Free Republic

Shalane Flanagan became the first American woman to win the New York City Marathon on Sunday since 1977, pulling away from Mary Keitany in the last three miles of the race for her first major marathon victory. Keitany had won three straight New York marathons, but Flanagan pulled away from the Kenyan great with about three miles to go and finished with an unofficial time of 2 hours, 26 minutes, 53 seconds, about a minute faster than Keitany. The last American woman to win New York was Miki Gorman, who won consecutive titles in 1976-77.

RICHMOND — The father of the Roanoke TV reporter fatally shot during a live broadcast last summer apologized Thursday for harsh Facebook messages that prompted a pro-gun legislator from southwest Virginia to call law enforcement authorities. "In my grief over the murder of my daughter and my anger over a political system that allows incidents like that to continue, I spoke regrettably," Andy Parker said in a message issued by a gun-control group that has featured him in a $2.2 million TV ad campaign. "I apologize for my words, but make no mistake, I will continue to seek justice and...

Vester Flanagan, a.k.a Bryce Williams When nine black people were murdered in June at a church in South Carolina, suspect Dylann Roof’s “manifesto” was widely publicized and analyzed immediately. Along with his racist rants, photos emerged of him with a Confederate flag, prompting scores of demands to remove the banner from public places, and even reruns of the Old South-themed TV series “Dukes of Hazzard” were canceled. Also, statues and other monuments to Southern Civil War-era leaders were targeted. So what’s been the impact of the 23-page manifesto delivered to ABC News by Vester Flanagan, a black man who...

Full title: EXCLUSIVE: Virginia killer Vester Lee Flanagan wrote letters to rant about lack of sex and his days as gay escortVester Lee Flanagan lamented shortly before gunning down two journalists on live TV that his glory days as a $2,000-a-night male escort were behind him, stunning new documents reveal. The typed and handwritten letters, as well as photographs, driver’s licenses and student IDs, were shown to the Daily News by one of Flanagan’s close friends, Robert Avent, who says he spoke to the calm and collected killer moments before he committed suicide as cops closed in on him last...

Black Activists Call for Lynching and Hanging of White People and Cops Lana Shadwick 28 Aug 2015 Members of the #FYF911 or #FukYoFlag and #BlackLivesMatter movements called for the lynching and hanging of white people and cops. They encouraged others on a radio show Tuesday night to “turn the tide” and kill white people and cops to send a message about the killing of black people in America. One of the F***YoFlag organizers is called “Sunshine.” She has a radio blog show hosted from Texas called, “Sunshine’s F***ing Opinion Radio Show.” A snapshot of her #FYF911 @LOLatWhiteFear Twitter page at...

The Virginia gunman who executed two of his former colleagues on live television associated himself with the 9/11 attackers in rambling letters found inside his home and getaway car, authorities revealed Friday. “Based on careful scrutiny of those writings and evidence seized from his apartment, it is apparent that Flanagan very closely identified with individuals who have committed domestic acts of violence and mass murder, as well as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S.,” a statement from the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office said, describing a large number of documents left behind by Vester Lee Flanagan II, the man...

BBC journalist Franz Strasser has filmed through rubber bullets and tear gas in Rio de Janeiro and has at times been told by police to stop filming while on assignment. But he had never been ordered to delete footage until Wednesday, after he and a fellow journalist came upon the scene on Interstate 66 where Vester Lee Flanagan crashed a car following a pursuit by Virginia State Police. A trooper told Strasser that police would need to seize his camera because his footage could be evidence, but then ordered him to delete the footage. The trooper watched as the journalist...

Details continued to emerge about the behavior and history of black, gay Virginia shooter Vester Flanagan II, aka Bryce Williams, in the aftermath of brutal slaying of two white journalists on live television on Wednesday.

he Wednesday morning murders of 24-year-old Roanoke TV reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, were a racist atrocity, a hate crime. Were they not white, they would be alive today. Their killer, Vester L. Flanagan II, said as much in his farewell screed. He ordered his murder weapon, he said, two days after the slaughter of nine congregants at the African-American AME church in Charleston, South Carolina. “What sent me over the top was the church shooting,” said Flanagan. To be sure, racism does not fully explain why Flanagan, fired from that same WDBJ7 station, committed this act...

Virginia Shooting Victim’s Husband: ‘I Blame the Guy Holding the Gun,’ Not the Gun On August 28, Tim Gardner, husband of Virginia shooting victim Vicki Gardner, said he does not blame the gun for his wife’s shooting. Rather, he blames the man who was holding the gun and pulled the trigger. Vicki is the woman Alison Parker was interviewing when Vester Lee Flanagan opened fire. According to Fox News, Tim Gardner said one of Flanagan’s bullets “grazed [Vicki’s] spine” without doing the damage a direct hit would have done. Tim expressed gratitude that it was not a direct hit and...

Two days ago, ABC News reported that Vester Flanagan, the murderer of two WDBJ employees, sent a 23-page faxed manifesto to ABC News. ABC reported bits and pieces of the manifesto. Yet we still haven’t seen the full document. ABC hasn’t made it available. Why? John Nolte and others have been busy hammering away at the racial hypocrisy of many in the media after treating Flanagan’s crimes very differently from Dylann Roof’s. Unquestionably, they were both racially motivated. But you’d never know that from reading the headlines in the Washington Post or other mouthpieces that enable the (one way) racial...

Innocuous phrases Alison Parker used every day to describe her job may have led to her death, simply because Vester Lee Flanagan thought they were racist. The 24-year-old TV reporter who was shot and killed by the disgruntled ex-employee on Wednesday somehow angered him by using terms like 'swinging' by an address or going out into the 'field' while she was an intern at WDBJ. It sheds further light on the murderer's erratic behavior, details of which have emerged since he callously gunned down Parker and cameraman Adam Ward live on breakfast TV. Flanagan, 41, clashed repeatedly with photojournalists, belittling...

The cold-blooded Roanoke killer kept getting fired, kept threatening co-workers, and kept claiming he was the real victim. Vester Lee Flanagan claimed in a suicide note Wednesday that June’s massacre of black parishioners at a South Carolina church was “the tipping point” that sent him on the path to murdering two journalists on live television Wednesday. But in court papers and interviews with The Daily Beast, former colleagues describe Flanagan as a problematic employee, who was repeatedly reprimanded for his harsh treatment of coworkers, and complained racism was behind harsh evaluations of his work. “He just had a history of...

Dinesh D’Souza, conservative author, movie-maker, columnist and pundit, took to Twitter to do some trolling on left-leaning pages and post some counter-views on the widely reported shooting deaths of two white television crew members by a black man – even suggesting President Obama better stand on the side of blind justice, not race-based politics. In reference to Vester Flanagan, the black former television journalist whose on-air name was Bryce Williams, D’Souza tweeted: “When a black gay guy goes nuts and kills white people, is it safe to call it a DOUBLE hate crime?” Flanagan, prior to killing himself, was believed...

He waited for the cameraman to turn back. He wanted the audience to see her die, and the cameraman had panned to the right, to show the resort, so he lowered the gun and waited for him to turn back. Then he opened fire. Some fat loser named Vester who wanted to kill some white people and settle some scores and make a name for himself. He was “Bryce” on TV. And he was Bryce on Twitter as he posted the video of himself gunning down three innocent people, unloading his Glock into them and America's consciousness. Camera in the...

Hoping to start a bloody "race war," a black, gay, in-your-face Obama-supporting former TV reporter horrified Southwest Virginia TV viewers yesterday when he stalked and coolly murdered two white former TV station colleagues and wounded a white interview subject during a live broadcast.

Dane County Circuit Judge David Flanagan, who granted a temporary injunction against Wisconsin's new voter identification law, signed a petition urging the recall of Gov. Scott Walker. *** His clerk called back to say Flanagan would only answer questions submitted in writing at the courthouse. State Republican Party spokesman Ben Sparks said his party will be filing a complaint with the state Judicial Commission asking it to investigate why Flanagan did not recuse himself. "The very fact that Dane County Judge David Flanagan signed a petition to recall Governor Walker calls today's court proceedings regarding Wisconsin's voter ID law into...

A Dane County Judge on Tuesday granted a temporary injunction that bars the enforcement of the state photo ID law at polling places during the general election on April 3. Circuit Judge David Flanagan said that the Milwaukee Branch of the NAACP and Voces de la Frontera had demonstrated that their lawsuit against Gov. Scott Walker and the state Government Accountability Board would probably succeed on its merits and had demonstrated the likelihood of irreparable harm if the photo ID law is allowed to stand. Flanagan ordered Walker and the GAB to "cease immediately any effort to enforce or implement...

Portrait of Father Flanagan created by Boys Town alum Paul Otera, courtesy of the Archdiocese of Omaha Omaha, Neb., Feb 25, 2012 / 04:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Father Edward Flanagan, the founder of the famous Boys Town orphanage, will be declared a “Servant of God” next month as the Archdiocese of Omaha opens his cause for beatification.“For years many in the Omaha community and beyond have venerated the memory of Fr. Edward Flanagan,” Archbishop George Lucas said Feb. 21. “I am happy that we can begin the process of examining the holiness that was apparent in his life and...

The conservative young filmmaker who tarnished the reputation of a liberal activist group with his undercover videos has been arrested for allegedly trying to bug Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in New Orleans. Federal investigators allege that James O'Keefe was among a group of four men who created a ruse to enter Landrieu's downtown office for the supposed purpose of repairing the lawmaker's telephones. O'Keefe and another man, Stan Dai, are accused of aiding the plot, while two others, Joseph Basel and Robert Flanagan, are accused of pretending to be telephone company employees, according to federal court records (PDF) unsealed...