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Weinstein, an avid Obama supporter, cites lack of gun control as the real culprit behind the Colorado theater shooting and says it's time for Hollywood to examine its part in perpetuating real-life events. Speaking to The Huffington Post, Weinstein called for a filmmaker summit in the wake of last week's theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., that left at least a dozen dead and 58 wounded. "I think as filmmakers we should sit down -- the Marty Scorseses, the Quentin Tarantinos and hopefully all of us who deal in violence in movies -- and discuss our role in that," Weinstein said.

Reposted from Tom Givens: In the wake of the tragic, horrific slaughter of innocent school children in Connecticut, there has been a renewed cry for more gun control laws. This stems from the natural need to “do something” when a tragedy of this proportion occurs. I agree we need to do something, but the “something” I want is a bit different. The “Gun Free Schools Act of 1994” made it a federal crime to possess a firearm on any school property. Many states enacted similar legislation at the state level, as the federal act required them to do so or...

Big game, except cougar, must be hunted with a minimum of .24 caliber (6mm) centerfire rifle. Cougar may be hunted with a .22 caliber centerfire rifle. Rimfire rifles are not legal for big game. We are now hearing 24/7 ad nauseum about how the AR-15 is practically a WMD according to the media.....yet in Washington state it is not even allowed for hunting because the caliber is too small to be considered ethical. Information like this needs to get out there.

Palestinian Authority prime minister Salam Fayyad urged Arab League nations on Sunday to make good on $100 million a month in pledged "safety net" funds, warning that his government was facing a "dangerous" financial crisis. "I have nothing left to do but to urge our Arab brothers to activate this net, because until this point there has been no movement to deliver the $100 million," Fayyad told reporters at a briefing in his Ramallah office, according to AFP. "If this safety net is not activated quickly, I'll call for an emergency Arab summit to discuss financial situation because it's a...

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie, a Democrat, will have a limited choice of successors to appoint to succeed the late Sen. Daniel K. Inouye. According to Hawaii election official, the governor will choose from a list of three candidates submitted to him by the state Democratic Party. The appointee will serve until November 2014, when a special election will be held to fill the final two years of Inouye’s current term.

There will not be a third season of Discovery‘s docu reality series American Guns. The show, about a family of gun makers, has been drawing attention following Friday’s elementary school shooting in a Connecticut in which 26 people — including 20 first-grade children — were gunned down by a 20-year-old whose mom was a gun collector. There have been angry messages posted by viewers on the show’s Facebook page. American Guns has now been cancelled. Discovery sources indicate the decision was quietly made awhile ago, however it didn’t come to light until today. “American Guns concluded earlier this year,” a...

A thoughtful piece at Tablet by Liel Leibovitz on why a country brimming with guns, that’s been under siege for more than 60 years, almost never sees the sort of mass shootings that the U.S. does. Spoiler alert: It’s not because the gun laws are unusually strict, or strictly enforced. If the United States, itself awash with weapons, wishes to benefit from Israel’s experience, it must make sure it learns the right lessons. The first and most universal one is that ever more stringent gun control is bad policy: As is the case with drugs, as was the case with...

Clinton tells lawmakers she is open to testifying on Benghazi in futureBy Julian Pecquet - 12/17/12 01:58 PM ET Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote to the leaders of the House and Senate foreign affairs panels on Monday to tell them she may testify in future on the Benghazi attack, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. Clinton was expected to testify at a hearing this Thursday but will be sending her two deputies, William Burns and Thomas Nides, after contracting a stomach virus and suffering a concussion during a fall last weekend. Thursday's hearing will be preceded by a closed-door...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was widely mocked when she said of Obamacare, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” At the time, March 2010, Pelosi's words accurately described the Democrats' just-get-it-done approach to passing a national health care bill. But now it turns out Pelosi was wrong. In fact, we have to implement Obamacare so that you can find out what is in it. Amid the other momentous events coming in 2013 -- bitter fights over federal spending, debt, entitlements and immigration -- the biggest story of the year, and of...

A capacity audience gathered to hear Prof. Taner Akçam speak about his most recent book, The Young Turks' Crime against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire, at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, the Arenian Mirror Spectator reports. Akçam is the only scholar of Turkish descent who chairs an Armenian studies department and one of only a handful of Armenian Genocide scholars researching in the Turkish archives. He has mined the archives extensively, with his latest book significantly contributing to the field. "At the risk of sounding immodest, this is a first...

Tzipi Livni responded...to the final approval of 1500 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo. "The Ramat Shlomo construction represents everything that is problematic in the Netanyahu government. Housing priority is given to Haredim under the guise of national interest which infuriates the world against us and puts Jerusalem under a magnifying glass and international questions. Great national damage."

Fundraising page to find Steven Crowder’s assailant has been ‘frozen’ Twitchy Staff-5:33 pm on December 17, 2012 Last week, Dana Loesch announced that a fundraising page had been set up to raise reward money for information about the union thug who assaulted Steven Crowder. Donors had pooled together over $7000. But this afternoon, Loesch revealed that the page has been taken down essentially without explanation... Loesch writes on her blog that Indiegogo, the fundraising platform, has flagged and “frozen” the campaign. So far, according to Loesch, no word on the reason for the freeze, nor has Indiegogo made clear whether...

In an attempt to continue bouncing back from an almost unheard-of dip in sales during October, the folks at McDonald’s have asked franchisees to not close down during the holidays this year. According to Ad Age, which obtained some leaked internal memos from Golden Arches HQ, the push to stay open regardless of what the calendar says began almost immediately after the company announced a 2.2% decline in sales for October. “Starting with Thanksgiving, ensure your restaurants are open throughout the holidays,” reads a memo sent on Nov. 8 by McDonald’s USA Chief Operating Officer to franchisees. “Our largest holiday...

"Arm the teachers! Arm the principals!" yelled one man from a second-floor window nearby. Larry Ward, who says he is a father of two young children and lives in Virginia, later came down to confront the protestors on the street. "This principal in the school tried to defend the children and was killed for it," Ward told us. "But if the principal tried to defend the children with a gun, perhaps (she) could have saved many lives."

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Barge operators along a key stretch of the Mississippi River braced Monday for months of restricted shipping as crews prepared to begin blasting large rock formations that are impeding navigation on the drought-plagued waterway. Contractors from Iowa and Ohio could begin drilling holes into the troublesome Mississippi River bedrock south of St. Louis and detonating explosives inserted inside as early as Tuesday, the Army Corps of Engineers said. They expect to remove enough rock to fill about 50 dump trucks, possibly more. The demolition of the massive formations near Thebes, Ill., coincides with an unusual move...

Conservatives complain Sandy bill includes millions in unrelated spendingBy Erik Wasson and Kevin Bogardus - 12/17/12 12:33 PM ET Conservative groups say the Senate’s $60.4 billion Hurricane Sandy supplemental bill is loaded with millions of dollars in spending unrelated to damage from the devastating storm. The bill includes $2 million to fix museum roofs in Washington, D.C.; $100 million for Head Start centers; $348 million for damage to parks, including the Statue of Liberty’s island; and $4 million to repair the Kennedy Space Center and other launch sites. It also includes funding for commercial fisheries disasters for as far away...

 About the "Great O's" On the evening of December 17 the final phase of preparation for Christmas begins with the first of the great "O Antiphons" of Advent. These prayers are seven jewels of liturgical song, one for each day until Christmas Eve. They seem to sum up all our Advent longing for the Savior. The "O Antiphons" are intoned with special solemnity in monasteries at Vespers, before and after the Magnificat, Mary's prayer of praise and thanksgiving from the Gospel of Luke (2:42-55), which is sung every evening as the climax of this Hour of the Divine Office.A...

Danny Danon, Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, declared in an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV that Israel must ultimately “bring down the Hamas regime” to secure peace in the Middle East. “We know it’s temporary. We will have to take action,” Danon, a rising Israeli political star, tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview. “It’s a matter of time until we do. But, unfortunately, when you have such forces, which are full of hatred and enticement, it’s only a matter of time until we will continue with the hatred again. And when you look at Gaza today, you don’t have any...

In the wake of yet another tragic murder spree -- this time in Connecticut -- is it finally time to do something about the proliferation of guns in our society? No. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Yes. Enough with the "guns don't kill people" line. It's time to protect our society against guns. No opinion at this time. 4%