Free Republic

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) cancelled its longtime relationship with an email-storage contractor just weeks after ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s computer crashed and shortly before other IRS officials’ computers allegedly crashed. The IRS signed a contract with Sonasoft, an email-archiving company based in San Jose, California, each year from 2005 to 2010. The company, which partners with Microsoft and counts The New York Times among its clients, claims in its company slogans that it provides “Email Archiving Done Right” and “Point-Click Recovery.” Sonasoft in 2009 tweeted, “If the IRS uses Sonasoft products to backup their servers why wouldn’t you choose...

It is no secret that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English will change dramatically what and how students are taught. There will be less emphasis on reading books that are fiction (the classics) and more emphasis on reading informational texts. In early grades, even elementary grades, 50 percent of reading material will now be informational text that can be anything from instruction manuals, Environmental Protection Agency announcements and Executive Orders to historical documents. In the junior and senior year of high school, that figure increases to 70 percent. How can reading instruction manuals promote a love of reading?...

Friend -- I've been in Washington for almost 40 years. I've seen a lot of Congresses come and go. But I can't remember a group of lawmakers who accomplished more than the folks who just wrapped up their work. With their help, we repealed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and ratified the START arms control treaty. We passed a new law to rein in the abuses on Wall Street and protect consumers. We reformed the health care system and passed the Recovery Act to get our economy growing again. But do you know why all that happened? Because people like you...

BEIJING (AFP) - Thousands of students at a central China university have continued to stare down police as they maintained a boycott of classes over their treatment by school management. Students have been on strike since between 5,000 and 10,000 of them began ransacking the campus on Thursday night, with several hundred police brought in to quell the unrest, according to witnesses and participants.