Free Republic

How many times do I have to write about the problems discovered in Common Core teaching? This time it deals with Pearson Education, one of the leading companies that helps develop and train Common Core teaching. According to their website: “As the leading education services company, Pearson is serious about evolving how the world learns. We apply our deep education experience and research, invest in innovative technologies, and promote collaboration throughout the education ecosystem. Real change is our commitment and its results are delivered through connecting capabilities to create actionable, scalable solutions that improve access, affordability, and achievement.” [Emphasis mine]...

In Milwaukee, ,a woman with a concealed carry permit shot a would be robber who had been released after being accused of shooting a man in the face during an attempted car-jacking the day before.   The potentially impressive criminal career has probably ended, as the suspect is now paralyzed and in the hospital.   He is 15 years old.   From wisn.com: Police said a woman the 15-year-old tried to rob near 14th and Olive streets the day after the Motley carjacking, pulled a gun on him.Motley and his wife said the victim had a conceal carry permit and shot...

Sunday, July 13, 2014 How Diplomats, Reporters and Human Rights Activists Saved Hamas Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog As Israeli airstrikes hit Hamas targets and Hamas rockets fall on Israeli towns, some wonder how did Gaza come to run by Hamas terrorists. The answer is that the world forced Israel to let them in. In the early 90s, Nissim Toledano, a border police sergeant, was kidnapped by terrorists on the way to work. After an extended search, he was found dead in a roadside ditch. In response to that attack and numerous other atrocities committed by...

The year 1776 saw both the U.S. Declaration of Independence and publication of Gibbon’s "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."Today the United States stands on the top of the podium of world powers: however, does a Roman fate await? A visit to the dramatic Pueblo ruins in the American southwest, former home to a complex civilization that abandoned its settlements in the 12th-13th centuries A.D., warns us that circumstances can change, and dramatically. Archeology offers an education in patterns, possibilities and challenges that the U.S. should value and exploit for its future. For the U.S.,...

Ukrainians are learning the advantages of an armed citizenry the hard way.  An organization in Kiev, Київський Легіон,  (Kyiv Legion) is calling for citizens to become armed on the Swiss model.   They even suggest that it might make sense to have those who do not serve be taxed to make up for their lack of service.   This is not an uncommon concept in history, and was used in the American civil war.   I am told that this is a Google translation.   What little Russian I had is long gone, and the original is probably in Ukranian.   Russian and Ukrainian...

Nearly three hundred years since his death, Isaac Newton is as much a myth as a man. The mythical Newton abounds in contradictions; he is a semi-divine genius and a mad alchemist, a somber and solitary thinker and a passionate religious heretic. Myths usually have an element of truth to them but how many Newtonian varieties are true? Here are ten of the most common, debunked or confirmed by the evidence of his own private papers, kept hidden for centuries and now freely available online. 10. Newton was a heretic who had to keep his religious beliefs secret. True. While...

First Union Missionary Baptist Church, Meridian, MS is where we learned how Thad Cochran’s corrupt Senatorial re-election campaign upped the black vote by 30,000 over the last election with blatant lies and “walking around money” to narrowly beat opponent Chris McDaniel in last month’s Republican primary. The folks there are a bit upset with church member Rev. Stevie Fielder, the guy who broke the news. The media erroneously reported he was an Associate Pastor. No one I know blames the congregation for yielding to endless propaganda and sleazy enticements. (1) These very nice folks are upset with themselves for being...

The irrevocable Islamic and Koranic injunction upon all Muslims is to wage relentless war against any non-Muslim nation state that exists within what Islam decrees as the Dar al-Islam (the House of Islam). Wherever the Muslim foot has trod triumphal in the name of Allah, that territory is considered eternally Islamic land. If it is lost, then it enters the Dar al-Harb (the House of War) and must be retaken and the population either forcibly converted to Islam, forced into dhimmi degradation, or exterminated.

An armed citizen stopped a deadly knife attack with a warning shot.  Under the new law, that went into effect a few days ago, he can be certain that he will not be charged. Specifically, the new bill is the "Threatened Use of Force" bill, which was passed by legislators after scrutiny of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law.   That scrutiny  revealed that prosecutors were using the mandatory sentencing law to pressure people who believed they had acted in self defense, to plead out instead of going to trial.  A wide variety of groups, from the Unified Sportsmen of...

Friday, July 11, 2014 Friday Afternoon Roundup - Romney Don't Run Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog via American Digest MYTHS AND FACTS Israel is fighting an enemy that insists on having all the advantages of a state and statelessness with none of the disadvantages. The PLO/Hamas unity government is a state when it wants something from the United Nations or the United States, but it’s not a state when it comes to taking responsibility. The Muslims who live in Gaza and the West Bank are considered citizens when it comes to having political rights, but not...

It was the greatest coffee run in American history. The Ohio boys had been fighting since morning, trapped in the raging battle of Antietam, in September 1862. Suddenly, a 19-year-old William McKinley appeared, under heavy fire, hauling vats of hot coffee. The men held out tin cups, gulped the brew and started firing again. “It was like putting a new regiment in the fight,” their officer recalled. Three decades later, McKinley ran for president in part on this singular act of caffeinated heroism. At the time, no one found McKinley’s act all that strange. For Union soldiers, and the lucky...

On July 12, 1862, President Lincoln signed into law a bill creating the Army Medal of Honor. Members of the other branches of the military became eligible to receive this medal in 1915, followed by the Air Force in 1956. While there are three different versions of the medal (Army, Navy and Air Force), the Medal of Honor remains the highest military award in the United States. In 2002, the Medal of Honor flag was authorized to be given to all recipients of the Medal, the first of which (according to Wikipedia) was Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith (posthumously)...

Gabriel Mobley Gabriel Mobley and a friend, Jose Correa, were attacked without provocation in February, 2008, as they stood on a sidewalk outside a restaurant.    Jose had his eye socket fractured by the first punch thrown in the surprise attack.   As the first attacker danced back after delivering the blow, the second of the team of attackers rushed the victims.   Mobley said that he saw the second attacker reach under his shirt.   He drew his legally concealed Glock pistol and fired at the attackers.   Both were hit and died of their wounds.   All of this was captured on...

...The nation’s intellectual elites made a big vanity purchase in 2008 and the damage from that purchase cannot wholly be undone. Peggy Noonan herself endorsed Barack Obama in 2008. She then wrote glowingly of him: "He climbed steep stairs, born off the continent with no father to guide, a dreamy, abandoning mother, mixed race, no connections. He rose with guts and gifts. He is steady, calm...." That collective purchase is going to leave a mark....History is funny in that way. It doesn’t let one off the hook. Kids a hundred years hence are going to learn that this generation screwed...

At this time of year in Arizona, I open carry.   I was in a McDonald's, drinking coffee and using the Internet when I considered how ordinary this all was, and how much heat was being put on Open Carry Texas for merely working to obtain the same freedoms in Texas.   Freedoms that are part of the law in most states of the union, somewhere around 44 states, at last count.  It was particularly surprising how much of the heat was coming from within the gun culture.  So I decided to stand with Texas.   I saw a gentleman who did...

On this episode of The Conservative Beacon Podcast, Josh Price is joined by Robert J. Norrell, author of Up from History: The Life of Booker T. Washington, to discuss the inspiring life story of Booker T. Washington and its lessons for pursuing the American Dream. Head over to TheConservativeBeacon.com to listen.

Thursday, July 10, 2014 A Bloody Endless Peace Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog "War is peace," entered our cultural vocabulary some sixty-four years ago. Around the same time that Orwell's masterpiece was being printed up, an armistice was being negotiated between Israel and the Arab invading armies. That armistice began the long peaceful war or the warring peace. The entire charade did not properly enter the realm of the Orwellian until the peace process began. The peace process between Israel and the terrorist militias funded by the countries of those invading armies has gone on for...

Writing from her insulated bunker on 42nd Street, Gail Collins did Joseph Goebbels proud this July 4th. As late as April 21, 1945 Joseph Goebbels, the model for the mainstream media, made a speech hoping to rally Germans to the defense of Berlin. It was a futile exercise and he knew it. He also knew that at that point very few people were listening to him and fewer still believed what he said. Within weeks the whole Nazi empire was finally wiped away – it was over. Today’s Joseph Goebbels’ are found in the newsroom of the New York Times...

The German invaders occupied Sarajevo on April 15, 1941. Two days later, the local population looted and torched the Grand Synagogue. And on April 19, the local Germans (Volksdeutsche) removed a memorial plaque to Gavrilo Princip; it was sent to Hitler as a trophy and birthday gift. In 1930, a memorial plaque was erected above the street corner where Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, with the following inscription: “At this historic place Gavrilo Princip heralded freedom on Vidov-Dan, June 15 [28] June 1914” (Serbian: „На овом историјском мјесту, Гаврило Принцип навијести слободу, на Видов-дан 15 [28] јуна 1914“) The...

You’ve heard the war cry of fixing our broken immigration system so often it has become as ubiquitous as the Karashian’s and about as annoying. But is it broken and can we find evidence to back up that claim? To find out the truth was must look at immigration past. Whatever our conclusions we should review past efforts to fix the system and their results.