Free Republic

Rachel Dolezal, the NAACP chapter president who was accused of pretending to be black, said Monday that she would step down.

As Rachel Dolezal’s story unravels on- and offline, the Internet has followed suit with questions of its own. In a recent interview, Dolezal’s parents said they’re “both of Caucasian and European descent,” and their now 37-year-old daughter — the president of Spokane’s NAACP chapter — has been pretending to be black for the last decade. On Twitter today, several hashtags about Rachel were trending, including #transracial – a term that some users seemed to define as the idea that a person could be born as one race but assume another racial identity. The term — and the online conversation around...

Former students from Eastern Washington and Howard Universities told BuzzFeed News about their classroom encounters with Rachel Dolezal, who taught courses in Africana studies and studio art. Rachel Dolezal once did not let a student participate in a class activity about race and culture because she did not appear Hispanic enough, the student told BuzzFeed News on Friday. Dolezal, president of the Spokane, Washington, chapter of the NAACP, gained notoriety Thursday when her parents disclosed that she has been passing herself off as black for years. The revelation has prompted questions about the other aspects of Dolezal’s life, including claims...

What to do when you have a yacht worth $7 million, and you have no time to enjoy on it? Massachusetts senator and perennial presidential hopeful John Kerry had a such problem and decided to rent it. Senator Kerry and his heiress wife not doing that because of money, but to avoid a big tax bill on the boat by mooring her in Newport, R.I.

In discussing the scandal engulfing former House speaker Dennis Hastert, who is due in court this week, one thing must be made absolutely clear. What he is alleged to have done to young boys has absolutely nothing to do with being gay or gay rights. * Almost immediately after the news broke of Hastert’s indictment, folks looked to Congress for signs of hypocrisy. Former representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who is gay, made an assertion during an appearance on Huffington Post Live last Monday that was flat-out inappropriate. “Dennis Hastert twice as speaker tried to get the house to pass a...

Bishop Hill points us to this video of the Tesla Supercharging station at the Harris Ranch exit of Interstate 5 in California. He writes: “How can one resist posting a video of Tesla electric cars being recharged (so it is claimed) using a diesel generator? These people love the environment you see.” The video shows a portable diesel generator next to the charging station and some Tesla automobiles. Watch this short video:

Wading through the daily deluge of Hillary Clinton news, I feel like I’m reading the police blotter. The litany of her shameful shenanigans resembles the litany of neighborhood crimes recorded by cops. There are simply too many to stomach. There is another similarity, too: In both cases, fear and revulsion are the proper responses from honest Americans. More than 17 months before Election Day, Clinton scandals are piling up faster than robberies during a police strike. There is a media feeding frenzy over her shady dealings and the sheer volume of unsavory revelations is approaching a critical mass. The pace...

Geraldo Rivera sees a double standard at work in ABC News’ decision to stand by George Stephanopoulos after the network’s chief anchor apologized for failing to publicly disclose $75,000 in donations to the Clinton Foundation over the last three years. In a Facebook post Friday morning, Rivera claimed he was fired by ABC News in 1985 for making a $200 political donation and wondered why Stephanopoulos isn’t getting the same treatment. “In 1985, after fifteen great years, I was fired by ABC News,” Rivera wrote. “The official reason for my firing was a non-disclosed $200 donation to a family friend...

....Stephanopoulos was one of the most partisan of partisan warriors ever — just look at "The War Room," the documentary from the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign. So it was something of a surprise in 1996 when ABC News hired Stephanopoulos, fresh out of the Clinton White House. And there was some confusion about what the deeply partisan Stephanopoulos' role would be: Analyst? Pundit? Straight news reporter? At the time, I asked ABC about it and was assured Stephanopoulos would be a pundit — like William Kristol, who was then with ABC News — and would not do any news reporting....

The following exchange set up by George Stephanopolous is a glaring example of hypocrisy. It is also an example of pure manipulation in the media. It is one of the provable moments in which network media is propagandizing the American people. In its own way, it is on a level with the Benghazi "Mohammed Video" propaganda effort -- also by Hillary Clinton surrogates -- to run an information campaign against the American people. STEPHANOPOLOUS: ...But I do want to ask a broader question. It's been reported that you -- you briefed several Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, including...

President Obama’s lack of self-awareness was on full display when he spoke at the Catholic-Evangelical Leadership Summit at Georgetown University today and criticized people who send their kids to “private schools” and “private clubs.” A panel including Robert Putnam, professor of public policy at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government and Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute were discussing ways to overcome poverty. Obama stated that those who have economic advantages are withdrawing from societal common areas. He claimed those who socially separate themselves are contributing to a sluggish economy that lacks opportunity. The hypocrisy...

..... Obama decided to make this Mother's Day a holiday three American moms would never forget. All three women had written letters to Obama and were reportedly told to expect a call on from a White House official. When they heard the president’s voice on the line Wednesday, they could hardly believe their ears. “No way!” exclaimed Patricia Church, a 50-year-old single mother of four. “Way,” Obama chuckled.

In every speech he has made since announcing his presidential bid, Rand Paul has vowed to repeal Obamacare. At a Las Vegas rally he put it thus: “I will make it my mission to heal this nation ... and to repeal every last bit of Obamacare!” But if Paul’s behavior in the Senate is any guide, this is empty rhetoric. Shortly after his Vegas speech, he aided the Democrats in obstructing an investigation into falsified documents submitted to the D.C. Small Business Exchange so that members of Congress and their staffers could receive subsidies to which they aren’t legally entitled....

Experts estimate there will be less than a year's worth of drinking water in California reservoir's at the end of 2015 Yet the rich and famous of Los Angeles continue to water their lawns with apparently no concern for conservation Photographer John Chapple recently went out in a helicopter to photography the ever-green lawns of Kim Kardashian, Barbara Streisand and Petra Eccelstone among others

History is filled with surprising anomalies that catch us up in contradictions. Sir Walter Scott wrote in his poem Marmion about the Battle of Flodden Field: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave / when first we practise to deceive!” The battle took place in 1513 while Henry VIII was in France fighting as a member of the Catholic League. His queen, Catherine, eventually to be divorced, organized the battle with success. Meanwhile, Pope Julius II styled Henry of England “The Most Christian King of France” and, although Henry would prove a disappointment in church matters, in 1521 the next...

For some time, observers have expected the final outcome for Bishop Robert Finn, former head of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese, who was ordered by Vatican officials to tender his resignation last month. The predictable sides have lined up: either condemning and saying, ‘It’s about time,’ or defending him. With all the noise made, it may be difficult for most readers to tease out the truth, but an examination of the facts of the Finn case and that of another high-profile prelate may be enlightening. If Finn, why not the many, and much worse, others? With Finn’s 2012 conviction of...

In a personal and impassioned speech Monday at Lehman College in New York City, President Barack Obama unveiled a new private sector-funded expansion of his My Brother’s Keeper initiative, which seeks to provide incentives and opportunities for young men of color in high-risk areas to improve their lives. The My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, which arrives on the heels of protests and violent clashes with police in Baltimore in the aftermath of Freddie Gray’s death, is a “big deal” to the president.

Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore issued a statement demanding that police officers in America be barred from carrying firearms and that all imprisoned African Americans be released. Moore says he sees this "as a long term balancing of the scales. For hundreds of years in this country Blacks were enslaved and at the mercy of white overlords. Cosmic justice cries out for a reversal of this tyranny of white over Black. Let's see how the white man fares under racial oppression." The looting of white-owned businesses in Baltimore was characterized by Moore as "long overdue reparations for slavery" and the random...

Somehow this just struck me.....the government is attempting to FORCE believers in Jesus to celebrate a perversion of their DEEPLY HELD religious beliefs. Why aren't Muslims being forced to celebrate and/or create depictions of their prophet? I wouldn't want the government to do that, just like I don't want it inflicting anti-Christian beliefs upon Christians.

“You support President Obama’s proposal to increase taxes on the wealthy?” That was the question put to George Soros on CNN some three years ago. Here was his answer: “Yes, very much… the super bubble really resulted in creating a great increase in inequality, and now we have the after effect where you have slow growth, but if you could have better distribution of income, then the average American would actually be better off.” There’s no question that “everyday Americans” (as a reminder, those are the people Hillary Clinton wants to help by running for president… well, those people...