Free Republic

The left-wing "Antifa" movement is rising in prominence after clashing with white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., but one progressive scholar says the anti-fascists feed the fire they seek to extinguish. "As for Antifa, it's a minuscule fringe of the Left, just as its predecessors were," Noam Chomsky told the Washington Examiner. "It's a major gift to the Right, including the militant Right, who are exuberant." Many activists affiliated with the loosely organized Antifa movement consider themselves anarchists or socialists. They often wear black and take measures to conceal their identity.

President Trump on Thursday refused to back down from critics who've ripped him for failing to condemn protests surrounding the removal of Confederate monuments, doubling down on his belief the statues should stay and questioning if the progressive movement would turn on America's Founding Fathers next. In the aftermath of a deadly car attack Saturday -- following clashes at a largely white nationalist rally protesting the University of Virginia's plan to remove a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee -- Trump bemoaned the accelerated effort by many on the left to take down other symbols of the Confederacy. "Sad...

The mayor, more than half of the D.C. Council, and the D.C. attorney general have joined activists in calling for the removal of a statue of a Confederate general from federal land in Judiciary Square. "Albert Pike was a strong proponent of slavery and fought to try to preserve that in this country. Regardless of what he did in other parts of his life, it's inappropriate to honor him," says At-large Councilmember David Grosso, who sent a letter today to the acting director of the National Park Service calling for a statue of Pike at 3rd and D streets NW...

Takiyah Thompson, a 22-year-old student activist who participated in tearing down a Confederate statue during a protest in Durham, North Carolina has been released from jail. Thompson is now one of four people as of Wednesday afternoon who have been arrested for damaging the monument, a move that many are calling out as unjust.

Three Antifa protesters were arrested outside a Chicago courthouse yesterday after getting into a scuffle with police. From the Chicago Tribune: Note that as the protesters are arrested, their compatriots are chanting “Cops and Klan go hand in hand.” The protesters also held up a banner which connected police with the Klan: As multiple marked squad cars rushed to the scene Tuesday afternoon, one demonstrator could be heard shouting to police, “F— you, you fascist f—s.’… Protesters likened the police action to tactics used by white supremacists and accused officers of displaying brute force in an attempt to intimidate the...

If President Trump pardons former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, it “would be an official presidential endorsement of racism,” the American Civil Liberties Union said on Monday. Arpaio, now 85 years old, is famous for his tough stand on illegal immigration. He was convicted two weeks ago of criminal contempt for violating a court order instructing him to stop detaining people suspected of being in the country illegally. Fox News interviewed Trump on Sunday at his club in Bedminster, N.J. “I am seriously considering a pardon for Sheriff Arpaio,” Fox quoted the president as saying. “He has done a lot...

In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, Baltimore removed its four Confederate monuments, including statues of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. This action followed this weekend's events in Charlottesville, Va., when white supremacists protested the removal of a Lee statue, and events this week, when protesters vandalized Confederate statues in Durham, N.C., Louisville, Ky., and Gainesville, Fla. Activists and government leaders are calling for more removals, while some counter protesters have organized to protect some monuments. Here is a brief summary of the monuments under attack — and those that aren't.

The hacktivist collective Anonymous is planning a "Denouncement Day" this Friday to "denounce the Confederacy, to denounce racism, bigotry and hate," saying "it is time to take down these monuments of hate ourselves." Supporters plan to gather at 6 p.m. EST at the statue of Rear Adm. Raphael Semmes in Mobile, Ala., the Confederate Soldiers Monument in Little Rock, the Jackson Guards Memorial in Jacksonport, Ark., the Searcy Confederate Memorial in Searcy, Ark., the Our Confederate Dead monument in Munn Park in Lakeland, Fla., the Confederate Monument in Piedmont Park in Atlanta (which was defaced with spray paint this week),...

There's a massive amount of commentary today on the drive to remove monuments related to the Confederacy. Statues of generals, political leaders, and prominent citizens during that period in history are coming down all over the South following the violence in Charlottesville. Monuments that remind local citizens of their ancestors who died in the Civil War are also being removed. In truth, Charlottesville is an excuse to do what activists have wanted to do for decades; remove every last reminder that there was, at one time, an independent nation on the American continent based on the idea that humans could...

An Islamic organization founded in Washington, D.C., by the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas is entering the controversy over Confederate monuments, urging all state and local governments to remove any symbols of the Civil War South. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, is offering to help facilitate the process, providing a template resolution to be introduced by public bodies such as state legislatures, city councils and school districts. CAIR, an unindicted co-conspirator in a plot to fund Hamas, was designated by a Gulf Arab state as a terrorist organization. CAIR has sued the authors of a WND Books exposé, “Muslim...

There is a distinction between color blindness and absent mindedness. The former is a worthy goal consonant with Dr. King's desire that we judge each other "by the content of our character not the color of our skin." The latter is too frequently on display in academia. "As a white assistant professor of mostly white graduate students who will become higher education leaders, I work to dismantle whiteness in my curriculum, assignments and pedagogy," Jodi L. Linley writes. "I make meaning of my own white identity through my commitment to reflexivity as a constant activity." "Equally salient are my identities...

We are now in the midst of yet another battle over real marriage versus fake marriage, and as is always the case, the other side seeks to make its case by copious amounts of falsehoods, misinformation, straw men and red herrings. It seems to simply make things up as it goes along. It will toss out the most reckless of charges, the most baseless of accusations, and the most illogical of claims. I have dealt with them time and time again. Let me look at one common objection thrown our way by the militants as we seek to defend marriage...

MOLINE -- Building the new Interstate 74 bridge will take years, but certification to bid on the jobs building it should only take about 90 days. The Illinois Department of Transportation held a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise certification and supportive services workshop Monday evening at the Moline Public Library, 3210 41st St. At the workshop, officials from IDOT shared information on how those who are in presumed disadvantaged groups can bid on contracts associated with the project. To qualify for DBE certification, the business owner must have a personal net worth of less than $1.32 million. Engineering consulting businesses must average...

August 14, 2017 | David F. Coppedge Paleontologist Spills Beans on Evolutionary Emptiness A noted evolutionary paleontologist reviews a new book on evolutionary mechanisms favorably, but gives Darwin skeptics ammo in the process. Kevin Padian, a renowned evolutionary paleontologist, is certainly no friend of creation or intelligent design. When speaking to his Darwin buddies, he feels comfortable enough to be frank about problems. Here are some scraps from the table of his book review in Nature, “Evolution: Parallel lives,” a review of Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution, by Jonathan B. Losos (Riverhead: 2017). Padian highly recommends...

The University of San Francisco this week is scheduled to host a segregated orientation dedicated to black students, a program that takes place in addition to its standard welcoming activities for all students. The Black Student Orientation is slated for Aug. 18, the day prior to the university’s New Student Orientation. The day-long event–billed as having been “designed by Black students, faculty, and staff to welcome new Black students to the USF Black Experience”–will “address the specific and particular needs of African American/Black students at USF,” according to the school’s website.

Durham County Sheriff Mike Andrews says his office is working to identify individuals who pulled down the Confederate statue on Durham County property Monday night. Andrews’ statement comes amid reports that sheriff’s officials were present when the statue was pulled down, videoing the act but not intervening to stop it or arrest those doing it. Breitbart News reported that protesters placed a tow rope around the neck and shoulder of a Confederate statue and pulled it down from atop the monument on which it stood. WNCN reports that protesters took turns kicking the statue once it was on the ground,...

Modern science is mostly based on discoveries by white men. Therefore, it is racist and sexist and must be replaced with a new science. Enraged by the mild deviations from liberal orthodoxy that got James Damore fired from Google, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a physics researcher at the University of Washington, is ready to do her part: Prescod-Weinstein takes issue with the contention—related to her by a “well-known scientist”—that “the Google memo failed to constitute hostile behavior because it cited peer-reviewed articles that suggest women have different brains,” arguing that “peer-reviewed” is not synonymous with “correct.”

The founders carefully and deliberately defined the First Amendment so that only a village idiot at the time could mistake its meaning. "Congress shall make no law..." is about as clear a statement of intent as can be found in the document.

The Higher Education Establishment insists that its mission is just that. Academic insiders know better. "Activism in this broad sense rules the day in contemporary higher education," Zena Hitz, a tutor at St. John’s College in Annapolis, writes in the summer 2017 issue of Modern Age. "The core purpose of the University of Texas, according to its mission statement, is 'to transform lives for the benefit of society.'" "Education is for the sake of 'social transformation,' says Harvard College--or 'the improvement of the world today,' according to Yale University." Yet and still, conservatives ready to high five each other and...

Feminists can’t wait to find any reason, no matter how far-fetched, to justify their activism. Behold the feminists behind the Women’s March. On August 14, the facebook page for the Women’s March reshared the NRA video that sparked their 17 mile march in July. The video was captioned with the words, “If you didn’t get why we protested the NRA, watch this ad. The act of terror in #Charlottesville is the clenched fist of truth they called for.” Nowhere in the video are supremacists or racists mentioned. And it’s worth mentioning that Heather Heyer, who was killed protesting the white...