I think this was around 1986 (or so)... when the nice rap was being taken over by the (future gansta rap) crap we see today.. This isn't bout rap, or any specific genre, but by users/people taking advantage of the 1st amendment. I think many here know what I am talking about.. but I also think many here are too young to remember before rap was even invented :p (not just about rap, but the degradation of not only music, but social norms in general).

Rep. Lamar Smith is pushing ahead in his committee's effort to hold Hillary Clinton accountable for her private e-mail server while she was secretary of state. On Thursday, Smith, chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, announced that he is going to hold the Platte River Networks, which set up and maintained Clinton’s server, in contempt of Congress when lawmakers return to Washington following the November election. “Platte River continues to obstruct our committee’s investigation into the possible misuse security of former Secretary Clinton’s private e-mail server,” Smith told a packed press conference on Capitol Hill."

Unearthed: the humble origins of world diplomacy By David Keys, Archaeology Correspondent 19 January 2003 Archaeologists have discovered evidence of an invasion of the Middle East by one of the world's first superpowers, which destroyed much of the region 33 centuries ago. Under the ruins of a 3,800-year-old royal palace in western Syria they have found part of an ancient diplomatic and administrative library, the most important archaeological discovery of its kind for more than 20 years. Accounts on clay tablets describe the region's conquest by one of the Bronze Age's superpowers, the Hittite Empire, in 1340BC. This helped to...

Photo: Stefano Giovannini MORE ON:NYPD NYPD watchdogs confused about chokeholds NYPD cop in serious condition after responding to fire Rally on Staten Island to support police on Sept. 27 Gangsta cop says his past made him a better officer A retired police commander kept a stunning secret for more than two decades: Before joining the NYPD, he peddled crack, tried to murder a fellow drug dealer and was close pals with a notorious cop killer. Corey Pegues — who collects a $135,000 tax-free line-of-duty disability ...

While the Washington Post has been diligently digging into relatively innocent high school pranks by Mitt Romney, they’ve spent the last few years diligently ignoring President Obama’s far more controversial high school days. Obama, by all accounts, was a habitual drug user in high school. He tried cocaine, he admits in Dreams From My Father; he “tried drugs enthusiastically.” The Chicago Tribune reported back in 2007 that Obama thanked the “Choom Gang” in his high school yearbook; “chooming” was Hawaiian slang for smoking pot. The Honolulu Advertiser reported that Obama’s senior portrait “prominently displayed … A package of ‘Zig-Zag’ rolling...

Excerpts from American Thinker by Edmund Wright: Couldn’t agree more To be sure, the only reason Santorum has gotten away with this is that no one has taken his candidacy seriously enough to bother to look. He has not been above the fray. He has been off to the side of the fray. Ironically, he has been the “look at me” candidate all along, so now perhaps it is indeed time to look at him. Be careful what you wish for, Senator. Oh My! Rick actually published a Pamphlet in his failed 2006 Campaign which tried to show Pennsylvanians how...

Go figure, yet another example of allegedly non-existent rhetoric from a liberal using violent and/or gun-related imagery. Not to worry though, apparently it's only conservatives who set off left wingers when this occurs and and not the other way around. Back on Dec. 16, I wrote about a conversation between liberal radio host Ed Schultz and his producer James "Holmy" Holm, who also helps Schultz with "The Ed Show" on MSNBC. Schultz's radio listeners have grown quite familiar with Holm, who has come on the air to chat with Schultz several times a week over the last year. Let's hear...

Today is my 12th anniversary as a Freeper. I came across Free Republic in the summer of 1998 as a lurker, troubled by an increasingly lawless President Clinton, and what was happening to our country. I lurked for about four months, reading every day and being amazed at the group of talented and knowledgeable people on this site. When Jim Robinson put out the call for people to come to Washington, DC to attend the March for Justice Rally on October 30, 1998, I came from NJ on my own, not knowing a soul there, because someone was finally calling...

Poole and Rosenthal found that the House and Senate grew steadily less polarized from around 1900 to 1980. Then something happened; polarization has been sharply increasing ever since. A statistical method is fundamentally sound only if it tells you things you already know. The DW-NOMINATE maps tell us, first of all, that throughout the last 100 years both houses of Congress have split into two grand clusters, Democrats and Republicans. Within the Democrats, the Northern and Southern members form two clusters. Sometimes the Northern and Southern Democrats meld into each other without a gap, and other times (especially in the...

Ohio Democrat Congressman Charlie Wilson was first elected to Congress in the Democrat wave year of 2006. Prior to that, he had been a long-time member of the Ohio state legislature, first elected to the Ohio House in 1996 and the Ohio Senate in 2004. (One of his four grown sons succeeded him in the legislature and is currently an Ohio State Senator.) He was also married for 27 years to his wife, Clara. The marriage ended in divorce in 1990. BigGovernment has obtained a trial brief filed by Mrs. Clara Wilson prior to the formal divorce proceedings. The brief...

Many of you will still be alive in 50 years. It’s interesting to think about what life will be like in 50 years technologically and otherwise. Predictions are risky, especially when they’re about the future, but I believe we can make some pretty good guesses. To predict a predictable future, you need to look at the past. What was technological life like 50 years ago? 50 years ago was 1959. The world of 1959 is pretty much the same world we live in today technologically speaking. This is a vaguely horrifying fact which is little appreciated. In 1959, we had...

BAGHDAD – Built by the Persians on the northeast bank of the Tigris River almost 1,500 years ago, an arch from the ancient city of Ctesiphon still stands today as an impressive monument to the talents of ancient builders. A U.S. Soldier stands in front of the Arch of Ctesiphon, built by the Persians nearly 1,500 years ago in what is now Salman Pak, Iraq, May 31, 2010. The arch used to be an important tourist attraction, and Iraqi authorities hope to revive that tourism in the coming years. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Rebecca Schwab.Considered the oldest and largest...

How will we remember the 2000s? What were the high and low points? Who were the heroes and villains? Already, our impressions and perspectives have changed. Foreign affairs, an afterthought in 2000, exploded in 2001 and dominated the decade until the economic collapse of 2008. The war in Iraq looked good in 2003, then bad in 2006, then better again in 2008. To find out how our perceptions have evolved, we'd like your help with a short interactive experiment. We've selected some notable political moments from the last decade, going back to 1999. We'd like to show you four of...