As opposition continues to mount against an Obama-backed scheme known as “Common Core” to standardize education across America, lawmakers and activists determined to stop the radical agenda are turning up the heat. In Congress, senators and representatives are taking action. State lawmakers are too. Among the grassroots, meanwhile, advocates for educational freedom are hosting gatherings in numerous states while planning another online “Twitter Rally” on May 2 to stop Common Core before it is rolled out nationwide.

JERUSALEM — Lawmakers in Israel led by Deputy Speaker of Knesset Moshe Feiglin and his freedom-oriented “Liberal Lobby” spoke out against barbaric human-rights abuses being perpetrated by the Communist Party regime ruling mainland China — especially the harvesting of body organs from executed dissidents and prisoners of conscience. The two-hour symposium at the Israeli Parliament featured an award-winning documentary on the brutal crimes, a speech by a survivor of the Chinese dictatorship’s prison camps, and an array of prominent human rights advocates speaking out on behalf of the victims.

Citing national security, high American unemployment, budget deficits, and safety concerns, critics lambasted the Obama administration’s Department of Homeland Security for its recent decision to purchase over $7 million of U.S. Border Patrol uniforms that are made in Mexico. All across the political spectrum, members of the media, Congress, and law-enforcement advocates say the goods should be produced in America. However, despite previous uproars in recent years over similar contracts, the administration claims that it must accept the Mexican-made uniforms under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The non-government-backed digital currency known as bitcoin (BTC) has soared to prominence in recent weeks after a meteoric rise in value from less than $50 to over $250 in just days followed by a devastating crash back down to about $85 today. Amid the wild volatility, analysts and experts weighed in to speculate about what may be going on, with some seeing bitcoin as the wave of the future and others downplaying it as a potentially interesting anecdote for historians to examine that is unlikely to displace establishment currencies.

In the wake of gold prices cratering in recent days, more than a few prominent experts have already started pinning the blame on Western central banks — especially the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank (ECB). According to numerous analysts, the central bankers are desperate to salvage their fiat currencies and eliminate competition as monetary authorities continue to create ever-greater quantities of euros and dollars out of thin air.

Some experts, whistleblowers, traders, and former officials say the Fed dumped as much as 400 or even 500 tons of “paper gold” on the market — metals that it might not even have — as part of a naked short sale aimed at driving down the prices. Other analysts, especially among the establishment, pointed to the ECB chief’s recent suggestion that struggling European authorities in countries like Cyprus would have to sell their precious metals to keep receiving bailouts.

The increasingly vocal campaign to stop an Obama administration-backed set of national education standards known as “Common Core” from being forced on state governments and local schools just got a major boost on Friday. Meeting in Los Angeles last week, the Republican National Committee (RNC) unanimously adopted a resolution blasting the “one size fits all” educational scheme as “an inappropriate overreach to standardize and control the education of our children so they will conform to a preconceived ‘normal.’”

Prominent U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) released a report documenting President Obama’s lawless attempts to expand executive power, citing six failed efforts since 2012 to increase federal authority that were rejected by the entire Supreme Court — even by his own big government-supporting nominees. Among the examples of executive-branch power grabs cited by the popular Republican senator: tracking citizens using GPS without having probable cause, interfering with churches, depriving property owners of the ability to challenge federal abuses in court, seeking the authority to override state laws at will, and more.

The hard-hitting report, entitled “The Legal Limit: The Obama Administration’s Attempts to Expand Federal Power,” cites numerous cases to argue that the president’s lust for increased power knows essentially no limits.

President Obama decided this week that the Muslim Brotherhood-linked regime ruling parts of Somalia out of the capital city Mogadishu is eligible to receive U.S. military aid and weapons, sending a memo to Secretary of State John Kerry announcing the new finding and laying the ground work for even more foreign entanglements in Africa. While the decision does not mean American taxpayers will begin sending arms immediately, Obama claimed his administration could legitimately provide military assistance to United Nations-backed Somali authorities under existing U.S. export and foreign aid statutes.

Despite a bipartisan federal law prohibiting financial contracts with the Russian government-owned arms giant Rosoboronexport, the Obama administration announced that it would be purchasing another $680 million worth of military helicopters from the state company for the Afghan regime of Hamid Karzai. The contract comes after the Pentagon already spent $411 million with the supplier since May of 2011, bringing the estimated amount of U.S. taxpayer funds funneled to the state-owned behemoth to about $1 billion in recent years.

The latest deal, however, drew furious outrage from across the political spectrum.

One of the most prominent and powerful rebel factions fighting on behalf of the Obama administration-backed “regime change” operation in Syria formally announced that it was merging with al-Qaeda in Iraq, sparking fresh concerns about the U.S. government arming, training, and funding the so-called “revolution.” The latest news comes on the heels of reports that the war-torn nation is on the verge of becoming a haven for Islamic extremists on par with Afghanistan and Iraq as foreign jihadists continue flooding into Syria.

Two days before the explosive announcement, purported al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri called on all Islamic fighters in Syria to join together in the bid to oust the existing regime and seize power.