Free Republic

Rahm Emanuel does not plan to run for governor of Illinois. Not in 2014. Not ever. His proposal last week to register all Illinois handguns made it obvious. I'm sure that Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, wouldn't consider taking the step down to governor anyway — not any more than his predecessor, Richard M. Daley. You can be sure that Chicago mayors do see it as a demotion. Only one has ever stooped down to the Governor's Mansion and that was almost a century ago: ex-Mayor Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne served as governor from 1913-17. No wonder. Chicago mayors wield enormous...

Manasquan, NJ --(Ammoland.com)- According to the State of New Jersey, one must show a “justifiable need” to be granted a concealed carry permit to carry a handgun. In this author’s opinion, the defense of my life and the lives of my family and other loved ones is my “justifiable need”. Poor, Average and Unconnected Need Not Apply Amazingly enough in the State of New Jersey there is a polar opposite view. The way the judges and politicians see it, my life is not important enough to defend against a criminal in a threatening situation. However, the judges and politicians see...

The United Nations continually claims that their arms control treaty efforts are not directed at curtailing legal private ownership of guns. However, in a practice gun destruction exercise 4,000 firearms were destroyed in Jamaica in early February under the auspices of the UN Center For Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean.(UNLIREC) The United Nations has instituted a 10 day Training Course designed to help implement international “treaties” for gun control in Jamaica and throughout the Caribbean. Each session is led by a UN gun control trainer. The courses objectives are to give police technical skills related...

MARK FIORINO was legally carrying his .40-caliber Glock on his hip as he walked along Frankford Avenue on Feb. 13, 2011, when he was stopped by Philadelphia police, who pointed a gun at him, harassed him and handcuffed him. Today, he plans to file a civil suit against the department for the incident. Fiorino, who recorded his 45-minute confrontation with police and posted it on YouTube, is suing for "violation of his constitutional rights to be free from unlawful searches, excessive force and malicious prosecution," according to the complaint filed on his behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union. "Since...

RUSH: This is from Rayford, North Carolina. Carolina Journal. I'm gonna read it to you exactly as it printed out here: "A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because a state employee told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious. The girl’s turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips and apple juice did not meet US Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the agent who was inspecting all lunch boxes in her More at Four classroom that day." Again, let me read this to you again: "The...

A mother in Hoke County complains her daughter was forced to eat a school lunch because a government inspector determined her home-made lunch did not meet nutrition requirements. In fact, all of the students in the NC Pre-K program classroom at West Hoke Elementary School in Raeford had to accept a school lunch in addition to their lunches brought from home.

Illinois state Sen. Jeff Schoenberg (D-Evanston) has endorsed Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's proposal to create a statewide gun registry in order to decrease gun violence, according to a news release issued Friday. Emanuel proposed requiring gun owners to register each handgun in their possession at a fee of $65 per gun. Currently, Chicago's gun control laws ban weapon sales in the city and prohibit people from taking guns out of their homes. For 28 years Chicago banned gun ownership entirely, until the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that policy in June 2010. Prospective Illinois gun owners must obtain a firearm owner's...

When Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association (NRA), spoke at CPAC on February 10th, he predicted that if Barack Obama wins a second term it will usher in an all-out attack on the Second Amendment. In so many words, he said the same people who brought us Fast and Furious, “a criminal enterprise” for which there has yet to be prosecutions, will use four more years to gut constitutional protections on the right to keep and bear arms. And anyone who wonders what this assault on the Second Amendment might look like need look no further...

Just days after appearing on the National Geographic TV Show Doomsday Prepper, a prepper from Tennessee has been declared Mentally Defective and his guns have been seized by the government. The Prepper, David Sarti is a character to say the least, but his story is somewhat disturbing and should be a wake up call for everyone. Personally I think these shows are designed to make these people look crazy. Whether his appearance on the show played into Mr. Sarti’s diagnosis isn’t yet clear, but apparently the State believed he was a danger to himself after a local doctor insisted that...

And we're the ones, the old-fashioned conservatives, we want to deny people a good time, we want to deny people fun, we want to deny people all these things in life. So we have yet another example of life in America under the thumb of an ever-expanding state with central planning, otherwise known as "well-intentioned liberalism." From violating religious rights where there is no power permitted to do so, to mandating the purchase of products, to now mandating insurance companies sell certain products at a price that's also mandated, from czars, to denying the right to travel, it's all here....

The pro-life movement has long argued the inextricable link between the right to life and the other two rights affirmed in our Declaration of Independence.  There is a reason, we have argued, the Founding Fathers intentionally wed “life� to “liberty� and “the pursuit of happiness.�  The “unalienable rights� of the Declaration are derived from our being “created equal� by a “Creator� who “endowed� us with “certain unalienable rights.� Without the first of these rights, there is no basis for the second and third.  Our liberty as Americans is based upon our identity as human persons.  We have been given...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I'm realizing some of you might not a-heard it if the local EIB affiliates cut away to cover the president who also appeared shortly after this program began. And one of the themes my opening comments was reacting to everywhere I'm seeing in the media that Obama finally backed down. "Obama caved. Yes, he did! We talked him back down. He no longer... He can't tell the Catholic Church what to do. Obama got the message. Obama, he's slinking away in shame." I said, "No, he's not," and no, he did not cave in any way, shape,...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Jerry on Long Island in New York, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello, sir. CALLER: Rush, mega, mega dittos from New York. Thank you for taking my call. It's a thrill to be speaking to you. RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much. CALLER: A huge thrill. Thank you very much. RUSH: You bet. CALLER: I was telling Snerdley, your opening monologues are usually amazing but this morning's was brilliant, and I think it should be distributed to every high school student in this country. Because it was absolutely conservatism on parade this morning, and if our candidates...

The Cleveland Plain Dealer is reporting that the Ohio Supreme Court (OSC) has declined to hear the case of a 55-year-old Cleveland homeowner convicted in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court last year of killing an intruder. In 2010, Carl Kozlosky was convicted by a Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court jury and sentenced last year to 18 years to life in prison for the shooting death of Andre Coleman on Sept. 20, 2009. Last fall, the 8th Ohio District Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Kozlosky, saying there was overwhelming evidence that he had acted in self-defense. "Under the...

I think the Department of Homeland Security just called me a terrorist. Not only me, but millions of other law-abiding Americans, not to mention Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington, Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and Patrick Henry, among others.

While attempting to seize guns from a man accused of domestic violence, Chichester and Epsom police officers took away firearms belonging to his family members instead, in violation of their civil rights, according to allegations contained in a lawsuit. Four members of Michael Martel Jr.'s family say he wasn't living in their Chichester home last August when officers stormed in, taking about a dozen guns, including one from his father's holster, according to their attorney, Richard Lehmann. It took the family 10 weeks to retrieve their firearms, according to the suit, during which time the family members suffered "injuries including...

A Massachusetts woman says the FBI used a chain saw blade to cut through her door and held her at gunpoint for at least 30 minutes before agents realized they were conducting a raid at the wrong home. Judy Sanchez, of Fitchburg, says she awoke to heavy footsteps in the stairwell on Jan. 26 and walked into her kitchen in time to see a blade chop through her door. "I took two steps, face the second door, and I heard the click of a gun, and saying, ‘FBI, get down,’ so I laid down on my living room floor,” Sanchez...

A Montara man walking two lapdogs off leash was hit with an electric-shock gun by a National Park Service ranger after allegedly giving a false name and trying to walk away, authorities said Monday. The park ranger encountered Gary Hesterberg with his two small dogs Sunday afternoon at Rancho Corral de Tierra, which was recently incorporated into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, said Howard Levitt, a spokesman for the park service. Hesterberg, who said he didn't have identification with him, allegedly gave the ranger a false name, Levitt said. The ranger, who wasn't identified, asked Hesterberg to remain at...

LAS CRUCES — A jailed New Mexico gun store owner accused of selling weapons that made it into the hands of Mexican cartels says he is on a hunger strike. Ian Garland wrote in a letter to the Las Cruces Sun-News that he won’t eat until he is allowed visits from his lawyers and the media. “I have been in a 6-by-12 room for 316 days in maximum security for making legal and lawful sales to people who have lied to me, they even admitted they lied, so why am I here?” he wrote.

Not an actual photo ​Every once in a while, amid the stacks of semi-literate, pro se habeas corpus petitions, trademark suits and product liability complaints, there comes a federal filing so disturbing, so completely awful, that it leaves the reader with nothing but questions. This week, it's Danny Cantu v. The City of Dallas and a whole passel of named and unnamed police officers. According to the complaint, which made its way to Courthouse News yesterday, Cantu, a diesel mechanic, was making his lunch January 22, 2010, when he saw a few cops streaking across his yard. A deafening...

A New Mexico man who said he was forced to pull his own tooth while in solitary confinement because he was denied access to a dentist has been awarded $22 million due to inhumane treatment by New Mexico's Dona Ana County Jail. Stephen Slevin was arrested in August of 2005 for driving while intoxicated, then thrown in jail for two years. He was in solitary at Dona Ana County Jail for his entire sentence and basically forgotten about and never given a trial, he told NBC station KOB.com Tuesday night. "'[Jail guards were] walking by me every day, watching me...

Gannett Newspaper - Link Only: http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120124/NEWS01/301240020/Rand-Paul-says-Nashville-airport-went-too-far-after-he-refused-pat-down?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

Now this is a real stickup! The owner of a discount store in Brooklyn says the city is holding him up for $30,000 in fines he can’t afford — all because he stocked six toy sheriff sets that included plastic guns. And now the .44-caliber fines for the orange-tipped, obvious fakes are forcing him to close for good. “It doesn’t make any sense,” said Khaled Mohamed, 23, manager of 99¢ Target in Flatlands, which has been ordered to pay a staggering $5,000 fine for each gun offered for sale — the maximum under the law. The rule is designed to...

A friend of mine recently forwarded me a question a friend of his had posed: "If/when our Federal Government comes to pilfer, pillage, plunder our property and destroy our lives, what good can a handgun do against an army with advanced weaponry, tanks, missiles, planes, or whatever else they might have at their disposal to achieve their nefarious goals? (I'm not being facetious: I accept the possibility that what happened in Germany, or similar, could happen here; I'm just not sure that the potential good from an armed citizenry in such a situation outweighs the day-to-day problems caused by masses...

The Mayor of Newark, New Jersey is making an offer he hopes city residents cannot refuse -- report your gun-owning neighbor, get $1,000. In a video, Mayor Cory Booker holds ten $100 bills as he explains how the new program works. People just have to anonymously call a number to report someone with an illegal gun and they get the dough. Here is the video:

INDIANAPOLIS -- A Senate committee voted unanimously Tuesday morning in support of a bill that would allow homeowners to use force to resist an illegal police entry. The bill comes after a controversial Supreme Court decision in May that held that current Indiana law didn't allow homeowners to violently resist police officers under any circumstances. The bill specifies under what circumstances police could enter a home: with a warrant, in pursuit of a fleeing criminal suspect, to prevent someone from being harmed or at the invitation of a resident. Otherwise, a resident could use reasonable force, including a gun if...

Justice Samuel Alito seemed none too pleased last week with the government’s argument in a case pitting property owners against the Environmental Protection Agency. Four years ago, Mike and Chantell Sackett bought property to build their dream home near a lake in Idaho. After obtaining local permits the Sacketts began work, pouring in some land fill. But their work came to a screeching halt when they were visited by officials from the Environmental Protection Agency. The couple was slapped with a compliance order asserting that the land is subject to the Clean Water Act and that they had illegally placed...

Under the National Operations Center (NOC)’s Media Monitoring Initiative that emerged from the Department of Homeland Security in November, Washington has written permission to collect and retain personal information from journalists, news anchors, reporters or anyone who uses “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.” According to DHS, the definition of personal identifiable information can consist of any intellect “that permits the identity of an individual to be directly or indirectly inferred, including any information which is linked or linkable to that individual.” RT adds: "Previously established guidelines within the administration say...

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683   Federal Court Upholds Obama/Holder Gun Registration Scheme; Congressional Action Needed   Friday, January 13, 2012   Moments before this alert was to go out, a federal district court in Washington, D.C. issued a ruling upholding an Obama administration policy that requires federally licensed firearms retailers in states bordering Mexico to report multiple sales of semi-automatic rifles.  The case was brought by two NRA-backed firearms retailers and by the National Shooting Sports Foundation acting on behalf of its affected members.  Plaintiffs plan to appeal immediately—but in the meantime, your help is urgently...

It's unclear exactly why, but the Department of Homeland has been operating a "Social Networking/Media Capability" program to monitor the top blogs, forums and social networks online for at least the past 18 months. Based on a privacy compliance review from last November recently obtained by Reuters, the purpose of the project is to "collect information used in providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture." Whatever that means. Either way, the list of sites reported by Reuters reveals in a Wednesday afternoon exclusive is pretty intriguing...

<p>An Ohio man who has a gun permit in his home state is the latest city tourist to be caught in the web of New York’s strict gun laws, The Post has learned.</p> <p>Fred Vankirk, 59, of Columbus, was slapped with handcuffs at about 11 a.m. Saturday after cops found two .357 Magnum pistols and a .45 semiautomatic in his room at the Radisson Hotel on Lexington Avenue near East 48th Street, police sources said.</p>

Since 2007, Mike and Chantell Sackett have been fighting to build their dream home on the Idaho lot they bought years ago. The Sacketts say they had gotten local permits and spent thousands prepping the land for construction - then the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) showed up. The EPA told the Sacketts their property contained wetlands and issued a compliance order mandating that they return it to its original state or risk facing fines starting at $37,500 per day. The Sacketts say they were stunned, and asked the EPA for a hearing on the matter. The agency denied their request,...

The government’s actions in a dispute between the Environmental Protection Agency and a husband and wife targeted by the agency when they bought a residential lot in Idaho and started building their dream home are both “outrageous” and “very strange.” There were comments today from justices on the U.S. Supreme Court about the Environmental Protection Agency’s actions in a fight with Mike and Chantell Sackett, of Priest Lake, Idaho. Their case began in 2005 when the Sacketts were working on their dream home. Their land, purchased for $23,000, is about two-thirds of an acre and is about 500 feet from...

Obama recently signed a mysterious new law that proclaims all American soil is a "battleground," thereby allowing the president to indefinitely detain any American citizen without charges. Critics fear Obama will use his fun new unconstitutional powers to make his political enemies disappear, but that may not be necessary. The way things are going, most patriotic Americans will soon be six feet under, felled by apoplectic strokes brought on by reading the latest outrage committed by our "Commander in Chief." He may not have a limit to what he'll inflict; but our collective blood pressure may have a limit to...

Sorry, defense authorization isn’t opening the door to a liberal police state Can a mundane defense authorization law create an Obama dictatorship? Many people on the political right and left have been alarmed by language in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that they argue authorizes the president to use military force to capture, detain, torture and kill Americans at home and abroad. The furor centers on Sections 1021 and 1022 of the law, which deal with detaining terrorist suspects. Specifically at issue is to what extent the law allows the government to treat American citizens like enemies of...

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 3, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Constitutional experts warn a new law that allows the president to permanently detain U.S. citizens without trial could be used against pro-life activists, who have already been defined as potential terrorists in documents by some government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security. “This law can apply to pro-lifers, yes,” said John W. Whitehead, a constitutional attorney and founder of The Rutherford Institute. Whitehead told LifeSiteNews.com the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA) “would allow the military to show up at your door if you’re a ‘potential terrorist,’ and put...

On December 22, registered nurse and fourth-year medical student Meredith Graves, from Tennessee, was visiting the 9/11 Memorial in New York City. Ms. Graves, rather than abdicating responsibility for her security to others, was carrying a defensive handgun, as she is licensed to do in Tennessee. That, unfortunately, avails her nothing in New York. When she saw the "No Guns" sign before entering, she did her best to comply with the law, asking a security guard where she could check her gun. The guard directed her to a police officer, who promptly arrested her for violation of New York's laws...

Regime Grabs Power to Detain US Citizens January 03, 2012 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Yeah, and I can't believe that nobody's talking about that, either: The thing Obama signed on New Year's Eve, the new Defense Authorization Act.I don't know if people don't know what's in this or if other things take precedence. Well, it is being reported because I saw it. I saw it reported. Obama signed this thing, the new Defense Authorization Act on New Year's Eve. Folks, you know what this thing does? It allows the United States military to detain anybody for no reason! They don't...

I don't think there are any real articles written about this yet. Seems to have occurred about 11 months ago and is just coming to light. The action occurs at exactly the 1 minute mark.As many of you know, I'm a cop. I complain about the anti-cop posts and posters, but I also have the responsibility to bring things like this to light. If this went down, this guy needs to be fired and sent to prison. I have also heard that one of the cops is the son-in-law of the new Mayor.

PRIEST LAKE, Idaho — Chantell and Mike Sackett’s dream house, if it is ever built, will have to be situated just so in order to minimize the view of neighboring homes and maximize the vista of pristine water and conifer-covered mountain. But their roughly half-acre lot in the Idaho Panhandle has proved to be the perfect staging ground for a conservative uproar over the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency. This month, the Supreme Court will review the Sacketts’s four-year-long effort to build on land that the EPA says contains environmentally sensitive wetlands. A decision in the couple’s favor could...

President Barack Obama rang in the New Year by signing the NDAA law with its provision allowing him to indefinitely detain citizens. It was a symbolic moment to say the least. With Americans distracted with drinking and celebrating, Obama signed one of the greatest rollbacks of civil liberties in the history of our country. . . and citizens partied only blissfully into the New Year. Ironically, in addition to breaking his promise not to sign the law, Obama broke his promise on signing statements and attached a statement that he really does not want to detain citizens indefinitely. Obama insisted...

According to the ACLU, President Barack Obama just signed one of the most controversial bills into law since the Patriot Act. The sad part is that neither the House nor the Senate nor Obama seemed to think it was all that controversial, as it passed overwhelmingly in both the House and the Senate, and the president just signed it (even though he had at one time threatened to veto).

Obama administration officials are deliberately keeping gun owners in the dark about the president’s gun-control agenda as we head into next year’s national election, because administration officials know that when NRA members and gun owners show up at the polls en masse, anti-gun candidates lose. The Obama campaign’s strategy goes like this: Neutralize gun owners and NRA members as a political force in the upcoming national election by pretending to be pro-gun or at least not focused on pushing a gun-control agenda; With gun owners neutralized, Obama will be able to win the election. After the president is re-elected, he...

A tourist from Tennessee waltzed into one of the most secure sites in the city — and politely asked a cop if she could check her weapon. Instead, she was dragged out in cuffs. Now, Meredith Graves, 39, is facing at least three years in prison for thinking New York’s gun laws are anything like those in the Bible Belt. Graves, a fourth-year medical student, showed up at the memorial on Dec. 22 to pay her respects during a trip north for a job interview. She didn’t realize that the loaded .32-caliber pistol in her purse would be a problem...

It didn’t take long for the See Something, Say Something campaign initiated by the Department of Homeland Security last year to show promising results. According to a report from St. Paul Minnesota’s KARE11 and NPR, actionable human intelligence is on the rise at the nation’s largest mall, and it’s being cross-referenced with personal information and threat assessments via the recently made public nationwide network of government Fusion centers. While a mystery to most Americans, the existence of Fusion centers recently made waves when they were brought to the mainstream public’s attention by talk show host Alex Jones and former governor...

The Transportation Security Administration isn't just in airports anymore. TSA teams are increasingly conducting searches and screenings at train stations, subways, ferry terminals and other mass transit locations around the country... The TSA's 25 "viper" teams — for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response — have run more than 9,300 unannounced checkpoints and other search operations in the last year. Department of Homeland Security officials have asked Congress for funding to add 12 more teams next year. According to budget documents, the department spent $110 million in fiscal 2011 for "surface transportation security," including the TSA's viper program, and is asking...

Last Thursday — which happened to be the 220th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights — the Senate passed a defense bill that demonstrates just how cavalier Congress can be with our fundamental liberties. Given the opportunity to clarify existing law and confirm that American citizens are not subject to indefinite military detention at the order of the president — Congress punted. After a debate in which key members seriously contemplated empowering the president to "Gitmo-ize" Americans suspected of terrorist activity, the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 leaves the question open. Maybe he can, maybe he...

When someone complained about a student’s Ron Paul poster in his dorm room window this fall, Auburn University in Alabama had the opportunity to take a principled stand for free speech. Of course, since we’re dealing with a university, you can probably guess that it instead chose to double down on an unwise, needlessly restrictive, and unfairly enforced policy at odds with the spirit of the First Amendment. Auburn undergrad Eric Philips probably thought he wasn’t doing anything particularly noteworthy when he hung a banner supporting Representative Ron Paul’s presidential candidacy in his residence hall window. ’Tis the eve of...

Mitt Romney has a plan. A plan to solve the “immigration problem.” And it will come as no surprise to those following the GOP presidential debates that the answer of Romney — the former Governor of Massachusetts and father of the “individual mandate” — is more government. At last week’s debate, Romney announced his idea for dealing with the more than 11 million illegal immigrants currently living in the United States in defiance of applicable federal and state laws. On stage in Sioux City, Romney laid out for Republicans his plan for a national identification card system to distinguish between...

GULFPORT -- Spook was chained in his front yard on 20th Street when police officers with a search warrant went to the house and one of them shot the 3-year-old pit bull, witnesses said. **** She said Spook was a gentle inside dog but was outside on a chain while relatives were outside. Clark was inside when she heard the commotion. “If the officer felt threatened by my dog, he had time to back off. I kept hearing my child saying over and over, ‘Please don’t shoot my dog,’” Clark said. “My dog was my best friend,” she said. Clark’s...