Free Republic

My alma mater, Yale University, embroiled in the latest PC controversy about the renaming of one of its dormitories, or residential colleges, named after John C. Calhoun, has announced a process under which students may petition to have the name of Calhoun College (or any other residential college) changed. One wonders however, if this will only be the beginning, rather than the end, because Yale itself is also named for someone connected to the slave trade, Elihu Yale. This is hardly a new development, politically speaking, for Yale. In my day there were fliers in big 50 point font screaming...

There’s no way to watch this clip and not detect the taste of sour grapes, just as there’s no way to watch the recent media/left hand-wringing over “fake news” and not see an attempt to explain away Trump’s shocking upset as some sort of grand scam. It must be a comfort to believe that a key reason you lost 300+ electoral votes to a guy who got caught on tape talking about grabbing women by the p***y was because someone in Macedonia wrote a story on Facebook about you eating babies or whatever. I agree that “fake news” has...

"It seems citizens of the world are facing a government onslaught of attacks on freedom of speech. Right now in the United States many are fearing the threat to our freedom of speech on the Internet. Many Alternative Media websites are being mocked as “fake news”. In Amsterdam populist anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders is being accused of “hate speech”. Speaking at the end of his trial he branded it as a politically motivated “charade” that endangered freedom of speech."

Marijuana legalization activists returned to the office of Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions on Thursday, successfully sneaking cannabis past a security checkpoint so they could offer it for use by the attorney general nominee or his staff. Sessions communications director Chris Jackson deftly handled the two dozen office visitors, listening politely to stories about medical use of the plant and arguments against prohibition, but he declined to accept a sample of the drug that is increasingly legalized or decriminalized at the state level but remains illegal in the eyes of federal authorities. Although at least two activists brought weed, with one...

A debt-ridden student blew $1.3 million on sports cars, speed boats, strippers and cocaine after a bank error gave him an unlimited overdraft. Wannabe playboy Luke Moore lived the high life for two years before he was caught by cops and jailed on fraud charges. The Australian treated himself to luxury holidays, a $57,000 Aston Martin, a $22,000 Maserati and a $33,000 boat while living the ultimate bachelor lifestyle. But he was slapped with a four-year jail term last year after the banking glitch came to light. Moore, 29, went free last week after winning an appeal of his conviction...

Kirk Douglas, one of Hollywood's most celebrated icons, turns 100 on Friday, marking a milestone in a life filled with some of the best roles a star could hope for and some of the best performances anyone has ever given. With three Oscar nominations and an honorary Lifetime Achievement Oscar under his belt, ET is taking a look back at some of Douglas' greatest films in honor of his special day.

Hack Senator Chuck Schumer called ‘Dirty Harry’ Reid, “truly one of a kind”, “one of the most unique men any of us…any of us..would ever meet.” “Harry,” he said, “I would not be the senator nor the man I am today without you.” He called him his mentor. He couldn’t help but cry as he spoke. CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO.... Harry Reid ran the Senate like a little despot and Chuck apparently plans to follow his lead. He is his mentor after all. Senator Bob Corker, not one given to hyperbole, described his leadership as akin to Putin’s....

A small group of global warming activists protesting oil and gas drilling outside the Department of Interior office in Colorado Thursday morning were met with bitter cold weather and snow. About 10 “Keep It In The Ground” activists waved signs next to a busy road in the Denver area, calling for the Obama administration to stop issuing leases so companies can drill on public lands. Activists say drilling only exacerbates global warming. The irony, however, is activists stood outside about 4 inches of snow with temperatures hovering in the 20s — in degrees Fahrenheit. The official low temperature was negative...

If you’re wondering if the new normal in American politics includes a president-elect rage-tweeting at companies he dislikes, engaging in near-daily hissy-fits over media coverage he finds insufficiently obsequious, and engaging in constant social media warfare over slights to his ego, you’d be right. Witness the emerging gangster capitalism of Donald Trump. No one has felt much genuine shock that Donald Trump refuses to divest his control over his empire in a real, legally binding way. Only a fool would believe Trump would draw a sharp, bright line between his personal and family financial interests and the interests of the...

The phrase “Fake News” has exploded in usage since the election, but the term is similar to other malleable political labels such as “terrorism” and “hate speech”; because the phrase lacks any clear definition, it is essentially useless except as an instrument of propaganda and censorship. The most important fact to realize about this new term: those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it. One of the most egregious examples was the recent Washington Post article hyping a new anonymous group and its disgusting blacklist of supposedly pro-Russia news outlets – a shameful article...

WASHINGTON — Minority Leader Harry Reid bid farewell to the Senate Thursday after 30 years in the chamber and more than a decade as top Democrat, a remarkable run during which he shepherded key Obama administration legislation including the sweeping health care law. But Reid leaves with his Democrats stuck in the minority despite his best efforts, and Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump making plans to repeal President Barack Obama's signature law as their first order of business next year. In an uncharacteristically lengthy and personal farewell speech on the Senate floor, Reid warned of "a new gilded age" ahead...

Oleg Atbashian, the gifted satirist and artist who founded The People’s Cube, has written a classic essay that deserves the widest possible circulation. How I Became a Thoughtcriminal is a personal account of growing up in the Soviet Union and discovering censorship, leaving it behind, and rediscovering it here. This is chapter one of the story:

On Dec. 4, the second Sunday of Advent on the Christian calendar, Fox's "Family Guy" mocked two-thirds of the Holy Trinity as only Fox can. In atheist Seth MacFarlane's gag, Jesus Christ had a human son who he mocked for being bullied at school, comparing that to the horror of the Crucifixion. When his son called him a "dick," he suggested that God the Father was a bigger "dick" for sending him to his death. On that same day, The New York Times ran an enormous article that sprawled over three pages of the Arts & Leisure section with the...

We’ve reached an odd point in American political discourse when a civilian president-elect can appoint three civilian former members of the military to key positions in his administration (with his cabinet appointees being confirmed by a civilian Senate) and mainstream journalists fret about whether Donald Trump is forming a “junta.” Yet that actually happened yesterday, when Politico’s Julia Ioffe tweeted: “Three generals and maybe a fourth. Can we just cut to the chase and call ourselves a junta?” The New Yorker’s Nicholas Thompson mused on Twitter: “How many generals do you need in government before you technically become a junta?”...

Under Obama, the EPA has become an agency bent on imposing a radical ideological agenda regardless of the law. Pruitt would restore it to its proper role. On Wednesday, Donald Trump announced that he will nominate Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt is a Republican from an energy-rich state, so his opinions on the EPA are about what one might expect — namely, that the EPA’s worthy purpose is not an excuse for holding America’s energy industry hostage. “Some believe that we don’t need an EPA, that they don’t have any role at all,”...

Faust Says Harvard Will Not Be a 'Sanctuary Campus' By Hannah Natanson, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER UPDATED: December 7, 2016, at 12:12 a.m. University President Drew G. Faust said Harvard will not designate itself a “sanctuary campus” at a Faculty of Arts and Sciences meeting held Tuesday afternoon in the Science Center. Faust said she is worried calling Harvard a "sanctuary campus," a term she argued has no legal significance, could actually further endanger undocumented students at Harvard. She said she has met with members of Congress and other federal officials to discuss protections for undocumented students . "It also risks...

With each conservative cabinet pick, the media freaks out and does their best to characterize each person as a radical extremist instead of just, well, a consistent conservative. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt was next in line for the media to attack, as Trump picked the critic of excessive government regulation to head the Environmental Protection Agency. The liberal women at the View were quick to bash the “horrible pick” as someone who was going to leave the United States in an apocalyptic wasteland filled with polluted air and dirty water. Whoopi Goldberg introduced the discussion by chuckling as she...

DALLAS - A seemingly humbled 'Judge' Reinhold was released from jail early Friday after being arrested for disorderly conduct at Love Field. WFAA Photojournalist Mike Forbes snapped this picture of the actor as he left the jail around midnight: 'Judge' Reinhold spoke exclusively to WFAA as he left jail early Friday (Photo: Mike Forbes, WFAA) ================================================================================== Forbes said he was friendly and apologetic and said he was embarrassed about the whole situation. Reinhold was arrested Thursday afternoon at Dallas Love Field for disorderly conduct. Dallas police say they were called to the airport at 1:15 p.m. after Reinhold refused to...

KLBJ radio in Austin, TX discussion right now. The city Parks Dept. is hanging bags in trees filled with condoms and lubricant. They're promoting public sex. Children sex. Homosexual sex.

The U.S. Navy must pay “for the vast majority of defects” on its troubled Littoral Combat Ship, not contractors Lockheed Martin Corp. and Austal Ltd., according to congressional investigators. The government has to foot the bill because the Navy didn’t require warranties that would force contractors to pay many of the costs, as the U.S. Coast Guard does, the Government Accountability Office said in a statement delivered at a congressional hearing Thursday.