Free Republic

Guns.com is busy soaking in the sights, sounds (and smells?) of St. Louis at the 2012 NRA convention but our trip to Missouri has also given us a chance to mingle with gun owners, writers and lobbyists from across the country and swap notes. For example, the word on the street here in Saint Louie is that if a new proposal gets wings, NRA members will be permitted to carry their guns home with them, openly or concealed—on public transportation. Currently, Missouri state lawmakers are mired in legislation that works to block all cities (though this is clearly aimed St....

For decades, farmers have given livestock low doses of antibiotics in their feed to speed growth and prevent infection. And, for decades, scientists and public health officials have warned that this practice, known as “subtherapeutic use,” leads to the creation and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria have grown more common both in people and in meat at the grocery store. Doctors encounter patients with infections that are harder to treat and last year, we saw a massive food recall—the third-largest recall of meat in USDA’s records—thanks to antibiotic-resistant Salmonella in ground turkey.The FDA acknowledges there’s a problem, but has...

One can be forgiven for wondering what level of New Black Panther Party (NBPP) thuggery is sufficient to warrant the attention of Florida law enforcement officials or, seemingly, the most myopic U.S. attorney general to ever head the Department of Justice. On March 24th, New Black Panther Party leader Mikhail Muhammad offered a $10,000 bounty for the “capture” of Zimmerman and publicly stated that Zimmerman “should be fearful for his life.” Fellow Panthers distributed wanted posters calling Zimmerman a “child killer” and offering that bounty “dead or alive.” And in a mind-boggling rant during a conference call, Michelle Williams, Chief...

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to coordinate the efforts of Federal agencies responsible for overseeing the safe and responsible development of unconventional domestic natural gas resources and associated infrastructure and to help reduce our dependence on oil, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Policy.

AND NOW . . . amidst billowing clouds of fragrant, aromatic first- and second-hand premium cigar smoke. . . it is time for . . . that harmless, lovable little fuzz ball, the highly-trained broadcast specialist, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, from behind the golden EIB microphone, firmly ensconced in the prestigious Attila-the-Hun chair at the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies, serving humanity simply by showing up, and he’s not retiring until every American agrees with him, do NOT doubt him, with shrieks of joy at the mere mention of his name...

An Aldi customer in Milwaukee who shot and wounded an armed robber is suing police for the return of his gun. Nazir Al-Mujaahid had a concealed weapons permit to carry the gun, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel blog Proof & Hearsay. In February, prosecutors said Al-Mujaahid was within his legal rights when he shot the man who pointed a shotgun at a cashier and then at Al-Mujaahid, according to a prior Journal Sentinel story. But police are keeping Al-Mujaahid’s gun as evidence in the case against two men accused in the robbery. Wisconsin Carry Inc., a gun rights group,...

“Police records show the chief target of Operation Fast and Furious, a man pursued by ATF agents for 18 months, was actually arrested twice in 2010 for gun and drug violations, but released,” William La Jeunesse of Fox News reported yesterday, corroborating and adding new details regarding the arrest report posted in Gun Rights Examiner. Left unsaid in that column is what happened to the suspects as a result of that bust. La Jeunesse solves that mystery: The case was sent to prosecutors but never filed. The Maricopa County Attorney's Office said it sent the case back to police for...

I recently opened my email to discover that UT has been declared a tobacco-free campus. While this finger-waving policy will and should generate some controversy, I was most struck by the following statement enclosed in the message: “The institution is enthusiastic about taking another step toward creating the healthiest environment possible for those who work, study and visit here.” Why then does the leadership of this University refuse to allow students to fully exercise their right to self-defense? Today marks the fifth anniversary of the worst campus shooting in American history. As a graduate of the Virginia Tech Class of...

ST. LOUIS — California Congressman Darrell Issa promised members of the National Rifle Association gathered here that his probe of the Operation Fast and Furious scandal will continue until those responsible for the debacle are held accountable. If the investigation continues into the summer — as some sources here have suggested to this column, with significant action coming around the time of the Republican convention — it could become the major campaign issue many gun rights activists believe it should be. The downside, noted one source, is that the mainstream press could dismiss it as political theater. The scandal has...

Kenyan businesses lately are increasingly becoming recipients of U.S. government largesse, as the Obama Administration, among pursuing other endeavors, aims to expand "livestock-related economic opportunities" in that nation. Although this and other recently released presolicitation notices for unrelated programs serve as advance alerts to potential vendors—and therefore do not offer cost estimates and other details— a review of U.S. government contracting actions nonetheless indicates a spike of activity in Kenya in a variety of sectors. The White House is committing to a five-year effort to "improve the inclusiveness and competitiveness" of the livestock industry specifically in Marsabit and Garissa counties,...

Taliban-led insurgents opened a spring offensive Sunday with a wave of coordinated suicide missions, firing at embassies and government offices from seized buildings in Kabul and attacking U.S. bases and police stations in three eastern provinces. The strikes, which seemed to catch U.S.-led forces and Afghan authorities by surprise, sparked fierce firefights in Kabul and two other cities that underscored the insurgency's lethality as U.S. combat troops gird for the second phase of a withdrawal due to end in 2014.

NASA is clearly looking far into the future for a way to handle both human waste and a need for fuel on either long space flights or when attempting to colonize another planet. To that end, they’ve assigned life support engineer Jonathan Trent the task of coming up with a way to use algae to solve both problems at once. His solution is to use plastic bags floating in seawater as small bioreactors, containing wastewater, sunlight and carbon dioxide to grow algae that can be used as a means to create biofuel. The whole thing is called Offshore Membrane Enclosures...

The citizens of Britain must comply with Sharia or face procecution and possible prison. Paul Weston, Chairman of the British Freedom Party, speeks about this issue and the terrorizing of British citizens by their own government's compliance to Sharia. Video: Paul Weston on Sharia in Britain and the Istanbul Process In this speech Paul Weston address the issue of the ongoing growth of the sharia state in Great Britain. Sharia law is operating in Britain but it is not calling itself sharia. Today in Great Britain people are going to prison for not being sharia compliant. This will only get...

(AP) WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama raised a combined $53 million for his campaign, the Democratic Party and other campaign funds in March, his campaign said Monday as it prepared to face Mitt Romney and a rejuvenated GOP in the general election. Obama has collected nearly $350 million since the start of the campaign last year, representing a boost in campaign cash compared with recent months. He has raised about $127 million for his campaign, the Democratic National Committee and other campaign funds since the beginning of 2012. Romney had raised about $75 million through the end of February and...

How much will Obamacare -- call it the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act if you like -- cost over the next 10 years? More than you've been led to believe, reports Charles Blahous of George Mason University's Mercatus Center. To be specific, he projects it will add $1,160 billion to net federal spending over the next 10 years and at least $340 billion to federal budget deficits in that time. Blahous was appointed by Barack Obama as one of two public trustees of the Social Security and Medicare programs. He worked on these issues in George W. Bush's administration...

Operation Fast and Furious is the deadliest and most sinister scandal in American history. A scandal so big, it’s worse than Iran-Contra and makes Watergate look like a high school prank gone wrong. In the early days of the Obama Administration, President Obama claimed his goal was to stop the trafficking of guns from the United States into the hands of violent Mexican drug cartels. He claimed gun dealers in the United States were responsible for sending guns to Mexico. Both of his claims were lies. In order to push his lies and policies built around them, with a...

"Botched." That is the word the mainstream media too often associates with the federal gunwalking scandal known as Operation Fast and Furious—but in her new book, Fast and Furious: Barack Obama's Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-Up, investigative reporter Katie Pavlich fearlessly chronicles exactly why the only thing "botched" about the ill-fated operation was the Obama administration's shoddy attempt to cover their tracks. Having shared office space with Katie for well over a year now, I've witnessed her ferocious commitment to this story since before Fast and Furious was even a thought in the national consciousness. I wasn't always quite...

A federal judge on Friday rejected Sgt. Gary Stein's injunction to halt a military tribunal's recommendation that he receive the discharge following anti-Obama comments he made on a private Facebook page in March, according to court documents. Stein, 26, has maintained a webpage for the last two years about the armed forces tea party group he founded, including a disclaimer that the views were his own and didn't reflect those of his employer. But according to his attorney, Stein never ran into any trouble until last month, when he wrote: "Screw Obama. I will not follow all orders from him."

It’s big. It’s ugly. And it’s probably going to happen. The first two statements have been reiterated by policy makers and Defense officials since Congress agreed to sequestration, a doomsday clock of budget cuts disproportionately targeting the Defense Department and set to strike midnight at the first of next year. The third has been roundly disavowed by military leaders; but experts are now saying it’s time to prepare for the worst. To be sure, the facts are grim. Sequestration, the product of failure by a Supercommittee last July to root $1.2 trillion of excess spending out of the U.S. budget,...

It was in this one-story, windowless, brick building with a cheesy neon sign on top that 11 Secret Service agents assigned to protect the President ended up embarrassing their country all for a little fun and flesh, local sources told the Daily News. Drinking beers and whisky that range in price from 40,000 to 150,000 pesos ($24 to $84) for bottle service, the agents had their pick of young girls with long, black and brown hair and lots of makeup. “The gringos got rowdy at the bar. They drank fine whisky and slept with the prettiest ones, the ones that...

PHOTOS: It was diplomats gone wild in Colombia last night, as Hillary Clinton partied like it was spring break -- knocking back a beer and tearing up the dance floor to Cuban music at a local club. The secretary of state was photographed blowing off steam with a small group of bodyguards and about 12 pals at Cafe Havana in the seaside resort town Cartagena to toast the end of the VI Summit of the Americas, which closes today. Arriving at the club just after midnight, the former First Lady and her entourage took over its last remaining table. Clinton...

Americans must ask themselves whether Eric Holder and black leaders indeed fear the New Black Panther Party, as they all refuse to condemn their rhetoric and tactics in the last few weeks. The Trayvon Martin Case is the latest in a long list of incidents into which the New Black Panther Party has injected itself, but nothing has measured up to its latest tactics, which include placing a bounty on George Zimmerman’s head with the qualifier "dead or alive.">p> It would seems to the most independent of observers that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, in his refusal to condemn this...

Just weeks after undergoing heart transplant surgery, forme U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney plunged back into the political debate on Saturday, praising Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney while lambasting President Obama as an "unmitigated disaster." Cheney’s remarks came during an hour-and-15-minute talk at the Wyoming Republican Party state convention in Cheyenne on Saturday, After Rick Santorum dropped out of the race this past week, Cheney urged the party to place their support behind Romney, saying that the Massachusetts governor would do a "whale of a job." His opinion of President Obama, however, was not quite as positive, asserting that the...

President Barack Obama begins his re-election campaign defending traditionally Republican territory that he carried when he won the White House four years ago. Republican Mitt Romney is looking to reclaim any combination of these GOP strongholds now in flux. In the months leading to the Nov. 6 election, both men will talk about how they will galvanize the nation. But in reality, they will lavish travel, advertising and staff on only a dozen states, and even fewer as the vote nears. The political spotlight will shine brightly again on Florida, and the Upper Midwest, especially Ohio. But changes in the...

It was only three years ago when the political lines converged. On Tax Day at Austin City Hall, Gov. Rick Perry spoke to a crowd of noisy, rowdy Texans in the sort of assembly that quickly became common as the Tea Party wave swept Texas and the country. That crested as Perry was crystallizing his own views on Texas and Washington and fiscal conservatism. It seeded the anti-Washington message of his 2010 race for re-election as governor, found fuller expression in his book, Fed Up! which was published days after that election, and served as the rationale behind his abortive...

Only months after Coconino County's first major wind energy farm got up and running this winter, the utility buying its power says more wind farms here are unlikely -- at least for now. Cost is the bottom line, with the sun beating the wind on both equipment prices and time-of-day power production. This disadvantage for wind could have some implications for a handful of other big wind projects proposed in Coconino County. A worldwide glut of solar panels produced at lower costs (including from China) has cut solar panel prices to a fraction of their former cost. So Arizona Public...

When racial tensions flared in Sanford, a league of secretive peacemakers reached out to the city's spiritual and civic leaders to help cool heated emotions after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in February. When civil-rights organizers wanted to demonstrate, these federal workers taught them how to peacefully manage crowds. They even arranged a police escort for college students to ensure safe passage for their 40-mile march from Daytona Beach to Sanford to demand justice. As national figures and sign-waving protesters grabbed the spotlight after Trayvon's death, federal workers from a little-known branch of the Department of Justice labored...

The principles of openness and universal access that underpinned the creation of the internet three decades ago are under greater threat than ever, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin. In an interview with the Guardian, Brin warned there were "very powerful forces that have lined up against the open internet on all sides and around the world". "I am more worried than I have been in the past," he said. "It's scary." The threat to the freedom of the internet comes, he claims, from a combination of governments increasingly trying to control access and communication by their citizens, the entertainment...

"My husband (JDHCalif) wrote a lengthy review and I wanted to add my 2 cents. We are actually now getting nearly 130mpg per day because his company installed an electrical outlet in his office parking area. The car costs about $2 to fully charge at PG&E rates and each full charge takes the car about 45 miles. Even though we drive 130 mile+ daily commutes we are burning almost no gas...not insignificant in CA where gas is now $4.63 per gallon. The Volt is proving to be more than twice as economical as our Prius...and it drives so much better...

GREENSBORO, N.C. – The day after Newt Gingrich was bit by a penguin at a zoo, he acknowledged he is “the underdog” and said his campaign began renting their donor list because they needed money. --- “Compared to Barack Obama, Romney’s a conservative,” he said. “Let’s be clear: There are no liberals in the Republican party.”

PYONGYANG, North Korea – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un spoke publicly for the first time Sunday, just two days after a failed rocket launch, praising his father Kim Jong Il's "military first" policy during celebrations marking the 100th birthday of the nation's late founder. Kim, who has been seen but not publicly heard since taking over after Kim Jong Il's death in December, stepped to the podium to speak before tens of thousands of people gathered in Pyongyang's main square for meticulously choreographed festivities meant to glorify his grandfather, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung. Kim Jong Un said...

Along with the ICBM, it was one of the defining pieces of military technology during the Cold War: the B-52 bomber. Those who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s knew the B-52 Stratofortress as a central figure in the anxiety that flowed from the protracted staring match between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. On the one hand, it was reassuring to know that the Strategic Air Command was ready at a moment's notice to scramble its B-52s to counter any potential nuclear attack. On the other hand, if the bombers were flying that mission, well, things might well...

RALEIGH, N.C. — The executive director of the North Carolina Democratic Party resigned Sunday amid increasing frustrations and ire among party activists over high turnover at the party headquarters and harassment allegations there. Jay Parmley, who became the top administrator last year after holding a similar post in South Carolina, submitted a resignation letter in which he vehemently denied harassing any party worker. Party leaders raised concerns after e-mails circulating within the media late last week mentioned the allegations. "Let me be clear: I have never harassed any employee at any time at the (state party) or in any other...

Obama wants 'rigorous' Secret Service probeAFP – 1 hr 41 mins ago US President Barack Obama said Sunday he expected a "rigorous" probe into a sex scandal involving Secret Service agents, warning he would be "angry" if the allegations were true. The incident -- which saw 11 Secret Service and five military personnel pulled from their duties in Cartagena, Colombia at the Summit of the Americas -- overshadowed the talks attended by Obama and other regional leaders. The US Secret Service, which has sent the men back to the United States, is investigating claims they brought prostitutes to their hotel...

Obesity is a Bigger Threat to Health Care Than ObamacareBy Roy A. Barnes | Yahoo! Contributor Network – 10 hrs ago COMMENTARY | HealthDay News reported Friday on a Mayo Clinic employees/retirees study showing obese people are more responsible for health care costs annually per person than normal weight people by $1,850, and $5,500 more if they're morbidly obese. Furthermore, 20.6 percent of health care costs are due to obesity, or $190.2 billion annually, according to Cornell University research also reported by HealthDay News. TV and other media pundits can rant and rave about the costs of Obamacare, but while...

Radicals Smash Windows at NYC Business in Chilling Display of Violent ‘Black Bloc’ TacticsBy Madeleine Morgenstern | The Blaze – 2 hrs 24 mins ago Two people were arrested in New York City Saturday night after Occupy Wall Street-linked protesters vandalized storefronts in what was described as “black bloc” tactics, the New York Times reported. A black bloc is a protest tactic where protesters wear black clothing and mask their faces to make it harder for police to pick out individuals. **SNIP** The East Village blog EV Grieve reported people around the park said protesters smashed windows at Starbucks and...

(Reuters) - Some six percent of Britain's wealthiest people used tax reliefs to reduce their tax bills to less than 10 percent, according to data published by Britain's finance ministry on Monday, which it said highlighted the need to make the tax system fairer. In Britain, anyone earning up to 34,370 pounds is liable to income tax of 20 percent, while those earning over 150,000 pounds must pay 50 percent, though that is set to fall to 45 percent from April 2013. The Treasury figures show that 3 percent of people with earnings of between 1 and 5 million pounds...

When Tiffany Couch's phone rings, it often means trouble for another Oregon city. Last year she was called to Oakridge, a Lane County timber town of about 3,700 people that in two years ran through $1 million in reserves. She scoured the city's books and interviewed staff in search of fraud or some explanation for the town's financial mess. Couch issued a report of her findings - error-racked budgets, sloppy bookkeeping, overspending - along with her best advice. Then she was off. Her next client was waiting 130 miles north. Molalla. The two small towns, Couch learned, share remarkable similarities....

Leadership: A business icon has ripped the administration's "divide and conquer" strategy, the president's refusal to take responsibility for his policies and for an enemies list that would make a disgraced ex-president proud. We now have the Obama Principle. It's like the Peter Principle, in which people rise to the level of their incompetence, except as redefined by this administration you refuse to recognize your incompetence and constantly blame others when things go wrong. Jack Welch, renowned former CEO of General Electric before it became the nontaxpaying sock puppet for the administration's green energy push, has penned an Op-Ed article...

Michael Sands, an effusive Hollywood publicist, has died after a bizarre accident in the deli section of an upscale supermarket in Century City, where he choked to death on a sample of meat. Best known as the brains behind Mr. Blackwell’s annual Worst Dressed List, Sands also was an inveterate self-promoter who claimed to be an undercover CIA operative who may have helped in the capture of Abu Abbas, the terrorist behind the hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship in 1985. He was 66. “He was eating a beef sample, and since he has narrow airways due to Chronic...

The Portland Police Bureau is expected to end the fiscal year in the red, overspending its $169 million budget by $3.42 million. The largest drivers are nearly $2 million in Occupy Portland policing costs; more retirements (26 so far this fiscal year), bringing larger sick leave and vacation payouts; and cash payouts to officers for earned holiday compensatory time. As a result, the bureau this spring has asked for additional one-time funds to plug the budget hole.

RALEIGH The executive director of the N.C. Democratic Party resigned Sunday as calls for his ouster mounted amid questions regarding a secret agreement to pay a former staffer to keep quiet about sexual harassment allegations. Jay Parmley, who served a year at the helm of the party, denied harassing any employee and blamed right-wing blogs for "spreading a false and misleading story" about the incident. "Even though I have not done anything wrong, it is clear to me that I need to move on," Parmley wrote in his resignation letter. Party Chairman David Parker accepted his resignation but avoided any...

How will he tax us? Let us count the ways: • Most basic, of course, will be an increase in tax rates. Those paying 33 percent will now pay 36 percent. People paying 35 percent will now pay 40 percent. Most people accept and expect that Obama will raise these brackets if he is reelected. But they don’t realize what else he will do. • As he advocated in the 2008 campaign, he will eliminate the ceiling on wages that must be taxed for Social Security. Currently, wages are taxed at 6.2 percent (now, temporarily, at 4.2 percent) up to...

......Choosing between Romney,Gingrich,andSantorum was, for many, like choosing between vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream. Their personalities, pasts, and priorities had different flavors, but their philosophies were of the same general type.......voters will now have a clear-cut choice between Republican ice cream or another helping of Barack Obama’s spinach. It is possible that Romney, after tacking to the right during the nomination process, will tack to the center during the presidential race. If so, that would mirror what Democrats do on the other side of the ideological spectrum. Such apparent vacillations and compromises may upset many of us who yearn...

Glen Beck Called the Tax Code Something This Past Week and It was Perfect, Do you Remember the Word? Were you listening? He said this was the term that his accountants use to describe the tax code. The word was not: Evil or dispicable. It was a word that meant entrapment or get you. Please help out if you listened!

Presidential candidate and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich shares his foreign policy strategy for Middle East. Gingrich touches on every country of the region from Iran to Saudi Arabia to Turkey and finally Afghanistan and speaks about the policies that would be implemented in a Gingrich Presidency. Newt discusses radical Islam, Middle East, Israel, energy independence .

Nicolas Sarkozy has been accused of using a video conference with Barack Obama to boost his election campaign. In an unprecedented move in French diplomacy, newscasts on several TV channels showed the first few minutes of a video link-up between the French president and his US counterpart. Days before the first-round vote in the French presidential election, on 22 April, the rare glimpse of banter between world leaders shows Obama saying of the campaign: "It must be a busy time." He adds: "I admire the tough battle you are waging." Sarkozy replies, grinning, with arms folded: "We will win, Mr...

Enter the US Army Military Personnel Exchange Program, wherein officers in the US Army are being exchanged with officers from countries around the world for the purported purpose of cross training for international crisis.  What is happening right before our eyes is the international soviet socialist elite are putting together an international coalition army for the purpose of disarming the American citizens. Understand, this army must be coordinated and considering the reality of diverse languages requires a communication system which has to be established before this foreign army can begin operations in the United States.  This is why we have...

White House Opens Door to Big Donors, and Lobbyists Slip In MIKE McINTIRE and MICHAEL LUO April 14, 2012 Last May, as a battle was heating up between Internet companies and Hollywood over how to stop online piracy, a top entertainment industry lobbyist landed a meeting at the White House with one of President Obama’s technology advisers. Dwight and Antoinette C. Bush in 2010. Ms. Bush visits the White House frequently. The lobbyist did not get there by himself. He was accompanied by Antoinette C. Bush, a well-connected Washington lawyer who has represented companies like Viacom, Sony and News Corporation...

Mitt Romney doesn't get the coveted "presumptive nominee" title just yet -- at least according to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus. "We haven't officially declared a presumptive nominee out of respect for Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich," Priebus said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" before adding that Romney is "clearly on a pathway to be a presumptive nominee."