Free Republic

When the citizens of Washington, D.C., shot themselves in the foot, doomed their children to another decade of hopelessness in education, ousted their current mayor, it also meant that Michelle Rhee was going to be looking for a new job. And the feisty reformer could have had her pick of jobs. Mayors and governors across the country were falling over themselves, trying to nab the woman who had stood up to unions to create a better system. There easily could have been a bidding war to land this trailblazer to head their education departments. Or Rhee could feasibly have chosen...

Well, if you recall, even Mother Teresa had her detractors -- ridiculous as this criticism was (from an atheist, albeit my "favorite" atheist) it showed that some people can really get it twisted and find fault even with the most saintly. So it was a shame that another righteous charity came under attack from a dogmatic pro-abortion writer. Penning an article for a site that claims to present a "reality check" for "reproductive health," the author once again shows the true colors of those who claim to be for "choice." As usual, it is obvious that this crowd only supports...

... or, at least, this one does. After reading The Time Machine at age 16, I stopped eating red meat and poultry. (Not The Jungle as more than a few people surmised...) The way I saw it, I wasn't going to wait until the 8028th century to decide whether or not I was an Eloi or a Morlock. But I have never been militant about it, just encouraging others to consume less meat for the health benefits. I grew up with a Dad who went hunting a couple times a year, and relatives with a long tradition of hunting regularly....

You are probably sick to death of this story. If you have been watching the news lately, it seems this story leads all newscasts. In all that coverage, you would think you heard everything, right? Wrong. A friend of mine who feels very passionately about not subjecting passengers to bodyscans or pat-downs posted this link on his facebook page. It is the homepage of the manufacturer of ISCON Thermo Conductive Infrared bodyscanners -- technology that doesn't use radiation but can distinguish between flesh and contraband. No pictures of one's privates. And as you can see on the site, there are...

The kerfuffle is all about stuffing the ballot box. People on websites have bragged about inventing fake email addresses and voting up to 300 times. They say they want to teach a lesson about voter fraud. Those who don't like Bristol have cried foul, claiming that the integrity of the show is threatened. Seriously? Ok, whatever -- here's my take: I believe that ABC's voting fraud control is probably far better than that of any typical urban area in the U.S. (which more often than not are controlled by the likes of whom would not vote for anyone named Palin)....

So I got an email that said "Dear Friends, Next year is going to be a very important year for our Grand Old Party. Recently an element has infilitrated our once proud party and threatens to split our ranks. This split will certainly mean defeat in the general election. We all saw what happened in last month's New York congressional election and it's apparent the same is happening in the Sunshine State. This year's poster boy for this faction supported the largest tax increase in Florida history, but would like you to think otherwise. He's just another politician de jour...

... and maybe we can shed some light on chain mail. (Yeah, not the most pressing issue in the world but...)Oh sure, not all of them are so obviously incomprehensible. Like those that tell you that they've gone around the world several times and have not been broken for decades and the harm that came to those who did break it -- really? How would you know? And did the original letter -- the one your supposed to copy exactly -- make these prognostic claims?And then there are those that are emotional blackmail -- even if there really is a sick child who wants to...

Gee, should we distill the complex issue of dealing with our military decisions to simple phrases?As if the burden of making decisions about the ramifications of war can be summed up in a single "clever" sentence. But liberals seem to think that Bush twisted the truth in a rush to judgment and still use a similar phrase about him. Even though Congress agreed with Bush and supported his decisions, they have to throw it on him, suggesting he deliberately misled everyone to force their hands.Why shouldn't we now do the same to Obama, suggesting that his languid indecision is leading to more deaths...

Does anyone know when it became taboo to celebrate Halloween in public schools? It seems it started in certain private Christian schools that didn't want to celebrate a pagan holiday that involves dressing up like devilish characters. This was new to me with my Catholic up-bringing. Growing up, it was always considered good fun. In fact, I just learned that a Vatican-appointed exorcist in Rome has said, "...to dress up as witches and devils on one night of the year, that is not a problem. If it is just a game, there is no harm in that." Now as practicing Protestants, my husband and I agree that...

Am I stretching it? I don't think so. The first cases of swine flu in the U.S. were reported back in March, after there was plenty of time to assess what was coming and make a plan to vaccinate the public. So here we are more than seven months later, and already we're seeing shortages, long lines, and the vaccine not going to those who need it most. Here's a video from WashingtonPost.com about a shot clinic set up at a school in Maryland: it's basically a comedy of errors, as the school is overwhelmed by the crowd that shows...

Harsh words? Hardly. First it must be said, Roman Polanski did endure unspeakable tragedies in his life. Forced into the Krakow ghetto under Nazi persecution, he and his father survived, but his mother died at Auschwitz. And years later, both his wife, Sharon Tate, and their unborn child were brutally murdered in an incomprehensible rampage. AND the miscarriage of justice for his own unspeakable act, and the sympathetic support he is receiving from a certain sector, are just as incomprehensible to me.For those who may have heard some vague account, it should be made clear --  Polanski was charged at the age of 44 with forcible...

President Obama has been on television - again and again and again -- making public appearances and sitting down for interviews on every station (exceptFox News, natch!) pushing his proposals for health care reform. Never mind that his directives remain hazy and vague, and his speeches are no different than they were during the campaign, chock-full of boiler plate bromides that make liberals feel warm and fuzzy all over. Jonah Goldberg over at the National Review had this to say: "...the White House still thinks it has a communication problem, and if only it dispels the cloud of 'lies' belched up by the...

A lib friend-of-a-friend is pushing this one hard on a chat on Facebook. http://newsone.com/obama/top-10-racist-limbaugh-quotes/ When I try to Google some of the quotes, I only get this same list over and over. Snopes only lists two of them, one he said in the '70s when he was a dj, and he apologized, and he also apologized for the Jesse Jackson remark. But the entry was last up-dated in June of 2007. I can't find a definitive article that refutes or acknowledges all the others. Can anyone help out?

Well, it’s been eight years since that terrible morning – George Bush was as deep into his first term of office as Barack Obama is today when those awful events unfolded. The anniversary in the mainstream media will be muted, as always – and we’ll come back to that. And even though three thousand people died that day, I want to concentrate on two – not to exclude the others, but simply to show you that they were not some abstract number but individual lives. Kevin CosgroveOne of the people who died that day, eight years ago, was a businessman...

Are we already forgetting the horrid events of that day? Are we already relegating it to only being worthy of recognition every five years? Neither the L.A. Times nor the Chicago Tribune had any front-page stories commemorating the anniversary.The Washington Post -- which only had a single ad in remembrance (a full-page tribute from Lockheed-Martin) -- did have this article above the fold on its cover which was titled "9/11 a Distant Memory for Teens: Eight years later, the Sept 11 attacks have become relegated to history books for a generation that's too young to remember." The bad news: It contains an anecdote about a class that groans when they...

As President Obama prepares for his health care speech to a joint session of Congress Wednesday evening, a new report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute calls on the President to acknowledge that America’s health care system is plagued by too much, not too little, regulation. The study concludes that tax preferences for employer-sponsored health insurance, as well as federal and state benefit mandates and pricing regulations, distort the health care market in a way that limits choices for individuals, reduces competition among insurers, and artificially inflates costs for health care services. “Many of the problems with run-away healthcare costs can...

<p>For many people (and yes I’m jumping to conclusions and making sweeping generalizations here) “No one should die because they can’t afford health care” is the weasel way of saying “I want someone else to pay for it” without sounding like a panhandler. So, take what follows with a grain of salt, OK?</p>

I've got to side with the libs on this one -- but only to a point.When I heard that the President was going to address school children next Tuesday, my first thought was "Ok, he can impart some wisdom about the value of education." This is something I have talked about before -- how I think BO can have a real impact on a certain sector of students who might otherwise throw away the opportunities available to them.After all, Presidents Reagan and Bush 41 also addressed school children, albeit without any "Menu of Classroom Activities" distributed by the Dept of Ed. And whereas I'm...

We all know we should be wary of viral videos and forwarded emails or messages -- well, everyone except my dad, unfortunately. (Love you Dad, but you have to be more discerning!) It often turns out that the info imparted is not entirely accurate, if at all.So here's the latest video that was passed on to me by a friend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piuoGb-Nhfw As someone who would have loved to have been that student, and fully believes we should never fear  standing up -- I have to report that according to Snopes (yes, I know they're left-leaning, but they're pretty reliable although the snarky...

In the comment section of a recent post, I drew some fire for making the following, apparently shocking claim: We [Americans] see America, from the Pilgrims who signed the Mayflower Compact to the Biblical scholars… who birthed the nation, to the spirit of sacrifice and charity that thrives to this very day, not as a nation of Christians (for that freedom is at the deepest core of our common philosophy) but as a Christian nation. It seems that there is a growing belief that because our Founders were stalwart advocates for religious liberty, and because some of them had very...