Free Republic

A fuming Gov. Deval Patrick is taking on University of Massachusetts officials who now say they must allow a convicted terror bomber to speak on campus because of “academic freedom” - even after angry cops thought the event had been stopped. “Gov. Patrick is outraged and extremely disappointed at reports that the University of Massachusetts has again extended a speaking invitation to Raymond Luc Levasseur,” said Patrick spokesman Joe Landolfi. The governor last night called on UMass brass to “review” the abrupt about-face. Levasseur, now under federal parole in a Maine halfway house, was the radical leader of United Freedom...

On the day I born, June 9th, 1954, Senator Joseph McCarthy was asked the famous question; “Have you no sense of decency sir?”. Some members of the media who saw an opening, pounced on the opportunity, and never looked back. This would become the beginning of the end of the anti-communist mood in America. It would be the birth of terms like McCarthyism, Redbaiting, and Blacklisting. The heirs of this movement are much more numerous today than in 1954, and the true journalists have been replaced by mere actors, playing the part of journalists. We have gone from a nation...

very ironic announcement that I just got in my Harvard email announcing a forthcoming lecture: HARVARD UNIVERSITY EDMOND J. SAFRA FOUNDATION CENTER FOR ETHICS Eliot Spitzer, former Governor and Attorney General of New York, will deliver a public lecture as part of the 2009/10 Labs Lectures on the Question of Institutional Corruption. Thursday, November 12 at 4:30pm Emerson Hall, Room 105 25 Quincy Street, Cambridge This is a ticketed event.

Members of Seattle University’s Muslim community have been gathering signatures on a petition since Monday to voice their resentment over the university hosting author Nonie Darwish last week. Darwish, a former Muslim who renounced Islam for Christianity and tours the nation speaking out against radical Islam and Sharia law, spoke at Seattle University Thursday. Event organizers maintain they brought Darwish to campus to foster discussion about human rights issues and conflict in the Middle East. “The idea of a university is to exchange ideas,” said Gracie Cohen, a sophomore pre-major who publicized Darwish’s talk. Some students, however—who said Darwish spreads...

The National Education Association has made a glowing assessment of radical socialist community organizer Saul Alinsky and is enthusiastically recommending American public school teachers read two of his books, including one dedicated to Satan. On its website, the NEA dubs Alinsky "an inspiration to anyone contemplating action in their community! And to every organizer!" It recommends Alinsky's "Reveille for Radicals," a 1946 book about the principles and tactics of "community organizing," and "Rules for Radicals," a 1971 text that articulated a socialist strategy for gaining political power to redistribute wealth from the "haves" to the "have-nots." The NEA, the largest...

Regardless of your tribal affiliations, were you cautiously optimistic when our new president promised to "restore science to its rightful place" in the formulation of public policy? Were you embarrassed by the prior occupant's politicization of issues that should have been decided on a more scientific basis? Did you assume that Barack Obama would surround himself with apolitical science advisors unencumbered by embarrassing anti-science baggage and free of culture-war axes to grind? To paraphrase a once famous mayor of New York - So how's he doing so far? You're probably aware that the H1N1 swine flu vaccine supply has fallen...

I have discussed with Freepers over the last 4 months that I am back in school earning my Masters degree. Today my head about exploded when not only my professor but people (grown adults) said Communism was a fear on paper but never a real threat to the U.S. Let me give you direct quotes taken from today's lecture. "Exactly where does communism fit in today's classroom, newspapers, and television sets? It doesn't, only the right wing fringe in this country wants you to believe that is the case, where is the proof? America feared communism based on it being...

Rather remarkable ways in which millions of dollars were passed out. no wonder no jobs were created. I thought "shovel ready" meant something.

I was just reading one of my daughters "history" books called, "Call to Freedom". (credit is given to "CNNfyi.com" so I knew this was going to spell trouble.) In a chapter called "The Great Society", the book brags about LBJ's accomplishments in poverty. Here's a quote..."Partly because of Johnson's Great Society, poverty in the US decreased. Overall unemployment levels stayed low and the percentage of Americans living below the poverty level dropped to about 12% by 1969. Americans' income levels rose more during the 1960's than they had during the prosperous years of the 1950's". There are chapters devoted to...

Rocco Landesman, the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) chairman, said, in part: "This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln. If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar. That has to be good for American artists."...

Did I miss something? What did Obama write?

Love Can Mess You Up: Before Arthur David Horn met his future bride Lynette (a "metaphysical healer") in 1988, he was a tenured professor at Colorado State, with a Ph.D. in anthropology from Yale, teaching a mainstream course in human evolution. With Lynette's guidance (after a revelatory week with her in California's Trinity Mountains, searching for Bigfoot), Horn evolved, himself, resigning from Colorado State and seeking to remedy his inadequate Ivy League education. At a conference in Denver in September, Horn said he now realizes that humans come from an alien race of shape-shifting reptilians that continue to control civilization...

A panel of legal scholars has suggested that Congress remove sodomy as a crime punishable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a recommendation that could boost efforts to end a ban on gays serving openly in the U.S. military. The Commission on Military Justice recommended that Article 125, which deals with sodomy, be repealed, arguing that “most acts of consensual sodomy committed by consenting military personnel are not prosecuted, creating a perception that prosecution of this sexual behavior is arbitrary.” In its report — dated October 2009 — the commission suggested several changes be made to the UCMJ, including...

First-century believers could have offered tangible evidence that there was little chance for the gospel to have an impact on the status quo of religious and civil oppression in their day. How could a small band of men—led by a fisherman (Peter) and a tentmaker (Paul)—living under Roman occupation ever conceive that their circumstances would change enough so that the gospel message would lead to the transformation of the world? To add to the improbability of a world-wide impact, soon after the victorious ascension of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on His disciples, one of their own...

The secret to sex appeal lies with the tampering of pheromones, creating a "sexual tsunami", according to new research. Scientists at the University of Toronto ... discovered that when the pheromone was removed, it created a "sexual tsunami" where the bugs proved attractive to one another, regardless of sex. The research found that male fruit flies with no history of homosexuality attempted to mate with their pheromone-free males ... Even flies of a different species were interested, according to the research team. "Lacking these chemical signals eliminated barriers to mating," Prof Levine said.

Tenured Radical Goes Global Malcolm A. Kline, October 16, 2009 A professor whom Accuracy in Academia has covered extensively is getting ready to take his act on the road. “Juan Cole, the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, produces a steady stream of writings that downplays the threat radical Islam poses to America and the West,” Jonathan Schanzer writes in The American Thinker. “His opinions are at odds with the beliefs of most Americans.” “Now, through a project designed to foster an understanding of America in the Arab world, he appears to be at...

Conservative warrior David Horowitz was scheduled to speak at St. Louis University this month. But he won’t be. University officials canceled his speech because of its title: “Islamo-Fascism Awareness and Civil Rights.” Horowitz commented: “I have spoken at 400 universities. This is the first time my speech has been censored and stopped by an administration. And they are supposed to be the guardians of intellectual discourse.” Cary Nelson, the president of the American Association of University Professors, said that with this cancellation, St. Louis University “joins the small group of campuses that are universities in name only…. The free exchange...

A group of UC Berkeley law students will launch a torture accountability initiative next week dedicated to holding the authors of the infamous torture memos accountable, reinstating respect for the prohibition against torture and ending executive abuse of power and impunity. Called the Boalt Alliance to Abolish Torture (B.A.A.T.), at their kick-off Oct. 13 the group will host a panel of lawyers and legal academics to discuss the memos crafted by the Bush administration’s legal counsels at the Department of Justice, including Berkeley Law Professor John Yoo. Yoo, who spent the previous semester at Chapman University, returned to the UC...

Months of Republican attacks on President Barack Obama’s health-care proposals appear to have hurt the party, according to a Quinnipiac University poll. The survey found 64 percent of voters disapproving of the way Republicans in Congress are doing their jobs, with 25 percent approving. Also, 53 percent had an unfavorable opinion of the party in general, while 25 percent rated it favorably. The performance of Democratic lawmakers was disapproved of by 56 percent, with 33 expressing approval. For the party in general, 46 percent expressed disapproval, 38 percent approval. Asked who they trusted to do a better job on the...

The global Muslim population stands at 1.57 billion, meaning that nearly 1 in 4 people in the world practise Islam, a landmark study has claimed. Britain has a total of 1,647,000 Muslims - just 2.7 per cent of the British population, and 0.1 per cent of the global Muslim population, the report claimed. The Pew Forum report also revealed that Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon - or North and South America combined. It claimed that about five per cent of Europe's population practises Islam - and that there are more Muslims living in Asia than in the Middle East....

I have been a faculty member at a major State University for 40 years. Several years after my arrival, I voted for George McGovern. Eight years later, I voted for Ronald Reagan. In those eight years, my family and I experienced several traumas that caused me to reevaluate -- and ultimately, drastically alter -- the political, cultural and economic axioms that had governed my life. Within months of buying my first home in an excellent neighborhood, within walking distance to the University and, most importantly, located in a district with an outstanding local public elementary school, my five year old...

The past haunts Richard Nixon's library/h2> Once privately run, the Yorba Linda presidential museum is making a transition to government operation. And that has turned statues of Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai into political footballs. The statues depict two old men relaxing in easy chairs. As others mill about the drawing room, the men engage in conversation, one gesturing at the other to underscore a point. For nearly 20 years the likenesses of China's communist leaders Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai have sat perfectly still in the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda. Now, they are creating...

BURLINGTON TOWNSHIP -- New Jersey's education commissioner ordered a review after a YouTube video shows school children learning a song celebrating President Barack Obama. The video shows more than a dozen youngsters at B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington Township. The district said the students were participating in Black History Month in February. Education Department spokeswoman Kathryn Forsyth said the commissioner has directed the school superintendent to review what happened. Forsyth said the commissioner wants to ensure that students can celebrate Black History Month without "inappropriate partisan politics in the classroom." Forsyth also said the teacher who directed the...

William “Bill” Ayers is a terrorist. Just ask him. In his memoir Fugitive Days, he admits planting bombs in federal buildings such as the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol (“Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon,” he writes). He was one of the founders of the radical terrorist group the Weather Underground. Escaping justice because of prosecutorial misconduct, he transformed himself into a respected academic, a distinguished professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago. There is perhaps no better symbol of the 1960s moral relativist than he. It is not every day that a self-described terrorist and...

There was a time, not so long ago, when the term "Internet Freedom" actually meant what it implied: a cyberspace free from over-zealous legislators and bureaucrats.... Those days are now gone; the presumption of online liberty is giving way to a presumption of regulation. A massive assault on real Internet freedom has been gathering steam for years and has finally come to a head. Ironically, victory for those who carry the banner of "Internet Freedom" would mean nothing less than the death of that freedom.... Here is the reality: Because of the steps being taken in Washington right now, real...

On August 25th 2009, Big Hollywood’s Patrick Courrielche broke the story of a conference call he attended with other “rising artist and art community luminaries”: On Thursday August 6th, I was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts to attend a conference call scheduled for Monday August 10th hosted by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve. The call would include “a group of artists, producers, promoters, organizers, influencers, marketers, taste-makers, leaders or just plain cool people to join together and work together to promote a more civically engaged America and celebrate how...

It's a new school year, but an old fight is brewing in American classrooms. Teachers and administrators around the country are scratching their heads once again over the Pledge of Allegiance. The courts have consistently ruled that students have the right not to recite the pledge in public schools. But now some First Amendment advocates are taking it one step further, arguing that the law compels educators to inform kids at the beginning of school that the decision is entirely up to them. They're advocating a "Miranda warning" for the Pledge... See the rest of article posted at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,550063,00.html.

Must go to the site for audio and see the Glenn Beck links too. http://www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/watercooler/2009/sep/01/official-dishonesty-national-endowment-arts/

Hard-edged propaganda now suffuses America's history textbooks. A thorough cover-to-cover reading of almost any high school history text leaves you with the impression that the United States is at best embarrassing, and at worst a menace to world peace. I think I was in fifth grade when I began to suspect that textbooks weren't entirely on the level. The first tip-off came from the word problems in math class. They typically began with scenarios that, even to a 10-year-old, seemed a little unlikely: "Julio's mom is a welder. His father is a pediatric nurse. If his mom welds for 9...

As a member of the American Psychological Association for 36 years, I am filled with indignation at the recent statement of the APA that deems it “inappropriate” for therapists to treat homosexual clients. Such therapy is called reparative therapy and has as its goal the establishment of a heterosexual orientation in place of a homosexual one. This statement of the APA has been issued despite the fact that there are a number of outstanding members of that organization, including two past presidents, who have strongly supported reparative treatment.Issued in August, “Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation” advises treatments that “increase...

College Republicans Compiling List of Liberal Professors at Ohio School UT College Republicans President Matt Rubin, a junior majoring in political science and public administration, says the list is not an attempt to bash professors who have liberal ideas, but an attempt to speak out for students who may have been victims of political bias. Randiah Green, The Independent Collegian Uwire Monday, August 31, 2009 The University of Toledo's College Republicans are compiling a list of liberal professors who they claimed have a bias against conservative students. The list will include professors who students say have let their political views...

The Nebraska Supreme Court says someone who commits sexual harassment shouldn't be able to later sue the victim when the original harassment complaint was true. So the high court declined Friday to intervene in a dispute between two Creighton University Spanish professors. Creighton officials sanctioned Roxana Recio in 2004 for harassing Michelle Evers. Recio later sued Evers in 2006, saying the harassment complaint improperly interfered with Recio's job at Creighton.

The official story is that fear of Muslim violence drove Yale University Press (YUP) to censor the Danish Muhammad Cartoons and other imagery of Muhammad from an upcoming book about, well, the Danish Muhammad Cartoons. That's what Yale, its administration and press, says publicly, matter-of-factly, and, it seems, without shame. But it is a shameful thing. Yale's decision to censor pictures of Muhammad from an academic text about them is one of those watershed moments that history will record as institutional capitulation to Sharia (Islamic law) at one of the storied centers of Western learning, American branch. It also happens...

Yale University is publishing a book about the notorious cartoons of Muhammad, printed in Danish newspapers in 2006, that inflamed radical Muslims and touched off riots in which upward of 200 people were killed. While many Muslims say any depiction of Muhammad is blasphemous, the irreverence shown to Judeo-Christian religious figures has become so commonplace in Western culture that only the deeply religious notice anymore, and when they complain, they're dismissed as bigots or worse by academics and journalists. By comparison, the Muhammad cartoons were quite mild, but you're going to have to take our word because Yale, that bastion...

The L.A.Times' Dan Neil is confused. He thinks that the so-called progressive movement is right on all the issues, but he just cannot understand why they can't win the public debate. Neil laments that they have all the "English majors" on their side but cannot win "any war of words." Just what is going on here, he wants to know? He's so frustrated that he took to his keyboard to ask these questions in a Pittsburgh Gazette article from August 9. In his piece, Neil wonders, for instance, why the "progressives" are so inept at debate and cannot convince the...

Culture Challenge of the Week: Immoral Sex Indoctrination Much of what is being taught to our young girls and boys in sex-education classes is too graphic and vulgar to be quoted in the newspaper. For that, you can blame Planned Parenthood, Advocates for Youth, and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). The content of sex-education programs is dominated by these groups, which instruct our children on how to perform sexual acts, including homosexuality and sadomasochism. Their materials promote a radical political agenda, are highly pornographic, encourage our children to be sexually active and are largely...

A Tale of Two Bunnies by: Malcolm A. Kline, August 03, 2009 We have long wondered precisely what post-graduate activity women’s studies courses prepare young women for. The Bunny Ranch has given us an answer. “Last year a 22-year-old Californian going by the pseudonym Natalie Dylan decided that a fun thesis for her master’s degree would be the following experiment: Auction her virginity to the highest bidder,” Ed Vitagliano reports in the August 2009 issue of the AFA Journal. “Dylan had already earned her bachelor’s degree in women’s studies and, in September 2008, while working in preparation for entering a...

This country’s Founding Fathers were racist, sexist white men whose opinions don’t matter in today’s world -- unless they can be used to bolster liberal talking points. The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers by Brion McClanahan smashes those misguided notions by re-examining the men who helped forge this country’s government without falling back on postmodern spin. Founding Fathers is a painstaking look at how the country began, where the Founders stood on key issues like freedom of religion, as well as how they came to their political philosophies. It also details the spirited debates behind some of the...

Half-a-century ago, a band of Leftist thugs violently took over the administration building at Columbia University and hijacked the American education system. From that moment on, they used this system to indoctrinate - in fact brainwash - generation after generation into their cult of Leftism. For the next five decades (pseudo)-intellectuals, hiding behind tenure and “Academic Freedom,” have been spewing greater and greater nonsense designed for one purpose and one purpose only: sabotaging and eventually destroying all of Western Civilization. Don’t think so? Simply consider the fact that one of the most oft-repeated chants of the Modern Liberal movement is...

Howdy all, I'm a long-time lurker, occasional poster here on FR. I’ve always enjoyed the good articles, lively debate and excellent resources for conservatives here, so I’m taking the liberty of bringing a slight “issue” to y’all to see what you think. Recently (around the start of summer, about two months ago) my younger sister (aged 22) started talking about a young man she’d met in one of her Communications classes. She said he was very nice, handsome, smart, and it was obvious that she was starting to take an interest in him. About a month ago, they went out...

Professor William Calvin Unhinged! Calls on scientists to use 'interventional activism' to combat global warming! 'Climate will change our ways of doing science' - Claims 'long term thinking can be dangerous' Monday, August 03, 2009- By Marc Morano – Climate Depot [Climate Depot Editorial Note: Dr. Calvin should consider heeding the wisdom of Dr. Richard Lindzen. See: MIT Climate Scientist Lindzen: 'Ordinary people see through man-made climate fears -- but educated people are very vulnerable' - July 6, 2009 ] By William Calvin, Neuroscientist at the University of Washington School of Medicine; Author of “A Brain for All Seasons: Human...

An attorney for Sarah Palin has delivered a letter threatening legal action against an anti-Palin blogger who was the source of a divorce rumor that the attorney for the former Alaska governor called "categorically false." Publication of the letter at a Web site that repeated the rumor has uncovered circumstantial evidence that the anti-Palin blogger "Gryphen" is a kindergarten teacher at an Anchorage elementary school.... CNN stringer/anti-Palin blogger Dennis Zaki published ... a copy of a letter from Palin attorney Thomas Van Flein, ordering "Gryphen" to retract the allegations -- calling them "complete fabrications, false and defamatory" -- or face...

School districts, state agency blamed in molestation case Indiana child welfare officials and school districts in two states had a responsibility to protect children in Lee N. Tibbetts’ classroom, but a series of miscommunications and missteps among those agencies failed to catch a pattern of problematic behavior over three years. That breakdown allowed Tibbetts to remain in the classroom despite multiple accusations, including one that eventually led to the math teacher being arrested on charges alleging he molested a student while teaching for Indianapolis Public Schools. A review by The Indianapolis Star and The Cincinnati Enquirer shows that red flags...

This is what appears to anger today's Russian historical establishment: accounts of Red Army crimes on the march to Berlin; assertions by the Baltic countries and others in Eastern Europe that Soviet forces came as occupiers as much as liberators; any suggestion that Stalin's Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were anything but complete opposites and bitter enemies.

When I began examining the political affiliation of faculty at the University of Oregon, the lone conservative professor I spoke with cautioned that I would "make a lot of people unhappy." Though I mostly brushed off his warning – assuming that academia would be interested in such discourse – I was careful to frame my research for a column for the school newspaper diplomatically. The University of Oregon (UO), where I study journalism, invested millions annually in a diversity program that explicitly included "political affiliation" as a component. Yet, out of the 111 registered Oregon voters in the departments of...

On the eve of the celebration of the birth of the United States, Oleg Atbashian looks at our history through the competing lenses of progressivism and progress. Refusing to get bogged down in the merits of relativity, he finds freedom where equality fears to tread. Excuse me while I question your patriotism, progressive comrades. The Fourth of July is coming and you will not be celebrating it — not with the same thoughts and emotions as the rest of your countrymen. If you have been undermining this country for most of the year, why should this day be different?A critical...

Rush just brought up the Frank Lombard story and will be talking about it in this half hour. You can listen here on the internet. www.wrva.com 

Following the contested Iranian election, the green armbands of the opposition and pictures of bloodied and dying Iranian protesters were being held aloft by Iranians from Los Angeles to Paris. Noticeably absent from the international scene were Westerners, particularly students. The reaction to events in Iran has shown once again the double standards and hypocrisy of those in Europe and the West who jump at the slightest opportunity to protest Israel but remain stoic in the face of events in Iran. While many have compared the outpouring of anger in Iran to what presaged the 1979 revolution, there is one...

Sometimes you just have to laugh out loud at those who consider themselves to be "conscious, enlightened, and progressive". HawaiiReporter: "The University of Hawaii has confirmed that from January 2008 to May 2009, the editor, Kris DeRego, made up the names of 21 sources in his articles and quoted eight people identified as students who were not enrolled at the time the articles were published." Akamai readers will remember that the Honolulu Advertiser endorsed DeRego for Board of Education in 2006. After semi-naked pictures emerged of Mr DeRego with airbrushed wings emerged on the internet, he was defeated by John...

WASHINGTON — A Duke University official has been arrested and charged with offering his adopted five-year-old son for sex. Frank Lombard, the school's associate director of the Center for Health Policy, was arrested after an Internet sting, according to the FBI's Washington field office and the city's police department. According to an affidavit by DC Police Det. Timothy Palchak, an unnamed informant facing charges in his own child sex case led authorities to Lombard. Authorities said that Lombard tried to persuade a person — whom he did not know was a police officer — to travel to North Carolina to...