Free Republic

Nothing yet

Forget shutting down the government. Lock down the White House instead. This morning a news story alerted me to the fact that an Army base in Texas was on lockdown after a suspicious vehicle was found.“A lockdown was ordered at a U.S. Army base in San Antonio on Sunday night in what a military spokesman described as a ‘high-security incident,’” reported Reuters, “while adding there was no threat.”But since a vehicle was involved one can assume a bomb was suspected. Since an arrest was made, perhaps more than suspected. Similarly tensions are high in Ferguson Missouri, after a combination of...

The town is trying to figure out how to turn a tragic moment into a lasting movement. The funeral was choreographed to the smallest detail, from the celebrities sprinkled through the church to the Cardinals cap laid atop the black-and-gold casket. A massive crowd filed past the television cameras and into the jam-packed sanctuary or the overflow rooms live-streaming the service. The ceremony was billed as a celebration of Brown’s life, which ended Aug. 9 in a hail of bullets fired by a white policeman, and the crowd heard upbeat gospel music, stirring sermons and a eulogy from the Rev....

The most poisonous "-ism" now infecting Ferguson, Missouri, is not virulent racism. It's viral narcissism. Over the past two weeks, the impoverished St. Louis County suburb has become a magnet for self-absorbed publicity seekers of all colors and agendas. Perhaps the most repulsive species on display in Ferguson is the Journalisto Vanitatis. This breed of egotistical East-Coast reporters can be easily identified by its ever-present appendages: a smartphone and smart glasses. For the J.V., the story is all about "me, me, me!" Huffington Post reporter Ryan Reilly and Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery were among the first and most prominent...

Let us stipulate that none of us know what happened between Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson and Michael Brown. We can also stipulate that the members of the Ferguson Police Department might need some additional training. The Ferguson PD has 53 officers to Serve and Protect about 20,000 residence. That seemed high to me, but a quick glance at other places shows that might be about right. Washington, DC has 4,000 uniformed cops (not counting about 2.3 million other federal agency police officers) for 600,000. If that ratio were transferred to Ferguson it would have a uniformed force...