Free Republic

“Black Lives Matter” protesters who were apparently hired to cause a ruckus in Ferguson, Missouri, are angry because, they say, they haven’t been paid for their hard work. So they’ve launched a #CutTheCheck hashtag on Twitter and held a sit-in at the offices of Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment, or MORE – the successor group to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, in Missouri.

Full Title: Ferguson unveils permanent Michael Brown memorial plaque to be drilled into the road where he was shot dead on the day he would have turned 19 Michael Brown Sr unveiled steel and gold plaque on what would have been his son's 19th birthday He acknowledged the makeshift memorial of toys and flowers was a safety hazard and helped to remove it The mayor told crowds the plaque will be drilled into the road as they resurface Canfield Drive Brown was shot dead on August 9 by white police officer Darren Wilson and sparked Black Lives Matter movementA permanent...

This lunacy is mainstream thought at the Department of Justice. Vanita Gupta, head of the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, has told a lawyers group in Colorado that slavery and Jim Crow helped fuel the Ferguson and Baltimore riots. The last few days have seen a number of fanciful stories with the Obama administration seemingly questioning the authority of local police. I’ve long maintained that the administration is nakedly seeking to federalize policing standards — but get rid of local police? No way, that sounds like something broadcast from a shortwave station in Austin, Texas. But then up steps...

Remember the protests (and riots) in Ferguson last summer? It looks like at least some of the protestors were told they would be paid to show up and now they're upset the checks haven't arrived yet. Weaselzippers has the full story and the screen shots showing "protestors" using the Twitter hashtag #cutthecheck in response to non-payment. Based on tweets, Organize Missouri is responsible for issuing payments. On May 14, protesters, upset with not being paid their promised checks for protesting, protested outside MORE, Missourians Organizing For Reform and Empowerment, an ACORN organization which had received funding through George Soros to...

#CutTheCheck. That’s the hashtag for Black activists demanding payment from white liberals for taking part in the months-long protests in Ferguson, Missouri over the police shooting death of unarmed Black teenaged criminal Michael Brown in a confrontation with white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson last August. Black activists held a sit-in at the office of MORE (Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment) on Thursday to press their claim that groups led by whites have collected tens of thousands of dollars in donations off of the Black Lives Matter movement without paying the Black participants their fair share. During the sit-in,...

PASADENA, Calif. — Shattered cave formations in the central United States may preserve one of the longest records of powerful earthquakes in this region. Historical records from European settlers provide vivid accounts of deadly earthquakes in states such as Missouri, Tennessee and Illinois. For instance, in 1811 and 1812, people saw the ground ripple like ocean waves when the New Madrid Fault Zone unleashed earthquakes thought to be greater than magnitude 8. However, no written accounts exist from before Europeans arrived. And most earthquake faults in the Midwest are hidden deep beneath the surface, so scientists can't dig into the...

Man suffers broken nose, teeth in South County road rage incident ST. LOUIS COUNTY, MO (KTVI) – St. Louis County Police are investigating a road rage incident that happened Sunday near Jefferson Barracks. FOX 2’s Rebecca Roberts sat down with the Bonne Terre couple, who feel they’re lucky to be alive.

President Obama said today that the incidents with police in Baltimore and Ferguson, along with “a growing awareness of inequality in our society,” can turn attention back to poverty in America and bridge “ideological divides that have prevented us from making progress.” At the Georgetown University panel on poverty, Obama name-dropped Ayn Rand and acknowledged he may speak differently to a black audience. Panelists joining the president were American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks, Harvard professor Robert Putnam, and Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne. “The stereotype is that you’ve got folks on the left who just want to pour more...

A former CIA officer has been sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for leaking details of a secret mission to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Jeffrey Sterling of O’Fallon, Missouri, was facing a recommended sentence of 20 years or more under federal sentencing guidelines for violations of the Espionage Act. …

For close to 20 years now, I’ve been observing and reporting on a disturbing trend in law enforcement – the federalization and militarization of local police forces. Until recently, practically no one noticed what was happening. But with the focus on police shootings and the civil disturbances that have followed – sometimes involving tanks, military-style gear and Kevlar – it’s hard not to notice that local cops don’t exactly look like Officer Joe Bolton anymore. It was none other than Al Sharpton (I won’t call him reverend) who suggested recently that the answer to the use of excessive force by...

Iowa Rep. Steve King took President Obama to task Saturday, blaming him for the conditions that caused civil unrest in Baltimore and Ferguson. “President Obama has consistently driven wedges between people. And he perceives a difference on race, maybe on ethnicity, well yes on ethnicity, sexual orientation—wedge after wedge after wedge. I didn’t really imagine they were going to drive a wedge between the law and law-breakers,” King told reporters at the South Carolina Freedom Summit in Greenville. King cited the example of Obama’s “Beer Summit” early in his first term with Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. James Crowley and Harvard...

Less than 24 hours after two officers were gunned down in Mississippi, the sheriff of Milwaukee County — a frequent guest on Fox News — blamed the killing on President Barack Obama on Twitter, saying the president “started this war on police.” Earlier Sunday, Sheriff David A. Clarke, noted the shooting that claimed the lives on two officers, 34-year-old Benjamin Deen and 25-year-old Liquori Tate, in Hattiesburg. The sheriff re-tweeted: “Basic traffic stop in Hattiesburg, 2 Police Officers assassinated. The post Ferguson targeting of our Cops continues.”

First Lady Michelle Obama urged students at Tuskegee University, a historically black university in Alabama, to remain involved in civic life during a time of tension regarding race relations across the country. At the school's commencement address, the First Lady listed scenarios in which African-Americans feel they encounter systemic discrimination, such as "nagging worries that you're going to get stopped or pulled over for absolutely no reason." She said those feelings are "real," but disengaging is not an option. "I want to be very clear that those feelings are not an excuse to just throw up our hands and give...

Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul will host a meeting with members of the Congressional Black Caucus next week to discuss criminal justice reform. The libertarian-leaning senator from Kentucky has long been an outspoken advocate for changing how the American criminal system prosecutes and sentences. Now he’s teaming up with Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), and other black lawmakers, to craft a strategy for advancing legislation as law enforcement issues have taken center stage following the death of several unarmed black men at the hands of police. “Not only is Senator Paul the [S]enate co-sponsor of the Justice Safety Valve Act, which...

The NYT has never had the slightest sense of moral aberrance ,egregious wrongheadedness any sense of guilt, regret in the attitude or philosophy regarding the headlines, articles and the the cognitive dissonance they bring to bear written as if no logic, reasoning, common sense was mandatory in the process. While human behavior is determined by logic, reason and calculated conclusion, animals have no self-awareness, considered unable to visualize that which is not visually present, behavior driven by instinct, hot-wired into their brain with no input to help modify, ameliorate the manner in how they behave. The NYT it seems operates...

Black Panther leaders are planning ways to make the chaos last and spread across the nation. Two leaders of the New Black Panther Party, Chief of Staff Michelle Williams and King Samir Shabazz, are calling Baltimore rioters for even more violence against whites. (SNIP) During an appearance on Shabazz’s radio show, Williams regularly made fun of “crackers” and black conservatives. Agreeing with her, Shabazz went a step further and made a terrifying threat: he called on blacks to firebomb nurseries so that they can kill as many white babies as possible. Shabazz added that this was a good suggestion because...

To some, a makeshift shrine in the middle of the Ferguson street where Michael Brown was killed last summer is a hallowed symbol of a new civil rights movement over race and policing. To others, it has served its purpose and is now more of an eyesore and a road hazard. Within hours of Brown’s Aug. 9 shooting death by a white police officer, people began placing stuffed animals, candles and other tributes in the middle of Canfield Drive, where the unarmed black 18-year-old’s body lay for about four hours before it was removed. […] Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III,...

CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin had choice words for President Obama last night when she appeared on “The Lead” with Jake Tapper. ...“Both Mayor Rawlings-Blake and President Obama, today, using the word “thug,”” Tapper said after showing a clip of Mayor Rawlings-Blake speaking. “Sunny, you take issue that?” “I do,” Hostin responded. “It’s not a word, certainly, that I’m comfortable with. It’s not a word that I use. I think that we can all agree that that word, that term has been racialized, and I think what I saw during the riots was, I saw a lot of crimes being...

The new mayor of a Missouri city [next to Ferguson] had a tough first day on the job when she was met by police at City Hall and informed she had been suspended over allegations of voter fraud. Betty McCray, the newly elected mayor of the city of Kinloch, was met in the parking lot at City Hall Thursday by police officers and the city attorney holding articles of impeachment, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. “You can’t come in as mayor,” attorney James Robinson told McCray. “You have been suspended.” McCray, however, was defiant, telling Robinson, “You may be the...

Betty McCray, newly-elected mayor of Kinloch, Missouri, showed up at City Hall this week to get to work. But when she arrived, the police wouldn’t let her in the door. The reason why? Those non-existent illegal voters who cast ballots for the candidate. The election, which was held April 7, was hotly contested and the results have been questioned by McCray’s opponents. However, the St. Louis County Board of Elections certified the results and swore McCray in after city officials refused to. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that deputies met her in the parking lot, and she was served with articles of impeachment by...