Free Republic

In his book Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power, the German Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper wrote the following: “That the existential realm of man could be taken over by pseudorealities whose fictitious nature threatens to become indiscernible is truly a depressing thought. And yet, the Platonic nightmare, I hold, possesses an alarming contemporary relevance. For the general public is being reduced to a state where people are not only unable to find out about the truth but also become unable even to search for the truth because they are satisfied with deception and trickery that have determined their convictions, satisfied...

Minority students in some San Mateo and Santa Clara County school districts were asked to repeat Algebra 1 when they entered high school even though the students passed the class in 8th grade, according to a report. A report funded by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation says that math misplacement was done with minority students in a disproportionate number over white students. "It happens because some teachers have a bias toward kids of color, particularly Latino and African American kids," said Emmett Carson, Silicon Valley Community Foundation CEO. Congressional Black Caucus members believe the study shows some school districts are...

Washington (CNN)An email chain between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then-commander of U.S. Central Command David Petraeus from January and February 2009 is raising questions about whether some of the emails on Clinton's private email server were mistakenly deemed personal and not included among the 55,000 pages of emails she turned over to the State Department. Separately on Friday, a State Department official said a "small number" of Benghazi-related emails that had not been disclosed to the House committee investigating the 2012 terror attack had been discovered. In the past few days, the State Department was contacted by...

FR CANTEEN MISSION STATEMENT Showing support and boosting the morale of our military and our allied military and the family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. FReeper Canteen Just Hangin' Cafe Come on in, we're open Need a place just to hang out? This is it. It's casual FRiday here at the Canteen. Pull up a seat and relax. We serve coffee, tea, conversation and music. Our AWESOME military, our AWESOME allies, and their families are welcomed and honored here. No worries in the FReeper Canteen Just Hangin' Cafe. Grab a cup or a glass, and...

Expressing his admiration for a high school student's curiosity about science, President Obama has invited Ahmed Mohamed to the White House. Ahmed Mohamed, 14, was handcuffed and taken away from his school in Irving, Texas, earlier this week after school officials grew suspicious of a digital clock he had made in a pencil case over the weekend.

Fox in the Grassroots Henhouse: The Perp Sheet The FNC jihad against Donald Trump, grassroots America and their own viewing audience There was a time, not so long ago, when grassroots conservatives believed, rightly or wrongly, that the Fox News Channel was an alternative to the manipulative, often shady ways of the alphabet networks. As of late however, it seems that the VIPs at the network are beginning to more resemble the pigs-turned-human at the end of Orwell's Animal Farm than the friendly alternativnes to the mainstream media clampdown. Even if you consider yourself well informed, some of the...

Google hints it may decide to use structured data in its ranking algorithm some day, though the company has previously denied it. Structured data, structured markup and rich snippets have always been about helping Google and search engines understand your content and potentially lead to Google making your search result snippet richer, with the goal of increasing your click-through rate from the organic results to your page. Google has said, time and time again, that these are not used in the ranking algorithm to make a Web page rank better. They have said that adding structured markup to your pages...

An Egyptian court released a detailed ruling on Sunday on why it sentenced three journalists working for al-Jazeera English to three years in prison for airing what it described as “false news” and biased coverage. The case has long been criticised by press freedom campaigners and others. The ruling, published by the state news agency Mena, said Mohamed Fahmy, a Canadian national, Peter Greste, an Australian journalist, and BaherMohamed, an Egyptian producer, were by default members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood group, which Egyptian authorities consider a terrorist organisation. “It has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that the al-Jazeera media...

Martin O’Malley on the bandwagon: US should take 65,000 Syrians in 2016 Posted by Ann Corcoran on September 5, 2015 Martin O'Malley As Mayor of Baltimore, O’Malley encouraged diversity as thousands of impoverished refugees were deposited there among Baltimore’s American minority poor. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2015/05/03/baltimore-thousands-of-impoverished-refugees-poured-into-city-in-last-ten-years-fuel-for-the-fire/ It has really been an unbelievable thing to watch—how Leftist politicians the world over are falling all over themselves to invite mostly Muslim Syrians (no mention of the persecuted Christians by O’Malley, or any of them for that matter!) to permanently move into western countries and American communities. Here (at CNN) former Open Borders Governor of Maryland...

The Kentucky county clerk facing potentially stiff penalties for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses has been married four times, raising questions of hypocrisy and selective application of the Bible to her life. The marriages are documented in court records obtained by U.S. News, which show that Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis divorced three times, first in 1994, then 2006 and again in 2008. She gave birth to twins five months after divorcing her first husband. They were fathered by her third husband but adopted by her second. Davis worked at the clerk's office at the time of each divorce...

It must be the first day of September. Summer vacation is over. The kids are heading back to school. So now it’s time to get serious. It’s time to hit Donald Trump with negative ads. That seems to be the thinking in the Jeb Bush camp, which is out with this new Web ad: http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv/politics/jeb-bush-the-real-donald-trump--campaign-2016/2015/09/01/ed750bea-50b0-11e5-b225-90edbd49f362_video.html

Says James O'Keefe's Project Veritas "considers itself a journalism organization". In contrast with a certain gray woman "of questionable virtue" lecturing young girls on the subject of chaste personal practices?

A widely-circulated report, which many saw as an accidental admission that Russian troops are fighting in Ukraine, has been exposed as a hoax. The report, which outlets including The Daily Caller News Foundation reported at face value, claimed to expose a secret memo. It purportedly described Russian government compensation to the families of 2,000 soldiers who had died in Ukraine’s civil war. The story, which Forbes first broke in English, understandably attracted significant Western media attention and was promoted online by several prominent figures, including former Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and ex-U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. If the...

One question we’ve asked about Donald Trump’s campaign is what would happen if another candidate were to get a surge of media coverage, throwing a wrench in the works of Trump’s perpetual attention machine. Based on the latest polls, we may soon get the best test of this question since Trump entered the race. The potential surger is Ben Carson, the much-awarded neurosurgeon who is running for political office for the first time. Carson is near the top of the Republican field in two new polls of Iowa. A Monmouth University poll has Carson with 23 percent of the vote...

In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on American companies that put their factories in other countries. He has threatened to increase taxes on the compensation of hedge fund managers. And he has vowed to change laws that allow American companies to benefit from cheaper tax rates by using mergers to base their operations outside the United States. Alarmed that those ideas might catch on with some of Mr. Trump’s Republican rivals — as his immigration policies have — the Club for Growth, an anti-tax think tank, is pulling together a team of economists to scrutinize his...

Recently, I asked my 87-year-old dad: "Was it a dream, or did you and Mom allow a man dressed like a woman to run through our home and out the back door?" Dad replied, "Wow! How on Earth could you possibly remember that?" I was a toddler then, now in my sixties. Dad said the man was being chased by the police, and my mom felt sorry for him. Today, transvestites are celebrated, awarded for courage. And yet, more Americans than ever view themselves as victims. A caller on a radio show said people are fed up with both sides...

A New York Magazine writer and author of the 2014 book about Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, "The Loudest Voice in the Room," said in a recent televised interview the cable station's biggest star, Megyn Kelly, may not be re-engaging in public disputes with presidential hopeful Donald Trump because she doesn't want to hurt her chances to move to a more mainstream network, like CNN. Kelly, on the heels of widespread criticism of her debate night questioning of Trump – after which the billionaire businessman called her a "bimbo" in a tweet – went on what she and Fox officials...

Two days ago, ABC News reported that Vester Flanagan, the murderer of two WDBJ employees, sent a 23-page faxed manifesto to ABC News. ABC reported bits and pieces of the manifesto. Yet we still haven’t seen the full document. ABC hasn’t made it available. Why? John Nolte and others have been busy hammering away at the racial hypocrisy of many in the media after treating Flanagan’s crimes very differently from Dylann Roof’s. Unquestionably, they were both racially motivated. But you’d never know that from reading the headlines in the Washington Post or other mouthpieces that enable the (one way) racial...

FR CANTEEN MISSION STATEMENT Showing support and boosting the morale of our military and our allied military and the family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. FReeper Canteen Just Hangin' Cafe Come on in, we're open Need a place just to hang out? This is it. We serve coffee, tea, conversation and music. Our AWESOME military, our AWESOME allies, and their families are welcomed and honored here. No worries in the FReeper Canteen Just Hangin' Cafe. Grab a cup and start a conversation. You never know who you might meet in the Cafe. Glad you could...

The gunman who shot and killed a Virginia TV crew was a man dressed all in black. Cameraman Adam Ward captured the man approaching as he fired at him and reporter Alison Parker. The shooter has not yet been identified. According to the station manager Jeffrey A. Marks, it appears that the cameraman was shot first, and Parker was shot while running away.