Free Republic

Washington Comes Out: Ten percent of adults in the District of Columbia identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, nearly three times the national average. What makes the city such a gay-friendly place?

The city of Oakland, Calif., is in the middle of a robbery epidemic. In response, some residents in several Oakland neighborhoods are taking matters into their own hands, hiring private security companies to patrol their neighborhoods. Overall, robberies in Oakland are up 24 percent over the past year, with armed robberies up 45 percent. Since the recession dried up local tax revenues, the Oakland Police Department has been hamstrung by the loss of more than 200 officers and can't respond to all the calls it receives for help. Lower Rockridge, a leafy, upscale community in North Oakland, is one neighborhood...

NEW YORK CITY, November 6, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – New York City has been called “the abortion capital of the world.” The city has some of the laxest restrictions and the highest abortion rate in the country, with 41 percent of its pregnancies ending in elective termination. According to New York Magazine, 10 percent of all U.S. abortions happen in the state of New York, and seven out of ten abortions in the state take place in New York City. But those statistics aren’t high enough for newly elected Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio, who claims the city is “underserved” by...

A former medical center chief defeated a county sheriff to become the next mayor of financially troubled Detroit, though the job holds little power while the city is being run by a state-appointed emergency manager.

Saturday, November 02, 2013 It's De Blasio Time Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog Do you miss the old New York City? Remember when subway trains were covered in graffiti, a news hour began with six shootings and everyone who lived in the city had been mugged at least once? Remember when Times Square had more strip clubs than theaters and when you could afford an apartment in the village because it was a drug infested mess? Remember when the city and everyone living in it were on the verge of bankruptcy and the only people who...

Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Prof. Richard Vedder, the Distinguished Professor of Economics Emeritus at Ohio University. Cincinnati and Detroit are separated by barely more than 250 miles – a five-hour drive at worst, or under an hour by plane. Despite this proximity, many Cincinnatians would prefer to believe that Detroit’s horrendous fiscal situation couldn’t possibly hit their city. Not so fast. As the largest bankrupt city in America, Detroit has seen its population drop by more than half, unemployment soar to well over double the national average, and services decline. This is what happens to a locality...

There's been a baby boom in Washington, D.C. Census figures show the number of children younger than 5 has grown by almost twenty percent to 39,000 over the past 3 years. The number of children ages 5 to 13 rose 7 percent. The biggest increases came from white infants and toddlers, which are up 34 percent. The rise is largely being attributed to new parents in their 30's and early 40's. There were fewer kids 14 and older during that same time span, suggesting that some parents are moving out of the city when their children reach high school.

Well, here is an interesting video of Chicago Teachers Union, Karen Lewis stating that all of Chicago's problems are due to you rich white people. These cretains are certainly holding the whip hand these days.

Attorney Benjamin Crump talks about the new Trayvon Martins, a brutal death and the fears for all black sons.Benjamin Crump, the attorney for Trayvon Martin's family, has become a new face in the fight for the equal treatment (under the law) of black and brown boys. Just months after a demoralizing verdict in George Zimmerman's second-degree-murder trial, which saw Trayvon's killer walk free, Crump is engaged in two new cases. First, the case of Leon Ford Jr. -- a teenager at the time of the incident -- involves a far too common occurrence of unexplained police brutality. The second case...

Another concern of the ADA is female toplessness downtown, something not currently against the law, but which Council members have noted in meetings recently is a source of complaint from some downtown business owners. State Rep. Tim Moffitt introduced a bill to ban female toplessness (specifically nipples) in public, and Asheville City Council had earlier called for a change in state law to allow them to stop the annual topless rally. But the bill never advanced during this year's legislative session, and the so-called "nipple ban" became the target of some mockery.

A group of Milwaukee pastors and their supporters gathered Monday morning at a local coffee shop to implore city officials to sponsor a gun buyback program, which they say could remove weapons from the city's streets and reduce violence in their neighborhoods. "We are here today because we are fed up," said the Rev. John McVicker Sr., pastor at Christ the King Baptist Church. "There have been far too many senseless shootings in our city, many resulting in homicide." The pastors have asked the city to allot $50,000 in its 2014 budget to initiate a one-time, anonymous gun buyback, where...

Raleigh, N.C., citizens are on alert after two cases of black mob violence in two nights in their downtown. The attacks are the latest in a series of episodes of racial violence in the area. The local ABC affiliate was the only media outlet to report that last Tuesday, a group of at least 15 black people stalked and beat a homeless woman after she saw them coming and tried to get out of their way. In contrast to most cases of black racial violence, local journalist Kelli O’Hara actually identified the mob the way victims and the police did:...

Detroiter Sleeps In Liquor Store With Shotgun To Prevent Robberies October 4, 2013 9:43 AM Steve Bahoura said he's been forced to sleep inside his east side Detroit liquor store with his shotgun to make sure he doesn't get robbed. (Credit: Mike Campbell/WWJ Newsradio 950) DETROIT (WWJ) - One Detroit business owner is taking matters into his own hands to make sure thieves leave his liquor store alone. Steve Bahoura, who has owned the Van Dyke Liquor Market since the 90s, said he deals with several break-ins each year and he’s tired of it. Most recently, Bahoura said someone broke...

The city insists the water is safe, but people can't get over the colorResidents on Manhattan's East Side are staying far away from their tap water after it started flowing with an unusual color, despite the city's insistence the water is safe. On Thursday, residents and businesses began noticing brown water from their sinks and taps. Nearly a dozen hydrants in the area were also unlocked and gushing discolored water. The city's Department of Environmental Protection said the discoloration happened when construction of new water mains forced them to reverse flow, stirring up sediment. The DEP said the brown in...

In some cash-strapped Chicago schools, no resource can be taken for granted -- not even toilet paper. Nicholas Sposato, alderman of Chicago’s 36th ward, recently held a toilet paper drive for the schools in his community.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel condemned a Thursday night shooting on Chicago’s South Side that wounded 13 people, including a three-year-old boy. “Senseless and brazen acts of violence have no place in Chicago and betray all that we stand for,” said Obama’s former chief of staff in the first of a series of tweets Friday morning. “The perpetrators of this crime will be brought to justice and prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” Emanuel added. Witnesses said several gunmen fired at least 20 shots at a group on basketball courts, according to NBC News’s Chicago affiliate. The station said...

A businessman has a message for young African-American men: pull up your pants!

... Department spokesman John Chafee says a man was shot in the leg and a woman was shot in the arm Sunday afternoon. Chafee says the shooting happened on Northside Drive near Markham Street, about three blocks south of the Georgia Dome, where thousands gathered to watch the Falcons play the St. Louis Rams.

Even the most dangerous cities in America can have relatively safe neighborhoods, as there is more variation in crime within most cities than between cities. But using exclusive data developed by NeighborhoodScout, and based on FBI data from all 17,000 local law enforcement agencies in America, we here report those specific neighborhoods in America that have the highest predicted rates of violent crime per 1,000 neighborhood residents of all. Violent crimes include murder, forcible rape, armed robbery, and aggravated assault. These neighborhoods are the epicenters of violence in America, where social issues are likely to ignite into violence and spread.

Using Census data, we've figured out that half of the United States population is clustered in just the 146 biggest counties out of over 3000. Here's the map, with said counties shaded in. Below the map is the list of all the counties, so you can see if you live in one of them. See link for list of names.