Free Republic

In 1967, I was a black 18-year-old from the Baltimore ghetto who was a freshman at the prestigious Maryland Institute College of Art. Progressives are tripling-down on infecting youths with their insidiously evil lie that all American white men are racist. And yet, I was a poor black kid attending college thanks to scholarships from two white senators and white Baltimore mayor William Donald Schaefer. A required course was, “The History of Ideas.” The first day of class, the professor passionately trashed Christianity, America, and President Abraham Lincoln. I felt like my head would explode as the professor crushed every...

Crime-ridden San Francisco has introduced new sanitized language for criminals, getting rid of words such as “offender” and “addict” while changing “convicted felon” to “justice-involved person.” The Board of Supervisors adopted the changes last month even as the city reels from one of the highest crime rates in the country and staggering inequality exemplified by pervasive homelessness alongside Silicon Valley wealth. The local officials say the new language will help change people’s views about those who commit crimes.

U.S. manufacturer growth slowed to the lowest in almost 10 years in August, the latest sign that the trade war may be exacerbating the economic slowdown. The U.S. manufacturing PMI (purchasing managers index) was 49.9 in August, down from 50.4 in July and below the neutral 50.0 threshold for the first time since September 2009, according to IHS Markit. Any reading below 50 signals a contraction. “Manufacturing companies continued to feel the impact of slowing global economic conditions,” Tim Moore, economics associate director at Markit, said in a statement on Thursday. “August’s survey data provides a clear signal that economic...

Former Rep. John Delaney (D-MD) told the Associated Press in Iowa on Wednesday that fellow Democratic presidential candidates were guilty of “cheering on a recession because they want to stick it to Trump.” Delaney, one of the more moderate candidates, has warned fellow candidates that policies such as “Medicare for All” and decriminalized illegal border crossings are bad for the country and sure to fail in a general election. In the first Democratic presidential primary debate in Miami, Florida, in June, Delaney said: “All of the big transformative things we have ever done in this country’s history have happened when...

The American public once again views “inadequate funding” as the top problem facing public schools, according to the annual PDK Poll. But the public will soon know exactly how much every public school actually spends, thanks to new federal reporting requirements. This leap forward in school finance transparency may forever change how Americans think about public education. The PDK poll has provided a barometer of public perceptions of public schooling since 1969. The latest survey confirms the public still believes schools have too little money. This view is shared across socioeconomic communities: “[A]among the best-off Americans, those in $100,000-plus households,...

Fires in Brazil's Amazon rainforest are proliferating at an alarming rate.That's the gist of an announcement this week by the country's National Institute for Space Research, or INPE. According to the agency, there have been 74,155 fires in Brazil so far this year — most of which erupted in the Amazon. That represents an astonishing leap of more than 80% over last year and by far the most that the agency has recorded since it began compiling this data in 2013.About half those fires, or nearly 36,000 of them, have ignited in just the past month. That's nearly as many...

This spring, visiting professor Ryszard Legutko was prevented from speaking at Vermont's prestigious Middlebury College due to strident opposition by extremist and intolerant students. This was the second such embarrassment for the college: writer Charles Murray and a Middlebury professor were insulted and assaulted there in 2016. Professor Legutko recently related his perspective on the experience, revealing that the college not only caved to the disruptive and disrespectful students, but legitimized their conduct! Further, the students have set out to proscribe future discourse that might again ignite their sociopathic anarchy. Last year, our nation's children walked out of high schools...

Britain's strictest school has received its first ever GCSE results after opening five years ago - and they are four times better than the national average. At Michaela school in Brent, North London, 18 per cent of exams were graded a 9, compared to 4.5 per cent nationwide. 54 per cent of all exams were graded a 7-9, which is an A or A* under the old system. Headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh has come under criticism in the past for her "strict" methods at the free school, which aim to instill private school-esque order in state school children. The school has...

I recently preached a sermon on the subject of stealing in our church’s series on the Ten Commandments. And one of the points I made is that socialism is a form of theft. I mentioned the slogan going around during the 1960s---“property is theft.” But the Bible says, “Thou shalt not steal.” Implied in that commandment is the sanctity of private property---I’m not allowed to simply take it because someone elseownsit. And the Bible does not say, “Thou shalt not steal, unless thou art the government.” Socialism is a form of governmental theft. The government has no money of its...

In the 18th century, Jeremy Bentham, an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer, introduced the idea of the Panopticon, a disciplinary concept brought to life in the form of a central observation tower placed within a circle of prison cells. Each cell is flooded with light, which creates an environment in which prisoners are under constant watch. Even if no guard is on duty, a prisoner will always feel as if they are being watched. Bentham described it as “[a] new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind.” The Panopticon is the optimal prison; it enables an unprecedented...

It’s Week 0. What does that mean exactly? Well, it means you don’t get a spreadsheet to start the season. There wouldn’t be much point as there’s only one game in each time slot. You also don’t get my picks for your best viewing options throughout the day (for the same reason). But what you do get is... football!!! Sort of. And a prime opportunity to mock the state of college football in the state of Florida. Which is nice. Here’s one way you could choose to spend your Saturday:

President Trump went after purported congressional watchdog Elijah Cummings recently, slamming the Democrat congressman for failing to improve his troubled Baltimore, Maryland, district despite the inflow of billions of dollars in federal aid during and in the years leading up to Trump’s administration. Cummings came to the attention of conservatives as he zealously defended the IRS throughout the Lois Lerner saga. Lerner is the corrupt IRS tax-exempt division executive who engineered the tax agency’s targeting of conservative nonprofits during the Obama administration. Cummings also apparently conspired with Lerner to sabotage True the Vote, a leading grassroots electoral integrity group. In...

The New York Times officially announced its new 1619 Project to “to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.” Constantly now, Americans are called upon to reflect on European villains and indigenous victims. However, the story of European civilization reaching the North American continent did not begin with the first arrival of slave ships at Jamestown in 1619.Let’s take a brief recess from the 1619 Project to explore another project....

Sen. Elizabeth Warren faces an uphill climb in winning support from African American voters, say Democratic strategists and other political observers. While Warren (D-Mass.) has been moving up in recent polls, she has struggled to lure black voters to her campaign. A Fox News survey released last week showed Warren receiving 8 percent among black voters, a grim statistic if she is looking to win the nomination. A separate poll by the Pew Research Center found that while former Vice President Joe Biden received 29 percent of support among African Americans, only 4 percent were throwing their support behind Warren....

Likely will not be edited or removed any time soon       Wikipedia, the online Encyclopedia, which has been routinely accused of left wing bias, has a list of ICE facilities under a section titled “concentration and internment camps,” and is keeping it there despite critics requesting it be removed.The list of ICE facilities reappeared on the concentration camps page after Democrats, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, used the rhetoric to describe US holding centers on the border with Mexico.Editors of the Wikipedia page cited the Democrats’ use of the term “concentration camp” to justify the inclusion of the ICE centers on the...

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now aware of 153 possible cases of severe lung disease in 16 states that could be caused by vaping, the agency said Wednesday in an update to a multi-state investigation. The cases -- reported from June 28 to August 20, 2019 -- have popped up in California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin. They have primarily affected adolescents and young adults. This is an increase from Saturday, when CDC announced it was looking into 94 possible cases...

Prince William, his wife Kate and their children have been spotted getting off a £73 budget flight to Scotland, amid a row over Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's private jet trips. The Duke of Cambridge and Duchess of Cambridge took the 8.45am flight from Norwich International Airport to Aberdeen Airport with their children this morning. The royal couple and their family can be spotted being escorted from the budget FlyBe plane and getting into waiting vehicles, where they are expected to be whisked away to visit the Queen and Prince Philip at Balmoral. The Cambridges appearance on the cheap flight...

A Florida man is behind bars after what police say was an attempted castration at home that went terribly wrong. Highlands County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to the Sebring home of 74-year-old Gary Van Ryswyk this weekend, according to a post on their Facebook page, after a call was placed to their office. When deputies arrived, Van Ryswyk told them he had just performed the medical procedure on the man inside a room at his home that had been set up like a surgical center. Van Ryswyk told deputies he had met the victim on a website and had performed...

When one listens carefully to policy debates these days, it is somewhat shocking how often death is introduced as a solution for human problems. Abortion comes to mind immediately. Actor and activist Alyssa Milano released a podcast two days ago in which she revealed that she had two abortions just a few months apart back in 1993. Despite describing herself as having been breathlessly in love at the time, Milano insisted that the two back-to-back abortions were the "right choice." She argued that she could not have had her career as an actor and an activist had she carried either...

If you’re looking to see some friendly faces, you apparently shouldn’t head to The Empire State. In a survey conducted by travel website Big 7 Travel, 1.5 million people weighed in on the “friendliest states in America” — and New York ranked dead last. Though Big 7 Travel tried to soften the blow with an explainer — “locals might seem a bit gruff at first (even upstate!), but it’s a melting pot of many cultures and the neighborhoods in each borough of NYC have a community feel if you manage to stick it out for long enough” — it was...