Free Republic

Boston’s city council is getting a new look: its first female majority and a more racially diverse lineup than ever before. Voters on Tuesday elected the council’s first Latina. They also voted in a slate of female candidates. Starting in January, the 13-member council will have eight women. Seven councilors will be minorities, the council’s most ever. Asian American city councilor Michelle Wu says it’s the “new face” of Boston politics. Voters also rejected a ballot question to change the name of Dudley Square in historically black Roxbury to Nubian Square. SNIP The council was a white male bastion for...

Districts with higher minority populations and lower incomes saw longer wait times to vote in the 2018 midterm elections, according to a study released Monday. The study from the Bipartisan Policy Center and MIT analyzed data from polling places across the country and found the percentage of voters who waited 30 minutes or longer in line doubled to 6 percent since the last midterm election in 2014. The study indicated that districts with 90 percent or more non-white voters had an increased average wait time of 32.4 minutes, compared to precincts with 10 percent or less non-white voters, which saw...

Strange days, indeed, when America’s free press opposes free speech. “Free speech is killing us,” headlined a New York Times op-ed. Its author, New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz, argued that “hate speech” leads to violence. Worse, he claims it can cause totalitarianism and even genocide. To avoid this fate, Marantz says we must rethink the First Amendment, which would include government and private companies striving to limit “hate speech.” He agrees with a former American Civil Liberties Union official that one day in the not-so-distant future, legal “protection of hate speech” will “seem ridiculous in retrospect.” Some governments have...

United States President Trump may be embattled at home, where he faces an impeachment inquiry and high-stakes diplomatic crises, but right-wing activists are planning a pro-Trump rally this week anyway – in Pretoria. Willie Jordaan, the attorney who leads the Patriots for Minorities movement in South Africa, announced his plans on Monday to host a Trump 2020 support rally at the U.S. Embassy building this Thursday morning. Jordaan condemned the “ridiculous and unfounded” impeachment process in the politically tense U.S. and praised Trump for “keeping an eye on South Africa.” “We would like to thank you for your continued support...

For a profile in courage, consider a very significant move by the Trump administration this week in defense of Muslims. Just days before taking up new trade talks with China, the administration announced a dramatic stand in defense of up to 2 million Chinese Muslims in concentration camps and against companies that are using their technology to spy on the Chinese in their daily lives. Not that I expect the media to give the president and his administration points for defending the religious liberty of people around the world, but when you consider that the NBA couldn't find the character...

Last week the Democrats were touting the special election in North Carolina’s 9th District as the first major contest of the 2020 cycle, and the polls indicated that Democrat Dan McCready might win what should be a pretty safe GOP seat. By Wednesday morning, after Republican Dan Bishop had won, their focus had shifted and much commentary was devoted to his “thin margin of victory.” Little notice was taken of certain voting patterns that should frighten the Democrats. Specifically, McCready did far worse than expected in every county but one, and many of those counties are dominated by minority voters....

Via the Free Beacon, there’s some agita online today about Abrams floating another hair-raising theory of corruption at the polls after insisting without evidence for months that she’s the rightfully elected governor of Georgia. Although, interestingly, she seems to be backing off that last claim now — somewhat, allowing last night that “I don’t know that empirically I would have won” last year.Does that mean the rest of the party is now free to punt on the burning question of who the “real” governor is, or do racial politics require them to hug the “Stacey won” talking point tight...

NEW YORK - As the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and New York City Police Department look to crack down on fare beating, new police numbers reportedly show minorities make up the bulk of people stopped for jumping the subway turnstiles. According to the Daily News, 86 percent of the nearly 700 people arrested from April through June were Black or Latino. Blacks and Latinos also made up 71 percent of those hit with a summons for fare evasion over that same period. The News says NYPD numbers over the past few years show more people of color have been stopped for...

Helen Hudson will tell you what the 15th Ward was like when she was a girl. In the 1950s and early ’60s, the Syracuse neighborhood was home to thousands of predominantly black residents who had settled in the growing upstate New York city during and after the Great Migration. Those who remember it, like Hudson, describe it as thriving, self-sufficient community they were proud to call home. “Oh my god, the things we had,” she said recently, her voice softening with the distinct twang of nostalgia. “We had two bowling alleys. We had meat markets.” Charlie Pierce-El will tell you...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, inspired by the plan to tear down the elevated portion of Interstate 81 in Syracuse, wants to rewrite federal rules for hiring workers on such big infrastructure projects. If she succeeds, at least half of the workers hired for the $2 billion project for a new I-81 would have to come from Syracuse. Hiring priority would be given to people who face barriers to employment, including veterans, ex-offenders and the chronically unemployed. At least a third of contracts and subcontracts would go to small businesses, and at least 30 percent of the contracts would...

If you want to know another reason why the Democrat Left is desperately trying to paint POTUS Donald Trump and Republicans in general as blatant racists and bigots, the answer lies in data released by the Labor Department this week. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), ‘the 99 percent’ have gotten wage increases since the president took office in January 2017 and Republicans passed a massive tax reform bill 11 months later. Not only that but thanks to a vibrate economy and substantial jobs growth that led to what many believe is a fully-employed labor force, Americans are...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top Republicans are hunting district-by-district for just the right candidates — women and minorities in many cases — to help them recapture the House six months after a political tidal wave swept Democrats into control of the most diverse majority in history. Among the recruits are a Republican woman in the Oklahoma state Senate and a black political novice from Houston with Iraq combat experience and three Ivy League degrees on his resume. They are part of the GOP drive to gain at least 18 seats in the 2020 elections to win the majority — historically a...

The Democrats, who rule their running dog media, excel at silencing their enemies and do it most every day U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib wants people to believe that she and other minority members of the Democrat Party have been used as tokens whenever the party wants to project an image of inclusiveness. That’s the S.O.S. message the Michigan Rep. Tweeted out on Saturday.

With Lori Lightfoot’s election as mayor, black women will hold the top political offices in Chicago and Cook County for the first time ever.

White, suburban men are reaping the benefits of public construction projects in the Syracuse area, despite the city's demographics, according to a new report. Advocacy groups are sounding the alarm, before a decision is made regarding the future of the Interstate-81 viaduct in Syracuse. The I-81 project is expected to be a massive undertaking with the potential to create lots of jobs for local residents. Andrew Croom, staff attorney with Legal Services of Central New York, which issued the report with the Urban Jobs Task Force, said they reviewed the payroll records for five construction projects in the Syracuse area,...

Stuyvesant High School, New York City’s most prestigious secondary school, only admitted seven black students for the upcoming fall term. Asian students make up 73 percent of the student body. According to a report from the New York Times, Stuyvesant High School only offered admission to seven blacks students this year for their incoming 900-seat freshman class. This news has sparked debate across the political spectrum, with figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chiming in. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times argued that white students dominate secondary schools like Stuyvesant because they can afford to prepare for its entrance exam. However,...

Every year, many thousands of American parents find that the son or daughter they sent to college has been transformed by college into a leftist. For left-wing parents, this may be a blessing, but for parents who are not leftist—not to mention conservative—it is often painfully jolting. It is jolting because their beloved child now holds America in contempt; prefers socialism to capitalism; regards all white people and police as racist; believes the Bible, Christianity, and Judaism are not only nonsense, but dangerous nonsense; no longer believes men and women are inherently different—or even that male and female objectively exist;...

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Former President Barack Obama and Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry told minority boys on Tuesday that they matter and urged them to make the world a better place. Obama was in Oakland, California, to mark the fifth anniversary of an initiative he started after the 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. The death of the African-American teen sparked protests over racial profiling.

A few years ago, during a panel discussion at the 47th annual Congressional Black Caucus, U.S. Representative Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.) was the opening speaker on the topic of “Putting Black America to Work: the New Skilled Trade Workforce.” Lawrence noted that the industry supported by skilled trade workers will need an infusion of youth because the average age of workers was 53 years old. Rep. Lawrence said, “We are building a new bridge from Detroit to Windsor (Canada). I’ve been told we are bringing in welders from Vietnam to help build it.” It seems unfathomable that the United States, a...

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D- NY) blasted President Donald Trump during a speech on Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday. Jeffries spoke at the National Action Network event about the lessons from Dr. King that still resonate today. At one point he told the audience, “We have a hater in the White House. Birther-in-Chief. The Grand Wizard of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. One of the things we’ve learned is that while Jim Crow may be dead he’s still got some nieces and nephews that are alive and well.”