Free Republic

President Obama would veto the House Republican plan to overhaul the controversial No Child Left Behind law, his administration said Wednesday. The GOP plan, known as the Student Success Act, “represents a significant step backwards in the efforts to help all of the nation's children and their families prepare for their futures,” said the Office of Management and Budget in a statement of administration policy. The bill “abdicates the historic federal role in elementary and secondary education of ensuring the educational progress of all of America's students, including students from low-income families, students with disabilities, English learners and students of...

Reform conservatives – or reformicons, as they are sometimes known—like to think they are thinking outside the box. Some of their proposals seem archly conservative, like cutting the minimum wage, and some seem fairly left wing, like cutting corporate subsidies, as related in a WSJ story today. Their ideas are mainly marked by energy and youth and are getting a hearing among those considering presidential runs. Here are five provocative proposals: Help low-wage workers by slashing the minimum wage. While President Obama and the organized labor push to increase the minimum wage to at least $10.10 an hour from $7.25...

 SEE: Cruz: Abolish the IRS January 13th , 2015 ”Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said Monday that Republicans should take advantage of their control of Congress to abolish the Internal Revenue Service. “We need to pass fundamental tax reform making our tax code simpler, flatter, fairer,” he said Monday at Heritage Action’s 2015 conservative policy summit. ”And I’ll tell you, the single most important tax reform, we should abolish the IRS.” What is discouraging is, the above article goes on to say that Senator Ted Cruz ”… acknowledged it’s not really possible to abolish the IRS or adopt a flat tax...

SEE: GOP targets budget process for tax reform 1/13/15 ”The quiet push, led by South Dakota Sen. John Thune, seeks to use the potent tool known as budget reconciliation to give both the GOP and President Barack Obama the sweeping victory on tax policy that business groups want, which could include a significant cut in corporate tax rates as well as provide funding for a long-term transportation bill.” This is what happens when Republican voters elect Washington Establishment candidates to office. They use their power to manipulate a corruptible system of taxation to meet the Chamber of Commerce’s demands rather...

Judging by the midterm election results, the American public hasn’t forgotten President Obama’s broken promise that “if you like your health plan you can keep your health plan.” The good news for healthcare is that the fallout has disrupted the political status quo so much that a partially patient-centered healthcare reform may be possible soon after the president leaves office. Even partial reform could bring welcomed relief to millions who lost their health plans. In a study released in October, Edmund F. Haislmaier and Drew Gonshorowski of The Heritage Foundation calculate that 3.8 million people lost benefits from their jobs...

[a/k/a: "The War on Teachers"] The stats leave no doubt. There is huge dissatisfaction among teachers. The turnover rate is very high. We need to answer the obvious question, why don’t principals and administrators take better care of their teachers? The most recent MetLife Survey revealed: “Teacher Dissatisfaction At An All-Time High.” The NEA Today website continues: “Teacher job satisfaction has plummeted to its lowest level in 25 years, from 62 percent in 2008 to 39 percent in 2012 –- a total of 23 points…More than one-half of teachers report feeling under great stress several days per week, as opposed...

Some needed reforms to Ohio gun law are finally moving in the Ohio Senate.  HB 203 passed the Ohio House 63-27 in November of 2013.  It has languished in the Senate since then.   Some claim that Governor Kasich has said that he will sign the bill.   First it needs to pass the Senate. Ohio is the only state where a person claiming self defense is considered guilty until they prove themselves innocent.   Unlike all other states, Ohio requires that a person who claims self defense must prove that they acted in self defense rather than the burden of proof...

WASHINGTON — Even as President Barack Obama prepares to take executive action on immigration, an incoming GOP Senate chairman said Monday he is working on a border security bill and will aim to move it once the new Republican-controlled Congress convenes in January. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who is in line to chair the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said his legislation would include a guest worker program to reduce incentives for illegal immigration. It would build on work already done by Congress, including a House bill aimed at ensuring that 90 percent of would-be border crossers are...

Getting Immigration RITE: Reform Immigration Through Enforcement’ There’s one on every lapel including my own, but tomorrow our entire hearts should be red poppies for veterans like the perpetually plucky Canada Free Press columnist, Jerry McConnell. The poppy you wear on your lapel gets put away after each Veterans/Remembrance Day. The one in your heart can be worn forever. “It was 68 years ago today that Jerry McConnell landed with the 1st Marines on a beach at Guadalcanal, in 1942. It would be over four months before Jerry got to take a deep breath, and step back from the constant...

Every few years the debate over reforming Islam bubbles up from the depths of a culture that largely censors any suggestion that Islam needs reforming.

Is "campaign finance reform" a good way to regulate money in politics? Nationally syndicated, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and best-selling author George Will shows that, despite the innocent name given by its proponents, campaign finance reform is really a euphemism for controlling free speech. If the goal is to get money out of politics, the real solution is to get politics out of money. In other words, shrink government. In five minutes, learn the truth.

On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, the Washington Post noted an amusing coincidence: “Almost a quarter century ago, Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson served as Republican counsel on the Senate Watergate committee. Now he chairs the Senate panel investigating the current White House fund-raising scandal.” The timing was interesting because, as the Post explained, the “controversy came to light last year because of the reforms of Watergate, including requirements that campaigns and political parties regularly submit lists of their contributors to the Federal Election Commission.” The Post went on to list seven major reforms that stemmed...

The American people have had enough with the assault on their first amendment rights. They just want to be left alone by their government and government-affiliated pressure groups. It is the establishment in both parties, who is on the take from these pressure groups, that prevent ordinary Americans from speaking their minds like the civilized people we ARE. People disagree, sometimes vehemently. That’s normal and healthy, and it shouldn’t be the job of the government to shut people up. That’s not American – that’s totalitarian. How do we fix this? It’s remarkably simple. We, the normal people, outnumber the control...

A monumental opportunity has presented itself as Julian Castro, former mayor of San Antonio, takes over as the new Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and Congress looks ahead on the critical issue of housing finance reform. After years of tepid growth and false starts, leaders in Washington have the opportunity to give housing finance reform a shot in the arm. This reform is readily achievable even in today’s log-jammed Congress, as there is bipartisan consensus that the most prudent reforms would accomplish three essential goals: appropriately and strategically wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a way...

America is supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. But as we become bogged down in our many problems, I see, unfortunately, a mentality in which we are becoming increasingly a nation of the unfree – the victim – and the timid, in how we’re approaching these challenges. Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman wrote a column this week drawing attention to the latest dire projections from the Congressional Budget Office. CBO projects the nation sinking deeper and deeper into an ocean of red ink. Under a business-as-usual scenario, the Senator notes, we’ll pile...

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...

Water, Carried: Politico‘s Seung Min Kim and Carrie Budoff Brown sum up “How immigration reform died.” Some questions for them: 1) Is it true “reformers largely won the August recess [of 2013]? That sure wasn’t my recollection. My recollection is that initial opposition to amnesty at town halls was muted, in large part because frightened GOP congressmen simply stopped holding town halls. Reporters sympathetic to the “reformers” immediately rushed write stories claiming that “Immigration Reformers are Winning August.” (SNIP) You never seem to carry water for opponents of “comprehensive” legislation. Do we need to leak to you more? Take out...

SHEBOYGAN – On Monday, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner said that immigration reform will not be decided by the Congress in the 2014 calendar year. The decision to not pursue immigration reform led President Barack Obama to consider taking executive action on the issue. Wisconsin Election Watch talked to all three Republican candidates running for the 6th Congressional District on where they stand on the issue of immigration reform. More: Glenn Grothman wins endorsement of Rick Santorum Joe Leibham (R-Sheboygan) felt on whether Congress should pursue immigration reform that: “Not this year. First and foremost, we need to secure the...

President Barack Obama paused for what felt like an eternity to the immigration reform activists seated around the Roosevelt Room. Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza, had just explained why she declared him the “deporter in chief” in a speech in early March. Obama, who was infuriated when he first heard Murguia’s remarks weeks earlier, sat in silence, trying to keep his anger in check, according to advocates in attendance. (SNIP) In January, King held a key piece of paper in his jacket pocket during the immigration discussion at the House GOP retreat in Cambridge, Md....

Shawn O'Hara is a familiar name in Mississippi politics because he has run for several statewide offices under a variety of party labels, but he has yet to win an election