Free Republic

U.S. District Judge George Smith struck down a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Ohio challenging the secretary of state’s authority to strip inactive voters from the registry.

To ensure a “fair and impartial” criminal justice system, the U.S. Department of Justice plans to train every one of its law enforcement employees and prosecutors to “recognize and address” their “implicit bias.” […] According to the DOJ news release, “Implicit bias can affect interactions and decisions due to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion and socio-economic status, as well as other factors. Social science has shown that all individuals experience some form of implicit bias but that the effects of those biases can be countered through training.” […] “At the Department of Justice, we are committed to ensuring that...

The U.N. children’s agency warned Monday that 69 million youngsters under the age of five will die from preventable causes between now and 2030 if all countries don’t accelerate action to improve health and education for the most disadvantaged. UNICEF said in its annual report that based on recent trends and projected population growth, 167 million children will also live in extreme poverty, 60 million won’t be attending primary school, and 750 million women will have been married as children by 2030 unless inequality is tackled now. …

A corruption probe at the New York Police Department has cast a harsh light on how people get handgun permits in a city that boasts some of the nation’s toughest gun laws. Federal prosecutors say a shady fixer’s cash bribes induced officers working in NYPD’s licensing division to rubber-stamp dozens of gun applications, circumventing stringent background checks intended to weed out candidates with criminal records, mental health problems and other red flags. The potential public safety breach comes amid a national debate over whether easy access to weapons fueled the Orlando massacre and other mass shootings. …

House Democrats ended their 25-hour sit-in over gun control legislation on Thursday, a protest Speaker Paul D. Ryan labeled a high-profile stunt that undermined the basic institutions of government. Mr. Ryan said he was “not going to allow stunts like this to stop us from carrying out the people’s business.” He added, “This is about a publicity stunt and now a fund-raising scheme.” But on legislative business, it was Mr. Ryan who prevailed. He personally reclaimed control of the House, pounding his gavel and muscling through a major appropriations bill that included funding for combating the Zika virus, without debate.

A homeless man convicted of criminal trespassing for taking shelter in privately owned buildings during harsh winter weather won a new trial Thursday when the state’s highest court ruled that he should have been allowed to argue it was his only way to protect himself from the cold. The Supreme Judicial Court found that the judge at David Magadini’s trial was wrong to deny a request to instruct the jury on a so-called necessity defense. Magadini wanted to use that defense to argue that his behavior was justified for a person trying to escape extreme temperatures. […] The owners of...

Some small business owners already working to make their companies more welcoming to LGBT employees say the massacre at a gay dance club in Orlando gives them an impetus to make more changes. “I’ve committed to myself and within our executive team to redouble our efforts to create a safer, kinder, more accepting workplace,” says Frank Maylett, CEO of RizePoint, a company that makes software to help restaurant owners, hotel operators and retailers manage multiple locations. RizePoint had already taken steps like providing health and other benefits to employees’ domestic partners and removing gender references in its handbook so that...

(CNSNews.com) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) estimates that the number of American Muslims registered to vote has jumped from around 500,000 in 2012 to at least 824,000 ahead of November’s election – a 64 percent increase. CAIR said Tuesday that could be a possible indicator of increased political involvement due to anti-Muslim rhetoric by “public figures.” It did not name names, but presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has come under fire for some campaign statements relating to Islam – especially his call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the U.S. because of terrorism concerns. The figures are...

We've all heard former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's admonition that "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." Yet the public debate about guns in America takes Moynihan's warning to the next level: Each side not only has its own facts, it has its own language. For instance, take the rush after the recent Orlando shootings to ban "assault" or "military-style" weapons like the AR-15 rifle. Gun control advocates immediately jumped to regulate sales of "automatic weapons" and "assault rifles" like the AR-15, which they deem too deadly for one individual to need. Scary stories about...

A Harvard professor who caused a huge splash when she unveiled a small fragment of papyrus that she said referred to Jesus being married now says it’s likely a forgery. In 2012, Harvard Divinity School Professor Karen King presented the fragment, which includes the phrase, “Jesus said to them, my wife.” Since then, other scholars have raised doubts about the fragment’s authenticity. …

Entitlements are “the realities of how people live now” and “necessities of a 21st century economy,” so “we’ve got to retool our system,” Pres. Obama declared Tuesday. Speaking at the White House Summit on the United State of Women, Obama said America has “got to retool our system,” because guaranteed benefits are a vital and immutable way of life …

It was a simple question that Attorney General Loretta Lynch would not answer on Sunday: “How many Americans are on the terrorist watch list?” ABC’s Jonathan Karl asked Lynch on “This Week.” “You know, we don’t provide those exact numbers,” Lynch responded. “Can you give me a range? I mean, what are we talking about here?” Karl followed up. “Well, as I say, we don’t provide those exact numbers,” Lynch responded. Lynch supports an amendment sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), which would bar gun sales to people who end up on the government’s secretive terror watch list. …

(JTA) Dirty, hot and exhausted Israeli soldiers waiting for their bus home from the army base tend, understandably, to be in a hurry to get on board. But when I was living in Israel during the first intifada, soldiers didn’t jostle to be first in line. Rather, the most coveted position was second. That’s because the bus driver had the right – under rules issued by the army and made clear to each armed soldier before she or he left the base – to order any soldier to sit in the front seat and remain alert. And the first one...

OUR FOUNDING FATHERS understood that tyranny wasn’t likely to come from a foreign invasion but from the step-by-step erosion of our freedoms by an expanding government. This is what we are facing today.... ...ominous trends threaten us... ...the typical professional in this country unknowingly commits several federal crimes during a typical workday. If Uncle Sam wants to get you, he can. – An 11-year-old girl in Virginia, who saved a woodpecker from a cat, was hit with a fine for “transporting” a protected species. – A fisherman who threw back some undersize fish he had caught was hauled into court...

Speaking after “appreciating the congrats” on the Orlando shootings, Donald Trump again insisted that what mowed people down at Pulse was not an assault rifle but radical Islam, because in Trump Tower, it cannot be both. Trump’s world is binary. It is zero-sum: Either guns kill people or radical Islam kills people. In that world, only one religion can be bad, and so Christianity is good and Islam is bad. Christianity is peaceful and Islam violent. Christianity is tolerant and Islam intolerant. Both are inherently one thing or the other, immutable blueprints etched in stone for the behavior of their...

Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) says that people find it surprising that members of Congress are in “year nine without a cost of living increase” and House members who make $174,000 a year, are “deserving of being paid appropriately.” […] “Some substantial number of members of this body are multi-millionaires, a significant number of members of this body easily qualify to be in the middle-class or the upper-class — and there are some members here who are in the lower-class in our society,” Hastings said. […] According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the median net worth of a member of...

Bill O’Reilly stunned many viewers Tuesday night when he called for some measures of gun control to be implemented after the terrorist attack in Orlando, Florida, that claimed the lives at least 49 people — the deadliest mass shooting in US history. […] “There is too much gun crime in the USA, and high-powered weaponry is too easy to get,” he said. “That’s the fact. So let’s deal with it. We all have the right to bear arms, but we don’t have the right to buy and maintain mortars. Even if you feel threatened by gangsters or a New World...

During the June 13 monologue on Conan, host Conan O’Brien referenced the Orlando terror attack and said no one should be able to own “a semiautomatic rifle.” He described semiautomatic rifles as “weapons of war” that “have no place in civilian life.”

Mitt Romney blasted the Republican Party on Saturday for not doing more to stop presumptive nominee Donald Trump, saying that the prospects for the party are bleak. During a discussion in Park City, Utah, where Romney is hosting his annual conservative summit, the 2012 presidential nominee singled out Trump’s former rivals Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio), the last two candidates to drop out of the race against Trump. "Ted Cruz was basically praising Donald Trump through the whole process," Romney told discussion host and CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer. And Kasich “was in well after the time...

SAN JOSE --Police Eddie Garcia acknowledged his department did not have enough officers to control the violence at Thursday night's Donald Trump rally in downtown. There was a little more than 250 police officers, many in riot gear, in and around the convention center, including from neighboring cities such as Campbell, Palo Alto, Milpitas and Gilroy, and also the CHP.