Forced Labor in Venezuela

This is the kind of world that Bernie’s “Democratic Socialism” leads to.  Venezuela’s government has taken the next step: forced labor. Here’s Richard Washington, “Venezuela calls for mandatory labor in farm sector” on CNBC: A Venezuelan ministry last week announced Resolution No. 9855, which calls for the establishment of a “transitory labor regime” in order to relaunch […]

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U.S. Teachers Are Mediocre

Compared to teachers in other countries, U.S. teachers are “perfectly mediocre” in cognitive skills, writes Dick Startz, a University of California at Santa Barbara economics professor, on Brookings’ Chalkboard. “American teachers seem to be a touch above average in literacy skills and noticeably below average in numeracy,” he writes, citing a paper based on data from the Programme for

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Convention Draws Libertarian Students, Who Shun Main Party Candidates

The Young Americans for Liberty National Convention is drawing college students from across the country to the Catholic University of America for four days of presentations and speeches, including a keynote speech by Ron Paul. Young Americans for Liberty is the largest libertarian student organization, with more than 700 chapters and 204,000 youth activists nationwide. The group grew

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‘Free’ college? First, fix high school

Forget “free college” — now embraced by Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, writes Will Swaim in a Los Angeles Times op-ed piece. First, “deliver universal high school education.” The idea of free college education is seductive. There’s the fact that many Americans aren’t in the financial place they’d like to be, vis-à-vis their progeny’s impending high school graduation and the

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Let My People Know

Nine out of 10 college students think “slavery is a uniquely American invention,” according to Duke Pesta, a professor at University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh who says he quizzes his students every year. “Moses, Pharaoh, they know none of it.” Let alone the history of slavery around the globe. What do they teach students these days?

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Union Bosses Talk Wage Inequality, Rake in Six-Figure Salaries

Earlier this year, we chronicled the 10 best-paid union bosses in terms of salary and total compensation. Some earned more than $600,000 in total disbursements in 2015. According to the union’s filings with the Department of Labor, Air Line Pilots Association President Timothy Canoll took home $693,534 (Weingarten’s $500,000 payday wasn’t far behind.) By contrast, the average “chief

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Encouraging New Study Indicates Majority Of U.S. Students Can Now Recognize Math

In what experts are describing as the most marked improvement in American academic performance in decades, a study released Friday by the U.S. Department of Education has found that the majority of the nation’s students have attained the skills necessary to recognize math. “We were encouraged to find that when presented with a series of

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Religious Freedom Or Medical Neglect? Idaho Lawmakers Take Up Faith-Healing Exemption

Idaho’s faith-healing exemption dates to 1972. The year before, the Legislature approved a top-to-bottom rewrite of state penal code, adopting changes recommended under a model advocated by a national legal group seeking to standardize and modernize American laws. Among other changes, the new code that took effect in January 1972 decriminalized consensual gay sex. That

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Black Fathers Matter

This is well worth your 5 minutes. Larry Elder discusses his conversation with Kweisi Mfume about black fathers.  This goes back to the decision in the 1960s that “father’s don’t matter.” We’ve seen where that’s gotten us.  Which poses a bigger threat to black communities: Racism? Or the absence of fathers? Drawing on a sea

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Clinton’s campaign was also hacked in breach of Democratic Party

  Earlier this week, the FBI revealed that it’s investigating Russia’s potential involvement in the email hack on the Democratic National Convention. Reuters reports that intelligence officials also believe that Russian hackers were responsible for yesterday’s attack on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. That would have given the hackers access to things like strategy memos

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Time To Talk Idaho Pension Reform

Whether a government employee or a taxpayer, you should be concerned Idaho’s pension system isn’t meeting investment goals. An underperforming pension system could result in taking more money from employees’ paychecks to pay for retirement benefits. For taxpayers, it may mean higher taxes, reduced services or both. The pension system, PERSI, disclosed recently the just-concluded

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