Free Republic

A record 200,000 Minnesotans now have permits to carry handguns, an increasingly diverse group that includes two men who recently made split-second, life-altering decisions to fire their weapons. In 2003, the year Minnesota passed its permit-to-carry law, 15,000 five-year permits were issued. The number issued annually then decreased for several years. But by 2014, 184,985 Minnesotans held permits. Today, one in 20 Minnesotans has a permit, 19 percent of them women. Opponents had feared that the law would lead to a surge in shootings and gun deaths. But Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension data show that fatalities involving permit holders...

Former CIA Director James Woolsey says a report that Iran will be allowed to use its own inspectors to investigate a site where it may develop nuclear arms is so mind-boggling, it's almost like watching "Saturday Night Live." "I thought it was a 'Saturday Night Live' skit. I mean not seriously but I couldn't believe it that they would let the Iranians inspect themselves," Woolsey said Thursday on Newsmax TV to J.D. Hayworth, host of "Newsmax Prime." "What do they have to do? Take a trip to the photo shop on the way to the data exchange so they can...

Arizona State Senator Kelli Ward, challenging U.S. Senator Sen. John McCain, leads the five-term Washington insider for the first time in a new poll. Her lead stands at nine percent. Ward was the choice of 45 percent of the registered Arizona voters polled, while McCain only garnered 36 percent. 1,271 of the more than 1,400 voters polled say they intend to vote in the 2016 primary election. Approximately one fifth remained undecided at this early stage of the race. Independent polling company Gravis Marketing conducted the August 15 poll. It surveyed 844 Republican primary voters and 427 Democratic. These new...

Black Lives Matter St. Paul is planning a march and rally during the Minnesota State Fair, the group announced Thursday. The event, called #BlackFair by the organizers, starts at 11 a.m. Aug. 29 in Hamline Park in St. Paul. The protesters will proceed up Snelling Avenue to the fairgrounds in Falcon Heights. The intent is to disrupt the State Fair on its first weekend, Black Lives Matter organizer Rashad Turner said. "The first Saturday of the Fair is one of their money-making days. We just hope to slow that down and continue to bring attention to the injustices that plague...

DERRY, N.H. — What was once flippantly deemed the Summer of Trump has evolved into something much bigger: a singular moment in American political and cultural history. (snip) Trump’s candidacy will be a moment that today’s voters will have to explain to their grandchildren. “What is happening with Trump is not a fluke,” said Harvard government and sociology professor Theda Skocpol, author of “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.” “Yes, he is a great entertainer, but he is able to take advantage of a number of dynamics in American politics as they exist right now. This is...

Hundreds of people are expected to participate in a protest at a St. Paul Planned Parenthood this weekend.Pro-Life Action Ministries, as well as other pro-life organizations, elected officials and concerned citizens will protest at the St. Paul Planned Parenthood, 671 Vandalia St., Saturday, from 9-11 a.m. The protest is part of a day of protests at Planned Parenthood offices across the country.The planned demonstrations follow the recent release of undercover videos that abortion opponents claim show the trafficking of body parts harvested from aborted children. Last month, hundreds protested outside the St. Paul facility, calling for the government to cut...

By far the biggest story of the summer is Donald Trump's surging candidacy for the U.S. presidency. It's obvious why. Hate him or love him, Donald Trump knows how to captivate the public's attention. He seems immune from being hurt; I want to examine why. What is it about Donald Trump that allows him to survive any occurrence that no conventional political candidate could? And, not only that, but to use these instances to further galvanize his base of supporters, while growing it? This summer, we have seen example after example of this. People were horrified when he questioned Sen....

When Minneapolis artist Janey Westin first came across the runes near the town of Kensington, she assumed they were left behind by the same Norse explorers who created the so-called Kensington Runestone, found nearby in 1898. The infamous 200-pound rock is covered with runes that describe the travails of a party of Scandinavians beset by Indians in 1362. Though most scholars doubt the stone's authenticity, it continues to fuel debate about a Norse presence in the Midwest. Excited by the new find, the Kensington Runestone Museum paid for archaeological testing at the site, which yielded only a few Native American...

Geologist Scott Wolter wants you to forget 1492. While you're at it, forget the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. Forget all of it. Forget Christopher Columbus because he wasn't the first European to visit North America and Wolter is out to prove it in his new book, "The Hooked X: The Key to the Secret History of North America." Minnesota and the Great Lakes states play a key part in that history, Wolter said, as Vikings and Cistercian monks traveled here leaving behind inscriptions and evidence that they were here long before Queen Isabella hocked her jewels to...

The Kensington Rune Stone: Compelling New Evidence. That is the title of a new book published by Scott Wolter and Richard Nielsen. Wolter is a geologist and petrographer from St. Paul who has been working on the mysterious stone for the past several years. Nielsen is linguistic expert who has also been studying the Kensington Runestone (KRS). Nielsen said the 574-page book is quite comprehensive and provides information about the Ohman family in detail. Olof Ohman is the Swedish farmer who reportedly found the stone wrapped in the roots of an aspen tree on his farm near Kensington in the...

Kensington Rune Stone This subject used to fascinate me when I was 9 or 11. I read everything the late Hjalmar Holand ever wrote. It has fascinated many others, unfortunately mainly “professional Scandinavians” who have made their lives out of their ethnicity, especially as professors of that language or culture. Most have used it only as a way to get a cheap Ph.D. thesis by demolishing it once again, or by using its possible validity to back up some ulterior theory or hobby-horse they may have. Few if any mainstream observers of American antiquities have been willing to touch it. ...

Our country is in a crap sling of gastronomical proportions. I was going to say astronomical but this thing is more gassy than it is interplanetary. You wanna know how messed up weÂ’ve become? Well, for one, Kim Kardashian has 43 million followers on Instagram just waiting for her to post a pic of her ample ass-ets. Secondly, social media dipsticks think Cecil The LionÂ’s plight was/is more important than Planned Parenthood's dealing aborted baby body parts. Thirdly, there are actually people in this country, who call themselves Americans, whoÂ’re contemplating making Hillary Clinton president. Look, as far as IÂ’m...

I know it’s still early, but it’s beginning to appear this election cycle that conventional wisdom may not hold. The pundit class and the establishment politicians inhabiting the insular bubble that is the District of Criminals are flummoxed. They can’t fathom why the hoi polloi will not fall in line behind establishment-approved candidates (and there are several, but particularly they are Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton). Some pundits are even offering to turn in their “pundit license.” For example, The Washington Post’s Charles Lane told Brett Baier on Fox News’ Special Report last week: “I think I’m going to have...

The progressive movement that has overtaken the Democratic Party gains its moral authority in a morally relativistic world in part based on its support of the “oppressed” over the “oppressor.” As Joshua Muravchik ably argues in his Making David Into Goliath, in this construct, Israel has morphed into the oppressor, swapping roles with the Muslim countries that have wished to destroy her from the time of her founding. The Leftist-Jihadist nexus of which Andy McCarthy writes, on display from elite college campuses to the president’s cabinet, is perhaps stronger than it has ever been. It believes in punishing the ultimate...

Minnesotans are putting a tidal wave of imagination into their pontoons — from luxe water slides to pirate planks. “Pontoons Gone Wild.” “Pontoon Hunters.” “Pimp My Pontoon.” If a TV producer stumbled on the gems floating on our lakes, there’d be a reality show waiting. These aren’t the kitschy putt-putters with plastic chairs and artificial turf, either. Pontoons, while still floating platforms, are larger, more powerful, more luxurious and sometimes even outrageous. “The pontoon used to be grandpa and grandma’s boat,” said Brent Wiczek, manager of Nisswa Marine. “We’re selling pontoons to a much younger generation than we ever have....

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Sen. Al Franken endorsed the Iran nuclear deal, becoming the fifth of nine Jewish senators to back the agreement. “Many have expressed reservations about the deal, and I share some of those reservations,” Franken, D-Minn., wrote in an Op-Ed on CNN’s website. “It isn’t a perfect agreement,” he said. “But it is a strong one. This agreement is, in my opinion, the most effective, realistic way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon anytime in the next 15 years.”

As PJM’s D.C. Editor Bridget Johnson reports, Donald Trump once again hurled a personal insult at a rival for the nomination that questions the candidate’s intelligence.He said that Jeb Bush was “not a smart person” and Marco Rubio was “foolish and stupid.” He called John McCain a “dummy.” He said that Rick Perry should “take an IQ test.”Now he comes out and says Rand Paul is “a spoiled brat without a properly functioning brain.”What is it with these sandbox epithets? Five year olds shout “stupid” and “dummy” at one another, not grown men seeking the most powerful office in...

Ted Cruz eats up all his time playing word games with Secretary Kerry and making Secretary Moniz trip over his own words, and then gets cut off by John McCain before he can ask Kerry to clarify what he meant by this unbelievable remark: John Kerry Explains Why Iran Deal Is Not Legally A Treaty: "You Can't Pass A Treaty Anymore" TED CRUZ: General Sulemani, the commander of Iran's Quds Forces has more American blood on his hands than any living terrorist. Under this agreement, the sanctions on Gen. Sulemani are lifted. Sec. Kerry said to the families of those...

WASHINGTON — Businessman Donald Trump said Iran is as powerful as it is today because President George W. Bush's war on Iraq took out its main adversary. Trump, speaking on the Fox News Channel "Hannity," said he opposed Bush's decision to go to war against Iraq based on claims that the country had weapons of mass destruction. The weapons were never found, and Bush's brother and fellow GOP presidential candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, said in May that "knowing what we know now I would not have engaged—I would not have gone into Iraq." Trump said that he warned...

Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura suggested Tuesday that he’d be glad to be Donald Trump’s running mate. “Do you think Donald would ever think of asking me?” Ventura said during an interview on his “Off the Grid” show with former Trump adviser Roger Stone .