Free Republic

"The fact that socialists are openly running for public office in America — that socialists actually hold public office in Congress — should serve as enough wakeup call that the nation’s moral and political compasses are skewed, in dire need of correcting."

Several events are being held this week in response to a book burning at Georgia Southern University that's making national headlines. This Monday, the school's Student Government Association will host a forum to discuss diversity and inclusion on campus, followed by a forum on censorship and the history of burning literature hosted by the university's history department. "I believe change starts within yourself first. If you don't know someone is unhappy, or faced with a certain situation, you won't ever know. So if we can provide that outlet, hear each other's concerns and opinions, we can bring some ideas and...

Each year, the media narrative assures us, more Americans are ditching the archaic holiday known as Columbus Day. After all, they claim, what's the point of celebrating a man who brought destruction to the noble and advanced indigenous civilizations of the Americas that lived in harmonious symbiosis with nature? Why glorify a man who introduced the slave trade and who actually didn't discover anything except a brilliant civilization that was already thriving? Rather than celebrate Columbus, many would now prefer to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day. I assume this would be a new holiday created by modern-day myth-builders of the Liz...

The Narrative “[My plan] forgives all student debt and ends the absurdity of sentencing an entire generation to a lifetime of debt for the ‘crime’ of getting a college education.”[1] — Bernie Sanders “The result [of rising college costs] is a huge student loan debt burden that’s crushing millions of families and acting as an anchor on our economy.”[2] — Elizabeth Warren RealitySixty-six percent of millennials have no student debt at all.[3] That’s because they haven’t gone to college or because they managed to get through without having to borrow. Those who do have debt tend to have modest burdens...

CLARKSBURG — The home-schooled student population in Harrison County has increased by hundreds over the last eight to 10 years, according to officials. Because of all those students leaving the school system to be taught at home leaves, Harrison County has received less in state aid formula funding each year. On Oct. 1, when the county submitted its enrollment total to the state Department of Education, the number of home-schooled children had reached 582, according to Harrison Schools Attendance Director Jim Kirby. Over his 15 years as attendance director, Kirby said he’s seen the number of home-schooled students continue to...

I have a ticket to the Trump rally here in Dallas.

California will be the first state to require abortion medication on college campuses under a law signed Friday by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. The law takes effect in 2023 and only applies to the 34 campuses in the University of California and California State University systems. But the law will only be implemented if a state commission can raise more than $10 million in private donations to pay for it. Former California Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a similar bill last year, arguing it was not necessary because abortion services were readily available off campus. But Newsom, who took office in...

Recently, while I was working in the flower beds in the front yard, my neighbors stopped to chat as they returned home from walking their dog. During our friendly conversation, I asked their little girl what she wanted to be when she grew up. She said she wanted to be President someday. Both of her parents, Democratic Party members, were standing there so I asked her, "If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?" She replied... "I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people." Her parents beamed with pride! "Wow...what a worthy goal!"...

ORLANDO, Fla. (WKMG/CNN) – Kaia Rolle is like most little girls. She loves the color pink and has a cheery outlook on life. But after what her grandmother says happened on Thursday, the bubbly 6-year-old has little room to focus on school. Meralyn Kirkland got a call from a school resource officer saying Kaia was arrested. “What do you mean she was arrested?” Kirkland remembered asking the officer. “He said, ‘There was an incident and she kicked somebody and she is being charged and she is on her way.’” Kirkland said her granddaughter’s journey to the juvenile detention center by...

SAGINAW, MI — An anti-abortion group is planning a demonstration with “graphic videos” on Saginaw Valley State University’s campus Friday, Oct. 11. The group called Created Equal, which argues that abortion is a form of age discrimination, is traveling to college campuses, high schools and facilities where abortions are performed in Michigan, Texas and Georgia, according to a news release the group issued. While at SVSU, the group plans to show “graphic videos of living human fetuses being aborted via a JumboTron depicting the gruesome reality of abortion and to engage students in conversation about this human injustice,” the release...

About That Che T-Shirt Think twice about adding a Che Guevara T-shirt to your Christmas giving this year. Let’s say that all you knew about Adolf Hitler was that he painted scenic pictures, postcards, and houses in Vienna, loved dogs and named his adorable German Shepard “Blondie,” and frequently expressed solidarity with “the people.” You might sport a T-shirt adorned with his image if you thought such a charismatic chap was also good-looking in a beret. But your education would be widely regarded as incomplete.If you later found out that the guy on your T-shirt was a mass murderer, you...

Outgrowing Richard Dawkins’ God Delusions Richard Dawkins, one-time leader of the now-fracturing New Atheist movement, has just released another anti-God book, Outgrowing God: A Beginner’s Guide. It’s a sad display of what can happen when an influential scientist thinks the whole intellectual world exists inside his own head. It’s not just that I disagree with Dawkins’ conclusions. I certainly do; but there’s another problem he ought to care about himself. He makes faith look ridiculous by misrepresenting it, yet without even seemingly knowing that’s what he’s doing. He’s oblivious. Not a good sign for a man of his influence.He should  know...

The Left to America’s Children: Your Past is Terrible, and Your Future is Terrible By Dennis Prager Published on October 8, 2019 • A rule of life is that everything the left touches it ruins: art, music, Christianity, Judaism, race relations, male-female relations, universities, high schools, elementary schools, late-night comedy, sports, liberty, journalism, the Boy Scouts, national economies, language and everything else it influences.The left, not liberalism. (I have written a column and done a PragerU video on the differences between liberalism and leftism.)To this list, we can now add childhood and children.The left robs children of their innocence and has...

In 1935, Alice Jackson was denied admission to the University of Virginia.  When she asked why she was denied, university officials were frank. She was denied admission because she was black, they told her, as well as "for other good and sufficient reasons not necessary to be herein enumerated.”Eventually, the plight of Alice Jackson and James Meredith at Ole Miss and others would lead to a broad national consensus that denying admission to a public college because of the race of the applicant was both illegal, but also immoral.Everything old is new again.  In Virginia, universities are once again...

Scientists seeking funding and journalists seeking an audience agree: panic sells.“Global cooling is going to kills us all!” “No, wait: global warming is going to kill us all!”All that’s  missing is a back-and-forth of “You shut up!” “No, you shut up!” That is reserved for those who doubt the need for panic.That’s the gist of an amazing chronology of the last 120 years of scare-mongering on climate, assembled by butnowyouknow.net and reprinted by the estimable Anthony Watts in Wattsupwiththat, who updates it to the present. It is truly mind-boggling: 1895 - Geologists Think the World May Be Frozen Up Again – New York Times, February...

Gender-neutral toilets in schools have left girls feeling unsafe and even put their health at risk, parents and teachers have warned. Girls who are menstruating are so anxious about sharing facilities with boys that some are staying at home for fear of being made to feel 'period shame'. With a growing number of both primary and secondary schools installing unisex toilets, some girls are risking infections by refusing to urinate all day. Others are so fearful they have stopped drinking liquids at school.

Five months after the death of a student in an alleged hazing incident led to the expulsion of one of its fraternities, Ohio University has suspended all 15 of its Interfraternity Council (IFC) fraternity chapters amid new reports of hazing. Ohio University Senior Associate Vice President and Dean of Students Jenny Halls-Jones made the announcement in a two-page letter sent to all IFC presidents Thursday. "Last Spring, Sigma Pi was expelled from our community as a result of hazing. Earlier this week, we received allegations that two IFC chapters were hazing new members and those chapters were placed on a...

She had it removed after experiencing side effects BALTIMORE — A mother learned her 16-year-old daughter received a birth control implant at school after the teen started complaining about headaches and a pain in her arm. Nicole Lambert sent her daughter to get checked out by a pediatrician. The doctor notified her that the three-year contraceptive, Nexplanon, had been improperly implanted in her daughter's arm and it needed to be removed. According to paperwork on Merck's website, the maker of Nexplanon, the implant should go on the inside of the upper arm. Photos show Lambert's daughter had the implant near...

Oct. 4 (UPI) -- A Colorado physicist is putting his scientific expertise to a practical purpose -- using a 3D printer to build a Lamborghini with his 11-year-old son. Erie resident Sterling Backus and his son, Xander, 11, started work on their full-size, working model of an Italian supercar -- specifically the Lamborghini Aventador -- when the boy asked his father if it was possible. "One day I said to him, hey can we build one of those?" Xander Backus told WCNC-TV. Sterling Backus said his background as a "gear head" has thus far been more helpful than his training...

With the fate of Harvard’s affirmative action lawsuit in the hands of a judge, a new study stemming from that suit has raised more questions about the role of wealth, race and access in college admissions at prestigious universities. The study, published earlier this month in the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that 43 percent of white students admitted to Harvard University were recruited athletes, legacy students, children of faculty and staff, or on the dean’s interest list — applicants whose parents or relatives have donated to Harvard. That number drops dramatically for black, Latino and Asian American students,...