Free Republic

FERGUSON, Mo. — Darren Seals experienced waves of disbelief and anger after Michael Brown’s death, but two months later he has found a way to channel his emotions: Focus on changing an elected leadership that seems deaf to the concerns of African American residents like him. So on Nov. 4, the 27-year-old assembly line worker and hip-hop musician from a deeply Democratic community plans to take bold action. He says he will vote for a white Republican. “Just because they’ve got the D next to their name, that don’t mean nothing,” said Seals, who lives a few blocks from where...

Three weeks out from an election that could give Republicans an historic majority, House Democrats are resorting to the painful strategy of retreat. Faced with a perilous midterm environment and a sudden gush of Republican cash, Democrats are shifting cash from blue-chip recruits to prop up teetering incumbents. The goal is to minimize losses and keep Republicans from their most dominant hold on the House since Harry Truman’s presidency — potentially expelling Democrats from the speaker’s chair for years to come. In recent days, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has scrapped spending on behalf of two prominent candidates in districts...

<p>FOX 2 has learned the suspect, shot and killed last week by police, showed off his stolen gun to anyone who would look. We obtained pictures of Vonderrit Myers Jr. showing off his handguns on social media. Fox Files investigator Chris Hayes reveals the evidence while exploring why the officer shot at Myers 17 times.</p>

President Barack Obama will not nominate a new attorney general until after Election Day, a White House aide confirmed Tuesday. The aide said to expect the decision in early to mid-November, aimed for after the midterms to avoid the appointment getting caught up in election year politics. The White House aide said the decision to wait was driven in part by Senate Democrats. Had a nominee been named before the elections, Democratic Senate candidates would inevitably been hounded on the trail to weigh in on the choice—presenting an uncomfortable situation for people who have been trying to keep their political...

Colorado Democratic Sen. Mark Udall has talked about contraception and abortion more than just about any other 2014 candidate. Roughly half of his ads are about women's issues. The focus has been so intense that Udall has been nicknamed "Mark Uterus," with a local columnist joking that if the race were a movie, it would be set in a gynecologist's office. In a debate between Udall and Rep. Cory Gardner last week, moderator Lynn Bartels of the Denver Post used the moniker to describe him. For all of that focus — and the insistence from Democrats that Gardner's record on...

Police agencies have used hundreds of millions of dollars taken from Americans under federal civil forfeiture law in recent years to buy guns, armored cars and electronic surveillance gear. They have also spent money on luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles. Stop and Seize: In recent years, thousands of people have had cash confiscated by police without being charged with crimes. The Post looks at the police culture behind the seizures and the people who were forced to fight the government to get their money back. “In tight budget periods, and even in times of budget surpluses, using...

When he soared to victory by almost 10 million votes in 2008, President Obama won in states like Virginia that Democratic candidates had not captured since 1964. He was trumpeted as a transformational leader who remade American politics by creating a new electoral map and a diverse voter coalition to shape the Democratic Party for the 21st century. But for now he has been reduced to something else: an isolated political figure who is viewed as a liability to Democrats in the very states where voters by the thousands had once stood to cheer him. When Mr. Obama entered the...

MILWAUKEE — She can rouse a crowd as she did here this week, connect with women and drive turnout among African-American voters. Yet despite the nail-biting closeness of state contests to decide which party will control the Senate, Michelle Obama has been largely absent from the campaign trail so far. She has her reasons, Democrats say: Mrs. Obama hates to be away from her daughters. She loathes Washington’s toxic politics. She resents Republicans for their opposition to her husband’s agenda. But she also believes some Senate Democrats have been insufficiently supportive of her own efforts to end childhood obesity. This...

Let’s imagine that Republicans swept the 2012 elections and were now in control not merely of the House but of the presidency and the Senate, too. Now let’s take it one step further and say that by using the filibuster the Democratic minority in the Senate had successfully blocked President Romney’s appointments to federal district and appellate court judgeships. What if, faced with this Democratic intransigence, the conservative Federalist Society helped devise a strategy to revamp Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster so that judicial nominees could be confirmed by a simple majority instead of the 60 votes required to...

About 500 soldiers from Fort Riley, Kan., will deploy to the Middle East in late October to support the mission to “degrade and destroy” Islamic State militants, the Department of Defense announced Thursday. About 200 of the soldiers from Fort Riley’s 1st Infantry Division, the “Big Red One,” will deploy directly to Baghdad and Irbil in Iraq. The rest will be stationed in the region and deployed to Iraq over time. The Defense Department said the soldiers are preparing for a one-year mission.

By any measure, the nearly-six-year tenure of Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. has been one of the most consequential in United States history. His decision to resign, which he announced on Thursday, was long anticipated but still a surprise. He has said he will stay on through his successor’s confirmation, although it is hard to imagine that anyone who could make it through the current Senate will have a comparable impact. As the first African-American to serve as the nation’s top law enforcement official, Mr. Holder broke ground the moment he took office. In a position that rarely rewards boldness...

The family of the sick man, who had endured Ebola’s telltale symptoms for six days, took him by taxi to treatment centers here in the capital twice, only to be turned back at the gate each time for lack of beds. He died at home, his arms thrashing violently and blood spewing out his mouth, in front of his sons. “We had to carry him home two times because they could do nothing for us,” said Eric Gweah, 25, as a team of body collectors came to retrieve the corpse of his father, Ofori Gweah, 62. “The only thing the...

THE WORST-CASE scenarios for the Ebola outbreak in West Africa must not be ignored, even if they strain belief. Everything about this epidemic has been worst-case — the scope, the toll, the response. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published projections Tuesday with an upper range of 550,000 to 1.4 million cases by the end of January. The World Health Organization, which earlier estimated 20,000 cases overall, now predicts that number will be reached by early November. A profoundly sobering note of caution was contained in a report by the WHO Ebola Response Team, published in the New England...

For generations, the people of the Four Corners region have battled the federal government over collecting and selling Native American artifacts. Then agents persuaded a local dealer to go undercover. Operation Cerberus Action was supposed to expose a lucrative trade in stolen antiquities. Instead, it tore a hole in a Utah town. In the high country of the Navajo reservation, a family walked through the pinyon pines, combing the earth for the remnants of a vanished civilization. Their breath steamed in the morning air. Dr. James Redd wandered away from his wife and daughter for a few minutes, then called...

At 18 years old, it’s still the greatest—and most educational—show on Earth. In a world of constant war, endless “economic recoveries,” and only two years left of Joe Biden gaffes, it’s hard to be upbeat about the future. I mean, what kind of joyless world are we leaving for our children? So thank Xenu—or Richard Dawkins—for South Park, which starts its 18th incredible season tonight at 10 p.m. Eastern Time on Comedy Central. What’s more, original episodes of the show will continue through at least 2016, meaning the next presidential election will be covered the way it should be: with...

Perhaps the most interesting thing about President Barack Obama’s climate change speech at the United Nations is what he didn’t say. Obama didn’t promise $1 billion to help poor countries adapt to the dire effects of climate change, like France did. And he didn’t offer any hints about how sharply greenhouse gas emissions would be cut in the years after 2020, like the European Union and several other countries did. Instead, the president delivered a forceful but largely detail-free speech that sought to reassure the world about the United States’ commitment to reaching a global climate change agreement at crucial...

Former Rep. Gabby Giffords’ pro-gun-control group has taken down a harsh ad against Arizona House candidate Martha McSally after the Republican explained her position on allowing stalkers to buy guns. The ad features a woman named Vicki who recounts how her 19-year-old daughter was hunted down and murdered by an enraged ex-boyfriend, while a narrator says McSally, who is running for Giffords’ old seat in Congress, “opposes making it harder for stalkers to get a gun.” The ad drew criticism, including from The Arizona Republic’s editorial page, which termed it “vile,” and McSally blasted it as inaccurate, noting she herself...

An exodus of top-level officials from the Department of Homeland Security is undercutting the agency’s ability to stay ahead of a range of emerging threats, including potential terrorist strikes and cyberattacks, according to interviews with current and former officials. Over the past four years, employees have left DHS at a rate nearly twice as fast as in the federal government overall, and the trend is accelerating, according to a review of a federal database. The departures are a result of what employees widely describe as a dysfunctional work environment, abysmal morale, and the lure of private security companies paying top...

Gabby Giffords, irreproachable figure of sympathy, has fashioned an improbable new role for herself this election year: ruthless attack dog. The former Democratic congresswoman, whose recovery from a gunshot wound to the head captivated the country, has unleashed some of the nastiest ads of the campaign season, going after GOP candidates in Arizona and New Hampshire with attacks even some left-leaning commentators say go too far. And Republicans on the receiving end are largely helpless to hit back, knowing a fight with the much-admired survivor is not one they’re likely to win. Some of the toughest spots from Giffords’ newly...

WHEN Willie Nelson invites you to get high with him on his bus, you go. The man is the patron saint of pot, after all, and I’m the poster girl for bad pot trips. It seemed like a match made in hash heaven. When Nelson sang at the 9:30 club in D.C. one recent night, I ventured onto the Honeysuckle Rose, as his tour bus and home-away-from-home is called. I was feeling pretty shy about meeting him. The 81-year-old Redheaded Stranger is an icon, one of America’s top songwriters and, as Rolling Stone said, “a hippie’s hippie and a redneck’s...