Free Republic

A raft of evidence shows that caste discrimination has been imported from India to the United States. Indians and Indian Americans are often held up as a “model minority” in the United States. Members of this community are more likely to be highly educated and to have health insurance, make more money, work in more senior positions, and have lower rates of poverty than both the average immigrant and the average American. They are well represented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—the so-called STEM subjects—and more and more of them occupy roles of political and social influence, including Vice President...

As Ron DeSantis pursues the presidency, his wife’s role is limitless. Casey, 42, isn’t a typical political spouse. Why does that inspire so much fear? Her rise in TV and insular marriage tell the story.“Where is she at?”Ron was always asking.Ron DeSantis was in the middle of a picnic in Sioux Center, Iowa, bent over a homemade poster. Four photos, arranged in a neat grid, stared back at him: Ron and Casey, smiling on election night, 2022; Ron and Casey, smiling outside the governor’s mansion, 2021; a headshot of Ron; a headshot of Casey. The governor signed his name in...

...And as I tucked into my first vegan mockburger on the plane home – nicely pink inside, my tastebuds honestly couldn’t distinguish it from the real thing – it left me thinking, why are we so willing to wield the nanny state when it comes to cannabis but not something like meat, which does real social harm? ..... Take a step back and it seems bonkers that our political leaders hold firm on outlawing weed but seem loth to invoke the nanny state where it’s most needed: in avoiding catastrophic climate change. We won’t succeed in this unless we persuade...

Update: 12:30 PM EST (November 25, 2018) – VIBE has learned that the accuser is not a transgender woman, but is, in fact, an alleged cisgender ex-boyfriend who identifies as a gay man. A cisgender man—who many believed to be a transgender woman—has come forward to accuse Dwight Howard of sexual harassment and threatening his life. On Saturday (Nov. 24) Twitter user Masin Elije took to the social platform and went into detail about their alleged relationship and the events leading up to the present day accusation. Elije said he met Howard on the set of Wild ‘N Out. “We...

President Trump appears to be getting impatient with the infighting between his closest advisers. The White House is becoming increasingly split between Steve Bannon, who favors a more nationalist approach to domestic and foreign policy, and Jared Kushner and senior economic adviser Gary Cohn, both of whom have tried to bring the president toward the center on key issues such as immigration reform. Trump has not been impervious to the strained relationship between his closest confidants, and he issued a warning to his inner circle on Thursday at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, a source with direct knowledge of the...

When Vice President Mike Pence declared that national security adviser Michael Flynn didn't talk to the Russian ambassador about sanctions before President Trump's inauguration, he was repeating what Flynn had told him directly, a source in the Trump administration tells the Daily News. Pence said in a Jan. 15 appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation" that Flynn's pre-inauguration contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak had nothing to do with the Obama administration's sanctions punishing Russia for its meddling in the 2016 election. That claim has now been directly contradicted by reports in the New York Times and Washington Post that...

One of the guiding principles of the tea-party movement is based on a myth Wouldn't it be splendid if the solutions to America’s problems could be written down in a slim book no bigger than a passport that you could slip into your breast pocket? That, more or less, is the big idea of the tea-party movement, the grassroots mutiny against big government that has mounted an internal takeover of the Republican Party and changed the face of American politics. Listen to Michele Bachmann, a congresswoman from Minnesota and tea-party heroine, as she addressed the conservative Value Voters’ Summit in...

“In all seriousness, I think schools should be open 12, 13, 14 hours a day, seven days a week, 11-12 months of the year,” Duncan said. “This is not just more of the same. There would be a whole variety of after-school programs. Obviously academics would be at the heart of that. But you top it off with dancing, art, drama, music, yearbook, robotics, activities for older siblings and parents, ESL classes.” He continued by explaining that the American school calendar is antiquated and must be modified so that American students can compete at the highest levels internationally.

1. Best Picture: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "Frost/Nixon," "Milk," "The Reader," "Slumdog Millionaire."

A California appellate court has struck terror in the ranks of home schooling advocates by ruling that their children can't be taught at home without at least some oversight. Public education foes see this as an all-out attack on the concept of home schooling. That is not the case. And members of The Times editorial board didn't get it right either. (snip) It's evident that the vast majority who teach their offspring in front of the television do so because they don't want their children to be subjected to such dangerous doctrines as evolution, abortion, global warming, equal rights and...

Despite extreme right-wing activists' repeated threats to avenge Jerusalem terror attack, destroy terrorist's home in Arab neighborhood, senior police officials admit 'protestors' determination and use of stones and firecrackers' surprised them Aviram Zino Published: 03.16.08, 23:17 / Israel News The Jerusalem Police on Sunday failed to prevent hundreds of extreme right-wing activists from arriving at the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber and hurling stones at its residents, despite repeated threats to by rightists to avenge the murder of eight yeshiva students in Jerusalem 10 days ago and destroy the terrorist's home. "We were surprised by the intensity of the...

When a conservative talk show host introduced Sen. John McCain at an Ohio rally this week and referred to his possible opponent by his full name - "Barack Hussein Obama" - he highlighted a probable attack strategy, should Obama get the Democratic nomination: American xenophobia. If the ascendancy of Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic race shows that Americans' attitudes toward race and gender have evolved, the latest round of media images alluding - incorrectly - to an overseas Muslim upbringing for Obama will test the degree to which Americans fear foreigners in a post-Sept. 11 world....

The epithet of choice these days for Republicans who oppose any expansion of government’s role in health care programs is “socialized” medicine. Rudy Giuliani has used the “s-word” to denounce legislation that would enlarge a children’s health insurance program and to besmirch Hillary Clinton’s health plan. Mitt Romney has added a xenophobic twist, calling the Clinton plan “European-style socialized medicine,” while ignoring its similarities to a much-touted health care reform he championed as governor of Massachusetts. Other conservative critics have wielded the “s-word” to deplore efforts to expand government health care programs or regulation over the private health care markets....

The gun industry is laughing all the way to bank, and poor saps, America's gun owners, are getting stuck with the bill. Memo to gun owners: You're getting played for fools and the gun industry is stealing your money. Let us explain. To protest Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH rallies against illegal guns on August 28th -- the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s historic March on Washington -- gun zealots are urging gun owners to, drum roll please.........BUY MORE GUNS! The Firearms Coalition, founded in 1984 by gun extremist Neal Knox, is holding a National Exercise Your Rights...

Karl Rove dreamed of creating a "permanent Republican majority." But as President Bush's longtime adviser exits the Washington scene, the political landscape he helped chart is already shifting beneath his feet: The era of conservative values -- a tight-fisted approach toward government aid to the poor, traditional positions on social issues and a belief in a muscular foreign policy -- that emerged in the 1990s is coming to a close.

Rugged American individualism could hinder our ability to understand other peoples' point of view, a new study suggests. And in contrast, the researchers found that Chinese are more skilled at understanding other people's perspectives, possibly because they live in a more "collectivist" society. "This cultural difference affects the way we communicate," said study co-author and cognitive psychologist Boaz Keysar of the University of Chicago. Simple study The study, though oversimplified compared to real life, was instructive. Keysar and his colleagues arranged two blocks on a table so participants could see both. However, a piece of cardboard obstructed the view of...

A supposed letter to the editor making the rounds of the Internet (credited to various authors at different Web sites, including "Albert V. Burns," "Rosemary LaBonte" and "Ann Marie Coviello") compares today's immigrants (bad) with the immigrants of yesteryear (good)SnipIt explains why a poster at FreeRepublic.com inserted the face of Rudy Giuliani in what looks to be an old movie still of a sombrero-wearing bandito and added the caption "Borders? Borders? We don' need no steenking borders." It explains why Giuliani has backed off the pro-immigrant stance he had when mayor of New York City. And it explains why even...

In a rather soft boiled story on West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd's dotage and his uselessness as an able bodied member of the Senate, at 89 he's currently the longest serving Senator in American history, the AP did the right thing in reminding the readers that Byrd was once a member of the Klan. Yet, they had to go and ruin the truth by claiming that Klan members are "certainly conservative." In fact, this AP story amazingly tries to make it seem as if Byrd had only late in life become that member of Congress that has been "endeared" to...

In a very vivid way, this Ann Coulter moment is shining a light on the right-wing movement that is so bright that even national journalists would be able to recognize some important truths if they just looked even casually. Kirsten Powers was on Fox last night with Bill O'Reilly and Michelle Malkin and, as shocking as it is, Powers managed to ask the only question that matters with this whole episode, thereby forcing Malkin to make the critical concession, the one which right-wing pundits have been desperate to avoid: KP: [Coulter] has said a lot of horrible things . ....

"Throw those babies overboard!" "Why?" "To protect the family." "Whose babies?" File photo A newborn infant is held in this 1998 photo. "I don't know. Maybe yours. Maybe mine. Maybe your best friends' babies. Maybe my best friends' babies." "This is crazy. What are you talking about?" "Don't ask questions. It's the law. Just throw those babies overboard." Sound insane? It's no more insane than Wisconsin's gay marriage ban amendment on the Nov. 7 ballot. The people in favor of this amendment don't seem to understand what they're doing. They don't comprehend that what they want will bounce back at...