Free Republic

In my interview on WZRD yesterday, I made the comment in response to a question regarding William Randolph Hearst, even without having already made an entry about it. In "Truths about the Trusts", Hearst himself writes the following:(last page - 50) The masses of the people to-day are more enlightened, more capable than ever before, more confident of their own knowledge and ability, more able to govern wisely and impartially, more dis- posed to take the power of government into their own hands and better fitted to exercise it for the general good. The progressive political program in the United...

As teachers in the same school district, Craig and Laura Beach have a combined 47 years at Rockford Public Schools. According to the teachers’ union contract, the two would make a combined $140,000 a year working in a city where the median household income is $57,422. Craig is a high school teacher with 23 years of experience and his wife Laura has 24 years of experience and is an elementary school teacher, according to what Craig Beach recently posted in his op-ed on MLive. If the teaching couple retired with 25 years of experience, their combined pensions would be about...

Michigan stands at the threshold of pivotal reform that could easily save its taxpayers $10 billion by the end of this decade. The state Senate has already acted in support of legislation that would close the chronically underfunded "defined benefit" school pension system to new employees starting in 2013. Indications are that Gov. Snyder would support this. Current public education employees would still be covered under the existing system. This transformational reform would be wholly consistent with a 1997 measure that did the same for new state employees, providing them with a 401(k) "defined contribution" pension plan. (Public school workers...

Recently I posted about how UCLA hosted a "debate" between Islamic supremacist Jew-haters Reza Aslan and Hussein Ibish arguing over the "one-state solution" or the "two-state solution" -- that is, whether Israel should be destroyed by "Palestinian" jihadists working from within or from a "Palestinian" state. There was no discussion of the legitimacy of the Jewish State. Atlas reader Wallace Edward Brand ("Salubrius") posted this comment: I have been trying to offer the students at UCLA a view of a one lawful Jewish state West of the Jordan River. One of the UCLA faculty members told me it was impossible....

Thanks to House Republicans, a major school pension reform passed by the state Senate last week could be undone. As reported by CapCon, Senators defied government employee unions by voting to close the chronically underfunded “defined benefit” school pension system to new employees, starting in 2013. If the House follows through, this would be arguably the most transformational state budget reform since Gov. John Engler signed a similar measure for state workers back in 1996. That measure has helped taxpayers avoid some $4.3 billion in unfunded liability since then. If the House fails, every new school employee hired going forward...

Rockford Public School high school teacher Craig Beach wrote a column for MLive in which he alleged that Republican lawmakers are ruining the teaching profession and talked about a colleague’s daughter’s views on teacher pay. Beach quoted the young woman criticizing the teaching profession’s “extremely low pay” with “I want to eat and have a life.” The article quotes the young woman as saying: “Mom, I know what goes into the profession. You demonstrate the many hours put in after leaving school, the stress, the lack of respect and now extremely low pay. I want to eat and have a...

CNBC Goes Birther: Donald Trump Unloads Birther Rant After Romney Reaffirms Support - VIDEO HERE  - Hat tip SA. And video here.

The demonization of George Zimmerman and the deification of Trayvon Martin continues. There is little doubt in the eyes of the media and a certain element in American society that George Zimmerman, the man now formally charged with the murder of Trayvon Martin, is guilty. Much like the Queen of Hearts in Lewis Carroll’s fable, Alice in Wonderland, many would just as soon sentence Zimmerman first and try him later, if at all. This attitude clearly was on display in the protests that erupted after the shooting made national news several weeks ago. It seemed virtually everyone was determined to...

In a book titled "Progressive Principles", which is a collection of Roosevelt's speeches, (and which Roosevelt himself endorsed, see the preface) Roosevelt made clear his favor for the direct election of senators: (Page 3 - April 3rd, 1912) For this purpose we believe in securing for the people the direct election of United States Senators exactly as the people have already secured in actual practice the direct election of the President. Page 65: (February 21st, 1912) I believe in the election of United States Senators by direct vote. Page 315: (August 17th, 1912 - Bull Moose platform) In particular, the...

Deltona (Florida) High School student Michael Rudi suffered a potentially life-threatening asthma attack while attending classes. Though an inhaler prescribed by Rudi’s doctor was available, the school nurse withheld it from him because the school could not locate a signed permission form from his parents. The school’s Director of Student Health Services, Cheryl Selesky, defended the nurse’s action saying that “it’s a matter of liability. If we allow him to medicate himself without having the proper papers filled out and he dies, the parents could sue us. If we follow our rules the blame for any ill consequences falls on...

Yes. Planning is tyranny. At some point during the closing of World War II, Max Lerner penned an essay titled "To Halt in this Land" in which he asks that very question, and here is how he answers it:(Page 150) The third question may be: "Isn't all this tyrannical? Isn't planning in itself a form of tyranny?" I don't think so. We have been planning our war economy without tyranny. There were many who said before 1941 that if America entered the war against fascism it would itself become fascist in the process, that in a war for freedom we...

Much has been said about the bullying history of both of the presumed presidential nominees for 2012. Last week a North Carolina teacher was put on paid suspension because she got caught bullying her own classroom on the topic of which candidate had been the worse bully years previous. Bullies--we are told--are the cause of everything from eating disorders to teen suicide. The Trayvon Martin case had originally been sold through the media as a case in which an older vigilante wanted to bully a young child. ---snip--- ...the Department of Justice issued an "advisement" to the university earlier this...

Memorial Day is all about honoring those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom, and pro athletes have been part of that mix since World War I. Here's a look at some of the more notable athletes who lost their lives in service: In addition to former Giants infielder Elmer Gedeon (featured in slide No. 8 above), there was one other MLB player killed in World War II. Harry O'Neill appeared in one game as a catcher for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1939. O'Neill joined the Marines and was killed on Iwo Jima in 1945. The Big Ten's football...

The Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project (IRDP)—a program of the University of California, Berkeley's Center for Race and Gender (CRG)—recently held its third annual conference, "Critical Discourses on Islamophobia: Symbols, Images, & Representations." As in previous years, speaker after speaker decried an imaginary racist, imperialist, Orientalist Western juggernaut, while disregarding the very real predations of Islamism. The first day of the conference brought in approximately eighty people at its peak, including a number of women in hijab (head scarf), typing furiously on laptops. Others sported keffiyehs and dreadlocks; a smattering of Arabic and French could be heard; and a scruffy,...

In "Constitutional government in the United States", Woodrow Wilson wrote the following: (Page 167) The weightiest import of the matter is seen only when it is remembered that the courts are the instruments of the nation's growth, and that the way in which they serve that use will have much to do with the integrity of every national process. If they determine what powers are to be exercised under the Constitution, they by the same token determine also the adequacy of the Constitution in respect of the needs and interests of the nation; our conscience in matters of law and...

In 2006, the underpinnings of the American financial system began to crack from a speculative bubble in the countryÂ’s housing market. Fueled by irrational exuberance in which homeowners believed their home prices would rise forever, this was made worse by Main Street and Wall Street, both of whom repackaged mortgage loans for sale to everyday investors through a process called securitization. ThatÂ’s right, this was a multipronged problem, not the hell-bent desires of a few financial fat cats, as Occupy Wall Street would have you believe. When the bubble burst and home prices began to decline, this not only hurt...

* By: Larry Walker, Jr. *“In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever.” ~ Oscar Wilde *According to Barack Obama, the job of the President of the United States is to “make sure everyone has a fair shot." However, according to Article II (Sections 1 – 3) of the United States Constitution, in which the job of the President is officially and clearly outlined, nowhere do we find such 'verbage'. Therefore, it is unnecessary to try to figure out who’s included or excluded in 'everyone', and how fair a shot must be – before...

The following words are attributed to Woodrow Wilson in 1909: (14th quote down) The purpose of a university should be to make a son as unlike his father as possible. By the time a man has grown old enough to have a son in college he has specialized. The university should generalize the treatment of its undergraduates, should struggle to put them in touch with every force of life. This is important, for several reasons. He's making clear the progressive point of view about universities - they're not really there to educate people with meaningful and substantive information(although, some of...

Legislative candidates fill out a lot of questionnaires from interest groups in election years. Some stick with their answers if they are elected; others flip flop when it comes time for an actual vote, which doesn't sit well with the groups that asked the questions, or with voters who want elected officials to stay true to their word. In 2010, the Great Lakes Education Project, a pro-schools of choice group, asked prospective legislators about increasing or eliminating the cap on charter schools in Michigan, but when a vote was taken, some Republican legislators voted contrary to how they answered the...

Humiston Children Memorial Day had its genesis in the Civil War. First known as Decoration Day, the holiday began by commemorating fallen Union soldiers. The event was inspired by how the Southern States had honored their dead, decorating Confederate graves, usually in the time frame of April through June. The first observance in the North was May 30, 1868 at Arlington National Cemetery as well as other cemeteries in the Northern States. But after World War I, the North and South agreed on the same date (May 30th). And Decoration Day was extended to all men and women, who...

This young man is the 4%. He is the one who proves the American dream is real. And by the way: you 99% OWS-ers are a bunch of whiny, lazy, good for nothing brats who rightfully deserve to remain poor and stupid for the rest of your miserable lives.

Corporate news blackout as Obama designates John Brennan as the sole person in charge of designating people to be assassinated. John Brennan, Obama’s chief counterterrorism advisor was a name that you did not see on the Mainstream media today as the continue to run stories that serve to distract the masses from stories that matter. Most recently he publicly spoke about the drone program calling it moral and ethical and just. According to reports from the Associated Press, John Brennan has now seized the lead in choosing who will be targeted for drone attacks and raids and Obama has delegated...

Join Us For: BlogBurst Friday to Target a Terrorist – In honor of those protesting the terrorism of Stacy McCain/Aaron Walker/Patterico/Liberty Chick by the Speedway In the 11 years I have been blogging, I have had numerous death threats. But they are nothing compared to what Stacey McCain at The Other McCain is going through. I have watched good friends like Michelle Malkin and other bloggers be threatened, stalked and terrorized mercilessly by the left. They have had to move multiple times, hire private security and fear for their lives and their families simply because they dared to speak the...

If you thought to yourself "because it brings in revenue" you'd be correct in a modern sense. But that answer is so overly generic as to be potentially meaningless, because it doesn't get to the root of the question. Why newspapers have sports sections is explained in a study done a century ago of newspapers, done by Will Irwin in his "The American Newspaper". Part 1, "The Power of the Press" explains the following: On the other extreme, the yellow journals a few years ago, put some of their best cartoonists and cleverest writers into the sporting department. This created...

While the state of Michigan was facing a $1.5 billion deficit in 2009, the Ortonville-Brandon Public School Board of Education signed a four-year deal with its custodians and maintenance people that would pay for 90 percent of their health care premiums. The family plan for the luxurious MESSA health plan cost $17,171 in 2010 or about $2,000 less than what it could have cost the district to pay the salary of a new custodian. The four-year contract meant that Gov. Rick Snyder's education reform law that says public employees have to pay 20 percent of their health care premium couldn't...

As usual, the Waynesville, Ohio public school had to back down against the powerful gay Lamda Legal organization which lawyered up for a gay student who wanted to wear a "Jesus Is Not A Homophobe" tee shirt in school. Well, the student, not knowing much about Jesus to begin with, should have understood that Jesus fears nothing, but he will judge many things, such as adultery, homosexuality, etc. if there is no repentance. I asked the Ohio judge, who made the decision, if a student could be allowed to wear a shirt saying, "God Judged Sodom and Gomorrah." The said...

The upscale Washington private school that counts Sasha and Malia Obama among its students was hit Tuesday with a prank email advising parents that, among other things, their children would receive "a voucher that may be redeemed for their choice of contraception" at the prom this year. Washingtonian magazine broke the news of the fake message, which purported to be a missive sent from the Sidwell Friends School administration. It is unclear how many families at the Quaker day school received the message, which was addressed to "Parents of the Sidwell Friends School Community." Contacted by Yahoo News, the school...

Gov. Jerry Brown promised not to follow the lead of his predecessors, to right the ship of state and to make the hard decisions in order to get the state budget into shape. How did that work out? As economist Thomas Sowell says, “The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy them, and only in the short run.” But maybe that’s not the full explanation. There seems ample evidence that maybe Brown’s truthful,...

This video is the quintessential 2012 campaign speech. If every Republican, from Romney to dog catcher, would use this video as their primary campaign ad, they would win in a landslide. Reagan's principles are conservative principles. His, and ours, will live forever as long as everyone is educated about basic conservative ideas. The video is on you tube here: Ronald Reagan's 2012 Address Speech - "We Can Overcome The Injuries Done By Obama!" View it and pass it on!

I never cease to be amazed by the things I find by digging around in old progressive-era publications. At one point, they examined themselves and their own newspaper establishments.(All 15 segments) I would be shocked if anything like this were published today, with this level of candor. But 100 years ago the progressives thought they owned America lock, stock, and barrel. The primary author of the study was Will Irwin, who is still remembered to this day for this series of news articles - it's significant enough to have it's own section within Irwin's Wikipedia entry. In reading part 1...

If you want to know what really goes on in our public schools, go to a teacher-of-the-year banquet. Here you will see why schools aren't about academics anymore. Educators will never admit it openly, but an event like this reveals so much that outsiders never get to see.

Today, I’m going to use economics to dissect “The Fairy’s Mistake” by Gail Carson Levine: 87 short pages that can be read in an hour. Levine writes charming fairy tales. “Ella Enchanted”, probably her most famous, is about how the use of power leads to unintended consequences, and why liberty is to be desired above all else but requires hard work and bravery to attain. “The Fairy’s Mistake” is also about unintended consequences.

In our county that’s exactly the question we are pondering – and now researching – after the Knox County 912 Patriots recently hosted an information session on an upcoming November Knox County health levy. The featured speakers at the information session were the Knox County Health Department (KCHD) Commissioner and Public Information Officer (PIO). In 2011, according to a handout from the KCHD, the department spent nearly $3 million ($2,983,295 to be exact) and took in just over $2.9 million ($2,908,269) for a shortfall of approximately $75 thousand. Sounds like they need to make a some cuts, right? Oh no,...

......I've often thought that God has a particularly acerbic wit. After all, FriedrichNietzsche, who famously proclaimed God is Dead, badly wanted to be known as a famous writer. He was granted his wish -after he became too insane to enjoy his fame. Obama seems to have wanted to become an uber-celebritycumpolitician in the worst possible way. How fitting it would be if presides over the bankruptcy of both systems. ..fabulists rising to some of the most esteemed positions in our society have potential impact far beyond what people suspect. They lay bare a rottenness at the heart of academia, the...

Hello everyone… I know it’s been a while since I have written an article. I’ve been doing a very large research project which I just now finished. This article might get me in trouble, but that’s fine by me, bring it! I have been reading the history of both the Third Reich and Obama’s history. Unlike all of the sheeple and Obamanauts out there, I will not hold back. I will be honest and forthright with you. This is not going to be pretty folks. The profile of Hitler and Obama are so similar, its frigging scary and their paths...

The Republican led House has voted to allow U.S. military action against Iran if the regime threatens the U.S. or it’s allies (Israel) with nuclear weapons. According to a section of the National Defense Authorization Act, “it shall be the policy of the United States to take all necessary measures, including military action if required, to prevent Iran from threatening the United States, its allies or Iran’s neighbors with a nuclear weapon,” reported Raw Story. The use of the word threaten literally makes it possible for the U.S. to attack Iran whenever they please by simply claiming that they were...

Everything about Barack Obama is an enormous tapestry of lies woven from interlocking fictions spun from false narrative threads, wrapping and obscuring a dark, poisonous web of malice. An agenda concocted from the depths of Morhdor and wickedly implemented. Given, he is a robber baron politician, worthy of designer torches and gold-plated pitchforks, his deceptions are much worse than surface glitter. They go all the way back to his beginnings, when he was ‘selected’ for his political sainthood. An agenda to bring ‘change’ to America, do away with the Constitution and bring totalitarian rule to the US, enforced with an...

The American Dream used to mean an opportunity to achieve success through hard work, rather than being promised a free ride at others’ expense. Those of us who respect the former, rather than believe in the latter, have an instinctive disdain for “socialism.”But mention anything untoward about socialist ideals in polite society nowadays, and one is likely to be greeted with the reply:What is wrong with Socialism?Socialism is a necessarily totalitarian ideology that seeks to synthesize the political, economic, social, and private life of individuals and places control over it all in the state.  Indeed, capitalism makes the separation of...

Remember "March for Justice," broadcast live on Halloween 1998? My sons and I went to the March for Justice and we brought along several of their friends. All of them are today reliable Republican voters. One of the young men is of Thai heritage and he was mightily impressed with the Freepers that day. When he was about 12 he started a two year stint as a child monk in Bangkok ~ by the time he was a senior in high school he had some problems getting the grades needed to graduate so I elected to help him ~ to...

Attention Texas Conservatives: All Conservative State Board of Education members are under attack by liberals and moderates in this Texas Primary Election 2012. We MUST fight back. The following article is just one example of the deception and attacks that conservative SBOE members are facing. Is there something in the water over here? This is the second article I have written this week about a southeast Texas candidate lying. Just a couple of days ago, I posted this story: Please DON'T Re-elect Mike Hamilton He LIED to us! - Vote FOR James White State Representative - Early Vote NOW -...

Public education is something best done privately. Then you can pay for what you get and if you don’t get what you pay for, get your money back. But public education doesn’t work that way. You get what you get, and you keep paying and paying. And the process not only turns out what it turns out (sigh), but it engenders attitudes like the Harford Courant recently reported...

The Cardinal Newman Society Blog is reporting that: "DePaul University, the largest Catholic university in America, has invited one of the foremost population control advocates who once called Christianity “the most dangerous of devotions” to speak at the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and College of Science and Health commencement ceremony. E.O. Wilson, a Harvard professor and two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize who once called humans “an environmental abnormality,” is scheduled to speak at DePaul University’s commencement on June 10th. He is one of a number of prominent people who will be speaking on campus that day....

Members of the Montgomery County Council on Wednesday criticized the county school board's decision to spend a budget surplus on employee compensation rather than shrinking classroom size. "The decision last year to use the surplus in their health insurance account to avoid ... an increase in the employee share of health insurance premiums ... that's a choice that I would highlight as an example where they could have reduced class size but instead they chose to keep their employee benefits better than other employees'," said Councilman George Leventhal, D-at large. Montgomery County Public Schools expects to have $32.3 million in...

A friend of Accuracy in Academia has been fired from her correspondent’s post at the Chronicle of Higher Education for daring to criticize the field of “Black Studies.” “Seriously, folks, there are legitimate debates about the problems that plague the black community from high incarceration rates to low graduation rates to high out-of-wedlock birth rates,” Naomi Schaefer Riley wrote on the Chronicle blog. “But it’s clear that they’re not happening in black-studies departments.” Specifically, she took issue with a quintet of these profiled in the Chronicle. “ If these young scholars are the future of the discipline, I think they...

The educational elite still remains unmoved by the prospect of radical Islamic Shariah law even as manifestations of it pop up in the United States. For example, recently, Middle East experts from the Brookings Institution and the Carnegie Endowment, along with two graduate students, agreed that in dealing with Islamic states, the U. S. should ignore Shariah but hold the nations to universal standards such as respect for women. “United States policy should not pass judgment on Shariah,” Eric Trager, a doctoral candidate from the University of Pennsylvania, said at the May 7, 2012 conference at the Reserve Officer’s Association....

When two white newspaper reporters for the Virginian-Pilot were driving through Norfolk, and were set upon and beaten by a mob of young blacks — beaten so badly that they had to take a week off from work — that might sound like news that should have been reported, at least by their own newspaper. But it wasn’t. The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel was the first major television program to report this incident. Yet this story is not just a Norfolk story, either in what happened or in how the media and the authorities have tried to sweep...

Does a teacher who made $81,000 before retiring to a $41,400 a-year-pension have a valid complaint that she wasn’t paid enough? That was the focus of a recent story in The Bridge, The Center For Michigan’s news site, in which former Royal Oak teacher Kathy Kapera was featured. The article said that Kapera thought the lucrative retirement benefits teachers receive “would make up for the relative lack of financial compensation she would earn as a teacher.” The article didn’t give Kapera’s salary other than stating what she earned in 1976 when she first started as a teacher. The article didn’t...

Continuing what I wrote yesterday, Alfred Benedict Wolfe, a professor at Oberlin college, wrote the following: (Page 278) But if you wish to reduce the marriage rate, give young women economic independence, so that they will not be tempted to marry simply to escape long hours of hard work at low pay, which has to be turned into the family coffers. Progressive contempt for the family unit goes back well over a century. Wrapped up in discussions of eugenics and the minimum wage is this. He's only speaking theoretically, but these people have known for a long time that the...

Over the weekend, we received an email complaining about something we must have written about Gov. Jerry Brown and his budgeting schenanigans. It came from someone who apparently has an iPhone and identifies himself as ”Jerry Brown.” Who knows? Any way, the writer’s complaint with this writer was thus: “Check out the massive budget reductions, government realignment, reorganization and solid pension reform. And don’t forget that the most affluent have taken 80% of the growth in income in recent years. And how about JP Morgan blowing $2 billion after lobbying against regs that would have protected its shareholders. Balance and...

Tested takes a trip to Reed College in Portland, Oregon. This isn't just where Steve Jobs went to school, it's the home of the Reed Research Reactor, the only nuclear reactor in the world that's operated by undergraduate students. We learn how the reactor works and get a demonstration in sample irradiation. It's real science!