Free Republic

I really should say something about outrage-fest that has mostly concluded over in the NBA and its environs. Clippers owner Donald Sterling got himself banned from NBA games and practices for life, and was fined 2.5 million dollars, because he managed to insinuate himself onto some audio, the playing of which audio proved to the world that he was in fact a racist jerk, not to mention a bounder and cad. It is difficult to summon up any sympathy for that kind of guy, and so why bother? No sympathy at all, at least not from this quarter. The fact...

A new word-discouragement campaign at Duke University has labeled phrases such as “Man Up,” “That’s So Gay,” and “Don’t Be a Pussy” offensive language that “delegitimizes” homosexuality and oppresses and insults people. But as the campaign has gained national popularity, its detractors have bristled at the effort, calling it a politically correct war on words that will stifle free speech and suggesting its true aim is to redefine terms to control public opinion and – ultimately – public policy.

It’s been debated for years, but now the city of Minneapolis has decided to change from celebrating Columbus Day to observing Indigenous People’s Day instead. Columbus Day has been a federal holiday since 1937, though not all states observe it, including Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon, and South Dakota. The day has long been a hot button issue over whether it is offensive to the American Indian culture to credit Christopher Columbus with the discovery of America. On Friday, the Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously to approve the proposal to rename the day Indigenous People’s Day. The designation would be observed on...

....Obama has appointed Brooklyn Nets center Jason Collins, the first openly gay NBA player, to serve on his Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition, the White House said Thursday. Obama also tapped daytime television host Rachel Ray and former Miami Heat star Alonzo Mourning, who earlier this year hosted the president at his home for a fundraiser benefitting the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Conservatives have noticed that the Pentagon is firing officers left and right, with many leaving under an embarrassing cloud. The question they ask — and I don't know that anyone has an answer — is whether these firings are the legitimate and appropriate housecleaning that a sclerotic bureaucracy needs or whether they're a purge, with Obama's New Age, gender flexible, fighting optional military getting rid of people in command positions who actually think that the military's job is to wage war in America's defense.All I know is that the latest person being investigated as a predicate to an inevitable firing...

Researchers have uncovered an extremely critical vulnerability in recent versions of OpenSSL, a technology that allows millions of Web sites to encrypt communications with visitors. Complicating matters further is the release of a simple exploit that can be used to steal usernames and passwords from vulnerable sites, as well as private keys that sites use to encrypt and decrypt sensitive data.

In reality this entire hoopla was not sprung up by native Americans, but a VERY small group of "progressives" who apparently split from their comrades who busy themselves protesting the pledge of allegiance, nativity displays and the like. Dignitas News was able to infiltrate a high level meeting of the Progressive PC Police team, as they discussed the ongoing dispute over the Washington Redskins team mascot and branding. The following are excerpts from their strategy meeting: NE Patriots-On top of being potentially anti-British, it harkens to our militaristic past. How about the New England Global Villagers? NY Jets-Commercial air transit...

Trinity College, Dublin have been criticised after deciding to remove a depiction of the bible from their 422-year-old crest, with one graduate calling it "political correctness gone totally mad".The college decided to remove the bible as part of a rebranding initiative and replace it with an "open book". A college memo says that the change will "create a more forward-looking image" and the new book will "signify the tradition of scholarship which should be accessible to all."The college had previous told students and staff that it would keep the bible, along the other traditional symbols of the lion, castle and...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) weighed in on Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder’s new foundation to help Native Americans on Thursday and slammed the controversial owner for ‘throwing a few blankets at the Indians’ to get a nice tax break.Reid made the comments about Snyder’s decision to create the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation in an interview with The Washington Post.“Dan Snyder, he’s got a great new deal,” the Senate Majority Leader said. “He’s going to throw a few blankets to the Indians and get a tax deduction for it.”In the late 1700s, Europeans fighting in the French and Indian...

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The troublesome fish currently known as Asian carp may get a new name in Minnesota over concern that the current one casts people from Asian cultures in a negative light. Proposals advancing in the Legislature would require the Department of Natural Resources to refer to the fish as "invasive carp," a reference to the threat the non-native fish pose to Mississippi River-area ecosystems. ...

Rep. Barbara Lee is firing back at Bill O’Reilly, saying the Fox News host’s comments about race were “disgusting.” “Unfortunately we’ve come to expect language like ‘welfare queens,’ ‘food stamp president,’ and now ‘race hustlers’ from the right wing and Mr. O’Reilly,” the California Democrat said in a statement Wednesday. “It is disgusting and divisive and should never be accepted in our national discourse.” O’Reilly had Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on his program Tuesday night to discuss controversy over some comments Ryan had made about poverty and inner city culture that he later called “inarticulate.” Ryan’s remarks were seized...

Speech taboos are meant to silence patriotic dissentWhen I was in high school in Detroit, there was a great deal of emphasis on clothing. As I became increasingly interested in fitting in with the “in crowd,” fashion supplanted academic achievement in my hierarchy of importance. My grades plummeted and I became a person who was less pleasant and more self-absorbed. My mother was very disappointed, because she thought I had enough insight and intelligence to avoid the flypaper trap of acting like everyone else. Fortunately, after wasting a year pursuing acceptance, I realized that my dreams went far beyond silk...

Guinness pulls out of St. Patty’s parade over LGBT ban Guinness beer has pulled its sponsorship from New York’s famed St. Patrick’s day parade over a controversial policy that prohibits gays and lesbians from marching openly, according to reports. “Guinness has a strong history of supporting diversity and being an advocate for equality for all,” the company said in a statement on the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation website. “We were hopeful that the policy of exclusion would be reversed for this year’s parade. As this has not come to pass, Guinness has withdrawn its participation. We will continue...

Ryan said on William Bennett's talk radio show, "Morning in America," that there was a "tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value of work."

An upcoming conference organized by Stanford University’s Anscombe Society called “Communicating Values: Marriage, Family & the Media” has been dubbed “hate speech” by the college’s graduate-level student government, which refused to allow any of its student fee-funded budget to support the event. The Anscombe Society is a conservative student group centered around traditional marriage and family values; it also encourages chastity, and tackles subjects such as sexual integrity and pornography.

<p>A ballot measure in Montana that would require an equal number of men and women to serve in the state Legislature is a step closer to getting on the November ballot.</p> <p>A petition for the measure was approved last Tuesday by the Montana secretary of state's office. The measure would force the Montana Legislature to reconstruct its gender makeup in a 50/50 split. Currently, women now hold 41 of the 150 seats in the Legislature.</p>

This week, liberals and their media lap dogs have once again revealed a part of their telling agenda: They want to ban the word "bossy". Yes. The word. Why? Because it's "offensive." It holds back the young, up and coming women leaders of the new generation. They believe, and want us to believe, that we cant think for ourselves or raise strong independent young conservative women because "bossy" is bad, ugly, hurtful, and degrading. It doesn't matter that "bossy" has and will be used by women toward their male bosses and that's OK. Nobody objects to that. But for...

Police asking for the public to identify an armed robber whose face was completely concealed aren’t treating him as a suspect in case it breaches his human rights. The man pulled down a black woolen beanie hat over his face so it was completely hidden before raiding a Labdrokes betting shop in West Moors, Dorset. Although nothing whatsoever can be seen of his face, optimistic police are asking people to help identify the seemingly unrecognizable man in CCTV images. …

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Officials at a Northern California high school acted appropriately when they ordered students wearing American flag T-shirts to turn the garments inside out during the Mexican heritage celebration Cinco de Mayo, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the officials' concerns of racial violence outweighed students' freedom of expression rights. Administrators feared the American-flag shirts would enflame the passions of Latino students celebrating the Mexican holiday. Live Oak High School, in the San Jose suburb of Morgan Hill, had a history of problems between white and Latino students on...

105.9 FM is the local classic rock station in south Florida.....just a few minutes ago, I was bored with everything else on the radio and hit that station...just in time to hear the beginning of the hit "Money for Nothing"... Imagine my surprise when the lyric got to: "That little faggot with the earring and the mink coat, Yeah, buddy, thats his own hair. That little faggot got his own jet airplane. That little faggot is a millionaire!" Funny lines....but the dreaded "slur" was clipped out! Absurd. Anyway, since I RARELY listen to music radio, I was wondering if this...