Professor Thanks Taxpayers for Cushy Life

Eagle Forum's Education Reporter published an amazing article last month written by a professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. It might explain why college tuition is so expensive. This professor retired at age 64 and will receive 80% of his highest salary for life, plus a generous health insurance plan, a guaranteed 3% annual salary increase, several other perks, and an opportunity to teach as an emeritus professor at $8000 per course, which works out to $200 an hour.

What Goes On at a NOW Convention?

A reporter named Kayla Westbrook recently attended a conference of the National Organization for Women, called NOW, in Tampa, Florida, and she published her observations in National Review Online. She discovered that NOW doesn't promote women, but uses women as a cover for a radical progressive agenda. Those who have been listening to my broadcasts already know that, but it was some kind of revelation to this reporter, so I'll share her discoveries with you.

Interview: John Zmirak — How to Choose a Great College

Except for buying a home, a college education is the most expensive purchase many people will ever make. Our guest will explain how to find a school that's worth the investment.

Book: Choosing the Right College 2012-13: The Whole Truth about America's Top Schools

Listen to Eagle Forum Live Radio Program aired on 8-27-11

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One-Room Schoolhouses

Did you think that one-room schoolhouses have disappeared along with horse and buggies? Well, think again. There are 200 one-room public schoolhouses still functioning in rural America, and a Chicago newspaper recently carried a news story, complete with picture, about one functioning on a mountain top in Montana. At dawn, a small school bus starts its hour and a half drive to gather up the school's nine children, the entire student body, and deliver them t o the one-room schoolhouse. This may seem impossible in the modern times of overflowing classrooms, yet this is a practical necessity because Spring Creek Public School is 72 miles away from the nearest public elementary school.

Most education majors get straight As

An American Enterprise Institute study reports:

Students who take education classes at universities receive significantly higher grades than students who take classes in every other academic discipline. ... The favorable grades awarded in education classes cannot be attributed to student quality or structural factors like smaller classes. With regard to the former, education majors score considerably lower than students in other academic departments on college entrance exams. ... The culture of low standards for educators is problematic because it creates a disconnect between teachers' perceptions of acceptable performance and the perceptions of everyone else.

An Education degree is a joke. The Education departments get the worst students and give the best grades. Teacher pay is based on seniority and credentials, not merit. The credentials are usually Education degrees.

China Opens Oil Field in Iraq

The United States waged an incredibly expensive war in Iraq, got rid of their cruel dictator, set up a peaceful democratic government, and rebuilt much of the country's infrastructure. Iraq has the second largest supply of oil in the world, and the spoils of war should belong to us. We should take enough Iraqi oil to reimburse the United States for all the money we spent to liberate Iraq from the rule of a tyrannical despotic dictator. And we should also use Donald Trump's great idea of taking enough oil to give a million dollars to the family of every U.S. serviceman killed in the Iraq war and to every serviceman or woman who was badly wounded.

The Day God Really Saved America

Most school and college history courses don't teach much about our War of 1812, so let me tell you that today is the 197th anniversary of the day God saved America in that war. Remember, Britain was then the world's superpower, and the United States was just a little nation trying to get on our feet.

The British warships sailed into Chesapeake Bay on August 19, 1814 and marched toward Washington, DC. On August 24, the two armies met along the banks of the Potomac River. The temperature was 100 degrees. Britain had the world's best trained soldiers and they quickly routed the Americans, who were just a bunch of untrained volunteers. The British admiral ate dinner in the White House and then gave the order to set fire to the city. Within hours, the White House, the U.S. Capitol, many other public buildings, the dockyard, and several large storehouses filled with cannon, small arms, and other weapons were burning. On the morning of August 25, the British soldiers continued to set fires, determined to destroy the city.

The Food Stamp Crime Wave

Millionaires are now legally entitled to collect food stamps as long as they have little or no current monthly income. 35 states have abolished testing of how much money people have. The food stamp program has become a magnet for abuses and absurdities. The number of food-stamp recipients has soared from 26 million in 2007 to 44 million today, and costs have risen from $33 billion to $77 billion. The U.S. Department of Agriculture now has only 40 inspectors to oversee 200,000 merchants that accept food stamps. Retailers who traffic illegally in food stamps by redeeming stamps for cash or alcohol or other prohibited items "are less likely to face criminal penalties or prosecution" than in earlier years. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revealed that Wisconsin food-stamp recipients routinely sell their benefit cards on Facebook, and that "nearly 2,000 recipients claimed they lost their card six or more times in just one year" [2010] and received replacements.

ERA Reintroduced in Congress

The U.S. Supreme Court recently handed down a very sensible decision in a big case brought by the feminists against the giant company Wal-Mart. The feminists tried to patch together a class-action suit of a million and a half current and former female employees, and demand that damages be paid to all of them for alleged sex discrimination. They lost; the Supreme Court ruled that the women's complaints were not sufficiently similar to be packaged in a class-action suit.

The professional feminists were very upset by this decision because they were planning on getting big bucks from Wal-Mart and resurrecting some of their off-the-wall theories about wage discrimination. Particularly disturbing was the much repeated feminist commentary that the Wal-Mart decision proves we must change our "attitudes." The feminists need to be firmly told that we don't want the Supreme Court to tell us what our "attitudes" should be. We have a constitutional right to decide our own "attitudes."

Interview: Mike Farris — Parental Rights Under Assault

Did you know there is an ongoing battle to undermine your right as a parent to raise your child as you think best? An attorney will share shocking court rulings and tell us how we can fight back.

The Child: The Documentary

Listen to Eagle Forum Live Radio Program aired on 8-20-11

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Should Schools Teach American History?

Just this summer, the National Assessment of Education Progress, which is an arm of the U.S. Department of Education, released its 2010 "report card" on American history, as taught in U.S. public schools. This national assessment showed that 12th-grade students have made little progress in their understanding of the concept of American democracy or of the U.S. role in world affairs. All these students will be voters in just a couple of years, and they seem to be appallingly uninformed about the history of our country and the principles that made us exceptional. The survey, which included both multiple-choice and essay questions, showed that only a small percentage knew significant facts about the Civil War, the two world wars, and other major events.

Feminists Hate Everything Masculine

I hope that one of the results of my new book The Flipside of Feminism will be to show the American people that the feminist movement was never about equality. It was always about interchangability, and when the facts of human nature are too overwhelming to make men and women interchangeable, feminists are determined to get rid of anything that is truly masculine.

A good example of feminist maliciousness toward men is the way they have used the power of Big Government in the Department of Education to abolish hundreds of men's college sports teams, particularly the sports that are too masculine for women to play. I knew the congressional sponsor of Title IX, and she certainly did not plan it to be a sword to punish men or to enforce bean-counting quotas. She merely wanted equal opportunity for women. But the malicious feminists have used Title IX as a sword to force colleges to abolish hundreds of men's athletic teams, so many, in fact, that they have discouraged large numbers of men from even attending college, and colleges are now nearly 60% women.

Is Michele Bachmann a Stepford wife in disguise?

It was a colossally stupid question. Of all the inquiries we should be making of a presidential candidate, of all the questions Michele Bachmann undoubtedly prepared for last week's Republican debates, moderator Byron York asks this: "As president, would you be submissive to your husband?"

Yet, every comment a political candidate makes is subject to scrutiny — and Bachmann provided a doozy when, in describing her career as a tax lawyer in 2006, she told an audience she wasn't all that interested in tax law but her husband told her to pursue it as a career. "The Lord says," recounts Bachmann, "Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands." So Mrs. Bachmann became a tax attorney.

Read more: STLToday.com

 

Students Must Be Green to Graduate

All Maryland students entering high school this fall will be required to prove they are "environmentally literate" in order to graduate. Maryland is the first state to enact such a requirement. The governor calls it "a defining moment for education." The new regulation requires local school districts to integrate lessons on conservation, "the health of our natural world," and so-called "smart growth," into the core subjects of science, social studies, math, and language arts. Smart growth often means restrictions on private land development and disincentives to drive our personal automobiles. Local school systems will determine how to infuse these environmental standards into their curricula and how to test student mastery of the material. Schools must report to the state every five years on what they are doing to meet these requirements.

Recess Coming Back to Chicago Schools

I was shocked recently to learn that Chicago has not scheduled recess for public schoolchildren since 1973. No wonder boys are hard to deal with in school! Only 15% of Chicago schools have outdoor playtime, while 27% have only indoor recess. Each school was supposed to have an annual vote on whether or not to have recess, but we're told that the vote was never actually taken. Chicago schools were given the option in the 1970s to opt out of recess in order to extend class time in the expectation that that would improve student test scores. But getting rid of recess did not improve test scores at all.

Many States Pass Education Reform Legislation

In the elections of 2011, many state legislatures flipped from Democratic to Republican majorities, and this change in party control, along with many states running out of money, set the stage for passage of education reform legislation. Here are some samples of these new laws.

Wisconsin cut the power of the teachers union to set their own employment standards. Indiana passed an unprecedented expansion in school choice, charter schools, and new tax breaks to make it easier for families to afford private schools. Idaho passed a law to end tenure and retirement bonuses for teachers and to vest power in elected school boards instead of in teachers unions. Ohio passed a new law to establish teacher seniority based on merit instead of on tenure, and to restrict teachers' ability to contract for entitlements. Maine authorized charter schools for the first time. Tennessee brought collective bargaining for teachers under the control of school boards, and replaced tenure with performance-based evaluations.

Interview: Erick Stakelbeck — The Terrorist Next Door

Now that Osama bin Laden is dead, can we stop worrying about Islamic terrorists? An investigative reporter who has interviewed terrorists and visited American mosques says they live among us.

Book: The Terrorist Next Door: How the Government is Deceiving You About the Islamist Threat

Listen to Eagle Forum Live Radio Program aired on 8-13-11



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Are You Eating Dangerous Foods?

I was shocked to read a article in the New York Times stating that nearly two-thirds of the fruits and vegetables and 80% of the seafood eaten in the United States now come from other countries. Half of the medical devices and 80% of the active ingredients in U.S. medications come from outside our country, often or usually from countries whose manufacturing standards, sanitation, and regulatory systems are vastly inferior to ours. These foods and medical prescriptions are repackaged by U.S. companies so Americans don't know where their foods and prescriptions come from.

VAWA Must Be Rewritten

The Violence Against Women Act, known as VAWA for short, was created to help abused women, not abused men. It is very sex discriminatory. It has evolved into a de facto welfare system noted for broad definitions of what is domestic violence, loose eligibility criteria, open-ended benefits, and a billion-dollar flow of taxpayers money every year to radical feminist groups. Waste, fraud, and false allegations are widespread. Shelters are filled with homeless and drug-abusing women claiming to be victims of abuse, who never presented any credible evidence of abuse, while real victims are often turned away. False allegations of domestic violence are very common. That contributes to family breakdown and diverts the financial help that should go to real victims of abuse.

The Jobless Summer

Young people and African-Americans voted for Barack Obama for President in very high percentages. But Obama betrayed both groups. Those two groups are major segments of the high unemployment we have today, and in particular are badly hurt by the lack of summer jobs. The Department of Labor reported that fewer 16-to-19-year-olds are working this summer than at any time since records began to be kept in 1948. Ten years ago, half of teens would have summer jobs. This year, only 24%, one in four, have jobs. If you look at this on a chart, the line looks like young people are falling off a cliff. Black teens have had the worst of it. Their unemployment rate is 42%.

California Mandates Teaching Gay History

California students will now be mandated to learn about gay historical figures, according to a bill just passed by the California state legislature. This bill passed easily in both Houses with big Democratic Party majorities. The bill requires students to study "the role and contributions of ... gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans ... to the development of California and the United States." The bill also forbids the use of any textbook or other school material that reflects "adversely" on gays. The bill was written by an openly gay Senator, Mark Leno of San Francisco.

Video Games Are Not Like Books

In a shocking decision on the last day of the spring term, the U.S. Supreme Court knocked out state and local laws that say violent video games need parental consent before they can be sold to children. The Court's majority couldn't see any difference between classic works of literature such as The Divine Comedy or Grimm's Fairy Tales, and the video games that teach kids to commit criminal acts such as torture and murder by having them role-play such acts through violent images in vivid color. Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts pointed out that the Court's decision now allows the industry to sell children "games" that show victims "dismembered, decapitated, disemboweled, set on fire, and chopped into little pieces" with blood gushing and splattering. "There are games in which a player can take on the identity and reenact the killings carried out by the perpetrators of the murders at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech. ... There is a game in which players engage in 'ethnic cleansing' and can choose to gun down African-Americans, Latinos, or Jews."

Interview: Philip Cook — Domestic Violence Law Needs an Overhaul

The federal Violence Against Women Act needs a rewrite. It's supposed to help victims, but is misused to win custody battles and funnel a billion dollars to feminist groups. We'll talk about it.

Stop Abusive and Violent Environments

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Court Wraps Video Games in First Amendment

The U.S. Supreme Court got it wrong this summer in the video game case called Brown v. Entertainment Merchant Association. This wasn't a First Amendment case; it was a parents' rights case and the only Justice who understood that was Clarence Thomas. The issue was a California law that would prohibit the $60 billion-a-year video game industry from selling hideously violent games to children without parental consent. Numerous states and cities had passed similar laws against selling violent video games to children, but now the Supreme Court has wrapped these games in the embrace of the U.S. Constitution.

The U.S.'s Most Controversial Decision

Every August, the debate erupts again about whether President Harry Truman was right or wrong in his decision to order the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945. A new book by Wilson Miscambie called The Most Controversial Decision deals at length with this question. It's a carefully researched and logically written book that places Truman's controversial decision in the context of the times. The author makes a powerful case that, indeed, Truman was right in making that decision. The atomic bombs ended the war in the Pacific. No military officials counseled the president against using the atomic bomb prior to Hiroshima. Truman acted with the full support of his chief civilian and military advisers.

Are July 4th Parades Right Wing?

Did you participate in a Fourth of July Parade last month? A new Harvard University study just reported that Independence Day parades energize only Republicans, turn kids into Republicans, and help to boost Republican turnout of adults on Election Day. Here is a direct quote from this remarkable report:

"Fourth of July celebrations in the United States shape the nation's political landscape by forming beliefs and increasing participation, primarily in favor of the Republican Party. The political right has been more successful in appropriating American patriotism and its symbols during the 20th century. Survey evidence also confirms that Republicans consider themselves more patriotic than Democrats. There is a political congruence between the patriotism promoted on Fourth of July and the values associated with the Republican Party. Fourth of July celebrations in Republican dominated counties may thus be more politically biased events that socialize children into Republicans." (End of quotation from the Harvard study.)

Smart Girls Back Bachmann

The congresswoman wins a straw poll of conservative women at their annual summit, but it wasn’t a landslide. Eleanor Clift on the group’s evolution from one mom’s blog. 

Billing it as the first ever women’s presidential straw poll, nearly 300 conservative women activists cast their ballots in Louisville this weekend at the third annual Smart Girl Summit to give their favorite presidential candidates a boost.

Michele Bachmann came in first—no shock there—but it wasn’t the complete blowout many expected from an audience of conservative women. Entrepreneur and inspirational speaker Herman Cain finished a close second, underscoring that the women are looking for conservative grassroots leadership regardless of gender.

This is the season for straw polls, and it’s always fun to measure the candidates against one another. But it’s unclear how much they mean in a primary contest that doesn’t get underway for another six months, and when two potentially major candidates, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, were left off the ballot, since they were at the summit.

Read entire article

 

Libya and the War Powers Act

House Speaker John Boehner sent a very proper letter to President Obama reminding him that his war in Libya is in violation of the War Powers Act unless he receives authorization from Congress. The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, and the War Powers Act gives the President the go-ahead only if there is "(1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces." None of these conditions exists with Libya.

E-Verify Bill Must Be Amended

States that are hurt the most by the invasion of illegal aliens recognize that the Obama Administration is not enforcing the laws to prevent illegals from crossing our border and taking jobs away from American citizens, so the states are trying to protect themselves by enforcing the laws against illegally entering our country. However, the pro-amnesty crowd is fighting back and got Congressman Lamar Smith to introduce a bill to preempt, that means to forbid, the states from requiring use of E-Verify unless employees work for state or local governments. This bill forbids the states from using their constitutional power to revoke the license of businesses that hire illegal aliens unless the federal government takes action first. The fact is that there is no likelihood that the Obama Administration will prosecute employers who hire illegals or fail to fire illegal workers, or who contract out part of their workforce to circumvent the system.

Supreme Court Okays Arizona's E-Verify

E-Verify, a computer process that makes it fast and easy for employers to check the validity of employees' Social Security numbers to ascertain if they are legally in the U.S., was created by Congress as a voluntary system. This process verifies individuals within a few seconds with 99% accuracy. However, only about 2% of businesses actually use it. Arizona in 2007 passed the Legal Arizona Workers Act to require businesses to use E-Verify in hiring new workers, and to allow the state to revoke the business license of any company that knowingly employ illegal aliens. The Arizona law immediately proved helpful. Since the law went into effect, 80,000 illegal aliens have voluntarily left that state. Then the pro-amnesty crowd in the United States tried hard to get supremacist judges to declare this law unconstitutional.