Free Republic

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., May 13, 2008 – Concerns that the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are distracting the military from preparing for future conflicts are unfounded, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said today. Rather, he said, the military must heed the lessons of today's wars to prepare for the future. The military must balance "today's demands versus tomorrow's contingencies; irregular and assymetric threats versus conventional threats," Gates said in a keynote speech before a Heritage Foundation-sponsored seminar titled, “The Military Beyond Iraq,” held at the Broadmoor resort here. "As the world's remaining superpower, we have to be able to...

The Metropolitan Police Department has joined other major U.S. cities in arming patrol officers with assault rifles to protect them against criminals with high-powered weapons, weeks after being released from a federal program that monitors the use of excessive force. "We want to be as accurate as possible and have more stopping power," Assistant Chief Patrick Burke said yesterday. The department already has 500 semiautomatic AR-15 rifles, which were converted from fully automatic rifles, and has trained 340 officers to use them.

When is a gang not a gang? When it's based in the District. D.C. officials insist on describing groups of young males as "crews," rather than gangs, even when they are held responsible for violent acts such as the wave of killings in the city last weekend. But police officials in other cities say the distinction is counterproductive. "The very first step in dealing with gangs is denial," said Capt. Charles Bloom of the Philadelphia Police Department. "Then you get to the point that you can't deny it any more." D.C. police, lawmakers and community activists say the groups are...

Mildred Muhammad claims that she was a victim of domestic violence and that John Muhammad had planned an elaborate scheme to kill her, making it appear random by killing others at the same time.

Chris Plante, morning radio talk show host for 630 WMAL, Washington, D.C. (the home of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin) will be on the "CNN Newsroom" show tonight at 10:00 p.m. with Rick Sanchez to discuss OPERATION CHAOS. This announcement just came out of Chris' own mouth during his Sunday show a few minutes ago. Stay Tuned! SEND TO ALL LIMBAUGH PING LISTS, AS WELL AS HANNITY'S AND LEVIN'S....

This month I must reflect on a phone call I received from an old and discerning friend who was extremely upset over the music used at the papal Mass in Washington on April 17, and on a note another friend sent saying, "It was as if the Washington, D.C., crowd were pleasing themselves and not their guest."  I missed the Mass but heard that it included quite a mélange of musical styles. My oldest son, who watched at his grade school, did not like it. Neither did Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, who apparently said on EWTN that the music was...

AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry promised to keep fighting for private toll roads and his other transportation priorities Tuesday during his first major speech on the subject since the death in December of transportation commission chairman Ric Williamson. "This is a place for big challenges, not big excuses," he told state Transportation Department employees and highway experts from around the country at the annual Transportation Forum. Next year's legislative session, he said, can't be anything like last year's. "The Legislature must understand that 'no' is not a solution," Mr. Perry said. "It is an abdication of responsibility." Before last year's...

WMAL just updated and improved their web site last week. Next to the "What's Hot" red tab section, there's an "Insider Central" red tab on the right side of the screen. I see nothing inside that Insider Central box, which is perhaps 2" x 3", except a blank powder-blue colored box. I was told that I should see a 7-tab slide show under "Insider Central". In the "What's Hot" box I see all kinds of things going through -- Top News, Local News, G&A, Chris Plante & Insiders ( a 5-tab slide show). I contacted Comcast customer service (I have...

So, the pope came to town. Yes, and the town (little Washington, D.C.) practically came unglued. The media fell all over themselves, situating cameras all over the city and scrambling for position to broadcast every move His Eminence made. He even made Entertainment Tonight, and virtually every news show on TV. There was the president himself, waiting at the foot of the stairs as his guest descended from Shepherd I, to welcome the pope, who stepped nimbly down to the tarmac, beaming with delight. There were cherry-blossomed streets for the motorcade through the city, a grandly arrayed White House lawn...

Amazing. One would think that after the multicultural musical mayhem that occurred yesterday at National's Stadium, that your average 'catholic' progressive would be basking in the glow of this liturgical train wreck for weeks. Not so. Some progressives are equally upset about the mass. There are so many things that one could be upset about when it comes that liturgy that it would be the work of days to try and list them. Leave it to the Associated Press and their cadre of perpetual dissenters to uncover one I hadn't even thought of. The AP is upset that there were...

The District has the fourth-highest incarceration rate in the nation, according to a report that says jails nationwide are bursting at the seams even though crime is nearly as low as it has been in 30 years. The report by the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington-based group that focuses on what it considers an over-reliance on incarceration... In the District, 3,214 inmates are under city control at the D.C. jail and contract facilities. That is 553 people per 100,000 residents. Only Philadelphia and two Tennessee counties, Davidson and Shelby, lock up residents at a higher rate. The numbers do not...

FELLOW FREEPER CHOSEN TO SING FOR THE PONTIFF!!! For full coverage, live feed and all related text documents, click on the following link.

Washington DC, Apr 16, 2008 / 07:05 am (CNA).- The most recognizable vehicle in Washington, D.C. this week will most likely be the, “Popemobile”. The term is affectionately applied to the protective glass enclosed Mercedes-Benz that takes the Holy Father from one event to another during his pastoral journeys.The Popemobile originated during the pontificate of John Paul II as a manner to provide the most visibility while maintaining safety for the Pope during his apostolic visits. The vehicle is encased with protective glass, which has a capability of protecting the Holy Father from any attempt to harm him physically with...

Source: Loudoun Times-Mirror TUESDAY, APRIL 8 2008 UPDATED WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9 2008 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 59 people in a raid April 8 at Lansdowne Resort near Leesburg. Tuesday morning, ICE agents interviewed about 100 employees, which resulted in the arrest of 53 people accused of immigration-status violations. Two female workers were released at the site for humanitarian concerns. Another six people were apprehended outside of the facility.

A program intended to catch D.C. residents who have not registered their cars also is netting motorists coming to the city to see friends or patronize clubs or restaurants. "I thought this was an April Fools' joke," said Thomas Kollins, a 64-year-old Springfield resident who left a lounge in the city last month to find a warning notice on the windshield of his 2003 Toyota Camry. "I really did — because it's so absurd." The Registration of Out of State Automobiles (ROSA) program looks for those who have not registered their cars with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) within...

D.C. police have scaled back plans to go door-to-door asking residents in high-crime neighborhoods whether officers can search their homes for guns as part of a new amnesty program aimed at getting weapons off the streets. The Safe Homes program instead will be offered by appointment only at residents' request, said Chief Cathy L. Lanier...

Supreme Court Confronts the ‘Right to Bear Arms’  by Stephen P. Halbrook   | View comments |  Print This Post The D.C. gun ban is in big trouble. “That would be an odd ‘right of the people’ if limited to militias,” commented Chief Justice John Roberts in the Supreme Court hearing March 18 in District of Columbia v. Heller. The case concerns whether the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns violates the Second Amendment guarantee that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Referring to the American Revolution, Justice Antonin Scalia noted that “tyrants...

"go home and get your guns"-Stokely Carmichael April 4,1968 in Washington D.C. I had a habit of sitting in the kitchen and eating my breakfast while the radio was turned on to the morning news. The morning of Friday April 5th, 1968 I heard the account of a radio reporter (from UPI) who hid under a car while mobs rioted in the street around him. He sounded scared and he had reason to as rioting broke out in the nation's captial following the assassination of Martin Luther King late on the evening or April 4th and early on the morning...

Tonight was our sixth show! We plan on having them every three months, and if it works out, move that up to every other month. ALSO NOTE, IF SOMEONE HAS CONNECTIONS AT BETHESDA NAVAL HOSPITAL, WE WOULD LIKE TO DO SHOWS THERE ON THE ALTERNATE MONTH. We had a good size crowd this night, including a FReeper. Our band never showed, but we went on without them. Not sure what happened to "Destroy All Zeros", a touring rock band. I guess they were tied up destroying some free roaming zeros. They missed one as their appearance at WRAMC turned up...

Is fifth-grader Kenton Stufflebeam smarter than the Smithsonian? The 11-year-old boy, who lives in Allegan but attends Alamo Elementary School near Kalamazoo, went with his family during winter break to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington.Since it opened in 1981, millions of people have paraded past the museum's Tower of Time, a display involving prehistoric time. Not one visitor had reported anything amiss with the exhibit until Kenton noticed that a notation, in bold lettering, identified the Precambrian as an era.Kenton knew that was wrong. His fifth-grade teacher, John Chapman, had nearly made the same mistake...

hurry 2 outs

Music brought Rodaniel Cruz back to the Church. Three years ago, the then-29 year old attended Mass at St. Elizabeth's Church in Rockville. He grew up Catholic in the Philippines, but had strayed from the Church in his early adult life. That changed with a song - Dimitri Bortniansky's "Cherubic hymn." "Like a king of hosts shall we praise thee," the St. Elizabeth choir sang. "It's one of the most beautiful pieces I've ever heard," Cruz said. "Music is pretty much what brought me back to the Church." Cruz is one of 250 people who will sing in the...

D.C. Fire Hazmat Teams responded to an apparent suicide in the District after fire officials said the man may have killed himself using cyanide. Police got a call around 4:30 p.m. on Monday for an unconscious male at a house in the 4300 block of 36th Street. Two officers responded and found a man laying next to a small vile of cyanide. Immediately, fire officials said police left the home and called in the hazmat crew, which is standard procedure. -snip-

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

In a "move that surprised some observers," the Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday, attorney Alan Gura, appearing before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the federal guard who sued the District of Columbia in 2003, claiming he feels unsafe because he's not allowed to keep his guns at home, "appeared to concede large chunks of his argument, moving away from an absolutist position on gun rights." "He concurred, at one point, with Justice Stephen Breyer that a ban on machine guns or plastic guns" (whatever those are) "would be constitutional because those weren't the kind of arms normally carried by...

How much would you be willing to pay to cut 30 minutes off your commute? A study released this week suggests adding variably-priced toll lanes to highways in the Washington region could reduce traffic tie-ups while generating funds for road improvements. The report from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments evaluates several scenarios -- from adding new lanes and placing tolls on major and secondary highways to a more conservative plan to place tolls on existing lanes of the region's parkways. Although costs vary depending on the plan, for I-270 in Frederick County, the study suggests tolls between 30 cents...

The current leadership of the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department is an exercise in political correctness that will likely become a national laughingstock. The hopes of beleaguered citizens of the District of Columbia were dashed at the appointment of Cathy Lanier to become chief of police following the departure of Charles Ramsey, derisively known at "Chief Wiggums". Ramsey presided over the crime wave on the National Mall and could not find the body of missing intern Chandra Levy for nearly two years until a man walking his dog in Rock Creek Park discovered a leg bone. Ramsey has moved on...

WASHINGTON -- A crackdown on guns is under way in the District. Police are asking residents to submit to voluntary searches in exchange for amnesty under the District's gun ban. The program is starting in the Washington Highlands neighborhood of Southeast Washington on Monday and will later expand to other neighborhoods. Officers will go door to door asking residents for permission to search their homes. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said the "safe homes initiative" is aimed at residents who want to cooperate with police. She gave the example of parents or grandparents who know or suspect their children have...

The U.S. Supreme Court should allow Dick Heller to keep a handgun in his home. Dick Anthony Heller is a 66-year-old security guard who carries a handgun to protect the employees and property at the federal building where he works in Washington, D.C. Because Heller also is a resident of the District of Columbia, he is prohibited from having a handgun in his home for self-protection. Heller sued to overturn the city of Washington’s 1976 gun-control law that also requires all rifles or shotguns in D.C. homes to be disassembled or kept under trigger lock. Heller sued claiming that the...

Yesterday, unbeknownst to itself, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a gay-rights case. To most people, admittedly, District of Columbia v. Heller is a gun-rights case. In fact, it's the most important gun-rights case in decades, one that may cast a shadow for decades to come. But to gay Americans, and other minorities often targeted with violence, Heller is about civil rights, not shooting clubs. Nine years ago, one of the first columns I wrote for National Journal told the story of Tom G. Palmer. One night some years ago in San Jose, he found himself confronting a gang of...

Military Families Voice of Victory got a very interesting comment from an article about recruiting center attacks yesterday from coast to coast. One of the cities reported about was DC "SDS threw paint bombs, rocks and damaged police cars. Witnesses have reported that MPDC Chief Cathy Lanier has ordered the police to do nothing if the center was attacked." This was from a report phone in which was also reported here at FR. Today a response was made by Communications at MPD. "The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) must enforce local law and the rights afforded to every person under the...

This is a PDF file transcript of yesterday's opening statements and questioning in the SCOTUS on the first day of the D.C. gun ban case. I can't copy a pdf file so you have to use the link to read it in pdf format. Roberts starts the questioning with a couple of adroit questions concerning Hellerman's opening statement in which he claimed that Madison intended the amendment to protect only the right of the states to maintain an armed militia. Interesting stuff, to me at least.

Supporters and opponents of an individual's right to bear arms clash yesterday outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments on the issue.Diego M. Radzinschi/Legal Times Free: Individual Right to Bear Arms Wins Favor in Court Argument But Some Regulation May Be Acceptable By Tony MauroMarch 19, 2008 WASHINGTON - When U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is cast as the swing vote in a case before the Court, he often waits until late in the oral argument to tip his hand. But as the Court yesterday considered the landmark Second Amendment case D.C. v. Heller, Justice Kennedy was quick...

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." - Thomas Jefferson The Bill of Rights clearly articulates rights guaranteed to all citizens of the United States. Rights are largely a moral concept – the concept that facilitates individuals living within a larger society. The Bill of Rights essentially gives legal meaning to the moral rights expected of a free society. Stated another way, individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law. Since it cannot rightly be said that...

If it goes without saying that the nation is divided over gun laws, the Supreme Court certainly seemed to mirror that split during arguments today challenging the District of Columbia's handgun ban. Though many justices appeared to lean in favor of an individual right, they diverged over whether such a decision would still allow D.C.'s law to stay in place. The case, D.C. v. Heller, is the single biggest test of the Second Amendment since 1939 and looks at whether the Constitution supports an individual right to bear arms or just a state's collective right to form a militia. It...

MAJORITY AGREEMENT: A majority of Supreme Court justices appeared ready Tuesday to say that Americans have a "right to keep and bear arms" that goes beyond the Second Amendment's reference to service in a militia. NO CONSENSUS: But they appeared less ready to agree on the case they were arguing — whether Washington's 32-year-old handgun ban can stand and how to evaluate other gun control laws. THEIR WORDS: "What is reasonable about a total ban on possession?" Chief Justice John Roberts asked. Is it "unreasonable for a city with a very high crime rate ... to say no handguns here?"...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans have a right to own guns, Supreme Court justices declared Tuesday in a historic and lively debate that could lead to the most significant interpretation of the Second Amendment since its ratification two centuries ago. Governments have a right to regulate those firearms, a majority of justices seemed to agree. But there was less apparent agreement on the case they were arguing: whether Washington's ban on handguns goes too far. The justices dug deeply into arguments on one of the Constitution's most hotly debated provisions as demonstrators shouted slogans outside. Guns are an American right, argued...

NEWS RELEASE INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS WON IN TODAY’S SUPREME COURT HEARING, SAYS SAF BELLEVUE, WA – Today’s oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of District of Columbia v Heller produced a clear victory for the individual citizen’s right to keep and bear arms, the Second Amendment Foundation said. “We are confident,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb, “that the high court will hand down an opinion that affirms the Second Amendment means what it says.

Gun Control and the Second Amendment : Finally, Supreme Court to Weigh in on the Right to Bear Arms Robert A. Levy, Goldwater Institute Daily Email, March 18, 2008 A year ago, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a blockbuster opinion that overturned a gun control regulation on Second Amendment grounds for the first time. Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will review that historic decision with oral argument in District of Columbia v. Heller. Meanwhile, an avalanche of 67 amicus briefs, posted at www.dcguncase.com, has produced perhaps the nation’s best repository of Second Amendment legal scholarship....

Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Heller v. District of Columbia, a suit brought by several D.C. citizens contending that the ban on the possession of operable firearms inside one's home violates the Second Amendment. The Circuit Court of Appeals for D.C. agreed and held the ban to be unconstitutional. However it is decided, Heller is already historic. For the first time in recent memory, the Supreme Court will consider the original meaning of a significant passage of the Constitution unencumbered by its own prior decisions. The majority and dissenting opinions in this case...

Today the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in DC v. Heller, perhaps the most important Second Amendment case in the history of the world. The decision is expected in June. The justices will seek to answer, in their own words Whether the following provisions -- D.C. Code secs. 7 2502.02(a)(4), 22 4504(a), and 7 2507.02 -- violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes. Those "provisions" virtually ban handguns and require that long guns be stored...

Supreme Court Gun Case Draws Protesters By MARK SHERMAN – 1 hour ago WASHINGTON (AP) — Advocates of gun rights and opponents of gun violence demonstrated outside the Supreme Court Tuesday while inside, justices heard arguments over the meaning of the Second Amendment's "right to keep and bear arms." Dozens of protesters mingled with tourists and waved signs saying "Ban the Washington elitists, not our guns" or "The NRA helps criminals and terrorist buy guns." Members of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence chanted "guns kill" as followers of the Second Amendment Sisters and Maryland Shall Issue.Org shouted "more...

http://www.cspan.org/watch/cs_cspan_wm.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS

Could this photo be a first? It shows a card-carrying member of the MSM shooting a handgun. That's Jan Crawford Greenburg, an ABC News legal correspondent. The clip, pun intended, of Greenburg on the firing range was part of a segment she narrated on today's Good Morning America on a case to be argued before the Supreme Court today. At issue is the District of Columbia's law banning handguns. The case comes before the Supreme Court after the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. invalidated the law. The decision is anticipated to be a landmark one since it could be...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court gets to write on a blank slate when it takes up the meaning of the Second Amendment "right to keep and bear arms" and the District of Columbia's ban on handguns. The nine justices have said almost nothing about gun rights, and their predecessors have likewise given no definitive answer to whether the Constitution protects an individual's right to own guns or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia. The case that will be argued Tuesday is among the most closely watched of the term, drawing 68 briefs from...

WASHINGTON - Robert Levy has never owned a handgun and has no burning desire to own one now. He hasn't been a Washington resident since he was a teen in the 1950s. But for six years, the wealthy attorney has carefully plotted a legal challenge to Washington's strict ban on handgun ownership, a case now before the Supreme Court. The Florida resident helped hand-pick the plaintiffs involved and is paying the legal fees himself. Why all the effort? Levy says he is driven to defend constitutional rights he believes are being trampled by the District of Columbia's strict ban on...

Chanting such slogans as "surrender is not an option" and waving American flags, a few hundred people from across the country rallied and paraded in downtown Washington yesterday to support the war. The demonstration was sponsored by Eagles UP!, an organization founded by veterans in the wake of a war protest about a year ago that drew thousands to Washington. Although small in number, the demonstrators said yesterday that they represent many others from their home towns who believe there needs to be a more vocal counterweight to the antiwar movement. "We cannot be the silent majority again," Lawrence B....

BELLEVUE, Wash., March 13 --A plan to conduct "consent searches" for guns in District of Columbia residences is "an outrageous exercise of police state demagoguery," the Second Amendment Foundation said today. SAF founder Alan Gottlieb condemned the plan as "a public relations effort designed to influence, through crass dramatics, Tuesday's scheduled oral arguments on the constitutionality of the District's handgun ban before the Supreme Court." "Launching this effort," he stated, "on the eve of Supreme Court arguments over the city's horribly failed handgun ban underscores the Draconian mentality that lies at the root of gun laws like the District handgun...

On Sept. 24, 1976, one of the toughest gun laws in the nation took effect in the District of Columbia, essentially outlawing the private ownership of new handguns in a city struggling with violence. Over the next few weeks, a man with a .32-caliber pistol held up workers at a downtown federal office at midday, a cab driver was shot in the head, and a senator was mugged by three youths, one carrying a revolver, near the U.S. Capitol. Since the ban was passed, more than 8,400 people have been murdered in the district, many killed by handguns. Nearly 80...

As many as 100 D.C. Public Schools employees in the central office are being fired Friday, News4's Tom Sherwood reported. Police officers are helping to escort the employees from school offices. About 400 central office employees are subject to new rules approved by the city council that gives school Chancellor Michelle Rhee the power to hire and fire employees.