Free Republic

There are plenty of gun control laws in America, but the President isn't enforcing them. Maybe that's because the illegal guns are used by blacks to kill blacks. After the mass shooting at a community college in Oregon, President Barack Obama once again took the opportunity to lecture us Americans with righteous indignation about guns in America. “Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it. We’ve become numb to this.” Chris Harper Mercer, a 26-year old white man, killed 10 people and...

The results of a new study about the impact of Colorado’s marijuana legalization is raising troubling questions for parents. The study cites a significant increase in marijuana-related traffic deaths, hospital visits and school suspensions.

Jeb supporters try to bash Trump with video showing America is great already – but use footage of Britain and Asia by mistake. Jeb Bush's Super PAC is out with a hard-hitting ad attacking Donald Trump for his negative talk about the 'dark' days America's living in. 'Choose a brighter path,' the ad says, as it pans to a the sun rising over a field. Several scenes later, the ad states that 'America is great' - a reference to Trump's slogan Make America Great Again! - as a workman climbs a ladder. The video clips are not of America, though,...

The Supreme Court's ruling last month legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide has left Americans sharply divided, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll that suggests support for gay unions may be down slightly from earlier this year. The poll also found a near-even split over whether local officials with religious objections should be required to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, with 47 percent saying that should be the case and 49 percent say they should be exempt. Overall, if there's a conflict, a majority of those questioned think religious liberties should win out over gay rights, according to the poll. While...

Pop quiz: What do the most fiscally sound states have in common? Good weather? Oil? Blind luck? Or is it conservative policies such as keeping taxes low, regulations reasonable and spending under control?

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that an Arizona town violated a local church's free speech rights by preventing it from posting signs notifying the public of its worship services. The court decided 9-0 in favor of Good News Community Church.... ....."Speech discrimination is wrong regardless of whether the government intended to violate the First Amendment or not, and it doesn't matter if the government thinks its discrimination was well-intended," said attorney David Cortman of the Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented the church.

Eighty-four percent of campaign contributions made by a group of 614 Harvard faculty, instructors, and researchers between 2011 and the third quarter of 2014 went to federal Democratic campaigns and political action committees, according to a Crimson analysis of Federal Election Commission filings. During the three years, the Harvard affiliates represented in analyzed public filings gave nearly $3 million to federal campaigns and candidates. Each of Harvard’s schools leaned to the left in the contributions made by their affiliates, many by wide margins. Ninety-six percent of donations in the data set from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which includes...

Surveys find that men in U.S. special operations forces do not believe women can meet the physical and mental demands of their commando jobs, and they fear the Pentagon will lower standards to integrate women into their elite units, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Associated Press. Studies that surveyed personnel found "major misconceptions" within special operations about whether women should be brought into the male-only jobs. They also revealed concerns that department leaders would "capitulate to political pressure, allowing erosion of training standards," according to one document. Some of those concerns were not limited to men, researchers...

The San Francisco metropolitan area has the highest percentage of the adult population who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) of any of the top 50 U.S. metropolitan areas, followed by Portland, Oregon, and Austin, Texas. Variation in the percentage who identify as LGBT across the largest metro areas is relatively narrow, with San Francisco's percentage just 2.6 percentage points higher than the national average of 3.6%, and the lowest-ranked metro area -- Birmingham, Alabama -- one point below the national average. The top 10 includes metro areas from every region of the country except the Midwest. Given...

DULUTH, Minn. -- Minnesota wildlife researchers will keep trying to collar and study newborn moose calves in 2015 even though things haven't gone well during the first two years of the effort. Last May and June, researchers put GPS collars on 25 calves just hours after they were born. But 19 of them either were abandoned by their mothers and had to be rescued, or their collars fell off or stopped working, leaving only six calves to be studied. By August, those six had been eaten by predators, mostly wolves. "It's frustrating. But we need to persevere," said Glenn DelGiudice,...

Colorado emerged as the state with the second-highest percentage of regular marijuana users as it began legalizing the drug, according to a new national study. The Denver Post reports the study by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health found about 1 out of 8 Colorado residents older than 12 had used marijuana in the past month. Only Rhode Island topped Colorado in the percentage of residents who reported using pot as often, according to the study. The study averaged state-specific data over two-year periods. It found that, for the 2011-2012 period, 10.4 percent of Colorado residents 12 and...

Andrea Mitchell: 'President Obama Was a Drag' Democrats may be wishing President Obama sat this one out. With Republicans poised to take control of the Senate and making gains in the House of Representatives, it seems that Obama's charisma cache may have run out, NBC's Andrea Mitchell pointed out to Brian Williams on Tuesday. "First of all, what (Tuesday night's early results) tells us about this campaign, this election, is that President Obama was a drag," said Mitchell. "Look at Kentucky ... Two-thirds of the voters in Kentucky, had a negative view, did not like President Obama. That was an...

Twenty-three years after "The Simpsons" introduced the Springfield Mafia, actor Frank Sivero has filed a $250 million lawsuit against Fox Television Studios for basing one of the three animated "wiseguys" on his "Goodfellas" character Frankie Carbone. Silvero claims in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court that in 1989 he lived in a Sherman Oaks apartment next door to "The Simpsons" writers and that "Simpsons" producer James L. Brooks was “highly aware of who Sivero was, the fact that he created the role of Frankie Carbone, and that 'The Simpsons' character Louie would be based on this...

In another sign of President Obama's deteriorating public support, more than half of Americans now say that he is failing as president, the latest IBD/TIPP poll finds. The poll, which ended Friday, found that 53% characterize Obama's presidency as a failure vs. 41% who rate it a success. Just 6% say that they aren't sure.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton is the one figure uniting religious conservatives frustrated by a leaderless Republican Party that's divided over foreign policy, immigration and social issues. The prospect of another Clinton White House stirred anguish at the Values Voter Summit this weekend where hundreds of conservative activists debated the GOP's future and warned that the acknowledged but unannounced 2016 Democratic front-runner would cement what they see as President Barack Obama's attack on religious freedom....

A new book sums up 13 years of research on female participation in IDF combat units and declares the feminist experiment in the Israeli military a failure. “Lochamot Betzahal” by Col. (res.) Raza Sagi, a former infantry regiment commander, points to high rates of serious injury among women serving in combat units, and to involvement of radical political groups behind the scenes of the campaign for combat service by women.

Researchers concluded that levels of sexual desire were higher in women who were moderate drinkers of red wine than in their counterparts who preferred other alcoholic drinks, or were teetotal. One theory put forward by the team of Italian doctors who carried out the study is that chemical compounds found in red wine may improve sexual functioning by increasing blood flow to key areas of the body. The researchers said: "While this finding needs to be interpreted with some caution, it nevertheless suggests a potential relationship between red wine consumption and better sexuality." In the project, described as the first...

The honeymoon is over for New York City's new mayor, Bill de Blasio, with a poll showing that the liberal Democrat's approval ratings tumbled dramatically as he entered his third month in office. Just 45 percent of voters approve of the job he is doing, while 34 percent do not, says the survey released Tuesday by the independent Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. The findings are a major setback for de Blasio, who became the city's 109th mayor on Jan. 1 after a campaign that portrayed him as the progressive alternative to his predecessor, billionaire media tycoon Michael Bloomberg. A Jan....

Original title: GMA host Robin Roberts reveals she's gay in thank you letter to fans and 'long time girlfriend' for supporting her through cancer -------------------- Good Morning America host Robin Roberts publicly acknowledged that she is gay on Sunday for the first time. The 53-year-old cancer survivor thanked her girlfriend of ten years as part of a heartfelt end-of-year thank you addressed to fans and loved ones posted to her Facebook. 'I am grateful for my entire family, my long time girlfriend, Amber, and friends as we prepare to celebrate a glorious new year together,' Roberts wrote. Amber, reports Media...

In a touching pre-New Year's message, "Good Morning America" co-host and cancer survivor Robin Roberts gratefully thanked her loved ones for a milestone year of health, among them she mentioned her longtime girlfriend. It was the first time the popular ABC News morning show host had publicly acknowledged that she is a lesbian.