Free Republic

The black man courting crowds of white conservatives doesn’t seem like the same guy that H. Westley Phillips once idolized. Phillips still relishes the day he heard Ben Carson inspire minority students at Yale University with his story of persistence. He can still feel the nervous anticipation he had while waiting in line to shake Carson’s hand. After the speech, Phillips followed Carson’s path and... “I had come from a public school in Tulsa and came from a single-parent household and thought I was the admissions mistake,” said Phillips, now 27. “But he gave me the comfort to know that...

In looking over the history of the past 500 years, four nations stand out for having completely and massively altered world civilization in a way that no others have, before or after: England, Spain, France, and Portugal. No other empires even come close. The Muslim conquests were landbound except for island hopping. Chinese and Mongolian conquests were landbound. Even in ancient times, Greek, Roman, and Persian conquests were essentially land operations, except for river fording. Yes, they all had navies, but were not defined by them. What separates the English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish was that these nations had vast...

WikiLeaks has added “thousands” more hacked Sony Pictures Entertainment emails to its searchable database. WikiLeaks made the announcement Thursday in a posting on its Twitter account. The move came two weeks after WikiLeaks disclosed that it had published 30,287 documents and 173,132 emails stemming from last winter’s cyber-attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment. WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange said in an April 16 statement that information was newsworthy, adding, “It belongs in the public domain. WikiLeaks will ensure it stays there.”

It’s a dignity thing — democracy is threatened by racism and poverty. The two seminal pieces of Legislation in the 20th century happened just before the tumult of 1968–the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Fifty years later, we ought to be in a season of celebration. Instead, we find ourselves in an American catastrophe. Trayvon Martin. Eric Garner. Freddie Gray. On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. gave the most controversial speech of his life, “Beyond Vietnam.” A year later to the day, almost to the hour, he was assassinated. In that...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzXL-KM2UqU

Another "Garden of Eden" summer for Texas and the plains states.

For the people of China, thereÂ’s good news and bad news. The good news, as illustrated by the chart, is that economic freedom has increased dramatically since 1980. This liberalization has lifted hundreds of millions from abject poverty. The bad news is that China still has a long way to go if it wants to become a rich, market-oriented nation. Notwithstanding big gains since 1980, it still ranks in the lower-third of nations for economic freedom. Yes, thereÂ’s been impressive growth, but it started from a very low level. As a result, per-capita economic output is still just a fraction...

A couple of prominent conservatives have expressed concern over the possibility of a ‘runaway’ Article V state amendments convention. Such is their anxiety that runaway tyranny from Rome-on-the-Potomac pales in comparison to the possible horrors of the states getting together to relieve their people from oppression. Are these concerns fact based or irrational or somewhere in between? An important, and likewise extra-congressional vestige of the federal system of 1787, and quite similar to an Article V state amendments convention in its constitutional foundation remains in force today. It is the familiar Electoral College (EC). Like the state amendments convention, the...

Isis militants slaughter more than 300 Yazidi captives in northern Iraq after thousands were taken captive from villages Isis militants slaughter more than 300 Yazidi captives in northern Iraq after thousands were taken captive from villages Hundreds of Yazidi prisoners have been killed near Mosul in northern Iraq Yazidi Progress Party condemned the 'heinous criminal acts' by extremists More than 300 Yazidi prisoners have been slaughtered by Islamic State militants near Mosul in Iraq. According to the Yazidi Progress Party, hundreds were murdered by Isis on Friday in the Tal Afar district, although it is not known how they were...

In his latest column, Washington Post commentator EJ Dionne advises National Republicans to learn from California's mistakes, or face declining voter support in election cycles to come.His first point of contact on this matter? The current Chairman of the California GOP, Jim Brulte:“California is the leading edge of the country’s demographic changes,” Brulte said in an interview. “Frankly, Republicans in California did not react quickly enough to them, and we have paid a horrible price.”That is true. Up to the early 1980s and the 1990s, California was a majority white state, Republicans did very well working the entire state. Other...

Abolishing all civil marriage is the primary goal of the elites who have been pushing same sex marriage. The scheme called “marriage equality” is not an end in itself, and never really has been. The LGBT agenda has spawned too many other disparate agendas hostile to the existence of marriage, making marriage “unsustainable,” if you will. By now we should be able to hear the growing drumbeat to abolish civil marriage, as well as to legalize polygamy and all manner of reproductive technologies.

Portland police used tear gas, flash bangs and what they called "noise distractionary devices" to try and disperse protesters in downtown Portland Friday evening. At least one officer was injured during the clashes. No arrests were made. The group Don't Shoot Portland, protesting excessive force by law enforcement, marched through downtown Portland Friday afternoon and joined an unrelated May Day rally for immigrant rights. Hundreds of marchers began winding their way through downtown Portland at 4:30 p.m., but some protesters disregarded the planned route and walked against traffic. TriMet buses and MAX trains were delayed.Streets in downtown Portland were blocked...

The Orlando Police officer accused of shooting through a parking garage has been fired, the department announced Friday. Johnston opened fire 23 times on a suspect fleeing from a downtown Orlando apartment complex with nearly 90 feet and closed metal gates separating him from his target, documents said. OPD fires officer who shot 23 times into parking garage OPD Officer David Johnston has been fired after an internal investigation found he violated department policies. (Video from Fox 35) He is facing the following charges: shooting into an occupied vehicle and discharging a gun in public. The incident started as a...

Obama turns a smiling face to Israel. Biden: Iran has enough material for 8 nuclear bombs "pRes_ _dent Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have gone out of their way in the last fortnight to shower friendly gestures on Israel, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and even Ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer. .... on April 23, Biden was the keynote speaker at the Israeli embassy’s Independence Day reception. ... Biden went on to warn: “Let’s not kid each other. They already have paved a path to a bomb’s worth of material. Iran could get there now if they walked away...

A Utah man is suing the local police force after one of its dogs attacked him during an arrest, after he had put his hands up and surrendered. Martin Lee Hoogveldt, 33, had already given himself up after armed police entered his home in response to a disturbing-the-peace complaint in 2013, but the dog still jumped at him,clamping its jaws around his face. The dog handler's body camera captured the horrific attack, and can be seen struggling to get the dog, a German shepherd called Pyro, to let go of Hoogveldt's face.

A CELEBRATED AMERICAN PREACHER once advanced the novel theory that the various denominations with their different doctrinal emphases served a useful purpose as gathering places for persons of similar temperaments. Christians, he suggested, tend to gravitate toward others of like mental types. Hence the denominations. Undoubtedly this is oversimplification carried to the point of error. There are too many persons of dissimilar temperaments in every denomination to support such a sweeping classification. Yet I believe that we have here an instance where an error may serve to point up a truth, the truth being that temperament has a great deal...

Ever since 9/11, whenever Americans seem especially polarized over a controversial issue, you’ll hear pundits recall how united we’d became in the aftermath of that vicious attack. Why, they ask, can’t we be like that again?A big part of the reason, frankly, is a lack of leadership at the top level. The tone set by President Obama and his team as they deal with world affairs hardly inspires confidence, either at home or abroad. And left unchecked, their lack of true resolve can lead to some very serious repercussions.Take our situation with Iran. Some of The Heritage Foundation’s top experts...

“If he says he’s a woman, then he’s a woman,” Santorum, the former GOP senator from Pennsylvania, said about Jenner in South Carolina... Santorum, who is considering a second straight bid for the Republican nomination... Santorum did add that “these are tough issues” for both businesses and society, including the question of whether Jenner could use a women’s bathroom.

One of the first Spitfires ever made has gone up for sale for a staggering £2.5 million after spending 40 years buried in sand at the French beach it crashed on. The iconic Mark 1 plane was among the first built in March 1940 as Britain scrambled to ready itself for the epic battle that took place in the skies just a few months later. But Spitfire P9374 never made it to the Battle of Britain as it crash-landed in May 1940. The fighter plane was being piloted by Flight Officer Peter Cazenove over Dunkirk when it was hit by...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on its 30th anniversary.