Free Republic

T.M. Landry College Preparatory School in Lousiana made headlines with a series of viral videos showing their students reacting to news that they’d been accepted to Ivy League Universities. But a new report from The New York Times has exposed the dark underbelly of the school that once boasted “a 100-percent college acceptance rate.” According to the report, transcripts were doctored and extracurricular activities were invented. Students were encouraged to lie about their family situations in order to make their successes appear even more dramatic. And students and teachers alike described a “culture of abuse” that was widespread.

A real OMG moment occurred last week when the New York Times awoke from a long sleep and published the truth about reading. Yes, it’s true. The New York Times came right out and told the world that if you want children to learn to read, they need phonics. No ifs, ands, or buts. No weird digressions into context and balanced this-or-that. No claims that people can learn to read simply by picking up a good book and reading. The article is titled “Why Are We Still Teaching Reading the Wrong Way?” Why, indeed? Here’s the gist of it: “First...

American enigmas... (1) Isn’t it weird that in America, our flag and our culture offend so many people, but our benefits don’t? (2) How can the federal government ask U.S. citizens to pay back student loans - when illegal aliens are receiving a free education? (3) Only in America are legal citizens labeled “racists” and “Nazis,” but illegal aliens are called “Dreamers.” (4) Liberals say, “If confiscating all guns saves just one life, it’s worth it.” Well, then, if deporting all illegals saves just one life, wouldn’t that be worth it? (5) I can’t quite figure out how you can...

Total student debt hit an astronomical $1.48 trillion this year. The average graduate now leaves school with $40,000 in loans hanging over his head. So is it really a surprise that Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) won over millions of young people in 2016? After all, he campaigned on student-loan bailouts and “free college.” Many students desperate for an answer now support this agenda — in the hope of escaping crushing amounts in debt. Yet government intervention is what created the higher-education bubble in the first place. One of the biggest factors behind skyrocketing tuition rates is the federal subsidization...

Israeli archeologist Ronit Lupu holds a rare stone mask dating to the Neolithic period which was found at the Pnei Hever region of southern Hebron mount, in this picture taken on November 28, 2018 ============================================================ JÉRUSALEM - The Israel Antiquities Authority on Wednesday unveiled what it said was a rare 9,000-year-old stone mask linked to the beginnings of agricultural society. The pink and yellow sandstone object was discovered in a field at the Jewish settlement of Pnei Hever, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said the IAA. The artefact was handed in to authorities in early 2018. "The mask is very...

The economist Joseph Schumpeter coined the term creative destruction––the idea that dynamic forces work incessantly to destroy existing business models and institutions and replace them with superior alternatives. Think Amazon. Academia’s myriad failings have set in motion a perennial gale of creative destruction that is breaking down existing institutions and replacing them with new models of higher education that provide a better value proposition. The fundamental problem is that universities provide too little and charge too much. Tuition has increased at a rate that far outpaces inflation; students are burdened with mountains of debt that dog them for decades and...

FULL TITLE: 'I'm sick of this little b****': Daycare worker admits killing eight-month-old girl by suffocating her with a blanket after complaining she wouldn't sleep as CCTV shows dying child thrashing her legs to escape A daycare worker has pleaded guilty to killing an eight-month-old girl by smothering her with a blanket because she wouldn't go to sleep. Walden (pictured) was said to have been frustrated at Bowman because the baby wouldn't go to sleep Walden (left) was said to have been frustrated at Bowman (right) because the baby wouldn't go to sleep Leah Walden, 24, admitted the murder of...

A giant rhino that may have been the origin of the unicorn myth survived until at least 39,000 years ago - much longer than previously thought. Known as the Siberian unicorn, the animal had a long horn on its nose, and roamed the grasslands of Eurasia. New evidence shows the hefty beast may have eventually died out because it was such a picky eater. Scientists say knowing more about the animal's extinction could help save the remaining rhinos on the planet. Rhinos are in particular danger of extinction because they are very picky about their habitat, said Prof Adrian Lister...

Social Security serves as a lifeline for the millions of seniors who rely on it to pay the bills. If you're eager to make the most of your benefits, all the while avoiding unwanted surprises at present, here are a few key mistakes you'll want to steer clear of next year. 1. Not knowing your full retirement age Though your Social Security benefits are calculated based on your lifetime earnings, the age at which you first file for them can cause that number to change. If you want to avoid losing out on benefits, you'll need to wait until you...

FULL TITLE: Snowflake students are 'being allowed to avoid exam questions they claim could be upsetting at University of Sheffield' Undergraduates are being allowed to avoid exam questions or essays they claim could be upsetting. Lecturers at the University of Sheffield have been advised about the risk of including distressing topics such as racism, sexuality and gender, and told that alternatives can be offered. ‘Sensitive and controversial issues’ in the guidance on the English literature course include politics, race, gender identity, faith and religion, sexuality, drugs and alcohol, rape, abortion, disability and domestic or sexual violence, according to the Sunday...

Hoaxed: The ‘Illegal Alien Mom with Barefoot Kids’ Photo was a Setup – Another Staged #FakeNews Production After further review, yesterday’s ‘horrific’ picture of a woman with barefoot children running from the US border wall was a hoax. In the background of the picture a group of men are posing for one camera man and another is running towards another camera man. In other areas, people are just standing around. The woman with the children was just a photo-op:

Thousands of people have protested in Budapest in support of a university founded by US-Hungarian billionaire George Soros that plans to leave the country amid strong pressure from Hungary’s right-wing government. Students from Central European University (CEU) and other universities including ELTE and Corvinus attended the rally in front of the Hungarian parliament. Protesters voiced support for CEU, which said in October that it would start admitting students to a new campus in Vienna if the government did not acknowledge its legal status by December 1. The government has rejected CEU’s claim that it complies with a controversial law requiring...

The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. Beer required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture, about 9,000 years ago. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer and vice versa. These two were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of...

Dimming the sun: The answer to global warming? Scientists are proposing an ingenious but as-yet-unproven way to tackle climate change: spraying sun-dimming chemicals into the Earth's atmosphere. The research by scientists at Harvard and Yale universities, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, proposes using a technique known as stratospheric aerosol injection, which they say could cut the rate of global warming in half.

Major Muslim leader makes this message to all Americans: “In two years America will be land of Muslims and all Christians will be our slaves” (VIDEO)

No better time than Thanksgiving break to empower yourself against your leftist relatives... If the rest of us don't matter to them, at least the left should know how communism crushed gays, native Americans, unions, etc., See the reference site "Communism at 'Peace'" ( http://communiststats.com/ ). In 2 minutes, anyone will understand the insanity of unchecked liberalism.

Women are generally attracted to manly men with big muscles and lots of money. WOW STOP THE PRESSES! I mean, can you even believe that women are still into that, given society’s #progress? Effeminate men are men too! Why aren’t we more attracted to soyboys who Uber everywhere in their jorts? The “starving artist” types are JUST AS MANLY, with their stubby manbuns and inability to pay for dinner. THIS IS SO CONFUSING! What is our DEAL, ladies?!

A British newspaper is reporting lecturers at a university have been told not to use capital letters in assignments because it might frighten students into failure. The Express detailed a memo it obtained that was sent out to Leeds Trinity's School of Journalism staff. The staff was told to "write in a helpful, warm tone, avoiding officious language and negative instructions," according to The Express. The Express says course leaders told them capitalizing specific letters could emphasize the difficulty or importance of an assignment. In a memo the newspaper obtained, it says, "Despite our best attempts to explain assessment tasks,...

Fifty years separate us today from 1968 and the two momentous legacies of the then failed presidency of Lyndon Johnson: The declaring of war on America's supposed domestic ills in the form of the "Great Society" programs, and the aggressive military intervention in a real war in Vietnam. Both of these "wars" reflected the arrogance and hubris of the social engineer who believes that he has the power and ability to remake and direct society in his own preferred image.... A part of the Vietnam War tragedy was due to the fact that it was managed by "the best and...