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Percentage of African-Americans in U.S. Police Departments Remains Flat Since 2007 But police hiring of other minorities has increased, report shows By Ben Kesling and Cameron McWhirter May 14, 2015 2:43 p.m. ET 28 COMMENTS The percentage of African-Americans in U.S. police departments has remained flat since before the recession, even as police hiring of other minorities has increased, according to a U.S. Department of Justice survey released Thursday. A lack of black officers, especially in communities with large African-American populations, has been cited frequently in the wake of police-involved deaths of black residents that sparked riots in cities from...

It’s the admission conservatives have been waiting for! Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) just told the world what conservatives have suspected for decades:“Our party has gotten to be a party of liberal elites. That’s great if you want to be in the minority for the next 30 years. That’s not where America is. Democrats have left our lunch-bucket allies behind.”In an interview regarding his opposition to the EPA, Rep. Schrader makes the admission after after calling the EPA the “big problem for economic development in our region.” …

GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz said today that ABC News anchor and former Clinton White House staffer George Stephanopoulos has no business moderating any 2016 presidential debates. Cruz was asked in the Senate hallway this afternoon whether Stephanopoulos should host any debates following today’s revelation that he gave $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation without it disclosing it while officially covering the organization for ABC News. “Of course not,” Cruz responded, according to a transcript provided to The Federalist by one of his campaign communications staffers. “Debates should not be moderated by partisan Democrats who are actively supporting one of...

“Is he really the sole arbiter of what is right and just?” Referencing Barack Obama’s remarks at a recent forum aimed at addressing poverty, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough took exception to the president’s public indictment of a rival cable news network. Obama stated that Fox News Channel offers a “constant menu” of programming demonizing the poor as lazy “sponges” and “leeches.” Scarborough eviscerated Obama not only for his comments, but for the forum in which he decided to make them. “At a bipartisan summit, you decide to attack a cable news channel as the problem,” he said, “saying that [FNC...

BREAKING: GotNews IDs Gay Activist Train Engineer Who Caused Amtrak Crash UPDATED W/ PHOTOS! May 13, 2015 by Charles C. Johnson 184 Comments Gotnews.com has independently identified the engineer at the center of the Amtrak crash that has killed at least seven. Brandon Bostian is the 32-year-old gay man who lawyered up after a deadly derailment in Philadelphia. The train was reportedly going twice the speed limit.

In recent presidential primary cycles, the influence of Southern states — with the exception of Florida, whose "Southern status" is perhaps more locational than anything else — has been minimal. While pundits like to say that GOP presidential nominees have relied heavily on a "red state" electorate based in the South, that same base has had little to say in determining the nominee. After all, neither John McCain nor Mitt Romney had much in common with the region. Georgia's Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp sensed that voter turnout intensity in the region could be stronger in November 2016 if...

For one thing, we still don’t know what caused the derailment. First responders had not finished combing the wreckage of Tuesday night’s Amtrak derailment for bodies when the liberal outlet Vox posted: Alarming headline, exploitative disaster photo. The only thing missing is a picture of a grinning Ted Cruz. The response to last night’s deadly Amtrak wreck in Philadelphia prompts two observations. First — and this seems important — we don’t yet know what caused the derailment. An investigation is under way. Sources tell the Wall Street Journal that the train was traveling more than 100 mph — more than...

House Democrats are introducing legislation that will “place limits and safeguards on the online market for ammunition.” Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., announced this week the Stop Online Ammunition Sales Act of 2015, which would require face-to-face purchases. In a statement, she referenced the 2012 Colorado theater shooting where 12 people were killed and 70 others injured. “This bill would take the most basic steps to slow the proliferation of guns and ammunition, helping to prevent events like what we saw in Aurora, Colorado three years ago,” she said in a statement. “Congress can, and must do more to keep...

There will be no breathless stories about how left-wing extremists and obstructionists have hijacked the Democratic Party. No hand-wringing about the state of American politics now that congress has defied the will of the first black president. There will be no scary pieces on how a stubborn minority party is holding up bills that have proven to create jobs – both here and abroad. There’ll be no passionate speeches about the dangers of big-money interests buying democracy. Remember these aren’t your parents’ Democrats. And when Democrats rebelled against Obama’s bipartisan trade initiative this week and voted to stop debate on...

Police Officers: Morale Is Low In Departments Across The Country Kerry Picket Reporter 10:05 PM 05/12/2015 Law enforcement officers at Washington, D.C.’s annual Police Week tell The Daily Caller that the anti-police climate is taking its toll on the men and women in uniform and that morale is low in departments across the country. One source told The DC Monday night that officers have stepped back from engaging in proactive policing, because they often see the same violent criminals they arrest immediately released on to the streets. President of the Fraternal Order of Police Chuck Canterbury told TheDC that he...

For going on seven years we have learned three things about President Obama: 1) He loves the poor so much he continues to create more of them. 2) He loves the poor so much he does everything in his power to keep them poor. 3) He doesn’t see the opposition as loyal, but as bad players — his enemy. This is especially true of Fox News, which Obama ripped as anti-poor bigots during a Wednesday afternoon summit on poverty. We’re used to this Obama, the forever-partisan who has never seen himself as president of all the people but only of...

Like the proverbial general waging the last war, America’s pundit class has dug in around a Maginot Line of conventional wisdom erected around President Barack Obama’s electoral coalition in preparation for the next engagement. In a May article for Politico Magazine, the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics crew took an admittedly early look at the electoral map ahead of the 2016 contest and came up with some disappointing conclusions for Republicans. While it’s true that it’s too early to make any concrete assumptions about how the race for the White House will develop, it’s fair to note that the...

A major rating agency downgraded the city of Chicago's creditworthiness two notches to junk status, a move likely to increase the city's borrowing costs and make investors skittish as the financial world reacts to last week's Illinois Supreme Court ruling that bodes ill for city efforts to resolve its massive pension fund shortfall. Moody's Investors Service downgraded the city's debt rating on bond issues backed by property, sales and fuel tax revenue to Ba1, one notch below investment grade, from Baa2, specifically citing last week's Supreme Court ruling on an attempt to cut state pension costs. Moody's calls the Ba1...

BREAKING:Charges will not be filed against MPD Officer Matt Kenny in the shooting death of Tony Robinson Updated: Tue 3:17 PM, May 12, 2015 MADISON, Wis.---BREAKING: DA Ozanne: Charges will not be filed against MPD Officer Matt Kenny in the shooting death of Tony Robinson. UPDATED: Tuesday, May 12, 2015 ---3:17 p.m. MADISON, Wis.---BREAKING: DA Ozanne: Charges will not be filed against MPD Officer Matt Kenny in the shooting death of Tony Robinson. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Senate Democrats filibustered Tuesday to block the first major free-trade vote in years, dealing a blow to President Obama and GOP leaders who were pushing a deal in a rare show of bipartisanship, but who once again find themselves struggling with the political fringe. Unlike the last few years’ worth of conservative objections, this time it was liberals who balked and pulled moderate Democrats with them, putting the brakes on the bipartisan push and imperiling the rest of the spring congressional agenda. The White House said the filibuster was only a “procedural snafu” and urged GOP leaders in Congress to...

This year marks two decades since two important events in the efforts to get Baltimoreans to face hard truths about Baltimore — David Rusk's warning that a city in decline could pull the whole metropolitan region down and the filing of a major class-action lawsuit to end decades of segregative housing policy that left the city with a disproportionate share of the region's poor. Rusk's book, "Baltimore Unbound,' declared that the city had reached a point of no return in social and economic decline, and that without a new metropolitan approach to governance, the suburban counties would next feel the...

The U.S. has become significantly less Christian in the last eight years as the share of American adults who espouse no systematic religious belief increased sharply, a major new study found. For what is likely the first time in U.S. history – certainly the first since the early days of the country – the actual number of American Christians has declined. Christianity, however, remains by far the nation’s dominant religious tradition, according to the new report by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. The rapid increase in the number of adults without ties to traditional religious institutions has strong implications for...

The increase in violence that has followed the death of Freddie Gray continued through the weekend, with four homicides reported since Saturday, according to Baltimore police. Ten people were reported shot on Sunday alone, including three who were shot to death within a span of 39 minutes. The violence comes as the city prepares for the Preakness on Saturday at Pimlico Race Course. Ten people were also shot Thursday. At least 87 people have been killed in Baltimore this year, 22 more than at this time last year. Nonfatal shootings are up nearly 50 percent across the city.

Twenty-seven senators want President Obama to block federal agencies and contractors from asking job applicants about prior criminal convictions. The senators, including 26 Democrats and presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), want Obama to take executive action to "ban the box," referring to a question on job applications that asks if an applicant has any convictions. "We ask you to require federal contractors and agencies to refrain from asking job applicants about prior convictions until later in the hiring process," they said in a letter to Obama on Monday. "This policy would eliminate unnecessary barriers to employment for all job...

Team Hillary is pushing Julian Castro as her VP nominee. “The Republicans are making a big push for the Hispanic vote, so that makes Castro an obvious pick.” Julian Castro, and his twin brother, Congressman Joaquin, were early backers of 2008 Clinton......the odds of Mrs. Clinton picking another woman for the ticket are “zero” .... which eliminates Wendy Davis, the liberal darling of Texas Democrats. --SNIP--That leaves Julian Castro. At just 40 years old, he’s a a two-term mayor of San Antonio, Texas, and is Obama’s HUD Secy. The Castro brothers — twins born to a single mother whose grandmother...