Free Republic

It was a difficult marriage from the beginning. Its success was largely regional and state by state. But where it worked, it worked well, mainly the South and parts of the West. They papered over their differences for years. Now they've grown apart and a messy divorce looms. It wasn't exactly a shotgun marriage. The Wall Street/Koch Brothers crowd gleefully accepted the support of Tea Party and evangelical leaders, as long as austerity, high-end tax cuts and deregulation were part of the agenda. The cultural right needed money and legitimacy. Everybody got along. No more. The split was thrust into...

“You see, what you just did with your straight talk was send more Latino voters to the polls than several registration rallies combined! Thank you for that,” Ferrerra wrote in a guest blog for the Huffington Post. “Here we are pounding the pavement to get American Latinos to the polls, while your tactic proves most effective,” she continued. “Remarks like yours will serve brilliantly to energize Latino voters and increase turnout on election day against you and any other candidate who runs on a platform of hateful rhetoric.”

Backers of the Affordable Care Act were treated to twin delights on Thursday: First, the law was upheld, so nobody will be kicked off their insurance by the Supreme Court. And second, the dissent was written by Justice Antonin Scalia who, when angry (which is always), has a penchant for literary drama. "Words no longer have meaning," Scalia wrote in the dissent he read from the bench. They might not, but that didn't stop Scalia from piling them on top of each other in an angry heap. Here are some of the choicest of his meaningless words. [Snip] "Today's interpretation...

In the wake of the gruesome massacre of nine black churchgoers by an angry racist white gunman in Charleston, South Carolina, comes an article that encourages black youth to be angry, racist, uninformed, unforgiving, intentionally opaque, and to explicitly exclude and ignore “white folks” in a direct call for unrest and anarchy. The most shocking part is that the call for uncivilized radical action comes not from some obscure underground revolutionary manifesto, but from an author with a conventional liberal resume, including a writing gig at the Huffington Post and a previous executive position with an ostensibly positive program working...

Some viewers of Jurassic World are taking offense to the film, calling one of the lines in the movie "racist." Specifically, the abbreviation of the dinosaur Pachycephalosaurus. During the course of the film, the Pachycephalosaurus escape from their enclosures, leading one character to shout, "The Pachys are out of containment!" This has led news outlets and Twitter users to call the film "racist." A British comedian originally brought attention to the line, offering a tongue-in-cheek rant against the dinosaur's name. However, people did not get the joke, and are actually calling the film racist. The Independent called the line "very...

HOUSTON (AP) — A Houston attorney on the National Rifle Association's board of directors is blaming the deadly Charleston church shooting on one of the victims, saying the slain pastor had opposed concealed carry legislation as a state senator that could have saved him and his fellow worshippers. Related Stories 1. NRA executive suggests slain Charleston pastor to blame for gun deaths Reuters 2. Slain Pastor Clementa Pinckney’s Mission Suited His Storied Church The Wall Street Journal 3. And The First Person To Blame The Charleston Shooting On A Lack Of Guns In Church Is... Huffington Post 4. White gunman...

Pope Francis weighing in on climate change in his latest encyclical is having an effect on the race for the GOP nomination, and candidate Jeb Bush, the Huffington Post is reporting today. Jeb Bush appears now to believe in human-caused climate change, and is embracing a reduction in carbon emissions. Bush was approached at the Road to Majority conference hosted by a reporter from the Undercurrent YouTube channel, who asked him what he planned to do about climate change. Jeb Bush answered, “Continue to embrace the reduction of carbon emissions that have taken place.”

A shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday has shaken the country, leaving many reflecting on the state of race relations in the United States. Nine people, including Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the church's pastor and a South Carolina state senator, were shot to death by accused gunman Dylann Storm Roof at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Authorities have called the shooting a hate crime. But how does one explain such a crime from a scientific perspective? What could lead someone to commit a racially motivated hate crime? What is racism -- and how can we...

WASHINGTON -- Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) said Sunday that he supports a constitutional amendment that would bar the Supreme Court from granting marriage equality rights nationwide. The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision this month that could grant, for once and for all, same-sex couples the right to wed across the country. But Walker said on ABC's "This Week" that he would support amending the constitution to protect states that still want to ban same-sex marriage. "I personally believe that marriage is between one man and one woman," Walker, a prospective GOP presidential candidate, said. "If the...

The courts in New York have allowed an undocumented immigrant to practice law for the first time. Cesar Vargas, a leading voice in the immigrant rights movement, received the OK to practice his profession in a decision handed down Wednesday by a New York appeals court. "We find that the undocumented status of an individual applicant does not, alone, suggest that the applicant is not possessed of the qualities that enable attorneys to vigorously defend their client's interests within the bounds of the law," the ruling says, "nor does it suggest that the applicant cannot protect, as an officer of...

While most Americans like the idea of drug testing for welfare recipients, they LOVE the idea of drug testing for members of Congress. According to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, 64 percent of Americans favor requiring welfare recipients to submit to random drug testing -- a measure pushed by Republican lawmakers in recent years -- while 18 percent oppose it. But an even stronger majority said they're in favor of random drug testing for members of Congress, by a 78 percent to 7 percent margin. Sixty-two percent said they "strongly" favor drug testing for congressional lawmakers, compared to only 51 percent...

[subtitle: New law bans Soviet street names, statues and other reminders of communist past, as some question priorities.] In a country where at least 4,000 localities had a main thoroughfare named after Lenin, outlawing remnants of the Soviet era like street names and statues was bound to cause problems... The phenomenon is so common now that it has its own name -- "Leninopad" or "Lenin-fall," a phrase that echoes the Ukrainian word for snowfall...

Openly gay New York hotelier Mati Weiderpass penned an op-ed this week, lashing out at "gay extremists" for protests surrounding a discussion he hosted with presidential hopeful Ted Cruz in late April. Weiderpass and longtime gay business partner Ian Reisner are owners of the OUT NYC Hotel and 80 percent of the commercial property in New York's Fire Island Pines, among other properties patronized by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. The two ignited large-scale backlash last month when they played hosts to a "fireside chat" with notoriously anti-gay presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz in front of about...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) spoke about last week's shooting in his home state to supporters in South Carolina Saturday. “We saw the ugly face of radical Islam in Garland, Texas,” Cruz said, referring to the incident in which two gunmen opened fire near the Curtis Culwell Center before being shot and killed by police. "Thankfully, one police officer helped those terrorists meet their virgins," he said, according to The Hill. He delivered the speech at the South Carolina Freedom Summit in Greenville, which drew roughly a dozen Republican candidates and hopefuls, according to the Washington Post. Cruz shared three words...

Preston Mitchum, an adjunct professor at Georgetown and contributor to the Huffington Post and the Atlantic, incited rioters over the last few days, saying that protesters must "go forth with your righteous indignation." He also has shown a clear disdain of people's lives and property, writing that rioters have no other option than to attack their "oppressors." Mitchum seemed to go as far as telling protesters to destroy property, first saying that he doesn't care about people's homes and businesses: Then he tells rioters to "go forth with your righteous indignation:" And then says that burning down a CVS is...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Conservative television and radio host Glenn Beck highlighted the good coming out of Ferguson, Missouri amid the protests and unrest that rattled the suburb following the Aug. 9 shooting death of Michael Brown. "Yes there were looters. Yes there were vandals. Yes there were bad cops. Yes there were good cops," Beck said. "The good, the good has far out-shadowed the bad." Beck commended Arianna Huffington for going beyond images of protests and tear gas to point to the good deeds being carried out in Ferguson. "At a time when most were using Ferguson to divide or gain power, Arianna...

Glenn Beck was bashing Americans opposed to illegal immigration, decrying partisan politics, and positioning himself toward the center just as he was reportedly trying to strike a deal to get his programming on CNN.CNN's Brian Stelter reported that "the idea fizzled fast and talks aren't expected to resume." CNN and HLN are expected to lay off at least 550 more people in what is being called another "bloodbath," and Beck was reportedly trying to get on the HLN network, where he got his first break in cable television.Stelter, who is one of the best-sourced reporters in the television industry and...

In a wide-ranging interview with The Huffington Post's Howard Fineman, Glenn Beck took the opportunity to again blast conservatives critical of his decision to greet the recent wave of underage illegal immigrants with toys and hot meals. "I don't understand those who cannot see the plight of children," Beck told HuffPo. The border issue is one example. Beck took heat from fellow conservatives for his decision to distribute large amounts of relief supplies through churches and other organizations in McAllen, Texas, to undocumented children caught at the southern border. Sen. Cruz was at his side. Beck's view is that the...

The Huffington Post headline screams: Indiana’s Memories Pizza Reportedly Becomes First Business To Reject Catering Gay Weddings Memories Pizza is a nine-year-old shop in downtown Walkerton, Indiana, just a few blocks from John Glenn High School. It’s owned by an openly-Christian couple, the O’Connors, who decorate their shop with mementos of their faith in Christ. So how does a small business in a small town wind up making headlines around the world as the new avatar of Christian bigotry?

A lawyer in California has submitted a ballot initiative with the state Department of Justice calling for the death of anyone who engages in sodomy in the state, the San Diego Gay & Lesbian News reports.