Free Republic

The city of Baltimore worked to tear down thousands of homes on Monday in an effort to lift itself out of decades of urban decay. The city and state are paying millions for demolition in the hope that, one day, developers will see vacant lots as a land of opportunity.

They work for the government and even their closest relatives have no idea what they do. It’s not because they’re spies or nuclear scientists, but because their jobs are so arcane: trying to reinvent Medicare to improve it, and maybe save taxpayers money. In a sprawling, nondescript office park near Baltimore, some 360 people at the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation are trying to change the health care system, using the government’s premier insurance program as leverage. If they prevail, the U.S. may no longer have the worst of both worlds: unsustainable spending and unenviable results. […] Because the...

Dozens of people marched Saturday in Baltimore to mark the anniversary of the death of Freddie Gray. Sharon Black, an organizer with the Peoples Power Assembly, the group that planned the march, said the marchers don’t believe anything has changed for the better in Baltimore since Gray’s death. Black says “deep-seated anger” remains in the community a year later. …

Many of the exact same groups that participated in Occupy Wall Street and helped organize protest rallies in Ferguson and Baltimore are now promising to bring us “the largest civil disobedience actions in a generation”. I recently wrote about the trouble that radical leftists have caused by attempting to disrupt Trump campaign events, but now there is a very organized effort to turn this into a national movement. On March 19th, thousands of angry protesters will descend on Trump Tower in New York City to denounce Donald Trump’s “fascist policies”, and on April 2nd dozens of leftist organizations will join...

Is the Obama administration, or at least some officials in it, hostile toward whites? This is certainly an awkward, publicly unspeakable question -- and answering it is exceptionally difficult. Not easy to discern the motives of countless Washington bureaucrats.  Nevertheless, recent events outside of Baltimore, MD suggest that enmity toward whites does afflict some Obama administrators and our proof, though short of the smoking gun standard, is probably as good as it gets.  In a nutshell, thanks to Washington’s money and political pressure, thousands of poor blacks will now be re-located from Baltimore’s slums to upgraded housing in the surrounding,...

BALTIMORE, MD (WJZ/CNN) - Some people want police to explain the fatal shooting of a father and son. Officers fired 56 shots at Kimani Johnson and Matthews Wood Jr., who police claimed may have planned a mass shooting. Their family said the police's story doesn't add up. "Boom, boom, boom, 56 shots, That's an overkill," said Mary Scott Harper, who has two children with Wood. She says the 43-year-old was in fear for his life because of an ongoing dispute when three officers spotted him and his 18-year-old son with two loaded guns in East Baltimore on Thursday. "He was...

Late at night this month, the pastor’s phone beeped with a text message from an anguished parishioner. Andre Taylor, the church member’s great-nephew, had been shot and killed. “Dre had just turned 16,” the message on the Rev. Ira Acree’s phone read. “I think that it’s time to call for action and solicit help, have the National Guard to take over and patrol the Chicago streets.” Four days earlier, another text had appeared. A different parishioner’s granddaughter, Daysha Wright, a 21-year-old nursing student, had been shot to death in a car, leaving a 2-year-old son. At his desk at Greater...

The Obama administration has started its push to expand low-income housing into “higher opportunity areas.” The Department of Housing and Urban Development last week announced a “landmark” settlement agreement with Baltimore County that will serve as a catalyst to “promote housing mobility” and “address residential segregation.” The goal is to move low- and very-low-income people out of the city and into the suburbs. …

The USS Conestoga left the Navy yard at Mare Island, Calif., on Good Friday, 1921, bound for Pearl Harbor, with a complement of 56 sailors. It cleared the Golden Gate at 3:25 p.m. and steamed into the Gulf of the Farallones in heavy seas. Conestoga was a rugged oceangoing tug that had once hauled coal barges for a Pennsylvania railroad. But 17 years after its launch in Baltimore, it had undergone hard use and had a reputation as a “wet boat,” one that shipped water easily. At 4 p.m. that day, as the San Francisco light ship recorded big waves...

Tim Macy, Chairman of Gun Owners of America, wrote an open letter to Second Amendment supporters exposing Republican presidential candidate John Kasich’s real anti-gun agenda.Labeling Kasich the “wolf in sheep’s clothing” still in the presidential race, Macy points to Kasich’s close relationship with Leftist, Communist, billionaire George Soros. In fact, the Soros Fund Management is one of John Kasich’s top financial contributors.“This can hardly be a surprise,” Macy writes. His full letter can be read here. An abbreviated version is below.Kasich and Soros share two important traits: (1) their desire to mess up the Republican selection process for devious motives,...

Several of the Republican senators expressing a willingness to meet with Judge Garland were like Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Mark S. Kirk of Illinois, incumbents facing difficult re-election fights. Ms. Ayotte said she still opposed holding a confirmation vote. The willingness of Republican senators to meet with Judge Garland highlights how the degree of difficulty in blocking a nomination rises once there is a face and a résumé to go along with it. Judge Garland was confirmed in 1997 by a vote of 76 to 23 for his current seat on the United States Court of Appeals for...

The presence of a gun rights group at the Texas State Capitol during President Obama’s visit to the SxSW festival elicited members of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense to call for gun violence against the group. Among other incitements to violence, “Just shoot them all,” and “Shoot the a**bags,” they said. Moms Demand Action members posted, “Do[n]’t arrest them just shoot them, these people are crazy,” “Time to use an assault weapon on this trash,” “Just shoot them all…,” and “Mow them down.” Another added, “a**hats. no one has taken your guns. you are the ones causing problems. [P]lease...

BALTIMORE (WJZ)– Maryland’s highest court has ruled that Baltimore City police officer William Porter must testify in the trials of five fellow officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray. Investigator Mike Hellgren breaks down the court’s ruling and what it means. In a huge blow for his defense, Maryland’s highest court ruled Officer William Porter must testify against all five of his co-defendants and that the remaining trials in the death of Freddie Gray can proceed. “This is a unique situation and it’s not like any other situation that we’ve seen,” said one of the judges. The ruling comes...

To avoid clicking through the slideshow, here's the list: Rates are per 100K people 30 Lake County, IN 12.37 29 Hunt County, TX 12.61 28 Norfolk City, VA 12.67 27 Robeson County, NC 13.34 26 Jackson County, MO 13.42 25 Newport News City, VA 13.78 24 Russel County, AL 14.04 23 East Baton Rouge Parish, LA 14.20 22 Forrest County, MS 14.44 21 St. Clair County, IL 14.53 20 Fulton County, GA 14.58 19 Essex County, NJ 14.69 18 Pulaski County, AR 14.92 17 Lauderdale County, MS 14.94 16 Marion County, IN 15.01 15 Chaves County, NM 15.19 14 Montgomery...

Explanation: Can you identify a familiar area in the northeast USA just from nighttime lights? It might be possible because many major cities are visible, including (right to left) New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Richmond and Norfolk -- Boston of the USA's Northeast megalopolis is not pictured. The featured image was taken in 2012 from the International Space Station. In the foreground are two Russian cargo ships with prominent solar panels. This Northeast megalopolis of the USA contains almost 20 percent of the people of the USA but only about 2 percent of the land area. Also known also as...

Police have arrested a 20-year-old woman in a stabbing death early Sunday. Police said Elera Osaro was arguing over money with 19-year-old Christopher Carter about 2:30 a.m. in an Upton home. The stabbing happened 13 hours after a double homicide in West Baltimore. On Saturday afternoon, police responded to the corner of West Lafayette Avenue and North Bentalou Street and found two men shot dead, police said.

A Chicago activist turned down an invitation to meet with President Barack Obama on Thursday prior to the annual White House Black History Month reception. Aislinn Pulley, who co-founded Black Lives Matter: Chicago, was among about 20 people invited to what the White House billed as an intergenerational meeting of black leaders to discuss criminal justice reform throughout the U.S., according to a White House official. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch also was expected to attend the event Thursday afternoon. Other invitees included the Rev. Al Sharpton, NAACP President Cornell Brooks, University of Missouri student organizer DeShaunya Ware and DeRay...

Watchdog Group Warns of Using Justice System to Appease Violent Protestors(Washington, DC) - Judicial Watch announced today it filed an amicus curiae brief with the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, arguing that forcing Baltimore Police Officer William G. Porter to testify against fellow officers before his retrial for manslaughter, assault, and other criminal charges over the police-custody death of Freddie Carlos Gray Jr., would have a significant, adverse chilling effect on his constitutional rights under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. Judicial Watch asserts the unusual push to force Office Porter to testify while facing charges is part of an unjust...

A heated argument erupted Thursday at a hearing on the IRS, with Democrats and Republicans trading charges about the work of the Oversight Committee. Two Democrats on the panel accused their GOP colleagues of repeatedly holding hearings on the IRS for political reasons. In his opening statement, Oversight Committee ranking member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) complained that the hearing was the 23rd held about the IRS in recent years. "Unfortunately, Republicans have become obsessed with investigating any and every allegation relating to the IRS, no matter how small," he said. He said Republicans are frustrated that they have never found...

If you seek to understand Barack Obama and his views, the best place to go is his speeches. But you have to read them in their entirety, not rely on hearing them or on the media’s summary of them. When you do, you realize how often what Obama says is morally and intellectually confused and even untrue.