Free Republic

Up-and-coming Brooklyn rapper Supa Gates has died nearly seven weeks after he was shot in the passenger seat of a Mercedes in Brooklyn. Supa Gates, whose real name was Aaron Williams, was shot multiple times in the front passenger seat of the luxury vehicle parked on St. John’s Place near Troy Ave. in Crown Heights April 11. He died Thursday at Kings County Hospital, where he had been treated since the shooting. The 25-year-old musician’s career had just started gaining momentum, with some of his tracks drawing tens of thousands of listeners on YouTube.com. “He was gonna bust big,” said...

The senior pastor at Seattle’s Mt. Zion Baptist Church told followers to “raise Cain” in response to Saturday’s acquittal of George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman was accused of shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin to death nearly a year-and-a-half ago. His defense was Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law. In his morning sermon, Rev. Aaron Williams said it was important for the African-American community to “not allow this to die down” and to highlight perceived “injustice” within the nation’s criminal justice system. “We should be raising Cain because if we don’t,” Rev. Williams said, “history has a way of repeating itself. “There...

Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4TH, 2009 AT 2:56 PM Ethics Update Posted by Norm Eisen We have previously reported six limited waivers that have been granted by the White House pursuant to the President’s Executive Order on Ethics for Executive Branch personnel – the strongest ethics standards in U.S. government history. Three of these waivers involved lobbying-related issues and three did not. We blogged about them here, here, and here. Several months ago, the public interest community suggested that we also make available in a central place limited waivers...