Free Republic

Our history and our heritage are being shoved by rioters, looters, and anarchists down the memory hole. This is year zero on their calendar. Everything that came before and every struggle for freedom and human dignity by patriots of all colors is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is now. The only thing that matters is what they tell you. How we got here and what makes us who and what we are may not be pretty or politically correct but it is important. We can’t know where we’re going if we don’t remember where we’ve been. The canceling of...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Senate has unanimously passed a resolution to recognize Juneteenth as a federal holiday, commemorating the glorious day Republicans freed the last of the Democrats' slaves. "We are so proud to show the world how not racist we are by officially recognizing the day the Republicans came charging in to free all our slaves," said Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer. "Yeah-- we Democrats did a little 'whoopsie' with that whole slavery thing, but the Republicans corrected it. Thanks, Republicans!" During this year's Juneteenth, the nation will gather to celebrate the American political party that was founded on protecting human rights...

President Joe Biden signed Juneteenth into law as a federal holiday on Thursday. Biden said that Americans “must” and “ought to” observe it — though he spent half a century in public office before doing anything about it. Sine June 19 happens to fall on Saturday this year, the federal government will observe Juneteenth on Friday, June 18, meaning that Biden shut down the entire U.S. government on short notice. (Remember that, the next time Democrats complain about a budget impasse.) Juneteenth, also called “Freedom Day” or “Emancipation Day,” celebrates the day in 1865 on which Union soldiers informed black...

Growing up in Texas, Juneteenth has been a holiday for me all my life. A time to BBQ, a time to pray, and a time to celebrate freedom. A time to reflect on June 19, 1865, when Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas to take command of the more than 2,000 federal troops. This was two and half years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had become law on January 1, 1863. Imagine Major General Granger walking through the streets of Galveston reading General Order No. 3 out loud in front of homes, courthouses, businesses, and churches....

At least eight global companies identified as benefitting from China’s enslavement of Muslim minorities published statements celebrating Juneteenth, an American holiday marking the end of slavery in the country. A Breitbart News analysis found that the eight companies are Abercrombie & Fitch, Amazon, Apple, FILA, General Motors, Google, Nike, and Ralph Lauren. Three other companies identified as benefitting from forced labor by Muslim minorities in China — Sony, H&M, and Gap — were more cautious in their approach, issuing statements on social media against hatred and racism and in support of diversity on the days ahead of July 19 without...

A Michigan movie theater company organized a Juneteenth Film Festival and the Democrat attorney general threatened to “criminally prosecute” the organizers. Emagine Entertainment announced it would hold the event at a Royal Oak theater to “honor the work of black actors, screenwriters, and filmmakers,” Fox 2 reported. But Attorney General Dana Nessel quickly intervened because it allegedly violated Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s executive orders still shuttering portions of the Michigan economy.

Former Vice President Joe Biden did not sponsor or co-sponsor any of the six bills recognizing Juneteenth during his time in the U.S. Senate, though he is now attempting to champion the holiday. Juneteenth commemorates the day that slaves in Galveston, Texas, were informed — on June 19, 1865 — that they had been freed by President Abraham Lincoln in the Emancipation Proclamation more than two years before. A search of GovTrack records of congressional bills, which is a complete record of all legislation dating back to 1973 — the year Biden entered the Senate — finds that Biden neither...

On Thursday Joe Biden, a lifelong racist, signed a law making Juneteenth a federal holiday.

President Biden on Thursday signed into law the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, turning the oldest celebration of the abolition of slavery in the U.S. into the country’s newest national holiday. “Great nations don’t ignore their most painful moments … they embrace them. Great nations don’t walk away, they come to terms with the mistakes they’ve made. In remembering those moments, we begin to heal and grow stronger,” Biden said at a signing ceremony at the White House attended by Vice President Harris, members of the Congressional Black Caucus and other lawmakers. “The truth is, it’s simply not enough to...

Republican Sens. Ron Johnson and James Lankford on Wednesday introduced an amendment proposing to replace Columbus Day with Juneteenth as a new federal holiday to avoid putting the U.S. “further in debt.” Johnson, R-Wis., and Lankford, R-Okla., rolled out their proposal as an amendment to bipartisan legislation rolled out by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, last month that would make Juneteenth a federal holiday. “In response to a bipartisan effort to give federal workers another day of paid leave by designating Juneteenth a federal holiday, we have offered a counterproposal that does not put us further in debt,” Johnson said Wednesday....

Republican senators Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) and James Lankford (R., Okla.) introduced an amendment Wednesday that would replace Columbus Day with Juneteenth as a federal holiday. The proposal, which follows last week’s introduction of a bipartisan Senate bill by Senator John Cornyn (R., Texas) that would establish Juneteenth as a federal holiday, is aimed in large part at offsetting the cost associated with Cornyn’s plan. Each new federal holiday costs an estimated $600 million in paid time off for government employees, according to a Fox News report. “Throughout our history, we have strived to become a more perfect union and...

Republican senators are debating whether Juneteenth, a day that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States, should replace Columbus Day on the federal government's list of official holidays. A bipartisan bill sponsored by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) to make Juneteenth a federal holiday is being held up by an internal Senate GOP squabble. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), an outspoken budget hawk, doesn't want to add another paid holiday to the calendar. Johnson says if Juneteenth is made a federal holiday, another paid federal holiday should come off the schedule. He's proposing scrapping Columbus Day but is open to...

President Donald Trump made a series of promises at a campaign event in Atlanta on Friday in a bid to woo Black voters, including establishing Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of U.S. slavery, as a federal holiday. Trump, who announced the promises less than 40 days before the November presidential election, also pledged to designate two groups as terrorist organizations: the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan and the amorphous movement known as antifa that opposes fascism. He also promised to increase access to capital in Black communities, create more jobs, support Black-owned businesses and expanding opportunity zones. Trump said he...

Juneteenth. It’s a profound holiday that was known by relatively few until now. I’ve written about it for years. It has special meaning to me for several reasons. Juneteenth (a mashup of June 19th) signified the nearly three-year delayed emancipation of 250,000 slaves in Texas who hadn’t yet received the news (even a month after the end of the civil war). It exemplified the hard-fought self-sacrifice of black and white brothers and sisters working together to end the evil of chattel slavery. It’s the anniversary date of the release of my book Not Equal: Civil Rights Gone Wrong which challenges...

This week, the Senate unanimously passed a bill declaring Juneteenth a national holiday, commemorating June 19, 1865, when a Union general informed the last enslaved people in Texas that, thanks to the 13th Amendment, they were free. This was the denouement of a long process, begun more than four score years before and cruelly delayed for many decades. There was virtually no articulate opposition to slavery, except among Quakers, in the North American colonies that rebelled against British rule in the 1770s. But there was an obvious tension between slavery and American assertions of individual rights, encapsulated in Thomas Jefferson's...

One mark of a fanatic is the ability to create something negative out of something positive. One mark of a fanatic is the ability to create something negative out of something positive. That certainly marks the approach of CNN yesterday on its home page when noting that the federal government created a brand-new national holiday commemorating Juneteenth, when slaves in Texas first heard that they were freed. Adam Ford noted the fanaticism on Twitter: This is CNN's home page right now. Our corporate media wants so badly for us to hate each other. It's really sick. pic.twitter.com/yta3lWoQAF — Adam Ford...

AOC calls out ‘white men’ who voted against Juneteenth Queens Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called out her House GOP colleagues who voted against establishing “Juneteenth” as a federal holiday. “They were all men and they were all white. Like all white men. There weren’t even women. Like no diversity in it,” AOC told TMZ in an on-the-street interview on Capitol Hill. “It just goes to show that there is a lot of denialism and that also kind of ties into why they don’t want us to teach the history of racism in our school either,” she added, taking a shot at...

The declaration of Juneteenth as a federal holiday is putting the pressure on more U.S. companies to give their employees the day off, accelerating a movement that took off last year in response to the racial justice protests that swept the country.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) was met with boos while attending a Juneteenth celebration on Saturday in Milwaukee, Wisc., WDJT reported. According to WDJT, the Republican senator was heckled by crowd members while speaking to reporters. At one point during the video, a bystander can be heard saying "We don't need you out here." The resistance to Johnson comes after the lawmaker issued a statement objecting to making Juneteenth a nationally recognized holiday earlier this week. “Last year, a bill was introduced to celebrate Juneteenth by providing an additional paid holiday for 2 million federal employees at a cost of $600...

On July 4, 1776, the United States of America declared themselves free and independent states, commencing a long journey to give the world a shining example of a nation in which limited government existed solely to secure the liberty of its individual citizens. This journey took a long time to accomplish. First, a War of Independence, then an economic retooling of the nation, then a long fight to find some way to eliminate the inhuman way that one class of Americans – the slaves - were treated under the law. Some call slavery “the original sin” of the American republic....