Free Republic

A 26-year-old man charged with vandalizing a historic New York City synagogue on Friday, just days after the Pittsburgh massacre, has been identified as a former campaign worker for Barack Obama who was profiled by the New York Times in 2017. The Times described James Polite as a young man who “spent much of his childhood in foster care,” and performed canvassing work for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. After a chance meeting, he got a job that year as an intern for Christine Quinn, a former speaker of New York City’s city council who was also a former mayoral candidate....

**SNIP** But perhaps the most intriguing bit was when, in a brief discussion of Obama’s plans for his post-presidency, Obama hinted that he planned to start speaking out more like an activist than a president. There are “things,” he told Goodwin, “that in some ways I suspect I’m able to do better out of this office.” He elaborated that because of the “institutional constraints” of the presidency, “there are things I cannot say.” He went on to essentially say he wanted to use his post-presidential bully pulpit more like an activist than a venerable elder statesman. “There are institutional obligations...

British society is scared of offending “vocal and aggressive” Muslims, claims a former adviser to Barack Obama. Professor Lawrence Krauss made his comments after threatening to walk out of a debate hosted by an Islamic group at the University College London where organizers would not allow men and women to sit together. The Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA) told women to sit at the back, while men and couples were sent to the front. Three people who objected were ordered to leave. … “People are not only afraid to offend, but afraid to offend a vocal and aggressive group...

"No idea," he replied in French with a bad-tempered shrug - even though he knew the nearest Starbucks coffee shop was only 50m away. Haughty indifference to tourists is as Parisian as the Louvre, yet tourist officials are hoping to eliminate that attitude, if only for one day.

I love brain food. A gentleman who has been a long-time warrior in the battle for our country forwarded a website to me, which you will find at the end of this article. What a find this is – what a doozy! You will be privileged to read a MAB-commissioned, research report (Man and Biosphere Reserves). It is a report that studied the failure of a U.N. Biosphere takeover attempt in the Ozark Mountains. The report documented the human opposition to the MAB takeover, how they successfully stopped the MAB takeover, and finally, recommendations made by the hired professional researchers...

LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) - A Democratic city councilman is demanding that a baker remove photos of President Bush from his stand in Lancaster's farmers market, saying the city needs a "healing period" following the bitterly contested election. City Councilman Nelson Polite asked baker David Stoltzfus last month to remove the pictures. When Stoltzfus refused, Polite threatened to try to enact a city ordinance that would ban all political material from public places. "I just feel that since it was a close election and the city's so divided, that we should have a healing period," Polite told the New Era of...

David Stoltzfus says there’s only one reason he would take down the photos of President George W. Bush that he has displayed at his Central Market baked-goods stand. Bush would have had to have lost the recent election. Instead, he beat Democratic challenger John Kerry to win a second term. “If it were Kerry that won, he’d be up there,’’ says Stoltzfus, who operates the Upper Crust stand. Doesn’t matter, says City Councilman Nelson Polite. “It should come down. This is a public market.”

Decency is dead. Now we're fighting over acceptable indecency. .......The truly brazen authors of NBC's petition to the FCC say, "Live and uncensored programming is the hallmark of a free society." Oh please. It is the hallmark of NBC's need to produce quarter-over-quarter growth in the business it is in. Income and lifestyle needs aside, the truly serious writers and artists out there should consider where their true interests lie in the Bono/Golden Globe controversy. They should understand (and many do) that this claim of a constitutionally protected pants-drop is simply a race to the bottom that is sucking all...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A California city councilwoman who sought to encourage civility in public discourse by calling for an end to offensive body language said on Thursday that she has received piles of hate mail. "I've been receiving hate mail from all over the world," said Palo Alto Councilwoman Judy Kleinberg, who headed the committee that drafted the rules encouraging more politeness. "I've been called a Nazi." "I've been told I need to be in a straight jacket with a bag over my head." The city council in the Silicon Valley town was hoping to improve civility in the...

Despite equality, women today still prefer gentlemen Working out the difference between chivalry and sexism may be a minefield for men, but most women would prefer them to be more gallant, a survey has found. While acknowledging that the sexual revolution is partly to blame for the destruction of the old- fashioned gentleman, half of women say men have little concept of social etiquette, politeness or courtesy. They accuse men of behaving like gentlemen only when it suits them, although that view is held by seven out of 10 men themselves. One in 50 men say gentlemanly behaviour is for...