Free Republic

California’s statewide teachers’ union sent a letter June 27 to the Chino Valley Unified School board criticizing its recent decision to allow only government flags on school property—and threatening to take legal action against the board if the policy is not reversed. The board voted 4–1 June 15 to allow only the California and U.S. flags on school property. The California Teachers Association—with more than 300,000 members—in partnership with local union Associated Chino Teachers alleges in the letter the decision violates teachers’ right to free speech under the First Amendment as well as a state employment law. The union also...

Facing Suicide. "The world breaks everyone and afterwards many are strong at the broken places." So wrote Ernest Hemingway in Farewell To Arms (1929) Hemingway lived most of his life as an outstanding outdoorsman whose understated economical literary style was male to the core. Like his physician father before him, Hemingway died by suicide on July 2nd, 1961. "What is the sense of ruining my head" he said of the ECT treatment in his final year that left him a wreck, "and erasing my memory, which is capital, and putting me out of business? It was a brilliant cure, but...

Attorneys general from 10 states, including New York, plan to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, saying its failure to review and ensure emissions standards for residential wood-burning stoves has allowed the continued sale of appliances that could worsen pollution. That means programs that encourage people to trade in older stoves and other wood-burning appliances, such as forced-air furnaces, haven’t necessarily improved air quality, the states say. “If newer wood heaters do not meet cleaner standards, then programs to change out old wood heaters may provide little health benefits at significant public cost,” the states wrote Thursday in a 60-day...

South Carolina’s heavily Republican Upstate is a popular stop for presidential candidates trying to attract support for the first-in-the-South primary in 2024 Trump’s South Carolina rally attracted crowd in range of 50,000 to 55,000, police chief estimates PICKENS, S.C. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump marked a return to the large-scale rallies of his previous presidential campaigns, speaking to a massive crowd gathered in the streets of a small South Carolina city on a blazing summer weekend. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be to kick off the Fourth of July weekend than right here on Main Street, with thousands of...

Former President Donald Trump committed to cutting federal funding for schools pushing Critical Race Theory and gender ideology if elected president while speaking at the Moms for Liberty Joyful Warriors Summit Friday evening in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.“On day one, I will sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing Critical Race Theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children,” Trump pledged before advocating for moving the “education system back to the states.”He added:Under my leadership, the 1619 project, you remember that beauty, climate change extremists that are destroying our country…...

Ian "Frank" Tortorici grew up in Lake Forest and volunteered to join Ukraine's International Legion 15 months ago. (This restaurant meetup of Mercenaries was hit after a Canadian Merc posted a geolocated pic from inside restaurant to instagram)

Seen this morning because I went to Twitter and clicked on "Kavanaugh" in the "What's happening" sidebar.If you're wondering whether writing "Really fuck you" on someone's photograph and posting it on Twitter is a protected speech under the First Amendment, read the Supreme Court's new "true threats" case, Counterman v. Colorado.

Now that the pandemic has ended, researchers are urging regulatory agencies to consider the safety issues associated with the rapid approval of COVID-19 vaccines—and to correctly classify messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines as gene therapy products (GTPs) to prevent pharmaceutical companies from bypassing regulatory standards. According to a paper published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences on June 22, COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, by mode and action, are gene therapy products and should adhere to different regulatory standards. Yet U.S. and European regulatory agencies have not classified COVID-19 mRNA vaccines as gene therapy products, which has allowed them to be regulated...

“As a businessperson, you're saving lives…why politics?” I ask. "I think there is an opportunity to drive a national revival in our country,” he tells me. "I couldn't think of a better way to do it than to...get elected U.S. president.” Ramaswamy is obviously a long shot, but his arguments--that America has become a nation of victims, and that some on Wall St now collude with government to cripple capitalism--made me want to learn more about him. Here is our full interview.

Riots sparked by the death of a teenager in Paris who was shot dead by police during a traffic stop has spread to cities in Switzerland and Belgium - but the streets of France were eerily quiet on Sunday evening. The alleged 'execution' of Nahel Merzouk, 17, who was of Algerian and Moroccan descent, has fuelled days of arrest and forced President Emmanuel Macron to hold crisis talks on Sunday night. Some regions have banned the sale of fireworks and restricted street access in a bid to curb the ongoing unrest - and there are 45,000 extra police have been...

We tend to forget but prior to candidate Donald J. Trump, in 2015, it was very rare to see presidential rallies with more than a few thousand attendees.Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders each had sporadic big venue rallies at mostly schools and universities where attendance would top 10,000; however, no one consistently has rallies anywhere near the scale of Trump rallies.According to the Greenville News, citing the police chief in South Carolina today, over 50,000 people showed up to support President Donald Trump in Pickens. That is a massive crowd of people traveling to one town venue.[Greenville News] – […]...

French President Emmanuel Macron favors “shifting the center of European gravity towards China,” according to Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. “I do not quite understand the concept of strategic autonomy if it means de facto shooting into our own knee,” Morawiecki said Thursday. “European autonomy sounds fancy, doesn't it? But it means shifting the center of European gravity towards China and severing the ties with [the] U.S.” Morawiecki did not identify Macron by name, but the reference to the French leader’s signature “strategic autonomy” concept made the rebuke unmistakable. And it punctuated a wider denunciation of traditional powers of Western...

Five Moms for Liberty protesters were arrested Sunday morning for blocking traffic outside the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, and a sixth for waving a flag over a barricade set up outside the hotel, according to activists. Philadelphia police said the six people were arrested on charges of failure to disperse, but did not provide further details. ACT UP Philadelphia, the AIDS activism group, provided photographs of five people, who were holding hands while standing in the middle of the intersection at 12th and Filbert Streets. “They were chanting for Moms for Liberty to go home and blocking traffic,” said Aaron Bodiford,...

New analysis of the long-term impact from Section 301 tariffs triggered by President Trump against China, shows just how consequential economic nationalism can become.Our own analysis of U.S. consumer prices in 2019 showed that prices of imported goods actually declined despite the tariffs. A recent report from CPA takes a look at the impact to Chinese exports to the U.S. [SEE DATA HERE] Bottom line, the tariffs worked to reduce Chinese imports.CPA – […] Since the Section 301 tariffs were imposed, the share of imports from China has steadily declined from 21.6% in 2017 the year prior to the tariffs...

A group of UK islands could become a territory of Norway under dramatic new proposals. Orkney, off the northeast coast of Scotland, has a population of less than 23,000 people spread across its 20 inhabited islands and makes up one of the country's 32 council areas. But next week a motion will go before the council, exploring "alternative forms of governance" including changing the archipelago's status within the UK or becoming a self-governing territory of the Scandinavian nation. "We are looking for the very best position for future generations and our place in the world," council leader James Stockan told...

SNIP Seven years later, as the battle against wokeness has supplanted the war on terror in the right-wing imagination, conservative sympathies are reversing. “Republicans are wooing Muslim voters by promising to protect them from LGBTQ rights advocates whose demands conflict with their faith,” David Weigel reported in Semafor this week. The Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who once called for banning Muslim immigration from the Middle East, recently ran a sympathetic segment about Muslim parents in Maryland who want their kids to be exempt from reading books with LGBTQ characters or themes. “Us Catholics and other Christians, other people of...

Former President Donald Trump pledges to eliminate all “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” (DEI) programs across the federal government to “rigorously enforce” the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down affirmative action in college admissions, according to prepared remarks obtained by Breitbart News.On Thursday, the Court held that racial preferences in college admissions violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.As Breitbart News reported:While the Fourteenth Amendment applies only to state governments — which includes state and local public universities — Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also extends racial discrimination to institutions that accept federal tax money, such as...

At least 500 active fires are burning around Canada, 257 of which are classified as “out of control,” according to the Canada Interagency Forest Fire Centre. As a result, poor air quality in several areas of the U.S. has in recent days been a hot topic on social media and private conversations. The fires have burned more than 8.1 million hectares, or around 20 million acres, across Canada. The country’s wildfire season typically peaks in late July or August. According to major media, there is only one explanation for the fires — climate change. Similar themes have been heard in...

Aformer JP Morgan worker revealed why she quit her job after six years—because, as she depicted it, there was no “upward mobility” for her. “For other people, there was but for me, there wasn’t," she stated. Her theory? Because she is “mixed with Black.” Then, the content creator revealed how she worked at the company for about six to seven years, is “highly credentialed,” “highly educated,” with a “master’s degree” but it wasn’t enough. During the time she worked there, she contends she didn’t receive any “bonuses, cost of living adjustments, promotions, or raises.” Regardless of how hard she worked,...

THOUSANDS of Trump supporters are lined up early to see President Trump today in Pickens, South Carolina. The rally does not start until 1:00 PM eastern.Pickens has a population of 3,126 according to the latest census.RAV TV host Don Neuen told The Gateway Pundit Saturday morning that around 10,000 supporters had already arrived in town for the rally!The crowd surged to over 50,000 in the small South Carolina town to see America’s most popular president, Donald Trump.In fact the crowd was SO MASSIVE they had to shut down the town!Via Midnight Rider. >