Free Republic

"If I'm being honest...This type of approach was common practice in the USSR.".. On April 22, 2021, the Aspen Institute — an influential civil society group that draws funding from several federal agencies and in recent years has become an odd hodge-podge of boutique-left ideas and hardcore security-state rhetoric — announced that a “Commission on Information Disorder” would be preparing a major report, one that: Aims to identify and prioritize the most critical sources and causes of information disorder and deliver a set of short-term actions and longer-term goals to help government, the private sector, and civil society respond to...

French President Emmanuel Macron warned Wednesday that France faces an "uncivilising process", a government source said, following the violent deaths of a nurse and three policemen and repeated attacks on elected officials. "We must be uncompromising on the fundamentals. There is no legitimate violence, whether verbal or against people," Macron told ministers at a cabinet meeting. "We have to work from top to bottom to counteract this uncivilising process," he added, in comments first reported by daily Le Parisien and confirmed to AFP by a person present in the meeting room. Macron was "calling society to order," a person close...

Fox News host Mark Levin explained what "America first" means to him, Sunday, by debunking the notion that our founders were "nationalists." The "Life, Liberty & Levin" host said how the word "nationalist" cannot be found in our founding documents because the founders and framers "believed in Americanism," guided by "natural law and rights," not nationalism" or "populism." "The Tenth Amendment rejects nationalism. It’s federalism. Talks about state sovereignty. Why do we have a Ninth Amendment? Have you read that one lately? It talks about individual liberty, it is in my view, a reflection of the Declaration. They put it...

After two solid years of COVID restrictions, many of us have reached a breaking point. Witness the mass exodus to other states from sunny California. Who wouldn't want to get out of here, away from this strangling, prison-like "reality"? Malaise is now spreading throughout the country, as a direct result of Biden's mass migration. How do you know that your chosen destination hasn't been set upon by a horde of unknown, unemployed migrants? This makes moving elsewhere less attractive. You can't know what you'll find when you get there, but it might be just as bad — or if clandestine...

ST. PAUL, Minn. - A St. Paul officer who shot and wounded a Black man who emerged naked from a dumpster while being sought in connection with a sexual assault failed to measure up to department standards, the city’s police chief said. Chief Todd Axtell said Tuesday at a news conference where he released police bodycam video of the confrontation that he’d taken “swift, decisive and serious action” against the officer, identified by state investigators as Officer Anthony Dean. Axtell said state law precludes him from releasing details of the action. The Minneapolis Star Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press,...

The Minneapolis Police Department will withdraw from contract talks with the officer union as it seeks to end relationships that have “eroded trust” in the community and overhaul the force following George Floyd’s death, its chief said on Wednesday. Chief Medaria Arradondo, at a media briefing, also said he would implement a new early-warning system to identify police officer misconduct, allowing supervisors to intervene more quickly to get problematic officers off the street. The decision to cut off negotiations with the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis comes a few days after a majority of the city council pledged to dismantle...

In crises like the coronavirus pandemic, it’s only natural that people look to government. The American framework of federalism has been critical, with local, state, and federal governments all taking on different roles in the response. But government alone cannot get the job done. As critical as the work of government has been, its efforts to get out of the way of business and the civil society – by lifting regulations that inhibit our ability to quickly develop cures or help those in need – are just as important and show how indispensable these other sectors are to the solution....

Tourism is down in the ancient city of Lopburi, and the local monkeys are going ape. Rival gangs of macaques brawl in the streets of Thailand. In one of the more unusual incidents being attributed to the new coronavirus outbreak, a turf war between dozens of street monkeys and temple monkeys broke out in Thailand's historic city of Lopburi on Thursday (March 12). According to city residents, the furry fracas likely resulted from a sharp dip in tourism to the 800-year-old city — and thus a dip in free food offerings to thousands of local monkeys."It’s the summer so usually we see...

America has lost a voice that strongly and consistently provided the road map to steer us away from the political and cultural abyss we currently face. That voice belonged to historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, who died Dec. 30 at age 97. Gertrude spoke passionately about how our most important institutions—families, communities, churches, and private enterprise—must be “remoralized,” as it is only through a strong civil society that we can have a strong nation. In her words, people learn to function as “free, responsible, moral adults” in these institutions and apply that responsibility and morality as citizens of a nation. But she...

Who or what is the source of civil rights? What are civil rights? They must be important or there wouldn’t be a US Commission on Civil Rights, a Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, or several Civil Rights Acts. How can the meaning of such a common term remain so hazy and ill-defined? Despite the confusion, one thing is certain. The Supreme Court has no business creating civil rights. [snip] Through their state and US Constitutions, the sovereign people are entitled to occupy the high ground above the governments of their creation. Scotus obviously did not participate in...

Saving Our Institutions: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has always been a man of brilliance and integrity, but something he told an audience recently really resonated with Americans who are growing weary of the Left’s destruction of our culture and society. During a speech at a Federalist Society conference in Fort Worth, Texas, on Saturday, Thomas needled Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey over his “I am Spartacus” clown show during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings last week for Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi doubled-down on Democrats previous threats to block funding for President Trump’s border wall Thursday, telling journalists during her weekly briefing that the physical barrier has no place in “civilized society.” [snip]“First of all, I think the border: Did you see it? How high it is … I mean, really? In a civilized society, we do something like that? As obnoxious as it is. You know, that’s a community there with a border running through it? Okay, we have a difference of opinion on that, but a wall that big separating people? I mean really?” Pelosi...

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to cheer on Communists and Nazis punching each other in major American cities while civil society disintegrates around them. In Dallas, a black nationalist activist shot and killed 5 police officers at a Black Lives Matter anti-police rally. Instead of condemning BLM, Barack Obama defended a racist hate group whose role model is Assata Shakur, a wanted black nationalist cop killer, at the funerals of the murdered officers. The left killed civil rights and replaced it with black nationalism. The racial supremacism of black nationalism that killed those officers is everywhere....

Reservations in the White House on troop levels in Afghanistan have reportedly led the Trump Administration to a point where it is considering withdrawing U.S. troops from the beleaguered country altogether, contrary to recommendations from the Pentagon. The Wall Street Journal reported that without managing to green light a plan to send 3,900 more troops to Afghanistan to turn back an advancing Taliban, the White House is instead considering scaling back U.S. presence there. One unnamed senior administration official was quoted as saying that the question of U.S. commitment in Afghanistan is a fundamental one for the White House. “It...

An influential political action group in Washington, Heritage Action for America, all but endorsed the presidential candidacy of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz on Monday, with the release of an analysis of the platforms of the top 12 candidates for the Republican nomination.Cruz has been consistently in the middle of the pack in early polling, typically gathering only a fraction of the support currently being lavished on frontrunners Donald Trump and Ben Carson. However, with backing from well-funded Super PACs, the Texas senator has the ability to assert himself in the race in the event that one or both of the...

Hundreds of people protested Wednesday in Wisconsin's capital and more than two dozen were arrested for blocking a road a day after a prosecutor ruled that a Madison police officer's fatal shooting of an unarmed biracial teenager was justified. Brandi Grayson, co-founder of the Young Gifted and Black Coalition that organized the protest, said the group wanted community control over the hiring and firing of officers and a U.N. probe into racial disparities in Dane County and Wisconsin. "We don't have time-set goals. We understand the struggle for black liberation will be generational," Grayson said. Lakaya Horton, 13, of Madison,...

Democracy: The IRS targeting of Tea Party groups is mind-boggling not only for its abuse of government power. It's also disturbing for what it intended to do: destroy civil society, opening a door for tyranny. The formation in 2009 of hundreds of Tea Party groups at the rallying cry of CNBC news editor Rick Santelli, from places as diverse as Lowell, Mass., Pleasanton, Calif., Asheville, N.C., Yuma, Ariz., and Lincoln, Neb., among hundreds of others, was a spontaneous reaction by ordinary American citizens to an overspending, oversized government whose overreach called into question its constitutionality. Yet it was these very...

As I walked through the Supermarket today, I passed through the isle that was full of children's toys of all kinds. Little racing cars, coloring books, transformers, Barbie dolls and baby dolls, stuffed bears, plastic airplanes, little ponies, bouncing balls, basketballs and something called slime. There were several children there, taking full advantage of the bounty as if it were provided for free. One opened a package of baubles that I could not identify while the other drooled on a basketball before throwing it in the general direction of the other child. And my old mind could not help but...

Conservatives and liberals clash frequently on a wide array of issues, from taxes to trade, from deficits to defense. But their greatest conflict may lie in their contrasting attitudes toward civil society. Conservatives regard the institutions of civil society -- families, churches and communities -- as sources of hope and renewal. Self-styled "progressives" see these institutions as seedbeds of prejudice and ignorance. Conservatives believe that poverty stems largely from a lack of spiritual resources, resources that are typically transmitted through private, voluntary groups. Progressives view poverty as a simple lack of resources. Conservatives believe that social justice is best pursued...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Sunday detailed a plan to release a deluge of secret documents should the whistleblower website be permanently shut down. In an exclusive interview with CBS News's "60 Minutes," Assange said his group had a "system whereby we distribute encrypted backups of things we have yet to publish." "There are backups distributed amongst many, many people, 100,000 people, and all we need to do is give them an encrypted key and they will be able to continue on," he said. The WikiLeaks founder, who is currently under US criminal investigation over the leaking of hundreds of...