Free Republic

Black Lives Matter activists cite Douglass’s 1852 speech ‘What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?’ as proof America is evil. They utterly miss his point. Last week on CNN, as contributor Angela Rye accused White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnaney and President Trump of failing to understand the history of black America, she referred to the legendary Frederick Douglass. “Frederick Douglass said about Independence Day in this country, what to the slave is the Fourth of July?” she said. “And I would invite them to even start there, as a reading principle, to see how different we see...

The Supreme Court upheld exemptions for the contraceptive mandate under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for entities with religious or moral objections in Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania. The order of nuns has faced nearly a decade of court battles after the Obama administration refused to allow exemptions to the mandate for religious entities. While President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) threatened the order with fines for non-compliance, the Little Sisters argue that the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (RFRA) protects them from the far-reaching mandate. The Trump administration allowed exemptions to the provision and...

Well, if you ever want to see linguistic gymnastics, just take a look at this USA Today’s fact check of the claim that the Democrats didn’t create the Ku Klux Klan or start the American Civil War. Are they really just low on material over there? Because this wasn’t even said by a major politician. It was an Instagram user. Yeah, so for USA Today to pull out the fact check guns on this is a tell-tale sign that the Left is fully aware of their racist past. And given how left-wing mob violence has grown and ‘woke’ crybabies taking...

The Supreme Court has ruled that two Catholic schools were within their rights to dismiss two teachers on the basis of classifying them as “ministers” rather than secular professionals. In a decision released Wednesday morning, the high court ruled 7-2 that two California-based Catholic schools can classify their teachers as ministers and not be held by the standards of state antidiscrimination laws. Justice Samuel Alito delivered the opinion of the court, being joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. Alito cited the 2012 Supreme Court decision Hosanna-Tabor v....

Just as soon as states started to reopen, a surge in coronavirus cases put the brakes on those plans. Talk about a second wave has conveniently reignited fears about the coronavirus right as the country is itching to get back to normal, or as close to normal as possible. But the media wants you to be afraid. They are counting on people to focus on the headlines and be ignorant of the data. What is the data telling us? The death count for COVID-19 has been declining long enough that if it continues, COVID-19 will no longer be considered an...

I worked in Human Resources for 15 years. You may think this is the group that processes payroll and plans the company picnic. However, when I entered the profession, it was becoming a differentiating factor. The performance management model at General Electric had become a strategic advantage. The focus of my graduate program was measuring and maximizing human capital. Saying human capital is a dirty word now. However, at that time, it was viewed as the ability to measure the knowledge, skill, productivity, skill, and potential of individuals in the workforce. Then the goal was to translate that information into...

https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Screen-Shot-2020-07-07-at-5.03.12-PM-998x665.png> The Navy last week asked my husband to sign his name to a new restriction broadly “prohibiting,” in bold letters, a multitude of activities “to include indoor religious services” and even to discourage “in-person use” of “drive-in spiritual services.” While we maintain a faint hope that the military doesn’t really mean to restrict religious practices, the latest restrictions preclude nearly all indoor religious services — even those adhering to COVID-19 guidelines. The Catholic Masses my husband and I attend are vastly better spaced than the grocery or liquor stores where he can shop, or even the authorized Chick-fil-A drive-through...

"I think 'Blackout Tuesday' is great," Smokey John's Co-owner Juan Reaves said. "This is our opportunity to put our best foot forward to people that may not be familiar with us, Black or White." 'National Blackout Day' is meant to highlight Black-owned businesses, and get people to send a message of support by spending their money to support Black business owners... Our news partners at the Dallas Morning News compiled a list of some Black-owned businesses in North Texas. You can find it here.

Video evidence suggests it was murder. Viewers report hearing an occupier say, presumably to the individuals in the car, “Oh, you are not dead yet?”Screenshot from KOMO Youtube video, cropped and scaled by Dean Weingarten At 03:00 a.m., in the Seattle lawless zone, known as CHAZ or CHOP, two children were killed by what some refer to as CHOP security.A couple of minutes before 3 a.m. in the early morning of June 29,  according to the clock on a surveillance camera, the latest shooting at the CHAZ or CHOP occurred just outside the border of the lawless zone. Two teenage...

Another in a long list of anti-Trump books is about to drop, displacing Bolton's despicable whine as the craze among the haters. Ever since Trump was elected, there have been a stream of such books. Not one of them has damaged the president, but they do damage their authors, because each of them has revealed said authors' lack of decency. These books are not about Trump; they each display for all to read the angry emptiness of the writers themselves. Exactly who goes about writing books to bring down a duly elected president? Hollow people — the kind of people...

Has the failure of the blue states finally bit the Democrats on the butt? We all know that President Trump is struggling in the polls. But campaign finance figures for statehouse races like these suggest plenty of trouble for Democrats. According to Breitbart's Matt Boyle: Americans significantly decreased contributions to Democrats running for state legislature seats in the second quarter as the Democrat Party has turned hard left, fundraising information announced this week shows. The lackluster performance by Democrats at the state level could have broader national implications. First off, state-level political trends sometimes forecast later looming national trends —...

The coronavirus pandemic is pushing businesses and dwellers out of city centers and downtowns into the outskirts in the short term, but demand can be expected to return to big cities, according to the head of the largest commercial real estate broker in the country. Hessam Nadji, president and CEO of Marcus & Millichap, on Tuesday told CNBC that it will be a test for suburban areas to accommodate exponential demand. Suburban areas outside of major cities are in high demand, as people migrate from dense urban areas in response to the Covid-19 outbreak. “I think the next 18 to...

The United States has long prided itself as the world's shining beacon. But its current status is a much darker one: the globe's leader in coronavirus cases. More than 125,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the US, and more than 2.5 million Americans have been infected. American life has been irrevocably altered by the worst pandemic in a century. And as the country struggles to reopen, cases of Covid-19 have surged again -- this time in young people and in states that had previously avoided the brunt of the virus. Here, in dollars, percentages and — most tragically —...

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin faces murder and manslaughter charges for kneeling on George Floyd's neck until he stopped breathing. But even if Chauvin is convicted, Floyd's family may not be able to pursue claims under a federal statute that authorizes lawsuits against government officials who violate people's constitutional rights. The uncertain prospects for the lawsuit Floyd's relatives plan to file underlines the unjust and irrational consequences of qualified immunity, a doctrine that shields police from liability for outrageous conduct when the rights they violated were not "clearly established" at the time. Congress should seize the opportunity created by...

July 8 (UPI) -- The United States has set a new one-day record for new COVID-19 cases -- more than 60,000, surpassing the previous mark by several thousand. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University said 60,021 new cases were recorded Tuesday, just days after the previous national record of 54,500. Updated figures by the university on Wednesday morning placed total U.S. cases at 2.99 million and the death toll at about 131,500. More than three dozen states have shown increases over the past week and health officials say hospitalizations and patients in intensive care have also risen significantly. In Florida, health...

The coronavirus has mutated to become more infectious. Does that mean it will become more or less lethal? And what implication does it have for a vaccine and herd immunity?

As I wrote nearly three years ago: "Perhaps the second greatest libel — and certainly the most widespread — is that America is a racist country that oppresses its minorities and women. We can call it the American Libel." (The greatest libel was the infamous blood libel, the fabricated charge spread in Europe for hundreds of years by Christian anti-Semites that Jews kill Christian children to use their blood to bake matzos — unleavened bread — for Passover.) But if America is so racist, why are there so many race hoaxes? Virtually every time we read about a swastika painted...

If you're working in an office or eating in a restaurant and someone 30 feet away exhales tiny particles of coronavirus, those particles can drift across the room and infect you. Picture cigarette smoke wafting across a room. Same thing. The precautions agencies like the World Health Organization and the federal CDC are telling you to take against this virus aren't good enough. Social distancing -- placing desks and restaurant tables six feet apart -- and washing your hands won't protect you from this airborne virus. That's not fear-mongering. It's science. New research from the National Academy of Sciences contends...

NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – Police said they’ve arrested the person who tried to rape a woman in Queens earlier this week—a 12-year-old boy. The juvenile was arrested late Tuesday, according to the NYPD. He faces charges of robbery, assault, burglary, sex abuse, menacing and criminal possession of a weapon. Police said a 37-year-old woman was returning to her home near Gates and Cypress avenues in Ridgewood around 8 a.m. Monday when the attacker followed her into her building. The suspect pushed the woman to the floor and tried to remove her clothing, police said; she fought back and he...

In May 2019, Peter Mutharika, incumbent president in the southern African nation of Malawi, claimed a narrow re-election victory over opposition challenger Lazarus Chakwera. Malawians, however, reported "voting irregularities." Investigators found altered vote tallies and evidence of tampering. A majority of the country concluded Chakwera had defeated Mutharika. Incensed Malawians began nationwide nonviolent protests. Despite threats by Mutharika supporters, "stolen election" demonstrations persisted in rural towns as well as cities. Since he retained the title of president, Mutharika believed he controlled the guns and the courts. The protests would fade. He learned otherwise. Malawi's military, the Malawi Defense Force (MDF)...