Free Republic

A Harvard senior, and columnist at the Harvard Crimson, has decided that what’s really holding Academia back is intellectual freedom. (Wait… Don’t laugh. It turns out, that she’s serious.) Despite the fact that academia seems to be dominated by the American left, Sandra Korn has come to the conclusion that dissenting opinion should be banned out-right, and only liberal notions of “social justice” should be tolerated on university campuses. In fact, her subtitle pretty much summed up her dream of a tyrannical thought-policed academia: “Let’s give up on academic freedom in favor of justice.” Well, at least the she’s being...

On Monday, Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, appeared before a juvenile court to defend the family of Justina Pelletier against abuse by the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF).The 15-year-old ice-skating competitor was taken from her parents by DCF, held for over a year, and is now confined to a wheelchair because of maltreatment for a metabolic disorder—simply because her family questioned a diagnosis.Justina’s father, Lou Pelletier, recently spoke to the media about the tragic case involving DCF and Boston Children’s Hospital.Seeking to silence the parents, DCF then filed a complaint to hold the father in...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) Friday called the expulsion of CNN and other journalists from Venezuela amidst worsening antigovernment violence there an assault on press freedom that further endangers its citizens. “We must assume that Nicolás Maduro is kicking out CNN, CNN en Español and other foreign journalists as a precursor to even more violent and deadly tactics against innocent Venezuelans," he said. "This press assault is a worrying sign that Maduro intends to dig in and step up the violence with the false belief that the world will never find out because he’s kicking out journalists." “This isn’t simply an assault against...

Yes, there is one job that Americans will not do. Will not ever do again. America has had its one and only American Revolution. The revolution in Ukraine got me to thinking. Can anyone imagine Americans walking through the White House or the Capital and reclaiming it like just happened in Ukraine? Or even hanging around and waving patriotic banners into the early hours of a Monday morn? Nope; time to go to work. Had our million man march; done that, now back to like it never happened. Americans mock the pusillanimous French, but they are anything but. They will...

Sadly, everything you need to know about the crisis in Ukraine in one worrisome map which summarizes all the relevant "red lines." Given this - is there any doubt this will not end with peaceful resolution. As Martin Armstrong warned this morning: BOTH the USA and EU will now fund the rebels as Russia will fund Yanukovych. At the political level, Ukraine is the pawn on the chessboard. The propaganda war is East v West. However, those power plays are masking the core issue that began with the Orange Revolution – corruption. Yanukovych is a dictator who will NEVER leave...

An Obama administration plan that would get researchers into newsrooms across the country is sparking concern among congressional Republicans and conservative groups. The purpose of the proposed Federal Communications Commission study is to “identify and understand the critical information needs of the American public, with special emphasis on vulnerable-disadvantaged populations,” according to the agency. However, one agency commissioner, Ajit Pai, said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece Wednesday that the May 2013 proposal would allow researchers to “grill reporters, editors and station owners about how they decide which stories to run.” He also said he feared the study might...

<p>First Amendment: The FCC has cooked up a plan to place "researchers" in U.S. newsrooms, supposedly to learn all about how editorial decisions are made. Any questions as to why the U.S. is falling in the free press rankings?</p> <p>As if illegal seizures of Associated Press phone records and the shadowy tailing of the mother of a Fox News reporter weren't menacing enough, the Obama administration is going out of its way to institute a new intrusive surveillance of the press, as if the press wasn't supine enough.</p>

Ben Johnson over at LifeSiteNews is reporting that: "President Barack Obama has elevated the right to have sex with a member of the same sex to the level of universal 'fundamental freedoms' in a new presidential statement criticizing Uganda. But critics say his promotion of homosexuality in a continent that overwhelmingly opposes that behavior amounts to a form of liberal 'cultural imperialism.' Obama wrote on Sunday that he opposed a proposed bill in Uganda that would criminalize same-sex 'marriages' and impose life imprisonment for repeated homosexual acts, among other provisions, because 'as a country and a people, the United States...

When Ukraine’s largely peaceful anti-government protests turned violent last November, President Viktor Yanukovych attempted to explain away the extreme response of riot police: He could not have protestors in the city center delaying setup for the Christmas tree and ice skating rink. Those comments became the focal point of jokes, but a new joke is going around: How long does it take a Ukrainian to change a light bulb? Two weeks. How long does it take him to build a barricade? Fifteen minutes. Kiev’s protests have escalated into a movement with military-style camps, barricades massive enough to keep out tanks,...

As the protests in Ukraine turned violent on Tuesday, journalists and researchers following the events reported various incidents that appeared designed to isolate the demonstrators. TV providers apparently blocked Ukraine's opposition friendly Channel 5, one of the most popular news sources in the country, for much of the day. The Foreign Minister of Sweden Carl Bildt took to Twitter to condemn the regime for the shut down. The regime's "repression and violence" is unacceptable, he wrote. Ukrainian journalist Maxim Eristravi tweeted that blocking Channel 5 signaled that, "Authorities are insanely hysterical." Roland Oliphant, Moscow correspondent for The Telegraph, tweeted that...

See graphic in link. http://rsf.org/index2014/en-index2014.php

The last time Lou Pelletier spoke with his 15-year-old daughter was Feb. 14 — Valentine’s Day. For this father of four, though, the day held a different meaning for his youngest valentine: It marked one year since she was taken and placed in a psychiatric ward against her parents’ will. “We need help,” Lou Pelletier told TheBlaze in an exclusive interview, explaining why he made the decision to break a judge’s gag order and talk about the situation. “I’m trying to save my daughter’s life,” he said. “While still being able to live,” Jessica, one of Justina’s older sisters, added....

If there is any current example of American exceptionalism, that belief that the United States is a unique country, based around an idea rather than tribal affinities, it is its space program. No other country has had its citizens walk on the moon. A self described "expert in communications" named Linda Billings takes a dim view of American exceptionalism as it is related to the high frontier of space. Indeed she takes an exception to the very idea of a space frontier. Her blog post is a look into how the liberal mind thinks about space issues.

According to Reporters Without Borders, America dropped 13 spots on the World Press Freedom Index 2014, designed to rank 180 countries in terms of the freedoms journalists enjoy and the regulations placed on them by government authorities. The Index, published Feb. 11, shows that America now ranks number 46, below countries like South Africa and France. The Index has been published annually since 2002, but the 2014 ranking for America marks one of the most significant declines ever reported. According to Christophe Deloire, the Reporters Without Borders Secretary General, the World Freedom Index is based on seven criteria: the level of...

The U.S. plummeted 13 slots to 46th overall “amid increased efforts to track down whistle-blowers and the sources of leaks,” Reporters Without Borders warned in an annual report. The trial and conviction of Private Bradley Manning and the pursuit of NSA analyst Edward Snowden were warnings to all those thinking of assisting in the disclosure of sensitive information that would clearly be in the public interest,” the organization said.

Americans are not typically aware of how their federal and state prison systems work. What we think we know, we learned from watching television. When I took my first walk through at FCI (Federal Correctional Institution) El Reno Oklahoma as a new employee, I was surprised at how non-Hollywood real prison life is. Frankly, all I knew about prison life was what I saw on television or at the movies. Not even close. As I got closer to retiring from the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP), it began to dawn on me that the security practices we used in the...

America's society of freedom is not for the timorous in search of the static life. It is a vast, evolving carnival of ideological ferment and shooting star discoveries – where sodbusters grow up to be Presidents and drop out inventors startle mankind with entrepreneurial exploits never before conceived. It is a poetic, existential pageant of burgeoning factories and hullabaloo towns amidst a backdrop of stoic steel will and sirenic romance ripening on the vines of quiet human courage. It is a providential kaleidoscope of chance, and fate, and the excruciating salvation of being able to stump the countryside for twenty...

The proposal...would solve the three core problems that called out for real reform even before the Democrats passed Obamacare: getting more people insured; dealing with the problem of preexisting conditions; and lowering costs.... It wouldn’t force anyone to buy insurance. It wouldn’t auto-enroll anyone in any plan. It wouldn’t reduce the tax break for employer-based insurance (aside from closing the tax loophole at the high end). It wouldn’t cost anywhere near the $2 trillion over a decade that Obamacare would cost. It wouldn’t undermine religious liberty. It would allow Americans to keep their current plan if they like it... [The...

A Times editorial about the decision by CVS to stop selling tobacco products speaks of the need to "drive home the message that the availability of this lethal consumer product should be curtailed as much as possible and that tobacco use is socially unacceptable." Contrast that with the Times' much more permissive attitude toward smoking marijuana, which a January 30 Times editorial recommended as a pain treatment for football players, and which a January 7 Times editorial recommended making widely available in New York even to non-football-playing customers. The distinction seems to be that marijuana has magical elixir-like qualities on...

Senator Chuck Schumer, with a cheeseburger in hand stood in front of a Manhattan McDonald’s and demanded food companies stop using Azodicarbonamide. The chemical is used by many fast food chains to bleach their bread dough and to make it more elastic. The Senator says studies link the chemical to cancer. Schumer added McDonald’s isn't the only company using it in food.