Free Republic

For years, I was what we lefties in Texas refer to as, "A bright blue dot in a big red state." I believe in recycling, social services, a woman's right to choose, and immigration. I spent a lot of time defending these things around my red friends, and bemoaning this defense around my fellow blue dots. And then I bought a gun, and everything changed. I was shamed by the blue dots and consoled by the red. I turned purple. When my fellow blue dots found out I owned a gun, they were shocked. Gape-mouthed and stunned to speechlessness, they...

In the wake of the outlaw biker shootout in Waco, Texas, where nine bikers were killed, the law blog Chicago Now suggested all gun owners should have to pass a test and get a license—which is what potential gun owners are also required to do in Chicago. The license Chicago gun owners get is a Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) card. By the way, 49 people were shot in Chicago over the weekend.

NEW LONDON, Conn. (Reuters) - Rising seas and thawing permafrost caused by warmer global temperatures threaten U.S. military bases and will change the way the U.S. armed services defend the country, President Barack Obama said on Wednesday. In a commencement address at the United States Coast Guard Academy, Obama underscored the risks to national security posed by climate change, one of his top priorities for action in his remaining 19 months in office. "The threat of a changing climate cuts to the very core of your service," Obama told the 224 graduating cadets, who studied the impacts of global warming...

In the wake of the Sunday shootout between outlaw biker gangs in Waco, Texas, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America is stressing that outlaw biker gangs would not have guns if legislators expanded background checks. According to The Hill, Moms Demand Action’s Texas leader, Angela Turner, said, “There is no single solution to ending gun violence, but we do know that background checks on all gun sales save lives and keep guns out of the wrong hands.”

Rep. John Delaney was in Hagerstown Wednesday to pitch his proposal for long-term funding of transportation and other infrastructure projects by repatriating the overseas earnings of American corporations. "There hasn't been anything really transformative to put a lot of money into infrastructure," Delaney, D-Md., told a small group of businesspeople at Bulls & Bears restaurant. He pointed out that the federal gas tax — the primary source of revenue for the Highway Trust Fund — has not been increased since the early 1990s, in part, because it is politically unpopular. It also is a regressive tax that hits lower-income people...

Four US presidential candidates identify as fundamentalist Christians and reject of the creation of a Palestinian state On 14 May, Pope Francis officially recognised Palestinian statehood in a new treaty. The Palestinians refer to this day, 14 May, as Nakba Day or the Day of the Catastrophe when nearly a million Palestinians were forced from their homes and villages into exile. Nakba Day, in the Gregorian calendar, is the day following Israel’s declaration of independence and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Pope Francis’ motive in the recognition of Palestine serves at least two purposes. Clearly and...

Mandy Cowie, 49, is given around £22,000-a-year in state handouts She wants her children to have five babies each so she can be supported She said: 'Ten kids and full of tattoos mate. So what if I'm on the effing dole mate - don't like it, eff off' On Channel 5 show her children also brag about milking benefits system A single mother with ten children from five different fathers has said she wants 50 grandchildren so they can become Britain's biggest benefits family. Mandy Cowie, 49, who is given around £22,000-a-year in state handouts, believes encouraging her own children...

The ceaseless torrent of anti-gun commentary from the New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, and other “mainstream” media outlets, apparently isn’t enough for billionaire firearm prohibitionist Michael Bloomberg. On May 8, Capital reported that the ex-mayor of New York is developing a “news operation” to work alongside his Everytown for Gun Safety organization in furtherance of his megalomaniacal gun control agenda.

This weekend’s shootout between rival biker gangs in Waco, Texas has reopened the debate about gun control in the US. But experience shows this is the only country in the world that reacts to mass shootings by relaxing gun laws

Clever Construction in Rorqual Whales by Brian Thomas, M.S. * A few years ago, scientists discovered a unique sensory organ in the jaw of a rorqual whale—the world's largest creature. Rorqual whales, which include the blue whale and fin whale, feed by ballooning out folds of tissue that bag gobs of krill from fertile ocean waters. Some of those researchers recently described the unique bungee-cord-like nerve construction that illustrates clever and intentional design.

Liberals, please stop it with the Iraq war lies. There is plenty of criticism that can be leveled against George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003, but he didn’t deliberately mislead the country about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction (WMD). With the new cool question for 2016 Republican contenders being “knowing what we know now, would you have invaded Iraq,” the debate about pre-Iraq war intelligence has once again come to the forefront. Predictably, some liberals have used the occasion to again trot out the wholly dishonest spin that the Bush administration concocted evidence and pressured the...

In addition to great biceps, Michelle ‘Black Girls Rock’ Obama also has thin skin. Seems Mrs. Obama has given up food monitoring and instead is on the speaking circuit, where she is attempting to groom African-Americans to be as unforgiving and hypersensitive as she is.

"..........Indeed, The Libertarian Mind is a mixture of “whatever” the individual deems to be his interest. “Whatever” can consist of the reasonable libertarian outcry against big government and abusive regulations, or its excellent affirmation of free markets, rule of law and property rights. But “whatever” also consists of the throwing off of moral restraints that inhibit gratification and self-interest. Thus, the author obsesses about the urgent need for same-sex “marriage,” the end to pornography restrictions, and the right to legal drug use.Throughout his explanation,...(h)abits like drug abuse, for example, are only seen from the individual’s perspective of happiness and not...

A Dark Vision: ISIS War Front on American Soil? By Erick Stakelbeck CBN News Correspondent Monday, May 18, 2015 WASHINGTON -- U.S.-led airstrikes may have slowed ISIS's advance in the Middle East, but the brutal terrorist movement continues to attract followers around the world. ISIS has made no secret of its desire to attack America and it's putting foot soldiers in place to make that dark vision a reality. After two ISIS supporters attempted to storm a Mohammed cartoon drawing contest and murder everyone inside earlier this month in Garland, Texas, the Islamic State was quick to claim responsibility for...

Right now, there's a well-organized, below-the-radar effort to render the Electoral College effectively useless. It's called the National Popular Vote, and it would turn our presidential elections into a majority-rule affair. Would this be good or bad? Author, lawyer, and Electoral College expert Tara Ross explains. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXnjGD7j2B0TranscriptIn every presidential election, only one question matters: which candidate will get the 270 votes needed to win the Electoral College? Our Founders so deeply feared a tyranny of the majority that they rejected the idea of a direct vote for President. That's why they created the Electoral College. For more than two centuries...

Graduation day at Rutgers University is a chance for students to relax after four years of college and celebrate with family and friends before entering the real world. Or, when Bill Nye is the keynote speaker, it's a reminder that the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is rising and its future may be a "no-way-out overheated globe." Nye, the bow-tied host of "Bill Nye The Science Guy," used his speech at Rutgers' commencement Sunday as a platform to tell students they must find a way to stop climate change.

A civil-liberties group is demanding a two-star Air Force general be court-martialed for mentioning God at a National Day of Prayer Task Force speech on May 7. Despite the religious nature of the event, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has called for Olson to be “aggressively and very visibly brought to justice for his unforgivable crimes and transgressions,” adding that any other service members who helped him should be investigated and punished “to the full extent of military law.”

It's been a troubling semester, but not because many of my students passively and/or actively resist the knowledge that I try to pass on to them.  It's been frustrating not merely because government regulations and mandates have made me into a secretary filling out a myriad of online forms.  It's been disheartening not only because leftist propaganda surrounds me and I am but one small voice in the academic desert trying to teach true American core values. No, it's been a sad and sometimes heartbreaking semester because many college students' assorted troubles are related to the fact that they are...

Rap star Jay Z has quietly sent thousands of dollars to help bail out protesters from Baltimore’s jail system, a writer who worked with him on his 2010 memoir said. Dream Hampton, who helped Jay Z author “Decoded,” revealed the rapper’s cash infusions via Twitter. The messages were shortly after deleted – but not before the hip-hop magazine Complex picked them up and reported them, Agence France-Presse said. Among the tweets: “When we needed money for bail for Baltimore protesters, I … hit Jay up, as I had for Ferguson [and he] wired tens of thousands [of dollars].”

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.Clip on a nametag, pick up a paper cup of lukewarm water and you can sit down in the audience at a thousand liberal Jewish establishment panels where the likes of Peter Beinart or Jeffrey Goldberg will sanctimoniously lecture their bored audience on the growing gap between American Jews and Israel.Yawn through the usual references to “settlements”, “democratic character” and “one state solution.” Wake up just in time for the sales pitch for J Street and tough love BDS for...