Free Republic

EVERY day, millions of Americans rely on a remarkable network of roads, bridges, subways, trains and buses to connect us to work, school and opportunity. But our transportation system, once the envy of the world, is in jeopardy. In New York City, subways and buses are overcrowded and often unreliable, and roadways and bridges are in dire need of repair and rehabilitation. From the next phase of the Second Avenue subway to plans to connect the Metro-North Railroad to Pennsylvania Station, to the proposed new subway line under Utica Avenue in Brooklyn, there isn’t a short- or long-term expansion project...

He’s on the road again. As violent crime soars in the Big Apple, Mayor Bill de Blasio has far more pressing matters to deal with — touting his progressive agenda in two more out-of-state locales. Hizzoner will be heading off Tuesday for his 11th trip outside New York in the last 12 months to address national or international issues. After speaking in three Midwestern states last month on income inequality, de Blasio is headed to DC to unveil details of his progressive agenda.

NBC announced on Sunday they were starting a new series called "Meet the Money: The Billionaire Donors." They started with GOP-backing Sheldon Adelson. When will they get to George Soros? In an effort to revitalize and unify the far-left Democratic party, progressives have relied on the very thing they often criticize -- the deep pockets of a billionaire supporter. Agenda supporters were linked to at least $159 million dollars in donations or political contributions from Soros. Many of those self-proclaimed progressives will gather on the steps of the U.S. Capitol May 12 at 3 p.m. to celebrate a new, far-left...

RUSH: This is from the "Monkey Cage" section of the Washington Post: "Blacks Die Sooner than Whites. How Many Votes Has This Cost Democrats?" This is an honest-to-God story by Dean Robinson. "Black people in the United States continue to be sicker and die sooner than whites. ... [T]hey suffer from 'excess mortality' -- that is, black deaths that would not have occurred had the death rate among blacks been the same as that among whites." So we have here, as now documented in the Washington Post, yet another terrible inequity that is distinctly American: The death rate inequality. So...

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker are tied atop a crowded 2016 GOP primary field in the early state of New Hampshire, with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush slipping into a tie for third with Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who picked up some support since a separate poll was released in February. Mr. Paul and Mr. Walker were the first choice of 12 percent of GOP primary voters, followed by Mr. Bush and Mr. Rubio at 11 percent apiece and businessman Donald Trump at 8 percent, according to the Bloomberg Politics/Saint Anselm poll. Next were...

Keep in mind that polls this early in a presidential cycle measure mostly name recognition rather than solid voter choice. Even with that caveat in mind — or perhaps because of it — the Bloomberg/St. Anselm poll released last night delivers bad news to Hillary Clinton and Democrats for 2016. Instead of a commanding lead over a field of emerging names, Hillary barely edges out most of the GOP field: There’s no clear Republican front-runner in the New Hampshire presidential nominating contest, while Hillary Clinton retains an overwhelming advantage among Democrats in the Granite State’s first-in-the-nation primary.Clinton’s advantage over...

Economic and political prowess necessary to buy themselves their safe-passages within the corrupted system While I get used to hearing the name of Hillary Clinton mentioned just about everywhere I turn to as her political campaign for the 2016 presidential elections gets underway, I cannot help but reminisce on the trail of lies that she and husband Bill have left behind in their Machiavellian crusade to ‘making it’. Bill and Hillary’s legacy of deceitful politics and politically smeared crusades for prowess comes as a renewed version of our own 21st century Bonnie and Clyde parody of outlaws—a tad less colorful...

On Saturday, a few dozen misguided marchers straggled across the Brooklyn bridge, demanding that more Americans be disarmed. Notice the widely debunked "120" school shooting meme in the sign. When you have to resort to easily disproved lies, your "movement" has no moral validity. Consider, in a city of 12 million, in the heart of the densest support for citizen disarmament in the country, in a legal regime that has stifled the right to bear arms with numerous infringements for a century, this morally bankrupt astroturf organization is able to attract, pay, or bully only a few dozen marchers.

My apologies for starting off your Mothers Day with such horrible news, but two more law enforcement officers have been assassinated, this time in Mississippi. It’s barely twelve hours since the incident, but it seems as if the local police in Hattiesburg were all over the case and two suspects are already in custody. Fox News is reporting that the manhunt for two brothers, Curtis and Marvin Banks, was over in a matter of hours and they were taken into custody with no further injury to the police. Two suspects accused of killing two Mississippi police officers Saturday night...

First Lady Michelle Obama urged students at Tuskegee University, a historically black university in Alabama, to remain involved in civic life during a time of tension regarding race relations across the country. At the school's commencement address, the First Lady listed scenarios in which African-Americans feel they encounter systemic discrimination, such as "nagging worries that you're going to get stopped or pulled over for absolutely no reason." She said those feelings are "real," but disengaging is not an option. "I want to be very clear that those feelings are not an excuse to just throw up our hands and give...

Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul will host a meeting with members of the Congressional Black Caucus next week to discuss criminal justice reform. The libertarian-leaning senator from Kentucky has long been an outspoken advocate for changing how the American criminal system prosecutes and sentences. Now he’s teaming up with Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), and other black lawmakers, to craft a strategy for advancing legislation as law enforcement issues have taken center stage following the death of several unarmed black men at the hands of police. “Not only is Senator Paul the [S]enate co-sponsor of the Justice Safety Valve Act, which...

Everyone from Susan Sarandon to Van Jones is helping draft and push de Blasio’s new “Contract with America,” which will push for paid sick leave and free, universal pre-K.First New York City. Then America. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is heading to Washington, D.C. next week to present a progressive “Contract with America,” a 13-point agenda intended to push the Democratic Party leftward. According to a draft of the document provided to The Daily Beast by someone asked to join the effort, de Blasio will call for a number of measures for which he has already pushed in...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Two New York City cops approach a gray sedan with a suspected drunken driver slumped over the wheel. They ask him to get out, and that's when the trouble begins. The suspect, dressed in a rumpled suit, curses and hollers at the officers because he doesn't want to go to jail. He refuses to be handcuffed and backs away, yelling, "Can't we work this out?"

The hero cop who was shot in the face by an ex-con died Monday after a two day struggle to stay alive, sources said. Officer Brian Moore’s death at Queens General Hospital plunged the NYPD into grief.

Officer’s vital signs plummet after being shot in the head By Larry Celona, Shawn Cohen, Jamie Schram and Bruce Golding The distraught family of NYPD Officer Brian Moore was preparing for the worst Sunday as his condition deteriorated from a bullet wound to the head that left him on life support. Moore’s parents, including his retired-cop dad, Raymond, were joined by his police partner and dozens of other officers at Jamaica Hospital after he began bleeding uncontrollably and his blood pressure plummeted early Sunday, sources told The Post. At one point, a police chaplain was called to the hospital after...

Since Politics Nation debuted on MSNBC on August 29, 2011, Al Sharpton’s nonprofit National Action Network has collected more than $2.38 million in contributions from unions, according to Department of Labor records. Meanwhile, Sharpton has often used his show to promote pro-labor viewpoints, also inviting union leadership on as guests. National Action Network ... has apparently remained in financial trouble. A 2013 filing with the Internal Revenue Service showed the nonprofit had ended the year with negative assets of $1.33 million. Nonprofit experts have told National Review that the Sharpton’s six-figure salary from National Action Network, as well as the...

Electronic music pioneer Moby (real name Richard Melville Hall) went on quite the Twitter tirade on Saturday, railing against “racist, xenophobic, ignorant” Republicans who “support war” and “hate immigrants.” The musician, who has campaigned for and written open letters to President Obama, began his rant in standard fashion, calling Republicans “loathsome” and linking to a Los Angeles Times article about NASA funding:

Reasonable people can disagree on whether racism was involved in the tragic death of Eric Garner. My own suspicion is that this misfortune could have transpired just as easily with a white man resisting arrest and/or a black cop choking him. And even though lots of people don’t want to hear it, reasonable people can disagree on whether illegally excessive force was to blame. Personally, watching the ubiquitous video of Garner’s arrest, it looks like excessive force to me. But the simple fact is that a Staten Island grand jury saw evidence that led it to conclude otherwise. People should...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)"Rand Paul is right," Rev. Al Sharpton said on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Friday after the Kentucky Senator empathized with African-Americans who believe their rights were threatened by police officers. Paul published a TIME op-ed on Thursday discussing the issue of the "militarization" of the police force and what it meant in the showdown between police officers and protestors in Ferguson, Missouri reacting to the shooting death of Michael Brown. "Given the racial disparities in our criminal justice system, it is impossible for African-Americans not to feel like their government is particularly targeting them," Paul wrote, after criticizing the racial...

Reverend Al Sharpton ✔ @TheRevAl I am in Senate Dining Room having breakfast meeting with Sen. Rand Paul. We don't agree on much but he is an interesting guy.