Free Republic

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – San Franciscans will have the opportunity Monday morning to write supportive notes to each other in the wake of Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president. The so-called Wall of Empathy will be available above ground at the 16th Street Mission, 24th Street Mission and Montgomery Street BART stations from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. “In the wake of Tuesday’s election results, many of us have been experiencing grief and shock in various forms,” event organizers Muriel MacDonald, Tamilla Mir and Melissa Goldman said in a statement. “The racist, sexist, xenophobic rhetoric that was a hallmark...

Yesterday we discussed the new disorder plaguing white middle class Americans: Empathy Deficit Disorder (EDD). Today I thought I would pursue one of the root causes: Snowflake Syndrome (ϟϟ). The latest outbreak of ϟϟ - at Seattle University, Matteo Ricci College School of Humanities - has been documented by the Daily Caller and, as the saying goes, requires a special kind of stupid. A brief summary: students at the Matteo Ricci School of Humanities took over the Dean’s office and demanded that the Dean be fired and all of their demands (which are ample) be met. Chief among their demands is an order...

This week's Mainstream Media Scream features Yahoo's Katie Couric, who last week interviewed Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texan running for president, about his hardline against illegal immigration. It was loaded from the start. For Couric, it comes down to one word: empathy. On Yahoo News Monday, Couric said: "Well, let's talk immigration, because I'm very curious about your views on that. I know you've staunchly oppose President Obama's executive actions on immigration. You've worked to block every legislative effort to allow undocumented immigrants to remain legally in this country. So, given the fact that your father immigrated here from Cuba,...

Watching Hillary Clinton reach out and touch ordinary Americans is excruciating. In working a crowd of regular folks, Hillary is fingernails on the blackboard in a pantsuit. It is difficult to imagine anyone more out of touch with their own affect, movement, and connection to the people around them. She is unable to talk, touch, listen or smile in a natural manner. She doesn't seem to know what to do with her hands, where to direct her eyes, her scope of awareness is restricted. A blind person with a stick would be better than Hillary Clinton at reading people around...

WOMEN are moody. By evolutionary design, we are hard-wired to be sensitive to our environments, empathic to our children’s needs and intuitive of our partners’ intentions. This is basic to our survival and that of our offspring. Some research suggests that women are often better at articulating their feelings than men because as the female brain develops, more capacity is reserved for language, memory, hearing and observing emotions in others. These are observations rooted in biology, not intended to mesh with any kind of pro- or anti-feminist ideology. But they do have social implications. Women’s emotionality is a sign of...

The ISIS in Kobani is facing severe damage and losses. The Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani has become the theatre of war between the Islamic State radicals, Kurds and the U.S. led allies who are pounding the town with air strikes to retrieve the town. According to a U.K. based monitoring group, the Islamic State fighters have faced severe reverses including hundreds of deaths and injury at the Kobani town, bordering Turkey. Highlighting the rising toll of ISIS cadres, Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that at least 50 militants had been killed in the last couple of days...

~snip~ In Minneapolis, Obama will meet with “Rebekah,” one such letter-writer. And in other cities and towns, the president will doff his suit jackets, roll up his sleeves, lead town-hall discussions, and press the flesh during “impromptu” stops at local eateries, where he’s guaranteed to favor pie. Message: I care. Postscript: Unmarried Women, Please Vote in November for Democrats. With his job approval drifting to a near-record low of 41 percent, Obama is a drag on his party, even as he raises millions of dollars for Democrats at fundraisers around the country. His aides say he doesn’t plan to stump...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has never been a friend to Israel. Today, speaking at the 2012 Saban Forum on US-Israel Relations, a liberal organization, she railed against Israel for supposed insensitivity, lack of empathy, and lack of generosity with regard to the Palestinians – even as the Palestinians unilaterally violated all agreements with Israel and attempted to declare statehood, and within days of Hamas firing rockets on Israeli population centers and bombing a bus. Here’s what she said: So, look, I’m not making excuses for the missed opportunities of the Israelis, or the lack of generosity, the lack of...

What if we told you that the election was decided by a phrase? You might not believe it, but assume we’re right for a minute. What word would you guess decided the election? Hurricane Sandy? The answer lies in perhaps the single most illustrative exit poll question conducted, where CNN asked “What is the most important candidate quality to your vote?” The response options were “Strong Leader,” “Shares Your Values,” “Has a Vision for the Future,” and “Cares about People.” Among folks that chose one of the first three responses, Mitt Romney won between 54-61% of their vote. But, among...

Yet another Obamaoid has joined the Ann Romney-bashing brigade. Hilary Rosen, with her "never worked a day in her life" line, was infamously first. As documented at NewsBusters, the president of NOW subsequently derided Ann Romney as lacking in "life experience" and "imagination". Then, feminist author Michelle Goldberg attacked Ann as "insufferable," her writing as "creepy," and even compared her to Hitler and Stalin. Latest to join the all-women lineup of Ann bashers: Betsey Stevenson. A former top economist in the Obama administration, appearing on Chris Hayes's MSNBC this morning, Stevenson accused Ann, along with Mitt, of "really having no...

Funding serves ‘security interests of the US,’ says president. Congress blocked it after Abbas’s bid for UN recognition of ‘Palestine’ The US Congress froze a $192 million aid package to the Palestinian Authority after its president, Mahmoud Abbas, defied US pressure and sought to attain UN endorsement of Palestinian statehood last September. The presidential waiver means that aid can now be delivered. The unilateral statehood gambit was strongly opposed by Israel, which said Abbas was seeking to avoid negotiating the necessary compromises and modalities of statehood with Israel. The US indicated it would veto a resolution in the Security Council...

Army Orders Soldiers to Wear Fake Breasts and 'Empathy' Bellies Soldiers don fake belly, breasts to better understand pregnant troops' exercise concerns By Seth Robson Stars and Stripes Published: February 16, 2012 CAMP ZAMA, Japan – The Army is ordering its hardened combat veterans to wear fake breasts and empathy bellies so they can better understand how pregnant soldiers feel during physical training. This week, 14 noncommissioned officers at Camp Zama took turns wearing the “pregnancy simulators” as they stretched, twisted and exercised during a three-day class that teaches them to serve as fitness instructors for pregnant soldiers and new...

<p>Lest you doubt that we’re headed for the most vicious election year in memory, consider the determined effort, within ten minutes of his triumph in Iowa, to weirdify Rick Santorum. Discussing the surging senator on Fox News, Alan Colmes mused on some of the “crazy things” he’s said and done.</p>

Lest you doubt that we're headed for the most vicious election year in memory, consider the determined effort, within 10 minutes of his triumph in Iowa, to weirdify Rick Santorum. Discussing the surging senator on Fox News, Alan Colmes mused on some of the "crazy things" he's said and done. Santorum has certainly said and done many crazy things, as have most members of America's political class, but the "crazy thing" Colmes chose to focus on was Santorum's "taking his two-hour-old baby when it died right after childbirth home," whereupon he "played with it." My National Review colleague Rich Lowry...

  “You’ll Swing for This!” Thoughts on the Execution of Troy Davis David C. Stolinsky Sept. 26, 2011 On Sept. 21, Georgia executed convicted murderer Troy Davis by lethal injection. Twenty-two years ago, Davis murdered police officer Mark MacPhail. After shooting Officer MacPhail, Davis stood over him and shot him again. Predictably, MacPhail’s name was mentioned much less often than the murderer’s name, and there were demonstrations for the murderer but none for MacPhail. For details read Ann Coulter, who is an attorney and − unlike other commentators − actually reviewed the transcript. If opponents of capital punishment claim...

The famous quote attributed to Winston Churchill that, "If you're not liberal at 20, you have no heart...if you're not conservative by 30, you have no brain," may need some tweaking given the recent antics of the American left. Having built the credibility of their political movement on the grounds of compassion and empathy, their actions and policy proposals are reflective of just the opposite. Start with my home state of Indiana, whose Republican legislature and governor enacted a law to prohibit taxpayer dollars from flowing into the hands of any health clinic that performs abortions. Through entirely predictable demagoguery,...

A new study from Utrecht and Cambridge Universities has for the first time found that an administration of testosterone under the tongue in volunteers negatively affects a person's ability to 'mind read', an indication of empathy. The findings are published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In addition, the effects of testosterone administration are predicted by a fetal marker of prenatal testosterone, the 2D:4D ratio. The study has important implications for the androgen theory of autism (testosterone is an androgen) and confirms earlier rodent research that shows that testosterone in early brain development organizes...

FED up with the Me-Me-Me MySpace generation? Inclined to believe today’s young ’uns are blindingly self-aggrandizing and entitled? According to a major new study of college students, you may well be right. Vindication for crotchety Gen-Xers — already depressed to find themselves the elders in this social relationship — arrived in a paper presented in May at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science in Boston. “Changes in Dispositional Empathy in American College Students Over Time: A Meta-Analysis,” by Sara Konrath, a researcher at the University of Michigan, found that college students today are 40 percent less empathetic...

A University of Michigan Study of nearly 14,000 college students has found that they have less empathy than college students did during the 1980s or 1990s. In fact, today’s college students scored about 40 percent lower in empathy than their counterparts did 20 or 30 years ago. Empathy is one of the most valuable psychological resources we have. It allows us to resonate with and respond to the suffering of others. It also allows us to care deeply about the fates of those we love, including our spouses and children. When empathy is destroyed, people are free (in a terrible...

Federal Bench: Yet another judicial nominee seeks to impose the "empathy" standard on the courts. He thinks judges should base rulings on a plaintiff's status, legislate from the bench and amend the Constitution. Indiana federal judge David Hamilton stands poised to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate to assume a seat on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals serving Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. He's a former fundraiser for Acorn and a former leader of the Indiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. He is also another in a series of activist judges who believe the U.S. Constitution is not...