Free Republic

Ben Franklin is the prototype for the celebrity-as-politician. His autobiography is still in print; if he were alive, he’d be on Drudge’s columnists’ list, and command speaking fees that would turn Hillary Clinton green with envy. A popular T-shirt has a quote erroneously attributed to Franklin: ‘Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.’ But John Witherspoon? He wasn’t a fan of self-promotion, which was no less prevalent then. Today, in D.C., his statue stands at a tiny triangle where Connecticut Avenue intersects with N Street and 18th Street N.W. It is routinely ignored. At...

The Columbia University student who carried her mattress around campus to protest how the school dealt her alleged rapist has created a video of herself having violent sex for her latest art piece. Emma Sulkowicz's new work, 'Ceci N'est Pas Un Viol' or 'This is not a rape', shows the 22-year-old engaging in consensual sexual contact with an unidentified man before it takes a dark twist. In the footage, she cries in pain and protest in a dorm room as she is slapped, choked and forced into rough sex, the New York Daily News reported. The video was posted on...

Today President Obama further opened the financial floodgates from the U.S. to the world’s most notorious deadbeat nation—who is also a “State Sponsor of Terrorism.” Quotation marks are now required around the term “State-Sponsor of Terrorism” when referring to Cuba because just this morning, as the 45 day notification period to Congress expired, President Obama officially removed Cuba from the State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, where President Reagan had placed it in 1982. “Laughing all the way to the bank,” hardly does justice to what the multi-billionaire Castro family must be doing this week. The $7 billion...

Politics: President Obama removed Cuba as a state sponsor of terror Friday, forgetting the dictatorship's long record of killing, smuggling and, yes, terror. If this is the new standard, why not just scrap the list entirely? The lifting of Cuba from the list of nations that support terrorism was a farce that may well come back to the haunt the United States. After all, the ruling Castro regime that benefits from it in the name of normal relations with the U.S. and new access to World Bank loans is the same regime that once tried the first 9/11, aligning itself...

Venezuela is afflicted with the world’s highest inflation, its second highest murder rate and crippling shortages of food, medicine and basic consumer goods. Its authoritarian government is holding some 70 political prisoners, including the mayor of Caracas and senior opposition leader Leopoldo López, and stands accused by human rights groups of illegal detentions, torture and repression of independent media. All of that is now pretty well known, and it is finally beginning to gain some attention from Latin American leaders who for years did their best to appease or ignore Hugo Chávez and his “Bolivarian Revolution.” What’s less understood is...

Now, I have learned that after a hearing in late April, Nungesser was found "not responsible" in this latest case—altogether, the fourth time he has been cleared of a sexual assault charge at Columbia. When Sulkowicz first went public a year ago, the fact that her alleged attacker was still on campus and had never been subjected to any formal sanctions despite being accused of sexual assault by three different women helped fuel the outrage. Yet the latest investigation strongly supports Nungesser's claim, made in media interviews and in his lawsuit, that the multiple complaints were not independent of each...

Student activist Emma Sulkowicz made headlines last fall, pledging to carry her mattress around Columbia University’s campus until the administration expelled her alleged rapist, Paul Nungesser. That didn’t happen. Tuesday, both students were scheduled to graduate. So Sulkowicz, with the help of her friends, carried her mattress in the processional, continuing her protest. According to The Columbia Daily Spectator, the school’s administration emailed seniors on Monday saying, “Graduates should not bring into the ceremonial area large objects which could interfere with the proceedings or create discomfort to others in close, crowded spaces shared by thousands of people.” Sulkowicz disregarded this...

The good news for my generation is that we finally make up a controlling portion of the working population. The bad news is, that there probably aren't enough blankies and nap rooms to accomodate all of us as we graduate into the real world. At least, as some of us graduate into the real world. Others of us have too many things to do to take time out of our day to cuddle stuffed animals and gripe to each other about the cultural appropriation and microagressions typically associated with the Patriarchy. Thankfully, college students have no such demands on their...

For 17 years, Juan Reinaldo Sanchez served as bodyguard to Fidel Castro. But when he became disillusioned with the Cuban dictator’s hypocrisy and tried to retire in 1994, Castro had him thrown in prison. Sanchez made 10 attempts to escape the island, finally making it to the US in 2008. Now he reveals all in his new book, “The Double Life of Fidel Castro.” In this excerpt, Sanchez exposes “El Jefe’s” privileged life. Modal Trigger To Cubans, Fidel Castro presents himself as a man of the people, claiming to make only 900 pesos a month (about $38) and owning no...

Apparently only communists were invited After 17 years as a personal bodyguard of Fidel Castro, Juan Rienaldo Sanchez recently claimed in a new book that the Cuban dictator was a major trafficker of illegal drugs into the US for years- and profited handsomely from it. Sound plenty believable to me, North Korea exports meth for hard currency- and El Jefe was close with Columbia's coke-producing communist rebels/terrorists FARC. Other interesting revelations would be that Fidel kept his immediate family a secret -had more kids out of wedlock- and was kind of a lazy slob that 'always slept until 10 or...

For 17 years, Juan Reinaldo Sanchez served as bodyguard to Fidel Castro. But when he became disillusioned with the Cuban dictator’s hypocrisy and tried to retire in 1994, Castro had him thrown in prison. Sanchez made 10 attempts to escape the island, finally making it to the US in 2008. Now he reveals all in his new book, “The Double Life of Fidel Castro.” In this excerpt, Sanchez exposes “El Jefe’s” privileged life. To Cubans, Fidel Castro presents himself as a man of the people, claiming to make only 900 pesos a month (about $38) and owning no property other...

Juan Reinaldo Sanchez, 66, makes explosive claims in a new tell-all book Says Castro directed cocaine trafficking operations 'like a real godfather' Adds Cuban dictator presided over the trials of two government officials He then 'made other officials watch a video of one of men's executions' Sanchez was eventually imprisoned and tortured in Cuba in 1994 after he attempted to retire over concerns about Castro's 'corrupt' practices Castro, now 88, was previously Prime Minister and President of country

President Obama is rumored to be in talks to move to New York and teach as a professor at Columbia Law School once his time in the White House is over. The president has strong links to Columbia University: He was a transfer student from California’s Occidental College in 1981 as a 20-year-old junior, and graduated from Columbia in 1983. Obama also taught courses in constitutional law at the University of Chicago from 1992 until his election to the US Senate in 2004. He was a senior lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per...

The Columbia University student targeted by a mattress-carrying protester filed a lawsuit Thursday against the school, arguing that it failed to shield him from harassment even though police and campus authorities refused to pursue rape charges against him. In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court, Jean-Paul Nungesser said the school engaged in gender bias by allowing him to be subjected to a hostile and intimidating learning environment. The hostile environment was created, the lawsuit says, by the ongoing protest of fellow student Emma Sulkowicz, also known as the “mattress girl.”

Accused of Rape, a Student Sues Columbia Over Bias By BENJAMIN WEISER A Columbia University student who was accused of rape by a fellow student, who then targeted him in a very public campus action, filed a federal discrimination lawsuit on Thursday against the school; its president, Lee C. Bollinger; and one of its professors. The plaintiff, Paul Nungesser, who was cleared of responsibility in the rape claim by the university, alleges in the lawsuit that he had been the victim of a harassment campaign by the other student, Emma Sulkowicz. “By refusing to protect Paul Nungesser,” the lawsuit says,...

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — A Columbia University senior filed a lawsuit against the school Thursday, claiming that the university failed to protect him from harassment amid claims that he had raped a fellow student. The lawsuit was filed Thursday in Manhattan U.S. District Court by Paul Nungesser. The German citizen said the student’s campaign to muddy his name by dragging a mattress around campus and demonstrating has isolated him and hurt his job prospects and ability to stay in America.

Murderers Row at ColumbiaPosted By Matthew Vadum On April 13, 2015 @ 12:45 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments Weather Underground terrorist and convicted cop killer Kathy Boudin is now surrounded by fellow felons on the staff of the Columbia University School of Social Work where she crusades against the supposedly systemic racism of the justice system.The septuagenarian Boudin is assistant adjunct professor and director of the school’s “Criminal Justice Initiative: Supporting Children, Families and Communities” (CJI), which appears to be focused [1] on keeping criminals like her out of prison by abolishing imprisonment as a punishment. As her...

For union organizers in Colombia, the dangers of their trade were intensifying. When workers at the country’s largest independent oil company staged a strike in 2011, the Colombian military rounded them up at gunpoint and threatened violence if they failed to disband, according to human rights organizations. Similar intimidation tactics against the workers, say labor leaders, amounted to an everyday feature of life. For the United States, these were precisely the sorts of discomfiting accounts that were supposed to be prevented in Colombia under a labor agreement that accompanied a recently signed free trade pact liberalizing the exchange of goods...

Major hailstorm in Bogota, the capital city of Colombia covered the area with a 24-inch layer of icy snow affecting lives of around 900 people. More than 900 people have been affected by recent hailstorm in Fraguita, Antonio Nariño and Restrepo in the southern part of the city, El Espectador quoted Fire Department as saying. According to The Colombia Reporters, the excessive hail caused a number of emergencies across the city. Bogota Disaster Rick and Prevention unit confirmed that no victims were identified. However, several people were rescued from the collapsed roofs. Relief agencies have provided assistance such as hygiene...

If Christian broadcaster Stendal goes on trial in Colombia, missions work nationwide may be at risk. Is Russ Stendal, the famed missionary to FARC terrorists in South America, actually El Gringo, a terrorist leader seeking the overthrow of Colombia’s government? That question is before a three-judge panel, based on allegations from Carlos Manuel Silva, chief sectional prosecutor for the Colombian department of Cundinamarca, which includes the capital, Bogota. Stendal denies any allegation of leadership in FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). He said in a recent Facebook video, “Somebody set a trap for me, and I walked into it. They...