Free Republic

I’ve heard a lot lately about restricting those on the “terror watch list” or “no-fly list” from purchasing a firearm. I get the appeal, because no logical person wants to enable a bad person to do bad things. But if we’re going to restrict the Second Amendment for these people without due process, why stop at just one amendment if it means saving lives? Should people on a terror watch list be allowed to attend a suspected radicalized house of worship? Why allow them to congregate at all? Why is a person suspected of planning terror allowed to have a...

What's it like to fire a Daisy BB gun? It's an experience I'll never forget. Everybody knows BB guns are scary looking and ought to be banned, but I thought I would try to shoot one without any preconceived notions. What I encountered changed me forever. I took a deep breath and determined to enter a Wal-Mart. A "greeter" met me with, "Howdy, welcome to Wal-Mart." I'm from the north. We don't say "Howdy". I sneer back at the microaggression and strain to hold back tears of rage. Barely controlling myself, I asked where I could find a BB gun....

The Republican National Convention opens in Cleveland — we are all witnesses — in exactly 16 days. That means that sometime over the next two weeks or so, we'll find out whom Trump has picked to be his vice-presidential running mate. Trump and his team have said all sorts of things about the timing of the announcement, including sometime soon and in the midst of the convention. Either way, it's coming. And coming soon. Trying to figure out a) whom Trump will pick or b) whom he is consulting in deciding whom to pick is, well, tough. But we do...

When Derrick DeAnda helped a family escape from their rolled-over car he was just trying to be a good Samaritan. He didn't expect to be billed $143 by the late-arriving EMTs for "medical care." "I didn't need any 'medical care,'" DeAnda said. "I had one small cut on one of my hands. The EMT gave me a band aid. I can't see how that could possibly cost so much." The bill from Cosumnes Community Services District was described as "standard practice" by Cosumnes Deputy Chief Mike McLaughlin. "If you're at the scene of an accident that we attend you're going...

Concerned that some of the nation's resources may be out of their reach, Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn) and Chris Coons (D-Del) are demanding that "all businesses fully disclose where all their money is." "As President Obama said when he was nominated for his second term, government is the only entity we all belong to," Franken recalled. "It is every business' and every individual's duty to do the utmost to ensure the survival of this single unifying entity. At a minimum, this means making all of their financial resources known to the government so they may be appropriated if the need...

A bill approved by the state Legislature creates a 21-member Illinois Muslim-American Advisory Council. Co-sponsor of the legislation Sen. Jacqueline Collins (D) hailed the measure as “a sensible way to ensure that the activities of state government have a chance to get Muslim buy-in at an early stage. A lot of what we do without thinking is offensive to the followers of Islam. Clearing policies and programs ahead of time will prevent Muslims from having to resort to violence after-the-fact as a means of expressing their displeasure.” Republican Rep. Barbara Wheeler voted against the bill, calling it “a wrong turn...

Democratic members of the House of Representatives staged a sit-in to publicize their quest for stricter gun controls. Distressed that the murder of 50 night club patrons by an Islamic terrorist in Florida has not sufficiently weakened GOP support for the Second Amendment, more than two dozen Democrats seized the House floor for more than a day, vowing to block House business until their demands are met. Sit-in participant Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa) used the event to call for "a major revision of the Second Amendment, because Americans don't agree with it and we've had it. The Amendment may have...

APPLAUSE APPLAUSE Announcer: Welcome to the new game show that has all America talking, it's "Muslim or Gay" where we ask contestants to guess the identities of famous people and now, here's your host JJJJJJJosh Ernest!!! APPLAUSE APPLAUSE Thank you. Thank you. Welcome, again to another edition of the hit quiz show "Muslim or Gay", brought to you by CAIR - the Council on American-Islamic Relations and by the U.S. Department of Justice - "Sticking it to whitey since 2009." Tonight, we have a special Presidential Election edition of Muslim or Gay so let's meet our contestants: First, to our...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brushed off new revelations that the 30,000 "personal" emails she deleted may have included official Department business as "nothing to concern the American people." A deleted email of particular note was a memo from her Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin to Clinton's State Department subordinates regarding problems caused by Clinton's use of a private unsecured email server. The former Secretary claimed to have "no knowledge of either the original email or its illegal deletion," but offered a hypothesis suggesting that the IT specialist who set up the server "may be the guilty party."...

Former Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla) wrote an op ed for the Wall Street Journal in which he raised the question of why so many federal agents are authorized to carry weapons. In the op ed, Coburn wondered why the IRS needs assault rifles, why the Department of Veterans Affairs is arming 3,700 employees, and why the number of non-Defense Department federal officers authorized to make arrests and carry firearms (200,000) exceeds the number of U.S. Marines (182,000). IRS Commissioner John Koskinen responded that "it should be readily apparent why my agency needs to be armed. Taxes are very unpopular. Taxpayers...

Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla) complains that his $174,000 annual salary plus perks is "not enough to keep a man honest. We deal with an annual budget of over $3 trillion dollars. Our piece of that action is a paltry .005%. High-ranking heads of Departments don't fare much better. Is it surprising that some are tempted to augment in ways that many find distasteful?" "Take former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill," the Congressman said. "After decades of public service they left the White House nearly broke in 2001. What choice did they have but to try to...

Data showing that the average man with a full time job makes less today than he did in 1973 was discounted as “an unfair and misleading statistic” by the Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers Jason Furman this week. “First of all, the premise that a full time job is desirable is debatable,” Furman maintained. “In 1973 many were forced to work because of the inadequacy of the social safety net. Today, many in a similar situation have been liberated from this tiresome fate by a more generous package of government benefits that enables them to work part...

Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis) has introduced legislation that would require taxpayers to pass a drug test before being allowed to itemize deductions on their 1040 tax forms. The bill is in retaliation for state laws that require welfare recipients to pass drug tests in order to receive benefits. "I am sick and tired of Republicans forcing poor people to jump through hoops to receive the money they are entitled to under the law," Moore complained. "We enacted these programs to help the unfortunate. Few members of society are as unfortunate as drug addicts. They are slaves to chemicals that their...

The Department of Education expanded the grounds under which students may be freed from their obligation to repay college loans. Under the new rules, students may be absolved from the obligation to repay loans if the education they received was inadequate. Secretary John King, Jr. explained that “much of what passes as education in our major universities is just crap. Universities know that majoring in ‘women’s studies,’ ‘gender studies,’ philosophy, and the like, won’t prepare graduates for high-paying jobs. Why should naive and ignorant young people have to bear the consequences that could have been avoided if they had received...

The President of Mexico threatened at the world economic summit grave consequences if Trump gets the Presidential seat: all the Mexicans in the USA will be going back home to Mexico. The Mexican government announced they will close their borders to Americans in the event that Donald Trump is elected President of the United States. President Enrique Peña Nieto announced the country fears Americans will flood their country and bring violence and chaos to their streets. “Many Americans have expressed a desire to relocate to our country in the event that Donald Trump becomes President. We cannot have Mexico flooded...

Despite President Obama's uncertainty concerning the motives of the man who murdered 49 patrons of the Pulse night club in Orlando Florida, both the assailant and ISIS had no doubts. Shooter Omar Mateen pledged his allegiance to ISIS both before and during his killing spree. Similarly, the Al-Battar Media Foundation, reportedly an operation of the elite ISIS Libyan unit Kalibat al-Battar al-Libi, hailed the "slaughter of infidels" and urged "all true Muslims to emulate this lion of the Caliphate." Presidential Press Secretary Josh Earnest emphasized that "the President's focus on America's gun culture has the numbers behind him. There are...

Pope Francis said Thursday that the majority of the words that come “spilling” out of his mouth are invalid because most of the time he doesn’t understand that what he says is permanent. “We live in a culture of the provisional,” the Pontiff said, responding to a question about the “crisis of his pontificate.” Francis said he often doesn’t comprehend the importance of what he’s saying when speaking off-the-cuff, which he said is “indissoluble.” “Sadly in today’s pontificate, I don’t understand that what I say will have ramifications for not only my pontificate, but of the many pontificates to come,”...

APOPKA, FL – Paula White is partnering with French cosmetics company L’Oréal to launch a new line of make-up products aimed specifically at meeting the significant cosmetic needs of pretend pastors. White, who serves as “Senior Pastor” over thousands of easily distracted and amused members of the Destiny Christian Center near Orlando, announced and demonstrated some of the new products during a Sermon on how God told her to launch a new make-up line with L’Oréal. “Nobody appreciates quality make-up like a pastorette,” White explained. “The better we can look, the more people will focus on our beautiful, smiling faces…and...

Four Republican senators—James Lankford (Okla), Ted Cruz (Texas), and Utah's Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee—have introduced legislation aimed at barring the Department of Justice from using settlement money to fund liberal interest groups. "Settlements obtained from banks found guilty for their role in inflating the mortgage bubble in 2008 ought to be used to compensate those damaged by these egregious practices," Sen. Lankford said. "Instead, the Department of Justice has been funneling this money to favored liberal activists. This is a perversion of justice and an end run around the appropriations process." Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) belittled the...

A clause in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) allows individuals who are between jobs to purchase temporary health insurance policies. The Department of Health and Human Services has announced it will change the rules to limit these policies to three months duration and ban renewals. The problem with these policies according to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell is "they fall short of the President's vision for how Americans ought to be insured. These temporary plans don't cover everything we think should be covered. Notably absent from most temporary coverage policies are items like gender reassignment surgery,...