Free Republic

Try to imagine a high school tasking its students with making a logical argument to support the proposition that black people are evil. If you find that thought experiment too perverse even to imagine, substitute Jews for blacks, and there’s no need to use your imagination at all. It really happened, at a school in upstate New York. The Epoch Times reports that Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard of the Albany School District apologized Friday for a writing assignment that asked students to “argue Jews are evil” while making a persuasive argument blaming them for the problems of Nazi Germany. Wyngaard...

Do you oppose President Obama's gun control proposals? Well then, you must not be against gun violence. So suggested a guest this morning on the new MSNBC show, Up With Steve Kornacki. Leah Gunn Barrett [insert wisecrack on middle name here], of "New Yorkers Against Gun Violence," was trying to explain away why Second Amendment advocates do so well politically. According to her, gun "enthusiasts" are single-issue voters with good grassroots organization. In contrast, "people who are against gun violence" aren't as well organized. View the video here.

Rival campaigns’ plan of attack for Anthony Weiner: Hit him where it hurts The city’s mayoral hopefuls are sharpening their knives — and Anthony Weiner better be ready to answer the hard questions about his sexting scandal. Sources in the camps of several campaigns said they have been in dirt-digging overdrive ever since the shamed former congressman hinted he was eyeing a mayoral run that would pit him against an already crowded field, including Christine Quinn, Joe Lhota, Bill de Blasio and Bill Thompson. Potential rivals are aggressively compiling dossiers and detailed lists of questions about the Democrat’s three-year foray...

Shocked at last week’s Rockland County Times revelation that Columbia University has hired convicted, jailed and released Weather Underground terrorist Kathy Boudin as an adjunct professor, a furious Orangetown Town Board Tuesday unanimously approved a resolution of condemnation, and has demanded the university terminate Boudin immediately and send letters of apology to the families of the three officers killed during the infamous 1981 Brinks armored truck robbery in Nanuet and Nyack. In a similar resolution the Town Board also continued it years-long effort to keep the killers of Pearl River teenager Paula Bohovesky in prison for the remainder of their...

A demon has been revealed in twenty-first-century Philadelphia, and the three broadcast networks have been enforcing a policy of silence about the discovery. So have most major newspapers. One reason may be that the trial of late-term abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell for multiple counts of murder is about an African-American killing mainly African-American babies -- and so the common sense among liberals, or, as a friend of mine would say, the "coven-sense," is that such a story disparages that community. This is something newspapers are loath to do. In much the same manner that they cannot dwell upon the causes...

AMHERST, N.Y. - A state lawmaker is calling for an investigation into how an Amherst man's guns were taken away by mistake. State Assemblyman Ray Walter says when he saw the news coverage of David Lewis' case, he knew immediately something was "seriously wrong." Walter wants some answers, when he meets face-to-face with the State Police Superintendent in Albany next Tuesday. Lewis said, "It's been very embarrassing. I feel like I've been let down, and my privacy's been invaded." Lewis was forced to turn in his seven handguns and stripped of his pistol permit. After State Police in Albany identified...

Students in some Albany High School English classes were asked to participate in the unthinkable this week as part of a persuasive writing assignment. The objective? Prove why Jews are evil and convince the teacher of their loyalty to the Third Reich in five paragraphs or less. “You must argue that Jews are evil, and use solid rationale from government propaganda to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!” read the description on the assignment, which the school superintendent said reflects the kind of sophisticated writing expected of students under the new Common Core standards and was meant...

Two events happened on Wednesday which should send a shiver down the spine of everyone concerned about the future of the American Jewish community. But to understand their importance it is important to consider the context in which they occurred. On January 13, The New York Times reported on a series of virulently anti-Jewish comments Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi made in speeches given in 2010. Among other things, Morsi said, "We must never forget, brothers, to nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred for them: for Zionists, for Jews." He said that Egyptian children "must feed on hatred; hatred...

An official with Yeshiva University told Arutz Sheva’s New York correspondent on Thursday that the university disagrees with the decision of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law to honor former U.S. President Jimmy Carter with the International Advocate for Peace Award. The official told Arutz Sheva that faculty at the university expressed discontent by the decision to give an award to Carter. “The decision has caused an uproar, and rightly so, but it is a decision by students and the administration cannot interfere with such decisions nor can it cancel them,” he said. Students who opposed the decision to...

A day after the Senate voted to begin debate on new gun control measures, the Supreme Court is expected to consider a new appeal aimed at loosening state restrictions on firearms. The justices are meeting in private Friday to discuss adding new cases for the term that begins in the fall. Among them is an appeal of a federal court ruling that upheld New York’s strict licensing scheme for carrying concealed weapons in public. The National Rifle Association and 20 states are backing an appeal by five New York residents who claim that the state law violates their constitutional gun...

The city of New Rochelle, N.Y., has removed the historic Gadsden “Don’t Tread On Me” flag from a military armory, deeming the flag “too partisan” because it often is used by the tea party movement. And in response, veterans groups have tapped the Thomas More Law Center to take up the fight. It was after an official ceremony on March 21 at the New Rochelle Armory that a new American flag was unfurled to replace the previous weathered flag that flew at the location. Beneath the new American flag, the yellow Gadsden Flag was flown, as is common tradition...

So, about that "we'll never come take your guns thing." From The Blaze: On April 1st, a legal gun owner in upstate New York reportedly received an official notice from the state ordering him to surrender any and all weapons to his local police department. The note said that the person’s permit to own a gun in New York was being suspended as well. The gun owner contacted attorney Jim Tresmond (a specialist in gun laws in New York) and the two visited the local police precinct. Mr. Tresmond reportedly went into the precinct and informed the officers that his...

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) on Thursday endorsed Anthony Weiner for mayor of New York City. “Anthony’s a good guy in my opinion. Now, he should’ve came clean once he got busted, you know, and I’m sorry he didn’t do that – but he’s sorry he didn’t do that and his [wife Huma Abedin’s] sorry he didn’t do that,” Ellison said on Current TV to host Bill Press. “Look man, nobody here is perfect. Anthony was a great congressman in my opinion, and he’s dealt with his issues and everybody has issues. So I’d love to see Anthony Weiner be mayor...

Bat Man: A Chicago store owner beats off two armed thugs with a baseball bat as Missouri illegally shares concealed carry records with feds and New York matches private health records with gun permits to take firearms. President Obama, who campaigns for gun control between concerts at the White House and golf outings with Tiger Woods, once famously used the metaphor that in politics if they bring a knife to a fight, you bring a gun. On Tuesday, in the gun-controlled murder capital of Chicago, the president's hometown, store owner Luis Quizhpe, an Ecuadorean immigrant, had no gun, but he...

National Rifle Association President David Keene said Tuesday that the organization intends to challenge the constitutionality of Maryland's newly passed gun law, as a conservative group readied plans to try to overturn the law through voter referendum. Keene said during a radio interview the group will “absolutely” go to the courts. “We are already in court in New York and we will be in court and aiding those in Maryland — and I am myself a Maryland resident — who want to challenge the constitutionality of this and other provisions here in Maryland,” Keene said to the Washington, D.C., station...

In a surprising turnaround, New York State Police have admitted that they made a mistake when they confiscated the guns and suspended the permit of an Erie County resident on the grounds of mental health. Late Wednesday, Erie County, NY, released a statement (posted below) blaming the New York State Police for giving them bad information regarding the suspension of a pistol permit and demand to surrender firearms sent to Amherst resident David Lewis. (Mr. Lewis was not identified in our original story, his name has since been released in conjunction with court documents filed by his attorney, Jim Tresmond.)...

Michael Lewis is charged with 335 counts of sexual abuse. More than 100 counts are tied to the first victim, who testified Wednesday....She also testified Lewis made her ask for birth control, "Michael forced me to go on birth control. I didn't want to. He told me to lie to the doctor and say I was having sex with a 14 year old."

Early last year, as the voter fraud trial in upstate New York was getting under way, a Democrat Committeeman named Anthony DeFiglio claimed that falsifying records and forging signatures on ballots was simply “a normal political tactic”. He himself would plead guilty to falsifying business records, and was identified as being one of three Democrats who convinced two mentally disabled men to sign absentee ballots, which were later filled in for them. For his efforts, DeFiglio was sentenced to 100 hours of community service. Other colleagues received similar sentences for similar crimes, with one former Councilman being hit with six...

The Great Neck Synagogue has cancelled a planned talk Sunday by activist Pamela Geller, Geller announced Wednesday. "Due to relentless intimidation, bullying and threats, the Great Neck Synagogue is cancelling my talk," said Geller to Patch. "It is a very sad day for freedom-loving peoples when fascist tactics trump free speech." A coordinated campaign by prominent officials to cancel Geller's appearence has been underway since last month. Geller said she received the following statement from synagogue officials, cancelling her invitation to speak to the synagogue's men's club on the “Imposition of Sharia in America.” "As the notoriety and media exposure...

Yeah, this makes sense: A 10-year-old suggests a bully should be shot with a water pistol, so the police confiscate his father’s firearms and the State revokes his concealed-carry permit. It happened in New York, a State that is notorious for the difficulty it causes its residents who want to legally carry a gun and that recently suspended the U.S. Constitution and passed draconian gun restrictions. The father posted news of his plight April 1 on the Longislandfirearms.com forum.