Free Republic

A professor of history turned to Twitter over the weekend to call for the death of National Rifle Association (NRA) CEO Wayne LaPierre, branding the gun rights group he heads as a terrorist organization. “[I] want Wayne LaPierre’s head on a stick,” Erik Loomis, a professor at the University of Rhode Island (URI), tweeted.

Kabul –  A car bomb exploded outside of a compound housing a U.S. military contractor in the Afghan capital Monday, blowing apart an exterior wall, killing at least two Afghan workers and wounding more than a dozen other people, company representatives and police said. In another part of the country, a suspected landmine killed 10 young girls, police said. The blast on the outskirts of Kabul sent a plume of smoke up in the air and shook windows more than a mile away in the city center. The security officer for Contrack, a McLean, Va.-based company that builds facilities for...

DENVER (KMOX) - The battle for more river water is about to get even more serious. Along with the debate over whether to send more water down the Missouri River for navigation purposes, enter Colorado in the picture. The Colorado River is low on water and, according to the New York Times, a plan by the Federal Bureau of Reclamation is about to be revealed that would take water from the Missouri River and send it into a 600 mile pipeline to the Colorado River. It would provide the Colorado River Basin with 600,000 acre-feet of water each year. The...

The aunt of Connecticut shooter Adam Lanza said the shooter's mother pulled him out of Newtown's public school system because she was unhappy with the school district's plans for her son. Adam Lanza's mother Nancy, 52, was the first victim of his Friday shooting spree. Lanza shot Nancy in the face and then drove her car to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he killed 20 students and six adults before taking his own life. Marsha Lanza, who is Adam's aunt and Nancy's ex-sister-in-law, called her former sister-in-law an "awesome ... giving person." She also told Evelyn Holmes of ABC-owned-and-operated station...

Following the tragic shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. by Adam Lanza , many Americans are wondering what exactly our Founding Fathers intended when they set the Second Amendment to paper more than 200 years ago. Surely not the killing of 20 young children and six women.

NBC is unable to reach its Middle East bureau chief Richard Engel, who was also reporting from inside Syria.

A law firm that defends and promotes Christian heritage and moral values says it has obtained a document that vindicates an 18-year veteran Army officer who is being disciplined for telling the truth about Islam. The Thomas More Law Center says it has obtained more evidence to prove its contention that the Pentagon is taking its marching orders from Islamic groups in taking extreme disciplinary action against Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley, a 1994 graduate of the United States Military Academy. The highly decorated armor officer was excoriated and relieved of a teaching assignment because he discussed negative aspects of Islam...

WICHITA FALLS — One year ago, David Thweatt made a decision so controversial and groundbreaking the story about it sped around the world. The superintendent of the isolated Harrold Independent School District, about 30 miles northwest of here, made history last August when he and his school board decided to allow select teachers and staff members at the 110-student school to carry guns on campus — a first for Texas and the nation. For Thweatt and his board, the decision was pure mathematics. The school, which sits in the middle of a prairie, was too far from law enforcement for...

Exclusive: Joseph Farah declares, 'No amount of gun control can save us from ourselves' As American politics and culture turn further away from God, they also run to and fro looking for answers to rising crime, violence, mayhem, rape and sexual immorality of all kinds in all the wrong places. Predictably, this is happening once again as the nation’s media and political elite react in horror, as they should, to the massacre in Newtown, Conn., at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. They focus with laser-like futility and counter-productiveness on inanimate objects as the source of the evil. If only we...

Twenty eight corpses hadn’t even cooled before Michael Bloomberg found a TV camera. (Seriously – it takes about several hours for a human body to reach room temperature, but Bloomberg needed less than three to stammer about what he did not know). Ignoring my rule for waiting two news cycles for solid facts to emerge, New York Mayor and perpetual odd job Michael Bloomberg sought to make political hay out of lifeless children before knowing even the most basic elements of last Friday’s Sandy Hook slayings. “Not even kindergarteners learning their A,B,Cs are safe,” was one Bloomberg bromide. Then again...

The end of the year is two weeks away and the so-called "fiscal cliff" still looms. At the turn of the New Year, $600 billion in automatic spending cuts and tax hikes are set to take effect if Democrats and Republicans in Congress cannot come together over a fiscal deficit reduction deal. But there are signs that a stalemate may have been broken. Republican House Speaker John Boehner said Sunday he is now willing to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, those individuals making more than a $1 million a year. Conservatives have been staunchly opposed to raising taxes on...

The Department of External and Public Relations of the Bank of Russia informs that on 17 December 2012 in the framework of the monetary program "Sochi 2014" Bank of Russia issues bullion coins dedicated to the XXII Olympic Winter Games 2014 in Sochi: 3 Rubles silver, gold nominal 50 and 100, with the year of issue "2012".

The political slogan "Forward" served Barack Obama well during this year's election campaign. It said that he was for going forward, while Republicans were for "going back to the failed policies that got us into this mess in the first place." It was great political rhetoric and great political theater. Moreover, the Republicans did virtually nothing to challenge its shaky assumptions with a few hard facts that could have made those assumptions collapse like a house of cards. More is involved than this year's political battles. The word "forward" has been a political battle cry on the left for more...

Never in the history of the world has there been less hunger, less disease and more prosperity It may not feel like it, but 2012 has been the greatest year in the history of the world. That sounds like an extravagant claim, but it is borne out by evidence. Never has there been less hunger, less disease or more prosperity. The West remains in the economic doldrums, but most developing countries are charging ahead, and people are being lifted out of poverty at the fastest rate ever recorded. The death toll inflicted by war and natural disasters is also mercifully...

Last week, fighters from a group that the Obama administration has branded a terrorist organization were among rebels who seized the Sheik Suleiman military base near Aleppo, where research on chemical weapons had been conducted. Rebels are also closing in on another base near Aleppo, known as Safirah, which has served as a major production center for such munitions, according to U.S. officials and analysts. The opposition Free Syrian Army said it did not find any chemical weapons at the first installation.

I think I have the Progressive/Socialist/Communist movement figured out, and the answer is God. Surprised? Read on. Humans have an instinctive desire to believe in something bigger than themselves—something all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, that can make everything right when nothing seems to go right. Ask any anthropologist or archaeologist, and he or she will tell you that pretty much every culture in the history or humankind has had a set of beliefs regarding a god or gods. We westerners are most familiar, of course, with the ancient Greek and Roman gods, but every civilization from the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians to...

The hydraulic fracturing, a.k.a. fracking, modern-day gold rush is quickly doing work on our global energy outlook. The improved technology and increased use of the decades-old technique has unlocked hitherto untapped reserves of oil and natural gas, bettering various countries economic opportunities by expanding domestic energy production and decreasing dependence on foreign sources. What’s more, natural gas has the potential to help the world lower their net carbon emissions, as we’ve already done in the United States.A lot of countries and interest groups have been resistant to allowing fracking, nervous about ostensible environmental concerns, but after extensive studies the world...

ST. LOUIS COUNTY (KMOX) - St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch says it is time to talk about arming civilian school personnel following Friday’s massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, comparing it to arming airline pilots after September 11, 2001. “I see it no differently,” he said. “Pilots have been armed now for many many years, we’ve not had another hijacking and the issue is, for the bad guy, he doesn’t know which airplane he’s getting on, if the pilot is armed or not.” Fitch said the killing will not be stopped by legislation or laws. “If there’s somebody that’s really...

Sunday I learned about the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school while we were setting up at Fox News to tape Cavuto on Business. The news was so horrible that we all felt as if we had lost our legs and could no longer stand. It was such horrible news that it simply turned the world upside down. It still is that kind of news, and it’s incredibly depressing about the nature of humanity. And my wife and I pray all day for the souls of those dear children and for the peace, if there ever will be peace, of...

Whether it be a mass casualty shooting at a school or other public space in the United States or the regularly occurring gun violence on the streets of Chicago, “the people who are civilized must care enough to stop it now,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson said on Saturday. While speaking to the audience at the Rainbow-PUSH headquarters on the South Side, Jackson reflected on Friday’s shooting in Connecticut, as well as the ongoing violence on the streets of Chicago. Noting that, “It’s easier (in the United States) to buy a gun than a cup of coffee,” Jackson said, “None of...