Free Republic

Even more stark is drop in enrollment among younger students: 13% for preschool and kindergarten.The number of students attending public schools during the 2020-2021 academic year fell by roughly 3% compared with the previous year. The data comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, a federal agency that analyzes education figures. The 3% drop represents some 1.5 million students according to the preliminary report. A final report will not be available until next spring, according to the NCES. Figures come from reports generated by state departments of education. There were 51.1 million students enrolled in conventional and public charter...

Bonus: as my calendar indicates today is the “observed” 4th of July I guess it’s technically a holiday. So yay, again, America: long may you run.We’re going to need a lot bigger flagIt’s going to be in the low 90s here and the current humidity is 86% so I can tell you what’s going to be going on around here: nothing. No holiday baking.Not today, pieNo holiday cooking in anything other than the microwave – it’s even too hot to “man the grill” – a sexist term considered “triggering” in Leftist America today. Ummm! That’s a manly looking meal.Fortunately I...

Boris Johnson is expected to confirm later he is confident the majority of the remaining Covid restrictions in England can be lifted from 19 July. Making face masks voluntary and ending the 1m-plus social distancing rule and QR code sign-ins at restaurants will be among the PM's announcements. He said people must "learn to live with this virus" and "exercise judgement". Infections are expected to rise when rules are eased but ministers believe deaths will be limited by vaccinations. The fourth and final stage of the government's roadmap out lockdown in England was delayed last month to no earlier than...

Excerpt:CHICAGO SHOOTING Chicago shootings: 72 shot, 13 fatally, across city in weekend shootings Several children among victims Sun-Times Media Wire Monday, July 5, 2021 6:21AMCHICAGO -- Thirteen people have been killed and at least 59 others wounded since Friday night in shootings across Chicago. At least seven children have been shot in Chicago since late Sunday afternoon. Two people were killed and at least four were wounded, including a 12-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy, in a shooting early Monday in Washington Park on the South Side.

Our adversaries can’t quite believe their good fortune. Had they thought up ways to divide and impoverish America, they could not have improved on our own collective meltdown. This Fourth of July holiday we might pause for a moment from our festivities to ask how we collectively lost our minds over the last 15 months—and are we yet regaining any semblance of our sanity? A pandemic caused by the leak of a Chinese-engineered virus and its coverup was cause enough for nationwide madness. But the spread of COVID–19 was followed by a nationalized and often politicized “flatten-the-curve” quarantine that soon...

Has all the soft media treatment left President Joe Biden thinking press conferences exist only to push his own propaganda?AP President Joe Biden had a snit fit at Friday’s press conference, lecturing reporters, “I want to talk about happy things, man,” because they were asking more questions about the Afghan pullout than he wanted to answer — and his goal was to push a narrative about his administration’s success. Which misses the point of a president facing the media, namely (in part) to get him to address issues he doesn’t prefer to discuss. The president whined, “It’s the Fourth of...

Virginia’s current battle over critical race theory in schools exemplifies the cultural war now raging. Critical race theory is a subset of “wokeism,” or woke culture. This movement seeks to permanently divide our country. The eyes of the nation are focused on these school board proceedings. Parents in Virginia’s Loudoun County school district are at the forefront of this battle for America’s soul. If the woke movement prevails, the future of the American republic is questionable. Upon exiting the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked what sort of government had been created. His answer: "A republic, if we can keep...

Writing and reading history is one of the greatest joys of life. Writing about Ronald Reagan and WWII has been singularly pleasurable for me. What was it the philosopher Erasmus said, “When I have a little money, I buy food and clothes. But anything I have left over, I buy books.” Now, we study history for many reasons: for the sheer joy of reading; of knowing more than the next guy, or as the noted teacher George Santayana said, just to learn about not repeating failures - “Those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it.” Teddy Roosevelt...

To the surprise of no one who’s been paying attention, the National Education Association (“NEA”) has formally embraced Critical Race Theory as the goal for public schools across America. This is the culmination of a decades’ long march towards communism on the part of the men and women who are responsible for educating America’s children. Education has been thrown on the dust heap of history, with Marxist indoctrination front and center on the curricula. I must admit to being prejudiced because I’ve been watching this leftward march amongst teachers for decades. My father was a public school teacher in the...

Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney has agreed to join House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Capitol riot committee — furthering her rift with Republican leaders who say it will be a politically biased inquiry — as Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called the move, “shocking” and “unprecedented.” Pelosi (D-Calif.) unveiled Cheney’s participation at a press conference, saying she “has patriotically agreed to serve on the committee.” The other committee members — seven Democrats — appeared at the press conference to field reporter questions, but Cheney was a no-show. “We’re very honored and proud that she has agreed to serve on the committee,” Pelosi...

Best way to prepare is to get the vaccine.

The bipartisan infrastructure deal endorsed by President Biden is facing fresh skepticism from key Senate Democrats who are concerned about plans to pay for the $973 billion package. Two major financing mechanisms for the spending proposal — repurposing unspent funds for unemployment benefits and state assistance — are meeting resistance from a group of Democratic senators who say higher corporate tax rates should be the primary revenue source. Leading the charge is Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who has been working on his own proposal to pay for a major infrastructure package and is now waiting for Senate...

As we celebrate America's independence, know that our founding fathers would be shaking their heads in disbelief almost daily at how Democrats have lost all common sense. Even when pointed out, they seem unable to admit that what they propose is in conflict with core American values. Their proposals don't pass the smell test! In fact, how could anyone with common sense endorse, defend or even explain such plans and policies? It's as if progressives have declared war on common sense, and America is losing because of it. Here are just a few of their priorities that assault our intellect...

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Not one of America's best exports. The cancel culture war continues in Western countries in politics, in academia, and in commerce. In England, Oxfam, the nonprofit confederation of a number of charitable organizations, founded in 1942, focusing on aid to overcome global poverty, has introduced a survey of its 1,860 staff, most of whom are white, asking how they considered themselves — non-racist, anti-racist, or neither. The implication is that non-racism is not sufficient; one has to be anti-racist. The survey states, "Racism is a power construct created by white nations for the benefit of white people. This power construct...

As Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ profile as a viable GOP presidential front-runner continues to grow, former President Donald Trump is back in the public eye and on an early ‘campaign trail’ of sorts, making public appearances perhaps earlier than he would prefer in order to - I’m guessing - throw his weight around a bit and remind everyone in the party that he’s still the Alpha dog. Given recent events, it’s not a bad idea. After all, DeSantis is and has been out there virtually every day creating accomplishments in his state that conservatives can only dream of nationwide,...

The state’s been transformed from a place of rugged individualism to a leftist hothouse – but conservatives have a way forward. Colorado. The name conjures images of dazzling vistas of snow-capped peaks, pristine rivers, and shimmering lakes. In fact, Kathleen Bates penned America the Beautiful’s lyrics as she stood atop Colorado’s fourteen-thousand-foot Pikes Peak in 1893. Who doesn’t recognize her stanza, “For purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plain?” In addition to its natural beauty and resources, Colorado has historically epitomized the spirit of The West both culturally and metaphorically. The rugged, hardworking, independent, self-reliant, conservative rural and agrarian ethic...

n authoritarian collectivism (socialism), power and paranoia live together like fraternal twins. That's what we're seeing now. In authoritarian collectivism (socialism), power and paranoia live together like fraternal twins. Each one reinforces the other. As the revolutionary party gains strength, its paranoia about the threat from "the enemy" grows. This ruling psychological principle is based on a monstrous and maximalist perversion of Woody Allen's bon mot: "Even paranoiacs have enemies." The 20th century offers familiar examples of the phenomenon: the greater the relative power of the authoritarian regime and the weaker the opposition, the greater is the regime's paranoia about...

We know that our enemies have engaged in cyber-warfare against the United States. They are ethically capable of waging psychological warfare on us as well. A conspiracy theory is a statement of fact, or implication of personal knowledge, of a conspiracy that is simply not credible to rational people. QAnon's assertion that Democrats are murdering children to harvest their adrenal glands to make adrenochrome, a chemical that can be purchased legally without resorting to murder, is an excellent example. The motive is simply not there, and neither is the opportunity, as even one mistake in such a scheme would result...

While I was wandering through Costco the other day as one of the 5% without some ridiculous mouth thong wrapped around my piehole, I began to re-think the French Revolution. Maybe it’s gotten a bad rap. Still, Marie Antoinette only suggested that the normal eat cake – hey, who doesn’t like cake? But she didn’t demand that the people humiliate and degrade themselves in every aspect of their lives. But our garbage elite does to us, and so many Americans are sheep who eagerly obey. Independence Day has come and gone, this year being not just a reminder of the...