Free Republic

Dan Merica, associate producer for CNN Politics has sent out a series of photos and reports on social media about Israel supporters being evacuated in police vans from in front of the White House after being surrounded by menacing Hamas supporters. Merica was there covering a pro-Hamas rally by the communist terrorist support group ANSWER being held at Lafayette Park.Merica reported Cornell West spoke at the rally.Far left professor Cornel West gives an impassioned speech at a pro-Hamas rally outside the White House. A small group of pro-Israel demonstrators carrying Israeli flags stood on Pennsylvania Avenue across from the rally....

A federal judge has declared that one of the District’s principal gun control laws is unconstitutional and ordered that its enforcement be halted. The ruling by Judge Frederick J. Scullin Jr., made public Saturday, orders the city to end its prohibition against carrying a pistol in public. It was not clear Saturday night what immediate effect the order would have. The order was addressed to the District of Columbia and Police Chief Cathy Lanier, as well as their employees and officers and others “who receive actual notice” of the ruling. But it could not be determined Saturday night who had...

WFTV - Orlando ORLANDO, Fla. — It's something most students learn in elementary school -- the United States is made up of 50 states and the District of Columbia. But Cox Media Group reporter Justin Gray found out it's a lesson that an Orlando agent with the Transportation Safety Administration seems to have missed. Gray, who lives in Washington, D.C., was flying out of Orlando International Airport when a TSA agent said Gray's District of Columbia driver's license wasn't a valid form of identification. Gray said his license is legal and up-to-date, but the TSA agent didn't seem to know...

A former drug kingpin who received more than $300,000 from 2006 to 2008 to build a job-training center for people with HIV/AIDS instead used the funds to build a luxury strip club, a D.C. Superior Court jury found Monday. Cornell Jones and Miracle Hands, the nonprofit group Jones founded after serving nine years in prison on narcotics charges, falsified nine documents or statements to support grants worth $329,654, the jury decided after a four-day trial and seven hours of deliberation. Jones, once the king of the notorious Hanover Place NW open-air drug market, used much of those city funds for...

The U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s cancelation of federal trademark registration for the name Washington “Redskins,” after ruling it disparages Native Americans, puts pressure on team owner Daniel Snyder and the National Football League (NFL) to change the name but falls far short of settling the issue. The split, 2-1, decision by unelected trademark board members shows the increasingly heavy hand that politics is playing in the activities of the private sector, since the ruling followed recent public calls for a name change from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. The team counters that the long-standing “Redskins” name...

Does it ‘bug’ you?: Worm and cricket lollipops are displayed during a global ‘Pestaurant’ event sponsored by Ehrlich Pest Control at the Occidental Restaurant in Washington, DC.Though slightly uncertain, Erin Kolski pronounced the unusual fare on her plate — a burger made from ground-up grasshoppers — to be surprisingly tasty. “It’s a little crunchy. It tastes fine,” Kolski said, sounding somewhat surprised as she favorably appraised the dish at Washington’s Occidental Restaurant, a popular establishment a stone’s throw from the White House. Hers was one of many such plates served up Wednesday by chef Rodney Scruggs, who helped organize an...

Batter up! Obama pops in on Little League game WASHINGTON (AP) — Put down the juice box and lace up your sneakers. President Barack Obama is pinch-hitting for Little League. The president paid a surprise visit Monday to Washington's Friendship Park, where a handful of teams were warming up for the big game. Stepping onto the field in a tie but no jacket, Obama shook hands with the players and posed for photos with each team. "What's going on people? How's it going?" the president said, before sidling up to a young girl whose arm was in a sling. "Hey,...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Sitting in the headquarters of the Wyoming Liberty Group, Susan Gore, founder of the conservative think tank, said new national science standards for schools were a form of “coercion,” adding, “I don’t think government should have anything to do with education.” Ms. Gore, a daughter of the founder of the company that makes Gore-Tex waterproof fabric, was speaking here weeks after the Republican-controlled Legislature made Wyoming, where coal and oil are king, the first state to reject the standards, which include lessons on human impact on global warming. The pushback came despite a unanimous vote by a...

To the Honorable Mr. Indyk Sir: Several days ago, you appeared on the Israeli media and blamed all the current ills, including the breakup of talks between our negotiators and the Arabs among us, on the "settlement" movement and the resumption of Jewish life in Judea and Samaria. We would have you know, that from the first days of the "Return to Zion" movement", over 130 years ago, and followed by the forming of Theodore Herzl's Zionist movement, there was always – and still is – disagreement ... Some felt that it was necessary to convince the world, and perhaps...

Bayit Yehudi MK says that the PM agreed to Indyk's appointment as special envoy to the talks only because Kerry asked. Bayit Yehudi MK Ayelet Shaked had harsh words for US special envoy to the Middle East Martin Indyk on Sunday for putting blame on Israel for the breakdown in the negotiations. In an interview with Army Radio, Shaked also said that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu did not support Indyk having a role in the talks that came to a halt on April 24. The MK said that Netanyahu's opinion of Indyk was based on the prime minister's previous experience...

The US State Department has floated a trial balloon to test the idea of former US Ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, serving as mediator in the forthcoming peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. (Editor’s note: at the time of publication the State Department had in fact confirmed that Indyk would serve in the said capacity.) It is not surprising that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has signaled his approval. What is incomprehensible is that Prime Minister Netanyahu has done likewise. Unfortunately the prospect of genuine progress in the negotiations is extraordinarily slim. There is no evidence that the Palestinian...

Middle East envoy Martin Indyk was overheard at an upscale Washington, D.C., bar bashing Israel and fully blaming it for the recent failure of peace talks with the Palestinians, according to an individual who overheard the conversation and described it as a surprising and “nasty” 30-minute-long tirade against the Jewish state. Indyk—who has been identified by the Washington Free Beacon as the source of a recent series of anonymous quotes in the press condemning Israel—was caught openly lashing out at Israel over drinks with several members of his staff and wife, Gahl Burt. The conversation took place in the hotel...

Middle East envoy Martin Indyk was overheard on Thursday night, at the bar of the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Washington, D.C., bashing Israel and fully blaming it for the recent failure of peace talks with the Palestinians, the Washington Free Beacon reports, citing an individual who overheard the conversation and described it as a surprising and “nasty” 30-minute-long tirade.

Martin Indyk, the American negotiator in the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), reportedly went on a “nasty” rant blaming the Jewish state for the talks” failure in a conversation in an upscale Washington DC bar last Thursday. A person who overheard the conversation told Washington Free Beacon that the 30-minute-long tirade included Indyk, his wife Gahl Burt, and several members of his staff. It took place right after he spoke at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), where he openly blamed Israeli construction in Judea and Samaria for the failure of the talks, despite...

A federal judge on Thursday ruled that a D.C. law requiring guns to be registered, mandating safety training and limiting the number of pistol purchases per month do not violate Second Amendment protections of the right to bear arms. U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg dismissed with prejudice a sweeping challenge to the District’s handgun laws brought by a group of plaintiffs led by Dick Anthony Heller in a ruling that opens with a recounting of some of the city’s most notorious recent shootings. “The District of Columbia knows gun violence. Notorious for a time as the ‘murder capital’...

A group of self-described revolutionary-style patriots with a million mobilized militia members are heading to downtown Washington, D.C., this week to bring a simple message to political leadership, from President Obama to House Speaker John Boehner: Get out. They’re called the Operation American Spring — and they’re vowing to oust the likes of Mr. Obama, Mr. Boehner, Attorney General Eric Holder, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Sen. Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Raw Story reported.

Eleanor Holmes Norton is the Democrats’ non-voting congressional observer from the District of Columbia. You may remember her as the genius who claimed that people didn’t know they had to sign up for ObamaCare because evil Republicans had convinced everyone it had been repealed. Well, Democrats, congratulations. Your brain trust is at it again. This is a woman you actually elected and she’s dropped another nugget of wisdom in your laps. An incensed Ms. Eleanor Norton wants everyone to know that the Iraq war was “perhaps the most catastrophic war of the 20th century.” Here’s the clip:

April 30, 2014 5:08 PM Reid: NFL Should Punish Redskins Owner Like NBA Did Sterling By Andrew Johnson The NBA’s lifetime ban of Donald Sterling for his offensive comments should put the NFL on notice about Washington Redskins’ racist name, Harry Reid says. On the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon, Reid commended NBA commissioner Adam Silver for his response to the Sterling situation, and urged his NFL counterpart Roger Goodell to take similar action to “stamp out bigotry in its ranks.” The Senate majority leader also dismissed the tradition-based defense Redskins owner Dan Snyder has made of the team’s name when...

Rep. Paul Ryan is meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus. Let's hope they give his ideas a fair hearing. Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) is scheduled to meet with the Congressional Black Caucus on Wednesday to discuss his plans to address poverty and his March 12 comments in a radio interview about a "tailspin of culture" in our inner cities where "generations of men [are] not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work." Mr. Ryan's statement sparked liberal accusations of racism. Rep. Barbara Lee (D., Calif.) called it "a thinly veiled racial attack" that...

The movement to change how presidents are elected is gaining steam and proponents of the long-stalled popular vote initiative are predicting victory by 2020. Eleven states/jurisdictions have enacted the National Popular Vote (NPV) bill, giving the proposal 165 electoral votes — 61 percent of the 270 electoral votes needed to trigger the new voting system. Legislatures that passed the law include California, Illinois, New Jersey. Massachusetts, Maryland, Washington, Washington, D.C., Hawaii, Rhode Island and Vermont. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signed a popular vote bill into law last week. All of these states, as well as the nation’s capital...