Free Republic

...Ryan called the Democratic lawmakers' sit-in Wednesday to protest inaction on gun laws a "publicity stunt," saying that House liberals were more interested in headlines.... .....the sit-in that began earlier in Ryan's chamber earned his scorn. "This is nothing more than a publicity stunt," Ryan said, saying House Democrats would infringe on Second Amendment rights and do nothing to prevent terrorist attacks. "This is not about a solution to a problem. This is about trying to get attention." Ryan said they would not take up gun bills that the Senate already voted down on Monday. He called on legislation to...

Ted Cruz on Wyoming win: "This is how elections are won in America." Once again, voters are not represented in the process. Instead, "votes" for the nominee are gained by backroom politics. Another corrupt process by the GOP establishment. From Fox News: Ted Cruz on Saturday won all 14 delegates in the Wyoming GOP convention -- a relatively small number but enough for the Texas senator to declare victory and keep GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump from securing the nomination. “We are likely to have a battle in Cleveland to decide who is the nominee,” Cruz told party members before...

More… Chaos broke out at the GOP St. Charles convention Saturday when the Cruz camp tried to steal the delegates there, too.Ted Cruz lost Missouri to Donald Trump. Trump was awarded 25 delegates to 15 for Ted Cruz. Now there is evidence that the Cruz team violated the rules. The Missouri caucus rules (page 5, #4) does not allow for paper or secret ballots. Here’s the link . Local Trump supporters are working 24/7 to collect and sort all the information from the St. Louis county township caucuses by the April 15 deadline. The only caucuses in St Louis that...

The GOP Elites are getting all their ducks in a row. They’re spending millions to attack and discredit Trump. Behind the scenes, they are cutting deals with delegates. They are pulling out all the tricks at primary polls. Now, here’s the ultimate insult to Republican voters. The Republican National Committee launched a new website to prepare the public for a contested GOP convention: The Republican National Convention (RNC) launched ConventionFacts.gop in order to prepare the public for what to expect at a contested national convention. The website outlines party rules for delegates and the process that occurs if no GOP...

Trump nevertheless offers a valuable warning for the Republican party. If responsible men irresponsibly ignore an issue as important as immigration, it will be taken up by the reckless. If they cannot explain their Beltway maneuvers - worse, if their maneuvering is indefensible - they will be rejected by their own voters. If they cannot advance a compelling working-class agenda, the legitimate anxieties and discontents of blue-collar voters will be exploited by demagogues. We sympathize with many of the complaints of Trump supporters about the GOP, but that doesn't make the mogul any less flawed a vessel for them. Some...

Being offensive is a breech of etiquette, not of morality. Being offensive is belching loudly, swearing like a stevedore, farting in church. It's a failure of proper manners and decorum; it has nothing to do with political opinions, religious faith, or human morals.

Washington (CNN)—The commissioning of the USS Jackson, a littoral combat ship, has angered activists who don't want to see President Andrew Jackson honored. The new ship, also designated LCS 6, was commissioned in Mississippi on Saturday and honors Jackson, Mississippi, which the Navy noted in a news release is named for former President Andrew Jackson. The ship is the Navy's third to bear the seventh president's name. The designation comes amid a nationwide review of Jackson's legacy; activists who have fought having his name celebrated were dismayed to learn of the name the Navy had chosen.

The Missouri University Police Department (MUPD) sent an email to students Tuesday morning urging them to call them and report any hurtful speech they encounter on the campus.In an email that was flagged by several Missouri-based journalists, the MUPD asked "individuals who witness incidents of hateful and/or hurtful speech or actions" to call the department's general phone line "to continue to ensure that the University of Missouri campus remains safe." They suggest that students provide a detailed description of the offender, their location or license plate number, and even to take a picture if possible.

That petition states in part, “We the taxpayers of LaGrange County respectfully request the county require the Amish community to attach manure bags to buggies and to clean up hitching rack areas after use.”

A year ago I received an invitation from the head of Counseling Services at a major university to join faculty and administrators for discussions about how to deal with the decline in resilience among students. At the first meeting, we learned that emergency calls to Counseling had more than doubled over the past five years. Students are increasingly seeking help for, and apparently having emotional crises over, problems of everyday life. Recent examples mentioned included a student who felt traumatized because her roommate had called her a “bitch” and two students who had sought counseling because they had seen a...

Back in the day, when bosses and CEOs got a little too attentive to detail, we would wryly note that they were “micromanaging.” Today, students actually want university administrators to micromanage free speech, putting the First Amendment at risk. “Two terms have risen quickly from obscurity into common campus parlance,” Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt write in the latest issue of The Atlantic. “Microaggressions are small actions or word choices that seem on their face to have no malicious intent but that are thought of as a kind of violence nonetheless. For example, by some campus guidelines, it is a...

According to Conan O’Brien sidekick Andy Richter, I did a terrible thing the other day during a radio appearance; I questioned the current queen of the ruling class — Senator Chuck Schumer’s cousin, comedienne Amy Schumer, after she made a public appearance to call for more federal spending, and for more restrictions of my Second Amendment civil rights. Apparently, believing that a celebrity might exploit a tragedy in order to further their career is now off limits, or something. Because we have never seen anything like that before.

At a time when government and institutional overreach has never seemed more extreme, tyrants at the helm are using every means at their disposal to stifle free speech. Elsewhere -- on alternative media and in universities, in particular -- speech is being censored, ostensibly to protect the tender sensibilities of snowflakes -- those infantile sad sacks who need protection from normal debate and such thoughts as have not before penetrated the bubbles they inhabit.

Florida International University’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication in conjunction with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Center have developed a web app, known as the Sea Level Rise Toolbox, which helps Miami-Dade residents visualize the possible impact of rising seas in South Florida on their neighborhoods. ...."Our goal with our app is to inform residents of South Florida about the potential impact of sea level rise where they live,”–­­ said Susan Jacobson, assistant professor of journalism at FIU and the web app project manager. “We want to help our fellow Floridians understand sea level rise and how it may affect...

Most of us make an effort to be sensitive to other people's feelings regardless of race. But a study produced by the University of Illinois claims we shouldn't even bother. The fact that you are white causes people of color discomfort.

.....Shelton High School students were shocked and upset with what they heard in school on Friday. In an announcement over the school’s PA system, students were told that prom dresses with slits, open backs and revealing low cuts would not be allowed at this weekend’s junior/senior prom. Shelton’s high school headmaster Beth Smith is threatening to turn students away at the door, though students say Smith encouraged them to show her a photo of the dress they were planning to wear so that she could approve it or deny it. “I’m not showing her because I know it will be...

On the field, the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders have had as bitter a rivalry as any in the NFL but in a sense, they’re now partners. The teams will officially announce Friday that, while they work on stadium deals in their current cities, they will jointly pursue a shared, $1.7-billion NFL stadium in Carson as an alternative. While theirs might seem to be an unlikely pairing -- the Silver & Black and the Powder Blue -- the Raiders and Chargers have actually been closer over the years than many people might think.

So, that happened: This week, we learned that President Barack Obama is really upset with our coverage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. So he's not gonna like what we're about to do, which is talk about the fact that the one part of his agenda Congress might sign on to is the trade deal every liberal hates.

For more than a decade, Tom Brady has established himself as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time, one of the sport’s most popular and respected players. On Wednesday, Brady may have jeopardized his credibility for good. Like Patriots coach Bill Belichick, Brady denied having anything to do with footballs being deflated in the AFC Championship Game and denied knowing it had occurred until the next day, but to the quarterback’s former peers, the NFL’s golden boy lost some of the luster he had earned in his 15-year career. “I did not believe what Tom had to say,” former quarterback...

The NFL has confirmed it is looking into charges the New England Patriots cheated Sunday night when they clinched a trip to the Super Bowl Sunday night by using deflated footballs. NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy confirmed the probe Monday, following the AFC championship game, in which the Patriots demolished the Indianapolis Colts, 45-7. The charge was first made Sunday night, when an Indianapolis reporter that the NFL had seized at least one game ball from the AFC championship game to examine whether pigskins were intentionally deflated to make them easier to throw and catch. “The NFL is investigating the possibility,”...