Free Republic

Partial building collapse in downtown Cleveland, Cleveland Fire crews are on the scene of a partial building collapse on East 6th Street near Vincent Avenue in downtown Cleveland.

Forcing Americans to vote under threat of legal penalty would help to fundamentally transform America, President Obama told a town hall-style meeting in Cleveland yesterday.

The name on the card that night in May seemed to draw as much anxiety as it did excitement. Johnny Manziel, Quarterback, Texas A&M. The former Heisman Trophy winner had been passed over 21 times, prompting a text from Manziel to then-Browns quarterbacks coach Dowell Loggains that he wanted to "wreck this league" in Cleveland. The words were actually more R-rated, but the implication was clear. Twitter erupted at the selection. A Cleveland radio host cheered and screamed openly on air. Manziel gave his "money" sign as he walked onstage to greet Roger Goodell. By season's end, cheering had turned...

Property owner Miodrag Burgacic defended himself and his property one too many times in crime ridden Cleveland.  He has shot people who were attempting to steal from him twice before, and been able to hold people without shooting them at least once.   No charges were filed in those incidents. From theblaze.com: Miodrag Bugarcic seems to attract criminals like a magnet. But because the Cleveland businessman has used firearms to thwart crimes on his property multiple times — once with lethal results — why crooks keep trying to rip him off is anybody’s guess. After the third shooting, which...

So, let’s get this straight. At a decisive moment in history when our nation required a strong and unbiased voice from its’ senior law enforcement official, you Mr. Holder, made it your personal mission to join with other racial antagonist and politicize a tragic event, accusing a young white police officer of a racially motivated killing in what we now know was a justified self-defense shooting of a predatory felon. Your behavior is unbelievable. You sir, have sacrificed your integrity on the altar of political expediency. You, Mr. Holder, are the “coward” and hypocrite you so loudly denounce when speaking...

CLEVELAND, Ohio – A water main break Friday afternoon in Little Italy flooded streets and forced Case Western Reserve University to close early. Cleveland Water officials are scrambling to fix the leak, which started at about 12:30 p.m. and closed East 120th between Euclid Avenue and Mayfield Road, Cleveland Water spokesman John Goersmeyer said. Some residents reported flooding in basements, and low water pressure. The break left about a foot of standing water on surrounding roads.

For those of us who have managed to survive 2014 with our lives intact and our freedoms hanging by a thread, it has been a year of crackdowns, clampdowns, shutdowns, showdowns, shootdowns, standdowns, knockdowns, putdowns, breakdowns, lockdowns, takedowns, slowdowns, meltdowns, and never-ending letdowns. We’ve been held up, stripped down, faked out, photographed, frisked, fracked, hacked, tracked, cracked, intercepted, accessed, spied on, zapped, mapped, searched, shot at, tasered, tortured, tackled, trussed up, tricked, lied to, labeled, libeled, leered at, shoved aside, saddled with debt not of our own making, sold a bill of goods about national security, tuned out by those...

In late November, the student government at taxpayer-funded Morgan State University sponsored a conference on slavery reparations for black Americans. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan was the keynote speaker. The Nov. 22 conference, called the 2nd Annual Black United Summit International, occurred on Morgan State’s historically black campus in Baltimore, Md. The conference theme was “Re-Claim, Re-Pair, Re-Form, Re-Produce — REPARATIONS Now!” Total attendance was over 2,000, according to EAGnews.org. Final Call, a Nation of Islam publication, provided a detailed report about convention activities. Farrakhan’s keynote rant lasted over two hours. At one point, he held up what resembled...

With reports that the NYPD is looking into as many as 63 threats against police officers, or the mayor this week alone, news also comes of a lack of motivation among the rank and file, undoubtedly contributing to a significant drop in arrest numbers across the city. “[There’s] just not motivation,” one police officer told [Vice]. “I’m not writing people summonses if I have a chance of getting my head blown off.” When asked if this was his own choice or a precinct-wide initiative, the officer added, “Seems like the entire department is on the same page.” As the New...

n the wake of the Ferguson grand jury’s determination that there was no probable cause to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, incensed rioters took to the streets of that Missouri city and neighboring towns where they burned and looted a number of local businesses. Those riots were preceded by an anguished speech delivered by Brown’s mother who tearfully lamented the grand jury’s decision before a crowd of supporters. She was joined by her husband and Michael Brown’s stepfather, Louis Head, who expressed his grief in a somewhat less constructive way. “Burn this s*** down!”...

More than 2,000 people stood behind Barbara Owens as she silently kissed her son's name that is etched into a memorial for slain police officers. Owens — whose son Derrick was a Cleveland police officer when he was killed chasing drug dealers on March 1, 2008 — was among the some 2,500 people who showed up Saturday at the Sea of Blue rally to support police. "We're thankful to see all the people that came out," said Derrick Owens father, Wayne. "I know they're not all out here for my son, but I personalize it. It feels good." The rally...

They want peace. No really. And the New York Times is just a dispassionate observer looking for reform and change. Not mass murder.But Nicholas Kristof had one of his “Take the Mask Off Moments” when the radical left shows how ugly and unhinged it really is despite its facade of dinner parties and book clubs and that its media outlets promote violence.And so he invited readers to send in poems about the usual stuff. Bunnies. Flowers. Killing all white people and burning America to the ground. And the emphasis was not on the bunnies and flowers.Here’s a deranged screech of...

There is some good debate and conversation happening in the wake of the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases. But there is also plenty of nonsense. Consider this gem from the New York Times editorial of this morning about police arrests: "there can never be a justification for any lethal assault on an unarmed man." How absurd. In Ferguson, there is evidence that Michael Brown was attempting to wrest the officer's gun away. Should Darren Wilson have waited until Brown was successful before defending himself? Whatever the facts from Staten Island, if a single officer finds himself in a struggle...

Maybe Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel's rookie season will be remembered as a bump on the road to a great career, or as a sign that he was one of the most-hyped busts of this century. Whichever, it's officially just a memory now. The Browns have already ruled Manziel out of their Week 17 game because of a hamstring injury, meaning his season is over. Browns coach Mike Pettine said in his Monday press conference that the hamstring injury was "pretty significant" and would take several weeks to heal, according to Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon Journal.

<p>Decades ago, I taught at a community college. The bunch of us treated our shared office as if it were the neighborhood bar. We’d hang out for hours. That beat going home to our cheap apartments or our parents’ basements and watching TV, which was all we could afford on the pittance adjunct professors are paid. James was a jazz musician. Mo’s nose was always to the grindstone. Patrick was enthralling. I wish I had had a video camera recording our every conversation. His words glittered.</p>

Time Magazine warned of a growing threat to cops nationwide in September 2010. The nationally renowned publication argued that sinister individuals would launch targeted attacks against police officers and even ambush them in their patrol cars. Time alerted readers that these groups and individuals have a disturbing hatred of cops and that there was a real threat of “lone-wolf” attacks. Who are these groups that present such a threat to police? Right-wing militias, according to Time. [Snip] “Scores of armed antigovernment groups, some of them far more radical, have formed or been revived during the Obama years, according to law-enforcement...

Barack and Michelle Obama, speaking to People Magazine, of all disappointments, shared the disheartening news that they have experienced what they called racism. Barack, for example, apparently has had trouble, before he was president, hailing a cab in Chicago, to which an immediate thought might occur to anyone who has been to Chicago: Who hasn't? Also, Barack, at a black-tie event, when he, too, was in festive livery, apparently was asked by another guest if he would get them a cup of coffee. For her recollection, Michelle came up with a visit to a Target store as first lady. She...

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Four years ago, few seemed to care when Rodney Brown uttered, "I can't breathe" after being tased 11 times by Cleveland police officers during a New Year's Eve traffic stop – at least that's how his family felt. Now the phrase has become a powerful symbol of civil unrest, a rallying cry represented on T-shirts and chanted during marches protesting police use of force cases across the country, like the one involving Eric Garner, who repeated it 11 times while lying face down on a Staten Island sidewalk.

Someone knocked down and vandalized on Friday a sign on Interstate 580 that honors the four Oakland police officers who were shot and killed in 2009, the deadliest day in the department’s history.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Protesters blocking traffic Saturday on Lorain Avenue near West 130th Street clashed with the driver of a van who drove through their protest line.He blared his horn and slowly drove forward through the crowd. Some of the protesters kicked and punched the van.