Free Republic

"Yesterday morning, we received a very bizarre letter from Google issuing us an ultimatum," Shane Trejo, media relations director of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Michigan, wrote on The Liberty Conservative. "Either we were to remove a particular article or see all of our ad revenues choked off in an instant. This is the newest method that Big Brother is using to enforce thought control."

The Los Angeles City Council voted 14-1 on Wednesday to officially mark the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples Day on the city’s calendar — a day to commemorate “indigenous, aboriginal and native people.” The day will remain a paid holiday for city employees, the Los Angeles Times reported. The vote followed a contentious hearing, during which some Italian-Americans said the switch would eradicate a key portion of their history, while others argued that city lawmakers needed to “dismantle a state-sponsored celebration of genocide indigenous peoples” and dismissed the idea of celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day on a different date...

When Donald Trump used the phrase “alt-left” to describe the anti-neo-Nazi protesters in Charlottesville last week, most people had no idea what he meant. I’m actually not sure he knew what he meant. “What about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, the ‘alt-right’? Do they have any assemblage of guilt?” Trump said during a rambling press conference. If the alt-left exists, it’s probably best represented by “antifa” (short for “anti-fascist”) — a loose network of left-wing activists who physically resist people they consider fascists. These are often the scruffy, bandana-clad people who show up at alt-right...

Just after last week’s terrorist attack in Barcelona, a pro-Islamic State website posted video from the scene along with a message in Arabic saying, “Terror is filling the hearts of the Crusader in the Land of Andalusia.” Let’s unpack that. “Crusader” is a term jihadists use, pejoratively, for Christians. More specifically, of course, it refers to the Christian soldiers who fought a series of wars, beginning in 1095, to recover Jerusalem and other parts of the Holy Land from the Muslim armies that had burst out of Arabia four centuries earlier. Andalusia indicates the territories of the Iberian Peninsula that...

Duke University removed a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from the entrance of a chapel on the Durham, North Carolina, campus, officials said on Saturday, days after it was vandalized. The decision to take down the statue followed discussions among students, faculty, staff and alumni about maintaining safety on campus, university President Vincent E. Price said in a statement. "I took this course of action to protect Duke Chapel, to ensure the vital safety of students and community members who worship there, and above all to express the deep and abiding values of our university," Price said. The...

First bursting into the headlines when they shut down far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos in February at the University of California at Berkeley, antifascists again captivated the public imagination by battling the fascists assembled at the “Unite the Right” white power rally in Charlottesville. But what is antifa? Where did it come from? Militant anti-fascist or “antifa” (pronounced ANtifa) is a radical pan-leftist politics of social revolution applied to fighting the far right. Its adherents are predominantly communists, socialists and anarchists who reject turning to the police or the state to halt the advance of white supremacy. Instead they advocate popular...

A Facebook post for a protest dubbed “Destroy the Confederacy” at Sam Houston Park in Houston on Saturday warns “*Do NOT bring children.” A group “committed to protecting Texas and Texas History,” “This Is Texas Freedom Force” (TITFF), says demonstrators plan to tear down a Confederate statue. They also warn there will be violence. The promoters of the protest tell potential attendees: “We will meet at Sam Houston Park (right in front of Houston City hall) to demand that the City of Houston ERASE THE CONFEDERACY! It is a STAIN IN THE FABRIC of our history that needs to be...

BALTIMORE - Contractors in Baltimore have removed several of the city's Confederate statues overnight. The Robert E. Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson monument in Wyman Park Dell was removed early Wednesday morning. The Confederate Women's Monument on West University Parkway was removed overnight as was the Roger Taney Monument from Mount Vernon Place. Taney was a Supreme Court justice who ruled African-Americans could not be considered citizens of the U.S. It is unclear if and when the city’s remaining Confederate statue - the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Mount Royal Avenue - is scheduled for removal. A commission appointed by...

When James Alex Fields Jr.’s mug shot was released after he drove his Dodge Challenger through a counterprotest in Charlottesville on Saturday, no one was surprised by what the image revealed: a young, white man with a neo-fascist undercut. “Alt-right” figures like Richard Spencer absorb nearly all the media glare on white nationalism, creating the impression that this is a single-sex movement, and as many have pointed out, the white supremacists who rallied on Saturday were mainly men. When it comes to identifying the perpetrators of racial hatred in this country, it is tempting to comfort ourselves with gender tropes....

A top Democratic National Committee leader called the Republican Party "the party of racism" at a conference for liberal activists Friday, pointing to President Donald Trump's positions on immigrants and refugees. "You hear Republicans say, 'We're the party of Lincoln.' He wouldn't recognize these people," said Rep. Keith Ellison, a congressman from Minnesota and Democratic National Committee deputy chairman. "The fact is that the Republican Party today is the party of racism. Now I'm not saying every Republican is a racist, but I'm saying their party does hold that up. ... It is the Republican Party in 2017 that says,...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXjlAHAi3W8

A posh Stockholm neighborhood will soon see its traffic lights receive a facelift as the standard lone figure on the crossing signals is replaced by same-sex couples. Forty-eight of the new lights will be temporarily installed in the Östermalm district to mark Stockholm Pride from July 31st to August 6th, in an initiative by the City of Stockholm. […] The lights will be situated around the Pride Park, which this year is located near the Stockholm Olympic Stadium in Östermalm. So far, reactions to the initiative have been “generally very positive,” [deputy mayor Daniel] Helldén said, with comments praising the...

Transgender and gender-nonconforming employees will receive greater and more explicit protections this week as new California employment regulations take effect Saturday. But some worry the new regulations might put employers in a difficult place: wanting to do right by their employees and follow the law, but lacking the resources — and the training — to do so. That’s why state Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens (Los Angeles County), gutted his own higher education bill to put forth a new proposal that would institute mandatory workplace training around gender identity and expression in the same way that sexual-harassment training is required...

I document in my book "Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph," which is an explanation of Americanism, leftism and Islamism, hysteria is a major tactic of the left. If you think about it, there is never an extended period of time -- one year, let's say -- during which society is not engulfed by a hysteria induced by the left. The mother of them all is global warming, or "climate change," as the left has come to call it (because the warming was not quite enough to induce widespread panic). Hysterics like billionaires...

FBI Director James Comey warned Wednesday that Americans should not have expectations of “absolute privacy,” adding that he planned to finish his term leading the FBI. “There is no such thing as absolute privacy in America; there is no place outside of judicial reach,” Comey said at a Boston College conference on cybersecurity. He made the remark as he discussed the rise of encryption since 2013 disclosures by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed sensitive US spy practices. “Even our communications with our spouses, with our clergy members, with our attorneys are not absolutely private in America,” Comey...

In the current political climate, today’s International Women’s Day comes with an extra edge as the movement that started with marches all over the country and the world the day after Donald Trump became President has declared A Day Without A Woman. The strike aims to display the pivotal role women play in our society and our economy and how often they are taken for granted. Here in Hollywood, NBC and Netflix have told staffers that they are free to take the day to celebrate and support the cause. Among others commemorating the day today, MTV will turn their logo...

Full title: "After an Eight-Year Break, Hollywood Once Again Thinks It’s Cool To Depict the President Being Killed"

Statues of Confederate leaders Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis are targeted for removal in New Orleans, after a federal appeals court approved the city's plan to change how it treats symbols of its history. Opponents of the move vow to keep fighting it in court. When Mayor Mitch Landrieu called for the city to remove the statue of Lee back in 2015, he said, "There may have been a time when that monument reflected who we were as a city, but times change. And so do we," as member station WWNO reported. After an intense public debate, the city...

A new directive from Israel's Education Ministry calls on preschool teachers to stop referring to "Mom and Dad" in preschool activities. The staff at the pro-LGBT Hoshen Organization, which offers training to preschool staff on the subjects of gender and sexual identity, has suggested Israeli preschool teachers speak about "parents" instead of "Mom and Dad." "It's worth remembering that there are many preschool children who come from non-traditional families. They may have two fathers, two mothers, two sets of parents, or LGBT parents who live separately and each has his or her own relationship," Hoshen explained. "Don't assume that every...

During a Saturday discussion on MSNBC about President Donald Trump’s presidency, Michelle Bernard, the president and CEO of the Bernard Center for Women, said she “can’t help but think” slavery is on its way back.