Free Republic

It was rather crowded outside Lincoln Center late Monday afternoon. While yours truly was at Kennedy Airport waiting to return to Israel for Rosh HaShanna, several thousand people gathered outside Lincoln Center to protest the Metropolitan Opera's glorification of a terror attack that took place nearly 30 years ago. There's an extensive report with over an hour and a half of video and many pictures and slides here, and I urge you all to check it out. But I want to share one quote with you that really caught me eye. And finally, from writer, Jack Kemp: “One of...

According to Playbill, The Metropolitan Opera has canceled its scheduled talk for “The Death of Klinghoffer”, the play about 69-year-old New Yorker Leon Klinghoffer, who was killed by terrorists of the Palestine Liberation Front (PFLF). The event was slated to have featured directors and stars of the production, which premiers later this month. [Snip] October 20 will mark the first night “The Death of Klinghoffer” will be aired, and Rabbi Avi Weiss and a group of Rabbinical leaders will hold a fast and vigil across from the Met beginning at noon in memory of Leon Klinghoffer´s soul, being desecrated by...

At the Metropolitan Opera’s first performance of John Adams’s “The Death of Klinghoffer” on Monday night, men and women in evening attire walked through a maze of police barricades, while protesters shouted “Shame!” and “Terror is not art!” One demonstrator held aloft a white handkerchief splattered with red. Others, in wheelchairs set up for the occasion, lined Columbus Avenue. Political figures, including former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, joined a rally, several hundred strong at Lincoln Center, to denounce an opera that has become the object of a charged debate about art, anti-Semitism and politics. But after months of escalating protests,...

Phyllis Chesler saw part of 'The Death of Klinghoffer' and reports there were shouts of protest from the audience There was such a large police presence and so many police barricades that anyone passing by would think that terrorists were at large. There were no terrorists on Broadway—although terrorists would soon be mounting the stage of the Metropolitan Opera. The police were protecting the right of the Opera House to present the Palestine Liberation Organization and their cause as mythically majestic and eternally just. Here’s what was also extraordinary: “The Suits”—men and women in positions of power, both politically, legally,...

As rumors swirled that Noerdlinger would resign amid disclosures, de Blasio spokesman Phil Walzak released a statement late Friday afternoon praising Noerdlinger as 'a valued member of our team.' Another day, another embarrassing revelation about top City Hall aide Rachel Noerdlinger. And after nearly 10 hours of silence, another vow of support by Mayor de Blasio for his embattled appointee, a former top confidante of the Rev. Al Sharpton. The new disclosures concern an incident on Aug. 27, 2011, in Edgewater, N.J., when a cop spotted Hassaun McFarlan, Noerdlinger’s ex-con boyfriend, driving her Mercedes-Benz into oncoming traffic. ... McFarlan was...

The good news is that The New York Times has to dump another hundred reporters. The bad news is that Tom Friedman is still on the beat. But the paper, constantly eyeing Der Sturmer for inspiration, keeps losing readers in droves. People have begun to catch on. They’re catching on to what I’ve been saying for years, that The New York Times is the most anti-Semitic newspaper in the entire world. […] Today’s op-ed needle comes from yet another scoffer named Roger Cohen—or is this the same dunce who appears time and again? I don’t know. […] So what’s the...

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,”...

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...

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.

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."