Free Republic

The number of legal suppressors or silencers in the United States shows they are in common use for lawful purposes. As of January of 2023, the ATF shows there were over 3.1 million silencers or suppressors legally owned in the United States for lawful purposes. In January of 2020, there were 1.8 million. Over the last three years, the number of legal suppressors has increased by an average of 450,000 suppressors per year. By the end of 2023, it is reasonably expected there will be over 3.6 million suppressors in the United States of America. To own these suppressors, the...

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) responded to a report that revealed he improperly claimed multiple tax credits by saying that “It’s a pretty common practice.” Brown, who is running for reelection in a red state, claimed two owner-occupancy tax credits — which potentially violates Buckeye State rules for such incentives, NBC News reported on Tuesday. Additionally, he and his wife have habitually paid their property taxes late. When asked about the report on Wednesday by Spectrum News’s Taylor Popielarz, the Buckeye State Democrat claimed, “It’s a pretty common practice, but once we learned about it, we fixed it.” Responding to paying...

Michelle Obama is praising her “wonderful friend” Oprah Winfrey, calling the media mogul a unifying figure in hyperpolarized America. The former first lady penned a tribute to Winfrey as part of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People of 2022” issue, released Monday.

Yes, this is satire, based on the ridiculous hyperbole I've seen streaming through my feed this week ... Relax. No one is "Coming for your abortions." No one wants to pry your abortions from your cold, dead hands. They're just asking for "Common Sense Abortion Controls." Simple, basic things like universal background checks (on both parents), waiting periods, a restriction on multiple purchases ("No one needs to buy more than one abortion every five years!"), adding both of your names to a national publicly-searchable database, and the ability to enforce "Red Flag" laws to keep you from having sex if...

I was dumb in math, I only got an 86 on standardized testing (that Mr. Gatto says is only good to predict results on the next standardized test). But the thing that helped me eventually get an A in calculus, was that I saw these cool slide rules, so at 13 I taught myself logarithms. I had a book with tables. So, though a high school counselor put in the dumb chemistry, with the nursing students, I kept up doing simple, old, rote memorization drills: Thru Algegra 2 and into Math Analysis/College Math in 12th grade--I'm stupid--we didn't try to...

So I went to a shrink and told him, "I've got problems. Every time I go to bed I think there's somebody under it. I'm scared and I think I'm going crazy." "Just put yourself in my hands for one year", said the shrink. "Come in and talk to me three times a week and we should be able to get rid of those fears". How much do you charge?" "Eighty dollars per visit", replied the doctor. "I'll sleep on it", I said. Six months later the doctor met me on the street. "Why didn't you come to see me...

I’d like to share my observation that a common thread exists amongst the various left-leaning political groups. I'm seeking related opinions.Liberalism, Social Democracy, Socialism, and the Progressive Agenda all have this in common; each requires the government to legislate in areas where Congress is NOTconstitutionally empowered to legislate. The left doesn’t set about this by proposing amendments to the Constitution; they set about this by using courts to circumvent the Constitution.

Convention bets hard on hope Kamala pick will provide left-wing cover for sharp messaging return to the center. Vice President Joe Biden wrapped up the Democratic Convention Thursday night, putting an authentic and well-received closing argument at the end of an otherwise halting, depressing and frankly alien four-day rally, and previewing what may be the campaign’s calculation that a Kamala Harris VP provides left-wing cover for a rapid return to messaging from the Democratic Party’s political center. Biden used the 25-minute speech, delivered from an empty convention center in Wilmington, Delaware, to contrast President Donald Trump’s “darkness” with his own...

Introduction: In this article, Gena Philibert-Ortega examines records from the U.S. Census Bureau to see what are the most popular surnames in the United States. Gena is a genealogist and author of the book “From the Family Kitchen.”What is the one surname in your family tree that you dread researching? As family historians, we love researching unique surnames because those people are easier to find and we don’t have to worry about finding two people with the same name.Surnames, of course, are key to genealogy research. In a newspaper column she wrote in 1985, genealogist Myra Vanderpool Gormley explained the...

Scientists have shown that water is likely to be a major component of those exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars) which are between two to four times the size of Earth. It will have implications for the search of life in our Galaxy. The work is presented at the Goldschmidt Conference in Boston. The 1992 discovery of exoplanets orbiting other stars has sparked interest in understanding the composition of these planets to determine, among other goals, whether they are suitable for the development of life. Now a new evaluation of data from the exoplanet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope and the Gaia mission...

Hollywood displayed its love affair with abortion Sunday at the Oscars by featuring the president of the largest abortion chain in America on stage. Cecile Richards, CEO of Planned Parenthood, was one of 10 activists invited to stand on stage during Andra Day and Common’s performance Sunday night at the Oscars, Blavity reports. Richards and the others wore black as Common and Day sang their Oscar-nominated “Stand Up for Something.” The song urges people to resist violence and racism and to protect women’s rights – which, in the eyes of many Hollywood celebrities, means abortion on demand up to birth....

Stating flatly, "Dead white guys did not create this country," an executive in the American school textbook industry has confirmed that Common Core pushes an elitist, progressive agenda of global warming, gun control and prostitution on America’s children. The undercover video is from investigative reporter James O’Keefe of Project Veritas. It reveals the comments and opinions of Kimberly Koerber, a former manager for Pearson, the nation's leading textbook publishing company. She now works for National Geographic, another publisher. O'Keefe reported her statements to Project Veritas journalists included, "Damn the Second Amendment", and, "People that are not educated, Fox TV viewers,...

A former marketing executive for textbook publishing giant Pearson Education reveals the anti-American agenda behind Common Core and the Advanced Placement U.S. History framework in the third video of a series produced by Project Veritas and focused on the corporate cronyism behind the education reform known as Common Core. Kim Koerber, a former Pearson executive who now works as a sales consultant for National Geographic – another Gates Foundation-funded Common Core publisher – tells the Project Veritas undercover journalist that “conservative voters are afraid of everything,” and proceeds to say why Common Core is important in her view. She explains...

WeChat, Didi Kuaidi among dozens hit; breach of iOS platform is called unusual A number of popular Chinese mobile apps, including Tencent’s WeChat, were infected with malware by hackers targeting Apple’s iOS mobile platform. A number of populwith malware by hackers targeting Apple’s iOS mobile platform. BEIJING—Some of the most popular Chinese names in Apple Inc.’s App Store were found to be infected with malicious software in what is being described as a first-of-its-kind security breach, exposing a rare vulnerability in Apple’s mobile platform, according to multiple researchers. The applications were infected after software developers were lured into using an...

Donald Trump blasted fellow presidential hopeful Jeb Bush on Fox News Channel’s On the Record for his avid promotion of the Common Core education initiative as well as his stance on amnesty for illegal immigrants. “I watched Jeb Bush…I think it’s pathetic what’s going on, his stance on Common Core,” Trump said. “He’s in favor of Washington educating your children. His weak stance on immigration – he said it’s an act of love. I mean what kind of stuff is that? It’s baby stuff.” Trump said, “I will say that I love the Republican Party [but] I think they’re making...

The new academic standards known as the Common Core emphasize critical thinking, complex problem-solving and writing skills, and put less stock in rote learning and memorization. So the standardized tests given in most states this year required fewer multiple choice questions and far more writing on topics like this one posed to elementary school students: Read a passage from a novel written in the first person, and a poem written in the third person, and describe how the poem might change if it were written in the first person.

A Common Core-approved workshop on the Middle East conflict titled “Whose Jerusalem?” has sparked controversy among critics who charge that the program portrays Israel and America in a negative light while cultivating sympathy for terrorist group Hamas. The “Whose Jerusalem?” curriculum was created by Boston University professor Carl Hobert, who describes the goal of his program as “educational civil disobedience, where students are learning about the Middle East and they’re putting pressure on our government to create a Palestinian state.” It has already been used in numerous high schools and has now been approved as part of the Common...

Parents in South Carolina who are part of a nationwide revolt against Common Core say they are being threatened with “criminal accountability” if they prevent their children from taking the tests required by the controversial educational-standards program. Tamra Hood, a member of South Carolina Parents Involved in Education, said the state Education Department’s chief Operating officer, Elizabeth Carpentier, warned parents could spend 30 days in jail if even a single day of testing is missed, Breitbart News reported. In addition, Hood said Carpentier warned that groups that encourage parents to refuse the Common Core-aligned tests could be charged with aiding...

The entire junior class of a Seattle high school sent an unmistakable message to President Obama and other supporters of the Common Core curriculum last week: Thanks, but no thanks. Not a single junior at Nathan Hale High showed up Tuesday to take new state exams in reading and math, a Seattle Public Schools spokeswoman told The Seattle Times. That’s 280 students who skipped the tests in a show of force. **SNIP** “They didn’t skip school all day,” district spokeswoman Stacy Howard told the newspaper. “They just didn’t show up during the testing period.”

Education Secretary Arnie Duncan is reminding parents in America “that all your children belong to them”. In a not-so-very veiled threat Secretary Duncan states the Federal Government will step in if parents continue to opt their children out of Common Core testing. (Via Doug Ross Journal) Secretary of Education Arne Duncan issued a veiled threat to the parents and students who choose to opt out of Common Core testing – The Feds “have an obligation to step in.” Federal law, under No Child Left Behind, requires 95 percent of students in a state to take the annual standardized tests in...