Free Republic

The Obama administration is unfairly blocking tens of thousands of military veterans from owning guns, a Republican senator is charging. The FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is filled with military veterans who are essentially banned from owning guns, even though they may not be a danger to society, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote this week in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder. The gun ban "effectively voids their Second Amendment rights,” Grassley said. At issue is whether these veterans are suffering from mental illnesses. According to a 2013 Senate report, the Department of...

As I sat across from Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) and Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), I knew something extraordinary was happening. They were reciting the story of Charlotte Figi and countless other children. They were quoting back the data we had shared from our earlier investigations. They were extolling the potential virtues of the plant, and all of that was before the interview even started. There was an impatience about them, and they seemed in a hurry to make a large dent in marijuana reform. They want marijuana to be rescheduled. They want it now. They want doctors to be...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog With help from 80 years of self-described “progressives,” Obama is now waging the biggest war against medical marijuana of any president in history Anyone who has been following the self-described “progressive” politicians since FDR should not be surprised at Obama’s war against medical marijuana.Obama’s war against medical marijuana is a direct result of the policies of the self-described “progressives” in the White House, Congress, and the U.S. Supreme Court, going all the way back to FDR’s New Deal.During the Great Depression, while millions of Americans were hungry, the self-described “progressives” who controlled the federal government passed...

Voters in three critical swing states, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, support legalization of medical marijuana by margins of 5-1 or more and also support legalization of recreational marijuana use by smaller margins, according to a Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll released today. Support for medical marijuana is 84 - 14 percent in Florida, 84 - 15 percent in Ohio and 88 - 10 percent in Pennsylvania, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University Poll finds. The Swing State Poll focuses on Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania because since 1960 no candidate has won the presidential race without taking at least two of these...

HBO caused a major stir on social media with Sunday night’s broadcast of “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief,” a blistering documentary about the Church of Scientology and its celebrity devotees. People Magazine published a teaser for the film Sunday, which was first screened in January at the Sundance Film Festival. Sensational in content but not in tone, Going Clear has been making headlines since its first screening at Sundance in January. It has also upset that secretive, combative and often embattled Church, which in a lengthy statement attacked the film as “insidious religious persecution by bullies toting...

If you believe that the U.S. aggressors were preparing to land in Crimea in the winter of 2014 in order to help the Ukrainians kill all the Orthodox Russians there, and that only the pre-emptive military operation under the command of President Vladimir Putin saved them, then you are "one of us" — that is, a true-blue adherent of the state's cult. However, if you think that the United States was not planning a military operation in Crimea last year, that it did not "have its eye on" the peninsula and that NATO never did and still has no plans...

On April 6, 1941, Bishop Fulton John Sheen gave a sermon on his radio show "The Catholic Hour" in which he reminded listeners that, "The basic spirit of the modern world for the last century has been a determination to escape the Cross." He told his audience as well that, "There is no such thing as living without a cross. We are free only to choose between crosses." And then he asked them: "Will it be the Cross of Christ which redeems us from our sins, or will it be the double cross, the swastika, the hammer and sickle, the...

Obamacare exchange customers could see a significant spike in their premiums.... a new analysis finding Obamacare is both cheaper and less comprehensive than predicted.

...Bill Clinton and his daughter Chelsea Clinton stopped in South Florida for a community service project in Liberty City on Sunday. The Clinton Global Initiative partnered with the Miami Children's initiative to help repair parts of Liberty City's "impact zone."

Utah lawmakers introduced a landmark bill Wednesday that bars discrimination against gay and transgender individuals while protecting the rights of religious groups and individuals. The measure has a rare stamp of approval from the Mormon church and stands a high chance of passing in Utah, where the church is based and many state lawmakers and the Republican governor are members of the faith.

From the Martyrology today we have: "At Damascus, [in the year 743,] holy Peter Mavimeno. Some Arabs came to see him while he was ill, and to them he said, " Whoever does not embrace the Catholic Christian religion will be damned, as your false prophet Mohammed is," whereupon they killed him."

WICHITA, Kan. – The leader of a Kansas commune that prosecutors say lived off of insurance payouts following the deaths of group members is set to stand trial for murder in the 2003 drowning of one of them — a young mother whose death he allegedly foretold weeks before it happened. Daniel U. Perez, a 55-year-old self-proclaimed seer, is charged with first-degree premeditated murder in the death of 26-year-old Patricia Hughes at the group's compound in the Wichita suburb of Valley Center. Jury selection begins Monday in Sedgwick County District Court. Authorities have investigated several deaths linked to the group,...

Just saw a local Miami tv station using video from the government web site with an "interview" of Obama, where he spews some crap about how his goal is to outline for the nation how he is going to make sure things are fair, now that we have "made it through the crisis". I nearly spit my coffee out. We are not out of a crisis. My point is that these kind of videos are NOT a proper use for news....and I expect that if a REPUBLICAN president put out this type of "interview", the media would ignore it....on the...

Check out this 2-part Viewpoint on Mormonism podcast series originally airing in October 2012 by clicking on the following links: Part 1 Part 2When the Constitution “Hangs by a Thread” – The White Horse Prophecy in Modern MormonismFollowing the Mormon expulsion from Missouri in 1838, Joseph Smith made a trip to Washington, D.C. “to present to the National Congress the petition of the Saints for a redress of their grievances, suffered in Missouri” (History of the Church 4:xxvi). Arriving in November 1839, Smith met with several powerful politicians of that day, including President Martin Van Buren, and left Washington in...

...Obama expressed his grief. "I will miss Stuart Scott," Obama said in a statement. "Twenty years ago, Stu helped usher in a new way to talk about our favorite teams and the day's best plays.....

....White House photographer Pete Souza shared a photo on Instagram on Wednesday of the president donning a tiara with a group of Girl Scouts from the White House Science Fair earlier this year in May....

....“My theme for the end of the year is that we have gone through difficult times, but through persistence and effort and faith in the American people, things get better,” Obama said. “Part of what I hope as I reflect on the new year is that this should generate some confidence. America knows how to solve problems. When we work together, we can’t be stopped.”

Nathaniel Branden, who has died aged 84,was for many years the lover and chief disciple of the American writer and libertarian monstre sacré Ayn Rand (1905-82); the story of their relationship and its bitter ending served to illustrate some of the pitfalls of her philosophy of ethical selfishness.When they first met in 1950 Nathan Blumenthal, as he then was, was a 19-year-old Canadian psychology student at the University of California, Los Angeles. Ayn Rand, a Russian-Jewish emigrée in her late forties,was the bestselling author of The Fountainhead (1943), a torrid ideological melodrama of Nietzschean individualism, whose merciless celebration of the...

....Obama may be the President of the United States, but for a few minutes on Monday, he was also Stephen Colbert, outgoing host of "The Colbert Report." Obama, who sat down for an interview with Colbert in Washington, surprised the host and took over the taping for a segment. "You've been taking a lot of shots at my job, I've decided to take a shot at yours," Obama said before taking over for Colbert on "The Word," a segment where Colbert (in this case, Obama) says a line or two before a witty word or phrases flashes to the right....

....Obama’s approval rating hit 38 percent this fall and currently hovers in the very low 40s. Presumably, then, upwards of 124 million (out of 308 million total) Americans are totally clamoring to see a movie about the first date experienced by Obama and his wife, first lady Michelle Obama. That movie, a serious drama titled “Southside With You,” is slated to begin shooting on location in Chicago in July.