Free Republic

The former president took on the NRA at a campaign rally for his wife. He said each year gun ownership has gone down slightly in America, but PolitiFact says that's only half true. They looked at poll data, and gun ownership has fluctuated, up and down. Pew Research says there's no definitive data on the subject,

A man arrested after trying to jump on the stage at Republican Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Dayton reportedly told police he planned to grab the microphone and yell that Trump is a racist but didn’t intend to hurt anyone. […] (Thomas) DiMassimo, of Fairborn, was charged with misdemeanor inducing panic and disorderly conduct. He was released on bail. …

Gunmen have attacked a hotel at the beach resort of Grand Bassam in Ivory Coast, with casualties reported. Unverified footage posted online shows people running away from the beach.

https://youtu.be/Lm6LGITkiz4

The BBC has been given a video showing Turkish coastguard using sticks against a boat full of migrants as they sail to Greece in the Aegean Sea. The incident is said to have happened in Turkish waters as the migrants were on their way to the island of Lesbos. The migrants accused the coastguard of attacking them, but the coastguard say they were trying to stop the boat without harming the occupants. The EU and Turkey are discussing new moves to curb the flow of refugees. Europe is facing its biggest refugee crisis since World War Two. Last year, more...

Germans turned out in force to vote in three state elections on Sunday, with the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party looking to profit from popular angst about Chancellor Angela Merkel's welcome of more than a million migrants. The election is the biggest test year of the German public response to the influx, totaling more than a million last year alone and showing no sign of halting, of refugees and other migrants from the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. Merkel, who says Germany is a rich enough country to host desperate people and has a moral obligation to shelter...

U.S. companies are welcome to invest in Iran’s oil and gas industry, the Iranian oil minister said Sunday. State-run Press TV quoted Bijan Namdar Zangeneh as saying that “in general, we have no problem with the presence of American companies in Iran.” He said it is the U.S. government that is “creating restrictions for these companies,” without elaborating. Zangeneh also confirmed that Iran’s state-run oil company has held talks with General Electric. […] The TV report said Zangeneh also asked Siemens executives to invest in Iran’s oil and gas industry. …

Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said Iran would join discussions between other producers about a possible freeze of oil production after its own output reached four million barrels per day (bpd), Iran's ISNA news agency reported on Sunday. Zanganeh said Iran saw $70 per barrel as a suitable oil price, but would be satisfied with less, ISNA reported. Asked whether Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak would try to convince Iran to join an oil output freeze during a visit this week, Zanganeh said Iran may join the freeze after its production reaches 4 million bpd. "They should leave us alone as...

Östersund, Sweden, is the type of place where you leave your doors unlocked and you walk about the streets at night without a worry. Things are changing in the small town in northern Sweden, and police are now warning residents, especially women, not to walk alone at night. As Gates of Vienna reports, “Everything has changed since the arrival of ‘refugees’ at asylum centers that are popping up like mushrooms all over the Swedish landscape, even in the most rural areas.” Since mid-February, six violent crimes – including rape and attempted rape – have been committed by men of “foreign...

The bull market just celebrated its seventh anniversary. But the gains in recent years – as well as its recent sputter – may be explained by just one thing: monetary policy. The factors behind that and previous bubbles can be illuminated using simple visual analysis of a chart. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) doubled in value from November 2008 to October 2014, coinciding with the Federal Reserve Bank’s “quantitative easing” asset purchasing program. After three rounds of “QE,” where the Fed poured billions of dollars into the bond market monthly, the Fed’s balance sheet went from $2.1 trillion to $4.5 trillion....

Scotland’s leader says she doesn’t want to use a possible British vote to leave the European Union as leverage to achieve independence. But First Minister Nicola Sturgeon concedes that Scots’ secessionist spirits would be inflamed if English voters forced them out of the EU. Sturgeon spoke Sunday on the second day of her Scottish National Party’s spring conference, which is focused on strengthening nationalist control of Scotland’s Parliament in a May 5 election. […] Sunday’s published poll data suggested that Scottish voters appear much more enthusiastic than their English neighbors about staying inside the 28-nation bloc, with 50 percent planning...

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said on Sunday that the protesters at rival Donald Trump's rallies are behaving "abusively and wrong," but added that it doesn't help when the GOP front-runner encourages violence. "At the end of the day in any campaign, responsibility starts at the top," the Texas senator said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "And it is not beneficial when you have a presidential candidate like Donald Trump telling his supporters, 'Punch that guy in the face.' We ought to have a president who brings us together, who doesn't seek to divide us." Cruz said on...

The bakery's display windows along Cambridge's main street are filled with sugary treats; people travel hours to buy its famous tea cookies. Stepping into this iconic southern Ohio bakery is pure happiness. Behind the counter, Jody Lawry, Barbara Larrison and Barb Wheeler greet customers warmly and cheerfully banter with each other. All three are stunned to learn that two support Trump and the other “feels the Bern” of Bernie Sanders' candidacy. “Wait, you like Trump too?” Lawry asks Larrison as Wheeler admits that Sanders has her vote. “We never talk about politics here,” Larrison says. “And to be honest, people...

Nearly half of Americans (47%) think gun violence will increase in the U.S. over the next ten years, according to a new CBS News poll released Sunday. Just 14% think gun violence will decrease. Americans differ on what causes gun violence. The availability of guns and current gun laws is the top answer -- particularly among Democrats -- though lack of gun training, crime, mental health issues, moral values, and other causes are also volunteered by many Americans. Slightly more than one-third of Americans (38%) lives in a gun-owning household, while 59% do not. The majority of those in gun-owning...

Millennials.They may not yet be the present, but they’re certainly the future. These young, uninitiated minds will someday soon become our politicians, doctors, scientists, chefs, television producers, fashion designers, manufacturers, and, one would hope, the new proponents of liberty. But are they ready for it?Time after time, particularly on college campuses, millennials have proven to be little more than entitled, spoiled, anti-intellectual brats who place far too much emphasis on feelings and nowhere near enough emphasis on critical thinking. To the millennial, words are cause for the creation of safe spaces, alternative ideas must be stifled, and anything they perceive...

For Trump backers, ethnicity plays no factor. "I don't think Cuban, I think American," said former Hialeah Mayor Julio Martinez, who for two weeks has held a Trump campaign sign outside an early voting site just blocks from where Rubio last week implored Hispanics to vote for him in Tuesday's presidential primary. Perched in a lawn chair outside the John F. Kennedy Library, holding a "The Silent Majority Stands with Trump" sign, Martinez said he was backing Trump because there was "nobody better suited" to fixing the economy. "The worst problem the United States has today is the economy," he...

On the eve of a crucial primary that could determine the Republican nominee, Ohio Gov. John Kasich is tied with real estate mogul Donald Trump in the Buckeye State. Both have 33 percent support in the CBS News Battleground Tracker poll released Sunday morning. The poll shows that Kasich does well among voters who say the economy is in good shape, pollsters noted, while Trump leads among those who feel the Buckeye State’s economy is floundering. But Trump has a 20-point lead over his closest challenger in winner-take-all Florida. He has 44 percent support in the poll, followed by Texas...

The two leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination held a spirited debate over foreign policy last week, and the differences were striking.Donald Trump would cozy up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he's praised as “a strong leader;” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz would escalate our new Cold War with Russia. Trump wants to renegotiate President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran; Cruz promises to “rip [the agreement] to shreds on day one.” Trump says he'd try to broker a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians; Cruz says he's not interested in talks and would back Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin...

The morning after Donald J. Trump canceled his rally in Chicago amid unruly protests, Hillary Clinton delivered her most extensive remarks to date denouncing the leading Republican candidate and the clashes that have erupted at his campaigns, accusing Mr. Trump of committing “political arson.” “The ugly, divisive rhetoric we are hearing from Donald Trump and the encouragement of violence and aggression is wrong, and it’s dangerous,” Mrs. Clinton told supporters Saturday morning at the O’Fallon Park recreation complex here. “If you play with matches, you’re going to start a fire you can’t control. That’s not leadership. That’s political arson.”

New footage shows that the attempted attack on Donald Trump in Dayton, OH on Saturday was a far more dangerous situation than it originally appeared on television. A man jumps a barrier and makes it past several security guards, before finally being stopped feet from Mr. Trump. It is unknown if he had a weapon, but his intent is clear... Video at Link.