Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland was at the grocery store the other day when he ran into an elderly black woman who expressed growing concern about President Obama’s safety. Why, she asked, wasn’t he being better protected by his Secret Service agents? The furor that led to this week’s resignation of the director of the Secret Service resonated deeply among blacks, outraged that those supposed to be guarding the first black president were somehow falling down on the job — and suspicious even without evidence that it may be deliberate. “It is something that is widespread in...

Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland was at the grocery store the other day when he ran into an elderly black woman who expressed growing concern about President Obama’s safety. Why, she asked, wasn’t he being better protected by his Secret Service agents? The furor that led to this week’s resignation of the director of the Secret Service resonated deeply among blacks, outraged that those supposed to be guarding the first black president were somehow falling down on the job — and suspicious even without evidence that it may be deliberate. “It is something that is widespread in black circles,”...

Republican Rob Astorino is going nuclear in his effort to oust heavily favored Democratic incumbent Andrew Cuomo in the race for governor. Astorino claims in a provocative new TV spot—his own take on the infamous “daisy girl” attack ad that helped Lyndon Johnson trounce Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election—that Cuomo could wind up in prison because of a federal criminal probe targeting a “cloud of corruption” hovering over the governor’s office. The original 60-second “daisy” ad, which ran at the height of the Cold War amid rabid fear of Soviet-US nuclear combat, featured a little girl in a...

Facebook/TakenMovies Liam Neeson, legendary Irish actor and star of such films as Takenand Non-Stop, does not identify with the hardcore, gun-toting action heroes he so often portrays. "I am totally for gun control in the U.S.," Neeson said in an interview with The Independent. "The population of America is roughly 300 million and there are 300 million guns in this country, which is terrifying." Neeson criticized the National Rifle Association's response to the 2012 shooting in Newton, Connecticut, which the actor summarized as, "If that teacher had been armed..." "It's crazy," Neeson said. "I'll give Britain its dues, when they had the Dunblane...

Another chapter in the never-ending love/hate relationship between New York and fracking. The former has banned the latter, as we’re sure you know. First, let’s go back to 2010. East Resources, which is a privately held independent oil and gas company operating in the Marcellus, among other areas, sells a vast amount of acreage in the Marcellus and other areas to Royal Dutch Shell for $4.7 billion. Then go back to earlier this year. Ralph Wilson, the only man who ever owned the Buffalo Bills, dies in March. So his heirs put the Bills–who haven’t made the NFL playoffs since...

All four Harlem Success Academy charters serve primarily minority student populations (all are 93.5 to 97.1% black and Hispanic) and low-income households (75 to 80% of students at these schools qualify for free or discounted lunch), and yet all are ranked academically higher than about 97% of all schools in New York state based on 2013-2014 standardized test assessments in math and reading. What a truly amazing academic success story! Harlem Success Academy 3, an elementary school where 95.2% of the students are black or Hispanic and 80% are from poor households who qualify for free or discounted lunch, performed...

In a stunning op-ed released Friday, the NY Times finally admitted that “assault weapons” are a made-up political term fabricated by anti-gun Democrats. Op-ed writer Lois Beckett also admitted that once the term was manufactured and used to outlaw a class of weapons that dishonest anti-gun Democrats had used to con an entire nation, nothing happened.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)There are 65 prominent people who might run for president in 2016. The Democratic and Republican fields contrast sharply. Hillary Clinton is the clear front-runner, while there is no front-runner on the Republican side. Twenty-three Democrats have been mentioned as a candidate or are eyeing a bid, according to an analysis by The Hill. The GOP side has 42. Most of the people on this list won’t run, and some have adamantly claimed that they’re not interested. But many politicians have changed their minds on seeking the White House. Before mounting his 2008 bid, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said he...

In a Friday op-ed which appeared in the paper's international print edition on Saturday and which can reasonably be seen as giving voice to an editorial board which wouldn't dare put their name to it, La Salle University Political Science Professor Michael Boyle strenuously objected to recent characterizations of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). We can't call ISIS "evil." We also shouldn't call them a "cancer," or "savage," or "barbaric." Oh, and the fact that George W. Bush called Al Qaeda "evildoers" is why ISIS came to be, and why our problems with radical Islam are now...

ILION — Herkimer County officials vowed to help affected Remington Arms employees Monday afternoon as news spread the gun manufacturer will layoff more than 100 of its employees by the end of the week. Herkimer County Legislature Chairman Vincent Bono said he learned about the 105 layoffs through county Administrator James Wallace and then from Karin Zipko of Herkimer County Working Solutions. “We're gearing up our programs that are offered, including retraining and job searches,” said Bono, R-Schuyler, during a telephone interview Monday. “It's unclear whether some will be called back. That's unknown.” “It's unfortunate,” added Bono about the layoffs,...

A dramatic photo captured the moment on Friday when a Brooklyn mugging victim became a crime fighter — as she busted the punk who allegedly snatched her cellphone and held him in a bear hug for the cops. Clara Vondrich, 36, was taking a business phone call while standing in front of a Williamsburg coffee shop on South Third Street at 1:20 p.m. when the teen approached her with two pals.

Twenty-five years ago, Trisha Meili—“the Central Park jogger”—was a 28 year-old employee for a prestigious Manhattan investment banker when she was mercilessly beaten, raped, and left for dead by thugs. Meili lost approximately 80 percent of her blood. Her skull was fractured to the point that her one eye had popped out of its socket. On the scale of 3 to 15 that neurologists use to gauge brain functioning, Meili’s was assigned a rating of 4. She spent nearly the next two weeks in a coma, with experts expecting her to die. This crime became a racially explosive issue,...

Children at St. Lucy’s School in the Bronx attended a summer program in July. St. Lucy’s will offer six publicly funded pre-k classes in the fall. Credit Ángel Franco/The New York Times The biblical story of Noah’s Ark will be taught, without mention of who told Noah to build it. Challah, the Jewish bread eaten on the Sabbath, will be baked, but no blessings said over it. Some crucifixes will be removed, but others left hanging.These are the kinds of church-state gymnastics that New York City and some religious schools are performing as Mayor Bill de Blasio expands government-funded prekindergarten....

<p>Like most progressives, Bill de Blasio is a champion of public financing for political campaigns. And with good reason.</p> <p>For all his railing against the evil of big money in politics, he’s been quick to take advantage of big fat donations to fuel his agenda — provided they come in a way that doesn’t require him to leave his fingerprints on them.</p>

Over the weekend, New York City, defying those who think such a move is insulting to the poor, approved a move by the developer Extell to build a separate entrance at an Upper West Side condominium for its affordable housing tenants.

A holiday weekend video treat: How cable music channel VH1 turned booing of Senator Hillary Clinton into cheering. Senator Clinton was booed when she walked on stage last October at a rock concert in Madison Square Garden to benefit 9/11 victims. It was shown live by VH1 but, as ABC's John Stossel illustrated in a July 20/20 special on media distortions, when the Viacom-owned cable channel replayed it sound technicians replaced the booing with cheering and applause. And that version is the permanent record VH1 put onto its DVD of the event. During his July 12 20/20 look at media...

...Obama said Joe Biden would make a "superb" president, but questioned whether his vice president or potential rival Hillary Clinton would want to endure another campaign for the White House, a media report on Monday said. Obama, in an interview with the New Yorker, said Biden "has seen the job up close, he knows what the job entails. He understands how to separate what’s really important from what’s less important. I think he’s got great people skills. He enjoys politics, and he’s got important relationships up on the Hill (in Congress) that would serve him well."

A fantastic photo-essay demonstrating the psychoses of the American left and its allies in the Islamo-fascist, "pro-Palestinian" movement.

ALBANY, NY – New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Thursday he would form a new third party in the state centered around his late-term abortion expansion program. The formation of the Women’s Equality Party, which is designed to further the Democrats' national “war on women” campaign theme, was announced at a gala on Thursday.

Things got testy between Joe Scarborough and Howard Dean on today's Morning Joe over the issue of the Dem party moving left. In a particularly unkind cut, Scarborough accused Dean of spouting "Carl Bernstein nonsense," while Dean tried to shut Scarborough down, bleating "blah, blah, blah." Adding spice to the mix, Mika Brzezinski made clear her great regard for lefty Senator Elizabeth Warren, saying she'd make a "formidable" presidential candidate. The fracas was detonated by a discussion of a Wall Street Journal op-ed by a centrist Dem group called "The Third Way," which argued that following proposals from Warren and...