Free Republic

More intensive screening to identify firearm owners among individuals who are subject to domestic violence restraining orders, and streamlining processes to recover guns at the time those restraining orders are served could help enforce existing laws that prohibit these offenders from having firearms, a pilot study conducted by violence prevention experts at the University of California, Davis, and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has found. SNIP "This study represents a step in the right direction, but larger-scale studies will be needed to determine optimal procedures for screening and recovering firearms, assessing the incidence of adverse events and...

"For as man, disobeying, drew death upon himself; so, obeying the will of God, he who desires is able to procure for himself life everlasting. For God has given us a law and holy commandments; and every one who keeps these can be saved, and, obtaining the resurrection, can inherit incorruption." - St. Theophilus of Antioch, to Autolycus (Book 2, Chapter 27) [link] Are we still under a Law? Yes. However, we are not under the Mosaic one. The Mosaic Law worked for a while, but ceased to be the best option after the "time of reformation" (Hebrews 9:10). At...

A Democratic Colorado state senator resigned Wednesday to avoid a possible recall election over a controversial gun control law that led to the ouster of two of her colleagues earlier this year. Sen. Evie Hudak, who has represented a district that includes Denver’s western suburbs since 2008, announced her resignation less than a week before opponents planned to submit petitions to recall her. Calling the decision “difficult,” Hudak said she decided to resign to protect the new gun control legislation and to ensure her constituents would not have to pay for a special election.

Democrat Patty Murray said she not only read the new health care law, but actually helped write it. Murray was participating in a debate with her GOP rival, Dino Rossi, in Spokane Thursday night when she was asked if she had read the 2,600 page bill before voting on it.“Not only did I read it – but I helped write it,” she said, according to an article at MSNBC.

Chicago, Ill., Nov 15, 2013 / 04:12 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Obama administration’s defense of the HHS mandate is “unsound and extraordinary” for contending that business owners cannot have religious freedom protections. “The government’s argument is premised on a far-too-narrow view of religious freedom: Religious exercise is protected in the home and the house of worship but not beyond,” the court’s Nov. 12 decision in Grote Industries v. Sebelius said. “Religious people do not practice their faith in that compartmentalized way; free-exercise rights are not so circumscribed.” Compelling businesses owners and...

President Obama does not have the legal power for his health-care decision yesterday, though the issue is not easy to resolve. The legal complexity might allow the White House to get away with another lawless act – as it has with the delay of the employer health-insurance mandate, the waiving of work-for-welfare rules, the free pass for marijuana users, and the nonenforcement of immigration laws. **SNIP** The president simply has no power to refuse to enforce a duly enacted law of Congress. The only exception is when Congress itself has enacted an unconstitutional law that tries to seize the constitutional...

Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, November 7, 2013, 4:20 PM     Lining up the dead children in Beslan.In September 2004 Muslim terrorists stormed the grade school in Beslan, North Ossetia taking over 1,000 children and their parents hostage. Over 380 people, mostly children, died in the Islamist attack.The Russian parliament passed a law this month requiring family members to pay for the damages caused by Islamic terrorist attacks. Via the Counter Jihad Report: Russian parliament’s lower house on Friday approved new legislation that toughens punishment for terrorism and requires terrorists’ relatives to pay for the damages caused...

Court Rules Obama Admin Can’t Make Catholic Family Business Follow HHS Mandate by Steven Ertelt | LifeNews.com | 11/1/13 1:07 PMA powerful federal appeals court ruled today that a Catholic family-run business does not have to comply with the Obamacare abortion mandate requiring it to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions.Francis A. Gilardi, Jr. and Philip M. Gilardi, two brothers who own and control two companies that are involved in the processing, packaging, and transportation of fresh produce, filed suit against the Obama administration on behalf of their business, Freshway Foods, a nearly 25 year old...

12 Texas Abortion Clinics to Close Thanks to New Pro-Life Law by Steven Ertelt | LifeNews.com | 11/1/13 10:35 AMNow that a federal appeals court has allowed a new pro-life law in Texas to take effect, as many as 12 abortion clinics are slated to temporarily close because they can’t comply with the law’s requirements to protect women’s health from dangerous abortions.The law requires abortion practitioners to have admitting privileges at a local hospital within 30 miles of the location of the abortion clinic to be able to transport women quickly and easily in medical emergencies when they are injured...

Sixteen States Tell Supreme Court: Uphold Ban on Abortions After 20 Weeks by Steven Ertelt | LifeNews.com | 10/31/13 5:06 PMA group of 16 states have filed briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court this week that encourage the high court to reverse a federal appeals court decision overturning a ban the state of Arizona passed to ban abortions after 20 weeks because unborn children feel pain.The states are among the parties that filed briefs asking the high court to reverse a U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit decision against an Arizona law restricting non-emergency abortions after 20 weeks....

PITTSBURGH, May 16, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Tougher safety regulations passed in the wake of grisly discoveries at Kermit Gosnell’s “house of horrors” abortion facility have resulted in the closure of five Pittsburgh abortion centers since last June.Act 122, which took effect last June, requires abortion facilities to meet the same standards as other outpatient surgical facilities in the state.While some abortion centers have been able to bring their facilities up to par, five facilities in the Pittsburgh area have been shut down. One was closed by the state health department; the others closed voluntarily. There are now only two abortion...

Can anybody cite the law that exempts people (Sellers) from divulging their SS#s during real estate transactions? I know this can be done (at least in NH) because I was at a closing 8.5 years ago, where the Seller was refusing to release his. The in-house lawyer was then called upon and, when he came out, he and the Seller had a bit of a back-and-forth about it in front of everyone. The Seller then told the lawyer that he could prove it to him if he'd just come with him outside the room (presumably out to a telephone?). When...

MOSCOW, October 25 (RIA Novosti) – Russian legislators unanimously passed a law Friday forcing the relatives of terrorists to pay for the damages caused by their attacks. The law approved by the State Duma, the country’s lower house of parliament, was submitted by President Vladimir Putin’s office and includes measures to criminalize training in terrorist camps. Effort to target the families of militants marks the latest attempt by Russian authorities to stamp out an insurgency in the turbulent North Caucasus that has claimed thousands of lives over more than a decade. Under the law, material and moral damages inflicted as...

A lawsuit challenging premium subsidies in federal exchanges survived a procedural hurdle Tuesday, with U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman rejecting the federal government’s motion to dismiss and promising a ruling by February 15th. The case, Halbig v. Sebelius, is one of four outstanding lawsuits challenging an IRS rule allowing premium subsidies in states refusing to create an exchange. If successful, the challenge would not only stop the employer mandate in most states, but would protect some Americans from the individual mandate to buy federally-approved health insurance. Because exchange subsidies are estimated to cost $1.075 trillion through 2023, blocking them...

White House press secretary Jay Carney on Tuesday made an apparent dig at Republicans, demanding that more administration officials testify about Obamacare’s woes on Capitol Hill. “We cooperate with all legitimate congressional oversight,” Carney said, seeming to brush aside many of the current inquiries coming from Republican lawmakers. However, Carney insisted that he wasn’t dismissing GOP-backed hearings on Obamacare as illegitimate. “I think everybody here who wasn’t born yesterday has seen questionable congressional oversight in the past,” Carney said. Contractors responsible for implementing the Obamacare website, which Carney insisted Tuesday was “improving,” will testify Thursday before the House Energy and...

Health plans are sending hundreds of thousands of cancellation letters to people who buy their own coverage, frustrating some consumers who want to keep what they have and forcing others to buy more costly policies. The main reason insurers offer is that the policies fall short of what the Affordable Care Act requires starting Jan. 1. An estimated 14 million people purchase their own coverage because they don’t get it through their jobs. Calls to insurers in several states showed that many have sent notices. Florida Blue, for example, is terminating about 300,000 policies, about 80 percent of its individual...

Prosecutors have dropped a driving under the influence charge against the wife of former Miami Heat superstar Alonzo Mourning.

On October 8, THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported that the privacy policy of the Maryland Health Connection (MHC), the state's Obamacare insurance marketplace, included a statement that the marketplace "may share information provided in your application with the appropriate authorities for law enforcement and audit activities." An email had been sent to the MHC on October 3 requesting clarification of the policy, and included these inquires: Does that include both federal and state authorities? What type of information from the application might be of interest to law enforcement and/or state/federal auditors? However, no response was received before the story was published....

Lawsuit reform is an issue that enjoys wide-ranging bipartisan support, with demonstrated appeal to advocates of small government and progressive government alike. All Americans have an interest in the fundamental rule of law and in the fair and justified treatment of participants in our economy. As lawsuit reform aims to pursue accurate justice, so it aims to keep the economy properly functioning. Oklahoma legislators recently voted in bipartisan majorities to reinstate more than two dozen lawsuit reforms that had previously been struck down on a technicality by the state supreme court. Alabama passed a key lawsuit reform with overwhelming majorities...

In Arkansas a class of sixth graders were asked to prune the Constitution and its amendments. Glenn Beck decried the notion of an outdated Constitution in his radio program. Like a true patriot he defended it, but he was wrong. The Constitution is outdated as are many of its amendments. Here are some amendments that need instant pruning or decapitation: The 16th amendment allowing the federal government to collect income tax. If that were abolished, so would Obamacare, according to Chief Justice John Roberts. The 17th amendment establishing the direct election of United States senators. The Founders were correct in...