Free Republic

Guns are again the topic of conversation across the nation in the aftermath of the Connecticut school mass shooting. Opinions range from banning all but flint-lock rifles to having the federal government ensure a police office on duty in every school. Unfortunately, neither of these ideas can work. Banning private firearms violates the Constitution, the most recent Supreme Court decisions, and public sentiment. On the other hand, a police officer at each school would be too expensive to afford when our government representatives refuse to cut any spending at all, even if it is to spend two million dollars to...

SILVER SPRING, Md., Jan. 2 (UPI) -- A Maryland 6-year-old was suspended from school for forming the shape of a gun with his hands and saying "pow," a lawyer for his family said. Robin Ficker said a boy, a student at Roscoe R. Nix Elementary School in Silver Spring, was given a one-day suspension from school with a conference planned for when students returned from winter break for the pretend shooting a week after 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., The (Springfield, Va.) Washington Examiner reported Wednesday. "What they're doing is...

Aceh Town to Ban Female Passengers from Straddling Motorcycles Banda Aceh. The administration of the Aceh town of Lhokseumawe is set to issue a regulation that will ban female passengers from straddling motor bikes. “We’ve seen that people’s behaviors and morals are getting far from Aceh’s Islamic cultural values. Therefore we will issue a regulation that will ban women from straddling while sitting on the passenger’s seat of motorcycles,” Lhokseumawe mayor Suaidi Yahya told the Jakarta Globe. “We want to save women from things that will cause them to violate Shariah law. We wish to honor women with this ban,...

Al Jazeera is putting the final touches on a deal to take over Current TV, the low-rated cable channel that was founded by Al Gore and his business partners seven years ago. If the deal is completed, Current will provide the pan-Arab news giant with something it has sought for years: a pathway into American living rooms. Current is available in about 60 million of the 100 million homes in the United States with cable or satellite service. Rather than simply use Current to distribute its English-language channel, called Al Jazeera English and based in Doha, Qatar, Al Jazeera will...

Police: Woman tried to buy iPads with food stamp card • Tracy Browning taken into custody LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Police say a Kentucky woman was arrested after she tried to buy iPads with her food stamp card. Tracy Browning, of Louisville, KY, attempted to buy two iPads at Walmart with her Electronic Benefit Transfer card. When the card was declined, police said Browning grabbed the items, ran from the store and assaulted a store clerk on her way out of the store.

Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis announced Wednesday that he will retire at the end of this season, closing one of the greatest careers in NFL history. Lewis says "it is time for me to create a new legacy" after 17 NFL seasons. He intends to play for the first time since tearing his triceps two months ago when the Ravens host the Colts in Sunday's wild-card game, saying "there is no reason for me to not play," according to The Baltimore Sun. Sunday likely will be Lewis' final game in Baltimore even if the Ravens win because of their No....

Maybe it was all that waiting, but when Bob Mann made his snowman, he went big. The six-metre snowman, sporting a dapper top hat, stands in the front yard of his home on Godfrey Dr., in the Huron and Highbury area. Mann planned to build the snowman last year, fashioning the top hat out of a 20-litre pail and sewing four scarves together.

While Democrats frantically try to block Scott Brown from going back to the U.S. Senate, there are also increasing fears he could pose an even bigger threat as the next Massachusetts governor. Republicans close to the departing U.S. senator said he’s itching to go back to Washington to replace John Kerry, but Democrats are buzzing more about a potential Brown gubernatorial campaign in 2014. It may be tempting for Brown to run in a special election against a vulnerable Rep. Edward J. Markey, but he should reject the easy play and go for the job that really matters — running...

TOPEKA, Kan. -- A sperm donor in Kansas is fighting a state effort to force him to pay child support for a child conceived through artificial insemination by a lesbian couple. William Marotta, 46, of Topeka said he is "a little scared about where this is going to go, primarily for financial reasons," The Topeka Capital-Journal (http://bit.ly/132b7Ji) reported Monday. When he donated sperm to Angela Bauer and Jennifer Schreiner in 2009, Marotta relinquished all parental rights, as well as financial responsibility for the child. When Bauer and Schreiner filed for state assistance this year, the state demanded the donor's name...

A sense of insecurity has gripped the female population in parts of India. As the ashes of the New Delhi gang rape victim were scattered over the Ganges River, hundreds of Indian women applied for firearm licenses and joined self-defense classes. ­Since the news of the brutal gang rape and murder broke in December, 274 Delhi women have applied for gun licenses, Delhi police said. Some 1,200 more have called the licensing department to inquire how to obtain one. “These include not only the average working woman, but even students who travel long distances to colleges and even their concerned...

The Taliban Wednesday likened the planned withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan to America’s pullout from Vietnam, calling it a “declare victory and run” strategy. … “They want to flee from Afghanistan just as they turned tail and ran from Vietnam,” the Taliban statement said. “When America faced utter destruction in Vietnam, they came up with the formula ‘declare victory and run’ and want to utilize the formula of ‘transfer security and run’ here in Afghanistan.” …

Pete Sessions makes me sick - he's voted RINO every single time. I'll be supporting his opponent next time or not voting for him.

Streaming available. I just can't believe how incredibly awesome this radio station is!!!! Yes, I've had several beers tonight...

No matter what vulgar things Kathy Griffin does on CNN's live New Year's Eve broadcasts, the folks at the supposedly most trusted name in news continue to invite her back. On Monday night's program, after first telling co-host Anderson Cooper "I'm going to tickle your sack," she shortly after midnight actually kissed his crotch...

In the dead of the night, with no committee hearings, no public input and no time to read the bill, the Senate approved a bill written in secret by President Obama, Vice President Biden, Senator Harry Reid and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi – the “American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012.” According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Senate-passed bill would cost taxpayers $3.9 trillion over 10 years and the Congressional Budget Office estimates that it would add almost $4 trillion in debt over the next ten years. The official estimate is that it will increase spending by at least $330...

After 63 years, U.S. Postal Service delivers calendar The 1950 Pennsylvania Railroad calendar never made it to James W. Flanagan, general manager of The Scranton Times. He would never need it: he died in December 1949. But on Friday, 63 years after his death, the U.S. Postal Service made a delivery. A mail carrier, with no explanation of where the package had been the last 63 years, handed it to Chris O'Hora at The Times-Tribune's front desk. The calendar, rolled in a long tube, soon made its way to the office of Bobby Lynett, a publisher of The Times-Tribune and...

Maybe will do the thread once every two weeks, a "fortnight" eh? Howie returns tomorrow, Wed the 2nd. In Boston WTKK 96.9, where Howie hoped to flee to, will end sometime tomorrow. The format is expected to change to music sometime after Eagan & Braude do a farewell show 7-10 am. So, 10 am? Noon? 3pm? 5 pm? And we don't know the new format...There was an article on a left-leaning blog from the Pacific NW wondering if the failure of WTKK is a sign of the end of conserv talk radio. One comment to it, by "Vin": "WTKK conservative?...

The Journal News of West Nyack, N.Y., has hired armed security guards to defend its offices after receiving a torrent of phone calls and emails responding to the paper's publication of the names and addresses of area residents with pistol permits. RGA Investigations, a private security company, "is doing private security at on location at the Journal News as a result of the negative response to the article," according to a police report first obtained by the Rockland County Times (Nanuet, N.Y.) and shared with POLITICO. The guards "are armed and will be on site during business hours through at...

For several generations, Europeans had encroached on Indian lands....exchanging treaty promises and goods for Indian land....But the continuous flow of settlers....caused the treaties to be broken, usually by whites, almost as soon as the signatures were affixed.

LATEST UPDATE: 12/31/12 4:54PM EST -- DATELINE NEW YORK -- A rep for hospitalized Secretary of State HILLARY CLINTON confirms the blood clot is lodged near her brain confirming The NATIONAL ENQUIRER's special reports on her condition. Doctors said the clot is located in the vein in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear.