Free Republic

With a 3D printer and enough thermoplastic, you can mass produce deadly plastic guns from the convenience of your own home without going through a rigorous background check. Advanced 3D-printing technology now allows for people to make durable guns. And as far as current federal laws are concerned, it’s totally legal. Medium writer Keith Mizokami documented his experience building not just any regular firearm, but a full-on assault rifle. All it took was three hours and some light tools. “I was an AR-15 grease monkey,” Mizokami wrote. “During the course of several projects, I’d built an entire rifle from scratch....

It could be possible to read the final tweet, from CNN's Barbara Starr, as implying that the two defense officials are only confirming for her why Bergdahl “says” he left base. But the three tweets from CNN’s National Security desk reference two defense officials who say Bergdahl walked off his post to “report what he believed to be problems with ‘order and discipline’ in his unit.” The direct quote from the “second official” reinforces the impression that he and his colleague are speaking to Starr on background, and that rather than merely reporting what Bergdahl “says,” they are endorsing a...

Seven people have been killed in an attack on a hotel popular with government officials in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, officials say. The African Union mission to Somalia, AMISOM, confirmed to Al Jazeera that there had been an explosion followed by gunfire at the Makka al-Mukarama hotel on Friday. An AMISOM spokesman said al-Shabab fighters got out of a car that then exploded. The armed men then entered the hotel and gunfire was heard. The fighters took hostages, the spokesman added.

Investigates has learned that a woman who claimed she was a victim of the Boston Marathon bombing is now facing criminal charges. Joanna Leigh, 41, of Jamaica Plain, has been indicted by a Suffolk County grand jury for allegedly stealing almost $40,000 in charitable donations, including money from the One Fund Boston and benefits from the state’s fund for victims of violent crime. Watch video report According to court records, Leigh allegedly faked injuries to obtain services and money from donors, a doctor, young students and the One Fund which was established with private donations to help the many victims...

March 27, 2015 Durbin vs Schumer? Harry Reid not seeking re-election in 2016 Lynn Sweet WASHINGTON – Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid D-Nev., on Friday announced he would not seek re-election in 2016, throwing the succession spotlight on Sen. Dick Durbin D-Ill., the number two Democratic leader and Sen. Chuck Schumer D-NY, a rung down on the leadership ladder. Durbin and Schumer will now be pitted in a leadership fight – and be looking over their shoulders at other up and coming ambitious younger Democratic senators who may try to leapfrog over them. Among them: Sen. Patty Murray D-Wash. and...

Big Wall Street banks are so upset with Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren's call for them to be broken up that some have discussed withholding campaign donations to Senate Democrats in symbolic protest, sources familiar with the discussions said. Representatives from Citigroup, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, have met to discuss ways to urge Democrats, including Warren and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, to soften their party's tone toward Wall Street, sources familiar with the discussions said this week.

Fearing that Republicans will ultimately nominate an establishment presidential candidate like Jeb Bush, leaders of the nation’s Christian right have mounted an ambitious effort to coalesce their support behind a single social-conservative contender months before the first primary votes are cast. In secret straw polls and exclusive meetings from Iowa to California, the leaders are weighing the relative appeal and liabilities of potential standard-bearers like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and former Govs. Rick Perry of Texas and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas. “There’s a shared desire to come behind a candidate,” said Tony Perkins, the...

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Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a possible candidate for president in 2016, told a private gathering of New Hampshire Republicans this month that he supported a pathway to legal status — but not citizenship — for undocumented immigrants in the United States, according to the chairwoman of the state’s Republican Party. The chairwoman, Jennifer Horn, described Mr. Walker’s statements on Thursday after The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post reported that Mr. Walker had endorsed eventual citizenship for those immigrants, which many Republicans oppose. A spokeswoman for Mr. Walker, Kirsten Kukowski, disputed those reports about Mr. Walker embracing a...

Two cartoonists for the popular satirical weekly Penguen have been jailed to 11 months in prison, over a satirical piece on free speech in which they were convicted of including a hidden gesture “insulting” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Cartoonists Bahadır Baruter and Özer Aydoğan were sued for the Aug. 21, 2014, cover of the magazine, which satirized Erdoğan’s election as Turkey’s president. In the drawing, Erdoğan is seen asking whether officials at the new presidential palace in Ankara have prepared “any journalists to slaughter,” referring to ritual sacrifice in Islam, to mark his inauguration. Soon after the publication, a...

Opera singing duo Oleg Bryjak and Maria Radner were jetting back from Barcelona when their flight smashed into the mountains. She was travelling with her husband and their baby - one of the two babies thought to have died in the crash The performers were flying home at the end of a run of Wagner's opera Siegfried in Barcelona.

He sat for an interview with the left-leaning Texas Tribune earlier this week, and was lectured about how out of touch he is with the younger voters he’d like to energize in his campaign because his policy positions on weed, gay marriage and global warming don’t sufficiently pander to the preferences of a large number of them (one surmises Cruz is most out of touch with the most low-information and low-engagement young voters and not so much with the ones most likely to vote or volunteer for a presidential campaign. And Cruz’ eyes lit up, as if to say “Oh?...

FR CANTEEN MISSION STATEMENT Showing support and boosting the morale of our military and our allied military and the family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. FReeper Canteen Just Hangin' Cafe Come on in, we're open Need a place just to hang out? This is it. We serve coffee, tea, conversation and music. Our AWESOME military, our AWESOME allies, and their families are welcomed and honored here. No worries in the FReeper Canteen Just Hangin' Cafe. Grab a cup and start a conversation. You never know who you might meet in the Cafe. Glad you could...

Researchers from Harvard University have successfully inserted genes from a woolly mammoth into living cells from an Asian elephant, the extinct giant's closest remaining relative. Harvard geneticist George Church used DNA from Arctic permafrost woolly mammoth samples to copy 14 mammoth genes -- emphasizing those related to its chilly lifestyle. "We prioritized genes associated with cold resistance including hairiness, ear size, subcutaneous fat and, especially, hemoglobin," Church told The Sunday Times. Then, using a kind of DNA cut/paste system called CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat), Church dropped the genes into Asian elephant skin cells. The result? A petri...

A national guardsman from Aurora and his cousin were arrested Wednesday night, for allegedly conspiring to join the Islamic State terrorist group, and attack a military facility in Joliet. Federal prosecutors said 22-year-old Army National Guard Spc. Hasan Edmonds, 22, was arrested at Midway International Airport, while trying to fly to Cairo, Egypt. His cousin, 29-year-old Jonas Edmonds, was arrested at his home in Aurora. Each has been charged with conspiring to provide material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization.

The top Republican lawmaker on the House Science Committee issued a subpoena Wednesday to compel the Environmental Protection Agency to produce text messages and phone records for administrator Gina McCarthy. “Because EPA has refused to provide a complete production of records in response to the Committee’s repeated requests, I am left with no alternative but to issue a subpoena to compel you to produce, among other things, unredacted cellular phone billing records and e-mails relevant to the Committee’s oversight,” Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas wrote to McCarthy in a letter sent out Wednesday. Republican lawmakers have been trying to obtain...

"Under Mr. Obama, friends are enemies, denial is wisdom, capitulation is victory," Wall Street Journal foreign affairs columnist Bret Stephens writes • Stephens advises Israeli government to "repay contempt with contempt." In an exceptionally sharp critique published on Monday, Wall Street Journal foreign affairs columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner Bret Stephens ripped apart U.S. President Barack Obama's foreign policy. The op-ed, titled "The Orwellian Obama Presidency," detailed the flaws of Obama's approach to foreign affairs. "To adapt George Orwell's motto for Oceania: Under Mr. Obama, friends are enemies, denial is wisdom, capitulation is victory," Stephens wrote. "There is an upside-down...

**SNIP** For years, the state legislature has been embroiled in a mulch-year battle over a package of bills designed to push the interests of women. The bills have been held up in part because it includes a measure that would promote late-term abortions in the Empire State. Despite strenuous support from pro-abortion Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the legislature has refused to pass the package of bills because of the abortion measure. The abortion bill would allow an abortion procedure that has abortionists shooting poison through the hearts of unborn children to kill them. Now, the state Assembly has approved part of...

WASHINGTON (CBS DC) – Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., proposed a resolution Wednesday that warns climate change and ensuing natural disasters will force millions of vulnerable and poverty-stricken women to engage in “transactional sex” in order to provide their families with adequate food and water. Lee’s House Concurrent Resolution 29 says that food and water scarcity will be exacerbated by the effects of climate change, forcing increased “conflict and instability” that will particularly affect the strain on women farmers “who are estimated to produce 60 to 80 percent of the food in most developing countries.” “[F]ood insecure women with limited socioeconomic...

As a former journalist, The Wire creator David Simon probably had some pretty tough questions lined up for his visit to the White House. Well too bad, because Barack Obama is asking the questions here!