Free Republic

COMMENTARY: With only four months until the election, the Catholic GOP VP nominee must begin to right the ship immediately to avoid joining the list of historically ignominious picks that includes former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former Vice President Dan Quayle.

Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. Those are all examples of books Reina Takata says she can no longer find in her public high school library in Mississauga, Ont., which she visits on her lunch hour most days. In May, Takata says the shelves at Erindale Secondary School were full of books, but she noticed that they had gradually started to disappear. When she returned to school this fall, things were more stark. "This year, I came into my school library and there are rows and rows of empty shelves with absolutely no books,"...

Christian groups in Mexico have taken to the streets in protest of their department of education with one group burning books they believed was laced with “Marxist-communist” indoctrination last week, according to a report. Parents in Mexico from Christian organizations have taken to the streets in the thousands to oppose new textbooks from the Ministry of Public Education they deem to contain sexual and gender ideology content, according to Mexico News Daily. At least 12,000 people attended. Aguascalientes is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. Parents also burned the books in question in Chiapas,...

The amendment, which was also introduced by Reps. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), would also allow states to set up public campaign financing systems that could restrict the influence of private wealth.

Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ and other works that glorify the Russian military will no longer be taught in Ukrainian schools, Kiev’s ministry of education announced on Tuesday. Tolstoy’s internationally recognized masterpiece joins the list of 20th-century Russian books banned in Ukraine long before the current conflict. “All these will be completely excluded from foreign literature,” first deputy Minister of education Andrey Vitrenko said in an interview with the TV channel Ukraine 24. “So, for example, ‘War and Peace,’ this will not be studied in Ukraine anymore.” The ministry is still working on the final list of works by Russian...

We recently discussed how many on the left have discovered the allure of book burning, book banning, and blacklisting of authors. While expressing shock at ISIS and other extremist groups burning books, the practice appears acceptable based on the titles or content. Now educators in Ontario have held a “flame purification ceremony” for the local indigenous population by burning roughly 5,000 books. The notion of teachers burning books is almost as bizarre as the thought of book sellers embracing blacklisting but both are now part of the realities of our age of rage.These school officials actually videotaped the celebration of...

Suzy Kies, the co-chair of the Indigenous peoples' commission of the Liberal Party, has resigned from the position after her claim to Indigenous ancestry was called into question. Radio-Canada reported on Wednesday that it could not confirm Kies's claims to Indigenous ancestry. Kies told Radio-Canada in an interview that her father is of European descent and her mother is of Indigenous descent. "My mother's family is from several communities," she told Radio-Canada in an interview in French. "On my grandfather's side, it's the Maliseet, from St. Mary's, New Brunswick, there are also the Laporte who are Innu. And my grandmother...

The American Booksellers Association apologized on Wednesday for including a book about the harms that come with allowing gender-confused children to “transition” in their July promotional box. ABA first labeled Abigail Shrier’s book “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters” as “anti-trans” after receiving backlash on social media. In response, the association apologized for committing the “inexcusable” crime of promoting literature offering an alternative perspective. “This is a serious, violent incident that goes against ABA’s ends policies, values, and everything we believe and support,” ABA tweeted. “We apologize to our trans members and to the trans community for this...

It is a common these days to hear folks opine about how the glories of ancient science were snuffed out ignominiously by triumphalist, fanatical Christians sometime in the Dark Ages. Normally, specific instances of this destruction are not called out, save for the case of Hypatia of Alexandria who has been elevated by modern audiences to a sort of proto-feminist demi-goddess of science for her slaying at the hands of a Christian mob. Yet, for those who maintain the trope that Christianity was responsible for the destruction of centuries of amazing scientific advancements wrought by Greco-Roman civilization, please allow me...

America’s defenders of the First Amendment have decided that a comic strip criticizing President Joe Biden’s transgender policies is more freedom of speech than Americans ought to be allowed to see. The media conglomerate Gannett, which formerly used the slogan “A World of Different Voices Where Freedom Speaks,” recently banned the strip “Mallard Fillmore” from its publications, according to a report in The Washington Times. Bruce Tinsley, who created the comic strip, said King Features, which syndicates his work, told him about the latest episode of America’s cancel culture at work “It was a big shock. From what I’m hearing,...

Online retailer eBay is removing several Dr. Seuss books from its website that are no longer being published. A spokeswoman for the website told the Washington Examiner on Thursday that it would no longer be allowing sellers to list six books that have been deemed by Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the company that preserves Theodor Seuss "Ted" Geisel's legacy, as containing racially insensitive imagery. "At eBay, we have a strict policy against hate and discrimination to ensure our platform remains a safe, trusted and inclusive environment for our global community of buyers and sellers," eBay Corporate Communications Specialist Parmita Choudhury said....

U.S.—With public schools entering summer break in a couple of months, teachers are usually taking this time to prepare summer reading lists for their students to keep up on reading over the summer. This year, however, due to the alarming rise in problematic literature, teachers will be switching to book-burning lists. "We need to make sure our students are trained to be vigilant and always look for problematic literature," said local 8th-grade teacher Lisa Bundergoob. "This list of hateful and transphobic books includes horrible titles like Irreversible Damage and The Cat In The Hat, which have no place in a...

Today is a day that will live in infamy. On March 2, 2021 we learned that the some of the works of Dr. Seuss have been banned by President Joe Biden for our National Read Across America Day. Dr. Seuss, the nom de plume of Theodor Seuss Geisel, was a cherished American children's author, political cartoonist, illustrator, poet, animator, and filmmaker. Like McGuffy’s Reader, Dr. Seuss’ work served as a compelling introduction for young children to books and reading. That was, in fact, the reason for National Read Across America Day. Too many young people aren’t introduced to the importance...

Liberals said they wanted diversity. But they just canceled several Dr. Seuss books because they depicted native people in their native clothing. Make up your mind, liberals. Is diversity good, or is diversity racist?This article from Associated Press says that one of Dr. Seuss’s books was canceled because “an Asian person is portrayed wearing a conical hat, holding chopsticks, and eating from a bowl.”That’s not racist.It says another one of his books was canceled because it had “a drawing of two bare-footed African men wearing what appear to be grass skirts.”That’s not racist.I thought liberals were in favor of diversity.Why...

Classic Dr. Seuss books are flying off the shelves at Amazon after the late author’s publisher moved to stop printing six titles containing “hurtful” imagery, driving up sales for one work by a staggering 5.7 million percent. A decision by Dr. Seuss Enterprises to scrap the six books on Tuesday over what it called “hurtful and wrong” stereotypes appears to have sparked a buying frenzy on the e-retail giant, with the defunct ‘McElligot's Pool’ surging to the top spot on Amazon’s “Movers & Shakers” section. At the time of writing, the page showed that sales for the book were up...

In Virginia, Dr. Seuss is in trouble, not for having once drawn naked ladies, but because his ridiculous characters are – wait for it -- racist. Theodore Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, might be one of the most-read authors in the English (or, more accurately, the sort-of English) language. Since The Cat In The Hat was published in 1957, generations of American children have sounded out simple words while reading about the eponymous cat and the havoc he wreaked with Thing One and Thing Two on a boring, rainy day. However, the wokerati have now come for him, claiming that his...

Ryan Anderson’s When Harry Became Sally was removed from Amazon’s cyber shelves Sunday, three years after the controversial best-seller was published on February 20, 2018. Anderson told Newsweek that he discovered that his book had vanished from Amazon—as well as the company’s e-reader Kindle, podcast service Audible and used-book sellers—when someone looking to buy a copy informed the author. He said that neither he nor his publisher were notified by Amazon. In 2018, the book hit No. 1 on two of Amazon’s best-seller list before it was even released, but sparked controversy for arguing that society’s growing acceptance of transgender...

Something like this didn't exist so I had to create it. A study guide for friends unaware of the width and breadth of the Thought Police. A chronology of Silicon Oligarch's as they conjure the golems of censorship: Stalin, Hitler, Mao. Big names censored by big tech: NY Post PDJT PDJT jr WhiteHouse Press Secretary McEnany Jordan Peterson Milo Yiannopoulos #WalkAway - video pending Dr Zelenko - Hydroxychloriquin champion Candace Owens Rubin Report Epoch Times 23ABC - COVID-19 ZeroHedge - COVID-19 Added for reference:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_suspensionshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_suspensions

In Harry Potter, Albus Dumbledore told the students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry that “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.” Many are learning the truth of that line written by famed author JK Rowling as self-described progressives burn her books or ban them from shelves because she personally holds an opposing view of gender. Much like the boycott movement of Chick-Fil-A over comments by its CEO, people are seeking to punish Rowling through attacks on her literature. We previously discussed the...

When the Harry Potter series took off in the early 2000s, many conservative Christians warned parents that the book series was a gateway to witchcraft. Nineteen years later, activists on the far left are burning J.K. Rowling’s books because the author denies their favored kind of witchcraft — or rather, because she doesn’t embrace it fervently enough. As Newsweek reported, former Harry Potter fans started a trend on TikTok, burning Rowling’s books on video.TikTok user @elmcdo burned a pile of Harry Potter books on a pyre. “You have to stop using ‘death of the author’ as an excuse to have...