Free Republic

I have read numerous comments online and in the press about how Obama, New York Mayor Bill Deblasio and race baiter Al Sharpton are to blame for the protests and the shooting of two NYPD officers. We are told that the shooter was empowered by what had happened to “gentle giant” Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in New York City. A few facts first: 1. Bassem al-Masri, a Palestinian terrorist who had been to the White House as an advisor, has taken control of the local mobs. 2. In New York, the protests-those that have been violent-have been...

Another email arrived the other day from a citizen who blames Democrats for everything bad about Baltimore — for the poverty and the potholes, the homicides and homelessness, the high property taxes and the trash in the Inner Harbor. These assertions have been arriving in a moderate flow since the April riot, framed between harsh criticism of Baltimore's Democratic mayor and soaring praise for Maryland's Republican governor who "saved the city."The most recent email came from an "interested friend" — few writers of these letters sign their names — who declared: "Democrats have had Baltimore in its grip for 50...

Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is not a fan of the “Black Lives Matter” movement. She appeared with Neil Cavuto yesterday to essentially tell the movement to shut up. In case you missed the news, a “Black Lives Matter” mob showed up at a Jeb Bush campaign event and started chanting their racist mantra. King was not impressed. “You know, our good friend, Sheriff Clarke, said the other day a lot of this disruption is designed to distract,” she said. “And if you have enough strife or confusion, people can’t think. They just panic or...

There is a haunting familiarity to the arguments defending Planned Parenthood’s sale of body parts from aborted babies for medical research: an echo of another era of medical innovation amid moral ambiguity. Then, as now, the response of cultural leaders — especially religious leaders — is a story about the corruption, and potential renewal, of Western civilization. Today we’re told there is no other way to achieve the research results we desire, because fetal tissue is a “uniquely rich source” of stem cells, which provide invaluable clues to human development. Second, we’re led to believe that research on aborted babies...

Officials reported big delays Saturday at New York and Washington airports because of an air traffic control issue. Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport reported that a computer outage was limiting flight arrivals and departures there as well as Washington's Reagan National Airport and Dulles International Airport. The problem also affected flights leaving New York’s LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports, according to FlightAware’s online tracker. By 12:30 p.m. departure delays were at 1 hour and expected to grow, PIX11 News reported. Delays out of Newark International Airport were at 30 minutes and decreasing at that particular time, the station said,...

President Obama discussed initiatives he's put in place to change the tense dynamic between "many communities of color" and the police on the one year anniversary of teenager Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, Mo. "I convened a task force on community policing to find commonsense steps that can help us drive down crime and build up trust and cooperation between communities and police, who put their lives on the line every single day to help keep us safe. And I've met personally with rank and file officers to hear their ideas," said Obama in his weekly address. Obama said that...

Washington area airports and others along the East Coast are reporting flight delays due to an issue with the system that routes air traffic, according to the Federal Aviation Administration’s air traffic control Web site. “The FAA is diagnosing an automation problem at an air traffic center in Leesburg, Va.,” according to a statement from the agency. “Some flights into and out of the New York and Washington, DC metro area airports area may be delayed.”

President Obama’s July 31 phone call organized by the anti-Israel group J Street and other progressive Jewish groups could be summed up in one sentence: Please help because, those rich people are helping those warmongering Jews to fight this wonderful Iran deal because they don’t like me and they want war just like they did in Iraq. In the 20 minute call Obama said that opponents of the Iran deal come from the same “array of forces that got us into the Iraq war” and that a “bunch of billionaires who happily finance super PACs” are “putting the squeeze on...

Forget the Twitter blog for emoji responses to how millennials feel about student debt. As the New York Daily News’ Alejandro Alba notes, the condescending approach didn’t generate much respect from Hillary Clinton’s target audience. The beleagured Democrat tried to shift attention to policy from the e-mail scandal, focusing on her $350 billion proposal to overhaul higher-education finances, which is in a shambles largely due to federal government intervention in the first place.Mission not accomplished: While some users thought the question was “relatable,” others believed the question was offensive and condescending.Many users began to reply to the tweet with...

The University of Maryland law school will offer a course this upcoming semester on the arrest and resulting death of Freddie Gray, a black Baltimore resident whose death led to protests and unrest across the city. Forty UMD students are enrolled in the course — called "Freddie Gray's Baltimore: Past, Present, and Moving Forward" — which will run for eight classes and be taught by law professors, as well as city officials. The law school announced the course Tuesday, and it already appears to have filled up. Gray's death and the following unrest in Baltimore, the course's description states, "have...

In January 2015, Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) has introduced the Creating Hope and Opportunity for Individuals and Communities through Education (CHOICE) Act, designed to make vouchers more widely available to the poor so they can go to private or charter schools. “This pilot program would cost $10 million, and we’ve already paid for it,” said the Republican senator, “For those states that already have options, we are not dictating or mandating anything on any state, we are saying, here is another weapon in your arsenal to help those kids who are especially vulnerable to not seeing their full potential realized.”...

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley is keeping pressure on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to increase the number of Democratic presidential debates. "We're making a big mistake, as Democrats, if we try to limit debate and have an undemocratic process," O'Malley said Monday on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports." "Shame on us as a party if the DNC tries to limit debate and prevents us from being able to put forward a better path for our people that will make the economy work for all of us again," he said. O'Malley — who trails front-runner Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders...

Baltimore has become the second most violent city in America, a Baltimore Brew survey finds, with a homicide rate exceeded only by St. Louis.Baltimore has become the second deadliest city in America (after St. Louis) with homicides surpassing those of Detroit, the longtime poster child for urban violence. During the first seven months of 2015, Detroit police reported 163 slayings. That compares to 189 killings recorded through July in Baltimore. With 10% fewer residents than Detroit, Baltimore’s current homicide rate (deaths per 100,000 people) is running about 26% above that of the Motor City. That’s quite a reversal from the...

Imagine if the Koch brothers had financed a group that was regularly disrupting and shutting down events of candidates that they opposed. Does anybody doubt that the Koch connection would come up in the first paragraph, if not the first sentence, of most news stories about such disruptions? Yet somehow, complete silence from the MSM on the connection of George Soros to #BlackLivesMatter even though he is the providing most of the finances to that organization. Also mysterious is how the MSM also fails to note that Hillary Clinton, whom Soros supports, has not had her events disrupted by #SorosMoneyMatters (also...

House Democrats said Thursday they’ll soon launch an official petition drive to try to force Republicans to vote on Democrats’ immigration bill — but said even before that, they’ll try to force a vote on a minimum wage increase. Emerging from a day of meetings at their policy retreat in Maryland, Democratic leaders said the minimum wage will come first because it’s the most central to their efforts to try to paint Republicans into a corner on income inequality. But, under fire from immigrant-rights advocates, Democrats said immigration will come soon after that. The petition drives, known as “discharge petitions,”...

House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) spoke at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute's annual public policy conference on Sept. 30, 2014 in Washington, D.C. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr(CNSNews.com) -- At a press briefing on Tuesday, House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said that President Obama had "broad authority" to take unilateral action on immigration but failed to directly answer a question asking him where specifically the Constitution authorized President Obama to unilaterally decided not to enforce immigration laws. CNSNews.com asked Hoyer: “The Constitution requires that the president ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed.’ Where specifically in the Constitution does...

**SNIP** Asked by Kenneth G. Langone, the co-founder of Home Depot, whether there are any extremists in the Democratic ranks, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer said no. “I don’t think there are any extremists in my party,” the Maryland Democrat said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” Mr. Langone expressed disbelief at the comment. “What more can I say,” he said. “The other guys are the bad guys, you are the good guys.”

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the shot heard ’round America — the one that left Michael Brown’s lifeless body lying on a Ferguson, Mo., street for hours and then left the nation reeling and roiling ever since. Yet watching the GOP candidates and Fox News moderators shape and prioritize the nation’s most pressing problems Thursday night, one couldn’t help but wonder: Does “Black Lives Matter” matter to them at all? In a two-hour debate, which frankly felt much longer, only two candidates were even asked about race. First, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker answered a question about the Black Lives...

The one thing most Americans can agree on is that members of Congress do not need a pay raise. But that didn’t stop one Democrat lawmaker from stating his case. At a hearing regarding the 2016 Legislative Branch appropriations bill yesterday, Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) said that his salary of $174,000 a year simply isn’t enough to live on in Washington, D.C. […] Congress’ current approval rating is 19 percent. …

Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the second-ranking Democrat in the House, said the tone was counterproductive. ‘Not Comfortable’ “Characterizing people who may be in opposition to the agreement as wanting to go to war as an alternative, I’m not comfortable with that, and I wish the White House wouldn’t do that,” Hoyer, who is leading a visit of 22 Democratic House members to Israel this week, said in an interview in Jerusalem on Thursday. “I don’t think the alternatives are going to war, and I’ve indicated that” to the White House. White House press secretary Josh Earnest dismissed complaints about...