Free Republic

Now that Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn) has indicated he may vote against the President’s health care legislation his Democratic colleagues in the Senate are contemplating how to persuade him to come back into line with the Democratic Party’s position on the issue. Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) warned Lieberman that “bad things may happen to him if he can’t fully support the Democratic Party’s agenda. If he’s raising supposed ‘matters of conscience’ or placing his notion of duty to his constituents or the good of the nation ahead of loyalty to the Democratic Party, he should have to pay a price....

DES MOINES, Iowa -- A Des Moines girl was suspended after school officials said she violated their weapons policy. Jazmine Martin, 12, brought an empty shotgun shell to school on Monday, a souvenir from a summer vacation to South Dakota. The shell was empty and had the word "blank" written on the front. "We went to South Dakota and went to the Circle B Ranch," said Chenoa Martin, Jazmine's mother. "There's a show of the old West -- a stampede. Had a gun shoot-out and stuff like that. When they fire their rifles, they do it into the crowd. It...

A Des Moines girl was suspended after school officials said she violated their weapons policy. Jazmine Martin, 12, brought an empty shotgun shell to school on Monday, a souvenir from a summer vacation to South Dakota. The shell was empty and had the word "blank" written on the front.

Three stories in the news this week pointed out the lunacy of what has become known as "zero tolerance". In the first case, a 6-year-old boy was suspended and threatened with reform school because he brought a camping utensil to school. Zachary Christie, a first-grader at Downes Elementary School in Newark, Del., was so proud of the spoon-fork-knife combination gift that he wanted to show it off and use it to eat his lunch. He was by all accounts a good student, who sometimes wore suits to school because he took his education seriously. He was also a Cub Scout....

Call him Mr. Zero Tolerance. The upstate New York school superintendent who suspended an Eagle Scout for 20 days for keeping a 2-inch utility knife locked in his car is unwilling to speak to the teen's family or bend in his ruling. Lansingburgh Central School District Superintendent George J. Goodwin, 55, said in a written statement that his district "has an established policy of zero tolerance with respect to the possession of weapons of any kind on school property or in school buildings." But nowhere in the school district's rule book, which is published online, is there any mention of...

The news came out this morning that Zachary Christie, a 6-year-old Delaware first-grader, is back to school. He made news by bringing a small pocketknife with a fork and a spoon to his school. His mother didn’t know he did it. He didn’t know he shouldn’t have done it. He just wanted to bring his cool new camping tool to school to eat his lunch. He had faced 45 days of suspension from his school, and enrollment in an alternative school for troublemakers, after violating the school district’s “zero tolerance” policy on bringing weapons to school. According to today’s story...

A Palm Bay woman and her boyfriend were arrested Monday for child abuse after the couple went old school to punish their 8-year-old daughter for swearing. They washed her mouth out with soap. We don't know about you, but we would petition President Obama and Congress to make it mandatory for every parent to carry a bar of Irish Spring in their back pockets with all the profanity kids use today.

A Palm Bay woman and her boyfriend were arrested Monday for child abuse after the couple went old school to punish their 8-year-old daughter for swearing. They washed her mouth out with soap. We don't know about you, but we would petition President Obama and Congress to make it mandatory for every parent to carry a bar of Irish Spring in their back pockets with all the profanity kids use today. Police claim Adriyanna Herdener and Wilfredo Rivera went too far by placing a bar of soap in the girl's mouth and letting it stay for 10 minutes. Herdener did...

video at link: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5380529n CBS) A 6-year-old Cub Scout recently suspended from school after bringing a camping utensil to the lunchroom made it clear he was not happy with the Delaware school district's decision. "I think it's very wrong. It's not fair at all," Zachary Christie of Newark, Del. told CBS' "The Early Show." "It's not fair for anybody," he said. Zachary's excitement over joining the Cub Scouts may just land him in reform school for 45 days. Zachary was suspended from his 1st grade class in Delaware's Christina School District after bringing a camping utensil - a combination knife/fork/spoon...

First grader Zachary Christie was recently suspended for bringing a Cub Scout camping utensil with him to school. The utensil combines a fork, spoon and a knife into one tool and Christie wanted to use it at lunchtime. His school has a "zero-tolerance" policy on weapons and the camping tool violates the district's rule. He is facing 45 days in the district's reform school. Did school officials go too far?

Six-year-old Zachary Christie was so excited to become a Cub Scout that he brought his camping utensil to school. The tool serves as a spoon, a fork and a knife, and Zachary wanted to use it at lunch. What Zachary didn't know was that the gizmo violated his school's zero-tolerance policy on weapons. And now the Christina School District in Newark, Del., has suspended the first grader and ordered him to attend the district's reform school for 45 days. Zachary's parents insist their son did not intend to hurt anyone, and they are fighting to overturn the ruling. "Zachary wears...

Zachary Christie with his mother, Debbie, his father, Curtis, and the Cub Scout utensil that got him suspended from school. NEWARK, Del. — Finding character witnesses when you are 6 years old is not easy. But there was Zachary Christie last week at a school disciplinary committee hearing with his karate instructor. Zachary’s offense? Taking a camping utensil that can serve as a knife, fork and spoon to school. He was so excited about recently joining the Cub Scouts that he wanted to use it at lunch. School officials concluded that he had violated their zero-tolerance policy on weapons, and...

NEWARK, Del. — Finding character witnesses when you are 6 years old is not easy. But there was Zachary Christie last week at a school disciplinary committee hearing with his karate instructor and his mother’s fiancé by his side to vouch for him. Zachary’s offense? Taking a camping utensil that can serve as a knife, fork and spoon to school. He was so excited about recently joining the Cub Scouts that he wanted to use it at lunch. School officials concluded that he had violated their zero-tolerance policy on weapons, and Zachary now faces 45 days in the district’s reform...

Soldier suspended from school Posted: Oct 8, 2009 05:26 PM A NEWS10 EXCLUSIVE By MARK O'BRIEN LANSINGBURGH -- High school senior Matthew Whalen is the kind of student any parent would want. He's an Eagle Scout, on the honor roll, taking Advanced Placement classes, and never been in trouble with the law. He's received commendations from the City of Troy and the Boy Scouts of America for saving a woman's life, and this past summer, he completed Army basic training. All of it was accomplished before the age of 17. "I'm just trying to do what I can while I...

Centuries ago, historians came up with a classic theory to explain the rise and decline of nations. The theory was that great nations start out tough-minded and energetic. Toughness and energy lead to wealth and power. Wealth and power lead to affluence and luxury. Affluence and luxury lead to decadence, corruption and decline... Yet despite its amazing wealth, the United States has generally remained immune to this cycle...That’s because despite the country’s notorious materialism, there has always been a countervailing stream of sound economic values. The early settlers believed in Calvinist restraint. The pioneers volunteered for brutal hardship during their...

Spanking Lowers A Child's IQ, Researcher Says September 24, 2009 Being spanked as a child is linked to having a lower IQ, according to a study presented today at the International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Trauma in San Diego. The relationship between spanking and intelligence is found in children around the world, said the lead author of the study, University of New Hampshire professor Murray Straus. Children in the United States who were spanked had lower IQs -- by 2.8 to 5 points -- than those who were not spanked, Straus found. Straus studied 806 children ages 2 to...

Spanking can get kids to behave in a hurry, but new research suggests it can do more harm than good to their noggins. The study, involving hundreds of U.S. children, showed the more a child was spanked the lower his or her IQ compared with others. "All parents want smart children," said study researcher Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire. "This research shows that avoiding spanking and correcting misbehavior in other ways can help that happen." One might ask, however, whether children who are spanked tend to come from backgrounds in which education opportunities are less or inherited...

A school district in Arizona has come under fire after a newspaper columnist highlighted the district's newly adopted racial policy and called it a "two-tiered form of student discipline: one for black and Hispanic students; one for everyone else." "TUSD principals and disciplinarians (assuming such creatures still exist) are being asked to set two standards of behavior for their students," MacEachern commented. "Some behavior will be met with strict penalties; some will not. It all depends on the color of the student's skin."

A big increase in the number of primary school children suspended for violent acts is being blamed on the removal of corporal punishment in schools. Figures from the Ministry of Education show a 88 percent increase in suspensions of eight-year-olds from 2000 to 2008 for assaults on classmates, a 73 percent rise for seven-year-olds, a 70 percent increase for six--year-olds while the suspensions over the same period had increased by 33 percent for five-year-olds. "It is significant that as schools have removed corporal punishment, schools have become more violent," Family First national director Bob McCoskrie said today. "School yard bullying...

Should Corporal Punishment play a role in schools? A state task force recommends CP be banned in schools. It would ban: spanking, paddling, slapping with rulers and more. Although not used much in AZ, it is commonly employed in other states. Corporal punishment be banned. Minor forms of corporal punishment are acceptable, like spanking and using rulers. Corporal punishment should be banned in public schools only. All forms of corporal punishment should be allowed. The government should spend their time on other important issues.

Don Henderson lived in his van and walked the streets of Federal Way Wa for eight years and lived out in proxy the discipline the Lord has for the United States. This is his story and the words the Lord gave him to share with Amercia and how He will correct all the problems that are being brought on by the ingratitude being shown by the most blessed nation on earth and how this nation is ignoring the Creator.

STANDISH, Maine -- Justin Denney's family watched as he ascended the Cumberland County Civic Center stage during graduation Friday night to accept his diploma, but the superintendent told him to return to his seat. The Bonny Eagle High School senior's mother said she can't believe her son's taking a bow and blowing a kiss on stage led was grounds for the superintendent to withhold his diploma. Mary Denney wants an apology, and her son wants his diploma, reported WMTW-TV in Portland, Maine. "I'm like, 'Did she not hand him his diploma?' I'm like, 'What's going on?'" Mary Denney said.

For teens, there is no greater joy than graduating high school. Shaking off the shackles of education and claiming that hard-fought diploma is truly an epic day. Unfortunately, for several students at Bonny Eagle High School in Maine, their natural exuberance has led to some surprisingly serious problems. On Friday night, when the senior class was waiting to graduate, excitement began to grow. Students bounced a large inflatable rubber duck. The noise level rose. And then came "the kiss." When called, one student walked on stage to receive his diploma and blew a kiss to his family. The school administrator,...

One adult and three teenagers at a Boy Scout camp are accused of forcing a boy to drink human urine because they were "teaching him a lesson" for supposedly making racial slurs to another Scout, the Putnam County Sheriff's Office reported Monday.Investigators arrested Joseph Wendell Reid, 21, two 16-year-olds, and a 15-year-old, all from Ocala, last week on a charge of kidnapping.Officers allege the four held a 12-year-old boy against his will, first taping his mouth shut and then forcing him to drink urine, according to the Sheriff's Office.The four were attending Camp Shands at Baden Powell Road near Hawthorne,...

It has prompted angry exchanges, dozens of e-mails and led hundreds of parents to gather at school board meetings to voice their support or opposition. Now district trustees are set to finally decide whether they will support lesson plans for students in kindergarten through fifth grade that are aimed at curbing anti-gay bullying. The idea behind the proposed curriculum is to provide a safe environment for children to learn, as well as to offer a framework for teachers to break down stereotypes and teach kids about different types of families. Supporters say the lessons will also help children of gay...

Tyler Frost, 17, a senior at Heritage Christian School in Findlay, Ohio has been suspended for attending a prom with his girlfriend because the Findlay High School’s prom allowed dancing and music. This Taliban-like ruling is based on the Christian school’s policy that forbids dancing, rock music, hand holding and kissing. Principal Tim England says that Frost was supposed to receive his diploma on May 24 but will now receive an “incomplete” on his remaining assignments. He absence will be hard to miss: he is in a class of four students. England further threatens that, if he learns that Frost...

What happens when a real father disciplines his children in public? All hell breaks loose. About halfway through our meal a boy that was 5-6 years old, sitting in the corner booth, projected his voice beyond the loud obnoxious levels of the other children. You could tell it was forced, and the boy was attempting to make a scene to get his parents to cave in on something. You know the yell I'm talking about. That angry, frustrated, spiteful scream that the child strains to get out. In modern times the parent usually follows that scream with "ok take it...

MOUNDSVILLE - Days of lugging home heavy backpacks filled with textbooks could soon be over for students in Marshall County, where school officials may stop requiring them to complete their homework. Bonnie Ritz, director of curriculum and instruction, said administrators have discussed a policy that would not penalize students for failing to do their homework. The idea is that students who do their homework would improve their grades, but students not doing the work would not see grades suffer as a result. She said the concept grew out of concerns that some students in the county don't have sufficient help...

The case of a 13-year-old Arizona girl strip-searched by school officials looking for ibuprofen pain-reliever will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court this week. The justices in January accepted the Safford school district case for review, and will decide whether a campus setting gives school administrators greater discretion to control students suspected of illegal activity than police are allowed in cases involving adults in general public spaces. The case is centered around Savana Redding, now 19, who in 2003 was an eighth-grade honors student at Safford Middle School, about 127 miles from Tucson, Arizona. Redding was strip-searched by school...

Supreme Court to weigh strip-searches at schools In an Arizona case, officials were worried about campus safety, while the student felt embarrassment. By David G. Savage April 18, 2009 Reporting from Safford, Ariz. -- When Savana Redding, now 19, talks of what happened to her in eighth grade, it is clear that the painful memories linger. She speaks of being embarrassed and fearful and of staying away from school for two months. And she recalls the "whispers" and "stares" from others in this small eastern Arizona mining town after she was strip-searched in the nurse's office because a vice principal...

Social pathology: crack and heroin epidemics, family violence, out-of-wedlock births, abortion as "just another option," alcoholic mothers having brain-damaged babies, violent and uncontrollable schools, constantly irresponsible and self-destructive behavior, endemic crime. Obama has seen that for twenty years in South Side Chicago, and it is well-established that social pathology is directly responsible for the failure of the "structurally poor" to rise out of their misery. Obama seems to be in denial of the obvious. His own life is entirely middle class. Married, career-oriented, successful, steadily rising income, two daughters born in his marriage. Yes, Obama has a lot of dubious...

Milford, CT (AHN) - Following an incident where a child was struck in the groin and had to be hospitalized, a Connecticut middle school has banned all physical contact. East Shore Middle School principal Catherine Williams sent letters out to parents this week informing them of the policy, WCBS TV in Milford, Conn. reported. Williams said violating the policy could result in "parent conferences, detention, suspension and/or a request for expulsion from school," she said in the letter. Some parents at the school are angry about the rule because it goes for non-violent contact like hugging, high-fives and handshakes.The Connecticut...

Staff at a high school in the US state of Texas had students settle their differences by fighting inside a steel cage, a local newspaper has reported. The Dallas Morning News says it has obtained a school board report that says two "cage fights" took place at South Oak Cliff High between 2003-2005. The 2008 report says the principal and other employees knew of the practice. No criminal charges were ever filed, and the principal at the time has denied any fights took place. Donald Moten, who retired as principal last year, told the Morning News: "That's barbaric... It never...

Tracey Keim had been a bartender for years and thought she'd heard it all. But even the crustiest of gutter-mouthed drunks would have been hard-pressed to match the verbal barrage unleashed by a 15-year-old in Keim's 10th-grade English class last fall. It was the first day of school at St. Petersburg High, and the student, who was black, was trying to rattle Keim, 40, who is white. "Listen," Keim said, "you can't yell like that. I work really hard not to interrupt you guys, and I … " "F--- YOOOUUUU!!!" the girl bellowed. Some of the nouns and adjectives that...

A video from a story in Nicholas County, Ky., is beginning to go viral, and it brought back memories of my high school days. Make a long story short, Nicholas County High School Principal Joseph Orazen slammed 15-year-old student Dusty Green to the ground. You need to read the story for my following comments to make sense. I know what happened here. The kid, Green, secure in the knowledge that teachers cannot respond to physical threats, did one of those in-your-face tough-guy routines high school boys specialize in. Green has probably gotten away with intimidating teachers in the past, but...

CULLOWHEE (AP) — Two former students at Western Carolina University have received probation for charges related to their dumping on campus a dead bear with Barack Obama campaign signs on its head. District Court Judge Richlyn Holt sentenced brothers Marvin Caleb Williams of Wilkesboro and Mathew Colton Williams to probation Tuesday after they pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct. The Asheville Citizen-Times reported today that their attorney, Kris Earwood, said the brothers were kicked out of the university and now attend community college. Assistant District Attorney Camila Wright said a campus police investigation revealed no political or racial motivation in...

Puhlouzee, Scuba Teddy, et al & Christian Discipline . . . [Quix Commentary] When in the course of human events, the salt has lost it's savour . . . what good is it but to be thrown out on the ash heap? Matthew 5:13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Matthew 5:12-14 (in Context) Matthew 5 (Whole Chapter) Mark 9:50Salt is good: but if the salt...

A Connecticut Superior Court judge charged with drunken driving and using racial slurs while arguing with police officers was suspended Monday for 240 days by a judicial review panel. Judge E. Curtissa Cofield, who was confirmed as Connecticut's first black female judge in 1991, had apologized to the state Judicial Review Council earlier in the day, calling the night of her arrest "one of the worst experiences of my life." Cofield was arrested the night of Oct. 9 after her car hit a parked state police cruiser in a construction zone on Route 2 in Glastonbury, Conn. Police say she...

An elementary school principal could be disciplined for allegedly forcing a 6-year-old boy to unclog a toilet with his bare hands. The principal of Rahn Elementary has been on paid leave since mid-December while the school district investigated a complaint from the boy's parents. The school board proposed disciplinary action on Thursday. The nature of the discipline wasn't made public.The boy's parents claim their son told them the principal made him clean out a toilet bowl that the boy had accidentally clogged on Dec. 12. The boy told his parents he wiped himself with paper towels, instead of toilet paper,...

CARMEL, N.Y. - A 14-year-old freshman at Carmel High School was suspended after he brought bullets into school Tuesday, police said. According to police, one student found two bullets on the floor of a classroom and another found three bullets in a nearby bathroom toilet. The students reported their findings to faculty members, who made school resource officer Deputy Sheriff Kevin Cargain aware of the situation. The five bullets were .22 caliber bullets, commonly used for rifles and handguns. After an investigation, a male student who was interviewed admitted that he accidentally brought the bullets to school. He told police...

Your friend's new fuchsia fedora might be hideous. But don't call it gay, or you might get a language lesson from the conversation cops. Students at Queen's University who sprinkle their dialogue with an assortment of "homo" or "retarded" could find out the hard way that not everyone finds their remarks acceptable. The Kingston university has hired student facilitators to step in when they overhear homophobic slurs, remarks bashing women or racially tinged insults, along with an array of other language that could be deemed offensive. That means tête-à-têtes in the residence hallways may no longer be just between friends.

A head teacher who suspended the equivalent of a quarter her pupils in one year has seen exam pass rates increase by 65 per cent. Caroline Haynes, 49, adopted a zero tolerance disciplinary approach to her secondary school pupils, convinced that by allowing disruptive students to remain in class was jeopardising the chances of others. She has handed out 478 suspensions in one year at a school with 1,880 pupils and seen GCSE pass rates shoot up. Mrs Hayes criticised the Government's policy of encouraging schools to reduce exclusions, which then reflects better on their Ofsted rating. She said: "Statistics...

But the fruit of the Spirit is self-control. Galatians 5:22-23 Groan. Nobody enjoys self-control. We just like to do what we want, when we want. Whether it’s our out-of-control eating, our wayward tongue, our selfish temper, our destructive lusts, our bad habits, our limitless spending, or how we entertain ourselves, we don’t like self-control. And we know it. But the beautiful thing about God is that if we want He’ll point out things that we should have more control over and give us the strength and the power to accomplish it. "For the grace of God …teaches us to say...

Wisconsin pastor has been charged with felony physical abuse of a child after he spanked his 12-year-old son for lying and a teacher notified social services. Barry W. Barnett Jr., 43, of Poynette, Wis., is free on a $10,000 bond, but he could face up to three years in prison and fines for disciplining his son, the local Portage Daily Register reported. At the pastor's hearing, Barnett's son said his father was right to spank him . "He gave me a chance to tell him the truth, and I just kept lying to him," the boy said. The boy said...

Not sure about MyFox Colorado's posting policy, so I'll leave it as link-only.

<p>AURORA (MyFOXColorado.com) - An 11-year-old in Aurora says his first amendment rights are being trampled after he was suspended for wearing a homemade shirt that reads "Obama is a terrorist's best friend."</p> <p>The fifth grader at Aurora Frontier K-8 School wore it on a day when students were asked to wear red, white and blue to show their patriotism.</p>

The citizens of the world who hate America are going to love the latest agitprop released this week by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union. In a document titled "A Violent Education: Corporal Punishment of Children in U.S. Public Schools," the left-wing groups seek to paint a horrifying portrait of the nation's classrooms as Abu Ghraib-like torture chambers. The report compiles sob stories of students humiliated after being disciplined by school officials for unruliness, and claims that minority students are "disproportionately targeted" for punishment. Citing international law and threatening lawsuits, Human Rights Watch and the ACLU are...

WASHINGTON – Paddlings, swats, licks. A quarter of a million schoolchildren got them last year — and blacks, American Indians and kids with disabilities got a disproportionate share of the punishment, according to a study by a human rights group. Even little kids can be paddled. Heather Porter, who lives in Crockett, Texas, was startled to hear her little boy, then 3, say he'd been spanked at school. Porter was never told, despite a policy at the public preschool that parents be notified. "We were pretty ticked off, to say the least. The reason he got paddled was because he...

Jonathan King told teachers at his north Georgia alternate public school that he couldn’t stand being locked within the four concrete walls of a small seclusion room. In 2004, just weeks after threatening suicide, the 13-year-old eighth-grader hanged himself in the room, using a cord a teacher provided him to hold up his pants, court records show. Now, four years later, as the Alpine Program in Gainesville starts its new school year, Jonathan’s parents are suing the program and the agency that oversees it. Don and Tina King of Murrayville, just outside Gainesville, say the treatment their son received at...

HOW far should a school go in disciplining an unruly student? And what responsibility do parents bear for that youngster’s behavior? These are issues that American educators and parents perpetually wrestle with, and they have been debated around Westchester recently because of two incidents that have received attention not just in coffee shop chitchat but also in the news media. In early June, a trustee of Ardsley’s school board resigned after other middle school parents expressed outrage at her 14-year-old son’s behavior. They accused him of bullying children and repeatedly threatening violence, including a massacre and bombing, and blamed the...