Free Republic

Are we seeing the end of global leftism? Probably not. For one thing, politics is sort of a fuzzy spectrum; there will always be a left and a right, although things are a little more complicated than that. But there is a reason the Overton Window is a thing, and it can't go all the way to one side or another, and there will always be people and systems to the left and to the right of that window. But modern leftist politics, defined by socialism and its fuzzy-headed cousin "progressivism" (which may be taken to mean "progress on the...

Apple's board of directors has recommended shareholders vote against a proposal to end the company's diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, going against the grain of decisions by other large US corporates. The National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank, proposed Apple shareholders consider ending the firm's DEI program to prevent lawsuits following a 2023 Supreme Court's ruling against affirmative action in universities. But the Apple board has recommended voting against the proposal when it meets late this month. "The proposal is unnecessary as Apple already has a well-established compliance program," said the board, which includes Tim...

Meet historical fascism’s true heirs.In the famous anecdote usually attributed to Bertrand Russel, a scientist lecturing on the earth’s position in the solar system is corrected an old lady who says the earth is actually supported by a giant turtle. When the scientist asked what supports the turtle, she triumphally answered, “It’s turtles all the way down!”Since the Twenties and the rise of Italian Fascism and German Nazism––which eventually become the main referent of the word––the term has become an all-purpose question-begging epithet so promiscuously abused in the Thirties that, as George Orwell said in 1944, “The word Fascism has...

Reprinted with permission from Tablet magazine. In the September debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, Trump said something so ludicrous that many viewers must have dismissed it out of hand. “She did things that nobody would ever think of,” Trump said, while rattling off a list of some of the vice president’s most radical “Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison.” The idea that the vice president “wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison” seemed so patently absurd that The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser cited it in...

Below is my column in USA Today on the most chilling moment from the Vance-Walz debate when the Democratic nominee showed why he is part of the dream ticket for the anti-free speech movement. Here is the column: In the vice presidential debate Tuesday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz pulled the fire alarm. His opponent, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, cited the massive system of censorship supported by Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate. Walz proceeded to quote the line from a 1919 case in which Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said you do not have the right to...

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg went on "Meet the Press" to defend Vice-President Kamala Harris' numerous deviations from her previously professed political views. Host Kristen Welker pointed out that "Vice President Harris has shifted her position on several policy issues from when she first ran for president in 2019. She initially wanted to ban fracking, now she says she doesn't. She supported Medicare for all and now she says she doesn't. To the voters who have concerns about this, if she's elected, why won't she change her mind again?" In response, Buttigieg replied "politics is the art of the possible. As...

As the talk of socialism becomes more widespread on the Left, particularly within Democratic party politics, and as anger at President Trump boils over, the advocacy of political scientists will become even clearer: first, Progressivism, then socialism, and ultimately, Leninism.... A contrary example both of the theory and practice of politics, because its focus is on advancing the principles of the Declaration of Independence, are the panels and scholarship sponsored by the Claremont Institute—recently honored at the White House with the National Humanities Medal. So Claremont has its work cut out for it. How far will the Left take political...

This is the most powerful explanation of the evil of abortion I've seen. This two minute video on abortion is worth watching. There is no accompanying text with the video of Seth Gruber with Pastor Jack Hibbs. Yes, it was originally posted on TikTok, but don't let that deter you. It has been reposted on X by Brandon Morse with the explanation "I’ve never seen abortion described this way as a concept and now I’ll never look at it the same. It truly is a display of contempt against Christ when you strip away all the window dressing."

The new VP candidate has made enemies and allies in Silicon Valley, while on a quest to regulate the tech cartel. Last night, Sen. JD Vance officially accepted the Republican nomination for vice president at the 2024 Republican Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, sending optimism to Silicon Valley and the tech community. A right-wing populist, Vance has been critical of the old right’s market fundamentalism in favor of the new right’s pro-worker economic nationalism — one that calls for antitrust crackdowns on Big Tech. A New York Times article described Vance as “pro-labor, a fan of crypto and the F.T.C.'s Lina...

Over a century ago Washington laid the corner stone of the Capitol in what was then little more than a tract of wooded wilderness here beside the Potomac. We now find it necessary to provide by great additional buildings for the business of the government. This growth in the need for the housing of the government is but a proof and example of the way in which the nation has grown and the sphere of action of the national government has grown. ... As a matter of personal conviction, and without pretending to discuss the details or formulate the system,...

The Anti-Social Contract: Chicago, Illinois and the Failures of Modern ProgressivismChicago and Illinois are in trouble. You know it. I know it. Your neighbors know it. Yet, somehow, it’s considered rude, bordering on sacrilege, to acknowledge in polite company. Best to sweep this inconvenient truth under the rug. To obscure it behind a façade of inspiring lakefront imagery. But just open your eyes. Our problems are as ubiquitous as they are obvious. Rising crime, unsustainable debt, economic malaise, failing schools, dilapidated infrastructure, population loss. Each a fraying thread in a bleak tapestry of urban blight. There’s no need to rehash...

From the Wrong Side of History,” Nellie Bowles, a former New York Times journalist grown disillusioned with both the mainstream media and the left, writes about the year 2020, when the combustible confluence of the pandemic, the murder of George Floyd and the prospect of Donald Trump’s reelection made politics and culture go “berserk.” She describes a liberal intelligentsia “wild with rage and optimism,” brimming with “fresh ideas from academia that began to reshape every part of society.” Her name for this phenomenon, often derided as “wokeness,” is the “New Progressivism,” and her book attempts, with varying degrees of success,...

Delaware Governor John Carney has signed the state’s Handgun Purchaser Licensing bill into law.Following years of consistent engagement by dedicated advocates and legislators, a purchaser licensing bill, sometimes referred to as permit-to-purchase, passed the final hurdle in Delaware and has been signed into law by Governor John Carney. When enacted, the law will require all who seek to purchase a handgun, unless they have a valid Delaware concealed carry permit, to submit fingerprints, undergo a more thorough criminal background check, and complete live firearm safety training. Research shows that if Delaware had adopted a Handgun Purchaser Licensing law when Connecticut...

Last night, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed House Bill 311, restricting firearms on college campuses and college-owned properties, even for concealed carry permit holders. This legislation is now eligible for a floor vote. Please contact your state senator by using the Take Action button below and urge them to OPPOSE this legislation. HB 311 could lead to confusion among concealed carry permit holders who may not realize they are on property owned by a college or university. HB 311 adds all colleges and universities to the Safe School Zone criminal offense so that any person who knowingly possesses a firearm...

Biden announced on Wednesday that the White House would forgive more than $6.1 billion on student loan debt for 317,000 borrowers who attended The Art Institutes, a private art school system in the U.S. that shuttered last year

Anti-Israel activists at the University of California, Berkeley have been circulating a video they say shows Berkeley Law professor Catherine Fisk “assaulting” a student. Malak Afaneh, co-president of Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine, has claimed that Fisk assaulted her during a dinner Fisk hosted on April 9 at her private residence, which she shares with her husband, Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. In a video apparently filmed by a fellow student during the dinner, which Fisk and Chemerinsky hosted for graduating students, Afaneh is standing on the steps of their home, wearing a “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions” T-shirt,...

Over the course of the last week, some of President Trump’s most ardent and vocal online supporters have engaged in a bit of cognitive dissonance, praising the former president for his foresight and wisdom in calling for a federalist solution to one of the nation’s most intractable problems while simultaneously singing the praises of the one man who likely did more than any other American to crush the nation’s federalist history and culture. Specifically, President Trump called for the question of abortion to be handled by the states, for the federal government to relinquish its power over the issue and...

There are a lot of people out there who think I have a lost my marbles for coming to the conclusion that a large percentage of books written prior to the 1900s are the only books you can trust when it comes to American History. What people fail to understand, is that the 1619 Project is actually not new. Sure, it's relatively "new" to use racial issues as the focal point, but manipulating U.S. history to advance progressivism goes back to the Progressive Era itself. In his book "American inquisitors; a commentary on Dayton and Chicago", Walter Lippmann wrote the...

The Associated Press has morphed into a Berkeley-style left-wing rag. The key difference is that the Associated Press plays to a global audience of millions. Take, for example, how the AP broke the news this week of the Supreme Court’s ruling against Colorado’s attempt to keep former President Donald Trump off the ballot. The court ruled unanimously, 9-0, that Colorado had no legal authority to bar a candidate from running for federal office. A majority of the justices added that this would in fact require an act of Congress. Yet here is how the Associated Press reported the breaking news,...

3:07 Voters in San Francisco passed ballot measures on Super Tuesday that expanded police powers, required drug screening for welfare recipients, and reduced restrictions on commercial real estate development — a massive defeat for the left. The San Francisco Chronicle declared boldly in its front-page headline Wednesday morning: “PROGRESSIVISM IS OUT — FOR NOW,” and “Voters make it clear: San Francisco can no longer be called a progressive city.” It reported: For now, at least, San Francisco can no longer be called a progressive city. Not after voters approved ballot measures Tuesday to loosen restrictions on the police and screen...