Free Republic

President Obama on Sunday called for gun-rights advocates and proponents of gun control to find common ground two months after the shooting which killed six people and wounded 13 others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). The Arizona Daily Star published an op-ed by Obama on Sunday calling for stronger restrictions on gun sales to buyers suspected of mental instability. “A man our Army rejected as unfit for service; a man one of our colleges deemed too unstable for studies; a man apparently bent on violence, was able to walk into a store and buy a gun,” Obama wrote of Jared...

It's been more than two months since the tragedy in Tucson stunned the nation. It was a moment when we came together as one people to mourn and to pray for those we lost. And in the attack's turbulent wake, Americans by and large rightly refrained from finger-pointing, assigning blame or playing politics with other people's pain. But one clear and terrible fact remains. A man our Army rejected as unfit for service; a man one of our colleges deemed too unstable for studies; a man apparently bent on violence, was able to walk into a store and buy a...

“We must seek agreement on gun reforms,” a guest editorial in the Arizona Daily Star by President Barack Obama declares. Snip “I'm willing to bet,” he says, “that responsible, law-abiding gun owners agree that we should be able to keep an irresponsible, law-breaking few - dangerous criminals and fugitives, for example - from getting their hands on a gun in the first place.” If by that he means take people who have been adjudicated menaces to society and segregating them from those they would harm, not many would argue. But that’s not what he means. He wants to end private...

Nothing says “sophisticate” quite like running down the rubes who live in the sticks, does it? After all, Barack Obama got elected after calling rural voters people “bitter” and who only “cling to guns or religion” through ignorance and fear. Via Mary Katharine Ham, John Hickenlooper offers an Obama-esque assessment of the rural and exurban voters in Colorado and assigns to them the same motivations that played into the murder of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming. The money quote occurs at about the two-minute mark in this interview

Memo to those who believe Obama is going to move to the center following his upcoming electoral smack-down: Dream on! Many of you also told us he wouldn't be that liberal in the first instance. Is that egg on your face sticky yet? I'm not denying that Obama might pretend to move to the center on some issues. As an accomplished Alinskyite, he'll do what he has to do to move the socialist football forward. But if he feints to the center, it will not be real. He will not deviate from his relentless quest to advance his leftist agenda....

At a Saturday-evening fundraiser held in the home of a wealthy Massachusetts hospital executive, President Obama suggested Democrats are having difficulties in midterm campaigning because Americans simply aren't thinking clearly. Seeking to explain his party's troubles, the president focused not on controversial legislation like national health care and the stimulus but on evolutionary psychology. "Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument do not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared," Obama told the assembled Democrats,...

The Machine Gun Shoot Competition happened at the Knob Creek Gun Range in Kentucky this weekend in which hundreds of machine gun dealers, owners and enthusiasts showed up to fire four rounds at random appliances and vehicles. The Knob Creek Gun Range websites describes this event with similar giddiness and rhetoric of a 13-year-old at a “Return of the King” premiere, stating: “..The charges are set off by the impact of the bullets. Creating large and small mushroom clouds and fire balls from hell!” It’s true. Astute men, women and judging from the FAQ sheet on their website inquiring what...

State Senate now to consider proposals to stop companies from hiring illegal immigrant workers.Companies employing illegal immigrants could lose government contracts or licenses if they continue to employ those workers under two bills pending in the state Legislature. The state House of Representative Tuesday passed the Industry Employment Verification Act and an employment verification amendment to the state law. The bills are now being sent to the state Senate for debate. The bills require construction companies, contractors and subcontractors providing goods or services to state agencies to use a free Internet-based employment verification system operated by the U.S. Department of...

Democrats had a very good night on Tuesday, dampening, at least for now, Republican boasts about taking back control of the House. Democrat Mark Critz, a longtime congressional aide, held the Pennsylvania House seat of his former boss, the late and legendary logrolling politician John Murtha, calling into question GOP claims that Republicans would sweep blue-collar swing districts in key states across the country and return the party to power. Building on this momentum, Democratic leaders showed off the balding, bureaucratic-looking Critz to their caucus Thursday morning, displaying him like a conquering hero even though he ran as a pro-life,...

What should we make of a recent editorial arguing that the Obama White House has made no attempt to infringe upon the Second Amendment and that Obama openly declared his respect for the right to bear arms during his presidential campaign? It's true that President Obama hasn't advanced the gun control agenda. He hasn't even sought a renewed ban on "assault" weapons. However, the idea that President Obama has more in common with Wayne LaPierre than with Sarah Brady is misleading. Remember the "bitter clingers" comment? Therefore, if eternal vigilance is freedom's price, then complacency must be its worst enemy....

Populist or professor? Contrite or uncompromising? President Obama will have a chance Wednesday to reintroduce himself to the nation when he delivers his first official State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress. The prime-time speech, which will be aired on all major TV networks and cable stations, could hardly come at a more critical time for a president grappling with double-digit unemployment, sinking poll numbers and the possible collapse of his top domestic policy priority, an overhaul of the nation's health-care system. "As often as the president has spoken over the past year, critics on the...

Amidst the innumerable excuses we're bound to hear for tonight's Massachusetts election results, credit Keith Olbermann with likely the most loathsome. The Countdown host would explain things away by accusing Brown supporters of . . . racism. [H/t reader Will H.] Olbermann floated his despicable theory to Howard Fineman: "the Republicans and the Tea Partiers will tell you what happens with Scott Brown tonight whether he wins or comes close is a repudiation of Obama policies. And surely one of Obama's policies from the viewpoint of his opponents is it's OK to have this sea-change in American history—to have an...

The truth finally outs. The Democratic Party has tipped so thoroughly into paranoid-lunatic territory they can no longer hide it. Scott Brown says it's "him vs. the Machine". Over the last 10 days, that's changed. It's now "The Machine vs. The People". Keith Olberman says Scott Brown is "an irresponsible, reactionary, homophobic, racist" teabagger. John Kerry says Brown's supporters are "dangerous" and "violent". Countless other Dems parade before the cameras to tell us repeatedly how we-the-people are simply too stupid to understand their magnificent health care reform. It used to be they reserved such disdain for Southern "rednecks" (God, Guns,...

I have just noticed that YouTube has pulled several Obama videos that I had saved in my playlist. For example...(from the remaining data that was left with the video pulled) Sen. Barack Hussein Obama attacks small-town Americans during a fundraiser in left-wing San Fransisco. We'll analyze his offensive remarks. (This is where he is calling us bitter, gun/religion clingers, etc.) Audio of Michelle Obama using the term "My Baby's Daddy" Barack Obama. This was in 2004 when Barack was running for Senator. ...and others that were not parodies but actual audio/video of his remarks... So this prompts me to ask...is...

Though you might not be able to run away from your problems, moving to another state could be good for the soul. New research suggests U.S. states with wealthier, better educated and more tolerant residents are also happier on average. The reasoning is that wealthy states can provide infrastructure and so it's easier for residents to get their needs met. In addition, states with a greater proportion of artists and gays would also be places where residents can freely express themselves.

Where exactly does “The South” begin, anyway? At Harpers Ferry? Just left of Philadelphia? What is the crossroads that divides “Southerners” from the rest of us, those of us in the East, Midwest, Southwest and West who don’t talk with corn in our mouths? Somebody please buy Ohio Sen. George Voinovich a ticket to the real South, preferably on a slow-moving train, so he can observe the country he helps govern. Last month, Voinovich charged that Southerners are what’s wrong with the Republican Party. “We got too many Jim DeMints and Tom Coburns,” he told the Columbus Dispatch, talking about...

Scary how a lot of bitter McCain backers oppose Obama at every turn Comments BY Opening shot . . . At any given moment, 40 percent of Americans are dead wrong. Four out of 10 colonists would have happily remained under British rule -- some even fought on the side of the Redcoats. Forty percent of the country -- if not more -- were content with the Nazis overrunning Europe and would have never considered taking up arms against Hitler had not the Japanese attacked us and the Germans -- unwisely, as it turned out -- joined them in declaring...

My 2nd great-grandfather was a Civil War Soldier. Grandpa LuckyBogey, Sr., and his two brothers are listed in the muster roll of Company B, 49th Regiment, Georgia Volunteer Infantry, Army of Northern Virginia, C.S.A. of Telfair County, Georgia, known as the Telfair Volunteers. 4th Sergeant LuckyBogey, Sr. was wounded and captured at Petersburg, Va. in April 1865. Grandpa Luckybogey , Sr. escaped from Jackson Hospital in Richmond the next day and as General Lee surrendered, Grandpa LuckyBogey, Sr., , on his own, made his way back home to Georgia. See the History of the 49th Regiment and the 35th Georgia...

WASHINGTON -- Southern writer Walker Percy liked to poke fun at Ohioans in his novels, just to even things out a bit. "Usually Mississippians and Georgians are getting it from everybody, and Alabamians," he once explained to an interviewer. "So, what's wrong with making smart-aleck remarks about Ohio? Nobody puts Ohio down. Why shouldn't I put Ohio down?" Percy, the genial genius, laughed at his own remark. Now, apparently, it's the Buckeye State's turn to poke back. In a fusillade of pique, Ohio Sen. George Voinovich charged that Southerners are what's wrong with the Republican Party. "We got too many...

...In a fusillade of pique, Ohio Sen. George Voinovich charged that Southerners are what's wrong with the Republican Party... Alas, Voinovich was not entirely wrong...