Free Republic

A key piece is missing from the national discussion about sexual harassment. The media’s spotlight on this terrible epidemic is welcome news for females everywhere, as the culture of silence has finally been dealt a severe blow. But, what about the men? I’m not referring to the lowlifes that victimize women—men that view us as objects to be groped, manhandled, or as the punch line in a dirty joke. I’m talking about the men who have witnessed this harassment or know it’s happened, but cowardly choose to stay silent.

Washington will swallow your soul if you let it. It’s a place where many moral compasses go to die. So maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Vice President of the United States is ridiculed when it’s reported that he’s spent his time in office choosing to live his life differently from the D.C. status quo. Since a Washington Post profile of Karen Pence, the vice president’s wife, appeared last week, critics have obsessed over a single line, which reported that, as of 2002, the vice president doesn’t dine alone with women other than his wife. At the...

We hear it all the time from politicians: They are finally going to stop the “waste, fraud, and abuse” in government. In states with more corruption, like Pennsylvania, New York, or Illinois, calls to clean up government are frequent as well. The problem is that these promises rarely come to fruition. This week—Sunshine Week—is a perfect time to stop waiting for someone else to fix these problems. Let’s look to citizens, and a push for more open government, to get the job done. As the saying goes, sunlight is the best disinfectant of all.

Did the GOP not just win an election, in part, because of the devastating effects Obamacare is having? They keep pledging they are going to repeal it, but one Republican Senator who will have a great deal of say in the matter wants to keep the Obamacare taxes in place. Some conservatives have long pushed for repealing the entire health law, including the taxes. But other Republicans, including Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), want to keep some of the taxes to provide revenue for a replacement plan. “There needs to be some source of revenue,” Cassidy told The Hill. He noted...

Like many Americans, HGTV stars Chip and Joanna Gaines attend a church where the pastor thinks homosexual behavior is a sin. And somehow that’s “news.” BuzzFeed printed the original story, headlined “Chip And Joanna Gaines’ Church Is Firmly Against Same-Sex Marriage.” From there it was picked up by Cosmopolitan, Us Weekly, and my favorite, Jezebel. Why? Now to be clear, the Gaineses aren’t even quoted in the original BuzzFeed story. We have no idea what they personally think about same-sex marriage. In fact, a spokesperson for the Antioch Community Church where the Gaineses attend, specifically tells BuzzFeed “she could not...

Late Friday evening, Cuban state media reported the death of their former leader, Fidel Castro. Some will mourn his passing or even glorify his life. But for many others, not even his death will fill the void caused by his life. For over five decades, Cubans suffered under the tyranny of Fidel and then his brother Raul. They watched the regime destroy a country and export the same perverted model of social justice throughout the developing world. My grandfather would often tell us of how he would hide indoors while Fidel’s firing squads would slaughter innocent people nearby. Religion was...

Earlier today, the D.C. City Council voted to allow physician-assisted suicide. But the debate isn’t over. The Washington Post reports that “the council must still hold a final vote on the bill, possibly as early as Nov. 15,” and that the mayor, Muriel Bowser, must decide if she’ll sign or veto the bill. The mayor should veto the bill. Physician-assisted suicide will change us all, for the worse—as I explain in a Heritage Foundation report, “Always Care, Never Kill: How Physician-Assisted Suicide Endangers the Weak, Corrupts Medicine, Compromises the Family, and Violates Human Dignity and Equality.” Too many people view...

There are more immigrants living in the United States than ever before. The foreign-born are more likely to come from China and India — often equipped with skills and a higher education — than Mexico. Many of the immigrants who live here have called the U.S. home for a while — an average of nearly 21 years — and their economic and social progress improves over time. Immigrants continue to flock to places where there are others like them. California has nearly one-fourth of the nation’s immigrants living there, while New York and Texas remain popular places for non-natives to...

Since both candidates in Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate have a record when it comes to religious liberty, you can bet the topic will come up—giving you the opportunity to talk with the people in your life about a deeply important issue. Unsurprisingly, religious liberty is a tricky topic to navigate because it’s personal. People feel strongly about the ability to live life as they want, but some betray the concept of tolerance by crying “intolerant!” if others want to live life through the lens of their faith. So, how do you talk about religious liberty with someone who thinks...

While away from Washington on August recess, House Freedom Caucus members are rethinking their relationship with the Republican Study Committee. Some are considering whether to call it quits and cancel their membership. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., confirmed the possibility of the breakup, telling The Daily Signal that as many as 20 members could allow their committee memberships to lapse. “There’s no big policy disagreement or major falling out as much as there is just a logistical concern,” said Meadows, a founding member of the Freedom Caucus. “It’s just become a function of how much are you going to invest in...

If you want to be unquestionably affirmed and unchallenged in all your beliefs and views, don’t go to the University of Chicago. In a letter published by Intellectual Takeout, John Ellison, dean of students at the Chicago college, warns incoming students that there is no tolerance for the kind of student demands that have trended in recent years: Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called ‘trigger warnings,’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from...

Five states and a group of religiously-affiliated hospitals and physicians are suing the Obama administration over a federal mandate that forces doctors to perform gender transition procedures on adults and children against their medical judgment. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in a Texas federal court, attempts to roll back a rule imposed by the Department of Health and Human Services in May that expanded the interpretation of “sex” under the Affordable Care Act to include “gender identity.” In doing so, the Obama administration added transgender people to the list of protected classes under the Affordable Care Act, which states that individuals...

Under a revamped Obama administration program intended to encourage greater cooperation from local law enforcement agencies in helping deport illegal immigrants who the government considers “a danger” to public safety, fewer people are being taken into custody for eventual removal from the country. In November 2014, the administration introduced the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), a less demanding version of a previous system that had been accused of violating immigrants’ civil rights, and did not differentiate between low-level and serious offenders. The old program, called Secure Communities, influenced a number of local jurisdictions — known as “sanctuary cities” — to not...

Five states will be down to just one health insurer on the Obamacare marketplace next year, and consumers in 664 counties are projected to face that same situation under a law sold as providing “choice and competition.” The five states that will have no choice are Alabama, Alaska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wyoming. Two more states, North Carolina and Kansas, are close to having only one Obamacare insurer, health policy experts note. Alabama will be down to a single insurance company next year because Humana and UnitedHealthcare announced their departure. Aetna and UnitedHealthcare exited South Carolina. UnitedHealthcare also departed Oklahoma.

On Monday, a three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused without comment to stay a Wisconsin district court opinion in One Wisconsin Institute v. Thomsen that threw out changes the state legislature had made in early voting rules as well as other changes such as the residency requirement for new voters. However, the state’s voter ID law will remain in place for the November election because the district court judge, James D. Peterson, a President Barack Obama appointee, stayed his earlier ruling against the ID law on Aug. 11. Peterson didn’t have much choice on that...

A major new report, published today in the journal The New Atlantis, challenges the leading narratives that the media has pushed regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. Co-authored by two of the nation’s leading scholars on mental health and sexuality, the 143-page report discusses over 200 peer-reviewed studies in the biological, psychological, and social sciences, painstakingly documenting what scientific research shows and does not show about sexuality and gender. The major takeaway, as the editor of the journal explains, is that “some of the most frequently heard claims about sexuality and gender are not supported by scientific evidence.” Here are...

In the first six months of 2016, foreign central banks sold a net $192 billion of U.S. Treasury bills, notes, and bonds. This is more than double the pace from the same time last year. China, Japan, and Brazil were the leaders in selling U.S. debt. With the U.S. debt running at approximately $19.4 trillion, this could be problematic. A large selloff of U.S. bonds would decrease their price, or in other worlds, increase domestic interest rates in general (bond prices and interest rates always move in the opposite direction).

President Barack Obama isn’t afraid to enact his agenda over the will of Congress. At this late stage in his presidency, he’s still overreaching his authority to push through an agenda; his most recent overstep being an effort to unilaterally raise the federal estate tax. Conservatives have successfully lessened the impact of the estate tax, colloquially known as the “death tax,” in recent years. In 2000, before George W. Bush became president, the death tax had a rate of 55 percent and struck families with assets valued at $675,000 or more.

Hillary Kieft grew worried when her daughter didn’t arrive from school on the bus as usual. After she called the school to find out what was wrong, a school nurse pulled into her driveway with the daughter (let’s call her “Kelly”) in tow. The nurse explained that she had taken Kelly for counseling after school, according to LifeNews.com, which reported on the Kieft story. But, in fact, the nurse took Kelly to have an abortion. In New Zealand—where the Kieft family lives—it is completely legal for a minor to have an abortion without her parents’ knowledge. Parents like Hillary Kieft...

Arguing that internet freedom and the constitutional power of the purse are at risk, a coalition of more than two dozen civil society groups and activists are calling on Congress to lawyer up and sue the Obama administration. The Commerce Department has violated federal law, the coalition of groups argued in an Aug. 10 letter to lawmakers, by finalizing plans to relinquish U.S. control of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. Though led by digital specific interest group TechFreedom, the coalition includes a number of different organizations like Heritage Action for America and Americans for Tax Reform. And they all argue...