Free Republic

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Friday announced its updated debate guidelines, which essentially eliminate the chance of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) participating in the upcoming CNN/Univision debate. In order to participate in the March 15 debate, a candidate must have earned at least 20 percent of the pledged delegates allotted up to that point. That effectively eliminates the chance of Gabbard, who remains in the race, participating, as she currently stands with two delegates.

An immigrant healthcare worker has been indicted on two further counts of capital murder in North Texas after previously being charged with smothering almost a dozen elderly women to death. A Dallas County Grand Jury on Tuesday indicted Billy Chemirmir, 47, on murder charges in the deaths of Leah Corken, 83, and Juanita Prudy, 82.

More than 23 million U.S. immigrants will be eligible to vote in the 2020 presidential election, making up roughly 10% of the nation’s overall electorate – both record highs, according to Pew Research Center estimates based on Census Bureau data. The number of immigrant eligible voters has increased steadily over the past 20 years, up 93% since 2000. By comparison, the U.S.-born eligible voter population grew more slowly (by 18%) over the same period, from 181 million in 2000 to 215 million in 2020. 1 (Immigrant eligible voters are those ages 18 and older born outside the United States who...

Four stabbings in four East London locations within ninety minutes and it doesn’t even make the news. That tells you a lot about the state of London (or Stab City, as it is increasingly known). The British Capital is witness to daily violence that is as unrelenting as it is overwhelming. Under the Muslim mayor Sadiq Khan, homicides are the highest in a decade and knife crime offenses are at record highs. It is against this backdrop that these horrific stabbings have become something of everyday life for Londoners, too mundane to trouble a newsdesk and too routine for a...

Late last century, when the internet was much younger, some very talented people helped me with a profoundly cross cultural album that could only ever work if it was done in a spirit of freedom. I tried to write the words to express that myself but in the end I couldn’t. I had to borrow words and revise them for the context from Walt Whitman. Where else could I look when I needed to talk about new frontiers of freedom. God Bless America.

The United States Air Force updated its official dress code policy this month, in observance of religious practices, to allow military personnel to wear turbans or hijabs as a part of the uniform. The Air Force released an update to the “Dress and Personal Appearance of Air Force Personnel” code on Feb. 7, now permitting airmen to request a waiver to wear religious apparel while in uniform as long as they are “neat and conservative.”The material used for headwear must resemble the color of the assigned uniform. This includes camouflage, and must be worn in a fashion that presents a...

House Democrats are proposing that all banks and credit unions receive a new "diversity and inclusion" rating in an unprecedented step that would fundamentally alter federal regulators' critical "CAMELS" rating system that currently employs a series of metrics that solely assess the financial health of banking institutions. The "Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in Banking Act of 2019" is draft legislation supported by Democrats on the House Subcommittee on Diversity and Inclusion, which was created by House Financial Services Committee chairwoman Maxine Waters Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif. Waters has long pushed for government-led diversity efforts, even as Republicans have challenged her knowledge of fundamental economic issues. "We need to change it and...

EAST ST. LOUIS – The East St. Louis School Superintendent Arthur Culver announced today that Flyers cheerleaders would be banned from performing the rest of the year after some of the team members broke out into a fight with Trinity Catholic High School’s cheerleading squad. The fight between the East St. Louis and Trinity Catholic cheerleaders happened Saturday in the Alton Shootout. The two were conducting dueling routines at center court when the melee erupted.

Why, when women earn the majority of college degrees and make up roughly half the workforce, do so few occupy the chief executive job? Women today lead 167 of the country’s top 3,000 companies. That’s more than double the share a decade ago, but still under 6%. For many, the barrier isn’t only a glass ceiling at the very top, but also an invisible wall that sidelines them from the kinds of roles that have been traditional stepping stones to the CEO position. A Wall Street Journal study of executives at the top companies, the biggest publicly traded firms by...

Former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) is getting plenty of heat for tweeting her awful interpretation about why Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson was squatting in the aisle of President Trump's plane on Tuesday. According to the Democrat, the Trump campaign was trying to use Carson as their token black surrogate. Claire McCaskill ✔@clairecmc One of these things is not like the others. Hint: they made him squat in the aisle so he was visible. 4,138 10:47 AM - Feb 4, 2020 If McCaskill didn't regret her hot take after the first round of backlash, she sure did after...

The University of California has been requiring prospective faculty members to affirm that they support diversity. This was Orwellian in its own right—reminiscent of the university system's 1950s loyalty oaths, which required faculty to attest that they were not members of the Communist Party. It now appears that at one campus, UC-Berkeley, the diversity initiative goes much further than previously understood. Whether a candidate has proposed a specific, concrete plan to advance diversity is now being used as a litmus test for some positions. No candidate who fails the test can even be considered for employment. Abigail Thompson, a UC-Davis...

Hiring people based on race or ethnicity is illegal but the University of California seems to have found a workaround (or a woke-around) to this problem. University of Chicago professor Jerry Coyne wrote a blog post last month about hiring within the UC system. He explains how it has become more focused on mining the content of mandatory diversity statements than academic qualifications: A document from the University of California tells us how the system worked in six searches in the life sciences, and I find it a bit disturbing—disturbing because the ideology and social engineering is clear, because candidates,...

We’ve recently been discussing the use of mandatory “diversity statements” for academic job candidates, and the University of California’s commitment to not just using them in all searches, but giving these statements precedence in the hiring process, so that if your statement doesn’t exceed a minimum numerical cutoff for promoting diversity, increasing it in your past, and promulgating it in the future should you be hired, your candidacy is terminated (see here and here). This practice of making candidates not only swear fealty to diversity, but also show a history of concerted efforts to increase it, has been controversial, deemed...

Full title: Four ancient skulls unearthed in Mexico suggest that North America was a melting pot of different peoples and cultures 10,000 years ago The first humans to settle in North America were more diverse than previously believed, according to a new study of skeletal fragments. US scientists analysed four skulls recovered from caves in Mexico that belonged to humans that lived sometime between 9,000 to 13,000 years ago. The researchers were surprised to find a high level of diversity, with the skulls ranging in similarity to that of Europeans, Asian and ...

Mohammed Ali Halimi, 25, was charged with murder over young woman's death The woman was found injured at a Balcatta home, in Perth, and died at Royal Perth Hospital last Saturday. Mohammad Ali Halimi, 25, is alleged to have led police to the body after showing up at Mirrabooka Police Station covered in blood that afternoon. Halimi, who has been charged with murder, was assisted by security officers who helped seat him while appearing in Perth Magistrate's Court this week. The couple are understood to have lived in Australia for several years after immigrating from the Middle East separately, The...

A large-scale blast rocked an apartment in the no-go Stockholm suburb of Husby early Tuesday morning along with another explosion taking place just 500 metres away. One person was taken to the hospital after suffering injuries from one of the blasts, but the injuries were only determined to be minor. A total of 50 residents were evacuated from their homes following the blasts as police and bomb technicians examined the area, SVT reports. Anna Wästberg of the Stockholm Police commented on the two explosions saying that police were investigating a potential connection to the large blast that occurred last week...

It’s nearly impossible to have even a short conversation with a college administrator, politician, or chief executive without the words diversity and inclusion dropping from their lips. Diversity and inclusion appear to be the end-all and be-all of their existence. So, I thought I’d begin this discussion by first looking up the definition of diversity. Here’s my question to those who are wedded to diversity and inclusion: Are people better off the less they have in common with one another? For example, women are less likely to be able to march 12.4 miles in five hours with an 83-pound assault...

HOUSTON – Following 20 months of construction of the new Ship Channel Bridge along the Beltway 8, the county has issued a pause. Harris County Commissioner Adrian Garcia said the decision was made following the discovery of a design flaw with part of the bridge. “I want to make sure that we are doing everything on behalf of public safety to ensure that everything is well,” Garcia said. “This was obviously concerning and alarming for me." John Tyler, the deputy director of engineering with the Harris County Toll Road Authority and in charge of the project, said the flaw was...

It's nearly impossible to have even a short conversation with a college administrator, politician or chief executive without the words diversity and inclusion dropping from their lips. Diversity and inclusion appear to be the end-all and be-all of their existence. So, I thought I'd begin this discussion by first looking up the definition of diversity. According to the Oxford Dictionary, diversity is "the practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc." The definition gratuitously adds, "equality and diversity should be supported for their own...

In a bid to fill thousands of new positions this year, Germany’s federal police (Bundespolizei) has lowered requirements for recruits, according to a media report published Monday. The newspapers of the Funke Media Group reported on the changes, noting that physical fitness requirements as well as the language level in exams have been changed. […] For recruits looking to join the “middle-level” of police service, authorities have also “slightly raised” the number of mistakes they are allowed to make in the test in order to still secure a passing grade. Police recruits in this level could go on to provide...