Free Republic

NEW YORK (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton called for a new era of shared prosperity in America and told thousands at a presidential campaign rally Saturday that workers can trust her to fight for them. "It's America's basic bargain," Clinton said. "If you do your part, you ought to be able to get ahead, and when everybody does their part, America gets ahead too. "That bargain inspired generations of American families, including my own," the former secretary of state and first lady said.

Heading into the last quarter of Obama's presidency we heard time and time again that these two years would be the most dangerous for the Republic. His disdain for working with Congress, contempt for the Constitution, and propensity to act unilaterally would only be magnified in the remaining days of his term—after all, he’d go big because he’s going home. Now that he's made everything from health care to immigration precipitously worse, next up on the list is an experiment in social engineering.  The Onion The Hill reports: The Obama administration is moving forward with regulations designed to help diversify America’s wealthier neighborhoods, drawing fire...

Black students in New York state are 44 percent more likely than white students to have a teacher rated “ineffective” in math, and 35 percent more likely to have one rated “ineffective” in English, startling new figures from the state Education Department show. The unprecedented analysis stemmed from the results of the statewide teacher-evaluation system, which for the first time required student performance on standardized exams to factor into teachers’ ratings.

Black students in New York state are 44 percent more likely than white students to have a teacher rated “ineffective” in math, and 35 percent more likely to have one rated “ineffective” in English, startling new figures from the state Education Department show. The unprecedented analysis stemmed from the results of the statewide teacher-evaluation system, which for the first time required student performance on standardized exams to factor into teachers’ ratings.

Finally: some limits to white privilege. Apparently impersonating a black person is not covered, no matter how good your intentions. At least not if you’re a woman.Just ask Rachel Dolezal, president of the NAACP's chapter in Spokane and also a part-time professor in the Africana Studies Program at Eastern Washington University. Rachel, who claims to be white, black and Native American, was outed by her own mother to be of Czech, Swedish, and German ancestry, along with some "faint traces" of Native American heritage – like Elizabeth Warren except Rachel doesn’t even have high cheekbones. It seems this is all...

SAN FRANCISCO – Last week we were stunned to learn that chaos has been the norm in the St. Paul, Minnesota school district, due to a student disciplinary policy that replaces suspensions with time-outs, counseling and other less punitive measures. We also learned that the controversial policy was influenced by the Pacific Educational Group (PEG), a radical San Francisco-based consulting firm that claims black students lag behind academically, and tend to have more disciplinary problems, because American K-12 education is designed to benefit white students – aka “white privilege.” Now it’s becoming obvious that several other large school districts around...

EAG News reports that the public school district of St. Paul has spent $3 million over the past 5 years to work with “Pacific Educational Group, a San Francisco-based organization that tries to help public schools deal with achievement and disciplinary issues involving black students.” PEG’s educational philosophy: That standard curricula are inherently biased against black students due to “white privilege”. Curriculum changes, however, were not at the top of their list. Instead, St. Paul schools were required to revise discipline policies in order to cease suspending black students, instead punishing them via “time outs” from the classroom, along with...

resident Barack Obama's stance, expressed in his 2014 State of the Union address, is that the debate is settled and climate change is a fact. Obama is by no means unique in that view. Former Vice President Al Gore declared that "the science is settled." This "settled science" vision about climate is held by many, including those in academia. To call any science settled is sheer idiocy. Had mankind acted as though any science could possibly be settled, we'd be living in caves, as opposed to having the standard of living we enjoy today. That higher standard of living stems...

In recent months, Christopher Scalia in the Wall Street Journal and Fareed Zakaria in the Washington Post have defended studying the liberal arts in college, primarily to confront advocates of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Zakaria’s article previewed his new book, “In Defense of a Liberal Education.” From my perspective as a former engineer, two caveats arise regarding their pleas: first, “liberal” education that involves “critical thinking” disappeared decades ago, to be replaced by hyper-sensitive grievance mongering; second, the quantitative reasoning STEM occupations develops also facilitates the understanding of trade-offs people need to make rational decisions among myriad conflicting...

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Have the taxpayers of St. Paul spent nearly $3 million over the past five years to bring chaos and danger to their schools and students? Apparently so. In 2010, the St. Paul school district began a contractual relationship with the Pacific Educational Group, a San Francisco-based organization that tries to help public schools deal with achievement and disciplinary issues involving black students. PEG packages and sells the concept of victimization, for a very high price. It claims that the American education system is built around white culture, tradition and social norms – aka “white privilege” –...

What’s a white person to do? Recently, I had the pleasure to participate in the Interplay Hip Hop Symposium at Lehigh University. The event was hosted by the inimitable hip hop theatre pioneer Kashi Johnson and keynoted by brilliant lyricist and hip hop educator Asheru. I gave a lecture about white appropriation of rap. My lecture led to a discussion about how white people fit into the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Together, we came up with these, the ten cracka commandments for 2015: 1. #AllLivesMatter won’t matter until #BlackLivesMatter. This commandment is a litmus test and the greatest commandment. 2. Always remember...

Smash the patriarchy! New York police allegedly arrested two men for “manspreading” (sitting with their legs far apart) on the subway, according to a report entitled “That’s How They Get You” released by the Police Reform Organizing Project. “On a recent visit to the arraignment part in Brooklyn’s criminal court, PROP volunteers observed that police officers had arrested two Latino men on the charge of ‘man spreading’ on the subway, presumably because they were taking up more than one seat and therefore inconveniencing other riders,” the report states.

Murders are way up so far this year in Manhattan, The Post has learned. Sixteen people were killed around the borough between the first of the year and Sunday. Over the same period last year, the figure was 11. That’s an increase of about 45 percent. Shootings in the borough have also soared. There have been 50 “shooting incidents’’ since Jan. 1, compared with 31 in the same time period in 2014 — an increase of about 38 percent. Some of these “incidents’’ involved more than one victim. The number of shooting victims nearly doubled, from 33 to 61. ....

La Voz del Pueblo: What are the worst evils that beset the world today? Pope Francis: Poverty, corruption and human trafficking. I can be wrong with the statistics, but what will you tell me if I ask you: When it comes to spending, what thing in the world comes after food, clothing and medicine? The fourth is cosmetics and the fifth are pets. That is serious. Pet care is like love that is somewhat programmed; that is, I can program the loving response of a dog or a little cat, and I do not need to have the experience of...

It has long been suspected America is on the downside of history; often a self-inflicted spiral delivered by the hand of incompetence, corruption or irreverence. That being said, I cannot ignore a fundamental truth that is at the very heart of the rhetoric dividing our communities and destroying our nation. The real reason there is such a high degree of cynicism and distrust along racial lines is because of the unpleasant realities people either completely ignore, carefully avoid or foolishly justify. Call them clues or outright statistical proofs; just know they are the symptoms of our country’s impending peril. Despite...

Even Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) most ardent supporters would probably concede, albeit grudgingly, that he faces very long odds in the 2016 presidential race. So why run? Because there’s value in having a national platform for bold, progressive ideas that might otherwise be ignored. Bloomberg Politics reported yesterday, for example, on Sanders’ new plan to make public college tuition-free in the United States. The plan will provide tuition-free higher education to students at four-year colleges, the statement said, and is modeled after the way many European nations handle the costs of college. “Countries like Germany, Denmark, Sweden and many more...

Have you ever been driving along, listening to the latest hit song on a Top 20 radio station, and thought, “Man, these lyrics are really dumb?” Well, you’re not alone. According to a new study conducted by data wiz Andrew Powell-Morse, the lyrics for the last decade’s No. 1 hit songs average a third-grade reading level. Powell-Morse analyzed 225 songs that had spent three or more weeks atop the Billboard charts in four different genres (R&B/Hip-Hop, Country, Pop, and Rock) and found that a second-grader with slightly higher-than-average reading comprehension skills would have no problem grasping the lyrics. While...

A Duke University professor has reportedly been placed on leave after posting racist comments online that included talk of “the blacks” and “the Asians.” Jerry Hough commented on a New York Times editorial titled “How Racism Doomed Baltimore”...The key question,though,according to Hough, “is whether my comments were largely accurate. In writing me, no one has said I was wrong, just racist.”....full comments in the New York Times:This editorial is what is wrong. The Democrats are an alliance of Westchester and Harlem,of Montgomery County and intercity Baltimore. Westchester and Montgomery get a Citigroup asset stimulus policy that triples the market. The...

[California Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a U.S. Senate candidate] Sanchez used an offensive gesture before a group of Indian Americans [Snip] In a video captured by an observer, Sanchez tells a story about how she was invited to an event by what she thought was a Native American group. “I’m going to his office, thinking I’m going to meet with a… ” Sanchez said before clapping her hand over her mouth and making a chanting sound.

I can't help but notice that the nitwits on the left have adopted of late two ridiculous terms to blather against the sane. These terms are "White Privilege" and "Micro Aggression". Both of course are meaningless in any rational way but serve to tickle the pseudointellectual BB brains that like to think that a college education means anything these days. What I would like to do is have a competition of sorts to try and predict what the next popular nitwhittery from the left will be so we can get out ahead of it and begin the mocking of it...