Free Republic

More than once in the last few years I’ve asked myself the question, “Has the whole world gone mad? Has everyone in our society lost the ability to think clearly? Are people no longer able to process facts and information? Are they so dominated by their emotions and by sound bites that truth and logic don’t seem to matter?” I remember vividly talking to a young man at a rally in Charlotte, NC a few months ago. The rally was surrounding the so-called “bathroom bill” that would have made all of the city’s public bathrooms and locker rooms gender-neutral. This...

I'm realizing that most if not all of these no gun zone shooters had no employment to speak of. With too much time on their hands they seem to be influenced and are investing in violent videos and very bad internet influences. Many had parents who considered their kids normal and allowed them access to guns, violent videos and the Internet despite mental issues.

Desperate for hormonal treatments, transgender patients were turning to friends and illicit dealers for unregulated cocktails of drugs. Many were left with health complications and infections that landed them in the waiting room of a busy South Los Angeles clinic. "For the most part, they were basically getting care on the streets," said Jim Mangia, president and chief executive of St. John's Well Child and Family Center, which runs the West 58th Street health center as part of a network of low-cost Los Angeles-area clinics. After years of dealing with medical problems created by what he saw as a major...

"Matt Bruenig is researcher of poverty and welfare systems at the think tank Demos." By now, it is well established that capitalism is fundamentally built upon threats of force. As libertarian philosophers Robert Nozick and Matt Zwolinski have explained, the only way to turn unowned natural resources (such as land, minerals and other goods) into privately owned property is by violently preventing all others from using them. This one-sided exclusion destroys freedom of movement and cuts many people off from the things that they need to survive.

Stephanie Kirchgaessner Sunday 6 September 2015 21.02 EDT S Pope Francis has called on every religious community across Europe to do their part to stem the refugee crisis and offer sanctuary to migrant families. In front of a crowd of thousands of people in St Peter’s Square, the Roman Catholic leader said it was not enough to simply encourage the refugees with calls for courage and patience. Instead, he suggested, tangible demonstrations of help were required. “May every parish, every religious community, every monastery, every sanctuary of Europe, take in one family,” he said.

VIENNA — Pope Francis on Sunday called on every parish, religious community, monastery and sanctuary in Europe to shelter refugees fleeing “death from war and hunger,” adding that the Vatican’s two parishes would lead the way by taking in two families. In a speech to thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square, the pope said it was not enough to say “have courage, hang in there” to those marching toward what he described as “life’s hope.” Referring to the “tragedy of tens of thousands of refugees that flee death in conflict and hunger and are on a journey of hope,”...

A federal judge has denied a transgender teenager’s request to allow him to use the same bathroom as his peers at his public school in Virginia. Instead, the judge ruled Friday, the teenager must continue using a separate, private bathroom that he has said makes him feel “singled out and humiliated.” Gavin Grimm, a teenage boy who was born female, used the boys’ bathroom for seven weeks with no problem, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought a lawsuit against the Gloucester County School Board on his behalf. But then parents heard about the teen using the boys’...

In the latest example of social madness, Rickey Hall, the vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, is calling on all students to use gender inclusive pronouns like “ze, hir, zir, xe, xem and xyr” in order to make the campus “welcoming and inclusive for all.” On another front, Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner has said that he would like to date a man so that he could be treated like a woman. But his suggestion was rebuffed by interviewer and friend Jenny Boylan who replied, “Caitlyn Jenner, you are a normal woman right now, today. You don’t...

The University of Tennessee is asking students to use “ze, hir, hirs, and xe, xem, xyr.” No, those words are not another language. They’re actually the gender-neutral singular versions of pronouns. The University of Tennessee Office for Diversity and Inclusion is asking students and faculty to use the pronouns in order to create a more inclusive campus. They say it alleviates a heavy burden for people expressing different genders or identities. “We should not assume someone’s gender by their appearance, nor by what is listed on a roster or in student information systems,” Donna Braquet, the Director of the University...

LEE COUNTY, FL -- Deputies in Florida say a theft suspect tried to chew off his own fingerprints so he wouldn't be identified. Warning: Some people may find the video above difficult to watch

I first thought this was parody, but it seems to be a series suggestion.

I am not making this up.  A New York judge dismissed a lawsuit by the Nonhuman Rights Project to grant personhood to two chimpanzees, named Hercules and Leo. This isn't the first attempt to grant "human" status to chimps: last year a judge threw out a similar request for a chimp named Tommy.  But the worst part isn't the fact that self-hating humans keep trying to elevate soulless primates and give them equal status with lawyers--it's the judge's reaction.  State Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe wrote this: "Efforts to extend legal rights to chimpanzees are thus understandable; some day they may even...

Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson are history in Connecticut. Under pressure from the NAACP, the state Democratic Party will scrub the names of the two presidents from its annual fundraising dinner because of their ties to slavery. Party leaders voted unanimously Wednesday night in Hartford to rename the Jefferson Jackson Bailey dinner in the aftermath of last month’s fatal shooting of nine worshipers at the historic black church in Charleston, S.C. The decision is believed to be unprecedented and could prompt Democrats in other states with similarly-named events to follow suit. “I see it as the right thing to do,”...

What, you ask, can be done to address climate change? A controversial, but cheap solution of last resort has emerged known as “solar radiation management.” A geoengineering technique, it would shoot particles into the sky to reflect sunlight back to space. “The central idea is to make the planet a little bit more reflective, which tends to cool it down, because it will absorb less sunlight. And that will partially and imperfectly compensate for the buildup of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, which are tending to trap heat and make the earth warmer,” says Harvard environmental scientist David Keith, who...

(CNSNews.com) – In the closing minutes of the Iran nuclear negotiations in Vienna this week, Secretary of State John Kerry made a comment about having gone to war as a young man and not wanting to do so again, leaving everyone in the room, including the Iranians, with “tears in their eyes.” Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, the lead U.S. negotiator in the talks, recounted the moment while addressing the annual Generation Prague Conference at the State Department on Wednesday. Sherman said that in the final plenary session, with the media out of the room, each of...

New York City reached a settlement on Monday with the family of Eric Garner, agreeing to pay $5.9 million to resolve the claim over his killing by the police last July on Staten Island, according to a lawyer representing the family. The agreement, reached days before the deadline to file suit in the death, appeared to be among the biggest reached so far as part of a strategy by the city comptroller, Scott C. Stringer, to settle major civil rights claims even before a lawsuit is filed. Mr. Stringer has said the aim is to save taxpayers the expense of...

Wal-Mart corporate spokesman Brian Nick said the reason West Morgan High graduate Aaron Browder was not able to purchase his senior class ring with a generic Rebels mascot is because design features included the Confederate flag in the background and foreground. The nickname for West Morgan's athletic teams is Rebels.

The Navy is weighing whether to have Marines hitch a ride on foreign warships, citing a shortage of U.S. vessels due to recent budget cuts -- raising bipartisan security concerns about the leverage this could give other countries. A key concern is whether a warship host nation could deny Marines permission to come ashore. "Ceding our amphibious ships to other countries -- it's almost silly and I can't believe it is even an option for the Navy," said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who served as a Marine in Iraq. "Now we are going to have to ask other countries, much...

I told myself yesterday that I wasn’t going to write another story about the ridiculous phony act that Rachel Dolezal is putting on. And then I saw Alicia’s story about liberal nut job Michael Eric Dyson saying that more black people identify with Rachel Dolezal than Justice Clarence Thomas. After listening to Dyson’s nonsense I didn’t think this story could produce anything more ridiculous. Boy, was I wrong. Apparently, 71% of MSNBC viewers said it’s perfectly fine for Rachel Dolezal to identify as a black transracial woman There’s weapons-grade stupid walking around in America today, folks.

Paul Ryan, Boehner, McConnell et al. Over the weekend an anniversary was marked with little fanfare — the second anniversary of the implementation of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement passed with the usual fanfare, supported by the usual suspects. Barack Obama hailed the agreement’s implementation on March 15, 2012. In the middle of his re-election campaign, he cheerfully promised the agreement would increase American exports to South Korea by $10 billion and would create 70,000 U.S. jobs. One of Barack Obama’s signature efforts for his second term is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal...