Free Republic

Florida Rep. Alan Grayson used the aftermath of Sunday’s Islamic terror attack to claim AR-15 semi-automatic rifles can fire 700 rounds per minute. Security guard Omar Mateen killed 49 people and wounded over 50 others during an attack on a gay nightclub — the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Mr. Grayson, a Democrat, was asked about the massacre and soon turned his attention to the AR-15 rifle. ... “If [Mr. Mateen] was not able to buy a weapon that shoots off 700 rounds in a minute, a lot of those people would still be alive,” the congressman said. “If...

MONTGOMERY, N.J. – New Jersey education officials say a school was allowed to give detention to a sixth-grader who told a student who doesn't eat meat that "vegetarians are idiots" and that "he should eat meat because he'd be smarter and have bigger brains." The Courier News of Bridgewater reports the state education commissioner's office ruled the Montgomery school district was allowed to discipline the student. It happened in the Lower Middle School in 2014. School officials found the comments were harassment, intimidation and bullying because they targeted a "distinguishing characteristic" under state law. The student received five detentions. The...

A local man is free on bond after his arrest Friday on charges he pulled out a chainsaw and shouted racial slurs during a road rage incident in Farmington on May 6. Michael Salafia, 30, of 64 Whitewood Drive, allegedly got out of his car with a chainsaw while at a red light and approached another driver, Farmington police said. As Salafia was advancing on the other driver, who was a black male, Salafia started the chainsaw and began yelling racial slurs, reports said. The other pulled out a gun, which he was carrying legally, police said, to stop Salafia...

Jeb Bush said on Saturday he understands why supporters are backing Donald Trump, but was critical of the way Trump is "preying on people's angst rather than offering tangible solutions." Speaking at an event in Amsterdam hosted by the Nexus Institute, the former presidential candidate discussed the rise of Trump, and of Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders. "What I fear is that people, kind of looking down their nose, will say the people that are supporting Donald Trump are a bunch of idiots. They're not. They're legitimately scared. They're fearful. They're not as optimistic for legitimate reasons and there should be...

Bill Gates said investment gains should be taxed at the same level as ordinary income — a bold call for one of the world's largest investors. Speaking Monday on CNBC's "Squawk Box," Gates said that he's "pleased" that there is more discussion around changing the tax code. When asked what he would alter, Gates sided with his pal Warren Buffett and said he supports raising the earned income tax credit. But Gates also said he would raise the tax rate for capital gains — the largest source of income for the richest Americans. The current top tax rate on capital...

A professional education consultant and teacher trainer argued at the White Privilege Conference (WPC) in Philadelphia that great teachers must also be liberal activists, and described in detail her goal for destroying the “white supremacist” nature of modern education. SNIP In Hackman’s telling, virtually everything associated with being a good student in modern education is actually just a tool of racist white supremacy. “The racial narrative of White tends to be like this: Rugged individual, honest, hard-working, disciplined, rigorous, successful,” she said. “And so then, the narrative of U.S. public education: Individual assessments, competition, outcome over process (I care more...

I would like to know if any FReepers can provide links to the following videoclips: 1) Very old Larry King TV Show interview in which the very young Donald Trump starts off by insulting Larry King about his bad breath; 2) The speech (?) in which Trump reportedly made an insinuation that Ben Carson is a child molester; 3) The part of the South Carolina TV debate in which Trump somehow blamed George W. Bush for 9-11; 4) The statement (speech/interview/Twitter post?) blaming Cruz for Obamacare by endorsing John Roberts candidacy on the SCOTUS. Some or maybe even all of...

It starts like a joke — Gov. Rick Scott walks into a Gainesville Starbucks — but one patron wasn’t laughing. Scott stopped in at the coffee chain for a cup Tuesday after touring the recently opened factory and headquarters for biopharmaceutical company Nanotherapeutics. Cara Jennings, a former Lake Worth city commissioner, saw Scott in the downtown store and ripped into him, from her seat, over health insurance and cuts to women’s health services, and calling him an expletive

A video from a few years back featuring Ohio Gov. John Kasich calling a law enforcement officer an idiot is resurfacing, and boy, oh boy, is it making this guy even more unpopular than he already is. Yes, that’s actually possible. Outspoken Sheriff David Clarke is none too happy with Kasich over the video as he made clear in a recent tweet. Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=nTf_qyRXhxk&app=desktop David A. Clarke, Jr. ✔ ‎‎@SheriffClarke http://youtu.be/h2LMWQ0W0is @JohnKasich is anti gun and anti cop and people,say Trump is not conservative? Seriously? https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=nTf_qyRXhxk … 11:53 PM - 16 Mar 2016 3,580 3,580 Retweets 4,001 4,001 likes...

... Ten days later, while speaking to the Ohio EPA workers, Kasich called Barrett an “idiot” multiple times for simply doing his job. “Have you ever been stopped by a policeman, who was an idiot?” he asked his audience. “I had this idiot pull me over on 315. Listen to this story. He says to me, you passed this emergency vehicle on the side of the road and you didn’t yield. I didn’t even see, where the heck was it. The last thing I would ever do would be to pass an emergency vehicle. Are you kidding me?” The dash...

As I was taking my morning commute to UMass on Tuesday, I turned onto South Pleasant Street to drive through town and saw a Black Lives Matter banner hanging proudly above passing traffic. I found myself unable to describe what it was that overwhelmed me about seeing this banner as I drove underneath it, but I felt myself tearing up at the sight of it. For the rest of my drive, I thought about the significance of this and the things a lot of people I knew would criticize about it. Since its founding, the Black Lives Matter movement...

Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump reacted to the apparent terrorist attack that resulted in at least 28 dead and 130 injured in Brussels earlier in the day. Trump made the case to close the U.S. borders until “we figure out what is going on.”

On Friday, Donald Trump questioned whether Mitt Romney is actually Mormon. “I have many friends that live in Salt Lake City — and by the way, Mitt Romney is not one of them,” Trump said during a Salt Lake City speech. ”Are you sure he’s a Mormon? Are we sure?” This is the third time Trump has questioned the faith of one of his opponents, despite having criticized the practice of questioning other people’s faith, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos pointed out this morning during an interview with Trump. “Why do you keep doing it?” he asked. Here’s Trump’s reply: With Mitt...

A woman in the midst of the protests outside the rally for presidential candidate Donald Trump on March 12 was arrested on Friday for abuse of a police service animal. According to a police report, an officer mounted on horseback was involved in police crowd control outside the Midland Theatre when protesters began moving into the street and blocking traffic, approaching officers on foot. After police verbally instructed the protesters back onto the sidewalk, the crowd continued moving forward and mounted officers moved into position to block the crowd. Police said that’s when the suspect, April J. Foster, 29, approached...

“If Trump were ever elected, we’d have to build a wall around California to defend ourselves from the rest of this country,” he said at a dinner held in Sacramento by the California Labor Federation and State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, according to the Sacramento Bee. “By the way that is a joke,” he added. “We don’t like walls, we like bridges.” Brown was touting the state’s economic progress, and the influx of young, talented tech workers — though the state has experienced net out-migration for decades, especially of middle-class families. The governor blasted “old white guys”...

Presidential candidate Marco Rubio on Thursday night insisted he is not dropping out of the GOP primary, despite reports that he was considering doing so just days before his home state's primary. Asked by Fox News's Megyn Kelly if he was preparing to drop out, the junior senator from Florida said, "No. I am not dropping out, I am fighting all the way through. We’re going to win Florida." He added that reports of him dropping out before Tuesday's winner-take-all primary in Florida, which will award 99 delegates, are "100 percent, categorically false." "We win Florida on Tuesday and this...

An honest question fro Trump supporters

Wading in to the contentious presidential race that he once considered joining, Vice President Joe Biden told California Democrats at the party's convention here that the Republican candidates haven't changed their positions, only their tone. "They haven't changed at all, folks," said Biden. "They've just gotten meaner." Biden defended the Obama administration's efforts on healthcare and the call for tuition-free community college. Clenching his fists and raising his voice almost into a shout, the vice president pleaded for a higher minimum wage and more child care benefits for single-parent families. "No one should work 40 hours a week and still...

Republican presidential hopeful John Kasich said on Saturday that he will drop out of the race if he doesn't win his home state of Ohio. "I will beat Donald Trump in Ohio, and that will be the beginning of a new day," Kasich told a crowd in Nashville, according to the New York Times. "Some of the other candidates, if they can't win their home state, they got to get out, OK?" he added. "If I don't win my home state, I'll get out. But you know what? I'm going to win Ohio." The remark was a dig at his...

Marco Rubio supporter Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) appears on FOX News to make the electability case for Rubio. Gowdy said there is a "ceiling" for Trump and appealing to "blue-collar Democrats from the past" will cause him to lose Republican votes. Gowdy says Rubio is a "conservative who can win without alienating large chunks of the Republican party."