Free Republic

Among the many destructive ideas that “progressive” thinking has unleashed on education in America is that it’s unfair to hold students from “underrepresented groups” to the same standards as others. Schools and colleges should “help” minority students succeed by lowering expectations for them—somehow atoning for wrongs done to their ancestors in the distant past. That is how Claudine Gay wound up as president of Harvard. The notion that academic standards should be lower for minority students has swept through our educational institutions, but there are some dissenters who argue that this doesn’t help but hurts. One of them is Professor...

Paris goes to war on SUVs - and calls on London to follow suit: Sadiq Khan has already praised French car-hating socialist mayor for tripling parking charges for family vehicles, despite only 3.25% of voters backing it Only 5.7 percent of Paris's 1.3 million eligible voters cast ballots in the vote The policy - which will see SUV drivers charged over £15 per hour to park - has previously been backed by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who labelled it 'innovative' Parisians voted on Sunday to muscle SUVs off the French capital's streets by making them three times more expensive to...

remlin propagandist Margarita Simonyan has referred to reports that the former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson was visiting Russia, saying: "God willing, it's true." Media outlets in Russia and the West reported that the former host of Tucker Carlson Tonight had been spotted at various places around Moscow, including at the renowned Bolshoi Theatre in the center of the Russian capital, where he watched the ballet Spartacus.

In a startling turn of events, China's stock market faces unprecedented turmoil as nearly 30% of all stocks come to a grinding halt, with small caps limited down in an alarming 8% freefall within a matter of hours. This financial upheaval sparks concerns, hinting at an impending storm in the Chinese market. The tumultuous scene unfolds with Chinese stock market indices experiencing significant disruptions: CSI 1000: -8% Star 50: -5% Beijing 50: -4% Shenzhen: -4% Shanghai Composite: -3% However, amidst the chaos, the CSI 100 and Hong Kong 50 indices, representing Chinese large caps, oddly remain in positive territory. The...

WASHINGTON (AP) - While sentencing a North Carolina man to prison for his role in the U.S. Capitol riot, a Republican-appointed judge issued a stark warning: Efforts to portray the mob of Donald Trump's supporters as heroes and play down the violence that unfolded on Jan. 6, 2021, pose a serious threat to the nation. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth condemned the depiction by Trump and Republican allies of Jan. 6 defendants as “political prisoners” and “hostages." Lamberth also denounced attempts to undermine the legitimacy of the justice system for punishing rioters who broke the law when they invaded the...

mid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, a Chinese newspaper warned on Sunday that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) could expand the conflict into a "world war." The high tensions between Russia and NATO have seemingly escalated in recent weeks after the military alliance's announcement last month of its largest military exercise in more than 35 years. Dubbed "Steadfast Defender 2024," the operation launched in late January and will run through May. It ultimately will include participation of around 90,000 military personnel from 31 NATO allies and Sweden. NATO officials have said the exercise will test the allies' ability to quickly...

Russian forces are pushing hard to take the Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka. But why? In this video, we do a deep analysis on Russia's staggering losses, including infantry, tanks, and heavy equipment. We talk about why Russia wants the city so badly, what Vladimir Putin's stake in it is, and how it all connects back to Russia's invasion of Crimea and the War in the Donbas.

Unlike any other small country, Ireland’s Taoiseach gets unparalleled facetime with the leader of the free world in the White House to mark St. Patrick’s Day. In a tradition since 1952, it is usually smiles, camaraderie and photos as a bowl of Shamrock is handed over to the US President. It is the high water mark in US-Irish relations and part of a week of diplomacy, dinners and drink receptions. For the Taoiseach, meeting the US President is a golden political opportunity. But this year it is different. The conflict in Gaza has created an uncomfortable pall over what is...

I first reported in April 2023 about a new California state law that would require utility companies to come up with a fixed-rate plan as a way to help stabilize rates and make billing more "equitable." Hence, the state’s soon-to-be-implemented "equitable" policy will base residential electricity bills on income rather than usage, even as public and political opposition to the idea builds in the Democratic coalition.I titled my 2023 article "Marxism, California Style? New State Law Will Lead Energy Companies to Bill Customers Based on Income" because of a phrase popularized by Karl Marx as part of a larger communist...

Shellyne Rodriguez, the machete-wielding former Hunter College professor, has now been fired by the Cooper Union college. The school previously stood with Rodriguez after she trashed a student display and held a machete to the neck of a journalist. It appears that Rodriguez’s anti-Israel comments were finally too much for Cooper Union. What is interesting is what it takes at both Hunter College and The Cooper Union to be fired. We previously discussed a videotape of Rodríguez trashing a pro-life student display in New York. Before attacking the table, she told the students, “You’re not educating s–t […] This is...

Reparations advocates had the wind in their sails last year. Cities across the US set up teams to hash out plans to compensate black people for the legacy of slavery, taking their cue from a successful pilot in Evanston, Illinois. The landscape in 2024 is very different. Squad member Cori Bush, the Missouri Democrat who has championed payouts, is under investigation for campaign spending violations. Her bid for a $14 trillion federal compensation package is dead in the water. The reparations task force in Detroit — a hub for African-American culture — has descended into a 'shambles' of quitting and...

Argentine President Javier Milei rode into power on promises to defeat Leftism and return economic liberty to the people. The levels of poverty and economic misery have reached ridiculous levels, with an estimated 40 percent of the population living in poverty. Like here in the United States, inflation is also out of control. Argentine’s liberals also vilified Milei, but the state of the economy was a major driving force with voters: they saw what decades of left-leaning policies have reaped. It was time for a change, even if it came from a man who whipped out chainsaws at rallies. One...

A screenshot of a now-archived version of the Shepherd's Conference website shows Pastor Alistair Begg listed as a speaker for the March conference. Begg's name is no longer listed on the website.Pastor, author and Christian radio personality Alistair Begg continues to face fallout from comments he made in a podcast last year about advice for Christians and same-sex weddings.Begg’s bio has been removed from the website of the Shepherd’s Conference, a ministry of Grace Community Church led by Pastor John MacArthur, following controversy over Begg’s advice for a grandmother about attending her LGBT-identified grandson’s wedding.An archived version of the site...

A New York father has tragically lost a custody battle for his son after he opposed “transgender” medical treatment for the young boy, who has decided he does want to live as his biological sex! How can any honest, objective individual argue that this is a decision made in the child’s interests? The Twitter account Two Genders One Truth summed up the heartbreaking story of the Hannons, based off UK Daily Mail article. Young Matthew Hannon’s mother began taking the little boy to a transgender “therapist” when he was only five years’ old (note: the Daily Mail said it had...

Twenty-five years ago, far-left socialist Hugo Chavez assumed Venezuela's presidency, lawfully elected and sworn in on Feb. 2, 1999, after an up-and-down career as a restive army office involved in a coup d'etat. He ran and won as an outsider at a time when the establishment had discredited itself, got into trouble when oil prices fell, and signed on to an International Monetary Fund austerity program, such as were being employed at the time in measures that left capitals burning. Once in. it didn't take long for Chavez to turn his once-prosperous country into a socialist hellhole. Today, the country...

George Santayana famously wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Leftist policies daily show his wisdom. The latest leftist policy to go down in flames is Oregon’s experiment with legalizing all drugs. It turns out that when you give people license to sin, and also delete all moral constraints, they’ll sin themselves to death. Now, Oregon’s very leftist governor, Tina Kotek, is walking back the policy, having declared a state of emergency over fentanyl drug overdoses. The Founding Fathers never forgot the past. Indeed, they were imbued with it. One example of that wisdom was...

The second of back-to-back atmospheric rivers battered California on Sunday, prompting the first-ever warning for hurricane-force winds in the state's history. California is bracing for what could be days of heavy rains, flooding on roads and knocking out power to nearly 800,000 people, with 97 percent of the state's population under flood warning. The current 'bomb cyclone' - a term denoting a storm that rapidly intensifies over 24 hours - could dump more than 8 trillion gallons of precipitation on the state. The storm inundated streets and brought down trees and electrical lines across the San Francisco Bay Area, where...

SNIP: .........."Instead of denouncing the 3rd world lawfare, Nikki Haley celebrated it during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It’s a real issue, Dana…look, he’s got multiple court cases. I haven’t necessarily kept up with them. I’m not a lawyer, I’m an accountant so I don’t know the legal ramifications but once just came down and he had a big verdict,” Nikki Haley said to CNN’s “State of the Union” host Dana Bash. Nikki Haley went on to attack Trump for being buried in legal fees. “We just saw in his campaign disclosures that he paid 47 different...

Rapper Killer Mike has been taken away from the Grammys in handcuffs following a 'physical altercation' after winning three awards. The 48-year-old rapper, known for his work as a member of rap duo Run The Jewels, won Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance for his solo song 'Scientists & Engineers,' and the Best Rap Album for Michael. A spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department told DailyMail.com that a man was being questioned, but they could not confirm his identity. 'At 4pm an adult male was taken into custody for a physical altercation that took place inside the arena,'...

Senate leaders on Sunday released the details of a long-awaited comprehensive border security bill, which also contains a substantial foreign aid component.The discussions, led by Senators James Lankford (R-OK), Krysten Sinema (I-AZ), and Chris Murphy (D-CT), come after months of negotiations with the Biden regime, seeking to address both the ongoing crisis at the U.S. southern border and foreign policy commitments abroad.The 370-page deal, according to Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, claims it reflects weeks of good-faith negotiations, balancing domestic concerns with urgent international aid needs.“As Ukraine runs low on ammunition to fend off Putin’s...