Free Republic

I won’t pretend to know all there is to know about guns, but I have been around guns all my life. I remember my father hunting deer and pheasant, and he had 3 or 4 guns while I was still at home. We were allowed to shoot the 22 under supervision, which I believe is a good thing for kids. They should know how a gun works, how they should be handled and respected. My late husband had a couple but he never hunted or shot. One of the guns was a 22 that belonged to his grandfather. None of...

INDIANAPOLIS — The NCAA has removed one of the prestigious awards it bestowed on former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. NCAA general counsel and vice president of legal affairs Donald Remy confirmed after today's news conference announcing sanctions against Penn State that it rescinded the Gerald R. Ford Award it gave to Paterno at its convention on Jan. 13, 2011. "The Ford Award will be taken away," Remy said. The award is named in recognition of former president Gerald Ford and honors an individual who has provided significant leadership as an advocate for college athletics throughout their career. Former...

The Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal and aftermath could mean a drop in Penn State's bond ratings. Moody's Investors Service announced today that it has put Penn State's bond rating on review for a potential downgrade. The review affects the university's Aa1 rating and applies to about $1 billion in debt. According to an announcement from Moody's, the potential change stems from recent events including the Freeh report, the NCAA sanctions and the Big 10 action, along with uncertainty related to other investigations. The review is expected to be finished in 90 days. It will include assessing the affect...

... TacticalGear.com filled an order received on July 2 from Holmes, who allegedly opened fire inside an Aurora, Colo., theater on Friday, killing 12 people. Holmes paid $306.79 for an urban assault vest, two magazine pouches and a tactical knife. Chief Executive Officer Chad Weinman said despite its name, the urban assault vest is not bulletproof, but is simply a vest made for carrying accessories. ...

For the second time in two years staff fabulists at the New York Times have smeared an American hero who helped protect the nation's system of government from bomb-wielding left-wing terrorists. (See the April 2010 issue of Townhall Magazine.) In the July 23 print edition of the NYT writer Colin Moynihan falsely accused Brandon Darby, formerly a radical community organizer, of participating in an anarchist-led plot to attack the GOP’s 2008 convention in Minnesota. Darby, a defector from the left stands accused by the New York Times and by angry radical groups of being an agent provocateur. It’s probably the...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Now, let's move on to this Internet business. And the reason that I want to spend just a little time on this before we get to your phone calls is Obama's not the first, he's simply the latest, in a long line of people to cite the Internet as a justification for big government. It's interesting that the Internet is one of the only things they cite. Of course, Obama's now talking about roads and bridges. Do you know, by the way, that we have twice as many miles of road as the ChiComs do? And yet...

President Obama rubbed elbows Monday night with two men at the center of the Solyndra loan scandal at an exclusive fundraiser in California. Steve Westly, a financier whose money-raising prowess helped to snag him a post on the administration’s energy advisory board, and Matt Rogers, a former Energy Department senior adviser who helped to approve the Solyndra loan, were spotted by reporters at the $35,800-per-person fundraiser for the president’s re-election campaign. Mr. Westly sent warnings to the president not to attend an event at Solyndra's headquarters in the Bay area because of shaky finances at the solar energy company, which...

His personal favorability, once a strong point for Obama, has vanished and is now being replaced by a personal dislike that is dragging him down. These data, buried deep in the latest NY Times/CBS poll (of registered voters, not likely voters) are both stark and important. In April, Obama had a 42-45 favorable/unfavorable rating, itself a shock given his vastly higher favorable ratings only a few months before. Now, he has a favorable rating of only 36% and an unfavorable rating of 48%. The NY Times poll showed Romney getting 47% of the vote compared to 46% for Obama (again,...

Republican lawmakers are blasting the Pentagon's decision to allow troops to march in uniform at a San Diego gay pride parade last week. Two senior Republicans on the House and Senate Armed Services committees said Tuesday that the Pentagon was out of line to grant the one-time exemption that allowed military uniforms in the parade. Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) said the Pentagon made a “dangerous exception” to its policy of not allowing military uniforms in parades. In a statement, the Armed Forces Readiness subcommittee chairman said that the decision was a made to advance the Obama administration’s social agenda. “I...

SIOUX FALLS, SD, July 24, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – South Dakota won a critical legal battle today, as the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the last contested portion of a 2005 pro-life law. The law, H.B. 1166, requires that women considering abortion be told critical biological information and directed to alternate means of help before undergoing an abortion. By a 7-4 vote, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a portion of the law that tells women abortion leads to an increased risk of depression and suicide. “On its face, the suicide advisory presents neither an undue burden on abortion...

The Congressional Budget Office released their post-Supreme Court ruling reassessment of ObamaCare earlier today, and " unexpectedly " the latest numbers are even less attractive than we originally estimated. Who could've seen this coming? The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday said President ObamaÂ’s healthcare reform reduces the deficit by $109 billion over ten years.This is a new re-estimate in light of JuneÂ’s Supreme Court ruling upholding the law and it is a smaller deficit savings than CBO had previously projected.CBO said the ruling added uncertainty to its estimates but it has put forward a number that comes down in...

"Nine as being the appropriate age..."Three short months ago, the Grand Mufti of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abd al-'Aziz ibn 'Abd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Lateef Aal ash-Shaikh, authorized girls as young as 10-years-old to marry.Always the innovator, the Islamic Republic of Iran has done the neighboring Kingdom one better.One year, that is...As reported by the Iranian Christian news service Mohabat News, the Iranian Majles (Parliament) is slated to ensure civil law aligns correctly with sharia in regards to child brides.The Majles Legal Affairs Committee has released a press statement stating that the current civil law,...

In a speech today, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney delivered an address on foreign policy and national security at the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention in Reno, Nevada.During the remarks, Romney took on China over its one-child policy that has resulted in massive human rights abuses such as forced abortions, forced sterilizations. The policy has been so bad that human rights attorney Chen Guangcheng was forced to flee the nation after years of imprisonment and home detention for speaking out on behalf of victims.“We face another continuing challenge in a rising China,� Romney said during the speech. “China is...

Combination therapy is just one emerging weapon in the fight against tuberculosis. AIDS is infamous for its rampant rise in Africa. Yet the biggest killer of Africa’s HIV-positive population — tuberculosis (TB) — has a much lower profile. Its reach is global: it has appeared in pernicious new drug-resistant forms among addicts, prisoners and impoverished people worldwide. In the face of this deadly march, however, medicine has made little apparent progress. That is now set to change. Earlier this year, two companies filed for regulatory approval for drugs that should enhance existing TB therapies, and at the XIX International AIDS...

The United Nations in collusion with Obama's globalists has cooked up another scheme to slice off a piece of U.S. sovereignty and put us under global government. The plan is to stampede the Senate into ratifying the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD. This particular piece of globalist mischief had been unnoticed since President Obama ordered U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to sign this treaty on July 30, 2009. Now he is trying to ram it through to ratification. The notion that the U.N. can provide more benefits or protections for persons with disabilities than the U.S....

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Folks, according to latest Gallup/USA Today poll: "Despite the concerted Democrat attacks on his business record, [Romney] has a large advantage over [Obama] when it comes to managing the economy." The Politico has the story on this. "Gallup: Bain Still a Positive for Romney." This has been a total bomb by Obama, this effort to castigate Romney on the basis of Bain Capital. "It may be the political question of the summer," says Politico: "are Team Obama's attacks on Mitt Romney's business background working? "Priorities USA polling says yes. Other independent polls -- including from Gallup and...

During the 2008 campaign, presidential candidate Barack Obama made a pledge to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 per hour by 2011. Promises like this one inspired a generation of young voters, excited long-neglected progressive voters and gave hope to millions of his supporters across the country. President Obama ran a campaign of soaring rhetoric and uplifting ideas. Amidst two unpopular wars, a rapidly deteriorating financial crisis and the wildly unpopular presidency of George W. Bush, Americans were desperate for a change. He was viewed as a “transformational” candidate, a president who would turn the page on the stagnant politics...

........."We see the strength of the Houston housing market as a direct reflection of improving consumer confidence in the local economy as a whole," said Wayne A. Stroman, HAR chairman and CEO of Stroman Realty. "One of the principal factors in the demand for homes throughout greater Houston has been steady job gains that the Texas Workforce Commission reports has amounted to more than 90,000 hires over the past year. In its July economic outlook, the Greater Houston Partnership said 'Houston is the strongest of all the major metro economies in the U.S., and if job growth continues at the...

ScienceDaily (July 23, 2012) — With widespread hunger continuing to haunt developing nations, and obesity fast becoming a global epidemic, any number of efforts on the parts of governments, scientists, non-profit organizations and the business world have taken aim at these twin nutrition-related crises. But all of these efforts have failed to make a large dent in the problems, and now an unusual international collaboration of researchers is explaining why. Publishing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers argue that while hunger and obesity are caused by a perfect storm of multiple factors acting in concert,...

The 17-year-old Kentucky girl who had been facing contempt of court charges after she tweeted the names of her juvenile attackers, will not be charged. Late Monday, lawyers for Dietrich's attackers withdrew their motion to have her held in contempt, after the story about the possible charges sparked outrage online.

More Americans want to protect their right to own guns In the wake of the Colorado shooting, celebrities who tweeted about the need for tighter gun controls in the U.S. seem to be out of step with the majority of Americans who are more concerned with protecting their right to own guns, a trend that may be traced back to President Barack Obama’s ascension to the presidency in 2009.

Last weekend I went to see Dark Knight Rises. I liked it, but I was modestly disappointed in that it didn’t fulfill all of my expectations. I’ll run through my problems very quickly. As others have noted, the plot problems can’t all be solved by simply saying “It’s mythic, damn it.” Also, I think any film would have suffered in comparison to its predecessor given Heath Ledger’s epic performance as the Joker. Then there’s Gotham. As the Nolans (Christopher Nolan’s brother, Jonathan, co-wrote the movie) have explained, their Batman trilogy is in many respects a story about Gotham itself (this...

About one in 10 employers plans to end workers' health insurance as the new healthcare law takes effect, according to a new study. The finding could bolster opponents of the law, who argue that its changes to the healthcare system will force workers out of insurance plans they like. Supporters of the law say most people will keep their current coverage. . . The study found that smaller firms were most likely to say they will drop coverage. Thirteen percent of companies with 50 to 100 workers said they would end policies within three years, compared with 2 percent of...

Geoengineering hopes revived as study of iron-fertilized algal blooms shows they deposit carbon in the deep ocean when they die. In the search for methods to limit global warming, it seems that stimulating the growth of algae in the oceans might be an efficient way of removing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere after all. Despite other studies suggesting that this approach was ineffective, a recent analysis of an ocean-fertilization experiment eight years ago in the Southern Ocean indicates that encouraging algal blooms to grow can soak up carbon that is then deposited in the deep ocean as the algae...

Gunmen opened fire on a group in a Southeast Side park Monday night, killing a 17-year-old boy and wounding three others in a neighborhood that hasn't seen a slaying since last summer, Chicago police said this morning.

<p>Media assumptions that violence is right-wing are routine — and routinely wrong.</p> <p>On Friday morning, Brian Ross of ABC News speculated on live TV that James Holmes, the accused killer in Aurora, Colo., was a member of the Tea Party. A few hours later, Ross posted a short apology online; Holmes had no Tea Party connection.</p>

Solar-cell manufacturer Solyndra became a household name when it collapsed, taking $627 million in American taxpayer dollars with it. It’s the poster company for the government picking winners and losers—or really, just losers—in the energy market. But there are 12 more “green energy” losers that have declared bankruptcy despite attempts to prop them up with taxpayer money—and the list is growing.There’s a reason why these companies could not rely solely on private financing and needed help from the government. They couldn’t make it on their own; they couldn’t even make it with extra taxpayer help.These green government “investments� take from...

Iranian nuclear facilities have reportedly been attacked by a “music” virus, turning on lab PCs at night and blasting AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” Mikko Hypponen, Chief Researcher at Finnish digital security firm F-secure, publicly released a letter he received from an unnamed Iranian scientist. The researcher, who claimed to work for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said that another virus has struck the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran and a secret underground research facility at Fordo, southwest of Tehran. The letter’s author reported that the virus shut down equipment (made by Germany’s Siemens Corporation) and automated systems at...

Our last entry here touched on “gun-free zones,” and whether the theater where the latest mass-murder atrocity took place guaranteed its premises to be a safe hunting preserve for the mad dog killer who wrought horror there. In blog commentary, I was asked if I could provide a link to confirm that the establishment where it happened, and its parent chain Cinemark, forbade law-abiding armed citizens to legally carry firearms there. ----------------cut---------------- Debate over whether a court would determine that the “guns forbidden” policy carried power of law seems moot: we’re talking practical reality here. Most of us go by...

"If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." Mitt Romney fell on this Obama quote like an NFL lineman on an end zone fumble during the Super Bowl. And understandably so. For this was no gaffe, said Romney, this is what Obama believes. This is straight out of the catechism. Obama thinks that had not the government created the preconditions, none of us could succeed. We all depend on government. None of us can make it on our own. Had Obama been channeling Isaac Newton — "If I have seen further than others it...

Eight people, including Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, will face a total of 19 charges relating to phone hacking, the Crown Prosecution Service has said. The two ex-News of the World editors are to be charged in connection with the accessing of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler's phone messages. They are among seven of the now-defunct paper's former staff facing charges of conspiring to intercept voicemails. The CPS said the charges related to 600 alleged victims between 2000 and 2006. The eight, who are to be charged when they answer police bail later, are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court...

Popular Turk personality fires back, says Christians teamed with Satan A WND author’s bold claim that the biblical Antichrist will be Islamic has rankled one of the Mideast’s most dynamic personalities, prompting the creator of a TV show reportedly seen by millions to fire back that it’s not Muslims, but Christians who are “on the side of the Antichrist and Satan.” Adnan Oktar, who writes Islamic creationist books under the pen name Harun Yahya, is reported by Reuters to be one of the most widely distributed authors in the Muslim world, with a publishing empire that boasts over 250 books...

If a group of Ukrainian lawmakers succeeds in its mission, television shows and movies like “Brokeback Mountain” that sympathetically portray gay men and lesbians will be banned. So will gay pride parades.The recently introduced bill, supported by the president’s representative in Parliament, would impose prison terms of up to five years and unspecified fines for spreading the “propaganda of homosexuality,” which the measure defines as positive depictions of gays in public. ..Although homosexuality was decriminalized in Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, and Russia after the fall of communism, animosity toward gay people remains high in both countries. St. Petersburg, which...

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper had the right idea when he refused to utter the suspected gunman's name in the Aurora multiplex theater shootings, which left 12 dead and 58 wounded. Instead of naming the alleged killer, Hickenlooper referred to him only as "Suspect A." At a prayer vigil Sunday, Hickenlooper read the names of each of the 12 people killed in the incident. After each name, the crowd repeated the refrain, "We will remember." "We want to focus on the victims, survivors and first responders," the governor's spokesman, Eric Brown, explained, "not the killer." Victim Jessica Ghawi's brother Jordan was...

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this: The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay $1. The sixth would pay $3. The seventh would pay $7. The eighth would pay $12. The ninth would pay $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the...

"If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." Mitt Romney fell on this Obama quote like an NFL lineman on an end zone fumble during the Super Bowl. And understandably so. For this was no gaffe, said Romney, this is what Obama believes. This is straight out of the catechism. Obama thinks that had not the government created the preconditions, none of us could succeed. We all depend on government. None of us can make it on our own. Had Obama been channeling Isaac Newton -- "If I have seen further than others it...

Amid the huge response — both triumphant and agonized — to the Supreme Court’s preservation of Obamacare, I was surprised at how little attention was being paid to that law’s core purpose: to strongly control health care costs where government funding is involved, as it increasingly will be. What still shocks me about this law is the government’s interference with the doctor-patient relationship. Many government bureaucracies will not pay for doctor-prescribed treatments costing more than a predetermined figure. And none of these bureaucracies’ members will have actually seen the individual patient. This may affect elderly patients in particular, but it...

Like many others, I will not be able to go to a Chik-Fil-A tomorrow to show support for them choosing to stand up for traditional marriage. Actually, that really bothers me. When a business owner is willing to stand up to the radical left, I feel it is critical to support them! So, I went to their website to see if I could order a gift card online tomorrow, I want to see tomorrow be their biggest day of sales ever! So, while I couldn't find a gift card, I found their store that has lots of various items for...

That’s a very good question, and one that — so far — ABC News hasn’t answered. Brian Ross went to air within hours of the Aurora shooting to tell George Stephanopoulos and the Good Morning America audience on Friday morning that Ross had found something “significant” about the suspect. ... Jon Stewart wonders aloud what someone has to do to get fired at ABC:

There will be no new gun laws after the Aurora shooting for the basic reason that the American people do not want them. Over the past 20 years, support for gun control has collapsed in the United States. Three-quarters of Americans want to keep the right to own handguns, weapons whose only function is to kill human beings at close range. In 1959, 60% of Americans wanted handguns banned outright for all but police officers. Responding to public opinion, states have loosened gun laws to allow citizens to carry weapons with them almost anywhere they go. In Georgia, Arizona, Tennessee...

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) — A man wanted in the beating death of a 2-year-old Kern County boy has been killed in a gruesome accident, authorities said Monday. Delano police made the revelation after the mother of Juan Felix, Noemi Mendoza, 23, was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading no contest to willful cruelty to a child, The Bakersfield Californian reported (http://bit.ly/SQSmU4 ). Juan died after being taken to a hospital in January 2011 by the mother's live-in boyfriend, Cesar Osuna.

Bloomberg: Police Officers Should Go On Strike To Prompt Action On Gun Control July 24, 2012 9:38 AM NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Mayor Michael Bloomberg is calling for drastic action to get lawmakers to crack down on guns in the wake of the massacre in Colorado. He believes the nation’s police officers have it in their power to get political leaders moving on gun control. 1010 WINS’ John Montone reports Appearing on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight” on Monday, the mayor urged police officers, who stand in the front lines against violent criminals, to take a stand to prompt Congress to...

Here's the link.

A recent set of Arizona laws restricting abortion has gotten the kinds of responses you’d expect from various groups – Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit last Monday – but also has state prosecutors taking opposite positions on whether enforcement should be delayed. The law bans abortions in the state starting at 20 weeks of pregnancy, and is due to take effect Aug. 2. * * * Mr. Montgomery, a Republican, opposed the request, saying the 20-week ban protects the health of women and prevents abortions when fetuses can allegedly feel pain. But Ms. LaWall, a Democrat, agreed that enforcement should...

Salon contributor Eric McHenry will likely be surprised to find himself categorized as "the media," but his omissions and evasions about Obama mentor Frank Marshall Davis so impressively mirror the major media's that he deserves the honor... That much said, the Davis persona in Sex Rebel, the narrator, insists that the book's adventures are all "taken from actual experiences." For the record, the narrator confesses to being "bisexual" as well as "a voyeur and an exhibitionist." In the introduction to Sex Rebel, an alleged Ph.D. named Dale Gordon goes further. He describes the pseudonymous author, Bob Greene, as having "strong...

Authorities arrested the suspects late Thursday after finding 25 bales of marijuana, weighing more than 430 pounds, inside a shed at an Ajo home. Ajo is about 100 miles west of Tucson. The discovery came after a deputy made a traffic stop in front of the home. The deputy smelled marijuana in the car, reportedly driven by Womack, and called for additional deputies and a drug-sniffing dog. The dog did not smell drugs in the car but alerted deputies to the fence line of a nearby house. Deputies eventually searched a shed at the home and found the marijuana, along...

Sanctions handed down by the NCAA to Penn State and its football program. $60 MILLION FINE The NCAA imposed this because it is roughly equivalent to a year of gross revenue from the football program. It will be paid over a five-year period. The money will go to an endowment for "programs preventing child sexual abuse and/or assisting the victims of child sexual abuse." The NCAA specified that Penn State cannot cut other sports programs or scholarships to pay this penalty. LOSS OF BOWL REVENUE The Big Ten announced that Penn State's cut of the conference's shared bowl revenue -...

Fresh off of handing a “diversity” award to outspoken Jew-hater Dawud Walid, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) is moving on to a new outrage by launching an attack on the U.S. Constitution. The current issue of ISNA’s bi-monthly magazine Islamic Horizons carries an article about ISNA’s demand for gun control. Specifically, the article, with the unambiguous title “ISNA Seeks Gun Control,” cites shooting of Trayvon Martin to explain their opposition to S. 2188, the “National right- to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2012,” and S. 2213, the “Respecting States’ Rights and Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2012.”An April 13 th...

That's one way to increase tax revenue from the rich. If you can't get Congress to pass the Buffett Rule, why not just start taxing phantom income instead?They want their money, even if you don't get yours. The object under discussion is “Canyon,” a masterwork of 20th-century art created by Robert Rauschenberg that Sonnabend’s children inherited when she died in 2007.Because the work, a sculptural combine, includes a stuffed bald eagle, a bird under federal protection, the heirs would be committing a felony if they ever tried to sell it. So their appraisers have valued the work at zero. But...