Free Republic

He tweeted that he fired six shots at the enemy. Now he’s facing incoming. But they aren’t bullets. Fellow journalists are slamming the correspondent, Jason Buttrill, for picking up a gun. They say journalists are not supposed to be combatants. In another tweet, Buttrill, who once was an active duty Marine, said he got six shots off. “ISIS looked like ants on that scope, but . . . my USMC PMI (primary marksmanship instructor) was exceptional,”

She's nuts as well as evil.

Ted Cruz once argued that Americans have no constitutional right to bear dildos, that the government has a legitimate interest in discouraging "autonomous sex," and that allowing the sale of sex toys is the first step on the road to legal incest..... ....On Wednesday, the magazine published an exposé detailing Cruz's defense of a ban on sex-toy sales while serving as the Texas solicitor general. Back in 2004, several adult-plaything providers challenged a Texas law that banned the sale and promotion of "obscene devices."......The plaintiffs founded their challenge on the Fourteenth Amendment's right to privacy,...... A federal judge turned the...

Sending thousands of young women to die in battle would be morally monstrous, but luckily, we are not currently threatened with a draft. Instead we are facing a near-total collapse of gender sanity. With schools banning the concepts of “boyhood” and “girlhood,” single-sex restrooms being treated as an affront, and even the Olympics allowing anatomical males to compete in women’s events, American gender politics has reached freakish levels of absurdity. If there is any chance of returning to sanity, our understanding of gender will need to be rooted in reflections on something objective and measurable: the body.

A bipartisan group of four congressmen introduced a bill Thursday that would abolish the Selective Service System, more commonly known as the draft. "Maintaining the Selective Service simply makes no sense," Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), a former Marine, said in a written statement. "In 1973, the last draftee entered the Army and since then, despite the first Gulf War and subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon has never considered reinstituting the draft. Our all-volunteer military has given us the most elite fighting force in the history of this country." Coffman introduced the bill with Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.),...

A macaque monkey who took now-famous selfie photographs cannot be declared the copyright owner of the photos, a federal judge said Wednesday. U.S. District Judge William Orrick said in a tentative ruling in federal court in San Francisco that "while Congress and the president can extend the protection of law to animals as well as humans, there is no indication that they did so in the Copyright Act."

The M16A4 may soon retire. This week, the Marine Corps announced via internal memo that the M4 carbine will become the primary-issued rifle in infantry and security units, as well as replace the M16 rifle in supporting training schools by September 2016. Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Robert Neller approved the change, which was first proposed to the previous commandant, Gen. Robert Dunford, according to Marine Corps Times. This decision falls in line with the Army’s phased transition away from the M16 over the past few years. The M16A4 is on the outs simply because it is outdated, and...

'We should honor our ancestors official saysOCALA, Fla. - Members of the Marion County Board of County Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to reinstate the Confederate flag atop a county building.The flag was immediately raised once again over the Fallen Officers Memorial on Southeast 25th Street in Ocala.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi continues to be the antithesis of longstanding mainstream media portrayals of him. First there was his historic speech where he, leader of the largest Arab nation, and a Muslim, accused Islamic thinking of being the scourge of humanity—in words that no Western leader would dare utter Next, Sisi went to the St. Mark Coptic Cathedral during Christmas Eve Mass to offer Egypt's Christian minority his congratulations and well wishing. Here again he made history as the first Egyptian president to enter a church during Christmas mass—a thing vehemently criticized by the nation's Islamists, including the...

The media is now in full CYA mode over the shooting of 2 NYPD officers yesterday as they have gone to ground to give full cover to President Obama, the Mayor of New York, Al Sharpton and the whole crazed Left Wing. The created narrative now is that, "This was a lone suicidal gunmen, that had nothing to do with the anti-police protest or the movement for social justice!" The media has been quick to read statements from Obama, the Mayor and Sharpton concerning the shootings in the hopes of deflecting blame, but we need to remember that this was...

Noah Rothman wrote up Quinnipiac’s gubernatorial poll yesterday, prompting me to wonder over at Townhall whether the polling outfit was holding back its Senate numbers for separate release. We now have our answer. A virtual deadlock, and advantage Gardner: The closely-watched U.S. Senate race is tied with 44 percent for U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, the Republican challenger, and 42 percent for Sen. Mark Udall, the Democratic incumbent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Another 10 percent are undecided. This compares to the results of an April 24 survey by the independent Quinnipiac University showing Sen. Udall at...

And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my...

ZAGREB: A majority of Croatians voted in a referendum Sunday to ban gay marriages in what is a major victory for the Catholic Church-backed conservatives in the European Union´s newest nation. The state electoral commission, citing near complete results, said 65 percent of those who voted answered "yes" to the referendum question: "Do you agree that marriage is matrimony between a man and a woman?" About 34 percent voted against. The result meant that Croatia´s constitution will be amended to ban same-sex marriage. The vote has deeply divided Croatia. Liberal groups have said the referendum´s question infringes on basic human...

President Barack Obama is solely responsible for the current government shutdown. He used the Republican opposition to his health care plan to manipulate them into a situation he could exploit. He wants to use his media sheep to make the Republicans look bad so he can pursue his goal of gaining dictatorial control over the budget process. He wants the type of power the British monarchy lost centuries ago. I wouldn't trust former President Thomas Jefferson with the type of control over the federal debt that Obama wants. Jefferson was not only a more honorable man than Obama, he may...

While you may get an argument on whether U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., is an authority on what’s sane or not, the head of the Democratic National Committee said Friday that the GOP needs to “embrace sanity” when it comes to funding the government. “This is about an internal civil war going on in the Republican Party where clearly the tea party has won,” Wasserman Schultz said in an interview with CNN after the Republican-controlled House passed a continuing resolution that will fund government while defunding Obamacare. “They are hurdling us toward government shutdown and economic crisis. It is...

One of the big frustrations I have creating conservative graphics is that because it's only something I do on the side mostly for fun I often times find myself disappointed with pieces where I really liked the concept because of time constraints juggling work, family and TLS.I did the original for this two years ago, almost to the day. I decided to revisit it, and this is definitely a step a better direction for this idea.

<p>A state judge on Monday stopped Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration from banning the sale of large sugary drinks at New York City restaurants and other venues, a major defeat for a mayor who has made public-health initiatives a cornerstone of his tenure.</p>

I've been drug and alcohol tested for the last 20 years at my work. It's random and occurs every year. It only seems logical to test all officials also.

At least two groups of people scheduled to run the New York City Marathon Sunday are organizing protests against the city's decision to allow the marathon to go forward, despite Hurricane Sandy's devastation. Furious over resources going to the marathon instead of to relief efforts, Penny Krakoff, a social worker, plans to take food and supplies to the Staten Island starting line before breaking off to deliver them to Sandy victims. "I cannot start a 26.2 mile run in Staten Island—people are missing, stranded, in need of resources. Brooklyn and Queens have equal devastation," she told Gothamist. "Parts of Manhattan...

Chile’s Constitutional Tribunal has rejected an effort seeking to force the country to recognize the “marriages” of three same-sex couples. The court, which is the nation’s highest authority on constitutional matters, voted 9-1 on Nov. 3rd against the suit challenging the constitutionality of Chile’s Civil Code, which recognizes marriage as the union of “a man and a woman.” The three homosexual couples, who were aided by Chile’s Homosexual Integration and Liberation Movement (MOVILH), sought to register themselves as “married” in September 2010, but were refused. Two of the couples had already contracted “marriages” in Canada and Argentina respectively. The justices...