Free Republic

Sheriff David Clarke placed the blame for the execution of Harris County deputy Darren Goforth squarely upon President Barack Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder. Sheriff Clarke joined Judge Jeanine Pirro last night on Justice with Judge Jeanine. The Milwaukee County Sheriff said that Obama and Holder laid the groundwork for “this war on police” by supporting ‘activists’ who have disparaged law enforcement based upon a set of lies. “I am too pissed off tonight to be diplomatic with what’s going on and I’m not going to stick my head in the sand about it. I said last December...

A generation ago, the American gun industry came up with a devilish new campaign to bolster declining sales — militarizing the civilian firearms market with lightly adapted versions of potent battlefield weapons like the M-16 rifle. Renamed the AR-15, this semiautomatic assault rifle has come to haunt society in the hands of criminals and the deranged, who regularly kill innocent people in high-powered mass shootings.

President Obama on Monday will announce a plan to rename Alaska’s Mount McKinley to Denali, the name that nearby natives have long used. By taking action to officially name the 20,000-foot peak Denali, Obama will take the Alaskan Natives side in a dispute that has stretched on for more than a century. “Generally believed to be central to the Athabascan creation story, Denali is a site of significant cultural importance to many Alaska Natives,” the White House said in a Sunday fact sheet. “The name ‘Denali’ has been used for many years and is widely used across the state today.”...

Results for some of the states that participated in Common Core-aligned testing for the first time this spring are out, with overall scores higher than expected though still below what many parents may be accustomed to seeing. Full or preliminary scores have been released for Connecticut, Idaho, Missouri, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia. They all participated in the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, one of two groups of states awarded $330 million by the U.S. Department of Education in 2010 to develop exams to test students on the Common Core state standards in math and English language arts. Scores in...

One Marin County school district hopes to set a national example when it comes to healthy eating. Sausalito Marin City School District started serving only organic and GMO-free meals to students this week, becoming the first school district in the nation to do so. It's an extension of what is considered to be a successful pilot program begun in 2013 at Bayside MLK Jr. Academy in Marin City. The other school in the district, Willow Creek Academy in Sausalito, has now joined Bayside MLK Jr. Academy in installing a permanent program. “The results speak for themselves,” Steve Van Zant, superintendent...

Via the Examiner, I’d do what they say. In our alarming new culture of rage against microaggressions, doing otherwise might get you shot.Rather than make brutish assumptions that someone who looks like a boy is a boy and someone who looks like a girl is a girl, the campus diversity office recommends starting the semester by asking everyone to provide their names “and pronouns.” Or better yet, why not just use new pronouns that are gender-neutral? It’ll spare you an ephemeral awkward moment when you happen to encounter someone from the tiny fraction of the tiny fraction of the...

FULL TITLE: University of Tennessee tells staff and students to stop using 'he' and 'she' - and switch to 'xe', 'zir' and 'xyr' instead The University of Tennessee has told its staff and students to stop calling each other 'he', 'she', 'him' and 'her' - and to start referring to one another with terms like 'xe', 'zir' and 'xyr' instead. The Knoxville branch of the public university, which has 27,400 students, sent a memo round to its members filled with unusual new parts of speech to avoid referring to anybody's gender. According to a gay rights official at the university,...

Let’s imagine for a moment the kind of country that Donald Trump, the leading Republican presidential hopeful, wants America to become if he’s elected. “Trumpland” would feature a 1,954-mile-long wall along the United States’ border with Mexico, to be constructed after the deportation of more than 11 million undocumented immigrants. Of course, Trump would ensure that the U.S.-born children of these immigrants lose their right to American citizenship, so they’d be deported as well. As Trump sees it, with the border wall up and the immigrants out, the U.S. could be a great nation again

President Barack Obama is highlighting good economic news during a period of wildly erratic stock markets to make the case the United States remains an anchor of global strength. […] Obama is warning lawmakers not to keep the economy hostage over what he describes as ideological demands. He also says Congress will eventually pass the budget, so “let’s just do it without too much drama.” …

WASHINGTON -- Every sulfurous belch from the molten interior of the volcanic Trump phenomenon injures the chances of a Republican presidency. After Donald Trump finishes plastering a snarling face on conservatism, any Republican nominee will face a dauntingly steep climb to reach even the paltry numbers that doomed Mitt Romney. It is perhaps quixotic to try to distract Trump's supporters with facts, which their leader, who is no stickler for dignity, considers beneath him. Still, consider these: The white percentage of the electorate has been shrinking for decades and will be about 2 points smaller in 2016 than in 2012....

Republican Presidential Candidate and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush told a group at a Florida rally about his Texas border trip and explained why a border wall wouldn’t be practical or conservative. Bush returned to the friendly turf of the Sunshine State on Wednesday, with a town hall style meeting in Pensacola. Pensacola is a solidly conservative town in the Florida panhandle. He spoke of his experience as the state’s former governor, but only answered a single question about the Border Crisis. “I went to McAllen, Texas, in Hildago County, last week and met with the Mayors, the County Judge,...

Glenn Beck will not support Donald Trump if he wins the GOP presidential nomination. In a Monday evening interview on CNN, the radio personality also said he preferred Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) –who was the face of the Gang of Eight’s massive comprehensive amnesty bill–over Trump and even mocked Trump for having a “special place” to keep all of the Bibles that people send him. Host Don Lemon asked Beck, “If Donald Trump is the nominee, will you support him?” Beck, who over the weekend declared on left-leaning NPR that Trump was not a conservative, replied, “No.”

Monday in Texas at the U.S.–Mexico border, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush criticized front-runner Donald Trump’s “unrealistic” immigration plan. Bush said, “The proposal made by another candidate of building a fence based on the common sense practices that are being applied here doesn’t work. You have to have a deeper strategy than just building a fence.”

An atheist group is demanding that publicly funded universities take immediate steps to bar Christian coaches and chaplains from “converting football fields into mission fields.” “The words of coaches and chaplains make clear that their purpose is to instill Christianity in vulnerable young men,” the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) says in a new report, titled “Pray to Play.” “Public universities and their employees cannot endorse, promote, or favor religion,” the report states. “Yet, many football coaches at public universities bring in chaplains—often from their own church or even members of their own family—to prey on and pray with students,...

By REENA FLORES CBS NEWS June 28, 2015 GOP Gov.: "Time To Move On" From Same-Sex Marriage Possible Republican presidential candidate and Ohio Gov. John Kasich believes it's "time to move on" from the same-sex marriage issue in the wake of the Supreme Court's landmark ruling. "I do believe in traditional marriage and the court has ruled and it's time to move on," Kasich said on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday, adding that there's "so many other things now that we have to focus on." Gov. John Kasich talks issues ahead of possible 2016 run Kasich, who has not yet...

Baltimore has had more killings than New York City this year, and its homicide rate per 100,000 people is greater than New York’s and Chicago’s. Baltimore has had 212 killings this year. New York has had 208, despite a vast population disparity. New York has 8.2 million residents, while Baltimore has 622,000. …

Somerville city officials hung a large banner bearing the words “Black Lives Matter” on the front of City Hall on Wednesday morning in solidarity with the grassroots movement that has spread across the country following the recent shooting deaths of unarmed black men by police. Mayor Joe Curtatone said he worked with members of Black Lives Matter Cambridge , a local offshoot of the national organization, to create the banner and show support for their message. “We see this as an important opportunity for an important national conversation” about race, Curtatone said. He said the move was “a very clear...

After Black Lives Matter protesters upstaged fellow Democratic presidential candidates Martin O’Malley and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), Hillary Clinton held a private meeting with Black Lives Matter supporters. During the conversation with the activists, Clinton said America has not recovered from its “original sin” and referred to fellow white people as “us sinners.” Five activists attempted to disrupt Clinton’s Keene, New Hampshire event but were stopped by security. Later, they spoke to Clinton in a private meeting. […] The activists asked Clinton about her position on the War on Drugs and “the implications that has had on communities of color...

Going through a divorce has been difficult for Sepideh Saeedi. Not understanding what’s happening in court because she isn’t proficient in English has made the process even harder. “When you don’t understand what the judge is saying, what the other side’s attorney is saying, it’s very stressful,” Saeedi, 33, who speaks Farsi, said after a recent court hearing in Redwood City, Calif. Legal advocates say throughout the state, litigants in divorce, child custody, eviction and other civil cases who have difficulty with English are going into court without qualified interpreters. Instead, many are forced to turn to friends or family...

President Obama discussed initiatives he's put in place to change the tense dynamic between "many communities of color" and the police on the one year anniversary of teenager Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, Mo. "I convened a task force on community policing to find commonsense steps that can help us drive down crime and build up trust and cooperation between communities and police, who put their lives on the line every single day to help keep us safe. And I've met personally with rank and file officers to hear their ideas," said Obama in his weekly address. Obama said that...