Free Republic

Video from the mid-1990s has surfaced showing Keith Ellison doubting the legal culpability of a convicted cop killer. Power Line’s Scott Johnson recently posted unearthed footage from a November 1996 panel discussion Ellison participated in regarding the death penalty. Working as an attorney at the time, Ellison claimed the death penalty was one of several “racially biased” institutions that disproportionately affect black Americans and “oppressed nationalities.” He cited the example of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a black man who was sentenced to death in 1982 for the first-degree murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Despite the guilty conviction, Ellison claimed without...

Rep. Ilhan Omar’s campaign recently dropped tens of thousands of dollars on private security services following her calls to defund the police and support for a campaign to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department, federal filings show. According to Federal Election Commission records, the campaign spent $27,081.14 on “security services” between July and September, the highest quarter to date. Before the third quarter, her campaign paid roughly $83,000 to private security firms between May 2019 and July this year, according to a review of federal filings. The payments also follow Omar’s calls to defund police and her support for a campaign...

And president is underwater among those voters in 6 swing states A new poll reveals that Catholics across America want Joe Biden to begin addressing two problems he created: the economy and the southern border crises. "According to the findings of a new EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research survey in the weeks before the 2022 midterm elections, large majorities of likely Catholic voters across six key battleground states – Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Ohio and Pennsylvania – consider the economy, including jobs, inflation and rising interest rates, to be the most pressing issue facing America," the polling report said.

Faisal Gill has worked for a host of anti-Israel groups ...far-left views on community policing and crime are so extreme that Democratic representative Karen Bass, who is running to be the city’s mayor, withdrew her endorsement. Faisal Gill, a libertarian Republican-turned-progressive Democrat, is running to become L.A.’s city attorney, a powerful post that will give him the ability to decide what types of minor crimes are prosecuted. "The city attorney is not elected to defend the police," Gill states on his campaign website. He also says he wants to end cash bail, support safe injection sites, and reduce criminal prosecutions....

A George Soros-backed prosecutor in Virginia mistakenly freed a man charged with murder who was apprehended the following day in Georgia. The office of Loudoun County prosecutor Buta Biberaj (D.) on Thursday dropped second-degree murder charges in general district court for 25-year-old Stone Colburn, who last year was accused of stabbing his brother’s girlfriend to death. Biberaj’s office dropped charges in an effort for the Loudoun County Circuit Court to declare Colburn mentally fit to stand trial. Biberaj said the district court was on the verge of committing him to a mental hospital.

Representative Cori Bush (D-MO) defended her calls to defund the police by saying “we can’t get caught up in words” Tuesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Anchor George Stephanopoulos asked, “You have stuck by it. In fact, you are are one of the few Democrats who still says let’s defund the police. Are you worried at all that that could hurt some of your colleagues going into the midterm elections?”

Erin Christensen was arrested after she brought her pet Raccoon into a bar, according to The Bismark Tribune. Authorities raided Christensen's home and killed the Raccoon on the spot, collecting his body to test for diseases, she said. According to the fundraiser, Christensen found the animal on the side of the road in June. On September 6, police said that Christensen brought Rocky into a local bar in Maddock during happy hour, according to the Tribune. Cindy Smith, who was bartending at the time, said that there were about ten people in the bar, and Rocky never bit anyone in...

As the city of Seattle experiences historically high crime, its police department continues to dwindle and recruitment efforts continue to fail. One former King County Sheriff puts it bluntly: “we’re screwed.” The Seattle Police Department (SPD) lost six officers in August, according to a police source, bringing the year’s total separations to 122 and nearly 500 since the city council opted to defund the police department in 2020. What’s more alarming is the 350 officers that will be eligible for retirement at the end of the year. If even a fraction leaves the department, Seattle may not have a fully...

Onward Together, a nonprofit group started by Hillary Clinton after she lost the 2016 presidential election, funneled $75,000 to a far-left group whose affiliate worked on a failed attempt to dismantle and replace the Minneapolis Police Department, Fox News first reported. Clinton’s Onward Together gave money to Washington, D.C.-based Alliance for Youth Justice between April 1, 2021, and March 31, 2021, according to the group’s latest tax forms, the report noted.

An armed robbery occurred at a New York City coffee shop directly across the street from Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán’s office, who is an advocate for defunding the police. On Wednesday at 3:15 p.m., two suspects arrived on motorcycles outside the Under Pressure Espresso Bar located in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens at 30-92 31 Street, according to a New York Police Department (NYPD) spokesperson. They demanded victims hand over their personal property at gunpoint.

A man armed with what looked like an assault rifle was no match for the owner of a Riverside County convenience store, and the frightening face off was all caught on the store's security cameras. "It's not his first rodeo," said a woman named Marnie, who works for the store's owner, 80-year-old Craig Cope. "He saw on the surveillance, he saw them coming out of the vehicle with weapons."

NPR deleted a tweet on Friday calling Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated on Friday, “a divisive arch-conservative.” “Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a divisive arch-conservative and one of his nation’s most powerful and one of his nation’s most powerful and influential figures, has died after being shot during a campaign speech Friday in western Japan, hospital officials said,” tweeted NPR. NPR reprinted the Associated Press report on Abe’s death, the first paragraph of which read the same as the tweet.

Seattle principal stonewalled police after man terrorized schoolA man suspected of being high on meth allegedly jumped over the fence at a Seattle elementary school, entered a portable classroom, and attempted to steal students’ backpacks. It prompted a school lockdown. But when police arrived, the school principal would not cooperate. It likely played a role in the suspect then attempting to hijack a delivery van moments later. The suspect is 20-year-old Liban Harasam and, according to police, is a High Utilizer — the designation for prolific offenders that the Seattle City Attorney will now prioritize after arrest.

The Washington State Patrol says drivers are increasingly refusing to stop for troopers - and other law enforcement agencies also say this is becoming a common occurrence. The Northwest News Network reports that from January 1 to May 17 of this year, the agency logged 934 failure-to-yield incidents. While the patrol didn’t track this in the past, veteran troopers say there’s been a dramatic uptick in drivers fleeing traffic stops. “Something’s changed. People are not stopping right now,” said Sgt. Darren Wright, a WSP spokesperson with 31 years on the job. “It’s happening three to five times a shift on...

Homeland Security Advisory Council Co-Chair and former Police Commissioner of Boston, Los Angeles, and New York Bill Bratton said that the crime problem in the U.S. “has been created by the politicians in many of our cities and states,” and the consequences have been seen. Bratton said “during the height of the defund insanity in this city,” there was a push to take police out of schools. “I speak out frequently…about the need for more, the stupidity of the defund the police movement that they quickly retreated from. We have almost 100,000 fewer police officers today than we had several...

A rapper whose social-media accounts are filled with venomous anti-police rants is running to become a Democratic Party district leader in Brooklyn. Noah Weston — who is running on the “For the People” slate with congressional candidate Brittany Ramos De Barros and Assemblyman Mathylde Frontus in southern Brooklyn — has called officers “f–king pigs,” “plague rats” and “sacks of s–t” who do more harm than good. “The greatest threats in this city are Eric Adams and the NYPD,” Weston tweeted from noah4DL on Saturday. On Feb. 28, 2021, Weston — known as the rapper Soul Khan — retweeted a video...

Nearly two years after Seattle led the way in defunding the police, the Washington city’s force is so understaffed it did not assign a detective to investigate a single case of a sex assault on an adult last month, according to a report. The depleted department now only has four detectives in the squad handling sex assaults, nearly all dedicated to child abuse cases, local NPR station KUOW revealed.

"Defund police" is arguably the most destructive, idiotic political slogan in living memory. No serious person – certainly no elected leader worthy of any respect – should have ever supported it in practice or principle. But many Democrats did, and there must be accountability for such insanity. Thousands of lives – including a record number of cops – have been lost to increased criminal violence because the Left told lies about law enforcement when it suited their politics. The causation of the national crime wave is straightforward. After the killing of George Floyd in May 2020, the Black Lives Matter...

Far-left Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), who spent thousands on her own private security last year, continues to champion the “Defund the Police” movement, despite its floundering popularity among Democrats before the midterm elections. “My colleagues keep telling us to wait. They keep telling us defunding the police and investing in communities won’t work,” the congresswoman tweeted on Saturday. “Well their policies keep ending up with police murdering Black people. Enough patronizing. Listen to the movements that are telling you how to save lives.”

Homeless encampments in Austin, Texas, were legalized in 2021, but the people of this fast-growing tech mecca have had second and third thoughts about what looked like a good idea on paper but turned out to be an eyesore under bridges. Austin politicos have just finished removing virtually all remaining visible homeless camps. Other cities are taking notice. The journey to this current outcome was far from a straight path. Put bluntly, it was a dizzying display of waffling “wokeness.” In 2019, the city council of Austin had the bright idea to legalize homeless camps. Unfortunately, they took the vote...