Free Republic

The Blue-City Model Baltimore shows how progressivism has failed urban America. April 28, 2015 You’re not supposed to say this in polite company, but what went up in flames in Baltimore Monday night was not merely a senior center, small businesses and police cars. Burning down was also the blue-city model of urban governance. Nothing excuses the violence of rampaging students or the failure of city officials to stop it before Maryland’s Governor called in the National Guard. But as order starts to return to the streets, and the usual political suspects lament the lack of economic prospects for the...

Members of the Black Guerrilla Family, the Bloods and the Crips talk to 11 News, saying they did not make a truce to harm police officers.

From Geoff Earle writing at the New York Post: Bill Clinton collected hefty speaking fees as the “honorary chairman” of a for-profit university, but suddenly ended his relationship last week after Hillary Rodham Clinton attacked for-profit colleges and the money flow to Bill was threatened. The new book “Clinton Cash” says government grants to the school’s nonprofit affiliate soared when Hillary became secretary of state.

Two recent news stories caught our eye at CARA. The first reports on “declining membership” in the Catholic Church and the second on an “increase in ordinations” in the United States: “Even though the membership of the Catholic Church in the U.S. has been declining in the past two decades, the billow of Hispanic immigrants to the U.S. has sustained the church and helped keep parishes across the country open.” -Albuquerque Journal “Almost 600 Catholic men will be ordained priests for the U.S. in 2015, an increase of more than 100 from last year.”-The Washington TimesBoth of these stories contain...

The Taylor School District has defied an order from the Michigan Employment Relations Commission that schools post a notice stating that teachers are no longer obligated to financially support the union as a condition of employment. The order, which was issued on Feb. 13, came in response to an unfair labor practice complaint by teachers regarding their rights under the Michigan right-to-work law enacted in December 2012. Angela Steffke is a Taylor teacher who filed suit against both the district and the union. In defiance of the right-to-work law, the district and union entered into a 10-year agreement that required...

"Baltimore is burning," Hillary Rodham Clinton told donors this week. As Jennifer Epstein reports for Bloomberg, the former secretary of state will be giving a speech on criminal justice later Wednesday at Columbia University in New York -- the first major speech of her nascent campaign.

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News just a few days before she is set to enter the 2016 presidential race, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina shared her thoughts about the riots and unrest in Baltimore.

The shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz have long been highlighted as a potential flashpoint amid the simmering geopolitical tensions between the United States and Iran. Its waters are of particular geostrategic significance given that over a third of the world’s petroleum traded by sea passes through the region. Iran has repeatedly emphasized its dominance over the waters, threatening to blockade the strait in a time of crisis. Today, we saw an acute manifestation of Iran’s audacity when the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) seized and escorted the Marshall Islands-flagged MV Maersk Tigris, a shipping vessel belonging to...

Flight controllers are unable to receive data from unmanned Progress M-27M – and the only way to regain control would be an ultra-risky ‘manual stablilisation’ carried out by the ISS crew. But a Russian space program analyst said: “Trying to stabilise it manually would be extremely risky. You could destroy the station and kill the crew.” The spacecraft is carrying more than 6,000lb of food, fuel and supplies for the ISS crew – which is currently home to Russian and American astronauts. The M-27M was launched via a standard Soyuz rocket at 8.09 a.m. GMT today (1.09 p.m. local time...

“Clinton Cash” says US government grants to Laureate's nonprofit affiliate soared when Hillary became secretary of state.....at the same time Bill Clinton collected hefty speaking fees as global pitchman for Baltimore-based Laureate University. Hillary's State Dept steered a $1.9M grant for a Mideast initiative to its nonprofit affiliate in 2012. Bill Clinton was paid by their private corporation at the same time the corporation was also benefiting from State Department actions.....the seeming conflict of interest was not disclosed, writes Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer. Bill Clinton severed his ties last week — just days after candidate Hillary in Iowa charged...

Liberals still glow when they talk about comedian Stephen Colbert ripping into President Bush at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2006. He told Bush they were alike. "We're not some brainiacs on the nerd patrol," Colbert announced. "I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the 'No Fact Zone.'" Nothing like that has happened to President Obama at these dinners. At this late date in Obama's tenure, the process seems entrenched: They giddily await his performance and when it's over, salivate over it. It's rather embarrassing, actually. This year's guest comedian, Cecily Strong (from "Saturday...

American clergymen join British counterparts in wishing to uphold 'Church discipline' on sacramentsA group of American priests has given their backing to the British clergy who wrote to the Catholic Herald last month in support of Church teaching on marriage. Following the letter from 500 clergy in England and Wales , which was issued in advance of the Synod of Bishop taking place later this year, a group of American clergy has now added their support, as first reported by the Church Militant website. In a letter, addressed to the Synod Fathers and published on the the Credo Priests website,...

US economic growth braked more sharply than expected.... gross domestic product expanded at only at 0.2 percent annual rate....

Where do America's most racist people live? "The rural Northeast and South," suggests a new study just published in PLOS ONE. The paper introduces a novel but makes-tons-of-sense-when-you-think-about-it method for measuring the incidence of racist attitudes: Google search data. The methodology comes from data scientist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. He's used it before to measure the effect of racist attitudes on Barack Obama's electoral prospects.

An irate Baltimore councilman said using the word "thug" to describe the rioters who terrorized the city on Monday is just another racial code word. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, City Council President Bernard (Jack) Young and even President Obama have called the protestors who burned and looted the city thugs. Councilman Carl Stokes was having none of it. He dropped the N-word in equating thug with a racist stereotype in an emotionally-charged exchange with Erin Burnett on CNN Tuesday night. "Of course it's not the right word to call our children thugs," Stokes said. "These are children who have been...

In most countries, taxes are progressive, so the more you make, the higher your taxes. In contrast, most parking and speeding tickets are about what you did, not about how much you earn. But in Finland, you might pay for speeding based on the size of your fortune. That is what happened to Mr. Reima Kuisla, a Finnish businessman who was fined 54,024 euros (about $58,000) for speeding. He wasn’t even going terribly fast, although his clocked 64 miles per hour did exceed the posted 50 mph limit. The whole idea of a progressive fine based on one’s income may...

This time, Brian Williams may not be exaggerating. Talks between the exiled anchor and NBCUniversal have recently become tense — with the 55-year-old newsman saying he will not have his “NBC Nightly News” job taken away without a battle, The Post has learned. “Brian is saying he’s not going down without a fight and [is] threatening to make it really ugly — worse than Ann Curry,” a source close to NBC told The Post. [Snip] Without a doubt, there is an increasing urgency within NBCUniversal management ranks to bring the prickly situation to an end. [Snip] As talks between Williams...

A Dutch appeals court ruled April 29 that three former UN commanders will not be prosecuted for the deaths of three Muslim men who were murdered after leaving a UN compound in Srebrenica in 1995. Relatives of the three victims took UN Dutch Battalion commanders to court five years ago, saying the three were expelled into the hands of Bosnian Serb forces during the darkest episode of the country's 1991-95 civil war. Almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered and buried in mass graves in mid-July 1995 at Srebrenica by Serb forces commanded by Ratko Mladic in the worst...

Washington (CNN)—The IRS watchdog investigating the disappearance of Lois Lerner's emails told a Senate committee it has found roughly 6,400 messages that have never before been turned over to Congress. Lerner was the IRS official at the center of allegations that the agency targeted tea party groups applying for nonprofit status. Congress requested Lerner's emails from the IRS and agency officials told lawmakers an unknown number of emails had been lost when Lerner's computer crashed. READ: No contempt charges for Lois Lerner The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration is in the process of turning the emails over to the...

The mayor of Turkey’s capital has challenged a U.S. State Department spokesperson by referring to a pro-government media report that slammed her as “stupid blonde.” “Come on blonde, answer now,” Ankara Mayor Melih Gökçek said in a tweet early April 29. The tweet also included an image from the recent riots in Baltimore, as well as the photo of Marie Harf and a caption that reads: “Where are you stupid blonde, who accused Turkish police of using disproportionate force?” Gökçek was referring to a report on Ensonhaber.com, a staunchly pro-government online news website. “U.S. police displayed a harsh attitude against...