Free Republic

China’s leadership has issued guidelines requiring universities to strengthen ideological controls in classrooms and telling professors to champion Marxism, traditional culture and socialist core values. The orders come as President Xi Jinping tightens his grip on political power and cracks down on the encroachment of supposed Western values such as press freedom and civil society groups. […] … Willy Lam, a political analyst at Chinese University in Hong Kong, said other professors were reporting tighter controls, including government monitors filing covert reports on classroom lectures. Control over professors has significantly tightened since Xi took power in late 2012, Lam said....

Tom Steyer is telling potential supporters that if he were to run for Senate in California, he would set policy goals related to climate change, taxes and public education. If he does not meet certain goals in six years, Steyer would pledge not to run for a second term. The billionaire environmentalist and former hedge fund manager spent $74 billion in the midterm elections in an effort to elect more lawmakers who want to fight climate change. Steyer also wants to ensure that the highest income earners pay effective tax rates that are at least the same level as the...

On Thursday, President Obama issued a Presidential Memorandum, directing all federal agencies to give federal workers six weeks of paid leave for parents with a new child. The President is expected to call for Congress to pass similar legislation compelling all American companies to offer the same six weeks of paid paternal leave. Small business owners are worried about the cost of this new entitlement. The President’s Council of Economic Advisers has estimated that the cost of this new perk for federal employees will run to $250 million per year. Press Secretary Josh Earnest downplayed these small business fears as...

The full weight of the failed Enlightenment experiment over-taxes the load bearing pillars that prop up a decaying Western Civilization, pillars that are buckling under the sheer weight of moral corruption on full display in modern society. The ethical structures of the West are in desperate need of repair. This new age is best characterized by the Weird Sisters crowing pronouncement “Fair is foul, and foul is fair, Hover through the fog and filthy air.” The inversion of values has been a massive moral de-construction project that has taken the time honored vertical hierarchy of virtues and vices and turned...

Lambasting what he termed “a confusing cacophony of competing private providers,” President Obama called for government “to step in and simplify everything by consolidating all broad band service under one umbrella.” “Right now, consumers face the continuous burden of choosing which plan to purchase,” the President pointed out. “There’s always a fear of choosing unwisely. If we eliminate this necessity to choose, consumers will be freed from this task. Instead of being faced with a difficult dilemma of what to do if their current provider is unsatisfactory, all consumers will be enrolled in a standard, uniform service. No one would...

Our system of values in this country needs to change, and that will require more than just a single policy measure.D’Angelo’s album, Black Messiah, caused a huge sensation when it dropped last month. Its songs were greeted as welcome transcendent messages in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement. The title of the album, with its messianic reference, hinted at its ambition to function as something like religious guidance. The songs evoke a justice-focused, religious sensibility – what I like to call a Pentecostal piety – that recalls the civil rights battle and that can underpin the Black Lives...

London: A new study has recently revealed that manicured lawns are major source of greenhouse gases, which contribute to global warming. Grass lawns soak up carbon dioxide, which is stored in the soil after the cut grass rots and so, like trees, they are considered good for the planet. But Dr. Chuanhui Gu of Appalachian State University in the US said that once the energy expended by mowing, fertilizer use and watering are taken into account, lawns actually produce more greenhouse gases than they soak up. The study is published in the Journal of Environmental Management.

With the continued rise of Socialism around the world, and anti-semitism in Europe, the appearance of a self-described Nazi running for Mayor in an American town should be a cause for concern. The Elkhart Truth reports that National Socialist, Dale Duncan, is petitioning to run for Mayor in Elkhart, Indiana: “A National Socialist who believes in the separation of races is petitioning to run for mayor of Elkhart. Dale Duncan said Thursday, Jan. 15, that he’ll be seeking sufficient signatures to get on the November ballot as a representative of theNational Socialist Movement. The Detroit-based group describes itself as a...

President wants capital gains rate, bank fees raisedEscalating his battle with congressional Republicans, President Obama will propose $320 billion in higher taxes in his State of the Union address, mostly by raising the rate on capital gains and closing tax loopholes for wealthier families, senior administration officials said Saturday. Mr. Obama also will call on lawmakers to impose a new fee on big banks with more than $50 billion in assets to discourage risky financial investments, a holdover from the Wall Street crisis that is sure to appeal to the president’s liberal base. The money raised would pay for a...

Students across the United States are getting a taste of progressivism. And it doesn’t seem to please their palates. The implementation of Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity lunch standards is encountering backlash from students and school administrators across the country. The program seems to have taught them a valuable lesson in the realities of progressivism -- that when American voters give up power to busy-body progressives, the result is more control over their lives and the loss of individual liberties. They responded to this newfound reality with boycotts, social media angst, and filled trash cans instead of filled bellies.According to the Government...

Socialism: Venezuelans are being arrested for posting Internet photos of shortages in stores. So let's get this straight: Murder and mayhem are de facto legal in that crime pit, but posting evidence of socialism's failure merits jailing. As socialism plays out to its logical conclusion in Venezuela, the specters of long lines, rationing, troop enforcers, bizarre edicts and desperate statements are now the order of the day. Not only have more than a dozen Venezuelans been arrested for posting photographs of empty store shelves on social media, three governors have responded to long lines by — prohibiting them; ordering the...

President Obama warned Europeans "not to simply respond with a hammer" in working against radicalization among its Muslim populations, and argued that the United States had an advantage on this front because American Muslims are better integrated into society.. “Our Muslim populations, they feel themselves to be Americans. There is, you know, this incredible process of immigration and assimilation that is part of our tradition that is probably our greatest strength,” Obama said Friday, as he stood next to British Prime Minister David Cameron at a news conference. “There are parts of Europe in which that's not the case, and...

When Dennie Wright went to sign up for Affordable Care Act insurance last year, it wasn’t a hard decision. His insurance agent told him he had only one insurer – Anthem Blue Cross – that he could buy from on the exchange, Covered California. Wright lives in a modest house overlooking a pasture in Indian Valley. It’s a tiny alpine community at the northern end of the Sierra Mountains, close to the border with Nevada. He lives in one of 250 zip codes where Blue Shield of California stopped selling individual insurance policies in 2014. “That was new to us,...

Three new studies offer new proof of how bad the earth's fever has gotten. It’s not often that the climate change deniers get clobbered three times in just two days. But that’s what happened with the release of a trio of new studies that ought to serve as solid body blows to the fading but persistent fiction that human-mediated warming is somehow a hoax. Good news for the forces of reason, however, is bad news for the planet—especially the oceans. “Today’s news is a clear and undeniable warning for all of us that we need to cut climate pollution and...

In the municipality of Örebro the ruling body have highlighted the problem of IS-sympathizers. According to Councillor Rasmus Persson (C), they municipality will try to help the IS-warriors who returns to Orebro getting a job and get psychological help for their traumatic experiences. - We have discussed how we should work for these guys who have come back, to make them not go back, and that they should be helped to process the traumatic experiences they have been through, says Rasmus Persson (C) to SVT Tvärsnytt. The City Council has also reasoned regarding the possibility of offering the returning men...

Shortages of basic goods in crisis-hit Venezuela has created a lucrative new profession... queuing to buy things for other people. The country is experiencing a recession triggered in part by a scarcity of hard currency - which limits imports of essential goods. As a result, there are shortages of nearly a third of all basic goods and as well as tumbling oil prices, inflation ballooned to 64% last year. Krisbell Villarroel is one of many people who make a living by waiting in line to buy everything from milk and sugar to diapers and shampoo.

There are times when a little piece of news comes in from some far flung corner of the world and it’s necessary to wonder whether one should laugh or cry about it all. So it is with this remarkable story from Venezuela. The wonders of Bolivarian Socialism are so great that governors in some parts of the country have decided to ban queuing. No, really, I promise you that I am not making this up. Here’s the news about the queuing: Governors in three Venezuelan states have banned overnight queuing amid huge and sometimes rowdy lines around shops across the...

Conundrum: Free people are not equal. Equal people are not free. A gun is like a parachute. If you need one, and don’t have one, you’ll probably never need one again. The definition of the word Conundrum is: Something that is puzzling or confusing. Here are six conundrums of socialism: In the United States of America: 1. America is capitalist and greedy – yet half of the population is subsidized. 2. Half of the population is subsidized – yet they think they are victims. 3. They think they are victims – yet their representatives run the government. 4. Their representatives...

House Democrats, fresh off massive election losses, say the problem is they didn’t make a bold enough case for tax increases and wealth transfer to the poor. They rectified that Monday with a speech by Rep. Chris Van Hollen proposing tax increases on the wealthy with the money going straight to tax cuts for the poor and middle class. The plan uses tax laws to encourage employee wage increases, reduce tax breaks for Wall Street and slap another fee on financial transactions. The government would dole out $1,000 tax credits for most workers and increase a slew of other tax...

Obama administration officials have warned that ambitious experiments run by the health law's $10 billion innovation lab wouldn't always be successful. Now there is evidence their caution was well placed. Only a small minority of community groups getting federal reimbursement to reduce expensive hospital readmissions produced significant results compared with sites that weren't part of the $300 million program, according to partial, early results. Dozens of community agencies on aging, from Ventura County, Calif., to southern Maine, were offered money to try to ensure that older people leaving the hospital received care that reduced their chances of being readmitted within...