Free Republic

The other day I wrote about an increasingly popular gift for wives from their husbands — guns. Big guns. Little guns. Pink guns. Even Hello Kitty guns. But Christmas is a big gun day not just for women but for husbands, sons, grandsons, daughters, granddaughters…you get the point. People will argue about guns for more hours than “It’s a Wonderful Life” has historically been broadcast, but guns remain an important part of many, many lives, so it’s only natural that Santa was very busy crossing state lines delivering guns big and small. Here are some happy new gun owners and...

Watching the start of the Quick Lane Bowl: Rutgers vs North Carolina, now on ESPN. Several Rutgers players/coaches wearing NYPD hats at kick-off. Good to see considering much of the past left wing history of RU.

South Korean filmmakers have long believed that when it comes to depicting North Korea, it's best to use the utmost caution. Even with South Korea's robust film industry, there have been no notable cases of the North's leadership being depicted in a film. The bloody scene in Sony Pictures Entertainment's movie "The Interview," in which it appears that the head of an actor playing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un blows up, would never happen in South Korea, film experts say.

The Obama administration hopes to transfer dozens of detainees from Guantanamo Bay in the next six months as part of a stepped-up effort to reduce the population there, according to a U.S. official. As many as five detainees are expected to be moved from the detention facility in the next few days, with several more transfers anticipated in early 2015, the official said on condition of anonymity. The news comes less than a week after the United States announced it had repatriated four detainees from Guantanamo to Afghanistan, leaving 132 detainees at the U.S. naval base in southeastern Cuba. President...

Ohio Gov. John Kasich will roll out “responsible” tax plans that protect against revenue gaps. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Arizona’s new Republican governor are delaying big dreams of nixing the income tax as they face budget shortfalls. And Missouri Republicans, once jealous of their neighbor Kansas’ massive cuts, are thankful they trimmed less. Call it the Brownback effect. Story Continued Below . . Republicans once idolized Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback as a tax cutting superstar — now he’s a lesson in what not to do. “It’s a cautionary tale on a national scale … Many of us felt that...

*New York Cares, the group that finds coats for homeless men and women to brave the winter months, launched their distribution at the New York City rescue mission on Christmas with Rev. Al Sharpton, his National Action Network and the family of Eric Garner on hand. Sharpton handed out food, along with gifts to children. He was joined by Garner’s widow Esaw and his mother, Gwen Carr, on the Garner family’s first Christmas since his death from a police chokehold. The family and Sharpton also observed a moment of silence for the two NYPD officers shot to death in...

Police in Massachusetts are contacting the FBI after a baby Jesus statue was stolen from a Nativity scene and replaced with a pig's head, saying this vandalism could be a hate crime. ... Bill Lapierre, 77, has attended the Sacred Heart Parish for as long as he can remember.... "We had just finished doing 400 meals to help the poor and about 1,000 gifts to help the poor and to coming to that was really, really bad,"

BLAND, Va. — Virginians who try to sell homemade food from their kitchens are feeling the heat from state and local inspectors.“I have to turn down my neighbors when they ask if they can buy pesto I make from my own basil plants,” says Bernadette Barber, a farmer in Lancaster, Va.And this isn’t just a rural phenomenon.In Arlington, government inspectors shut down a home-based soup maker, even though no customer complaints had been registered. Others have encountered similar fates, stripping them of needed income.Legislation served up for the 2015 General Assembly would turn the tables.HB 1290, sponsored by Delegate Rob...

Bobby Jindal is Indian-American, but you’ll never hear him describe himself that way. Marco Rubio insists he’s an “American of Hispanic descent.” And Ted Cruz “certainly” identifies as Hispanic, but he didn’t run for office as “the Hispanic guy.” These Republican lawmakers, along with African-American conservative favorite Ben Carson, look poised to make the 2016 GOP presidential field the party’s most diverse ever. They are all mulling over White House runs as the GOP continues to struggle with minority voters and as racial tensions over police conduct have captivated the nation. But none is planning to play up his race...

Ashley Chalmers, head of Jersey Shore Aerial Advertising, told the Daily News the people who paid for the airborne message 'want to remain anonymous.'The bad blood between NYPD cops and Mayor de Blasio became an air war Friday. A plane trailing a banner reading "DE BLASIO, OUR BACKS HAVE TURNED TO YOU" flew over the Hudson River in a show of disdain for the mayor after two officers were executed in their squad car in Brooklyn last Saturday. Ashley Chalmers, head of Jersey Shore Aerial Advertising, told the Daily News the people who paid for the message "want to remain...

A bummer from D.C., especially coming so soon after a federal judge in Pennsylvania held that the amnesty was unconstitutional. Don’t fret, though. A similar lawsuit, led by incoming Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and joined by 24 different states, has already been filed in Texas with a hearing scheduled early next month. The judge in that case is a Bush appointee who’s been critical of Obama’s DHS on immigration in the past. I like those odds. Worry about losing that one, not this one, as all it’ll take is a circuit split to force this issue before the Supreme...

IÂ’ve watched the film depiction of the life of the late Chris Kyle, AmericaÂ’s deadliest sniper, Navy SEAL, and veterans advocate, twice. It is a gripping portrayal, but it is a portrayal nonetheless. While the screenplay perhaps lacks nuance, it is also a product of Hollywood and should be considered a truncated and dramatized version of one manÂ’s life story. The complexities of biography often elude filmmakers who are charged with creating dense and intricate portraits of a human being in 120 minutes. Nevertheless, the movie is quite enjoyable. The performances are stirring and the wartime themes, difficult as...

“I want to see what happens in the hearings,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said. “But certainly I’m supportive.” McCain and Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) all said in interviews they have met with Lynch privately and are inclined to vote in favor of her nomination. “I would say yes, unless something comes up during the hearings,” Fischer said when asked if she was leaning toward backing Lynch.

Every year, in the week between Christmas and New Year’s, I think about George W. Bush. It was in that week each year for the eight years I covered him as a reporter that he gave me a spectacular gift — and he knew it. I started covering the newly elected president in 2000, when I was in my 30s. Back then, as a reporter for The Washington Times, we went everywhere the president went. If he went to Charlotte, North Carolina, to give a 30-minute speech on an airport tarmac, we went. Up at 4 a.m., an hourlong commute...

Republicans Prepare For Battle With Unions In 2015, After Midterm Gains December 26, 2014 Republicans in statehouses across the country are plotting a tough new campaign to check the power of labor unions and chip away at their political influence. The GOP lawmakers, buoyed by sweeping midterm victories at the state level, are weighing so-called "right-to-work" bills in several capitals once new legislative sessions start in January. The measures, already in place in two-dozen states, generally prohibit unions from forcing workers in the private sector to join and pay dues. "The accumulated gains by Republicans in state legislatures will certainly...

Israel's Top Court Orders West Bank Settlement Demolished Protester By BATSHEVA SOBELMAN Amona, the largest of unauthorized outposts in the West Bank, is ordered demolished by Israel's top court Israel’s Supreme Court has ordered the government to demolish the West Bank settlement of Amona within two years and relocate its 300 Jewish residents, moving to end a years-long legal battle. In the ruling late Thursday, Supreme Court President Asher Grunis acknowledged that demolishing the community would be “difficult and painful” for its residents. However, he wrote, “this difficulty cannot enable illegal construction on private land” or justify failure to comply...

Shortly after President Obama landed here one fall day for fund-raisers, his motorcade pulled out of the airport and raced at 80 miles per hour down an empty freeway to his hotel in the city. At the front of the procession were bulletproof black sport utility vehicles and limousines driven by Secret Service agents who had spent hundreds of hours learning how to maneuver at high speeds. Bringing up the rear were police cars with their lights flashing and a Secret Service ambulance that follows the president wherever he travels. And in between were several vans filled with White House...

Third Priest Killed In Dangerous Southern Mexico By MARK STEVENSON A priest was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head, his diocese said Friday, marking the latest in series of abductions, attacks and highway robberies against Roman Catholic clerics in an area of southern Guerrero state dominated by drug cartels. Rev. Gregorio Lopez Gorostieta is the third Catholic priest to have been killed in the region this year, and the first to die since the federal government launched a special, stepped-up security operation in the area following the disappearance of 43 teachers' college students three months ago. The...

Obama's Three Hundred and Ninth Week in OfficeNews and Notes:   We are still a nation of Laws. You just have to check with Barack Obama everyday to see what they are.  -Ted Cruz March 8, 201412/25/2014Gunrunner-GateBelatedly Released and Revealing Fast & Furious Docs60-page released Fast & Furious DocIt's 3am and nobody's thereFour-star spymaster behind North Korean hacking; Sony’s ‘The Interview’ available onlineNorth Korea was NOT behind the Sony hack according to multiple security experts who discredit FBI findings and reveal that a studio insider named ´Lena´ may be responsibleCommunity Organizer to the WorldObama: Jesus Is ‘A Son of God’Obama's Spiritual...

On Christmas Eve in 1914, famed naturalist John Muir lay in a Los Angeles hospital bed, taking his last few breaths. A prolific nature writer and passionate preservationist, the 74-year-old spent his final moments racked with pneumonia, hundreds of miles from the 17-room Martinez Edwardian mansion he called home. A century later, Muir’s former residence — now the John Muir National Historic Site — is where national park staffers and about 30 Muir enthusiasts gathered on a gray Christmas Eve morning to mark the passing of the man who co-founded the Sierra Club and preserved Yosemite and other natural park...