Free Republic

Leave it up to the working stiffs in the gardening department at Harvard to figure out how to send the campus protestors packing. How do you handle antisemites who won't get off your lawn? Well, leave it to the woikin' stiffs in hardhats at Harvard University to figure this one out. They turned the sprinklers on. Doing routine maintenance gardening work just like the union contract says meant they had to turn the sprinklers on to maintain the grass, with the programmed switch going off at 2:00 a.m. just like it was supposed to do. Snowflakes ran running. Who knew...

The Color Revolution is restless. Beginning in the former Soviet republics in the early 2000s, it moved along the coast of North Africa with the so-called Arab Spring in the 2010s, and, into the current decade, has spread further. The ostensible purpose of Color Revolutions—named after the Rose Revolution, Orange Revolution, and Tulip Revolution in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, respectively—is to replace authoritarian regimes with Western liberal democracies. American and European intelligence services are often heavily involved in these revolutions, with ambitions not only to spread modern ideologies but also to undermine geopolitical opponents. The West’s favored methods of supporting...

For a decade, progressive Democrat activities have damaged communities and destroyed lives, but the rich and powerful let it go...right up until it affected them personally. I’ll preface my commentary with the obvious: All of the “mostly peaceful” protests by our “college educated” on campuses nationwide that are clearly pro-Hamas and aimed at Jewish students are wrong, illegal, and all involved should either go back to the classes their parents and taxpayers are funding or be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But why the sudden sanctimonious outrage from the media and pundit class, billionaire donors,...

Voting with your feet and fleeing the policies of the Democrat left? Now, there’s a fine for that. When does the tarring and feathering start? You didn’t vote for this garbage, but your useful idiot neighbors did, so now you’ve decided to pack up and head to a state with lighter tax burdens (still a burden, but nonetheless more doable), where the government isn’t prioritizing “trans-ing” your child behind your back and threatening to sever the parental relationship if you get in the way; where prosecutors won’t come after you if you’re forced to defend yourself (or others, as in...

Democrats have already made it clear that they will stop at nothing – nothing – to prevent Donald Trump from winning in November. So, we aren’t surprised to read reports that President Joe Biden might declare a “climate emergency” this year in hopes that it gooses his reelection odds. Never mind that such a declaration would put the U.S. right on the path to a Venezuela-style future. Late last week, Bloomberg reported that “White House officials are weighing whether to declare a national climate emergency several months out from the 2024 election.” Bloomberg goes on to report that: White House...

On Friday, left-wing talk show host Bill Maher predicted that this year’s Democratic National Convention (DNC) would witness a repeat of the infamous riots that plagued the 1968 gathering. Breitbart reports that Maher, on his HBO show “Real Time,” compared the anti-Vietnam protests of the 1960s to the ongoing anti-Israel protests on college campuses across the country today. The upcoming 2024 DNC will be held in Chicago, the same city that hosted the 1968 DNC. Maher reflected on his memories of the 1968 DNC and the violent protests that overshadowed the convention’s nomination of then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey, saying that...

Rainer Zitelmann's book, How Nations Escape Poverty, is particularly interesting for American veterans who served as G.I.s in Vietnam or for those who may have lost their fathers or family members in the conflict. The irony of history is that the communists initially won — however, upon establishing their socialist regime across Vietnam, they came to realize what a huge mistake they had made. Today, young Vietnamese in particular admire the USA and capitalism, as Zitelmann’s book shows. He asked the Vietnamese which economic systems they admire and which they reject. According to the survey data, people in Vietnam have...

This year, it’s not just the pro-Hamas wing that will be protesting, but Black Chicagoans opposed to the Democrats’ open-border policies. I’m old enough to remember the 1968 DNC convention in Chicago, and smart enough to see that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is no Richard J. Daley. So, as food prices rise with no end in sight, I advise you to stock up on popcorn before the August 19 convention in Chicago this year. As for the Democrats, I cannot imagine a scenario where there is anything but downsides for picking this site, this year. In case you forgot, the...

CNN — In a sweeping win for climate and environmental advocates, the Biden administration on Friday finalized a rule to ban fossil fuel drilling on nearly half of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, alongside other major conservation actions. The Interior Department will block oil drilling on over 13 million acres in the Western Arctic, including about 40% of the land of the NPR-A – a remote area that is home to protected animal species including polar bears and caribou. The reserve is more than 23 million acres of public land and an underground emergency oil supply for the US...

The Scottish government has rescinded its 2030 target of a 75% emissions cut to greenhouse gas emissions, relative to 1990. The target was statutory, meaning it had been set in law in the Emissions Reduction Targets Act of 2019. Scotland is still subject to the 2030 carbon target for the UK as a whole. This was set in law by the UK parliament in 2016. Still, Scotland's move raises questions about the credibility of national (or in this case subnational) carbon targets and the usefulness of putting them into law. Climate policy experts have maintained that a crucial way to...

BISBEE, Ariz. — Boots dusty, lungs heaving, Dr. John Wiens searched the boulders of a desolate Arizona mountaintop for the last survivors of a 3-million-year-old lizard population — then said the words that both confirmed his life's work and broke his heart. "They're not there," he said. "It seems like the species is now extinct." The loss of plant and animal species on Earth is happening at a speed never seen in human history, according to the United Nations. That includes the likely extinction of the lizards Wiens has studied for 10 years — the population of Yarrow's spiny lizards...

Ms. Riddhi Patel, a pro-Palestinian protestor, has come to epitomize the cowardice of demonstrators engaging in vile threats and intimidation tactics. She proved to have quite a sewer mouth while screaming death threats at city council members in Bakersfield, California. A self-styled radical, Ms. Patel appeared to demand protection for a murderous gang of thugs, Hamas, by calling for a “Ceasefire Now” resolution. It came as a shock to Ms. Patel when the council did make a decision, but not the one she had in mind. Her intimidation tactics -- including a reference to bringing back the “guillotine to kill...

Some regard Social Emotional Learning (SEL) as an educational necessity; others as a Trojan Horse for neoMarxism indoctrination. Based on my experience as an SEL Specialist in Austin Independent School District from 2014 to 2021, I know that true SEL is important to learning and that the SEL in schools is a Trojan Horse for neoMarxism indoctrination. SNIP CASEL identified and defined five SEL competencies: 1. Self-awareness: Recognizing one’s emotions and thoughts and reflecting on their influence on behavior, including the ability to assess strengths and limitations, and possessing a well-grounded sense of confidence and optimism. 2. Self-management: Regulating one’s...

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) urged Americans on Monday to take matters into their “own hands” by removing “pro-Hamas mobs” blocking traffic throughout the country. In a statement on X, formerly Twitter, Cotton wrote, “I encourage people who get stuck behind the pro-Hamas mobs blocking traffic: take matters into your own hands to get them out of the way. It’s time to put an end to this nonsense.” According to The Daily Wire, Cotton’s call to action came on Monday as pro-Palestinian protesters blocked multiple roads across the United States to protest against Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas terrorists. Despite Israel...

On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) rejected an appeal from a leader of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement who was found liable for one of his follower’s violently attacking a police officer. As Fox News reports, far-left activist Deray Mckesson was sued in 2016 by a Baton Rouge police officer, who remained a nameless “John Doe” for the case, after the officer was injured by a protester who threw a “rock-like” object at him and hit him. The attack led to the officer losing several teeth and suffering a brain injury. The officer sued Mckesson,...

Donald Trump has the incredible ability to bait his political detractors into becoming exactly what he accuses them of being. If Trump says liberal elites hate democracy, they invent a radical legal theory to keep him off the ballot. If Trump says Democrats are weaponizing the justice system, they bring novel lawsuits designed to bankrupt him. And if Trump says there are people in government working against the American people, The New York Times brags that “the ‘deep state’ is actually kind of awesome.” It comes as no surprise that America’s self-proclaimed “newspaper of record” is leading the charge to...

The tremors we feel today promise a social earthquake still to come. In two previous essays, I have discussed popular nullification in the context of the American people rejecting the State’s propaganda and withdrawing their respect for the rule of law. As the U.S. and other Western governments continue to engage in a cognitive war against their own citizens, an increasing share of Western populations will conclude that their own institutions have been secretly targeting them as enemies. Because the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, and other globalist bodies have chosen to spread falsehoods (first they panicked about “global...

Do As We Say, Not As We Do: “I do find it ironic that a group that supposedly promotes ‘free speech for people’ organized a campaign to make sure that the opinions and views of people like me are not heard,” Mitchell told the DCNF. A federal agency did not reappoint a former Trump advisor to an elections advisory board called the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) after a left-wing activist group threatened to launch a public criticism campaign, according to emails obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who is now the senior legal fellow at...

Progressives are using legal loopholes and the power of the federal government to maximize Democrat votes in the 2024 election at taxpayers’ expense, RealClearInvestigations has found. The methods include voter registration and mobilization campaigns by ostensibly nonpartisan charities that target Democrats using demographic data as proxies, and the Biden administration’s unprecedented demand that every federal agency “consider ways to expand citizens’ opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and participate in, the electoral process.” A dizzying array of overwhelmingly “democracy-focused” entities with ties to the Democratic Party operating as charities and funded with hundreds of millions of...

When you sup with the Devil, you must bring a long spoon. Berkeley law dean Erwin Chemerinsky has never been a favorite of mine, but I love irony, and this week he’s my avatar of people whose actions have come back to bite them. He has publicly bragged, for example, how much easier it is to avoid anti-discrimination laws in his faculty hires than it is in student admission, tacitly admitting that is what he has done and what he encourages others to do. But that seems to be of no avail to him now that he’s become a target...