Free Republic

A new law went into effect on Wednesday, changing the way the state handles background checks for firearms and ammunition. It’s part of the Concealed Carry Improvement Act that Gov. Kathy Hochul passed last year. New York is now a point of contact state, meaning the New York State Police NICS Unit will process National Instant Criminal Background Checks (NICS) when a customer tries to purchase a firearm. NYSP NICS will contact the FBI to determine if the buyer qualifies to purchase the gun. For ammunition, the division of the state police will check a state record system to decide...

We are up against demons. Democrats in both the US House and Senate are drafting legislation to classify “Make America Great Again” rallies as “domestic terrorist activity.” They are literally criminalizing their opposition. And they are trampling the Constitutional right to freely assemble! TRENDING: WARNING: DO NOT ATTEND Armed Protests at State Capitols Before Inauguration! - POSSIBLE SINISTER PLOT HATCHED BY RADICAL LEFT TO TAKE AWAY GUN RIGHTS! DEVELOPING: Democrats in both the House and Senate are planning to draft legislation to classify MAGA rallies as “domestic terrorist activity” and require the FBI, DOJ & DHS to take steps to...

Almost eight years after TWA Flight 800 was blasted out of the sky, a federal judge permitted discovery to go forward in a civil case James and Elizabeth Sanders have brought against the federal government and eight named defendants. A retired cop turned journalist, Sanders alleged that the defendants – namely certain federal officials involved in the Flight 800 investigation – perverted the system, using ordinary criminal process for the improper purpose of quelling the free speech of him and his wife, Elizabeth, the plaintiffs in the case. "Not only is the chilling of free speech of citizens not what...

It would appear we are fleeing California like it’s on fire (which, actually, it literally is lately); only large quantities of “foreign” people moving into one area typically disrupt culture and incite hatred like that. Yet San Francisco rent continues to lead the nation based on white-hot demand. This doesn’t really make sense. Let me offer a snapshot of San Francisco in 2018: A friend is having a birthday party at a funky dive bar in the Mission and has invited you. Despite the ostensibly blue-collar aesthetic, you pay $14 for a cocktail containing house-made lavender syrup and organic gin....

The independent student newspaper at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, published an op-ed in which the student author slammed conservative ideas, saying they "are not equal to liberal and left ideas." The piece, titled "It's OK that conservatives don't feel welcome," appeared in the "Student Life" paper. The op-ed's author explained that conservative ideas don't "deserve equal consideration to that afforded liberal and left ideas." "There is no legitimate argument for supporting Donald Trump and his allies, at least not one that holds up in any academic community worth its salt," the author wrote. "But we shouldn’t create an...

Former Vice President Joe Biden defended the courts and the news media, saying attacks against those institutions are dangerous. Biden was speaking Wednesday night at the Newseum in Washington, where he accepted an award from the Bipartistan Policy Center. News outlets report that the Democrat didn’t mention Republican President Donald Trump by name but said he was worried by the “almost drumbeat of denigration of the institutional structures that govern us.” …

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A Pennsylvania newspaper has issued an apology after it printed a letter calling for the execution of President Barack Obama. The letter, printed on Memorial Day in the Daily Item of Sunbury, called the president the “coward-in-chief” and called for his execution “by guillotine, firing squad or public hanging.” “Hey Barack, would you care to address the nation and expound on your grandiose plans for defeating this JV team which is whipping you soundly?,” W. Richard Stover of Lewisburg, Pa. wrote in the 370-word letter. The newspaper issued an apology Thursday, saying there was “no excuse” for printing the letter....

The first amendment is dead; long live the reign of sensitivity. Ben Shapiro explores how Americans have forfeited their fundamental rights in the name of political correctness. See the video and transcript.... TRANSCRIPT: Millions of people from all over the world held candlelight vigils in honor of the French magazineCharlie Hebdo after an Islamic terror attack on its staff. But in reality, those of us in the United States – yes, even those of us who tweeted #JeSuisCharlie – gave up our First Amendment rights long ago. We gave them up in the name political correctness, and in the name...

Roy Costner, the High School Valedictorian who dared to deviate from his “pre-approved speech” and lead his peers in the Lord’s Prayer, joins Rick to talk about the bold move he took to glorify God. In the second half of today’s program, expert analyst and writer, Larry Edelson, joins us from Asia to discus the significance of three war cycles converging in 2015.

Democrats and their sharky Obamedia defense lawyers are in a snit. For three dreamy convention days in Charlotte, they told themselves that, for the first time in decades, it was their guy who had the upper hand when it came to national security. Now that bubble has burst, the way contrived narratives do when they crash into concrete challenges. At that point, an airy president of the world won’t do; we need to have a president of the United States, a job that has never suited, and has never been of much interest to, Barack Obama. Defense against foreign enemies...

<p>The military’s top uniformed leader decided on his own to phone an extremist Florida pastor linked to an inflammatory anti-Islamic online video, the Pentagon said Thursday – no one else asked him to do so.</p> <p>Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey called Florida pastor Terry Jones on Wednesday to ask him to withdraw his support for the video that some reports have linked with anti-American unrest in the Muslim world, a spokesman said.</p>

Washington state regulators have warned a Roman Catholic bishop that his diocese risks running afoul of state campaign finance laws if he follows through with a planned fund-raising effort opposing same-sex marriage on the November ballot. State law prohibits organizations, including churches, from raising money from individuals to give to political campaigns, said Lori Anderson, a spokeswoman for the state's Public Disclosure Commission. "It's not because it's a church. It's because it's not a stand-alone individual," Anderson said on Thursday. The commission was calling into question a recent letter from Bishop Joseph Tyson to Yakima-area pastors urging them to distribute...

Since we’re dreaming here, why not start with that part of the Constitution most beloved by Americans? I would rewrite the First Amendment. “Congress shall make no law” is a peculiarly stingy way to begin an amendment that protects the rights of conscience, speech, press, assembly and petition. James Madison proposed more capacious language for those rights. He would have said, for example, that “the civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or...

Pastor Sentenced To 2 Years In Prison For Teaching That Parents Should Spank Their Children Do you believe that parents should be able to spank their children?  Do you ever express that opinion to others?  If so, then you could be sent to prison.  Sadly, that is exactly what happened to one pastor up in Wisconsin recently.  A minister named Philip Caminiti was sentenced to 2 years in prison for simply teaching that parents should spank their children when they misbehave.  Please note that Caminiti was not accused of spanking anyone or of physically hurting anyone.  He was put in...

A liberal media watchdog group was purportedly given a grant to expand their monitoring and fact checking of religious broadcasts. According to a weeklong "inside" series by The Daily Caller, Media Matters for America once received a $50,000 grant to "monitor and attack" religious news outlets like the Christian Broadcasting Network and Focus on the Family, though the exact details remained unclear. Tax returns allegedly revealed that the ARCA Foundation, a grant making organization focused on advancing social equity, justice and democracy in the U.S. and abroad, allotted the money in 2006 when Congresswoman Donna Edwards of Maryland's 4th District,...

A judge in Detroit has ruled that the decision by police in neighboring Dearborn to arrest a Christian pastor who wanted to hand out Christian tracts at the city’s Arab fest in 2009 will cost the city some $100,000... Magistrate Judge R. Steven Whalen said his recommendation for fees and costs totaling $103,401.96 be awarded in the case that was handled by attorney Robert J. Muise. Whalen said Saieg and his Arabic Christian Perspective organization sued Dearborn and its police chief, Ron Hadda, because after distributing Christian information at the event for several years, he was told police would arrest...

President Obama’s Agriculture Department today announced that it will impose a new 15-cent charge on all fresh Christmas trees—the Christmas Tree Tax—to support a new Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees. In the Federal Register of November 8, 2011, Acting Administrator of Agricultural Marketing David R. Shipman announced that the Secretary of Agriculture will appoint a Christmas Tree Promotion Board. The purpose of the Board is to run a “program of promotion, research, evaluation, and information designed to strengthen the Christmas tree industry’s position in the marketplace; maintain and expend existing markets for Christmas trees;...

Gay rights campaigners have urged mosque leaders in east London to ban homophobic clerics from using their premises, following a 21% rise in gay hate crime in the area. Activists, including journalist Julie Bindel and Pride trustee Colm Howard-Lloyd, said some preachers at the East London Mosque and the London Muslim Centre had "created an atmosphere in which hate is socially acceptable; they have spread a message in which maiming and violence is the most dutiful, honourable, devout thing to do". Their concerns follow the £100 fine given to Mohammed Hasnath, who put up "Gay-Free Zone" stickers in the area;

The White House has named Jesse Lee to a new position within its communications department titled Director of Progressive Media & Online Response. According to The Huffington Post, Lee will essentially be responsible for building up Obama’s online presence as he prepares for his reelection bid, and squashing any negative stories: The post is a new one for this White House. Rapid response has usually been outsourced to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), if not done on an ad-hoc basis by administration officials. And it signals that the White House will be adopting a more aggressive defense of the president and...