Four Corners Park in Coldwater, Mich., is home to Memorial Day festivities, bands in the summer, and monuments to those who have given the ultimate sacrifice to defend the American way of life. Now it’s also home to a blanket prohibition on the freedom of speech following a local Tea Party’s request to hang a banner announcing a rally last July. First Amendment, anyone?
One issue that has come to the forefront in the debate over a continuing resolution to fund the government for the remainder of the year is transparency. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and President Barack Obama negotiated a deal on Friday averting a government slowdown behind closed doors and in secret — without any significant consent of the governed. We now have details of the final legislation, yet the American people were completely cut out of this legislative drafting process. Republicans and …
Race to the Top, President Obama’s signature education program, has been spared in the race to cut spending. As part of the new six-month spending deal, the program will receive $700 million in new funding, according to details released by House Republicans early this morning. That’s just shy of the $800 million Obama requested in his budget. With the additional funding, the Obama administration will be able to continue its top-down approach to education. Since the program’s inception, Race to the Top dollars have been tied to state adoption of …
The Civil War began one hundred and fifty years ago today, when Confederate soldiers fired on the Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Tensions were high in the months prior to the battle at Fort Sumter, as President Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office and seven southern states seceded. To discuss the Civil War, we sat down with Mackubin T. Owens, professor at the Naval War College and expert in military history. Q: Professor Owens, what was the primary cause of the Civil War? Owens: The proximate cause of …
The federal government might not have shut down on Monday, but rush hour traffic stopped in our nation’s capital when the mayor of Washington, D.C., Vince Gray, already serving under a cloud of corruption, was arrested while protesting Congress’ budget agreement. Gray, city council members and more than 200 protesters blocked Constitution Avenue and diverted police resources, shouting, “Free D.C.” and “We can’t take it no more,” all in response to new restrictions on spending that Congress placed on the District of Columbia. But they should have been protesting outside …
Early this morning, former president of Côte D’Ivoire Laurent Gbagbo was finally forced out of power. Seeking refuge in the bunker of his Abidjan residence, opposition forces and international peacekeepers took the African strongman into custody. Although there are conflicting reports as to who actually arrested Gbagbo, one thing is certain according to Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations: Gbagbo’s illegitimate claim to power is over. Today marks the end of a four-month election crisis that has deepened the ethnic and religious divisions within Ivorian society and has …
It should come as no surprise to anyone that a panel of judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order today refusing to lift the stay issued by a federal district court against Arizona’s immigration law. After all, the Ninth Circuit is the most often overturned appeals court in the nation, full of judges who routinely issue results-driven opinions that flout the law and precedents issued by the Supreme Court. We all knew the litigation over Arizona’s law, which requires police officers to check on the immigration status …
The ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wants to know why Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is sitting on millions of dollars in taxpayer money rather than shifting it to the Broadcasting Board of Governors for anti-censorship work in China and other repressive regimes. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) wrote to Clinton on Friday after learning the BBG has yet to receive funding from the State Department. The BBG, which oversees government-sponsored international broadcasting, would like to use the money to ensure its content is accessible. The so-called Great Firewall of …
Hey kids, say goodbye to your lunch boxes! In one Chicago-area school, packing a lunch is now banned. Apparently, mother and father don’t know best. The school’s principal does … or at least she thinks so. The Chicago Tribune reports: At … Little Village Academy on Chicago’s West Side, students are not allowed to pack lunches from home. Unless they have a medical excuse, they must eat the food served in the cafeteria. Principal Elsa Carmona said her intention is to protect students from their own unhealthful food choices.
If you don’t like the message, you might as well muzzle the messenger. Or at least that’s the strategy being employed by the Washington Teachers’ Union this week as it plans to protest The Washington Post for what it describes as slanted coverage of D.C. education reform. Their evidence of bias? The Posts’ corporate ties to Kaplan Inc., the test preparation company. Not surprisingly, the truth is an altogether different story.
