Free Republic

The city of New York continues to seek eviction of churches meeting for worship services in public school buildings on weekends, even after many of the congregations have ministered to the communities in which they meet in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose administration has also come under fire for banning food donations to homeless shelters, has not intervened to stop his Board of Education’s ongoing efforts to oust the churches. “Churches that have been helping communities for years should be allowed to continue to offer the hope that empty buildings can’t,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior...

The lunchtime rush had subsided, and three idle sandwich shop employees were speculating about what they would do if a guy dressed in T-shirt and jeans walked through the door with a holstered Colt .45 strapped to his hip. “I would think it’s a plainclothes police officer,” said Eric Bejarano. “I would be suspicious that he had come to rob us,” said Candice Guard. “I would call the cops to come check him out,” said Matthew Guard, Candice’s husband. If a Texas lawmaker has his way, strangers wearing six-shooters may become a common sight across the state. The Legislature passed...

When it comes to high-end weapons, there's a new company in town that's changing the way people think about rifles. Founded in 2010, Proof Research of Kalispell specializes in creating lightweight, accurate weapons using carbon-fiber barrels and stocks unlike anything else on the market. “Large gun manufacturers know we have the technology and we're being courted by some big names,” said Pat Rainey, chief executive officer of Proof Research. “We've changed the gun industry, just like the polymer pistol did. The cool factor of our weapons is off the page.” Joining forces in the Flathead While Proof Research may only...

Sin in haste, repent at leisure. One of the few silver linings in the dark cloud of Obama’s re-election is that millions of moonbats and Beautiful People who voted this month to continue our long national nightmare are now discovering, much to their chagrin, that they’re as screwed as all the “bitter clingers” who still go to church on Sunday. Not that it was any big secret, but it’s asking an awful lot of the dumbed-down modern electorate to pay attention to its own best interests. Of course tens of millions of Obama’s votes came from the people he likes...

Stopping veteran Dem retirements is top priority for Reid, SchumerBy Alexander Bolton - 11/25/12 06:00 AM ET One of the highest immediate political priorities for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Democratic political guru Charles Schumer (N.Y.) is to persuade veteran colleagues not to retire in 2014. Democratic sources identify four senators as most likely to retire: Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). Another possible veteran retirement is Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who has yet to announce his decision. But Democratic aides expect him to run...

A new British-based Islamist group plans to meet in Islamabad to issue a religious decree against a Pakistani schoolgirl shot by the Taliban, accusing her of supporting "occupying" U.S. forces. The move against Malala Yousufzai, 15, is likely to provoke outrage. In the days following her shooting in October, she became an international icon and world leaders pledged to support her campaign for girls' education. "There will be a fatwa issued regarding Malala Yousufzai taking into account the full story of her injury including her public statements in support of the occupying U.S. army in the region and mocking of...

Israeli intelligence satellites have spied the loading of rockets and other materiel believed to be destined for the Gaza Strip, The Sunday Times reported citing Israeli officials. According to the report, Iran began preparing the weapons shipment around the same time Israel and Hamas negotiated cease-fire understandings late last week. The shipment is said to include Iranian-made Fajr-5 medium-range rockets, the same model that was fired into the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem areas during Operation Pillar of Defense, the Times reported. …

Before scandal would shatter his grand ambitions, when he was still a Democratic congressman and the heir apparent to one of Chicago’s most prominent political dynasties, Jesse Jackson Jr. did not shy from criticizing other politicians with heavy baggage. [SNIP] “The future of black politics is bright, actually,” Maze Jackson [radio host not related to J. Jackson] said. “You’ll see a new generation of black politicians with new, innovative thought processes. The old generation looked to protect the safety net as a way to empowerment. The new generation is more interested in banking, finance, utilities — things that can be...

Howie Carr thread for the week starting with his Sunday Boston Herald column, "Moonbats' Remorse". Excerpt: "as strange as it seems, a plurality of Obama voters probably have real jobs, some even in the Dreaded Private Sector. Man, are they in dire straits. Take the instructors at Community College of Allegheny County in Pittsburgh. Their hours are being cut back so the college can get around Obamacare. All you teachers, hope you enjoy being adjunct professors, because you ain’t getting tenure anytime soon. Wonder who they all voted for on Nov. 6?"

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas claimed Saturday the entity's renewed bid for United Nations membership is the “last chance” for Arab peace with Israel. The PA is hoping to create an independent, sovereign state in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and parts of Jerusalem that were restored to the Jewish capital in the 1967 Six-Day War. Previous efforts to evade the necessity of final status talks with Israel through application for membership in the United Nations have been stymied by Western nation, led by the United States. Speaking with students at his headquarters in the PA capital of Ramallah, Abbas said, “The...

The widely held assumption that terrorists are merely violent fanatics might be accurate for many of the terror organisations' low-level operatives. Nonetheless, a terror group's leader sees subsequent acts of terror as a way to impress their financial patrons and their ensnared populations. On a day-to-day level, terror groups are primarily financial organisations, expending the bulk of their efforts to raise, invest, allocate and transfer money. These violent groups are just like a drug cartel, and it is therefore a misunderstanding to believe that terrorists need funds just to make cheap bombs. The creation of a terrorist is a long...

A Facebook friend of mine recently posted: “I love you, Iron Dome, and I want to have your babies.” Such is the outpouring of love and appreciation for an extraordinary piece of Israeli technology that has saved many lives in southern and central Israel. Nevertheless, despite this appreciation, there has been little analysis of the true strategic significance of Iron Dome. Iron Dome is a game-changer that not only consigns Hamas’ and Hezbollah’s current terror model to the trash can, it completely undermines the military doctrines of all of Israel’s enemies. Before we discuss this fundamental strategic shift in detail,...

Still scrambling to develop a strategy for the future in the wake of the 2012 presidential election, the Republican Party is quite clearly at a crossroads. As America dives headlong into the next term of Obama's America, it is critical for the Republicans to take the right path at this crossroads, which can be summed up with this paradigm: There is no justification for the GOP to continue running moderate candidates for president....... [~~SNIP~~must read] ...The culture may be too far gone down the leftist yellow brick road to turn back on its journey to a European-style, social democratic Oz...

Enlarge Image Self-medicated. A new study suggests that some people suffer from excessive sleepiness due to a naturally occurring compound that acts like a sedative. Credit: Digital Vision/Thinkstock Hitting the wall in the middle of a busy work day is nothing unusual, and a caffeine jolt is all it takes to snap most of us back into action. But people with certain sleep disorders battle a powerful urge to doze throughout the day, even after sleeping 10 hours or more at night. For them, caffeine doesn't touch the problem, and more potent prescription stimulants aren't much better. Now, a...

In the wake of the great success of the Iron Dome anti-missile system, which was able to intercept many of the rockets fired from Gaza at populated areas during Operation Pillar of Defense, Israel is now pushing ahead with the development of Magic Wand, which is supposed to be able to intercept short-range and medium-range rockets. According to a report in the Boston Globe on Saturday, Israel will test the system in the Negev in the coming days. Magic Wand, the report said, is being developed by the Israeli Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. in cooperation with the American company...

For the entire 8 day duration of Operation Pillar of Defense, there was one major geopolitical player who had been largely quiet and certainly absent from the scene: the same player whose unflinching position over the Syria conflict has so far prevented any intervention in the civil war torn country: Russia. The same Russia which has a military base in the Syrian port city of Tarsus, and thus in its own eyes, a very substantial "national interest" role to play in the middle east, one that is certainly opposing that of the US and the pro-NATO forces, a tension that...

A GUNMAN who tried to rob a hairdressers came a cropper when he was beaten and tied up naked by the female owner – who then fed him Viagra and used him as a sex slave. Viktor Jasinski, 32, had gone to the salon with the intention of robbing it. But after demanding the day’s takings he instead found himself overcome by the owner – karate black belt Olga Zajac, 28, – who floored him with a kick and tied him up with a hair dryer cable. She then took him into a back room at the salon at Meshchovsk,...

WASHINGTON — Facing the possibility that President Obama might not win a second term, his administration accelerated work in the weeks before the election to develop explicit rules for the targeted killing of terrorists by unmanned drones, so that a new president would inherit clear standards and procedures, according to two administration officials. The matter may have lost some urgency after Nov. 6. But with more than 300 drone strikes and some 2,500 people killed by the Central Intelligence Agency and the military since Mr. Obama first took office, the administration is still pushing to make the rules formal and...

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah congratulated the Palestinians in Gaza on their "first victory" over Israel's armed forces. In a televised address on Friday, the ninth day of the Shiite Muslim festival of Ashura, Nasrallah said, "The first victory of the resistance was that it prevented the enemy from achieving his goals, the greater victory was that it did not let the enemy impose his conditions, and the greatest victory was that it imposed its own conditions. "The resistance, which lost a martyr, was able to fight efficiently (…) resistance movements in the region no longer depend on individuals," Nasrallah said...

Former senior aides to Mitt Romney have hit back at the 'craven hypocrites' in the Republican party who just days before the election were clamouring for jobs in a Romney administration and are now belittling him. 'There were one or two well-known figures who were late committing to support him, were the most eager to curry favour when it looked like we would win and are now out there trashing the governor. (snip) But the other senior adviser, who declined to be named when criticising senior Republicans, singled out Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Newt Gingrich as among those...