Free Republic

Like every major college protest since the 1960s, the pro-Palestinian—which is to say, the anti-Israel—protests sweeping college campuses today have early and often been compared with the protests of that annus horribilis, 1968. There are plenty of similarities but also plenty of differences. History repeats itself as student and faculty protestors align themselves with the totalitarians. Then it was the Viet Cong, Mao, and the Khmer Rouge. Today it is the Sunni Muslim terrorist group Hamas, the main puppet master of the “pro-Palestinian” agitators. One apparently striking difference is the strong current of anti-Semitism. It is ubiquitous now; it was...

“Trade Compliance” is a subset of regulatory compliance, focused primarily on export controls and the Customs rules concerning importing and duty assessment. Outside of the occasional discovery of illegal Chinese copies of branded gym shoes, or the even rarer news story about a company caught selling technology to the Iranians or North Koreans, this specialty rarely makes the mainstream news. An exception occurred as April, 2024 came to an end: the Federal Trade Commission announced a record fine against an American retail chain, Williams-Sonoma, and its subsidiaries (including Rejuvenation, Goldtouch, and the Pottery Barn family), for violations of the FTC’s...

In 1969, a guy named Bill Ayers co-founded a terrorist organization called Weather Underground, whose founding document called for “world communism.”In 1969, Ayers set off a bomb in Chicago at a statue that was dedicated to the city’s police. At the time of the explosion, no one was close enough to the statue to be killed. However, the explosion was so powerful that it broke almost 100 windows.On March 6, 1970, three members of Weather Underground, including Diana Oughton (Ayers’s girlfriend) and Terry Robbins (Ayers’s close friend), were killed when they accidentally, prematurely set off a bomb which they were...

Al Sharpton just said:“How do the Democrats, how do all of us on that side say January 6 was wrong if you can have the same pictures going on on college campuses.”I applaud and admire Al Sharpton for being willing to so harshly criticize his own side of the political spectrum.

College campuses escalated their efforts to root out pro-Hamas occupations on Tuesday, with police arresting more than 430 people on nine different college campuses. Police have made more than 1,600 arrests in connection with the disruptive, illegal campus occupations since the first one began at Columbia University on April 19, according to an investigation by The Washington Stand. Disturbingly, some universities are beginning to cave to protestors’ demands to restore order to campus, even as campus protests become increasingly dominated by non-students. The sheer number of campus protests and arrests can be a bit bewildering to keep track of them...

You’ve had this coming for a loooooong timeOne of my favorite all-time films is 1982’s “The Verdict” starring Paul Newman as down-and-out attorney Frank Galvin who takes on a case against the Archdiocese of Boston.After astonishingly turning down a settlement offer from the defendant and opting to go to trial, Galvin soon loses his star witness.Desperate and not knowing what to do, Galvin goes to the home of the trial judge late at night to beg for a continuance.The judge slowly closes the door in his face and says “I have no sympathy for you.” Consider me the judge these...

Someone gave these 22 reasons to not vote for Trump.I will offer my own opinion on each of them.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiOBLqcNjBU1) Trump promises to carry out the largest domestic deportation in history.I agree with Trump.2) Death sentence for human traffickers.I agree with Trump.3) Close the Department of Education.I agree with Trump.4) Put prayer back into school.I disagree with Trump on this one.5) Criminalize any race based advantage programs.I agree with this one. But we already have it – it’s called the 1964 Civil Rights Act.6) Ban any federal dollars for gender affirming care.I agree with this to the degree that I’m against...

Does anyone know anything about Vivaldi? I was looking for a privacy browser for the new ?Chromebook I was given. Brave doesn't seem to want to download, but the web search pulled up the Vivaldi browser. (I guess you could say it's a browser for all four seasons.) Anyone used this browser? Know anything about it?

This video from UCLA shows a security guard standing by, watching, and doing nothing to intervene, as masked terrorists prevented a Jewish student named Eli Tsives from entering the university.https://twitter.com/persianjewess/status/1785021873555902744@UCLA Jewish student trying to attend class is forcibly prevented entry by 6 masked Pro-Hamas students while UCLA guard stands by and DOES NOTHING.“I am a UCLA student…my class is over there. I want to use THAT entrance. Let me go in.”#AntizionismIsAntisemitism🎥… pic.twitter.com/LY3mmCHXNw— The Persian Jewess (@persianjewess) April 29, 2024After the video went viral, Mary Osako, the school’s Vice Chancellor for Strategic Communications, issued the following statement:“Yesterday some physical altercations occurred...

I logged in today and the computer told me Facebook "can't be reached." Is anyone else having that experience. Is Herr Suckerberg's baby down again?

I am warming up to watch the documentary Rather, celebrating the career of the disgraced former CBS News anchor. It is to be aired this coming Wednesday on Netflix. Apparently having access to a screener for media critics, the Star Tribune’s Neal Justin found the documentary to be wanting (“when it comes to the stumbles, like walking off the set when a tennis match went long, the legendary broadcaster goes missing”). Speaking of “stumbles,” we have the matter of Rathergate. However, “stumble” doesn’t quite capture it. “Disgrace,” “disaster,” and “fraud” are more like it. Award-winning CBS News producer Mary Mapes...

I went to federal court in downtown Minneapolis yesterday morning for the opening statements in tbe first Feeding Our Future fraud trial. When it comes to Covid fraud, we’re number 1. The case features a cast of “diverse” defendants without much diversity. They are almost all Somali, I am sorry to say. By the same token, I believe that one of my Somali friends helped expose the fraud and assist in the investigation.All together, 70 defendants have been charged to date. Eighteen have pleaded guilty. One or two have agreed to cooperate with the prosecution. All the cases have been...

So who is behind the kill-the-Jews campus protests that, as Steve noted earlier today, have panicked Congressional Democrats who fear a political debacle as in 1968? Consistent with the retro nature of the protests, the organizers appear to be largely left-wing retreads, with a financial assist, it is reported, from one or more Soros entities.Take, for example, Charlotte Kates. Kates has been prominent in the Columbia protests: Radical anti-Israel activists told Columbia students, “There is nothing wrong with being a fighter in Hamas” — weeks before the campus exploded in pro-Palestinian protests.In a two-hour tirade to the hardest core of...

Hello, I'm planning a trip to Dallas in the next couple of weeks. I know nothing about Dallas so I am relying on your collective experience to help me out. I plan on making a trip to Dealy Plaza and visit the 6th Floor Museum. Not much of an itinerary but that is what I got. I plan on being there on a weekday afternoon, spend one full day and fly out the next day. Looks like Dallas Fort Worth Airport will be my starting point. Any suggestions on motel/hotel places to stay-no AirBNB, good tourist places to visit during...

Hugh Gallagher explored what he called FDR’s Splendid Deception in his 1985 book of that title. In the title Gallagher was referring to FDR’s concealment of the polio-related paralysis that struck him in 1921. Gallagher was also a polio victim who understood the pain underlying Roosevelt’s efforts. Researching the book, Gallagher found that among the 35,000 photographs of Roosevelt at his presidential library, only two featured him in his wheelchair. Media of the day cooperated by ignoring his polio. Roosevelt himself went to extraordinary lengths to convey the impression that he could walk. “[T]he overwhelming fact about [FDR] is that...

A question for Democrats: If the 2020 election wasn’t stolen, then how do you explain the Democrats in Fulton County inventing a bogus “burst pipe,” using it as an excuse to send Republican poll watchers and reporters home, and Democrats then going back inside to continue counting the votes?On the night of the election in November 2020, CBS News aired a TV report called “Pipe burst in Georgia delays vote counting.”You can watch it here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C25DAAHZdEwAlso on the night of the election, ABC News tweeted: “The election department sent the ballot counters at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta home at...

In yet another state – this time Arizona – Democrats in power have doubled down on the use of lawfare (the tyrannical abuse of the criminal justice system to harass political opponents), by indicting 18 prominent Republicans for alleged crimes in 2020. In this case, it was a classic example of Sol Wachtler’s famous 1985 statement: “If a district attorney wanted, a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.” A grand jury is assembled of regular citizens, usually non-experts, non-lawyers, who don’t need to even try to determine guilt; their job is just to believe a prosecutor’s claim that there...

Remember when the Secret Service was the elite of the elite? It was the one government agency everybody could agree on. Those brave men and women put their bodies on the line to protect the president, and therefore the stability of the free world.But somewhere along the way, the agency seems to have lowered its standards a bit.Brie Stimson, Fox News:A U.S. Secret Service agent with Vice President Kamala Harris’ detail was removed from their assignment after engaging in a physical fight with other agents while on duty Monday…Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the U.S. Secret Service, called the...

ight key things to understand about the cacophony on campusHypocrisy projection: When someone who generally only cares about the free speech rights of people they agree with asserts that everybody ELSE is a hypocrite, usually without actually bothering to check if their opponent has, in fact, been consistent.In my book with Rikki Schlott, “The Canceling of the American Mind,” we coined the term “hypocrisy projection” to describe the tactic of critics who look to dismiss people or organizations (like FIRE) by accusing them of being inconsistent in their principles. The irony, of course, is that the accusers themselves tend to...

Once again, choose accurate language. That is not “demonstrators.”I have previously written about the importance of accurate language to inform the American public about what is going on. See “Covid” Didn’t Destroy Businesses and Lives; the Government Did. Language shapes the terrain on which the political debates are fought. Many of our supposedly “elite” commentators, however, do not appear to understand this. I see constant references, even on outlets like Fox News, to the “demonstrators” when describing the pro-Hamas supporters who are shutting down freeways, blocking bridges illegally, and occupying campuses while assaulting and preventing Jewish students from attending classes.Referring...