Free Republic

...or maybe not. Faced with increased violence, Britain deploys permanently armed police in London

The Left barely tolerates conservatives only so long as they talk to one another, write for one another, post for one another, and interact with one another. But if a conservative, especially a prominent one, should dare to leave the conservative “hood,” they jump all over him. He must be punished severely, so he will never again make the mistake of trying to mingle with “nice” people. That’s liberal? That’s progressive? That’s tolerant? That’s inclusive? No, that’s just the way things are.

A press release and automated calls to voters by Seattle mayoral candidate Mike McGinn’s campaign, accusing opponent Joe Mallahan of wanting to “make it legal to bring loaded firearms to playgrounds, pools, and community centers,” was touching off dueling statements of lying and waffling Friday evening. And in response to a challenge from McGinn asking Mallahan to say whether he would defend in court a new ban on firearms in Seattle parks, community centers and other facilities where children might be present, Mallahan spokeswoman Charla Neuman was non-committal.

An Oregon apartment complex reversed its ban prohibiting residents from flying American flags from dwellings and parked vehicles after the property manager decided she didn't have the legal standing to do so, KATU in Portland reported Wednesday. The American Civil Liberties Union said that Barb Holcomb's ban at Oaks Apartments did not violate any laws, but Holcomb said her legal cousel led her to believe otherwise so she reversed the decision. "If people want to fly any flag of any nationality, it's their right," she told KATU. "When a tenant rents the unit, the inside of the unit belongs to...

The influential lobby group Consumer Electronics Assn. is fighting what appears to be a losing battle to dissuade California regulators from passing the nation's first ban on energy-hungry big-screen televisions. On Tuesday, executives and consultants for the Arlington, Va., trade group asked members of the California Energy Commission to instead let consumers use their wallets to decide whether they want to buy the most energy-saving new models of liquid-crystal display and plasma high-definition TVs. "Voluntary efforts are succeeding without regulations," said Doug Johnson, the association's senior director for technology policy. Too much government interference could hamstring industry innovation and prove...

October 5, 2009 - Alexandria, Va. – A sweeping oceans and Great Lakes management policy document proposed by the Obama Administration will have a significant impact on the sportfishing industry, America’s saltwater anglers and the nation’s coastal communities. The draft policy, the Interim Report of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, issued on September 17, will govern federal Pacific and Atlantic Ocean waters and Great Lakes resource conservation and management and will coordinate these efforts among federal, state and local agencies. This past June, President Obama created the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, led by the Chair of the Council...

Sep 9, 2009 10:40 pm US/Central Air Rifles And BB Guns: Toys Or Weapons? SEND A TIP TO THE 2 INVESTIGATORS Reporting Dave Savini CHICAGO (CBS) ― Just a few hours ago a Naperville high school student was arrested for shooting a BB gun at students from Chrone middle school. Fortunately no one was hurt. Not the same can be said for one Glen Ellyn woman who had a BB pellet pulled out of her heart. That's why there is a growing call to have BB guns and air rifles regulated like handguns. CBS 2 Investigator Dave Savini takes a...

After a Nato airstrike killed as many as 125 people last week, General Stanley McChrystal was keen to get the situation under control — fast. When he tried to contact his underlings to find out what had happened, however, he found, to his fury, that many of them were either drunk or too hungover to respond. Complaining in his daily Commander’s Update that too many people had been “partying it up”, General McChrystal, head of International Forces in Afghanistan (Isaf), banned alcohol at his headquarters yesterday,

Along with a box of matches and a piece of string, they've always been an essential part of a Scout's kit. But now penknives are going to be restricted on scouting trips as a seemingly innocent tradition succumbs to concerns over the nation's blade culture. The Scout Association is advising boys and their parents that they should not bring such knives to camp - despite it being legal for anyone to carry a foldable, nonlocking blade in a public place as long as it is shorter than 3ins. Scouts have been taught to carry knives and have used them to...

Glen Cove District Students Urged To Have No Skin-On-Skin Contact With Swine Flu Outbreak Looming Parents Told To Provide Kids With Tissues, Hand Sanitizer, Ibuprofen Reporting Jennifer McLogan NEW YORK (CBS) ― Click to enlarge1 of 1 DNA test kits of the the influenza A(H1N1) or Swine Flu virus prepared by PrimerDesign Ltd are displayed at the company laboratory in Southampton on May 2, 2009. Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images Close numSlides of totalImages Poll Is Glen Cove going too far in telling its students not to touch each other to fight H1N1? Related Slideshows Celebs Who Lean To The Right 2009...

(IsraelNN.com) Hareidi and national-religious rabbis will meet Monday in Jerusalem to discuss ways of dealing with the Arab influx into Jewish neighborhoods in northern Jerusalem, as well as the purchasing of agricultural land in the Galilee by wealthy foreign Arabs. The rabbis are expected to call for an end to the phenomenon of sale of land and houses by Jews to Arabs. The organizer, Aryeh King, who heads the Israel Lands Fund, told Arutz Sheva's Hebrew service that he is hoping to see the rabbis issue a pronouncement that sale of land and houses to Arabs is forbidden.

OSLO (Reuters) – Norway's ambassador to the United Nations has accused Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of weak, ineffective and at times counterproductive leadership during recent crises, the daily Aftenposten reported on Wednesday. Aftenposten published what it said was a letter from Ambassador Mona Juul to Norway's Foreign Ministry, where she said Ban was late in handling challenges and that his abrasive style irked even seasoned diplomats. "At a time when the need for the United Nations and for multilateral solutions to global crises is greater than ever, Ban and the United Nations are conspicuous in their absence," Aftenposten quoted the letter...

CBS News 2: Wednesday night one local congressman facing a crowd of protestors tried to keep CBS 2 HD (NY) cameras out. The forum was one viewers almost didn't see, after Congressman Anthony Weiner's staffers said the meeting was not open to our cameras.

We've all been there, a restaurant, church, classroom, shopping aisle and yes a bar, when someone will walk in and the place turns to weeping eyes and sneezing. How well do you think people take it when asked to "remove" their perfume? But due to stories like the people above who fell ill due to someone's perfume I believe people are starting to look at perfume as the next cigarette.

Imad Mustafa, the Syrian envoy to the US, said Monday that the Obama administration had lifted the ban imposed on exporting goods to the Syrian Aviation Industry, the Kuwait News Agency reported. Speaking on Syrian national television, Mustafa revealed that the US had also lifted the ban on exporting IT products, whether they were hardware or software, adding that US President Barack Obama was considering lifting more such restrictions.

Britain's incoming home secretary says ban on radio talker's travel to be lifted Radio talker Michael Savage told WND he was "stunned" by the quick decision by incoming United Kingdom Home Secretary Alan Johnson to scrap his predecessor's list of people banned from Britain – a list that included Savage along with Islamic hate preachers and terrorists. Savage had sued outgoing Home Secretary Jacqui Smith for libel for listing him, along with 15 others, as "least wanted" visitors in the country. Meanwhile, Smith's successor, Alan Johnson, called the move a terrible blunder and told the London Daily Mail he would...

"ANY USE OF TOBACCO WHILE IN UNIFORM SHOULD BE PROHIBITED!" Thats what the medical institute report to the Pentagon concludes. Brian Wise, executive director of Military Families United, decried even the discussion of such a ban. "With all the issues facing our military today and the risks our troops take to protect our freedom, banning smoking should not even be on the radar screen," Wise said in a written statement Wednesday. "Nobody doubts the effects of smoking, but it is not an illegal substance and should not be banned," he said. "Our troops make enough sacrifices to serve our nation....

Lithuania's parliament approved a law on Tuesday to protect minors, including a ban on information seen to promote gay relationships. Human rights groups criticised the law as evidence of homophobic attitudes in largely Roman Catholic Lithuania. The law bans the spread of information about homosexual or bisexual relations or polygamy to minors. It also prohibits information which "subverts family relations and degrades its values". "I welcome the decision," opposition lawmaker Petras Grazulis, who had proposed amendments covering homosexuality to the law, told Reuters. He said gays should limit their views to private life and public demonstrations should be banned. Rights...

Wow. And I thought we were supposed to smoke for the children. I can't believe this isn't some type of joke, but there it is in USA Today. Pentagon health experts are urging Defense Secretary Robert Gates to ban the use of tobacco by troops and end its sale on military property, a change that could dramatically alter a culture intertwined with smoking. Jack Smith, head of the Pentagon's office of clinical and program policy, says he will recommend that Gates adopt proposals by a federal study that cites rising tobacco use and higher costs for the Pentagon and Department...

Link only - San Francisco to Consider Cat De-Clawing Ban

Like gamers around the world, Germans love their shoot-'em-ups. Sure, video gaming isn't quite the industry in Germany that it is in the U.S. (or some other parts of Europe), but it's still an enormous market for the industry. Those days are quite likely to come to a screeching halt in a matter of weeks, as Germany is well on its way to banning all "violent video games," defined (via translation) as games "where the main part is to realistically play the killing of people or other cruel or inhuman acts of violence against humans or manlike characters." Hmmmm... sounds...

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel joined 21 other state attorneys general Thursday in writing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to oppose any proposed effort to reinstate the federal assault-weapons ban, which was passed in 1994 but expired in 2004. President Barack Obama said in April that the ban "made sense" but that he wouldn't push to reinstate it because it would be difficult to pass in Congress. McDaniel said in a news release that he shared Obama's desire to reduce crime. "However, based on the facts available, there is no reason to believe this law will result in any meaningful reduction...

Remember CANDIDATE Barack Obama? The guy who “wasn’t going to take away our guns”? Well, guess what? Less than 100 days into his administration, he’s never met a gun he didn’t hate. A week ago, Obama went to Mexico, whined about the United States, and bemoaned (before the whole world) the fact that he didn’t have the political power to take away our semi-automatics. Nevertheless, that didn’t keep him from pushing additional restrictions on American gun owners. It’s called the Inter-American Convention Against Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials. To be sure, this...

Sen. Tom Coburn, who is also a medical doctor, is calling for an outright ban on the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products. "What we should be doing is banning tobacco," the Oklahoma Republican declared on the Senate floor during a debate on a tobacco regulation bill. "Nobody up here has the courage to do that. It is a big business. There are millions of Americans who are addicted to nicotine." The battle against tobacco use has been ongoing. Earlier this year Congress passed legislation that included an increase in the federal tax on cigarettes of more than 60...

t's the clash of the titans, pitting talk-radio god against fierce national gatekeeper. Michael Savage made good on his threat to sue British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith for libel, with the official notification letter arriving at her office Monday. Her response: bring it on.

Roll Call is reporting that during the typical Friday afternoon document dump — a practice used to hide actions that might prove somewhat embarrassing to the White House — the administration quietly announced that some of the former restrictions on lobbying ballyhooed about during the late campaign have been lifted.Let special interests ring!Roll Call (see here, but subscription is required) says that the administration lifted bans on lobbyists that have some part of spending “stimulus” funds. So now getting hooks into bloated federal spending is open season for the very lobbyists that Obama pretended to disdain only months ago.So much...

America’s 1st Freedom June 2009 Magazine has called the Democrats onto the carpet. And it isn’t pretty. Marshall Lewin in an article titled:”Showing their True Colors”, lays it all on the line. In his article he describes a ruthless calculation, Democrat leaders in the White House and in Congress are waiting for people to die. That’s right. They are waiting until there is some national level tragedy, the loss of life involving firearms, to introduce and then pass legislation banning guns.

NEW YORK, June 26 (Reuters) - Boeing Co. (BA.N: Quote, Profile , Research) on Tuesday named retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, the former head of U.S. and NATO forces in Europe, to its board. The appointment is the latest in a line of retired senior armed forces and Pentagon leaders joining defense contractors, underscoring the tight relationship between U.S. arms makers and buyers. Boeing, which is the No. 2 U.S. defense contractor behind Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT.N: Quote, Profile , Research), said Jones' appointment was effective immediately. Jones, 63, is a decorated Vietnam War veteran with a 40-year military...

The guys at Arkansas Carry are tonight reporting that the Sebastian County Quorum Court meeting went well. In fact they apparently voted unanimously to end the ban on guns in city parks! Arkansas Carry gets a big, "Bravo Zulu" for their work tonight. This could effect the rest of the state's rules on guns in city parks. Right now here's the update from their website, "The Quorum Court agenda tonight was really full, and they moved the Ben Geren gun ban repeal to the very last. The meeting started at 7 pm, but they didn't get to our subject until...

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev confirmed the intention of the authorities to ban the gambling business in Russia. Mikhail Mokretsov, the head of Russia’s Federal Tax Service, signed the adequate order immediately after his meeting with Medvedev, The Kommersant newspaper wrote. All casinos and gambling bars were ordered to shut down their activities before July 1. Federal Tax Service officers will also take efforts to prevent the appearance of disguised gambling establishments. Medvedev said on May 6 that the new law would come into force on time. “There will be no way back, no matter how hard certain business structures might...

Is Geert Wilders’ film “offensive” to some? No doubt. Is Michael Savage’s radio show “offensive” to many? Undeniably. So what? The excuse for banning them is that they defame Islam and the Koran. But why doesn’t Britain ban Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, who express contempt for all religions? Why doesn’t Britain ban Ron Howard and Dan Brown, who write books and make films that defame Catholicism? I’ll tell you why − because Christians and Jews do not threaten violence against those with whom they disagree. Banning Wilders and Savage is an act of pure cowardice. And liberal Americans say...

SFGate... San Francisco-based conservative talk show host Michael Savage -- whose sharp-tongued right-wing commentary has earned him headlines across the U.S. -- is making news again: He's been banned in Britain. ... "When I woke up and saw this this morning ... my first thought was, damn, there goes the summer trip where I planned to have my dental work done," the "Savage Nation" host joked. "My second thought was, darn ... there goes my visit to the restaurants of England for their great cuisine." But, he added, the issue is no laughing matter -- and represents a serious threat...

Sixteen people banned from entering the UK are "named and shamed" by the Home Office. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she decided to make public the names of 16 people banned since October last year so others could better understand what sort of behaviour Britain was not prepared to tolerate. The list includes hate preachers, anti-gay protesters and a far- right US talk show host.

A proposal to ban sales of new gasoline-powered cars in Norway from 2015 could help spur struggling carmakers to shift to greener models, Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen said on Saturday. "This is much more realistic than people think when they first hear about this proposal," she told Reuters, defending a plan by her Socialist Left Party to outlaw sales of cars that run solely on fossil fuels in six years' time. "The financial crisis also means that a lot of those car producers that now have big problems ... know that they have to develop their technology because we also...

But the law of unintended consequences is a funny thing. If I am an al Qaeda thug what am I thinking about Obama's reckless policy? First, I am convinced that my assessment of him as a weak, liberal, self-destructive appeaser is right on the mark. After all, what leader says that his country's "moral authority" is eroded by the use of benign interrogation techniques, when the failure to use them actually diminishes his country's "military authority?" The former is cold comfort when you are dead due to the absence of the latter. Second, I am thinking that if I had...

Donald Harmon's attempt to save a few bucks on his heating bill could cost him $850 — more than half his monthly Social Security — because he picked the wrong fuel. The 82-year-old retiree was hit with a hefty fine in January for burning wood to take away the chill in his kitchen and the living area in his North Seattle home. The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency had declared a burn ban that day. While Harmon was feeding broken-up pallets into his woodstove, an agency inspector was outside taking notes and photos as the smoke rose from the chimney....

I have never understood the Michael Savage phenomenon. He's loud, he's abrasive, and he's hardly the "conservative" so many apparently think he is. I guess tapping into the border issue has convinced some that he is a kindred spirit. For anyone who place the Constitution first, he is not. Case in point, today's amazingly ignorant screed, "Why are the police outgunned?": So I put the question to the Savage Nation. Is it time to ban assault rifles? What are they really needed for? We know, of course, that Savage has no business defining what we "need," although I can think...

SAN DIEGO — Hope is the political message of the moment, courtesy of President Barack Obama. Tell that to Lincoln High School students Jennifer Astudillo, Sakeenah Shabazz and Alex Velarde, a trio of increasingly polished political activists. Sakeenah, 16, said hope isn't part of her political equation. “Always go in prepared for the worst, not with your hopes up,” she said. What they've displayed instead is persistence, as they've led a group of high school students in persuading the San Diego Unified School District board to shelve campus air-rifle marksmanship programs. The board confirmed the decision Tuesday, although members eased...

Police have yet to determine how Lovelle Mixon, a parolee with a lengthy criminal record, got his hands on the handgun and the SKS rifle he used to kill four Oakland police officers on that grim Saturday afternoon just over a week ago. But the horror of the slayings drives home the need to enforce and enhance gun-control laws throughout the nation. For starters, Congress must bring back the national ban on 19 types of military-style weapons it enacted in 1994, with the leadership of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, but allowed to expire. The inexpensive SKS is a semi-automatic carbine designed...

Thus far, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made two diplomatic blunders during her visit to Mexico that the U.S. Old Media are shockingly uninterested in highlighting. One was a policy blunder and the other a cultural/religious one. Clinton's first mistake was in imagining she is still a Senator that can make pronouncements on pending laws and policy plans instead of a mere envoy of the president, a mouth piece that hasn't the same freedom to invent policy prescriptions and laws that a Senator does. Last week, Clinton told Mexican officials that "we" -- as in the U.S. government --...

Environmental nuts in California want to ban your big screen TVEnvironmental nuts in California want to ban your big screen TV and they are in control of the California Energy Commission. The CEC plan proposes to ban about 200 television models. The plan was outline in a a dry-sounding reported entitled, “December 2008 Draft Efficiency Standards for Televisions”. I wonder if they will ban Obama's teleprompter on his next visit to California?

Here is a pretty accurate transcription of Hillary on "On the Record" last night for those who are interested: Greta, I remember, 15 years ago, the reason the assault weapons ban was passed is because police chief's in America begged for it. They said, I'm sending my guys out on the streets. They're being out-gunned. The criminals, the gang members, they have automatic weapons, military assault rifles, get them off the streets. Give our guys a fighting chance. And, there's no doubt in my mind that the 10 years we had an assault weapons ban in America, was one of...

A state law prevents new nuclear power plants from being built in Minnesota, and some say that means nuclear can't even be part of a discussion about the state's future energy needs. An effort to change that suffered a setback Thursday, when members of a House energy committee voted down a bill that would lift the ban. The 9-12 vote came after two days of hearings in which lawmakers heard testimony from more than two dozen people, including national experts, environmentalists, the nuclear industry and people who live near Minnesota's two existing nuclear plants. While the measure still could be...

The week Barack Obama was elected president, the amount of criminal background checks related to the purchase of firearms jumped 49 percent over the previous year, FBI statistics show. ItÂ’s a trend that hasnÂ’t ceased to stop, as background checks for firearm purchases have continued to increase in the months following the November election, when compared to the same time a year ago. February alone witnessed a 23.3 percent jump, and January and December werenÂ’t too far ahead, with 29 and 24 percent increases, respectively. Fears of possible anti-gun legislation thatÂ’s being considered by the Obama administration might be contributing...

JUNEAU, Alaska — It's a subject that can cause nervous snickering, a little uneasiness and even a few bad jokes. But many in the southeast Alaska community of Klawock, population 800, weren't laughing last April after a 26-year-old registered sex offender was accused of molesting a local family's pet dog. The man was spotted by a local woman coaxing the Labrador retriever into the woods near a ball field. There he allegedly tied it to a tree, taped its muzzle shut with duct tape and had sex with it, witnesses told police at the time. ... Authorities in Tallahassee, Fla.,...

Here it is, folks, and it is bad news. The framework for legislation is always laid, and the Democrats have the votes to pass anything they want to impose upon us. They really do not believe you need anything more than a brick to defend your home and family. Look at the list and see how many you own. Remember, it is registration, then confiscation. It has happened in the UK, in Australia, in Europe, in China, and what they have found is that for some reason the criminals do not turn in their weapons, but will know that you...

The White House expressed disapproval Thursday with comments United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made to members of Congress that the U.S. is a "deadbeat" nation for being behind on its U.N. dues.

The Obama administration will seek to reinstate the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 during the Bush administration, Attorney General Eric Holder said today.

I wrote recently about the forcible citizen disarmament lobby's desire to ban .50 caliber rifles. In that piece, I pointed out that if such a ban were ever implemented, the gun prohibitionists would soon discover that a sniper limited to a .499 caliber rifle would not be seriously hampered by the loss of 1/1000th of an inch of bullet diameter, leading, no doubt, to calls for the banning of that caliber as well. Of course, a .498 caliber rifle would not really be noticeably less capable . . . etc. The disarmament lobby considers it bad form for gun rights...

A federal prohibition on the sales of new and used mini dirt bikes has impacted every original equipment manufacturer (OEM), dealership and repair facility for 85cc, 70cc, 65cc and 50cc displacement mini bikes. This targets an entire industry of age 12-and-under motorized recreationalists that accounts for a conservative number of 50,000 young athletes nationwide. The Consumer Protection Safety Commission (CPSC) introduced a broad sweeping stay (prohibition) with the Feb. 10 release of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) of 2008, which impacts a large spectrum of the economy, not just mini bikes. The intent of the act is to...