with teachers unions, atheist groups and public education administrators, Hobgood deemed the Opportunity Scholarship program to be unconstitutional. The ruling comes less than a week after the program awarded more than 360 lower-income families with education grants of $4,200 per child, providing their parents the opportunity to place their sons or daughters in a school of their choice. Fearing that poor...

In three of her last four budgets, Gov. Jennifer Granholm cut state funding to K-12 schools. In Gov. Rick Snyder's first four budgets, he has increased state funding to K-12 schools, up to a record $12 billion in 2014-15, according to the Senate Fiscal Agency. So how is Gov. Snyder being tagged by critics as the villain who has cut funding to school children? The answer lies in how the complicated nature of school funding has been the most misunderstood story reported in the media, as well as a campaign to portray schools as underfunded. “If you repeat a lie...

The Michigan Education Association is asking some members of its union who have inquired about opting out under the state's right-to-work law to initial a "Nonmember Informed Consent Form" which lists "benefits" they’d be giving up. Though misleading, the form is entirely optional and has nothing to do with the actual right-to-work process. An attorney compared the list to something people hear from telemarketers when trying to change phone services. The Association of American Educators, a professional organization for educators, called the MEA’s informed-consent form a scare tactic. “We’ve seen tactics like this in other states,” said Alexandra Freeze, spokeswoman...

I need to create a rather long,involved punch list for a volunteer event. I need to be able to add,move, and remove tasks. I need to be able to assign or re-assign tasks to individuals. Any suggestions on a simple software package for the not-so-computer-illiterate person ?

Video: Beck invited historians David Barton and Larry Schweikart on the program to analyze what America can learn from tumultuous periods of history, and the two repeatedly warned that America is starting to view people as groups, rather than individuals, and doing so has been extremely destructive throughout history. “That’s where France was [in the 18th century] … and that’s why they went through so many revolutions so quickly,” Barton explained. “Whoever won the first revolution, that was the enemy for the second revolution. The second group came in and said, ‘They’re not of our group, we’ve got to get...

In the case of Kolbe et. al. versus O’Malley, a class of various American individuals, businesses, and associations rightly challenged Maryland’s outrageous 2013 law banning honest, law-abiding citizens from possessing – not just public carrying, but possessing – several classes of firearms, such as the AR-15, and weapons – even pistols! – that hold more than ten rounds. The Federal District Judge hearing the case, a Clinton appointee named Catherine C. Blake, disregarded both legal precedent and two hundred years of scholarship, in holding, outrageously, that this blatantly unconstitutional state law was constitutional. Judge Blake declared that AR-15s and similar...

August 16, 2014 College Board Erases the Founding Fathers. By Patrick Jakeway The classic novel Brave New World describes a future in which people have lost all of their liberty and in which they have become drugged robots obedient to a central authority. It also details how this control was first established. First, the rulers had to erase all history and all the people’s memory of a time before their bondage. Today, the history of George Washington's leadership has been erased in the new Advanced Placement (AP) U.S. History test/curriculum, taking effect in the fall of 2014. The College Board,...

I was on a mission of mercy.   A close friend needed a lady and her goods to be transported cross country.   I found myself hauling a good sized trailer on I-40, looking for a gas station with easy in and out.  I stopped at Meteor Crater rest stop to give everyone a break. As I came out of the facility, I asked a gentleman who was uniformed as staff, where the next truck stop was, because I was hauling a good sized trailer.  He graciously told me that there was one at exit 255, about 20 miles further east....

* First Lady has introduced new rules that saw companies limited in what products they could advertise on signs, vending machines, cups and menu boards on school grounds * Food industry spent nearly $150 million in 2009 on marketing in schools, 93 percent was promoting drinks * Schools now require drink companies to promote their diet sodas or water on signs and scoreboards, rather than full-calorie options like Coca-Cola and Pepsi * Michelle Obama's Let's Move program is now in its fourth year Students returning back to school after the summer vacation are finding out what First Lady Michelle Obama's...

"Dark money" being used to shield political donors, bashing school choice, linking perceived societal wrongs to the "Koch Brothers" – that's the usual buzz of many left-wing websites. But controversial posts about those topics and more are also the norm for one Michigan school district. Articles about many of the usual liberal complaints fill the Twitter feed of Oakland Schools, the intermediate school district for Oakland County. It recently retweeted a post titled “Corporate America May Have the Answer for Dark Money Transparency.” While most school district Twitter accounts promote upcoming school events or awards won by staff, Oakland Schools...

A California school district is seeking a “support services consultant” to help unaccompanied illegal immigrant minors navigate the state's educational and support services. According to a USA Today report, the Oakland Unified School District began advertising for such a consultant this month to assist the unaccompanied minors with counseling, legal, health, and educational services. "In the same way there are school specialists who deal with foster youth or refugees, we need a specialist who tracks these kids," Catalina Reyes, principal at Oakland International High School, told USA Today. Since October, more than 62,900 unaccompanied minors have been detained illegally entering...

Open carriers with rifles; neither hunters nor protesters, but private purchasers at a "buy back" event Most law enforcement officers do not interact with people openly carrying riles and shotguns, or long guns, as they are collectively called.  That has been changing in recent years as more and more members of the gun culture have exercised their first and second amendment rights by openly carrying long guns.  The movement has taken off in Texas, where the open carry of modern pistols is banned in public places.   Texas is one of only six states that bans the open carry of...