Free Republic

Rights: A Ninth Circuit Court ruling that students can't wear American flag T-shirts because they may offend Mexican students celebrating Cinco de Mayo is a ridiculous yet dangerous assault on the First Amendment. On Sept. 17, more than four years after Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, Calif., sent students home for wearing American flag t-shirts, an 11-judge Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled that it was the right choice, "tailored to avert violence and focused on student safety." The decision upheld the court's three-judge ruling in February that justified the school's actions based on tensions between Mexican...

New York’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade will finally end its ban on gay groups marching in its annual Irish celebration, organizers said Wednesday. The organizing committee said this move to “change of tone and expanded inclusiveness is a gesture of goodwill to the LGBT community in our continuing effort to keep the parade above politics.”

The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed global warming regulations aren’t just about stemming global temperature rises — according to agency’s chief, they are also about “justice” for “communities of color.” “Carbon pollution standards are an issue of justice,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in a teleconference call with environmental activists. “If we want to protect communities of color, we need to protect them from climate change.” McCarthy is referring to the EPA’s proposed rule that would limit carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. The agency says the rule will not only help fight global warming, but will also improve public...

Herbal tea, Clorox wipes and Skippy peanut butter have a little blue in them, while Folgers coffee and Campbell's soup are as red as their labels. Finding out where your favorite brands lie on the political spectrum is now as easy as scanning bar codes with your iPhone. BuyPartisan, a free smartphone application developed by former Capitol Hill staffer Matthew Colbert, gives users the chance to learn more about the political leanings of the makers of supermarket items. By compiling campaign finance data from the top Fortune 500 companies and matching it with their products, the app lets consumers scan...

Edelman global CEO Richard Edelman said in a conversation with an editor of Vice’s Motherboard blog that former US CEO Mark Hass was fired from the agency in part because of the way he responded to an investigation into PR agencies’ work with climate-change deniers. Quoted by Motherboard senior editor Brian Merchant, the chief executive of the world’s largest PR agency said, "We fired the head of our US [division] in part because of that stupid note he wrote, about, you know, how we don’t answer these kinds of things." In response to inquiries from the Climate Investigations Center that...

The federal government is spending nearly $1 million to create an online database that will track “misinformation” and hate speech on Twitter. ... “This service could mitigate the diffusion of false and misleading ideas, detect hate speech and subversive propaganda [?], and assist in the preservation of open debate,” the grant said. ... “Truthy” claims to be non-partisan. However, the project’s lead investigator Filippo Menczer proclaims his support for numerous progressive advocacy groups, including President Barack Obama’s Organizing for Action, Moveon.org, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Amnesty International, and True Majority. ... The government-funded researchers hope that the public will use...

UPDATE: Dictionary.com has removed the offensive “recommended sentences” which slammed homeschooling. Thanks to all who wrote in.For those asking, here was a screenshot of the offensive words. Because of course a dictionary has to become ideological…If you look up “homeschool” over at Dictionary.com, you get the following “example sentences” which use the word in question. If you wish to teach your children such nonsense, then homeschool where lame propaganda can remain unchallenged. If she can’t find anyone willing to validate her helicopter parenting, she’ll homeschool. If you want to keep your kids from reality and turn them into mindless automaton copies of yourself,homeschool them. My...

The Heritage Foundation recently showed a documentary entitled “One Generation Away: the Erosion of Religious Liberty.” This bold documentary emphasized the importance of preserving our natural liberties, and expressed fear that they could easily be taken away as a secular government grows. rick santorum EcoLight Studios, a Christian movie company owned by former presidential candidate Rick Santorum, will distribute the film in theatres this September to convey an important message—freedom can be taken away far easier than it is given. Former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum presented the film at the Heritage event, saying that “The fight to protect our...

Some of the world’s top PR companies have for the first time publicly ruled out working with climate change deniers, marking a fundamental shift in the multi-billion dollar industry that has grown up around the issue of global warming. Public relations firms have played a critical role over the years in framing the debate on climate change and its solutions – as well as the extensive disinformation campaigns launched to block those initiatives. Now a number of the top 25 global PR firms have told the Guardian they will not represent clients who deny man-made climate change, or take campaigns...

A Colorado baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple is appealing a "re-education" order from the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.The order requires cake artist Jack Phillips to create wedding cakes for gay couples and to re-educate his staff that the state's Anti-Discrimination Act means artists must endorse all views.It also requires him to file quarterly compliance reports for two years.According to Phillips' attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom, the reports must include the number of patrons that Phillips declines to serve, along with the reason.The order stems from a 2012 incident in which Phillips refused a...

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama here, says he remembers the morning he spotted a well-known colleague at a gathering of climate experts. “I walked over and held out my hand to greet him,” Dr. Christy recalled. “He looked me in the eye and he said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Come on, shake hands with me.’ And he said, ‘No.'  ” Dr. Christy is an outlier on what the vast majority of his colleagues consider to be a matter of consensus: that global warming is both settled science and a dire threat. He...

A High School in California has insisted that it has a right to ban the mention of God in a student’s graduation speech paradoxically claiming the Constitution gives them that power. In July 18-year-old Brooks Hamby refused to follow the schools ban order and thanked Jesus in his speech anyway sending the school into fits of apoplexy. A California school district says it will not apologize to a teenager who defied its orders and mentioned God in his graduation speech. Attorneys representing the Brawley Union High School District have written a 10-page letter defending the school’s right not only to...

Dr. Lisa Rosenberg, a physician from New York, was returning home from vacation boarding a flight from PBIA to John F. Kennedy International Airport. She said she had just finished a phone conversation with a colleague when a woman said she was offended by Rosenberg’s remarks. “I was saying how it was good Israel found the students that killed the Palestinian teenager and how it was exemplary not making them into heroes, but seeking to publicly try them,” Rosenberg said. “I said any other country would have made these students out to be martyrs and celebrating them.” Rosenberg added that...

Graham Nash feels optimistic that young people will once again change America for the better. So while he’s frustrated by political ideals surrounding issues like global warming and marriage equality, he realizes that “those powers against progress” will naturally run their course. “They will all die at one point and the children will take over,” Nash said. Then he added: “Do you know anybody under 25 that gives a damn whether you marry a man if you’re a man or if you marry a woman if you’re a woman? No.” …

In politics, it's called The Pivot. When the news is bad, or if you don't want to answer the question, ignore it. Change the subject. Wisconsin Republican leaders are leaving divots as they pivot from U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb's decision voiding the state Constitution's ban of same-sex marriages. Many of the same Republicans who drafted the constitutional amendment, pushed it through two consecutive legislative sessions, and then in 2006 got voters to approve it, had no reaction to Crabb's ruling and no defense of their old position. The May 15-18 statewide poll by Marquette University's Law School may offer...

Seeking to mobilize a global front against anti-gay violence and discrimination, Vice President Joe Biden declared Tuesday that protecting gay rights is a defining mark of a civilized nation and must trump national cultures and social traditions. Biden told a gathering of U.S. and international gay rights advocates that President Barack Obama has directed that U.S. diplomacy and foreign assistance promote the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender men and women around the world "I don't care what your culture is," Biden told about 100 guests at the Naval Observatory's vice presidential mansion. "Inhumanity is inhumanity is inhumanity. Prejudice...

Rick Santorum is bringing the nationwide fight over religious liberty to the big screen, and it is chilling. As the Supreme Court weighs the Hobby Lobby case and activists at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference denounce the war on Christianity in America, Christian movie company EchoLight Studios, of which Rich Santorum is CEO, is preparing to release One Generation Away: the Erosion of Religious Liberty. The trailer, above, shows just how seriously Santorum and many fellow conservatives are taking the issue: if the United States continues down a path that erodes religious freedom, the country could...

Obama Calls For Climate Change Action In California Commencement Speech Speaking at University of California, Irvine, president compares science denial to saying 'moon is made of cheese' Barack Obama yelled 'Zot, Zot, Zot', as he makes the symbols of the Anteater, the school's mascot. Barack Obama on Saturday repeated his recent appeals for action to prevent climate change, while speaking at the University of California, Irvine graduation ceremony. “The question is not whether we need to act,” the president said, at Angel Stadium in Anaheim. “The overwhelming judgement of science, accumulated and reviewed over decades, has put the that to...

Now that our cultural elites feel they have sufficiently educated the public on the virtues of gays and lesbians, it's time to drill down to the next level. Here comes transgenderism. Time magazine placed "Orange Is the New Black" star Laverne Cox (born Charles Cox) on the cover as the face of "The Transgender Tipping Point: America's Next Civil Rights Frontier." Cox wrote on Facebook that the Time cover was a wonderful present on her birthday, and "I realize this is way bigger than me and about a tipping point in our nation's history where it is no longer acceptable...

Chris Christie Rebuts Perry Comparison of Homosexuality To Alcoholism MARK Z. BARABAK, CHRIS MEGERIAN New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie takes questions at San Francisco flower shop GOP's Chris Christie pays a visit Facebook headquarters in California New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who signed legislation barring "gay conversion therapy" in his state, said Friday that Texas Gov. Rick Perry's comparison of homosexuality to alcoholism was wrong. "I disagree with him, and I don't believe that's an apt analogy," Christie said during a San Francisco appearance alongside Neel Kashkari, the GOP candidate for California governor. Christie was appearing with Kashkari in his...