Free Republic

Common Core is an educational curriculum being forced upon the states by the Obama administration, which is scheduled to be mostly implemented this year in the 45 states that have adopted it. Common Core eliminates local control over K-12 curriculum in math and English, instead imposing a one-size-fits-all, top-down curriculum that will also apply to private schools and homeschoolers. Common Core was has been promoted in a manner that sounds good and commendable – “States working together to create national standards for education… standards that are designed to be robust and relevant in the real world.” Common Core describes itself...

Private religious schools perform better than public schools, and public charter schools performed no better than regular public schools, according to a new study by William Jeynes, professor of education at California State University at Long Beach and senior fellow at the Witherspoon Institute at Princeton. Jeynes spoke Monday with The Christian Post about the study. He found that religious, mostly Christian, school students were a full year ahead of students who attend public and charter schools. The results of his research were recently published in vol. 87, issue 3 of the Peabody Journal of Education in an article titled,...

It seems freedom of association and religious doctrine, and the juxtaposition thereof, are concepts destined to elude liberals’ grasp. That’s the inescapable takeaway from The New York Times’ report on trouble at Boston College, where the Jesuit school’s administrators have decided to crack down on an unofficial student group dedicated to free condom distribution: “While we understand that you may not be intentionally violating university policy, we do need to advise you that, should we receive any reports that you are, in fact, distributing condoms on campus, the matter would be referred to the student conduct office for disciplinary action...

In May 1943, President Franklin Roosevelt met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the White House. It was 17 months after Pearl Harbor and a little more than a year before D-Day. The two Allied leaders reviewed the war effort to date and exchanged thoughts on their plans for the postwar era. At one point in the discussion, FDR offered what he called "the best way to settle the Jewish question." Vice President Henry Wallace, who noted the conversation in his diary, said Roosevelt spoke approvingly of a plan (recommended by geographer and Johns Hopkins University President Isaiah Bowman)...

Vice President Joe Biden, in remarks today before a meeting on guns, suggested the Obama administration is seriously considering outlawing unregulated "private" gun sales:"And so the kinds of things that there´s an emerging set of recommendations, not coming from me but coming from the groups we´ve met with," said Biden today, before a closed door meeting on gun control. "And I´m going to focus on the ones that relate primarily to gun ownership and the type of weapons can be owned. And one is,

Some interesting news has broken in the wake of the latest push for gun control by President Obama and Senate Democrats: Obama sends his kids to a school where armed guards are used as a matter of fact. The school, Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC, has 11 security officers and is seeking to hire a new police officer as we speak. If you dismiss this by saying, "Of course they have armed guards -- they get Secret Service protection," then you've missed the larger point. The larger point is that this is standard operating procedure for the school, period....

Just when you thought yesterday’s dismal jobs numbers couldn’t get any worse -- they did. According to CNSNews.com, nearly seventy-five percent of all civilian jobs created since the beginning of last summer are in the public sector: Seventy-three percent of the new civilian jobs created in the United States over the last five months are in government, according to official data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In June, a total of 142,415,000 people were employed in the U.S, according to the BLS, including 19,938,000 who were employed by federal, state and local governments. By November, according to data...

Hey, I’ve got a neat idea — why don’t we just keep growing the government, until we all can have government jobs? That can work, right? Seventy-three percent of the new civilian jobs created in the United States over the last five months are in government, according to official data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. … In the same five-month period since June, the number of people employed by government increased by 621,000 to 20,559,000. These 621,000 new government jobs created in the last five months equal 73.3 percent of the 847,000 new jobs created overall.

Avi Roeh, the head of the Binyamin Regional Council, has told employees that police are likely to open an investigation against him in the near future, regarding a sewage treatment plant built in the town of Ofra, north of Jerusalem. Roeh is accused of violating a Civil Administration stop-work order in order to complete the plant despite a complaint by a far-left group that it was built on private Arab land. In an interview with Arutz Sheva, Roeh admitted to the accusations against him, but argued that his decision had been the moral thing to do. “There are people living...

NEW DELHI: Notwithstanding the sagging economic situation, family businesses in India are thriving, as 74 per cent of firms have witnessed growth in sales in the last fiscal, says a survey by consultancy firm PwC. PwC calls the family business as a "resilient model" for the 21st century as the structure offers significant advantages and benefits - particularly with regards to their agility/flexibility, continuity and the longer-term perspective. Moreover, family businesses also have a stronger set of values than other businesses, it says. According to the Family Business Survey (FBS) 2012 conducted by PwC, 74 per cent of family businesses...

Inspired by #ThingsDemocratsSayInPrivate on Twitter.

Suppose you went to eat at a strange restaurant and, upon asking the waitress what was good on the menu, she told you that she didn’t know because she never ate there. When you ask why, she explains that the food and atmosphere are much better at her favorite place, and even though the food costs more, it’s worth it. You would naturally attribute a great deal of credibility to this waitress because she was honest enough to point you away from the place where she has a personal stake in its success. In other words, you would trust her...

Mitt Romney presents one enormous problem for Barack Obama's campaign: No divorce records. That's why the media are so hot to get their hands on Romney's tax records for the past 25 years. They need something to "pick through, distort and lie about" -- as the Republican candidate says. Obama's usual campaign method, used in 100 percent of his races, has been to pry into the private records of his opponents. Democrats aren't going to find any personal dirt on the clean-cut Mormon, so they need complicated tax filings going back decades in order to create the illusion of scandal...

Thanks Mr. Obama for telling us who you are. You’ve done America a great favor. This was not a gaffe. Nor was it twisting his words. Nor was this portion of speech taken out of context. He couldn’t resist, he HAD to say it in front of a friendly crowd, and he enjoyed every minute of it … until later. This was one of those rare moments when Obama gave us a peek into the core principles that guide his every decision. The preponderance of the evidence is in, and the truth has begun to surface despite the left’s obsession...

The private sector added just 84,000 jobs in June, a big miss from some projections that had it topping 100,000 for the month. More than 25,000 of those jobs came in temporary "help services" positions. Overall, private-sector hiring is down both sequentially and from the year-ago period. Last month, the private sector added 105,000 positions, including revisions upward this month. And in June 2011, the private sector added 102,000 jobs. The staggering temporary hiring represents both good and bad in the report. On one hand, the temporary health services industry added almost 33,000 more jobs compared with June 2011. It's...

* By: Larry Walker, Jr. *“The Private Sector is doing fine.” ~ Barack Obama *A couple days ago, Joe Weisenthal wrote an article, inappropriately entitled, “Here’s What’s Really Happened to the Private Sector Under Obama”, in which he sought to prove why Mr. Obama will be reelected. His premise, like Obama’s, is that the Private Sector is doing fine, but State and Local governments aren’t. There was no mention at all of how the Federal government, the part of the economy Mr. Obama actually influences, is doing (see the chart above). However, what Mr. Weisenthal actually did was highlight...

Much has been made of Barack Obama’s comment Friday morning that the “private sector is doing fine.” The mockery is well-deserved. The president's comment this morning has the potential to be one of those remarks that penetrates deeply into the electorate, well beyond those who keep track of the day-to-day contours of the presidential campaign. The private sector, of course, is not doing fine. GDP growth is 1.9 percent—and slowing. The private sector is adding jobs at a rate that barely outpaces population growth—and slowing. Major corporations are sitting on their cash rather than spending it, consumer confidence is down,...

MSNBC's unofficial web-branch, known as Politico, couldn't move fast enough to dismiss our story about the possibility that as a grown adult, President Obama, or those around him, might have had faked his biography Elizabeth Warren-style. To Politico, of course, that's not news. The backgrounds of private citizens supporting Governor Romney, however, elicits all kinds of time, attention, manpower, and publicity from Politico's wretched left-wingers. Back in 2008, Politico's Jonathan Martin did oppo-research on a private citizen Barack Obama approached for a photo-op. The man who would become 'Joe the Plumber' was just minding his own business when then-candidate Obama...

A bipartisan group of high ranking House members have introduced legislation to stop the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from codifying a policy that expands federal authority to regulate essentially all areas where water flows in the United States. The proposed change will have the impact of drastically expanding the federal government's regulatory control over state and private land and water resources and limit economic activity for not only the mining industry but a broad section of the nation's job-creating industries, such as agriculture, manufacturing and construction. Urge your Member of Congress to cosponsor...

A newly unveiled company with some high-profile backers — including filmmaker James Cameron and Google co-founder Larry Page — has announced plans to mine near-Earth asteroids for resources such as precious metals and water. Planetary Resources, Inc. intends to sell these materials, generating a healthy profit for itself. But it also aims to advance humanity's exploration and exploitation of space, with resource extraction serving as an anchor industry that helps our species spread throughout the solar system. (snip) "We're out there right now, talking to customers," Anderson said. "We are open for discussions with companies — aerospace companies, mining companies,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is raising money for his re-election campaign from a small group of wealthy donors who each paid $35,800 to meet with him at a hotel near the White House. Friday's fundraiser at the upscale Jefferson Hotel was closed to media coverage. Obama's campaign said about 20 people attended.

If private equity and hedge fund managers were optimistic that the election of one of their own would preserve their prized carried-interest tax break, Monday’s debate must have given them pause. Given the chance to defend his low tax rate by talking up the importance of low taxes on investment for job creation and competitiveness, Mitt Romney balked. Instead, he made an implicit case for why investment taxes shouldn’t be any lower than they are — as Newt Gingrich wants — and defended his own conduct rather than seeking to justify the tax policy.

An unknown number of the over 1,000 terrorists who are to be freed in exchange for Gilad Shalit will be allowed to return to Jerusalem. A group of concerned residents has responded by announcing the creation of an informal “terrorist warning system.” The system is simple: activists will keep tabs on freed terrorists, and will alert the public if they attempt to enter public areas or use public transportation. In addition, the terrorists’ pictures and personal information will be made available.... “The public does not know them, and they could wander freely. People do not realize that these are terrorists...

Outlays for U.S. construction projects rose 1.4% in August on public and private spending gains...Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected overall construction spending to decline 0.3%

Politics: A week ago, as the secretary of labor greeted grim job data by hailing the economy's "turnaround," the Dow fell 100 points in seconds — a vivid sign America is wising up to this administration's incompetence. Only minutes after her department reported that payrolls had shed another 131,000 positions in July, there was Secretary Hilda Solis speaking brazenly of the "strong and immediate action" the White House had taken to save or create "more than 2.5 million American jobs." But as the market action showed, investors could see she didn't know what she was talking about. But then, Solis...

Recently, at a gun show in Dayton, Ohio several people were arrested for violating the law by buying a gun when they knew it was illegal for them to do so. As usual, the media tried to hang the arrests on gun show promoters and stirred up discussion about the mythical gun show loophole. From the article: "The gun show loophole is a deadly serious problem — and this undercover operation exposes just how pervasive and serious it is," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said following the 2009 investigation funded by the city. A fact that anti-gun zealots will never...

Average annual pay for Michigan public-sector workers has grown substantially over the last decade in relation to private-sector pay. In 2001, public and private wages were comparable, with the average public-sector worker taking home about $1,400 per year less than his private-sector counterpart. However, in 2005, average public-sector pay overtook the private sector, and the gap in pay has since expanded to over $5,000 per year in favor of government workers. Over this time, wages for workers at all levels of government — local, state and federal — have grown more quickly than private-sector wages. This difference in pay does...

Home Front Defense Minister Matan Vilnai (Independence) addressed in a letter on Wednesday MK Yaakov “Ketzaleh” Katz’s (National Union) demand to determine the legal status of 13 Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, with an emphasis on finally providing zoning plans for these commuinities. In the letter, Vilnai addressed the situation in the community of Ofra, saying, “A significant part of the community of Ofra is built on private Palestinian land” and adding that as a result “the community does not have an approved jurisdiction.” Vilnai further explained that despite the opinions that were presented to him on the issue,...

With peas, acrobatics, sports and writing being the main topics at today's press conference, you may have missed a key moment when President Obama announced the stimulus was a success. And this wasn't just his opinion; there is evidence too! "Without relitigating the past, I’m absolutely convinced, and the vast majority of economists are convinced, that the steps we took in the Recovery Act saved millions of people their jobs or created a whole bunch of jobs," President Obama said at his presser on Monday morning.

RUSH: Minnesota state government is closed. The Minnesota state government shut down at midnight last night, the victim "of an ongoing dispute over taxes and spending between Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton and Republican legislative majorities. Talks fell apart well before the deadline, leaving state parks closed on the brink of the Fourth of July weekend." Oh, the tears. You see how this works? Evil Republicans, state parks are closed, the little kiddies don't get to have their snow cones and the sleigh rides, oh, no, no Fourth of July, evil Republicans. The AP says that the shutdown in Minnesota puts...

Obama dives into debt talksBy Stephen Collinson | AFP – Mon, Jun 27, 2011 The White House accused Republicans of siding with billionaires and private jet owners, as President Barack Obama waded into political talks designed to avert a "calamitous" US debt default. Obama met the top Democrat in the Senate and his minority Republican counterpart, seeking to unpick a deadlock over his call on lawmakers to lift the $14.29 trillion debt ceiling by an August 2 deadline. As political tensions rose, the White House warned of "calamitous" consequences to the global economy if the talks do not seal an...

Two weeks ago, the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. released a widely reported survey that said almost a third of private-sector employers reported they will drop their employee health insurance coverage when Obamacare's government-managed insurance exchanges come online in 2014. The survey results exploded two major claims repeatedly made by Obama during and since the conclusion of the health care debate: "If you like your health plan, you can keep it" and "It will not add one penny to the deficit." Obama and his allies reacted with fury to the McKinsey results. Obama's deputy chief of staff for policy, Nancy-Ann...

Two unrelated news stories on the same day show the contrast between government decisions and private decisions. Under the headline, “Foreclosed Homes Sell at Big Discounts,” USA Today reported that banks were selling the homes that they foreclosed on at discounts of 38 percent in Tennessee to 41 percent in Illinois and Ohio. Banks in general try to get rid of the homes that they acquire by foreclosure by selling them quickly for whatever they can get. Why? Because banks are forced by economic realities to realize that they are not real-estate companies. No matter how much expertise bank officials...

RUSH: We have the unemployment news that we are now at 9.1% unemployment. We have next to no growth. We have massive unemployment. We're in the midst of a housing disaster, oppressive regulations. All of this and the regime is demanding massive tax increases. We face a threat of reduction in the nation's credit rating. We have systemic, historic deficits and still today you can read certain stories or go to certain networks and hear them talk about the recovery! There is no recovery. If this isn't a depression, then what is? And the sad thing is, what's even worse,...

Alabama Passes Mandatory E-Verify & Immigration Enforcement Bill Friday, June 3, 2011, 1:25 PM EDT An Alabama House and Senate conference committee agreed on a new bill, which both chambers have already passed, that requires the use of E-Verify by all businesses in the state and includes several immigration enforcement provisions. Should Gov. Robert Bentley sign the bill into law, it would become one of the largest state crackdowns on illegal immigration in the country. The bill requires all businesses, public and private, to begin using E-Verify effective April 1, 2012. Businesses that do not comply face suspension of its...

Public vs. Private Sector Inequities~ By: Larry Walker, Jr. ~Did you know that most state and local government employees are exempt from Social Security taxes? Millions of Americans who are covered by state or local retirement plans do not pay into the Social Security system. If Social Security is such a great plan, then why are 17,738,156 [1] state and local government workers exempt? Why does the federal government continue to legally bind the rest of us to a sinking ship? This isn’t 1933 anymore. The time for change is now. Social Security is the biggest fraud in American history.There...

Obama’s Private Remarks Caught on Planned Parenthood, Obamacare A White House reporter last night caught pro-abortion President Barack Obama talking privately to donors using a microphone that transmitted the audio to the main correspondent press room. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/04/15/obamas-private-remarks-caught-on-planned-parenthood-obamacare/

Concealed handgun license holders would become anonymous under a bill approved by the Oregon House on Thursday. House Bill 2787 prohibits public bodies from releasing information that identifies who is licensed to carry a concealed handgun. The proposal cleared the House by a wide margin, 42 to 18. Oregon's public records law allows for public inspection of handgun license applications, which ask for character references, previous crimes and drug use. The application authorizes the sheriff's office to run a background check. Currently, applicants can claim personal safety reasons to keep information private. Privacy advocates say gun ownership is no one...

If these outfits can afford to pay lavish salaries to their heads, they don't need taxpayer help. When presidents of government-funded broadcasting are making more than the president of the United States, it's time to get the government out of public broadcasting. While executives at the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) are raking in massive salaries, the organizations are participating in an aggressive lobbying effort to prevent Congress from saving hundreds of millions of dollars each year by cutting their subsidies. The so-called commercial free public airwaves have been filled with pleas for taxpayer cash. The...

This video explains why public sector (government) workers are different from private sector (non-government) workers and private sector (non-government worker) unions. It also provides the shocking literacy rates in Wisconsin public schools despite the massive increase in education spending (that massive increase equates to increased wages and benefits for the government workers). And don’t miss the stats on how many children of government workers attend private school instead of the public government schools. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpCe79biR_8 In addition to the information in the above video, here are few more things to think about/to be clarified since most of the media outlets are...

Since the beginning of the last recession (December 2007) the private sector workforce has shrunk by 6.6% while shedding more than 7.5 million jobs. Over that same time period, the federal government workforce (excluding Census and Postal workers) has grown by 11.7% while adding 230,000 jobs. This trend has continued throughout the Obama Administration. Since President Barack Obama was sworn into office, the private sector workforce has shrunk by 2.6% while shedding 2.9 million jobs while the federal workforce (excluding Census and Postal workers) has grown by 7% while adding more than 144,000 jobs.

Radical health reforms which will allow private companies to provide NHS services, have less than a third of the public's support, a poll has revealed. The YouGov survey found only 27 percent of people are behind controversial plans proposed by health secretary Andrew Lansley to let profit-making companies increase their role in the service. The shake-up dubbed by experts as the 'biggest' in NHS history will allow GPs in England the power to commission £80 billion of treatment for patients - 80 per cent of the entire health service budget - from 'any willing provider'.

If successful, Max Mosley's bid to change the UK law on privacy could result in 'a radically different press...with a lot of the colour taken away' and 'papers folding because they can't afford the legal costs' and 'would imperil investigative journalism', it has been warned – as D-day looms in the European Court of Human Rights. Just under three years ago, the then FIA President found himself at the centre of a sensationalist tabloid sex scandal following a front page exposé published by Sunday red-top the News of the World detailing his lurid liaisons with prostitutes in a so-called 'torture...

The U.S. isn't the only place that's facing a major pension fund crisis. The Christian Science Monitor has this alarming report: People’s retirement savings are a convenient source of revenue for governments that don’t want to reduce spending or make privatizations. As most pension schemes in Europe are organised by the state, European ministers of finance have a facilitated access to the savings accumulated there, and it is only logical that they try to get a hold of this money for their own ends. In recent weeks I have noted five such attempts: Three situations concern private personal savings; two...

As tomorrow is the 66th Anniversary, I am posting this bit of history. Much to learn from this all American HERO. There is a video embedded in the link, I'll post the link to the video in comments. It is well worth watching. Neil "But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period -- I am addressing myself to the School -- surely from this period of ten months, this is the lesson: Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never -- in nothing, great or small, large or petty -- never give in, except...

Private health insurance in the U.S. will be dead in three years, U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn said Tuesday. "There will be no insurance industry left in three years," Coburn told the Republican Women's Club of Tulsa County. "That is by design. You’re going to make insurance unaffordable for everyone -- which is what they want. Because if there’s no private insurance left, what’s left? Government-centered, government-run, single-payer health care.” Coburn apparently based his prediction on reported hikes in private insurance premiums, increases he attributed to the new law. Some insurers say they have raised premiums because of new mandates, including...

MOJAVE, Calif. – Virgin Galactic's space tourism rocket SpaceShipTwo achieved its first solo glide flight Sunday, marking another step in the company's eventual plans to fly paying passengers. SpaceShipTwo was carried aloft by its mothership to an altitude of 45,000 feet and released over the Mojave Desert. After the separation, SpaceShipTwo, manned by two pilots, flew freely for 11 minutes before landing at an airport runway followed by the mothership. The entire test flight lasted about 25 minutes.

Following Friday’s report that only 67,000 new jobs were created in the private sector in August, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Chief Economist, Dr. Martin Regalia, issued the following statement: “The employment data released today shows another month of anemic job growth in the private sector and an outright decline in the total number of jobs. “While this data was better than expected, it is a sad day when such a dismal number exceeds our expectations. “Once again, these numbers are confirmation that the economy is not growing sufficiently and it is far past time for the administration and Congress...

"Personal-izing" Social SecurityPrivate accounts can work, but they're not for everyone. Girard Miller | September 15, 2010 This is the fourth in a six-month series on reforming Social Security and Medicare. As the midterm elections approach, the national parties are dancing around Social Security reform. A common theme among Republicans, conservatives and libertarians is the idea of allowing Americans an option to invest "their" money themselves. Many Democrats, claiming it will undermine the entire system, view it as a wedge issue favoring their candidates. The president's bipartisan commission on fiscal responsibility may consider this idea as part of a comprehensive,...

If the US government owns most of the land in the US and the average citizens liability for the national debt is around 45k, maybe the government should transfer ownership to citizens and sell a bunch to balance their books. What do you think the book value of all the land owned by the government is?