Free Republic

-excerpt- The agency said she was found with a head wound and a blanket near her body. She was wearing jeans, a jumper and a jacket, and still had her earrings and a bracelet.

As the United Nations and the Obama administration combine to outlaw private ownership of weapons and ammunition, state and local leaders nationwide are responding to the crisis. As The New American continues to report, sheriffs, county commissions, and state legislators are passing bills aimed at stopping the federal gun grab at their sovereign borders. On January 16, four South Carolina state senators joined the fight to protect the Second Amendment and to safeguard their citizens from federal tyranny. Senate Bill 247 is sponsored by state Senators Tom Corbin, Tom Davis, Kevin Bryant, and Lee Bright. Although only four senators currently...

Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) reportedly announced Saturday that he will support former Sen. Chuck Hagel's (R-Neb.) nomination to become secretary of Defense. The Lincoln Journal Star reported that Johanns would become the second Republican senator to publicly back Hagel's bid, following Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). Several Republican senators have indicated they will oppose Hagel's nomination on the Senate floor.

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Landing in Nigeria's largest city, one of the first thing visitors see as they peer out of their airplane's windows is the moss-covered metal carcasses of what used to fly in Africa's most populous nation. Workers at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos call it "the graveyard," an overgrown field filled with about a dozen cargo and passenger airplanes long since abandoned and left to rot by insolvent airlines. At least 65 abandoned airplanes, ranging from small commuter jets to one massive Boeing 747, sit at airfields across the country and serve as a haunting reminder...

Jen Maksel knows she's one of the lucky ones. Her 7-year-old son, Bryce, escaped last Friday's carnage by fleeing hero teacher Vicki Soto's classroom when the gunman looked away. Last Friday morning Maksel, 42, was just drifting off to sleep after working an overnight shift then putting her kids on the bus when her phones began ringing off the hook. Before she could answer them, a neighbor began pounding on her front door yelling, "There's a school shooting at Sandy Hook!" She jumped in her car and headed to the school. "I parked on the side of the road and...

About 200 Arabs set up an illegal outpost Saturday near the village of Burin, not far from Shechem, in Samaria. They had put up a tent when the IDF arrived on the scene and dispersed them. The Arabs attacked the IDF force with rocks, and the soldiers responded with riot dispersal gear. No one was reported hurt. Voice of Israel public radio reported that Jew and Arabs confronted each other at the Yitzhar junction, in another incident on the Sabbath. The two groups hurled rocks at each other and an IDF force came in to separate them. Three Jews were...

Yet another student has been suspended for having something that represents a gun, but isn’t actually anything like a real gun. This time, Daniel McClaine, Jr., a freshman at Poston Butte High School in Tan Valley, Arizona, made the mistake of setting a picture of a gun as the desktop background on his school-issued computer. The picture shows an AK-47 lying on a flag, reports KNXV-TV. The gun isn’t his, McClaine assured the ABC affiliate in Phoenix. He found it on the Internet and liked it, partly because he is interested in serving in the military after graduation. A teacher...

New London — Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey said the military's ban on women in combat had become embarrassing, and the decision to lift it may one day affect the draft. "What we've really done is spun the paradigm on its head," Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in his first visit to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy Thursday. The question isn't "should a woman serve" in a job specialty, Dempsey said, it's "why shouldn't a woman serve?" "Will this expand into the selective service? It might," he said. "But that's a decision of Congress. I can...

People have been warning us for years that drilling for oil in the Alaskan arctic would lead to big environmental trouble. It’s not that the technology hasn’t advanced to the point where it can be done safely, but those nasty people in charge of the projects just don’t care about the environment. These Mother Earth Hating Monsters would clearly let the whole thing go to H. E. double toothpicks and ruin the pristine beauty of the wilderness. Well, I guess they turned out to be right. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has agreed to plug at least one additional...

As of this writing, major news networks such as ABC, Fox News, CBS, and NBC have yet to report on the high court’s decision to review Barack Hussein Obama’s eligibility to hold political office in the United States or any of its territories. The case is identified as Edward Noonan, et al., v. Deborah Bowen, California Secretary of State. On Feb. 15, all nine justices will gather in conference to review whether Obama used forged government documents and fake identification in order to get elected as commander-in-chief. Edward Noonan, et al., contend that if Obama had been ineligible to run...

Barack Obama recently told the New Republic that he understands the concerns of gun owners, because “in fact, up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time.� As critics chortled over both the notion that skeet shooting is what concerns gun owners and the idea that Obama shoots clay pigeons “all the time,� the White House has finally released a photo to back up its claim … and only one photo, dated August 12, 2012: That led to a barrage of questions from journalists about whether the White House could offer proof that the president had gone shooting....

Despite a thousand years of history, the nation-states of Europe contain within them ethnic groups and nationalities who yearn for their own country. In some cases, the national and ethnic character of these minorities have been deliberately stifled. There has also been organized movements that have sprung up to fight for the national aspirations of the minorities. Next year, votes for independence will occur in Scotland and Spain's rich Catalonia region. Some analysts believe that success in either case may lead to other minorities to seek their own path to independence. From Reuters: __________________________ Some suspect the two campaigns will...

University of Texas offensive coordinator Major Applewhite and the school's athletic director released a joint statement on Friday night acknowledging that Applewhite had an "inappropriate" relationship with a student during the team's trip to the 2009 Fiesta Bowl. Beyond the cheating on his wife while she was apparently nine months pregnant*, the timing of this announcement raises a lot of questions for the University of Texas and how it handled the affair.

Boston.com politics editor Glen Johnson is resigning to take a post as a senior State Department adviser, working for John F. Kerry. Johnson, 50, a 27-year journalism veteran who has covered five presidential elections, said his focus would be on strategic communications. “This is an unexpected opportunity. All I’ve ever wanted to do ¬since junior high school – and have done professionally – is be a news reporter. But this chance to serve the country and Secretary Kerry at such a tumultuous time, as well as work in foreign affairs and travel the world, was too compelling an opportunity to...

General Carl von Clausewitz defined the center of gravity as the objective whose achievement results in the enemy's total defeat. We must therefore identify this single objective or, in a political controversy, a single issue, and concentrate our resources accordingly. In the case of the "assault weapon" debate, this is the basic and natural human right of self-defense. If we present the argument correctly, the other side has absolutely no defense whatsoever. The Target Audience: Swing Voters and the Opposing Rank and File Colonel Paul Linebarger's Psychological Warfare states clearly that any communication whose purpose is to influence attitudes, beliefs,...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Another one of the many military jobs on the front lines of combat may be opening to women: Flying the high-tech helicopters that move special forces under cover of darkness for missions like the one that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. The Army's most elite aviation unit has proposed a test program to let women serve as pilots and crew chiefs, pending congressional approval. The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., and known as the Night Stalkers, decided to give women a trial as pilots and crew chiefs as part of...

The White House has released a picture purporting to show President Obama "skeet shooting" at Camp David. An activity he claims he does "all the time." The White House also warns all you mischievous internet types to not mess around with the picture: "This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement...

So the economy created 157,000 new payroll jobs in January. Wow. At this rate, we might actually get back down to Bush-era unemployment rates sometime, oh, within the next 100 years. The January jobs report is supposed to be good news. After all, the economy has now added a total of 6.1 million jobs over the past three years, and the BLS revised last year's jobs numbers sharply upward. But it doesn't take much effort to notice that, when it comes to job creation, we are barely treading water. Case in point: Despite these "big" gains, unemployment climbed to 7.9%...

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) - The results of a new study indicate that suicide rates among veterans in the United States are increasing. An estimated 22 military veterans take their lives every day in America, according to the study helmed by Robert Bossarte, an epidemiologist and researcher who works with the Department of Veterans Affairs. While the percentage of all suicides reported as Veterans has decreased, the number of suicides has increased,” the conclusion of the study stated. Specific trends were observed during the course of the study regarding the age and gender of veterans who most frequently committed suicide. “A majority...

WRIGHTSVILLE, Ga. — A dollar store employee has been arrested for simple battery after whipping a customer's child with a belt. WMAZ-TV (http://on.wmaz.com/WGbiFw ) reports surveillance cameras inside a Wrightsville dollar store recorded an 8-year-old boy running around the store and eventually throwing a cookie jar at 39-year-old Emilia Graciela Bell. Authorities say Bell took off her belt, chased the boy down and spanked him behind the counter. The boy's father called police and Bell was taken into custody. Police said she was free on bond Friday.

Aaron Klein, owner of Sweet Cakes in Gresham, Oregon, is the subject of a state investigation after one of the brides-to-be filed a complaint. An Oregon baker has refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple, allegedly calling them 'abominations unto the Lord.' Aaron Klein, owner of Sweet Cakes in Gresham, is the subject of a state investigation after one of the brides-to-be filed a complaint. The woman claims Klein refused to take an order from her partner when he learned the cake was for a gay marriage. Oregon Attorney General's civil enforcement office is now looking into...

Hezbollah in Yucatán Posted on January 30, 2013 by Baron Bodissey As mentioned here many times in the past, the southern border of the United States is porous not just to Mexicans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans, but also to Islamic terrorists. Operatives from Al Qaeda and Hezbollah acquire a Latin American passport and enough Spanish to allow their swarthiness to pass as Latino.This latest report concerns the arrival of a Hezbollah associate in Mexico. Many thanks to Iz-M (via Vlad) for the translation from Diario de Yucatán: More signs of the presence of HezbollahLabboun Rafic Mohammed, the Muslim cleric allegedly linked...

The air raid over the Jamraya military complex near Damascus Wednesday, Jan. 30, attributed to Israel by Western sources was Israeli’s first assault on the Syrian-Hizballah military compact forged between Bashar Assad and Hassan Nasrallah. That was the real strategic import of the operation, which took place with the approval of US President Barack Obama, military sources report. In every other respect, it was a surgical strike on a well-defined target, comparable to Israel’s attack in September 2007 on the nuclear reactor North Korea was building at El Kabir in northern Syria. The object then was to sever the Syrian-Iranian-North...

PRINCETON, NJ -- Residents of Hawaii, along with those living in the District of Columbia, were most likely to approve of President Barack Obama in 2012, according to an analysis of Gallup Daily tracking for the year. Residents of Utah and Wyoming were least likely to approve, with fewer than three in 10 residents giving Obama a positive review. The full results by state appear on page 2. The states with the highest and lowest approval ratings are generally similar from year to year, with some shuffling of the rank ordering. This year, only one of the top 10 states...

One of former New York City Mayor Ed Koch's last interviews before his death on Friday came in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire. The most interesting part of the Q&A came when he was asked who was what living person he "most despise[s]." ... Which living person do you most despise? Former president Jimmy Carter.

In the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting we all knew that an impending gun debate would be a hard fought battle. Just after this week’s hearing on Capitol Hill, a new Forbes study finds that the NRA is winning the influence battle over gun control. In the new study performed by Forbes Insights, an independent and unbiased organization, they found that the “NRA and the pro-gun rights voices are winning the influence battle and will continue to be strong and more influential if the pro gun control voice remains fragmented”. The data was compiled from the week before...

Despite its socialist origins, our moonbat rulers don’t like the Pledge of Allegiance because it stinks of patriotism. At Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins, a compromise has been reached; students have recited the pledge over the intercom in Arabic: First, the students translated the Pledge of Allegiance and read it in French. Then they recited the pledge in Spanish last fall. Monday, students read the pledge in Arabic. “We have a tremendous amount of diversity in our school,” [principal Tom] Lopez said. “This is very American, not un-American.” America has succeeded as a society because of its ability...

US Vice President Joe Biden is visiting Germany this week in an effort to strengthen trans-Atlantic ties. Global politics have come to a standstill in recent years, with the United States unwilling to show leadership and Europe and other major powers unable to fill the vacuum. … You would think it were high time for Obama to jump back into the saddle before he gets reduced to a lame-duck status. But no matter how many blinding smiles the notoriously perky Biden flashes in Berlin and Munich, this is probably too much to expect. Of course, this gives rise to the...

Al Gore said President Barack Obama was forced to be cautious during his first term in office because of the “propaganda” served up by Fox News and talk radio that created a “hostile environment for progressive ideas.” The former vice president — who has been on somewhat of a media whirlwind since the sale his Current TV to Arab news network Al-Jazeera — made the comment during an interview to promote his latest book with PBS’ Charlie Rose this week in New York. “I think it has been a pretty hostile environment for progressive ideas,” Gore said. “And why is...

Police sources tell 7 Action News that a women's basketball coach from Martin Luther King, Jr. Senior High School shot two men who attacked him as he was walking two basketball players to their cars in the school parking lot. Police sources say the coach was walking the two girls to their cars when two men allegedly approached and one pulled out a gun and grabbed him by his chain necklace. The coach then pulled out his gun and shot both of them, according to sources. The man who shot the attackers was 70 years old, according to police. One...

Last June, a pulp-fiction thriller was published in Paris under the title “Le Chemin de Damas.” Its lurid green-and-black cover featured a busty woman clutching a pistol, and its plot included the requisite car chases, explosions and sexual conquests. Unlike most paperbacks, though, this one attracted the attention of intelligence officers and diplomats on three continents. Set in the midst of Syria’s civil war, the book offered vivid character sketches of that country’s embattled ruler, Bashar al-Assad, and his brother Maher, along with several little-known lieutenants and allies. It detailed a botched coup attempt secretly supported by the American and...

Turkey's state-run news agency says a missing New York City woman has been found dead in Istanbul. Sarai Sierra, a 33-year-old mother of two, went missing while vacationing alone in Istanbul. She was last heard from on Jan. 21, the day she was due back home.

Minneapolis Mayor, R.T. Rybak, has a strong message for makers of guns and ammunition who do business with the city. Mayor Rybak says he wants them to be partners in the pursuit of "common sense" gun control reform. The city buys about a million dollars worth of guns and ammunition each year for police. The primary vendors are Remington, Federal Ammunition and Smith & Wesson. The Mayor says he wants to dig a little deeper into the backgrounds of those companies. Mayor Rybak tells 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS, "if they want to be partners with us, we will work with them....

12 Charts That Will Make Gold Bulls Furious Joe WeisenthalFebruary 2, 2013, 10:48 AM The anti-gold bandwagon is getting more and more crowded. Analysts Tom Kendall and Ric Deverell of Credit Suisse is out with a bombshell report this morning titled: Gold: The Beginning Of The End Of An Era. The article argues that the 2011 peak of $1921 was the top, and that now the run of the cult metal is coming to an end. The argument essentially boils down to two arguments, which are related. The first is that we're seeing rate normalization. When real interest rates are...

WASHINGTON - A group of powerful Republicans in Congress is openly challenging B. Todd Jones' leadership of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) as the Senate takes up President Obama's nomination to make the Minnesota lawyer the agency's permanent director. A congressional letter that was signed by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and three leading House Republicans spells deepening trouble for Jones' nomination at a time when Republicans are aggressively challenging a number of Obama's second-term appointments. As the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Grassley is in a position to slow or even block Jones'...

Pelosi Plotting Strategy With Streisand, Hollywood Elite Liberals (Hollywood Reporter) More than 40 Hollywood politicos -- including Barbra Streisand, James Brolin and Haim Saban -- gathered Thursday night at a closed-door meeting at Norman Lear's Westside mansion, where they heard Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi lay out the party’s plans for recapturing the House in the 2014 mid-terms. "The message was: 'We have to start now,'" one attendee said. "We have a year, and these races are going to be close.

Germany’s socialist Left party want a 100 percent tax on anyone earning over €500,000 ($683,100) and will be including the policy in their general election campaign platform, a newspaper reported on Friday. “We are suggesting that no-one should earn over 40 times the societal minimum,” said The Left’s co-leader Katja Kipping in the party's draft election platform, which was seen by regional newspaper the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung. The party paper said the total tax on those taking home over €40,000 ($54,648) per month would be used to fund social welfare and investing in the country’s future. …

Hi Folks, This is a quick blog from the road. I am on the west coast promoting our first national TV ad confronting Obama's tyranny. Since the election, Obama's fundamental transformation of America has accelerated to warp speed. Every day we are hit with a new crisis, equaling a new excuse to attack and eliminate another one of our God given freedoms. Low-info voters swallow Obama and the Democrat's lies hook, line and sinker. So, I got this text from my brother David who lives on the east coast early this morning at 6am. Early morning and late night calls...

The percentage of individuals who identify as conservative in 2012 outnumber those who identify as liberal in 47 out of the 50 states, in addition to the District of Columbia (D.C.) according to a Gallup poll released on Feb. 1. Nationally, the amount of self-identified conservatives (38 percent) still outnumbers liberals (23 percent). The disparity between conservatives and liberals has remained consistent since Gallup began its tracking in 2008. …

Sixty-one percent of U.S. small business owners said they were “worried about the potential cost of healthcare” and 56 percent said they were “worried about new government regulations,” according to the Wells Fargo/Gallup small business index released on Jan. 31, which also showed that 30 percent of small business owners are not hiring and fear going out of business within a year. “At the bottom of the list, but still at a surprisingly high level, 30% of owners say they are not hiring because they are worried they may no longer be in business in 12 months,” according to Gallup’s...

The idea of expanded background checks for prospective gun owners is quickly becoming the battleground in Congress for any changes in national weapons control legislation. March On Washington Source: WikicommonsIn nearly a dozen national polls from varying organizations, an overwhelming large number of people seem in favor of more background checks on gun owners. A Quinnipiac poll covering three states, Virginia, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, showed that more than 90 percent of those polled favored expanding background checks to people who buy weapons at gun shows. Last week, Constitution Daily looked at polling questions on guns from nine different sources,...

Iraqi daily Azzaman quoted a Western diplomatic source as saying Thursday that the alleged Israeli attack on Syria reported on Wednesday caused heavy casualties among special Iranian Guards stationed at the Syrian facility. The source also said that the attack took place more than 48 hours before it was reported, eventually being leaked by Israel. The source for the story, who was interviewed by the paper in London, said that the report about a strike on a convoy to Lebanon was probably meant to divert attention away from the main objective of the operation, which used F-16 aircraft to fire...

More than nine out of 10 voters in three states support closing the loophole that allows people to buy guns at gun shows without a background check, according to a series of Quinnipiac surveys conducted this month. In the wake of the tragic mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut last month, President Obama has made the implementation of universal background checks one of his top gun control priorities. Currently, gun buyers are subject to criminal background checks when purchasing guns from federally licensed gun dealers, but unlicensed sellers are not required to do background checks. This...

AYUTLA, Mexico—Masked men, rifles slung over their shoulders, stand guard on a lonely rural road, checking IDs and questioning travelers. They wear no uniforms, flash no badges, but they are the law here now. A dozen villages in the area have risen up in armed revolt against local drug traffickers that have terrorized the region and a government that residents say is incapable of protecting them from organized crime. [snip]When a village commissioner named Eusebio García was captured on Jan. 5, several dozen villagers from Rancho Nuevo grabbed weapons and formed a search party. The next morning, they found Mr....

Wounded Warrior Project Rejects Funds from Local Church By GOPUSA Staff February 2, 2013 7:13 am Here's a story that will leave you scratching your head. A Christian church and affiliated school in Florida held a fundraising drive to help the Wounded Warrior Project. Children in the school were excited about the task, but later were crushed when the funds were turned down, because the organization is "religious in nature."As reported by Todd Starnes at Fox Radio, the pastor of Liberty Baptist Church and Academy, Wallace Cooley, said that "they had already paid a $100 registration fee to raise money...

Biden raises possibility of direct U.S.-Iran talks By Adrian Croft and Myra MacDonald | Reuters – 3 hrs ago MUNICH (Reuters) - The United States is ready to hold direct talks with Iran if it is serious about negotiations, Vice President Joe Biden said on Saturday, backing bilateral contacts that many see as crucial to easing an international dispute over Tehran's nuclear program. Speaking at a security conference in Munich, Biden said Iran - which says it is enriching uranium for peaceful energy only - now faced "the most robust sanctions in history" meant to ensure it does not use...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House has released a photo of President Barack Obama firing a gun, two days before he heads to Minnesota to discuss gun control. In a recent interview with The New Republic magazine, Obama said "yes" when asked if he has ever fired a gun. He said "we do skeet shooting all the time," except for his daughters, at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland.

Politicians, pundits and private citizens have been sounding off on Barack Obama’s new push for gun bans, but what do the professionals whose job it is to use guns in the protection of their nation, their fellow countrymen and themselves say? An open letter has been posted on the Professional Soldiers blog that has been signed as of this writing by more than 1,100 current and former U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers, the Green Berets. The soldiers say first it’s important to define the issue and set the record straight. “The terms ‘assault weapon’ and ‘assault rifle’ are often confused,”...

The following video shows a French Foreign Legion (2e régiment étranger de parachutistes – 2eREP) paradrop into Timbuktu, Mali, from a C-160 Transal airlifter of the French Air Force. It was taken on Jan. 28, from the Infra-Red camera of a Harfang drone, supporting Operation Serval from Niger. The Harfang drones are the only French UAVs reportedly operating in West Africa. These ISR (Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance) platforms are about to be supported by a RAF Sentinel R1 deployed in Senegal.

Congressman speculates Cuba may be behind Menendez scandal By Matt Friedman/The Star-Ledger on February 01, 2013 at 7:35 PM, updated February 02, 2013 at 2:34 AM TRENTON — U.S. Rep. Albio Sires today defended Sen. Robert Menendez and presented an unusual theory why the senator finds himself battling lurid accusations. "I won't even be surprised if somehow the Cuban government is involved in this to try to damage Bob Menendez because he's been so steadfast against the Castro government. He's been a critic all his political life," Sires said in a phone interview. "I would not be surprised if...