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“I don’t want to feel this way,” Ms. James said into the camera. “I’m dealing with a bit of guilt because I don’t feel sad for the officers that lost their lives, and I know that that’s not really my heart. I value human life, and I want to feel sad for them, but I can’t help but [feel] like the shooter was a martyr. And I know it’s not the right way to feel, because nobody deserves to lose their lives and I know that those police officers had families and people who loved them and that they didn’t...

In the mid-nineteenth century, the French economist Frederic Bastiat distinguished between good and bad economists by focusing on whether they thought through the long-run consequences of their arguments. According to Bastiat, a good economist was not blinded by the possible short-run gains to be attained by pursuing a certain course of action, but asked the question, “What will be the long-run consequences of doing that?” Bastiat was saying that the good economist worries about what we today call unintended consequences, whereas the bad economist considers only the immediate and visible consequences. While Bastiat’s point was couched in terms of economists,...

A mistake has been made in the Oval Office makeover that goes beyond the beige. President Obama's new presidential rug seemed beyond reproach, with quotations from Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. woven along its curved edge. Except it's not a King quote. The words belong to a long-gone Bostonian champion of social progress. His roots in the republic ran so deep that his grandfather commanded the Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington. For the record, Theodore Parker is your man, President Obama. Unless you're fascinated by antebellum American reformers,...

Two weeks after President Obama said that Cambridge, Mass., police had “acted stupidly” by arresting Harvard University Prof. Henry Louis Gates for arguing with them inside his home, Republicans are still taking stock of their unexpected political gift. A Pew Research poll released on July 30 found the president’s approval rating among white voters slipping seven points, from 53 percent to 46 percent, explicitly because of their disappointment in the Gates remarks. A CNN/Opinion Research poll released on August 4 found that six out of 10 white voters disagreed with the president’s remarks. A Quinnipiac poll released on August 6...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The success of President Barack Obama's ambitious agenda—from health care and climate change to education—could depend on how quickly he recovers from the sharp drop in support among white voters after criticizing a white policeman's arrest of a black Harvard scholar. Obama's widely publicized effort to defuse the first racial flare-up of his young presidency by inviting the protagonists to the White House last week for beers and conversation ended well by most accounts, even though there were no apologies. Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. Joseph Crowley and Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. agreed to disagree about...

The Barack Backlash: How Obama's Presidency Has Gone From Deity To Doubtful MAX HASTINGS 01st August 2009 On Thursday night, the most powerful man on earth spent 55 minutes of his priceless time simply sharing a beer with a police officer from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a Harvard professor. This minutely orchestrated media event was designed to rescue Barack Obama from the most idiotic, yet nonetheless damaging, row of his presidency. The American people are convulsed, not with laughter, because the story touches the obsessive issue of racism. It began a fortnight ago, when Professor Louis Gates locked himself out of...

Here is police dashcam video/audio of some South Florida police officers who appear to have conspired together to frame a woman for an accident that was actually the fault of the police officers. The woman was arrested for being under the influence, but you can hear on the video the officers conspiring together to alter the facts when filing their police report to make the woman appear at fault in the accident. The woman slammed on her brakes because her cat was trying to jump out of the window and the police car hit her in the rear because they...

Many people hoped that the election of a black President of the United States would mark our entering a "post-racial" era, when we could finally put some ugly aspects of our history behind us. That is quite understandable. But it takes two to tango. Those of us who want to see racism on its way out need to realize that others benefit greatly from crying racism. They benefit politically, financially, and socially. Barack Obama has been allied with such people for decades. He found it expedient to appeal to a wider electorate as a post-racial candidate, just as he has...

Twenty-six percent (26%) of voters nationwide say President Obama did a good or excellent job answering a press conference question about an incident involving a white Cambridge, Massachusetts policeman and a black Harvard professor. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 46% rate the president’s response as poor. ... Beneath the top line numbers is a huge gap between the way that white and black Americans view the situation. ... Seventy-one percent (71%) of African-Americans say the president’s response was good or excellent, a view shared by just 22% of white Americans. At the other extreme, 53% of...

It wasn't out of a need for racial healing that President Barack Obama reached out to his old friend, Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley. "We were looking at House hearings on the matter moving fairly quickly, and that wasn't going to be good for us or for Gates," says a White House source. "We needed this thing to go away and go away fast." Early Friday, the White House got wind of Rep. Edolphus Towns' interest in holding hearings into the matter of Gates' arrest, and more broadly looking into the issue of...

Congress would demand that President Obama apologize to the officer the president said had "acted stupidly" in the arrest of a prominent Harvard professor under a resolution set to be introduced by one Michigan lawmaker. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) will introduce a House resolution on Monday demanding Obama retract and apologize for remarks he has made about Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley this past week.

If you're the leader of the free world, there may be a few things that take you by surprise from time to time. Planes flying into buildings of your largest city, or reporters from your hometown asking you a question in a press conference, one thing is for sure--these surprises will often tell everyone watching a little bit about who you really are. So if a reporter from your hometown, asks you a question that you probably shouldn't weigh in on then just say, "I have no comment on that at this time." Also... If you intend on answering questions...

AP: A black police officer who was at Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s home when the black Harvard scholar was arrested says he fully supports how his white fellow officer handled the situation. Sgt. Leon Lashley says Gates was probably tired and surprised when Sgt. James Crowley demanded identification from him as officers investigated a report of a burglary. Lashley says Gates' reaction to Crowley was "a little bit stranger than it should have been." Asked if Gates should have been arrested, Lashley said supported Crowley "100 percent."

If you are a Cambridge police officer and arrest a man who admits he is predominantly white, are you guilty of racism? Go about 1:20 into this clip to hear...

I submit, that even the reconciliatory action of offering beer as a conduit toward sweeping under the rug of Obama's vile and blatantly prejudicial personal feelings as exposed by his remarks, is in itself, a juvenile and patronizing effort to minimize the seriousness of the revelation that our president, is a racially preoccupied bigot who refuses to see those people as they are, but would rather see them with eyes that have been stained by years of unexposed reverse discrimination activities and policies that dictate and mandate that as a black man that the logical, and natural presumptions are indeed,...

Barack Obama is facing the anger of liberal Massachusetts today after being engulfed in a race row over the arrest of a black Harvard scholar. Mr Obama is facing criticism after saying that white police officers had acted 'stupidly' in arresting Henry Louis Gates, a prominent black Harvard University scholar, who was locked outside his own home. Police chiefs accused him of alienated officers across the country with his statement. But last night Mr Obama stood by his remarks, saying cooler heads should have prevailed. Commentators said the president had crossed a line by passing judgement without all the facts,...

President Obama today stood by his comments that the Cambridge, Mass., police department acted "stupidly" in its arrest of Henry Louis Gates, telling ABC News that the Harvard University professor should not have been arrested. The president said he understands the sergeant who arrested Gates is an "outstanding police officer." But he added that with all that's going on in the country with health care and the economy and the wars abroad, "it doesn't make sense to arrest a guy in his own home if he's not causing a serious disturbance."

The White House tried Thursday to calm a hubbub over President Barack Obama's comments about a white police officer's arrest of a black scholar near Boston, saying Obama was not calling the officer "stupid."

NATICK, Mass. – A white police sergeant who arrested renowned black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. said Thursday he's disappointed President Barack Obama said officers acted "stupidly," despite acknowledging he didn't know all the facts. Sgt. James Crowley responded to Gates' home near Harvard University last week to investigate a report of a burglary and demanded Gates show him identification. Police say Gates at first refused and accused the officer of racism. Gates was charged with disorderly conduct. The charge was dropped Tuesday, and Gates has since demanded an apology from Crowley.