Free Republic

President Obama said the shoot-down "points to an ongoing problem with the Russian operations" in Syria, including attacks against moderate Syrian opposition groups near the Turkish border. If Russia were going after the Islamic State instead, Mr. Obama said, such mistakes "are less likely to occur." He said it’s important for Turkish and Russian officials to communicate and to "discourage any kind of escalation." French President Francois Hollande called the incident "a serious one." "We must prevent an escalation," he said. Mr. Obama said the U.S. is still gathering facts of the shoot-down, but said Turkey "has a right to...

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) during President Obama's tenure, went on the Kelly File last night to talk about the possible manipulation of ISIS intelligence. He said the investigation should "start at the top. Where intelligence starts and stops is at the White House." "[M]any of them have been deployed for many years in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere... so I think that the focus of really this investigation, they'll find whoever they're going to find and some of the tactical issues at central command, but the focus of this investigation ought to...

If you sit around believing the right wing radio propaganda that the wealthy know what's best for us then be prepared to suffer the fate that many others have suffered under the oppression of aristocrats in the past. But we live in a Democratic Republic overwhelmingly dominated by voters who are not wealthy. So its pretty simple to go out and vote for our own interest every couple of years-- without the need for any mass protest or even any union participation. We could raise the incomes of the poorest by simply passing laws to raise the minimum wage. Many...

n an online rant, a Bronx public school principal has likened standardized testing to slavery, redlining and crack cocaine in damaging the lives of minorities. “Public school high-stakes standardized testing is a form of modern-day slavery, and it is designed to continue the proliferation of inequality,” Cornerstone Academy for Social Action Middle School Principal Jamaal Bowman says in an Aug. 31 blog entry titled “The Tyranny of Standardized Testing.” “America was born of horror for black people and that horror continues today for brown and poor people as well. Slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, crack cocaine and now standardized testing were...

A recent report authored by a team of mathematicians from the Société de Calcul Mathématique SA challenged what it concluded is "a costly and pointless crusade against a naturally variable climate. The forces driving change are huge and beyond human control. The contribution to climate change that can be traced to human activity is tiny. The measures touted to combat climate change would be both expensive and ineffectual." Global climate expert Al Gore denounced the report as "detrimental to our efforts to unite humanity in this crucial battle to save the planet. I'm not a math whiz, but I know...

Women workers will be fined SR1,000 if they are caught without their head cover in office under new labor laws introduced this week, a newspaper reported Monday. Companies employing women must also enforce the law and issue written instructions in this regard or they could be fined SR5,000, Al-Hayat Arabic daily said. “All companies must issue clear written instructions to their female workers to cover their head while in office. Erring companies will be fined SR5,000,” the report quoted a Labor Ministry official as saying. It said the new law also set a fine of SR5,000 for companies which force...

This week's debate among Democrats vying for their Party's presidential nomination inspired a bidding war as to which of them could promise more "free stuff" to voters. Sen Bernie Sanders (Vt) vowed to eliminate the need for money. "Too many people are barred from having what they want by the fact that they lack the money to purchase it," Sanders lamented. "Billionaires like Donald Trump never have to face such deprivation. Why should poorer Americans be denied the same rights? When I'm president all merchandise will be free." Rival candidate Hillary Clinton averred that "while I agree with Senator Sanders...

According to Portland State University Professor’s Rachel Sanders’ “White Privilege” course, “whiteness” must be dismantled if racial justice will ever be achieved. Students taking the course will “endeavor to make whiteness strange.”

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.