Free Republic

Today Reason published a piece by Jesse Singal about an English professor named Elisa Parrett. Parrett teaches at a public technical college outside of Seattle called the Lake Washington Institute of Technology. Last June 19, in the wake of the death of George Floyd, the school held an event called Courageous Conversations which was based partly on Robin DiAngelo’s book White Fragility. The event was mandatory in the sense that the school’s president sent an email asking every professor to attend unless they had a conflict with their teaching schedule. It was also segregated by race, meaning whites in one...

On Thursday night, April 1, 66-year-old Mehmood Ansari collapsed and died shortly after being robbed by a knife-wielding 12-year boy during a confrontation with multiple juveniles who were rampaging through his store, according to NJ.com. Autopsy results are still pending, however, Ansari’s son believes his father died from shock. “He worked every single day, open and close. He worked hard for us.” Mehmood’s son, Asif said. “He always wanted to have (more) security. He was trying, trying. Be we didn’t know it was going to end up like this.” Mehmood Ansari immigrated from Pakistan to Atlantic City over 40 years...

So long as the Left controls the discourse, it’s going to be racism from here until the eye can see—and beyond. So long as the purported eradication of racism is the priority, the Right will never beat the Left at their own game. The more racist America is, the more urgent the fight against racism, the more exalted are those who fight this scourge (the Left), the more tarnished are those who defend America and its past (the Right). By any objective assessment, systemic racism has long since been eliminated in America. There are no racist laws or policies anywhere...

A state recently passed a law limiting early voting to nine days, only requiring some Election Day polling locations to be open during that early process, and limiting mandatory Sunday hours to 10 a.m.–6 p.m. Did this move generate a groundswell of social-media opposition and boycotts, as politicians and corporations fell over themselves to condemn a renewed Jim Crow? No, because that state is New Jersey. Nor are there boycotts of New York, which had no early voting at all until last fall, when new rules spurred by the pandemic created nine days of in-person early voting. Or President Biden’s...

Former President Donald Trump’s eldest son had a few choice words for companies like Delta Air Lines and Apple caving into the triggered screeching of the far left. Donald Trump Jr. began a new Rumble video with the catchphrase “Get woke, go broke” before ripping Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian for complaining about Georgia’s new voting law. Trump pointed out that Delta had previously praised the law before the CEO came out saying “the final bill” was “unacceptable.” The complaints by Bastian led Georgia state House Republicans to vote to strip Delta of a multimillion-dollar tax break in response,...

A friend asked recently how anyone who supports the right-wing in Israel could advocate for anything other than two right of center parties headed by Naftali Bennett and Gideon Sa’ar to join a government led by the Likud party with Benjamin Netanyahu remaining as Prime Minister. Combined with the two ultra-Orthodox parties and a further right-wing party, they could (easily) form a solid, stable, right-wing coalition, per what my friend posited, is the will of the majority of Israelis.This comes in light of deliberations and negotiations going on as to who will form the next government, with an understanding that...

A Capitol Police officer killed last week when a man armed with a knife rammed his car into two officers at a barricade outside the Capitol does not appear to have been stabbed, slashed or shot, a police official told The Associated Press on Monday. Officer William “Billy” Evans, an 18-year veteran of the force, died Friday after the driver rammed into the barricade near the Capitol. The driver, identified as 25-year-old Noah Green, crashed into the officers and the barrier, then exited the car armed with a knife and charged at another officer before the officer fatally shot him,...

Critique of crumbling Biden Administration, fecklessness re border, destructive economic policy, etc., fall on stairs as emblematic.

President Biden's $1.9 coronavirus relief package offered a major tax break for millions of Americans who collected unemployment aid last year, but more than a dozen states aren't following suit. The American Rescue Plan waives federal income taxes on up to $10,200 in 2020 unemployment insurance benefits for individuals who earned less than $150,000. Workers can exclude the aid when calculating their modified adjusted gross income meaning that an individual who earned $140,000 last year but collected $10,200 in jobless aid is still eligible to take advantage of the tax break. The break applies to this tax-filing season, which began...

Meme of Biden on stairs, humorous take.

[snip] “The pathway to ending the pandemic runs through the evangelical church,” said Curtis Chang, a former pastor and missionary who founded ChristiansAndTheVaccine.com, the cornerstone of the new initiative, With white evangelicals comprising an estimated 20% of the U.S. population, resistance to vaccination by half of them would seriously hamper efforts to achieve herd immunity, Chang contends. Many evangelical leaders have spoken in support of vaccinations, ranging from Dallas megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress to the Rev. Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptists’ public policy arm. [snip]

Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Pierre Kory.AstraZeneca’s vaccine was widely expected to be a boon for developing countries. But its arrival has been a disappointment and only underscores the fact that ivermectin – a safe medicine that is effective against COVID-19 – should be part of an all-of-the-above strategy to end the pandemic. One million doses of the vaccine arrived in South Africa in early February with pomp and ceremony. The delivery flight was closely watched from India to Johannesburg, where it was met by President Cyril Ramaphosa at the OR Tambo International Airport. Within days, however, a...

The Gospels of the Easter Octave describe not just an event but even more so a journey. It is tempting to think that the disciples and apostles, having seen the risen Lord, were immediately confirmed in their faith, stripped of all doubt.That is not the case, however. Nearly all the resurrection accounts make it clear that although seeing the risen Lord was “mind-blowing,” it was only a beginning. As it is with any human experience, no matter how intense, encountering the risen Lord was something that the disciples needed to process. They needed to come to live its implications in...

Using the radiocarbon dating of 27 mud wasp nests, collected from over and under 16 similar paintings, a University of Melbourne collaboration has put the painting at 17,500 and 17,100 years old. “This makes the painting Australia’s oldest known in-situ painting,” said Postdoctoral Researcher Dr Damien Finch who pioneered the exciting new radiocarbon technique. “This is a significant find as through these initial estimates, we can understand something of the world these ancient artists lived in. We can never know what was in the mind of the artist when he/she painted this piece of work more than 600 generations ago,...

The Left wants to ban “hate speech” using the powerful national institutions they now govern. They do not hide this intention but say so openly. Powerful tools—like Big Tech, a nearly unified press, and the national security state—give speech restrictionists the impression that this goal can and should be pursued. But exactly what kind of speech do they want to ban, and exactly how would this ban transform America? “Hate speech,” on the surface, seems to mean racial epithets, slurs, or Holocaust denial. But such speech has already disappeared from America’s public square. There is no “hate speech” in any...

Dr.Paul weighs on removing Jim Elliot plaque from Wheaton College campus. Please visit us www.doctorpaul.org

The East Turkistan Government in Exile returned to the State Department Monday to commemorate the 31st anniversary of a riot in the Chinese territory of Xinjiang, in which 50 Uyghurs and six government policemen died. Prime Minister Salih Hudayar says the Chinese government forced 250 ethnic Uyghur women in Baren Township to abort their babies under the country’s “family planning” policy. The villagers rioted and were massacred. “The situation has gotten a whole lot worse,” Hudayar said Monday. Over the last decade, China has locked up millions of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in concentration camps. In January, the U.S....

More of Pennsylvania’s counties are now showing substantial spread of the coronavirus, Gov. Tom Wolf’s office said Monday. Across Pennsylvania, 45 of the state’s 67 counties have demonstrated substantial transmission of COVID-19, Wolf’s office said. Last week, the Wolf administration said 35 counties were showing substantial transmission of the coronavirus, so 10 more counties have joined that list. The Wolf administration uses three categories to gauge the transmission of COVID-19: low, moderate and substantial. Each week, the Wolf administration offers a report on the number of counties with substantial spread of COVID-19. In February and March, the number of counties...

Accuses governor of rewarding donor in 'Hunger Games'-style vaccine rollout Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis replies to a "60 Minutes" reporter. (Video screenshot) Targeting a rising Republican star who could be on the national ticket in 2024, "60 Minutes" aired heavily edited clips of a news conference with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, making it look like he was dodging an accusation of "pay for play.

Arkansas’ governor on Monday vetoed a ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youths, calling the legislation a “vast government overreach” and a “product of the cultural war in America.” Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) said that if signed into law, the bill would interfere with physicians and parents “as they deal with some of the most complex and sensitive matters involving young people.” The bill, which is part of a wave of similar legislation across the country, would have banned doctors from providing transgender minors with gender-affirming treatments such as puberty blockers, hormone therapies and transition-related surgeries, and from referring...