Free Republic

So who is behind the kill-the-Jews campus protests that, as Steve noted earlier today, have panicked Congressional Democrats who fear a political debacle as in 1968? Consistent with the retro nature of the protests, the organizers appear to be largely left-wing retreads, with a financial assist, it is reported, from one or more Soros entities.Take, for example, Charlotte Kates. Kates has been prominent in the Columbia protests: Radical anti-Israel activists told Columbia students, “There is nothing wrong with being a fighter in Hamas” — weeks before the campus exploded in pro-Palestinian protests.In a two-hour tirade to the hardest core of...

That was one of the most difficult hours I've ever spent, and I can't encourage you enough to endure what I did. I'm talking about "Screams Before Silence," the new Oct. 7 documentary hosted by former Meta/Facebook chief operations officer Sheryl Sandberg and directed by Anat Stalinsky, best known for the Israeli TV series "Sovietzka." Consisting mostly of interviews with the survivors — some of whom also spent time as hostages — the movie also features devastating and uncompromising looks at the aftermath. Perhaps most upsetting are the smartphone videos, often cut into the interviews, showing you exactly what the...

Hugh Gallagher explored what he called FDR’s Splendid Deception in his 1985 book of that title. In the title Gallagher was referring to FDR’s concealment of the polio-related paralysis that struck him in 1921. Gallagher was also a polio victim who understood the pain underlying Roosevelt’s efforts. Researching the book, Gallagher found that among the 35,000 photographs of Roosevelt at his presidential library, only two featured him in his wheelchair. Media of the day cooperated by ignoring his polio. Roosevelt himself went to extraordinary lengths to convey the impression that he could walk. “[T]he overwhelming fact about [FDR] is that...

It wasn’t long ago when the activist Left had a whole laundry list of systems and impersonal forces that it was battling against: sexism, homophobia, white supremacy, ableism – you name it. The Millenial Left may have nodded along to Bernie Sanders’ old labour-Left leanings. Still, they largely abandoned the class struggle of old for a struggle against boutique oppressions that were contingent but intersecting, hence the rise of so-called “intersectionality.” That’s the once-trendy academic philosophy that relies on a view of power relations of society, where advantages and disadvantages are filtered primarily through identities: race, gender, and sexual orientation....

Remember when the Secret Service was the elite of the elite? It was the one government agency everybody could agree on. Those brave men and women put their bodies on the line to protect the president, and therefore the stability of the free world.But somewhere along the way, the agency seems to have lowered its standards a bit.Brie Stimson, Fox News:A U.S. Secret Service agent with Vice President Kamala Harris’ detail was removed from their assignment after engaging in a physical fight with other agents while on duty Monday…Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the U.S. Secret Service, called the...

Columbia student Khymani James: "Be grateful that I'm not just going out and murdering Zionists."One of the most vocal student activists leading the anti-Israel Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Columbia University, Khymani James, openly stated in an live-stream of an official university inquiry in January that “Zionists don’t deserve to live.”James, who states in the hearing that he goes by “he/she/they” pronouns, live-streamed his meeting with Columbia’s Center for Student Success and Intervention, where he doubled down on an Instagram post that sparked the report. In the report, which he reads aloud at the start of the meeting, James warned Zionists...

ight key things to understand about the cacophony on campusHypocrisy projection: When someone who generally only cares about the free speech rights of people they agree with asserts that everybody ELSE is a hypocrite, usually without actually bothering to check if their opponent has, in fact, been consistent.In my book with Rikki Schlott, “The Canceling of the American Mind,” we coined the term “hypocrisy projection” to describe the tactic of critics who look to dismiss people or organizations (like FIRE) by accusing them of being inconsistent in their principles. The irony, of course, is that the accusers themselves tend to...

Once again, choose accurate language. That is not “demonstrators.”I have previously written about the importance of accurate language to inform the American public about what is going on. See “Covid” Didn’t Destroy Businesses and Lives; the Government Did. Language shapes the terrain on which the political debates are fought. Many of our supposedly “elite” commentators, however, do not appear to understand this. I see constant references, even on outlets like Fox News, to the “demonstrators” when describing the pro-Hamas supporters who are shutting down freeways, blocking bridges illegally, and occupying campuses while assaulting and preventing Jewish students from attending classes.Referring...

...One of the biggest stories that has emerged in recent days is the growing protests against Israel — and in favor of Hamas — on elite college campuses. The epicenter of all this hateful demonstration is Columbia University, where students, faculty, and probably professional agitators are camped out expressing their support of terrorism and their hatred of the only bastion of freedom in the Middle East. The adage about history rhyming often comes to mind, and we're seeing it here. These protests are the descendants of Occupy, Antifa, BLM, CHAZ/CHOP, and Stop Cop City. The violence may not be the...

Jewish students in the Ivy League, I’m here to offer an invitation: Come to the South, where you’ll be safe. It’s manifestly not safe to be an Ivy League Jew. A prominent Columbia rabbi “strongly” advised Jewish students to go home and not come back: It’s become clear “Columbia University’s Public Safety and the NYPD cannot guarantee Jewish students’ safety in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy,” Rabbi Elie Buechler told students this week over WhatsApp. And no wonder. An anti-Israel protester near the Columbia campus yelled at counterprotesters holding Israeli flags, “Go back to Poland!” and “Go back...

An Imperial Japanese diplomat in Nazi Germany before the war was supposed to have written back to Tokyo lamenting that Japan had nothing like the Jews. Totalitarian regimes are at their best when they have a readily identifiable minority to persecute and, most importantly, to scapegoat. "It's crazy," TwitterX user Justine wrote about the American Left, "how they went from 'punch a Nazi' to 'eradicate the Jews' in just 4 years." It isn't crazy at all once you realize that violence is the point. Justine was replying to this video, in which American college students can be heard chanting "Hamas...

Nothing shows the difference between Joe Biden and Donald Trump more than their occasional riffs on the campaign trail. Trump’s recent riff about Biden issuing a proclamation declaring Easter Sunday as “Transgender Awareness Day” is classic Trump. When he suggested to the crowd that maybe we should have Christian Awareness Day and maybe it should be on election day, you could probably hear heads exploding in Washington. Compare and contrast this with a classic Joe Biden riff. Apropos of nothing, the commander-in-chief wandered into a story about cannibals eating his uncle. It has to be on the top all-time greatest...

Yes, you’re right, it’s a republic, not a democracy, but this is no time to quibble. Two high-profile Trump critics, one of whom was even touted as the presidential candidate who could topple Bad Orange in 2020, have just shown that they realize that the real threat to this tottering republic is coming not from the man they once happily joined in on hating, but from his enemies First it was the man whom Tucker Carlson indelibly dubbed the “Creepy Porn Lawyer.” Michael Avenatti, porn star Stormy Daniels’ former lawyer, is now doing time for a variety of crimes including...

PGA Tour star Scottie Scheffler, who won his second green jacket at the Masters last week, isn't the only world No. 1 golfer dominating a professional tour right now. Nelly Korda, No. 1 in the Rolex Women's World Golf Ranking, has won in four consecutive starts on the LPGA Tour, becoming the first golfer since Lorena Ochoa in 2008 to accomplish the feat. Korda is the first American golfer since Kathy Whitworth in 1969 to capture victories in four of her first five LPGA starts in a season.

On April 11 1966, Glen Campbell was drafted in as a last minute rhythm guitarist for a recording session with Frank Sinatra. Unable to believe that he was in the presence of his idol, he spent much of his time at the studio on Sunset Boulevard, in Los Angeles, gazing worshipfully at the man laying down the vocal for Strangers In The Night. The attention did not go unnoticed. “Who,” Sinatra hissed, “is that f______ guitar player?” By the time his anonymous sideman had become a superstar in his own right, just two years later, Old Blue Eyes might well...

To show that his side is the side of sanity, logic, and rationality, a local man has decided to set himself ablaze, incinerating his own body on live TV. Eyewitnesses report that the man, who was clearly in a healthy, stable state of mind, doused himself in gasoline before striking a match and igniting his own body, presumably for a very sane and noble reason. As flames engulfed him, onlookers were immediately convinced of the truth of his cause, ending all debate once and for all. "Well, I guess that settles that. He's right and I'm wrong," said local man...

Harper’s this week published a lengthy reported feature about the state of Hollywood, particularly the state of screenwriting and whether or not folks can credibly make a living while doing so. It’s kind of interesting in the sense that the author has an idea (deregulation is bad and greedy CEOs are ruining everything) and writes backward from there. I am … skeptical that Ronald Reagan is the proximate cause for the streaming bubble popping, but, you know, maybe. You should give it a read and decide for yourself. Ultimately, that’s what we’re dealing with: a bubble. An insane amount of...

Accommodating overseas elites by tolerating antisemitism on U.S. campuses is part of a scheme to turn loss-leader DEI categories into profit centersFive weeks after Rutgers University suspended the New Brunswick campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) on Dec. 11 for violating several university policies, the school reversed its decision and reinstated the pro-Hamas group. In celebration, SJP members filmed a video in the classic Palestinian terrorist style: faces covered in kaffiyehs, reading a communique which, following a diatribe against the Zionists, made a list of demands that the school must meet if it wished to wipe the...

Ever since October 7, mobs of Muslims have taken over much of central London for kill-the-Jews rallies. The effect has been to make being Jewish in London increasingly dangerous. Things came to a head last Saturday when a group of Jews leaving a synagogue bumped into the Muslims’ weekly protest. One of that group, Gideon Falter, describes what happened: It was early afternoon, in central London, and I was with five others, some of us wearing a kippah, or skullcap.At Aldwych, we came across the pro-Palestine protest and we started to cross the road as the front of the march...

There is much to learn from Paul Johnson's history of the 20th century, not least the appalling truth about the "Republican" camp during the Spanish Civil War; some unpalatable facts about FDR and his "vanity … compounded by an astonishing naivety"; and, most importantly, the many ways in which the autocrats of the left (Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc…) and of the right (Hitler, Mussolini, Pétain, etc…) inspired, complemented, and even conspired with, one another. Much of what we have learned turns out to be myths. What explains the rise of rightist fascism, and how does it differ from leftist communism?...