Free Republic

Allow me to generalize: no.  The answer is no. No, Yale is not a hotbed of racism.  Neither is Dartmouth.  Neither is Columbia.  Neither is Princeton.  No reasonable person of color on any of these campuses really believes that he suffers interminable racial discrimination sanctioned by such institutions.  The best inducement to cathartic rage the Ivy Leaguers can find is strips of black electric tape on some old portraits (unclear whether it's a hoax) or the last name of one of the more progressive Democrats in history. You know you're desperate when your slogan is "We Will Not Surrender...

Looking back at the unrest that followed Freddie Gray's death, Baltimore voters see events differently than do voters statewide, a new poll shows.City voters are less likely to sympathize with police, and they are more likely to see joblessness and racism as a cause of April's unrest, according to a poll of likely voters conducted for The Baltimore Sun and the University of Baltimore.Those living outside the city are more likely to blame "a lack of personal responsibility among residents" for the city's ills.The divided opinions were most pronounced when respondents were asked for their opinions of how Baltimore State's...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fresh from an embarrassing rebuke at the hands of conservatives in his own party, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner played down any risk to his continuing leadership on Sunday, saying disagreements with fellow Republicans were merely over strategy, not goals. Asked if he could lead the fractious House, Boehner said, "I think so. I'm not going to suggest it's easy, because it’s not." The House narrowly averted cutting off funds to the Department of Homeland Security on Friday after Boehner failed to rein in conservative Republicans. They were insisting on tying the issue to blocking...

A global glut of oil will persist next year, putting further pressure on prices and raising the risk of unrest in some producing countries. That's the stark warning from the Paris-based International Energy Agency, which on Friday cut its forecast for global demand growth in 2015. It now sees demand growing by less than 1% next year. Oil prices have already fallen by more than 40% in six months, but there's little sign of that stimulating demand yet, or constraining production enough to remove excess supply. "Oil price drops are sometimes described as a 'tax cut' and a boon for...

BERKELEY, Mo. – A St. Louis County town that neighbors Ferguson, Missouri, is warning residents to prepare for potential unrest that may follow the grand jury announcement in the Michael Brown case. Berkeley officials passed out flyers this week urging its 9,000 residents to be prepared just as they would in the event of a major storm, with plenty of food, water and medicine on hand in case they’re unable to leave home for several days

In a Craigslist ad posted about 17 days ago, our Federal Government is looking for crisis actors for July 4th through July 6th. “We are looking for crisis actors for a government emergency drill between July 4-6th. Actors will be responsible for portraying different emergency scenarios in a simulated government terror drill. No experience is needed. Confidentiality agreements are required. Pay is $200. Please message for details.” ~Houston Craigslist

"Last year, the DoD's Minerva Initiative funded a project to determine 'Who Does Not Become a Terrorist, and Why?' which, however, conflates peaceful activists with "supporters of political violence" who are different from terrorists only in that they do not embark on "armed militancy" themselves."

Ukraine’s presidential candidate Oleg Tsarev says the new local authorities that Kiev has appointed in the country’s southern and eastern regions rely on militias hired especially for a crackdown on opponents of the new leadership. “This job is being done by militants on the payroll of the local authorities,” Tsarev told the Russian government-published daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta in an interview. “In all regions of Ukraine’s South and East the newly-appointed governors have special deputies in charge of such matters. Each is in command of a group of about two hundred ‘hired soldiers’.” Tsarev said the militias were not necessarily members...

As the Venezuelan government continues to violently crack down on protesters, the credibility of Maduro’s regime hangs in the balance. The world has been watching Venezuela, as well as both Ukraine and Thailand, during these difficult political times Maduro’s government has been accused of human rights violations by the U.N. and over half the 1World voters on the ground in the three embattled countries around the world (Ukraine, Venezuela and Thailand) feel unsafe in their country. To make matters worse, 30% feel the domestic media coverage of the unrest is inaccurate and 50% think the coverage has been mixed.

The liberal, pro–European Union protests that first rocked Kiev have taken a darker turn, with right-wing vigilante groups rising to prominence amid violence and police crackdowns Not long before midnight on Sunday, a few dozen men in ski masks and camouflage surrounded the headquarters of the Ministry of Justice in the center of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, and smashed out the first floor windows with baseball bats. They made short work of the bars over the windows, prying them out of the walls with their clubs, and climbed inside. It was the third federal ministry the group had seized...

Mikhail Gorbachev, the former leader of the Soviet Union, piped up on Thursday with a wake-up call for the Western world: Ukraine is now everybody’s problem. The turmoil in its capital, where pitched battles have raged all week between protestors and police, “threatens not only Ukraine and her neighbors, but Europe and the entire world,” he wrote in an open letter to the U.S. and Russian Presidents. He was certainly right about Europe, which now has a real dilemma on its hands. The only question is whether Ukraine’s neighbors can do much to resolve it. For the West, there are...

The Lull Before the Civil Unrest Storm Politics / Social IssuesNov 07, 2012 - 03:49 AM By: Jack D Douglas Vast social revolutions and wars are often preceded by periods of giving up on reforms, despairing withdrawal from public life by the best and brightest,(Going Galt) and even peacefulness which seems to have become the normal condition in spite of deep conflicts and growing crises beneath the surfaces of public life. Often, earlier periods of intense conflicts and crises have been overcome and resolved, so it comes to look like that is the normal in life. This lulls most people...

The “Twitter-verse” erupted this week with threats to riot or assassinate Mitt Romney should President Barack Obama lose the Nov. 6 election.This brings up a few questions. Is this a reflection of real outrage being felt in the black community? If it’s real, does it reflect the sentiment of a small or a large segment of the black community? Or is this manufactured outrage being used for a broader purpose?Americans have rioted before for lesser reasons. Simply having their favorite team win the Super Bowl or World Series has led to riots in cities like Boston, Detroit, Denver and Los...

Regardless of who the President is after this close election, the equity markets and the U.S. economy are in trouble. Debt has spread throughout the Western world. The fallout is political dissonance, growing economic hardship and, in some places, mob violence.Ground zero for the spreading fear and panic is Greece, which was once the worldÂ’s greatest civilization and the birthplace of democracy, poetry and philosophy.There is violent evidence of the contradiction from what the ancients taught and what is unraveling in Greece. It would all just be another boring story at the end of the news day, except there is...

Politically Incorrect Test To ensure we Americans never offend anyone, particularly fanatics intent on killing us, airport screeners will not be allowed to profile people. They will continue random searches of 80 year old women, little kids, airline pilots with proper identification, secret service agents who are members of the President's security detail, 85 year old congressmen with metal hips and Medal Of Honor winning former Governors. Let's pause a moment and take the following test.1. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics athletes were kidnapped & massacred by: (a) Olga Corbut (b) Sitting Bull (c) Arnold Schwartzeneger (d) Muslim...

A car carrying the U.S. ambassador to China was mildly damaged after becoming the target of boisterous anti-Japan demonstrators who were expressing outrage over a territorial dispute and marking the 81st anniversary of Japan's invasion of China. The State Department said in a statement Wednesday that Ambassador Gary Locke was unhurt in Tuesday's incident, and that diplomats have expressed concerns to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The statement said around 50 protesters surrounded Locke's car as he tried to enter the embassy and were eventually removed by Chinese security personnel. The incident comes amid heightened vigilance for American diplomats following violent...

A French satirical magazine is set to publish several cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed on Wednesday, a move that is likely to inflame the Islamic faithful and militants who have already rioted in more than 20 countries over a movie mocking the prophet. Depictions of the prophet are strictly prohibited and considered blasphemous by Muslims. Cartoons of Muhammad published in Denmark in 2005 and then reproduced in newspapers across Europe triggered riots throughout the Mideast and Africa. Churches and embassies were torched and at least 100 people died in the outbreaks and police crackdowns. The magazine “Charlie Hebdo” has confirmed...

Syria rebels gain foothold in Damascus By Jeremy Bowen BBC Middle East editor, Damascus When the BBC team approached a checkpoint set up by the rebel Free Syria Army in the suburbs of Damascus, masked men with Kalashnikov assault rifles and hand grenades moved towards us - a few of them offering dates and biscuits. It is customary to give mourners something sweet, and a funeral was about to start that they said they were protecting. I had no idea before I saw them with my own eyes that the Free Syria Army was so active in and around Damascus....

Reports: Chinese Police Open Fire on Tibetan Protesters Posted Monday, January 23rd, 2012 at 3:30 pm Witnesses and Tibetan advocacy groups say police in southwestern China opened fire on several thousand Tibetan demonstrators Monday, killing at least one person and wounding many others. An exiled monk who spoke by phone Monday with witnesses told VOA the confrontation took place in western Sichuan province . He said the wounded are being sheltered in a nearby monastery, and that the confrontation was ongoing at the point he lost contact with the witnesses. The rights group Free Tibet, which campaigns for Tibetan autonomy,...

Banks gorged on €489.19bn of cheap loans offered by the European Central Bank (ECB) - but the gargantuan refinancing effort still failed to decisively address the raging debt crisis. A total of 523 banks scrambled to take up the ECB’s offer to exchange illiquid assets for cut-price funding in the first of two three-year refinancing operations. The record half-trillion euro take-up – which was far greater than the market had expected – initially triggered a “sugar rush” of euphoria as the move was hailed as a decisive “game changer”. But stock markets fell as economists and financiers recognised that while...