Free Republic

People across the country reacted sharply to the decision by a grand jury not to indict a white Missouri police officer in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager, with protesters taking to the streets in cities from Oakland to New York. St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch announced the grand jury had chosen not to indict Officer Darren Wilson, who gunned down Michael Brown, 18, on a street in Ferguson on Aug. 9. The grand jury had options from first-degree murder to no charge at all. In New York, protesters held up a poster reading "Black Lives Matter."...

The parents of Michael Brown, the Ferguson Missouri man who was shot by Officer Darren Wilson following an altercation, spoke before a UN Committee yesterday, pleading for the world to note what was happening in Ferguson and around the country. Lesley McSpadden and Michael Brown Sr. spoke to the United Nations Committee Against Torture -- which also works against cruel or degrading treatment or punishment by government authorities. CNN: "We need the world to know what's going on in Ferguson and we need justice," McSpadden told CNN in Geneva, Switzerland. "We need answers and we need action. And we have...

A core of community organizers is behind the 45 organizations placing demands on the policing agencies in St. Louis County. As the Grand Jury’s decision concerning Officer Darren Wilson is awaited, Don’t Shoot Coalition (DSC) is preparing its role in street demonstrations likely to come in the wake of an anticipated No True Bill. The sub-culture of progressive social activism is organic. Its alliances evolve and dissolve, only to reconstitute under changed names, but with unchanged ideologies. The internet facilitates the proliferation of evolving variations of front groups. Many of their websites have on-line donation solicitation capability. The larger, more...

A Texas high school teacher has been placed on leave and may be fired after a tweet she sent out about Ferguson directed at “dumb duck ass crackers” and telling people “kill yourselves.” Here’s the tweet in question, which has since been deleted (along with the Twitter account): Vinita Hegwood tweeted that out on Friday night. The Duncanville school district was quick to condemn her remarks as “absolutely reprehensible, and today school officials are saying that she’s been placed on leave without pay. WFAA reached out to Hegwood’s husband. He didn’t say much about the tweet, just that there’s more...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice recently promised a whopping $63 million to investigate school safety programs and to reward districts for implementing “restorative justice” and other related school discipline programs. According to an October 1st statement from Attorney General Eric Holder, “This funding is being awarded as part of the Comprehensive School Safety Initiative – a large-scale, multi-agency research effort to build practical, and scientifically-sound, knowledge about effective ways to increase school safety nationwide.” However, according to a review of past and current restorative justice initiatives in schools, the funding appears to be just...

Chris Schaefer was sitting in a church pew at a meeting Thursday night when those around him gradually eased away. Seconds later, he was lying on the ground outside as five men attacked him. The meeting was a gathering of Ferguson-based protesters and the agenda was how to conduct future demonstrations. When Schaefer — a senior at the University of Missouri, St. Louis — arrived, he was told he couldn’t live video stream the meeting. The rule struck him as “suspicious,” but in a conversation with BuzzFeed News Friday he said he sat down and obeyed it anyway. And for...

President Obama spent his first term pushing from power long-standing Arab allies in Egypt and Tunisia; seeking to engage the now blood-soaked Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad; pulling his punches against Iran’s nuclear program; and putting “daylight” between his administration and Israel. Now for his second term, he has nominated for the highest posts bearing on the Middle East three figures who give the strongest indication we can expect much more of the same – John Kerry for State, Chuck Hagel for Defense and John Brennan for the CIA. Kerry opposed Congress’ 2009 hold on appointing an ambassador to a regime...

When I lived abroad, I’d proudly defend this country and extol its virtues. Here’s what changed my entire worldview. Elections often hurt. Especially when they make you feel like a fool. I was one of the few who had held out hope that the electorate in key states would favor Democrats in respective races for Senate seats and governorships. As the map turned red over the course of Tuesday evening, the unraveling of my faith in the American political system — begun just about a decade ago during a lengthy trip abroad — completed its spiral. Over 2003 to 2004,...

In the end, there was no Republican wave. Indeed, ideologically it was barely a ripple. Unlike 2010, with the Tea Party, or 2006, when the Democrats took over, there was no all-encompassing agenda or over-arching theme. The Republicans won the US midterms – there’s no denying that – but they didn’t win as big as it first seems. This election cycle included not only conservative-friendly states but a disproportionate number of competitive states in which incumbent Democrats were stepping down. Democrats have not won Louisiana or Arkansas in a presidential election since 1996, Georgia since 1992 and Alaska since 1964....

PORTSMOUTH — A verbal altercation Friday night at Portsmouth High School came about because of an idling tour bus belonging to Republican U.S. Senate candidate Scott Brown. ...Williams (a spokesperson for the Brown campaign) said a man approached the bus, screaming obscenities. He said the man, later identified as New Castle resident Burt Cohen, a longtime Democratic state senator, not only refused to leave when asked, but attempted to board the bus, accosting a campaign volunteer who tried to stop him. Williams alleges that the volunteer campaign worker stood between Cohen and the bus and Cohen "physically assaulted" the campaigner...

DETROIT — Sen. Elizabeth Warren wowed a friendly crowd of influential liberal activists Friday in Detroit, pledging to fight against Republicans and the “sleazy lobbyists” she says have rigged the rules in Washington and harmed the middle class. Warren took the stage in a crowded ballroom to calls of “Run, Liz, run” by activists waving “Elizabeth Warren for President” signs and did little to disappoint. Speaking before the nation’s largest gathering of liberal activists, she railed against giant corporations, secret trade deals and Republicans she said were too cozy with big business. Conservatives, she charged, are “guided by an internal...

Organizers of Netroots Nation, America’s largest annual gathering of progressive activists, took the wraps off of a major and welcome surprise this afternoon with the announcement that Vice President Joe Biden would be coming to Detroit to speak to the convention during a special Thursday afternoon general session. It will also be Biden’s first appearance at Netroots Nation. He was invited to participate in the Presidential Leadership Forum held in Netroots Nation’s second year, in Chicago (back then, the convention was known as YearlyKos), but declined to attend due to his desire to participate in another event. The other contenders...

A new documentary makes the controversial case that a political cocktail of big corporate money and racially charged sentiments has helped fuel the rise of the tea party. And squarely behind that movement, the film argues, are the Koch brothers. Co-Directors Carl Deal and Tia Lessin sat down with “Top Line” to discuss their film, “Citizen Koch,” and why they say the GOP’s deep-pocketed donors, the Koch brothers, are such figures in American politics today. “Money – $100 billion now,” Deal said in explaining the Kochs’ influence. “When we started out making this film, their net worth was about $68...

Edward "Ed" Mezvinsky born January 17, 1937, is a former Democrat congressman. As a Democrat, he represented Iowa 's 1st congressional district in the United States House of Representatives for two terms, from 1973 to 1977. He sat on the House Judiciary Committee that decided the fate of Richard Nixon. He and the Clinton's were very politically intertwined for years. In March 2001, Mezvinsky was indicted and later pleaded guilty to 31 of 69 charges of bank fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud. He was sentenced to 80 months in (Federal) prison. Ed Mezvinsky embezzled more than $10 million...

While many Americans were tuned into news coverage of the massive damage from tornadoes ravaging the state of Oklahoma, Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse took to the Senate floor to rail against his Republican colleagues for denying the theory of anthropogenic global warming. Whitehouse spent 15 minutes chastising GOP senators and justified his remarks by alluding to states that seek federal assistance in the wake of natural disasters. “So, you may have a question for me,” Whitehouse said. “Why do you care? Why do you, Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, care if we Republicans run off the climate...

Pelosi: GOP ‘Makes So Much’ of Scandals Because Obama Is ‘Such a Great President’ May 16, 2013 By Elizabeth Harrington (CNSNews.com) – House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that Republicans are using scandals coming out of the White House to undermine President Barack Obama out of "fear," because he is “such a great president.” “They make so much of these issues, because this president is such a great president,” Pelosi said during a press conference on Capitol Hill, ending a week filled with new revelations about scandals involving the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, the Internal Revenue Service...

NBC-owned television stations in cities across the nation just teamed up with a nonprofit “journalism” group funded by a billionaire husband and wife team who not only spent millions campaigning for President Obama but also topped donor lists to groups like ACORN and MoveOn.org. The nonprofit, ProPublica, will contribute to the news operations of all NBC owned-and-operated stations, including those in such cities as Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia, the network announced Monday. The NBC affiliates will get early access to investigative reports from ProPublica, which describes itself as an “independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public...

On April 8, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi headlined a Boston conference on ''media reform.'' She was joined by four other congressmen, a senator, two FCC commissioners, a Nobel laureate and numerous liberal journalists. The 2,500-person event was sponsored by a group called Free Press, one of more than 180 different media-related organizations that receives money from liberal billionaire George Soros. Soros, who first made a name for himself in investing and currency trading, now makes his name in politics and policy. Since the 2004 election, the controversial financier has used his influence and billions to push a laundry list...

Sometimes poetic justice is very poetic. Other times it’s ironic. And sometimes it’s a teachable moment about the folly of appeasement. Not that Dr. Christopher Stone will have learned anything from his experience. Leftist academics are not very educable. Not even when their Muslim teachers are stabbing them in the neck. (via Debbie Schlussel) A man stabbed in the neck near the US Embassy in Cairo on Thursday has been identified as Chris Stone, an American academic. Stone is associate professor of Arabic and head of the Arabic Programme at City University.

On Friday, March 30, 2012, Hisham Y. Altalib visited the White House. According to visitor logs, Altalib was received by Joshua DuBois, the director of President Obama's Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Four days later, White House officials welcomed a foreign delegation of the radical Sharia-enforcing Muslim Brotherhood from Egypt. The White House meeting with overseas Muslim Brotherhood leaders was reported in April by a few mainstream journalists and questioned loudly by conservative media. But the White House confab in March with U.S.-based Altalib -- which appears to be a prep session with the global Muslim Brotherhood's American...