Free Republic

It’s a little-known fact that about 30% of returning soldiers are diagnosed with PTSD. These brave men and women, mentally scarred from their service to our country, deserve nothing less than our unwavering support. Instead, they are now in the crosshairs of the gun control lobby. With the VA’s existing massive information sharing with NICS, we already have a precedent for large-scale revocation of veteran’s rights. All it takes is for one of Eric Holder’s decrees to include PTSD, and suddenly one of the most passionate, patriotic segments of Americans will be labeled a danger to society. Ask yourself: Do...

California rang in the New Year by placing certain truck engines, trailers, tires and even entire vehicles on its environmental out list — requiring motor carriers to spend tens of thousands of dollars on new equipment that may never meet the state's ambitious objectives. The new rules apply to trucks registered in other states — and even other countries. “The state is forcing certain trucking companies and operators to make investments that are going to add cost with no return with regard to fuel efficiency, and therefore no impact on their desired policy operative,” said Steve Laskowski, senior vice president...

Gun control advocates' loudest voices are most heavily protected by guns. Andrew Cuomo, Michael Bloomberg, Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel and other gun grabbing politicians are protected with secret service and/or security details that carry guns. If their argument is right, that guns kill people, it is more than appropriate that they disarm their security and themselves to demonstrate that they can live the way they are both proposing and legislating that the rest of the 99%, (not in the political 1% elite) live. If the Political 1%ers do not shed their armed protection for themselves and their own families then...

"Arm the teachers! Arm the principals!" yelled one man from a second-floor window nearby. Larry Ward, who says he is a father of two young children and lives in Virginia, later came down to confront the protestors on the street. "This principal in the school tried to defend the children and was killed for it," Ward told us. "But if the principal tried to defend the children with a gun, perhaps (she) could have saved many lives."

Obamacare doesn't go far enough. The government needs to replace private insurance companies in a complete takeover of health care. That’s the system California’s union leaders are pressuring Democrats to create, now that they enjoy supermajorities in both chambers of the state Legislature. And their influence is “tremendous,” according to former Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, who served as Senate majority leader from 2001 to 2008. “California Teachers Association’s former president referred to them as the fourth, co-equal branch of government,” she said. “Nobody has the political and money war chest that they do.” Read more: http://times247.com/articles/34unions-steer-california-democrats-toward-cliff9#ixzz2EPP6RNs3

Oddly enough, perhaps the biggest loser in last week’s Republican debacle wasn’t even on the ballot. He didn’t shake a single hand, nuzzle the napes of any newborn babes or promise eager voters pie in the sky or peace on Earth. His name was Karl Rove. And all he actually did was squander a staggering $300 million by backing candidates who turned winnable races into laughable routs, producing tepid ads transforming would-be zealots into couch potatoes and firmly establishing himself as the political world’s pre-eminent empty-suit analyst. Perhaps even worse, he set himself up as the clearinghouse for wealthy conservative...

Millions of people are familiar with the South Korean music video "Gangnam Style," credited by the Guiness Book of World Records as the most liked in YouTube history. The song — which features the refrain "Hey, sexy lady!" — has inspired countless parodies. Now Saudi Arabia adds itself to the list. There's only one problem: The video has no ladies. While it shouldn't surprise anyone that a country that is planning a seperate city for working women would omit women from a music video, the optics of "Saudia Gangnam" speak volumes. Even our liberal moral relativist friends can learn a...

Today, Special Operations Speaks PAC released the following statement along with a petition demanding an independent investigation into Barack Obama’s administration and its actions that may constitute High Crimes and Misdemeanors by the President, regardless of the outcome of the November 6th Presidential Election. “It remains uncertain if the tragedy in Benghazi was caused or compounded by Obama’s reckless inaction, gross negligence, or incompetent leadership,” said Joe Stringham, BG, USA (Ret), Special Forces/Ranger and Chairman of Special Operations Speaks PAC. “What is clear is that the deaths of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen...

On a typical work day in San Francisco, at least 27 private employers are picking up workers in shuttle buses — complete with cushioned seats and WiFi — at more than 200 stops across the city. The transit option is a booming private enterprise that reduces traffic congestion and air pollution. Some in the city want to snuff it out, San Francisco-style, with government regulations and fees. San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos wants to eliminate the cushy private shuttles and charge employers to use the Municipal Transit Agency's spartan buses, according to the San Francisco Examiner. “Their rapid growth makes...

The federal government is canceling a model program that gives local police the ability to check the immigration status of people they arrest in Prince William County, Va. And that has proponents of the policy, called 287(g), seeing red. “In the debate last night, President Obama said he wanted to focus in on illegals who are committing crimes,” Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors and a key force in the county’s 2007 adoption of the 287(g) program, told Times247.com in an interview Wednesday. “Then why is he eliminating the very program that does that?”

Special Operations Speaks attacks the MSM.

Everyone is talking about the laughs heard 'round the world. Vice President Biden smirked and scoffed so much that the issue consumed most of the post-debate cable news coverage. However, what wasn't mentioned was how Mr. Biden inadvertently made a strong case for Barry Goldwater's conservatism when it comes to the nature of the welfare state. Regarding the Obama administration's hard and fast deadline to remove all forces from Afghanistan, Mr. Biden said: "Unless you set a timeline, Baghdad in the case of Iraq and — and Kabul in the case of Afghanistan will not step up. They’re happy to...

The YouTube video that spawned a wave of violent protests across the Islamic world might be more than a crude exercise in anti-Muslim propaganda. Walid Shoebat, a Middle East pundit and reformed terrorist, says there is reason to believe that the “Innocence of Muslims” video was a hoax designed to spark the huge outpouring of Muslim rage that it did. Shoebat, who claims he is related to a man who was involved in criminal activities with one of the video's producers, knows something about terrorists. He says he used to be one — a radicalized Muslim who, in his own...

This is an administration in which the lawyers, academics and the wordsmiths who populate their ranks characterize acts of terrorism as “man-caused disasters” and the Fort Hood killings as “workplace violence.” They use phrases like “leading from behind,” or “transnational governance” and “pooling” our nation’s sovereignty with other countries. They seem to believe America’s policies should be based on an international consensus of the nations that dominate the U.N. General Assembly, instead of on our Constitution and the decisions of our elected representatives Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz28Fu2j7jS

Today, Special Operations Speaks, a PAC formed by ex-Special Ops officers from four branches of the military, released a cartoon mocking President Obama for spiking the football on the Osama Bin Laden kill. The cartoon depicts Obama as a schoolchild, president of the student council; he has nothing but scorn for a group of students training for military service. Then he spots a girl being shot at by a group of thugs. He promptly orders the other students to do something about it, and after they do, he takes full credit – and actively spikes a football.

This Special Operations Speaks group hit this out of the park. This is spot on.

"Every now and then President Obama sort of drops his veil," GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan said last month. In some respects the veil dropped years ago. It’s just that the news is only now reaching the American public. One example is the audio recording released Tuesday in which the Illinois state senator told a Loyola University audience on Oct. 19, 1998: “I actually believe in redistribution.”

WASHINGTON, DC – Special Operations Speaks (SOS) today called upon Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to resign from office for his claim that Barack Obama had special authority to provide classified information about the Navy SEAL attack on Osama bin Laden to Hollywood filmmakers and others with no security clearance. Panetta made the claim in a September 10th interview on CBS This Morning. As he threatened to punish former Navy SEAL “Mark Owen” for revealing details about the assault on the bin Laden compound in his book No Easy Day, he stated that Department of Defense release of top secret information...

On September 6, 2012, Revolution PAC, which I chair, submitted Freedom-of-Information-Act (FOIA) requests to eight state and local agencies and offices of the Commonwealth of Virginia demanding release of all information and communications relating to the Brandon J. Raub case. Mr. Raub, a former, decorated Marine who served with distinction in Iraq and Afghanistan, was kidnapped on August 16 by a joint strike force of Virginia and Federal “law-enforcement” agents, after which they tried to “disappear” him into the Virginia psychiatric gulag without charging him with any wrongdoing. What did Raub do to deserve this abuse and torment by the...

Americans will head to the polls this November with a degree of partisanship and political rancor that has not been felt for 25 years, according to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Seventy-one percent of registered Republicans and 58 percent of Democrats reportedly fault their respective leaders for failing to uphold core party principles. The chasm between Republicans and Democrats over the government’s role in society – providing a place for the homeless to sleep, for example, or guaranteeing citizens enough food for their families – grows wider. And the political will of Republicans to adopt...