Free Republic

Apple, LinkedIn, Spotify and Twitter have joined a growing chorus of technology companies to hit out at the far right and Donald Trump’s attempt to put white supremacists and leftwing counter-demonstrators at Saturday’s Charlottesville protest on the same moral plane. Following the lead of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google, Go Daddy and others, Apple CEO Tim Cook pledged $1m donations to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Anti-Defamation League and sent a strongly worded memo to staff, quoting Martin Luther King, about the violence in Charlottesville on Saturday.

At least 13 people have been killed and dozens injured after a van in Barcelona ploughed into pedestrians and two men entered a restaurant with guns. Pictures and video emerging from the scene show police cars and ambulances near the Las Ramblas, a busy tree-lined promenade in the centre of the city. Gunfire was heard at the Corte Ingles store in the area after police announced a 'massive crash'. Horrifying footage from the scene shows dozens of victims lying injured on the floor. It is believed the van hit pedestrians before gunmen ran into a nearby restaurant to hold diners...

While universities notoriously serve as Petri dishes that cultivate the doctrines of social justice and inculcate students with its dogmas, Occidental College actually offers an undergraduate degree program in "Critical Theory and Social Justice. (CTSJ)" Describing the program as "interdisciplinary," the syllabus explains: "'Critical' refers to various bodies of theory and method: Marxism, psychoanalysis, the Frankfurt School, deconstruction, critical race studies, queer theory, feminist theory, postcolonial theory, and intersectionality that interrogate the essentialist assumptions that underlie social identities. 'Social justice' refers to an extra-juridical concept of fairness that is focused on exposing and ending social inequalities. The aim of the...

The normal political spectrum used by liberals and the MSM runs from Nazis on the right to communists on the left. That is, it runs from a Jewish-hating totalitarian socialist philosophy on the right to a Jewish-hating totalitarian socialist philosophy on the left. Clearly, that's insane, since the extremes are identical. But it serves the purposes of liberals because it disguises the fascist nature of liberal positions. It also allows liberals to hang the shame of Nazism over conservatives, who all oppose the big-government philosophy of Nazism as well as Nazis' hatred of Jews.

President Trump drew tremendous criticism from the liberal media when he noted that there was violence in Charlottesville, Virginia “on all side.” But despite its own hammering of the President, MSNBC brought on a staunch supporter of Antifa during MTP Daily to champion their violent approach to stopping opponents, as they displayed in Charlottesville. Host Chuck Todd, a self-proclaimed political referee, offered little to no push back against his violently radical guest. The MSNBC host welcomed his guest with open arms, asking: “Mark Bray, you are writing this book Antifa, the Anti-Fascist Handbook. Explain this movement and its roots.” “So...

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.