Free Republic

I’m surprised. The usual argument against anti-earmark measures is that they’re essentially meaningless, which is true: Earmarks are a tiny percentage of the annual federal budget, a vanishingly small fiscal burden to bear compared to, say, nondiscretionary spending. But the porky stench of pols funneling taxpayer money to their home districts to buy influence is so foul that stuff like this necessarily makes for fantastic retail politics. It’s basically a symbolic battle against waste, in other words, with DeMint wanting to signal to Republican voters that the new GOP is serious about spending and McConnell fretting that if they don’t...

March 12, 2006 -- NO one familiar with our nation's increasingly dysfunctional public schools should have found it surprising that Colorado high-school teacher Jay Bennish delivered a 20-minute, anti-American rant straight out of Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore to his 10th grade geography class. Bennish was somewhat cruder than your average leftist teacher - but he is not unique. Smoother, more effective Bennishes are everywhere in our great American high schools. That's one reason why our graduates are so full of self-esteem and have all the right attitudes, but actually know less math, science and history than their counterparts in...