Free Republic

Sarah Brady, who became a tireless gun control activist after her husband, the White House press secretary James S. Brady, was shot and left partly paralyzed in the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981, died on Friday in Alexandria, Va. She was 73.

WASHINGTON — Senator Robert Menendez was indicted on federal corruption charges on Wednesday, setting the stage for a bitter court fight and putting his political future in doubt. Mr. Menendez was charged with eight counts of bribery, which carry up to 15 years in prison on each charge. He was also charged with conspiracy, fraud, and making false statements on government documents, the Justice Department said. Mr. Menendez is the first senator to face federal bribery charges since another New Jersey Democrat, Harrison A. Williams Jr., was indicted in 1980 in the Abscam scandal. The charges had long been expected...

ARKANSAS GOVERNOR IS REFUSING TO SIGN THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ACT.

A driver of a vehicle tried to ram a gate at the National Security Agency building in Fort Meade Monday morning, resulting in a shooting, authorities say. It is not clear if anyone has been injured. There are two vehicles with damage outside the gate. Anne Arundel County police say the National Security Agency is handling the investigation, WUSA9 reports. The incident happened around 9:30 a.m. local time.

On Wednesday, after entirely sitting out the three-week offensive, U.S. forces began carrying out airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Tikrit at the request of the Iraqi government, according to Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren.

Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was taken captive by the Taliban after abandoning his post in Afghanistan and freed five years later in exchange for five Guantanamo detainees, will be charged with desertion, officials told Fox News. The development comes nearly one year after his May 2014 release -- which initially was a joyous occasion, with his family joining President Obama in celebrating the news in the Rose Garden. But that gave way to controversy in Washington as Bergdahl was accused of putting his fellow soldiers in danger by abandoning his post five years earlier. The trade of five hardened...

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz announced that he will run for president in 2016 via a Twitter post early Monday, becoming the first major candidate to officially declare. "I'm ready to stand with you to lead the fight," Cruz says as the video concludes. Shortly after midnight Monday, the campaign had launched its website.  Cruz had been expected to make the official announcement later Monday during a speech at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. He is expected to start his campaign immediately rather than launch an exploratory committee, which many do as a precursor to a campaign. 

Behind a small desk sits the chair Cheney occupied for eight years as vice president in the White House, and above the white-trimmed fireplace hang three framed swords. One was a gift from the cadets at West Point when Cheney was secretary of defense; the second came from the U.S. Marine Corps commandant when Cheney was guest of honor at the Marine Corps ball two months after 9/11; the third belonged to Samuel Fletcher Cheney, the vice president’s great-grandfather, who fought for the Union in the Civil War—enduring 34 battles, some of the conflict’s bloodiest fighting—only to lose part of...

TEL AVIV — After a bruising campaign focused on his failings, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel won a clear victory in Tuesday’s elections and seemed all but certain to form a new government and serve a fourth term, though he offended many voters and alienated allies in the process. With 99.5 percent of the ballots counted, the YNet news site reported Wednesday morning that Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party had captured 29 or 30 of the 120 seats in Parliament, sweeping past his chief rival, the center-left Zionist Union alliance, which got 24 seats.

Claiming it could affect Herzog's chances of forming a government, his co-chair gives up rotation deal that brought them together. MK Tzipi Livni announced Monday that she has given up the rotation deal for prime minister she shared with Labor leader Yitzhak Herzog, which had been a key condition of Labor and Hatnua's merging. According to Livni, maintaining the rotation would constitute an obstacle to Herzog forming the next government. She stressed that the most important thing was to replace Binyamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister. Over the weekend, Herzog and Livni dropped hints that they were ready to waive the...

Two officers were shot in front of the Ferguson Police Department early Thursday while demonstrators were gathered across the street — an attack the county police chief described as "an ambush" that could easily have killed both men. The shots were fired just as a small crowd of protesters began to break up after holding a demonstration in the wake of the resignation of the Ferguson police chief, who stepped down Wednesday. St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said one officer was shot in the face, just below his right eye, with the bullet lodging behind his ear. The...

Against all odds, the ATF has announced that they’re pulling the proposed ban on 5.56 M855 green tip ammunition. After a barrage of comments from the public as well as bipartisan criticism from Congress, our friends at the bureau issued a press release announcing that, “ATF will not at this time seek to issue a final framework.” Make the jump for their full statement . . . NOTICE TO THOSE COMMENTING ON THE ARMOR PIERCING AMMUNITION EXEMPTION FRAMEWORK Thank you for your interest in ATF’s proposed framework for determining whether certain projectiles are “primarily intended for sporting purposes” within the...

After an unprecedented response, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms has temporarily pulled its proposal to ban common AR-15 M885 "green tip" ammunition.

The Justice Department formally closed its investigation of Ferguson Police officer Darren Wilson, declining to bring criminal charges for the killing of Michael Brown. In a report released Wednesday, prosecutors said that "Wilson's actions do not constitute prosecutable violations" of federal civil rights law. "There is no evidence upon which prosecutors can rely to disprove Wilson's stated subjective belief that he feared for his safety," the Justice Department report said. Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to address the findings at 3 p.m. EST

Congress has narrowly averted a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security for one week, setting up another funding showdown for next Friday. Hours before a midnight deadline, the House easily approved a one-week extension of the funding. It required two-thirds of members' support to pass. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi reversed course later Friday night, instructing House Democrats to back the one-week measure.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to approve Attorney General Nominee Loretta Lynch. Her full confirmation vote is now headed to the full Senate. During her confirmation hearing earlier this month, Lynch expressed support for President Obama's executive amnesty. She also said she believes illegal immigrants have a right to work in the United States. "Senator, I think the right and obligation to work is one that is shared by everyone in this country regardless of how they came here and certainly if someone is here, regardless of status, I would prefer that they be participating in the work place...

WASHINGTON — The nation’s top homeland security official urged shoppers on Sunday to be “particularly careful” in visiting the Mall of America, a sprawling shopping center outside Minneapolis, after it was targeted for a terrorist attack in a video posted by a radical Islamist group. “If anyone is planning to go to the Mall of America today, they’ve got to be particularly careful,” the official, Jeh C. Johnson, the secretary of Homeland Security, said on CNN.

A new intelligence assessment, circulated by the Department of Homeland Security this month and reviewed by CNN, focuses on the domestic terror threat from right-wing sovereign citizen extremists and comes as the Obama administration holds a White House conference to focus efforts to fight violent extremism. Some federal and local law enforcement groups view the domestic terror threat from sovereign citizen groups as equal to — and in some cases greater than — the threat from foreign Islamic terror groups, such as ISIS, that garner more public attention.”

To describe our State Department (and it’s spokes person) as boneheaded is an insult to boneheaded people. Here’s State Department Spokesperson Marie Harf and, of all people, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: MATTHEWS: How do we stop this? I don’t see it. I see the Shia militias coming out of Baghdad who are all Shia. The Sunnis hate them. The Sunnis are loyal to ISIS rather than going in with the Shia. You’ve got the Kurds, the Jordanian air force and now the Egyptian air force. But i don’t see any — If i were ISIS, I wouldn’t be afraid right now....

Because Sector ‘C’ is today’s hottest direction, we decided to focus on it. Later we will describe the situation on other directions too. On the second day of the “truce” the terrorists, supported by the Russian servicemen, intensively shelled positions of the Ukrainian army. Since 7:00 am the enemy densely fired over the Ukrainian positions in Debaltseve. Segment of the route M03 Artemivsk — Debaltseve is controlled by the enemy. Novohryhorivka is blocked by the enemy fire, enemy also controls the area of Lozove—Kalynivka, which allows them to hold Logvynove. On the morning of February 16, a large concentration of...