Free Republic

A #BlackLivesMatter activist appearing on CNN told host Wolf Blitzer that saying “all lives matter” is actually a “violent statement.” Activist Julius Jones was invited on to discuss the protest movement’s contentious meeting with Hillary Clinton. “Black lives are actively under attack, and we are in a terrible war with our own country. African-Americans are Americans and we’re not treated like that, we’re not treated as if black lives matter.” “And when people say ‘all lives matter,’ it’s a violent statement, because the only time that people say ‘all lives matter’ is in opposition to ‘black lives matter,’ and it’s...

Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson on Sunday criticized the Black Lives Matter movement, saying they are politicizing issues and using disruptive methods while overlooking some critical issues like homicide by young black males. "I would like them to start paying attention to the carnage rather than making it a political issue," Carson, the only African-American presidential candidate in the 2016 field, told told Fox News. "The most common cause of death for young black males in cities is homicide," added Carson, a retired neurosurgeon. Black Lives Matter protesters have disrupted several campaign events of presidential candidates, both Republican and...

There exists among far too many Americans an almost soul-deep determination to treat black people as perpetual victims. A rather absurd example of this sad song was recently written by Washington Post guest writer Raha Jorjani. Jorjani, an immigration defense lawyer in California, asks if black Americans might “qualify as refugees” possessing a “strong claim for asylum protection under U.S. law”: Suppose a client walked into my office and told me that police officers in his country had choked a man to death over a petty crime. Suppose he said police fatally shot another man in the back as he...

REUTERS/Carlos Barria Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan addresses the audience at the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in in Washington, D.C., June 24, 2015. Farrakhan met with local leaders to discuss the upcoming "Million Man March" on October 10, 2015. In his most recent promotion of the event in Milwaukee, Wisc., on Aug. 13, Farrakhan told an audience to prepare for God to rescue the black community in the event of a race war through the use of a UFO. MILWAUKEE, Wisc. (Christian Examiner) – After two weeks of news reports that Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan...

Hardline To Swallow: Obama’s causes are not common to us by Daniel Clark While pitching his Iranian nuclear deal to an audience at American University, President Obama said, “It’s those hardliners chanting ‘death to America’ who have been most opposed to the deal. They’re making common cause with the Republican Caucus.” The controversy that’s arisen over that remark is curious, considering that the president has all along condemned “hardliners” in both countries for criticizing the agreement. In fact, after Arkansas senator Tom Cotton voiced his objections in an open letter back in early March, Obama said, “I think it’s somewhat...

“Thank you, Seattle, for being one of the most progressive cities in the United States of America,” socialist-cum-Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders shouted to the large crowd in the City of Goodwill. Seconds later, two women with a local Black Lives Matter group jumped the stage, threatening to shut down the event. Quickly, they were rewarded for their extortion-by-tantrum. Sen. Sanders and company relinquished the microphone, podium and stage. Timber! That was the sound of Sanders’s “presidential timber” — his ability to stand up in the face of conflict — come crashing down. With a thunderous thud. Now, this is...

"The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act" isn't living up to its promise. Also known as Proposition 47, the California ballot initiative, which was approved in November 2014 with 60 percent of the vote, downgraded drug possession and many property crimes from a felony to a misdemeanor. Proponents argued that lesser punishment for low-level offenders would enhance public safety. San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon was the rare prosecutor who pushed for its approval. He told the San Francisco Chronicle, "What we have been doing hasn't worked, frankly." Gascon spokesman Alex Bastian told me, "The voters indicated that possessing small amounts...

Our country is in a crap sling of gastronomical proportions. I was going to say astronomical but this thing is more gassy than it is interplanetary. You wanna know how messed up weÂ’ve become? Well, for one, Kim Kardashian has 43 million followers on Instagram just waiting for her to post a pic of her ample ass-ets. Secondly, social media dipsticks think Cecil The LionÂ’s plight was/is more important than Planned Parenthood's dealing aborted baby body parts. Thirdly, there are actually people in this country, who call themselves Americans, whoÂ’re contemplating making Hillary Clinton president. Look, as far as IÂ’m...

The School District of Philadelphia’s special registration for immigrant students who speak a language other than English closes on Aug. 28, giving families of such students roughly two weeks to register their child for the upcoming school year. The school year begins Sept. 8 for grades 1 through 12, and on Sept. 12 for kindergarten students; interested families should contact the Multilingual Assessment Center at (215) 400–4240 and selecting option 1. The office is open for registration Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. Student registration packets are also available through the district’s website at www.philasd.org/announcements/New-Immigrant-Student-Registration-Packet.pdf. Last year,...

The long knives are out at Netroots Nation 2015, but for once they aren’t pointed at the Republicans. The infighting has gotten ugly because the non-Hillary Democrat candidates were apparently not focused intently enough on the #BlackLivesMatter movement. No other topics of discussion seem to be acceptable this year, and the high profile speakers got an earful if they strayed from that script or dared say something more general about the needs of the entire population of the nation. The first, and probably biggest loser of the day was Martin O’Malley, who showed up there and foolishly began talking...

Last Saturday, for the second time in a month, protesters who identified themselves as members of the Black Lives Matter movement leapt onstage to interrupt a speech by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. “I was going to tell Bernie how racist this city is, even with all of these progressives, but you’ve already done that for me,” said Marissa Johnson, who was roundly booed before demanding and receiving a four-minute moment of silence for the death of Michael Brown, as Sanders stood behind her and fellow protester Mara Willaford. The Seattle protest sparked a particularly strong counter-reaction, especially among the...

Black Lives Matter protestors wearing pink Planned Parenthood shirts shut down a recent rally by Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, providing further evidence that the #BlackLivesMatter movement is not a marginal political group, but an increasing vital part of the institutional left’s community organized shock troop coalition.WATCH:(video at link)The YouTube video’s description makes it clear that the angry free speech haters came from a cross section of the left’s current flavors of special interest groups: illegal aliens, union members and the sexually confused. The description says: #BlackLivesMatter shut down a Jeb Bush presidential town hall in Las Vegas. Standing alongside...

The headlines neatly tell the story. "Ron Paul’s Passive-Aggressive Campaign Against Rand Paul." Rand Paul Has a Daddy Issue." "Like Father, Like Son? Not Exactly." Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has endeavored so much to distinguish his "libertarian-ish" views from his father's "voluntarist" politics that any snark from the paterfamilias generates a story. He'll joke that he's still looking at who to endorse; it will be reported like Saturn devouring his offspring. There will be no snark this weekend. As Rand Paul heads out of the country for a medical mission to Haiti, Ron Paul will make a print and e-mail...

The "Black Lives Matter" protest movement has caused headaches for presidential candidates on the campaign trail this summer. But Ohio Gov. John Kasich lent his voice to their rallying cry, and said "black lives matter, especially now." CNN's Dana Bash asked Kasich about his thoughts on the Black Lives Matter movement, in the wake of the protesters' recent actions. Two angry protesters forced Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a socialist running as a Democrat, to leave the stage in Seattle, Wash., so that they could complain about progressivism's white supremacy. When former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said, "all lives matter"...

President Obama’s July 31 phone call organized by the anti-Israel group J Street and other progressive Jewish groups could be summed up in one sentence: Please help because, those rich people are helping those warmongering Jews to fight this wonderful Iran deal because they don’t like me and they want war just like they did in Iraq. In the 20 minute call Obama said that opponents of the Iran deal come from the same “array of forces that got us into the Iraq war” and that a “bunch of billionaires who happily finance super PACs” are “putting the squeeze on...

The progressive movement that has overtaken the Democratic Party gains its moral authority in a morally relativistic world in part based on its support of the “oppressed” over the “oppressor.” As Joshua Muravchik ably argues in his Making David Into Goliath, in this construct, Israel has morphed into the oppressor, swapping roles with the Muslim countries that have wished to destroy her from the time of her founding. The Leftist-Jihadist nexus of which Andy McCarthy writes, on display from elite college campuses to the president’s cabinet, is perhaps stronger than it has ever been. It believes in punishing the ultimate...

The poverty that poor African Americans experience is often different from the poverty of poor whites. It's more isolating and concentrated. It extends out the door of a family's home and occupies the entire neighborhood around it, touching the streets, the schools, the grocery stores. A poor black family, in short, is much more likely than a poor white one to live in a neighborhood where many other families are poor, too, creating what sociologists call the "double burden" of poverty. The difference is stark in most major metropolitan areas, according to recent data analyzed by Rutgers University's Paul Jargowsky...

The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery has issued a statement saying a bust of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger will remain in the museum even after a group of black pastors asked for it to be removed.In a letter to the gallery last week, the group – Ministers Taking a Stand – said Sanger was a eugenicist who favored slowing the birthrate of blacks or eliminating it altogether."Perhaps the Gallery is unaware that Ms. Sanger supported black eugenics, a racist attitude toward black and other minority babies, an elitist attitude toward those she regarded as 'the feeble minded;' speaking at a...

Former President Jimmy Carter told AARP Inc. during a recent interview that many Americans hold “feelings of superiority” toward minorities. Mr. Carter spoke on a range of subjects with the magazine, including campaign spending and lobbyists, but he made a point to say that the U.S. still is lacking in terms of safeguarding civil rights. “The recent publicity about mistreatment of black people in the judicial and police realm has been a reminder that the dreams of the civil rights movement have not been realized. […] Many Americans still have racist tendencies or feelings of superiority to people of color,”...

Ferguson has been ordered to surrender two Humvees acquired through a controversial Defense Department program that transfers surplus military equipment to local police agencies. It’s not yet clear if the directive from the Pentagon — which was first reported Tuesday in the Guardian — was sparked by political pressure, a record-keeping snafu, or both. Mike O’Connell, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Public Safety, said the Pentagon approved the transfer of two Humvees to Ferguson in June 2013 and then later gave permission for two more. But in August 2014, after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, St. Louis...