Free Republic

PGA Tour golfer Bob Estes tweeted in response to the shooting outside a Garland, Texas “Draw Mohammad” event Sunday night that “Muslims may decide to exercise their [Second Amendment] rights” when others exercise their First Amendment rights.

RUSH: We obviously start in Baltimore today with the Baltimore state attorney, Marilyn Mosby, a press conference a little over an hour ago, announcing that six officers are going to be charged with varying degrees of second-degree murder and manslaughter in the transportation death -- ah, ah, ah -- in the death of Freddie Gray. Now, many people are wondering what is really going on here. I would like to explain to you. I would like for somebody else to explain to you in one sound bite what is going on here. This is yesterday and the National Action Network...

A 23-year-old Montana man sought for theft and forgery was arrested after he “liked” his own online wanted poster on the Cascade County Crime Stoppers Facebook page. Levi Charles Reardon, who was featured on the page as an April “most wanted” suspect, was arrested Friday. He faces felony charges for allegedly forging checks in a case involving the theft of a wallet and personal checks.

Adam Smith admits he probably could have picked a better way to communicate his convictions. In fact, the one-time corporate honcho now wishes he had. The former CFO of medical manufacturer Vante filmed himself berating a Chick-Fil-A server for the company's notorious stance on gay rights, then lost his $200,000-a-year job after he posted the video online and it went viral. Now, Smith and his family are living in an RV, scraping by on food stamps. In his new e-book, "A Million Dollar Cup of Water," the 37-year-old details his experiences since that fateful day he decided to make his...

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...

"What's a gyrocopter?" quote of the day.

A 67-year-old Roswell man claimed he was only trying to be a “patriot” when he planted a bomb at a local park, according to a federal complaint against him. Michael C. Sibley, 67, was arrested Saturday for allegedly leaving an explosive device at Vickory Creek Park in November, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. “The defendant allegedly placed a bag containing what appeared to be pipe bombs in Vickery Creek Park,” Horn said in an emailed statement. “This arrest should reassure the community that serious crimes like this will be investigated thoroughly and all leads followed to identify the perpetrator.” A...

Meredith Shiner is currently a Yahoo News political reporter. Before spending three years at Roll Call, where she was considered "a leader in the newsroom," she toiled at the Politico for two years. Shiner is a graduate of Duke University, and "grew up in the northern suburbs of Chicago." I have provided these resume-level details to emphasize how utterly incomprehensible it is, as well as downright scary, that a woman with this kind of background and experience could have published, reacting to Ted Cruz's speech announcing his presidential candidacy, the following tweet (HT Instapundit): So Meredith Shiner: Is a journalist...

President Obama’s spokesman urged the top tax chairmen in Congress Thursday not to “lose any sleep” about the possibility of the president raising taxes through unilateral executive action. “To the extent that there is a lot of fretting and hand-wringing on Capitol Hill, I would urge them to not lose any sleep over this,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest, who added that the president doesn’t have any “imminent decision” to announce on taxes. ~snip~ If Republican lawmakers are worried, he said, “maybe it’s worth burning a little midnight oil to try to get to work in bipartisan fashion...

It’s a perpetual lament: The purity of the English language is under assault. These days we are told that our ever-texting teenagers can’t express themselves in grammatical sentences. The media delight in publicizing ostensibly incorrect usage. A few weeks ago, pundits and columnists lauded a Wikipedia editor in San Jose, Calif., who had rooted out and changed no fewer than 47,000 instances where contributors to the online encyclopedia had written “comprised of” rather than “composed of.” Does anyone doubt that our mother tongue is in deep decline? Well, for one, I do. It is well past time to consign grammar...

I’m going to tell you the truth, and the thing about the truth is that it sticks in your head forever. This is it – the American President is an idiot. In fact, he’s a dangerous idiot. Now I’ll tell you why; When it comes to fighting the spreading cancer of radical Islamic terror that is choking the whole of the Middle East and much of Africa the American President has said he sees himself as a big town mayor fighting local crime. That’s idiotic!He sees ISIS, Al-Qaida, Boko Haram and other groups as rival gangs as in West Side...

COLUMBIA, S.C. - U.S. President Barack Obama amplified the concerns of environmentalists about the Keystone XL oil pipeline on Friday and repeated his own reservations the project would have few benefits, but said he has not made a decision on the project. Obama, explaining the debate over the pipeline to a group of students, described concerns about the "extraordinarily dirty" extraction methods for Canadian oilsands - a description the Canadian government has long argued is unfair.

Excerpted from The New York Times: Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Wednesday morning that New York public schools will observe two of the most sacred Muslim holy days — Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.“This is a growing community in our city and in our schools and we wanted to recognize that.Mr. de Blasio was surrounded on the podium by dozens of local activists and politicians who had pressed for the change. Carmen Fariña, the schools chancellor, took the podium to say that she hoped the change would lead to increased tolerance and understanding within the school system and...

A phenomenal thing has happened in Washington: Progressive advocates and conservative forces have united around legislative action supported by the strong majority of the American people. Groups as disparate as the Center for American Progress and ACLU on the left and the Koch Brothers on the right; Republican Sen. Rand Paul and Democratic Sen. Cory Booker; and over two-thirds of the American people all support major overhauls to America's criminal justice system. (SNIP) Yet it would appear Grassley just doesn't wanna change the rules. Grassley is the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Simply put, given the generally powerful position...

According to the dominant media narrative, Jeb Bush runs to the center. But history tells a different story Election Day 2016 is just a bit less than two years away, so you’ve got more than enough time to prepare. But if you’re not numb to it already, get used to this phrase, because you’re going to hear it constantly in the weeks and months to come: “Jeb Bush, the moderate former governor of Florida…” In terms of convenient but factually dubious crutches that will be leaned on constantly by the horse-race media, the “Bush-the-moderate” narrative is poised to blow its...

Arizona U.S. Sen. John McCain said something on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday about the U.S.’s handling of the ongoing standoff between Russia and Ukraine that surprised host Bob Schieffer. “I’m ashamed of my country, I’m ashamed of my president and I’m ashamed of myself that I haven’t done more to help these people,” McCain said. “It is really, really heartbreaking.” McCain was expressing his frustration with how the U.S. and major European powers like France and Germany have failed to stop Russian president Vladimir Putin’s advance on Ukraine. “I believe that German chancellor and president of France legitimized for...

State Department Spokesperson Marie Harf told Chris Matthews tonight that we cannot win this war with ISIS by killing them. She said we have to get to the root cause of why people are attracted to Jihad — you know like poverty, jobs, etc… “We’re killing a lot of them and we’re going to keep killing more of them. So are the Egyptians, so are the Jordanians. They’re in this fight with us. But we cannot win this war by killing them. We cannot kill our way out of this war. We need in the medium to longer term to...

Former President Bill Clinton has apologized to Mexico during a speech in which he suggests that the U.S. war on drugs has been responsible for fueling escalating violence. Clinton spoke at the Laureate Summit on Youth and Productivity in Mexico where he told the audience that the war had backfired and led to violence which is crippling the country. He said: 'I wish you had no narco-trafficking, but it's not really your fault. Basically, we did too good of a job of taking the transportation out of the air and water, and so we ran it over land. I apologize...

Police can make 'sinister associations' when dealing with black men and American police are facing a 'crossroads' in race relations, the director of the FBI has warned. James Comey made an unprecedented speech about policing and race issues at Georgetown University today - becoming the first director of the FBI to speak at length about the issue. Mr. Comey made the speech, called ‘Hard Truths: Law Enforcement and Race’, at a time when racial tensions with police in America are high, following the police shootings of Michael Brown in Ferguson in August and Eric Garner in New York. Mr. Comey...

During her hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) asked, “Do you support the legalization of marijuana?”“Senator, I do not,” Lynch replied. In addition to lovingly supporting the White House Commie opening up the border so we can be further invaded by the world's poor and unknown, she is also on the wrong side of public desire to decriminalize marijuana...