Free Republic

LAUREL — Multiple Laurel parents say they are currently— or planning on— homeschooling their children following claims of bullying in Laurel schools. The parents voiced their concerns on a social media post in a private Laurel resident group after a concerned mother posted asking for advice on dealing with bullying for her son. Samantha Willis from Laurel is a mother of six and told MTN News on Wednesday that the problem is so bad, she's considering pulling her children from the schools and switching to homeschooling. “I actually pulled them (temporarily) from school last year due to it. You bring...

A mother of a middle school student was shocked when the Joshua Independent School District in Joshua, Texas, charged her over $7,000 in public records fees to disclose how many bullying reports the district had received since 2015. The Goldwater Institute first reported this outrageous demand for a simple sum of documents. The mother is combatting the exorbitant fee via an appeal to the Texas Attorney General’s Office. The mother, Terrie Chumchal, filed the request following the district’s lack of aid over a two-year period of vicious bullying in which her son repeatedly tried to obtain help from his school,...

Typically, in American schools, bullying is like the dark cousin to prom, student elections, or football practice: Maybe you weren’t involved, but you knew that someone, somewhere was. In 2011, President Obama spoke against this inevitability at the White House Conference on Bullying Prevention. “With big ears and the name that I have, I wasn’t immune. I didn’t emerge unscathed,” he said. “But because it’s something that happens a lot, and it’s something that’s always been around, sometimes we’ve turned a blind eye to the problem.” We know that we shouldn’t turn a blind eye: Research shows that bullying is...

President Xi Jinping on Sunday kicked-off the 20th congress of China's ruling Communist Party with warnings that he may use force to retake Taiwan as he slammed foreign interference in its reunification efforts. The gathering of roughly 2,300 delegates from around the country began in the vast Great Hall of the People on the west side of Tiananmen Square amid tight security and under blue skies after several smoggy days in the Chinese capital. Xi began a speech that touted the party's safeguarding of national security, maintaining social stability, protecting people's lives and taking control of the situation in Hong...

Rayne Barton, 62, didn’t expect that her first visit to the doctor in months would end in arrest, but there she was on July 22, in the waiting room with her wrists handcuffed behind her back. She would not be seeing the doctor that day. Barton, of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, would not leave as requested after she refused to wear a COVID-19 face mask, which is required at Hypertension and Kidney Specialists in Lancaster. Hypertension and Kidney Specialists is an independent practice with an office on the Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health Suburban Pavilion property. At the request of the office...

I will never get over the fact that our society seems to produce a steady stream of young men who think it is heroic to murder innocent people. I read their histories. I look at the social science research. I’ve tried to understand the typical pathway they take to get to their evil behavior. The common thing to say about mass shooters is that they have mental health issues, but that’s often misleading. This has been studied in a variety of ways. A majority of mass shooters do not have diagnosed mental illness. It’s mostly the circumstances that drive them...

School officials believe a threat posted on social media against a Montgomery County high school was actually part of an elaborate plan to bully another student. The threat against Winston Churchill High School was posted on social media Tuesday. Montgomery County Police (MCP) Detectives investigated the threat and found there was "no immediate credible threat" to the school. Principal John Taylor now says the posted threat was part of a plan to bully the student who owns the account that was used to make the threats. Taylor claims the bullied student had no involvement in posting the threats. "That student...

Perhaps no group of people is more alarmed about Elon Musk’s plan to make Twitter a free speech free-for-all than those most likely to be targeted for harassment: women, racial minorities and other marginalized groups. They fear that a more hands-off approach to policing the platform will embolden purveyors of hate speech, bullying and disinformation to ratchet up their bad behavior — a possibility Musk has done little to dispel. Yet even those who have faced extreme harassment on Twitter say they are unlikely to quit the platform. Despite the negative psychological toll, they still place a high value on...

China launched a cyber attack against a major American media institution. Russia is amassing troops on Ukraine’s border. Hundreds of thousands of people illegally cross America’s southern border and nearly 44,000 bridges across our country are deemed structurally deficient. That’s just a smattering of the serious issues facing our country while we continue fumbling our way through the pandemic unleashed by China. Considering all that, why would we take the time to opine about bullying and complaining about how more needs to be done, yada-yada? Fair question. I thought the same. Is bullying, especially cyberbullying, really an issue worthy of...

The family of a 17-year-old junior who was hospitalized last week after a fight at Brashear High School said it was the fourth time this academic year that the boy had been attacked by the same student and blamed school administrators for failing to take action to ensure his safety. Video of the latest incident, which occurred Friday, shows a student lifting up the 17-year-old boy and slamming him head first into the ground in a school hallway, then stomping on his head. The boy was left unresponsive and was taken to a hospital by a city ambulance. Pittsburgh Public...

The “Think Good” campaign to change online discourse, initiated by President Isaac Herzog and Meta (formerly Facebook) in Israel, went online on Tuesday morning. As part of the initiative, dozens of celebrities and public figures in Israel will share video clips of themselves reading the most hurtful responses that they have received online, with the offensive words censored and overlaid with words of positive reinforcement. The purpose of the initiative is to expose to millions of followers the difficulty of reading nasty replies, to encourage people to think twice before using hurtful language, and to think positive thoughts before hitting...

When many Americans come across the term "integration," thoughts of Black students enrolling in predominately white schools likely come to mind. However, one Midwestern school district is turning this narrative on its head by having white students desegregate predominately Black institutions. Minneapolis recently unveiled a citywide plan to rezone school districts to combat rising segregation rates in the city's public education system. The New York Times reported approximately one-third of students throughout the city (about 10,000) were assigned to new schools, emphasizing getting white kids into predominately Black academies....

Killed in Tuesday's school shooting were Tate Myre, 16, Hana St Juliana, 14, and 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin School shooter opened fire on people at Oxford High School in suburban Detroit around 12:50pm Tuesday Eight people were injured, including a teacher and a girl, 14, who was in critical condition and on a ventilator The Sheriff's Office said the suspect, a 15-year-old male, used 9mm Sig Sauer pistol purchased by his father Sheriff Michael Bouchard said the suspected shooter, who is in custody, was not cooperating with his officers Chilling video footage shows students hiding in a barricaded classroom as the...

One of the common tropes among anti-vaxxers lately is that the Covid-19 vaccine “changes your DNA.” Oh, the horrors! Do they even know what they mean by that? Almost certainly not. Anti-vaxxers generally have no idea how biology works; often they are so confused that I’m tempted to say they are not even wrong. Even when they are right about something, it’s for the wrong reasons. Many articles have already been posted explaining that the vaccine can’t alter your DNA, including a wildly popular piece at Forbes and explainers by the CDC and UNICEF. So let’s dig into this strange...

Over the last few years, Big Tech has unleashed many different attacks on WND, the pioneering Christian journalism organization now in its 25th year. From classifying WND as an "extremist group," to writing WND out of its search algorithms, to de-monetizing WND's YouTube channel, to confining WND to "Facebook jail" for over a year, the attacks never end. However, as of this week, Big Tech has upped its game: Google has now officially de-monetized WND – permanently. That could end up cutting WND's online ad revenue roughly in half, since not only does de-monetization mean the removal of all Google...

Prime Minister Boris Johnson let the cat out of the bag regarding the vaccine.[T]he double vaccination provides a lot of protection against serious illness and death but it doesn't protect you against catching the disease, and it doesn't protect you against passing it on.Well, if the vaccine doesn't work and doesn't stop the spread, then why get it? Because the vaccine bullies said so, that's why. These globalist bullies are like the schoolyard thug who takes the little guy's lunch money. The bully doesn't hear the little guy's protests, doesn't care. He wants the cash; he takes the cash. And...

Approximately 12,000 Air Force personnel have reportedly refused orders to be vaccinated against the Chinese coronavirus despite the Pentagon’s mandate. Officials said it was too late for them to take it by the Tuesday deadline which posed a test for leaders whose August directive apparently sparked defiance in one segment of the force, according to the Washington Post. The Thursday report continued: The vast majority of active-duty airmen, 96.4%, are at least partially vaccinated, according to data from the Air Force. But officials have warned that, barring an approved medical or religious exemption, those who defy lawful orders to be...

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker signed a new state law Thursday that focuses on students' access to school meals, with provisions around free breakfast and lunch as well as unpaid meal debt. The new law also takes aim at a practice known as "lunch shaming," prohibiting schools from publicly identifying or taking punitive action against students who have unresolved debt for school meals. "The new law is both timely and critical because it boosts federal nutrition dollars to schools across Massachusetts, and keeps children out of what should be an 'adult only' conversation on school meal debt," said Patricia Baker, a...

The teenage gunman who opened fire in an Arlington, Texas, school on Wednesday has been released on bond, a day after pulling a gun from his backpack and shooting a 'bully', a teacher and one other girl. Timothy George Simpkins was being held on a $75,000 bond on three charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon but the 18-year-old walked out of Tarrant County Jail on Thursday afternoon. Simpkins said nothing as he strode out of the jail in a blue t-shirt, matching baseball cap worn backwards, and jeans. It's unclear why he has been charged with aggravated assault...

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University in California, slammed U.S. coronavirus vaccination tactics during an appearance Thursday night on Fox News’ "The Ingraham Angle." DR. JAY BHATTACHARYA: We have to be honest with people. These vaccines are still under experimental-use authority and these vaccines do have side effects. For older people I think it is still worth the risk but you don’t bully people. You tell people, ‘Go talk with your doctor, talk over the risks and then make your own decision.’ That’s the right way to do public health. What we’re doing now is just...