Free Republic

Governor J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Republicans were “trying to keep our schools from teaching black history.” Partial transcript as follows: MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you on the issue set that Democrats are running on, your office told- told us you’re very focused on school board races in Illinois to make sure extreme right wing candidates aren’t dominating them. I’m wondering how strong the Republican ground operation is on things like school boards. Is parents’ rights really something you think Democrats need to be concerned about on a national scale? PRITZKER: Well,...

Despite sequester, feds spend over $1.5 million to study lesbian obesity Over the last two years, the National Institutes of Health have awarded Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston over $1.5 million to learn why nearly three-quarters of lesbians are overweight, Todd Starnes reported Tuesday. According to the NIH, gay males do not suffer from obesity as much as lesbians, and the government wants to know why, calling the disparity an issue of “high public-health significance." "It is now well-established that women of minority sexual orientation are disproportionately affected by the obesity epidemic, with nearly three-quarters of adult lesbians overweight...

At the Modern Language Association (MLA) 2013 Boston meeting, at least on the program, homosexuality seemed to be the new heterosexuality. This year’s conclave, where just about every English department is represented, at least once, featured panels on: • Queer Theory without Antinormativity; • Postqueer? Postrace? The Political Stakes of Queer; • Queer Theory in a Post Colonial World; • Queerness as Form; • Transgender France; • Movements, Incantations, and Parables of Queer Performance • LGBTQI Graduate Students and Academia; • Queer Sexualities in African Literatures and Film; • Queer Occupations; • Gay Culture in Eastern Europe and the Former...

The hard-right conservatives who dominate the Republican Party claim to despise the redistribution of wealth, but secretly they love it — as long as the process involves depriving the poor and middle class to benefit the rich, not the other way around. That is precisely what has been happening, as a jaw-dropping new report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office demonstrates. Three decades of trickle-down economic theory, see-no-evil deregulation and tax-cutting fervor have led to massive redistribution. Another word for what's been happening might be theft. The gist of the CBO study, titled "Trends in the Distribution of Household Income...

My plan is very simple: Combine African American Studies, Gay & Lesbian Studies, and Women’s Studies into one academic program called “Resentment Studies.” I know that initially some will resent my proposal. But allow me a chance to explain my thinking with a few examples: