Free Republic

The totalitarian-minded education establishment and its extreme left-wing allies are starting to freak out as conservatives abandon futile efforts to “reform” government schools in favor of a mass-exodus strategy. Even powerful union bosses are starting to panic. The trend has been building quietly for years. But it has accelerated rapidly in recent months as a trickle of families fleeing the system became a tidal wave amid face-mask edicts, vaccine mandates, Critical Race Theory, Marxist indoctrination, extreme “sex education,” and other controversies. The first major shoe to drop in response came on September 30, when the fringe left-wing magazine New Republic...

While there is no proof yet either way, there are good reasons to at least consider the prospect that the sarin gas attack on civilians in Syria this week could have been a “false flag” operation. The last time Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad supposedly used chemical weapons, the story quickly collapsed under scrutiny. The more likely scenario, according to United Nations investigators and virtually every credible analyst who looked at the 2013 crime, was that globalist-backed jihadist “rebels” used the chemicals in a “false-flag” scheme. The goal: Blame Syrian authorities in a bid to trigger U.S. government intervention against...

The John Birch Society (JBS) can thank itself for this post. A few days ago, the JBS unintentionally put a smile on my face when I attempted to comment on a column at their website. See the saved screenshot below. In response to a piece at The New American (TNA), Wyoming and Arkansas Reject Call for Convention of States Con-Con, I was prevented from posting to the comment section. Since it never went to moderation, the content of my comment was irrelevant. I wondered, how many other COS supporters are banned as well? Hmmm, maybe Mark Meckler, Michael Farris, and...

In the months leading up to his historic upset election on an anti-establishment, anti-globalism platform, more than a few leftist and establishment media organs claimed that Donald Trump was really spouting the ideas of The John Birch Society. Indeed, Trumpism is Bircherism, some commentators claimed.The constitutionalist grassroots organization, which publishes this magazine and has chapters in all 50 states, has indeed been promoting many of the ideas and truths that Trump gave voice to during his unusual campaign. The purpose of the media’s attempt to link Trump with JBS was to demonize him, not give credit where credit was due....

Included in a very long list of Things We Never Expect to See in American Politics is any scenario in which the leftist establishment Washington Post becomes a champion of the Constitution and the Founders’ original intent in framing it. Yet that is precisely what we find in a March 17 article by Pepperdine University School of Law professor Derek Muller, in which we are exhorted to restore the Electoral College system to some semblance of its original form — to prevent Donald Trump (shown on right) from becoming president.The bipartisan political establishment, be it remembered, has been subverting the Electoral...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Next time you visit your doctor, be careful how you respond to his questions, or you may just be branded “mentally ill” and subjected to “treatment.” That is because a panel advising the Obama administration, in partnership with Big Psychiatry, wants to make doctors subject all American adults and children over age 12 to screening for alleged “mental health” disorders — particularly depression, at least to start with. Then, anyone found to harbor any alleged mental disorder, including children as young as eight, should undergo “therapy,” often including powerful psychotropic medications that experts say have dubious value...

U.S. troops and U.S.-trained Iraqi forces uncovered about 5,000 chemical weapons in Iraq between 2004 and 2011 and soldiers were injured by these weapons in six instances. However, the weapons had not been manufactured during an active, ongoing chemical weapons program, which the Bush administration cited as justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.Details of the discovery of these weapons were published by the New York Times on October 14, in a lengthy, 9,000-word report written by former Marine Corps officer and veteran journalist C.J. Chivers.Despite injuries to our troops, the U.S. government withheld information about the discovery of the...

Further illustrating what would at least appear to be the incredible absurdity of what passes for U.S. government "foreign policy," Sunni jihadist "rebels" in Syria backed by al-Qaeda and the Obama administration have been battling against Shia militias that have also been backed by Obama. Both sides are fighting with American weapons, according to news reports. How much money U.S. taxpayers forked over to arm the two warring Islamic factions was not immediately clear. But the enormous human tragedy on the ground is getting worse quickly.The latest battle between feuding Obama-backed forces was first reported by the far-left Daily Beast,...

After years of running up against unconstitutional federal education mandates imposed on states using bribes and bludgeoning from Washington, D.C., a group of parents and grassroots education activists from across America is launching a fresh effort to shut down the U.S. Department of Education once and for all. The mission: "Stop Fed Ed." In the crosshairs is everything from dumbed-down "standards" such as the Obama-backed Common Core nationalization of schooling and associated federal testing regimes, to the deeply controversial federal data gathering and data mining encouraged and financed largely by the feds. The group hopes to pressure Congress into ending...

The federal government and the Obama administration are under fire for a variety of unconstitutional programs aimed at both militarizing and controlling local police and law enforcement, including supplying a vast array of sophisticated U.S. Defense Department “weapons of war” to city and county governments. Billions of dollars in military equipment has already been handed to municipal police departments and county sheriffs’ offices nationwide under the rapidly expanding federal schemes, but concerns from across the political spectrum are growing quickly as well. This year alone, over 150 so-called “mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles,” or MRAPs, used by U.S. forces in Iraq, were...

The city of Sanford, Florida, already has a secret law-enforcement plan to deal with potential riots and unrest in the wake of a possible acquittal of George Zimmerman. Miami has efforts to keep the peace underway as well. Across America, pundits and analysts have been warning that a “not guilty” verdict in the controversial case could set off an explosive wave of deadly violence rivaling the mass riots that ensued following the 1992 Rodney King trial. If mayhem does strike, analysts say the establishment media, President Obama, and assorted race-profiteers would bear much of the blame. Well before the verdict...

Dozens of so-called “Gay Pride” parades took place in cities such as New York, Chicago, and San Francisco this past weekend, and they bring to mind why pride is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. And the reminder is especially poignant this year, as bare naked politics mixed with the leather-clad revelry. Many of us have heard the “gay pride” stories the media are mum about: the naked displays and simulated sex acts that, in any other context, would land you in handcuffs not designed for kink. But this year the nefarious goings-on included an invasion by hordes of Barack...

According to modern dogma, homosexuals are like sprinters: born and not made. Thus, even though psychology’s longstanding nature-nurture debate has concluded that many traits are the result of both factors, it isn’t politically correct to consider even this possibility with respect to homosexuality. But does this biology-is-destiny theory hold water with respect to same-sex attraction? And, if so, what does this say about the behavior’s moral status? Let’s examine the matter. When discussing same-sex attraction’s cause, the first thing usually mentioned is the much touted “homosexual gene” theory. In fact, the idea has been repeated so often that many today...

GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum is under fire in South Carolina for touting his alleged pro-life beliefs but voting to subsidize abortion and Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortions in America, while serving in the U.S. Senate. He has also backed pro-abortion candidates and voted for legislation that is being used to federally prosecute peaceful pro-life protesters who demonstrate outside of abortion clinics. Critics are outraged.The once top-tier Republican candidate, who surged into the spotlight after an unexpected strong finish in Iowa before a disastrous showing in New Hampshire, defended himself against the attacks by lashing out at fellow...

In a recent article published by The Daily Beast, its Washington bureau chief, Howard Kurtz, reasoned that if “moderate” Mitt Romney wins the Republican nomination for President, he’ll need to choose a running mate with the conservative bona fides to balance the ticket. While the notion that Mitt Romney is "on the verge of sewing up the Republican nomination" is still just a neo-con fantasy (especially in light of Ron Paul’s surging poll numbers and his respectable showing in Iowa and New Hampshire), pundits and soi disant opinion makers have suggested that the former Governor of Massachusetts choose a VP...

Seen any walnuts in your medicine cabinet lately? According to the Food and Drug Administration, that is precisely where you should find them. Because Diamond Foods made truthful claims about the health benefits of consuming walnuts that the FDA didn’t approve, it sent the company a letter declaring, “Your walnut products are drugs” — and “new drugs” at that — and, therefore, “they may not legally be marketed … in the United States without an approved new drug application.” The agency even threatened Diamond with “seizure” if it failed to comply. Diamond’s transgression was to make “financial investments to educate...

There are many frightening aspects of the new healthcare law hidden around every corner of its legislative labyrinth, camouflaged behind dense impenetrable briars of legalese. But, like the purloined letter of literature, there plenty of the law’s detestable provisions hiding in plain sight. Any document that runs over 2,000 pages (unless it is a young adult book about angst-ridden vampires) discourages even the most cursory of readings. Even skimming such a tome would likely precipitate carpal tunnel syndrome. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed into law last week by President Obama is no exception. As House Minority Leader...

What became quickly obvious while watching President Obama’s recent interview about healthcare reform with Bret Baier on FOX is that we’re still not getting straight answers about the proposed reforms — and this after a year of healthcare being the No. 1 priority at the Obama White House. On something even as elementary as making the exact legislation available to the public and to legislators in a timely manner prior to voting, we got more hype than candor from Mr. Obama. Said Obama, regarding the timing of the vote on restructuring one-sixth of the U.S. economy, “I hope it’s going...

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow launched an error-riddled attack against the John Birch Society in her December 18 show, nominally because the John Birch Society has become a sponsor of the upcoming February 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C.

According to Senator Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), the United States is on its way to becoming a “banana republic” within 10 years. Wikipedia defines a banana republic as “a country that is politically unstable, dependent on limited agriculture (e.g., bananas), and ruled by a small, self-elected, wealthy and corrupt elite.” Such nations have “a small, leisurely class on the top, and a large, poorly educated and poorly paid working class of peons, though it might have the (fake) trappings of modernity (such as styling itself as a republic with a president, etc.).” A banana republic “typically has large wealth inequities, poor...