Free Republic

While everyone in Washington is suddenly pretending they’ve hardly ever heard of ACORN, they might want to pretend they’ve never heard of the SEIU, one of the nation’s largest unions. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and the Service Employees International Union are tight as Heidi Klum and a new pair of jeans. You also don’t talk about either organization without mention of Wade Rathke, co-founder of ACORN and founder of SEIU Local 100 in New Orleans. Rathke, who resigned from ACORN last year as “chief organizer” after it became known that his brother embezzled almost $1 million...

ACORN, a social justice organization with roots in [New Orleans], battles a string of scandals. The announcement stuck to a wall outside the entrance to ACORN's local office in the 2600 block of Canal Street quietly signals the trouble afoot. In English and Spanish, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now tells walk-up clients that ACORN's housing office has shut itself down for two weeks to immerse itself "in an intensive training program." The sign is a symptom of a tumultuous week in the history of a controversial poor people's social justice movement -- one founded by a New...

As Carrie in 'Sex and the City' she might not always get the right man. And being voted "unsexiest woman alive" was a hard pill to swallow. But in real life actress Sarah Jessica Parker hasn't gone home totally empty-handed, having raked in an estimated £12.5m since the end of the popular TV series. (snip) But Parker, 43, has had a hard time dealing with the news that men do not find her as attractive as advertisers do, claiming the result of the Maxim poll was "brutal" and also affected her husband, actor Matthew Broderick.

Kathleen Parker, an obscure Washington Post syndicated columnist who made herself famous by attacking Republican Vice Presidential nominee Alaska Governor Sarah Palin last fall, said that Palin 'invited' vicious sex jokes made this week by CBS Television Late Night host David Letterman. Parker also made degrading, sexist comments of her own about Palin.Parker made the comment in an online chat this afternoon at WashingtonPost.com:Re: Letterman: Listen, Letterman is a comedian. Comedians that don't go over the line are not funny. If you said she looks slutty, that's over the line. If I say it, it's over the line. Why wouldn't...

The columns are all over the place, and all the analyses seem to be the same. The Republican Party is supposedly deader than a doornail. Except in a handful of states in mid-America and in the South, Americans, according to these columnists, see Republicans as irrelevant, out-of-touch, mean-spirited dinosaurs. And, they continue, among those groups that will demographically define the America of tomorrow -- the under-30 crowd and non-white America -- Republicans are toast. These many columns inevitably lead to the conclusion that Republicans have no choice but to lighten up on the conservative agenda and buy into a new...

Hot-headed state Sen. Kevin Parker was stripped of his high-ranking leadership position in Albany yesterday after his arrest for attacking a Post photographer. Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith took away the Brooklyn Democrat's role as majority whip, along with his chairmanship of the Energy Committee, as a result of the unprovoked assault.

Racial and ethnic diversity is the key to happiness, success in the global marketplace and, not least, an interesting life. So we are told in a batch of new "fair housing" radio ads that are the sort of treacly propaganda that cause sober drivers to run off the road. Presented as a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act, the ads were produced by the National Fair Housing Alliance, a private, nonprofit group whose stated purpose is to make sure the act is properly implemented. The act bans housing discrimination and imposes stiff penalties for those who...

It's been a win-win the past few days for Democratic and Republican loyalists, but what about the rest of us? You know. Americans who either don't think that (a) spending nonexistent trillions is quite the way to proceed in an economic crisis, or that (b) Rush Limbaugh is the messiah. Oh wait, that's right, Barack Obama is the messiah. I get confused sometimes, what with so much deification going on. Limbaugh's 85-minute speech at last weekend's Conservative Political Action Conference, frequently interrupted by grateful applause from a slightly star-struck audience, was, dare we say it, Obama- esque. But where there's...

U.S. Senate Votes to Uphold Second Amendment in Washington, D.C. Thursday, February 26, 2009 Fairfax, Va. - The United States Senate has voted, with overwhelming bipartisan support, to adopt an amendment offered by Senator John Ensign (R-NV) that seeks to protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens in the District of Columbia. The amendment, attached to S.160, the D.C. Voting Rights Act, will repeal restrictive gun control laws passed by the District of Columbia's (D.C.) city council after the landmark D.C. v. Heller Supreme Court decision. The vote margin was 62-36. "Today's vote brings us one step closer to...

The middle-aged Florida masseuse accused of shooting a retired Hingham cop and dismembering his body was a lonely heart who kept homing pigeons as pets, sang religious songs and was losing her home to foreclosure, according to her Web site and neighbors. Dianne Parker, 55, who ran a shoestring record company out of her Malabar, Fla., home, made her initial court appearance yesterday following her arrest Friday on charges of first-degree murder and abuse of a dead body.

Parks, D.C. Dragging Their Feet The Heller case struck down D.C.'s ban on handguns, and its ban on having a loaded firearm in your home. The D.C. government is still trying hard to discourage gun use without directly violating the Heller decision. For example, their latest gun control law would require gun owners to re-register their guns every three years, continues their longstanding ban on "assault weapons," require completion of a gun safety course, and have a background check done every six years.1 While gun registration is clearly constitutional, some of these provisions, simply because they impose a repeated cost...

So, Kathleen Parker has determined that getting rid of social conservatives and shelving the values they fight for is the solution to what ails the Republican Party (“Giving Up on God,” Nov. 19). Isn’t that a little like Benedict Arnold handing George Washington a battle plan to win the Revolution? Whatever she once was, Ms. Parker is certainly not a conservative anymore....

<p>To my friend Kathleen Parker — This act is getting really old.</p> <p>As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.</p> <p>Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D.</p> <p>I'm bathing in holy water as I type.</p>

For a number of weeks now, conservative Beltway insiders Kathleen Parker and Peggy Noonan, among others, have narrowed their sights not on the Democratic candidate for president, but the Republican candidate’s running mate. Sarah Palin has brought out something in them that rivals the ‘80s sitcom Full House when it comes to the shudder factor. Why beautiful, accomplished women like Parker and Noonan would join the MSM pile-on of the beautiful, accomplished woman from Alaska is, on its face, confusing. But for anyone who knows anything about how DC works, maybe it’s not so confusing after all....

Moms 4 McCain & Palin Announces KATHLEEN PARKER HAS DONE IT AGAIN! Again, today in Townhall.com Ms. Parker attacks McCain - Palin. Parker's psychobabble drivel, for which she is eminently unqualified to conjure up (no self-respecting psychiatrist would attempt such an embarrassing display of know-it-all hubris without a series of clinical examinations of the "patient"), is an embarrassment for Townhall to grant space on its otherwise creditable site. As long as Parker has chosen attractive women as her subject, she might have been better off examining and "diagnosing" how the self-loathing of women causes them to be distrustful of other (especially attractive) women,...

My husband called it first. Then, a brilliant 75-year-old scholar and raconteur confessed to me over wine: "I'm sexually attracted to her. I don't care that she knows nothing."Finally, writer Robert Draper closed the file on the Sarah Palin mystery with a devastating article in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine: "The Making (and Remaking) of McCain."McCain didn't know her. He didn't vet her. His campaign team had barely an impression. . . . . .As my husband observed early on, McCain the mortal couldn't mind having an attractive woman all but singing arias to his greatness. Cameras frequently capture...

<p>WASHINGTON–A conservative columnist who welcomed Sarah Palin's entry in national politics says she's proven to be a dud and should step aside as Republican presidential candidate John McCain's running mate.</p> <p>Kathleen Parker, writing in the National Review Online, says her "cringe reflex is exhausted" after watching the Alaska governor stumble through TV interviews and it's become clear to her that Palin is out of her league.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The man whose lawsuit overturned Washington's handgun ban has successfully registered his revolver, ending a more than 30-year wait to keep the weapon in his home. Dick Heller walked out of D.C. police headquarters Monday, clutching a yellow firearms registration certificate stamped "approved." He gave the thumbs-up sign, grinned and said, "Victory!" Heller was among the first people to seek a gun permit under new rules adopted after the Supreme Court struck down the city's 32-year-old handgun ban in June. Heller was the plaintiff in that case.

The director of the FBI is not happy with the Supreme Court's recent handgun ruling. Robert Mueller says he tends to believe that "weapons harm people, and more often than not they harm the people carrying them." Mueller said the high court's decision, which threw out a handgun ban in Washington, D.C., "does throw a lot of things up in the air." Mueller said communities will now have to decide their own licensing programs. Mueller was speaking at a convention of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators in Hartford, Connecticut. He says with his grandchildren going to college,...

Liberals, who hate guns almost as much as they hate cars, got a well-deserved lesson in Second Amendment rights when the Supreme Court spit in their face by ruling that the Constitution really does guarantee the right of Americans to own guns. The ruling, which struck down the District of Columbia’s laws almost totally restricting handgun ownership, affirmed the traditional view that the Second Amendment means exactly what it says when it guarantees "the right of the people to keep and bear arms." The avid gun-grabbers have long insisted that the accompanying clause, “A well regulated militia being necessary to...

On Today's Show Rep. Mike Pence Melanie Morgan To talk with Sean during his show (3-6PM EST) call: 800.941.7326

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, with talent on loan from G-d, at the cutting-edge of societal evolution, with half his brain tied behind his back — just to make it fair, the all-knowing, all-caring, all-sensing, all-feeling,...

In the most important decision about the Second Amendment in the history of the United States, the Supreme Court today released its decision today, affirming the simple-but-monumental fact that this vital piece of the Bill of Rights guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms. Of course, this is the Heller case -- the D.C. gun ban case, if you prefer. In Washington, D.C., handguns are banned, and citizens there are prohibited from having any functional firearm in their homes, even for self-defense. In a well-planned lawsuit challenging that ban on the basis of the Second Amendment, attorney Alan...

(CNSNews.com) - In a 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday made its first definitive pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history by ruling that Americans have the right to own guns for self-defense and hunting. In the court's majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that firearm for traditionally lawful purposes. But while a person has a constitutional right to own guns, that new right is not unlimited, Scalia wrote. The Supreme Court's last review of the Second Amendment --...

NEWS FROM THE SECOND AMENDMENT SISTERS 900 R.R. 620 S Suite C101, Box 228 Lakeway, TX 78734 World Wide Web: http://www.2asisters.org ============================== FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 06/26/2008 ============================== For additional information contact: Marinelle Thompson, President & Founder Phone: 877-271-6216 E-mail: mthompson@2asisters.org ============================== Lakeway, TX – SAS Applauds the Supreme Court Decision in DC vs HellerMarinelle Thompson, President and Founder, states “Second Amendment Sisters applauds the ruling by the Supreme Court today that the Second Amendment declares the right to bear arms to be a personal right, and not a collective right. We will now continue to work toward removing all...

Republican Presidential Candidate Singles Out Chicago In Statement Praising Supreme Court Ruling - Gun Rights Ruling May Change Chicago Law - ARLINGTON, Va. (CBS) ― U.S. Sen. John McCain said Thursday that the Supreme Court ruling in favor of gun ownership showed that the Chicago handgun ban has "infringed on the constitutional rights of Americans." The presumptive Republican presidential nominee called the ruling a "landmark victory for Second Amendment freedom in the United States." "For the first time in the history of our Republic, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was...

The U.S. Supreme Court today did not release its long-awaited ruling on whether the District's handgun ban violates the Second Amendment. That means the potentially landmark decision will almost certainly come tomorrow morning when the court is planning to issue the last of its rulings for the term............."

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon rule on whether Washington, D.C.'s decades-old handgun ban is constitutional. It's been nearly 70 years since the high court has heard a firearms case that tests the scope of the Second Amendment. The outcome of this one, D.C. v. Heller, will have extraordinary implications —- not just for the District, but for the ability of cities to respond effectively to gun violence. If more evidence is needed that the stakes could not be higher, a steady drumbeat of headlines is supplying it. In the first few days of March alone, just before the justices...

A decision in Heller vs. The District, the landmark Second Amendment case before the Supreme Court, will be announced tomorrow. RELATED LINKS: Heller Will Win Big In June. How Big?

There is very little information that can be gleaned with confidence about the authorship of the remaining opinions from the Term. It does look exceptionally likely that Justice Scalia is writing the principal opinion for the Court in Heller – the D.C. guns case. That is the only opinion remaining from the sitting and he is the only member of the Court not to have written a majority opinion from the sitting. There is no indication that he lost a majority from March. His only dissent from the sitting is for two Justices in Indiana v. Edwards. So, that’s a...

The Supreme Court’s next scheduled opinion day, Monday, June 16, could yield a decision in the landmark Second Amendment case of D.C. v. Heller. My guess is that we’ll see Heller on or after June 23, at the very end of the Term. I guess that simply because Heller is the biggest case of the year, it raises wide-open constitutional issues, and it was argued late in the Term, in mid-March. Either way, here are key points to look for when the opinions arrive. As you’ll see, many of them only come into play if a majority of the Court...

In its first comprehensive look at the Second Amendment right to bear arms, the Supreme Court is expected to rule next week on the constitutionality of Washington, D.C.'s ban on handguns. The District of Columbia's ban is considered the nation's strictest gun-control law. A ruling by the court to strike it down could threaten other gun-control measures across the country, including laws that ban machine guns or assault weapons. Although the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791, the court has never definitively said what it means to have the right to keep and bear arms. The current dispute over gun...

This month, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide District of Columbia v. Heller, the most important Second Amendment case in the court's history. More than five years ago, six Washington, D.C., residents challenged the constitutionality of the city's 32-year ban on all functional firearms in the home. If the challenge is successful, it will mean the court has revisited and perhaps reversed United States v. Miller, the second most important Second Amendment case in the court's history. For nearly seven decades, gun controllers and gun rights advocates alike have struggled to apply the murky doctrines propounded by Justice...

The Supreme Court's upcoming decision in a Washington, D.C. handgun ban case could potentially nullify thousands of gun laws on the books. The case stems from a security guard who was denied a request to keep a firearm in his District residence for self-protection.Washington D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty recently said that the District's handgun ban "has saved many lives since 1976 and will continue to do so if allowed to remain in force." How does he measure that? The truth is that murder by handguns has gone up substantially in the District since the handgun ban was passed. I wonder...

Most Americans believe that owning a gun is the right of every citizen. According to a Gallup poll, 73 percent of the U.S. public believe that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to gun ownership. Therefore the Heller decision, which is expected any day now, could play a pivotal role in the 2008 presidential campaign. Former Ohio Secretary of State-turned-pundit Kenneth Blackwell calls it "the Roe v. Wade" of gun rights and suggests that the case (and its results) will ripple beyond District borders to impact "90 million American gun owners." It was six D.C. residents, fed up with...

Tomorrow is Monday, US Supreme Court is expected to hand down more decision with 17 still pending. Will it happen tomorrow? What do you think it might say? Will they take a cheap way out and just uphold the lower court without comment? Will they hand us some unbelievably complicated ruling that will only serve to muddy the waters further? Will it be the golden STFU ruling we need to hand the liberals and the anti-gunner types their collective heads? All bets are on!

The nation's leading gun control group filed a "friend of the court" brief back in January defending the gun ban in Washington, D.C. But with the Supreme Court poised to hand down a potentially landmark decision in the case, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence fully expects to lose. "We've lost the battle on what the Second Amendment means," campaign president Paul Helmke told ABC News. "Seventy-five percent of the public thinks it's an individual right. Why are we arguing a theory anymore? We are concerned about what we can do practically." While the Brady Campaign is waving the...

However, Public Still Favors Stricter Gun Control ROCHESTER, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court decision concerning the Second Amendment expected at some point this month, The Harris Poll® finds that by a margin of over two to one, more U.S. adults believe that the Second Amendment supports an individual’s right to bear arms. Furthermore, the survey also finds that more of the U.S. public continues to favor stricter gun control. However, concerning the impact on the election, the public seems to be split on which presidential candidate would do a better job handling gun control. These are the...

The Supreme Court is meeting to issue opinions and announce whether it has accepted any new cases. Major cases still undecided include the rights of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the ban on handguns in Washington, D.C., and whether people convicted of raping children can be given the death penalty. The court's term ends in late June.

May 5th, 2008; Washington Township, NJ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: Robert Kreisler In a stunning first-of-its-kind announcement, the New Jersey Coalition for Self Defense (NJCSD) predicts that the Supreme Court Of The United States (SCOTUS) will confirm an individual right interpretation of the 2nd Amendment in Heller vs. DC, foreshadowing an end to decades of acrimonious debate over the meaning of what is widely considered to be a core principle for many Americans. Using an advanced market research method known as a KJ analysis (named after its creator, Kawakita Jiro) a team of five analysts independently reviewed the statements...

The Second Amendment is only 27 words long — the same as this paragraph — yet the United States Supreme Court has never fully explained what the words mean. That may change in June, as could the legal landscape and political strategies of gun-rights advocates. The court that month is expected to rule on the constitutionality of a handgun ban in Washington, D.C. In reviewing the case of District of Columbia v. Heller, a majority of justices have signaled a willingness to accept that the Second Amendment guarantees law-abiding Americans an “individual right” to own firearms — not just the...

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...

Like everyone, I’m on pins and needles to see the decision, all the speculation is fun but meaningless, but fun. Yes, the Court seemed favorable to an individual right and overturning the D.C. total gun ban, even the lamestream media picked that up. But then you have to think about the Kelo decision (eminent domain) and McCain-Feingold (free-speech ban before an election), and it’s got to worry you. There’s no crystal ball. The biggest problem I see is difficulty the Court faces in recognizing Second Amendment rights to invalidate the D.C. law, and somehow limiting that decision so laws don’t...

It is 1992, and schoolmates Yoshihiro Hattori and Webb Haymaker have been invited to a Halloween party. Yoshi, a 16-year-old exchange student and avid dancer, wears a white tuxedo like John Travolta's in Saturday Night Fever. By mistake, they stop at a house up the block from their destination. No one answers the doorbell. Inside are Rodney and Bonnie Peairs. She opens a side door momentarily, sees the boys, and yells to her husband, "Get the gun." He does (it is a .44 magnum Smith & Wesson revolver) and reopens the door. Yoshi and Webb, by now back at the...

On March 18, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in District of Columbia v. Heller, a case challenging handgun-control statutes adopted in 1976 in Washington, D.C. The question before the Court is whether the District's prohibition of further registration of handguns, its ban on the carrying of concealed guns, and its mandate that guns kept in homes remain unloaded and either locked or disassembled violate citizens' rights that are guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the Constitution. What we do about handguns is of course a question of public policy. Because of the Second Amendment, it is also...

It is a most dangerous game we’re playing here. The major news outlets seemed to agree with my assessment (and I went out on a limb with that, 12 hours before any of them), that the High Court seemed ready and willing to unequivocally affirm an individual right to keep and bear arms. [NOTE: see my pre-game and post-game eyewitness reports here: http://www.PageNine.org] But it doesn’t end there -- it barely starts there. If the Court affirms, does that mean Gun Laws of America (listing every federal gun law, with plain-English descriptions), is erased? How much of it becomes null...

24 Hours Prior to Heller Case by Alan Korwin, Co-Author Supreme Court Gun Cases More people are on line in front of the U.S. Supreme Court for the D.C. gun ban case tomorrow than seats are available, and the temperature is hovering above freezing, but that's not stopping them. Bob Blackmer and I were the first to arrive, Sunday night about 5 p.m., answering the big question of -- Would two nights in advance be enough -- aside from did we have endurance to pull that off. A few moments later, Jason and Dan arrived from Pennsylvania with sleeping bags...

The Second Amendment to the Constitution, now under consideration by the U.S. Supreme Court in the District of Columbia v. Heller case, raises a grammatical question as well as a legal question. The grammatical structure of this one sentence Amendment creates two arguable meanings. Did it created a collective right of the people "to keep and bear arms" as members of a "well regulated militia?" Or did it created and individual right for each American "to keep and bear arms?" The First Amendment affirmatively and clearly states that "Congress shall make no law" respecting religion, or abridging the freedoms of...

How incredible it is that in the U.S., where so many people have been killed by gunfire for decades, the country's Supreme Court is just now getting around to deciding what the constitutional right to have and carry guns means. Last week, the court indicated that it's ready to interpret the Second Amendment. It was seized with an appeal from a federal appeals court ruling last year that declared the District of Columbia's near-ban on handguns unconstitutional. There's been a lot of controversy already about what the amendment means because of the way it's written: "A well regulated Militia, being...

Technically, the challenge is to a District of Columbia handgun ban. Realistically, the U.S. Supreme Court last week heard oral arguments and took under advisement a case that could have historic ramifications for the right to bear arms. Is that right restricted to a "well regulated militia," or does it embrace private ownership by individuals? The early indication is that the justices are leaning toward the latter. The case is known as District of Columbia v. Heller. Dick Anthony Heller is an Army veteran and security guard at a federal building in the nation's capital. Because of the District of...