Free Republic

Eight Senate Republicans joined with 44 Democrats on a Republican-proposed compromise that would deny people on two different federal watch lists the ability to buy weapons unless they could successfully appeal that decision. Several other Republican senators showed some willingness to accept new restrictions on gun purchases if they could be structured in an acceptable way. A bipartisan companion measure also was introduced in the House.

Ted Cruz and John Kasich have a message for Donald J. Trump: They don’t care if they are not invited to speak at his convention. As Mr. Trump tries to plan a convention that will run as smoothly as possible, he said in an interview with The New York Times last week that he would not invite either Mr. Cruz or Mr. Kasich, both former rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, to speak at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland unless they endorsed him. That is fine, both said on Monday. A spokeswoman for Mr. Cruz, Catherine Frazier, said the...

Firefighters and medics will take their first “Trans 101” course on Tuesday, learning the correct way to interact with transgender people — and even getting a lesson in what LGTBQI actually stands for, a city official said. The two-hour sensitivity training was launched in March by the city Commission for Human Rights after Mayor de Blasio signed an executive order allowing people to use any public bathroom or locker room they identified with, regardless of their sexual anatomy.

But it is the flow of people into the European Union that has had the greatest geopolitical impact, and helped to precipitate the British vote. Stabilizing Syria and permanently curbing the refugee flow could be one of the critical factors in determining whether Europe can steady itself politically. Before the refugee crisis, the European Union was already an unwieldy and unfinished entity. Its contradictions and imperfections were exacerbated by the economic crisis. Yet it was the onset of more than a million refugees marching through Greece and the Balkans toward Germany that may ultimately prove to be the most destabilizing...

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.

Wednesday, June 22, 2016: LIVE streaming coverage of Donald Trump’s speech at Trump SoHo in New York City. Coverage begins at 10:30 AM EDT. New York City SoHo, New York City

Manning: Clinton has won nomination Pittsburgh Tribune-Review By Salena Zito Pastor James David Manning, posted an “urgent message to Sen. Hillary Clinton” via You-Tube video today claiming that Clinton “without a doubt has won the nomination for the presidency for the Democratic Party.” In the video, Manning, pastor of ATLAH World Missionary Church in Harlem, N.Y., compares Clinton’s courage to that of former Pakistan leader Benazir Bhutto, Clinton's wisdom and poise to that of Cleopatra, and Clinton's leadership strength to that of Deborah of the Old Testament.

Cops shut down a lane in the Lincoln Tunnel so a visiting businessman could be escorted through it at the behest of a major de Blasio fundraiser, federal prosecutors charged Monday. [Snip] Federal prosecutors allege that the civilian behind the closure, Borough Park businessman Jeremy Reichberg, and his real-estate-investor pal Jona Rechnitz, spent more than $100,000 on police bribes between 2012 and 2015. "They got, in effect, a private police force for themselves and their friends — effectively they got cops on call," Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara said.

In the ongoing battle over women’s reproductive health, high-profile GOP politicians haven’t exactly praised Planned Parenthood. However, George W. Bush’s daughter, Barbara, spoke in favor of the organization. In a conversation with Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards for the New York Times, Bush said that part of the mission of her organization, Global Health Corps, is counting on millennials looking to effect change in the health industry. “So many young people want to work on social change. They want to do good,” she said. “Global Health started because this great talent pipeline was not moving into health care. It’s hard...

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH damn that Catherine Zeta Jones

Trump is America’s answer to Hugo Chávez. If by now you don’t find Donald Trump appalling, you’re appalling. If you have reached physical maturity and still chuckle at Mr. Trump’s pubescent jokes about Rosie O’Donnell or Heidi Klum, you will never reach mental maturity. If you watched Mr. Trump mock fellow candidate Lindsey Graham’s low poll numbers and didn’t cringe at the lack of class, you are incapable of class. If you think we need to build new airports in Queens the way they build them in Qatar, you should be sent to join the millions of forced laborers who...

May 11, 2016 Michael Covel An insidious new fantasy is blooming in Washington, D.C, academia and the media… Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders dreams about it in between bong hits. It’s lovingly endorsed by “off the wall” left-wing economist Paul Krugman. And the ultra-progressive Huffington Post calls it “the idea that could revolutionize the 21st century.” The hype surrounding this “revolutionary” idea will soon be an everyday talking point. And if you’re a hard-working citizen who takes care of your own responsibilities, you should pay extra close attention… Because you’re about to get fleeced and forced to enjoy it… Utopian...

The author of a book about Hillary Clinton and Vince Foster, the aide whose death in 1993 was ruled a suicide, says Clinton triggered Foster’s death by bullying him unmercifully, calling him out from among his colleagues as a failure. The claim comes from Ronald Kessler, formerly an investigative reporter with the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, and the author of “The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents and The Secrets of the FBI.” Kessler wrote about his claim in the London Daily Mail on Thursday. The controversies surrounding Foster’s death...

Omar Mateen pledged allegiance to ISIS while he opened fire on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando last weekend, proving his attack was borne out of radical Islam. Yet, if you ask some bystanders in Brooklyn, they’ll tell you the gunman’s rampage had nothing to do with religion. That’s what filmmaker Ami Horowitz found when he asked New Yorkers who was to blame for Sunday’s stark death toll. “I don’t think it had much to do with Islam, to be honest,” said one Brooklynite. “I don’t think it was a terrorist,” said another. Republicans and guns played a much larger role in...

For six weeks, the editors of New York Magazine and Grub Street are publishing a series of definitive lists that declare the absolute best versions of 101 things to eat, drink, and do. Pizza: It’s what New Yorkers are made of. Now, we’re not talking Neapolitan or neo-Neapolitan, deep dish or Detroit-style — not even whole pies. It’s all about the slice, the economical, accessible, on-the-go meal in its many styles: the classic round slice; square in the Sicilian or grandma style; vodka-sauced; with or without toppings, from the minimal (sausage) to the maximal “gourmet” (Buffalo chicken); and so on....

Donald Trump’s Use of ‘Pocahontas’ Has Native Americans Worried Alan Rappeport Donald J. Trump is heading west this weekend for rallies in Las Vegas and Phoenix and a fund-raiser at Barry M. Goldwater’s old estate, known as Be-nun-i-kin, Navajo for “house on top of the hill.” But it is the prospect of Mr. Trump’s gathering with members of the Navajo Nation that is creating the most intrigue around the trip of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. His repeated use of the name “Pocahontas” to deride Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, has stirred a debate among Native Americans about how they...

After Orlando and San Bernardino and Paris, there is new urgency to understand the signs that can precede acts of terrorism. And with the Islamic State’s prolific use of social media, terrorism experts and government agencies continually search for clues in posts and Twitter messages that appear to promote the militants’ cause. A physicist may not seem like an obvious person to study such activity. But for months, Neil Johnson, a physicist at the University of Miami, led a team that created a mathematical model to sift order from the chaotic pro-terrorism online universe. In a study published Thursday in...

As families began planning funerals for the victims of Sunday’s rampage at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., gay Americans mourned a loss that extended beyond the lives cut short. Omar Mateen shattered the tenuous, hard-fought sense of personal safety that many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans have begun to feel as the movement for equality has made significant gains in recent years. His bullets and the blood he left behind that early morning were a reminder that in many corners of the country, gay and transgender people are still regarded as sinners and second-class citizens who should be...

If it is true that the best defense is a good offense, President Obama should be celebrating in the end zone now. Obviously furious over criticism that his anti-terror policies are weak and that the Orlando slaughter proves it, he went on a televised tirade to let America know he’s mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. He laid waste to a field of straw men, cable-TV pundits and the always-evil “partisan rhetoric,” by which he means anyone who disagrees with him.

A New York Times editorial advocates for a new law allowing a secret court to take away citizens' right to own a gun at the discretion of the federal government.Citing the Orlando terror attack that left 50 dead including the shooter and 53 wounded at a gay nightclub, the piece advocates for a "no-buy" list similar to "no-fly" lists. Under the law, suspected terrorists would not be able to buy a gun. In an attempt to ensure the integrity of the lists and preserve due process, the author proposes people only be added to this no-buy list after a secret...