Free Republic

This one’s long but stick with it. The good stuff doesn’t start happening until after we’re treated to the thousandth iteration of Charlie Rangel’s master plan to end war as we know it by reinstituting a military draft which virtually no one supports and which Congress will never again feel safe voting for. A draft which, incidentally, he thinks should now include women: “Now that women can serve in combat they should register for the Selective Service alongside their male counterparts,” Rangel said in a statement. “Reinstating the draft and requiring women to register for the Selective Service would compel...

Caught on audio and video, State Senator Martin Sandoval went on an anti-Catholic rant from the well of the Illinois State Senate as he promoted gay marriage in the Land of Lincoln.

“Since 1989, the world has witnessed a progressive weakening of the state and rise of alternative, non-state primary loyalties, for which a growing number of men are willing to fight.” This is what military affairs expert William S. Lind calls the heart of his theory of the Fourth Generation of Modern Warfare (4GW). And there can be no better example of a “primary loyalty” than the right to keep and bear arms. (1) The days of the massive, invulnerable armies of the nation-state winning contests with lesser opponents at the drop of a hat are over. Consider the fact that...

Miss France 2012 at the Miss Universe competition was the lovely Marie Payet. Born August 17, 1992, she grew up on the small Island of La Réunion, just off the west coast of France. This one's the sporty, adventurous type -her latest thing is surfing- and has displayed some serious musical talent as well, already recording a duet single with a more established French artist.  Marie Payet seems to have made some sort of impression in Vegas last December too, as she was a Top-10 Finalist in the Miss Universe competition- not hard to see why: More at Reaganite...

In a previous blog entry I discussed reasons not to go to law school, namely, the high debt and low employment ratio. It seems that medical students are facing a similar situation, as reported by the Washington Post’s Sarah Kliff. “But there’s also a downside to heading to medical school these days: Students’ odds of getting in a residency program are rapidly shrinking — and medical students have begun to live in fear of this very scary chart,” writes Kliff. The chart contrasts medical residency applications rising steeply, with a gradually increasing line of open 1st year residency positions. As...

Over a decade after thousands of New Yorkers were murdered by Muslim terrorists, the city's mayor is declaring victory in the War on Salt. Next up he plans to wage a spring offensive on Styrofoam cups. After that, who knows? We live in surreal times. In the Middle Ages, cats and rats were put on trial. In this modern age, we began by waging wars on poverty and drugs, both of which we lost, and have now retreated to fighting wars on food ingredients, the bags we carry them in and the containers out of which we eat and drink...

(Image courtesy Net Gunsmith) President Barack Obama is, arguably, the best gun salesman ever. Over 65 million guns have been purchased since the President took office in 2009. FBI background check statistics indicate that, over the last twelve months, Americans purchased a new gun every 1.5 seconds, a figure which suggests there is much more to the recent panic buying than people just stocking up to go hunting or sports shooting. The following guns and ammo industry report indicates that every major gun and ammunition manufacturer in the country is running at 100% capacity, with many so far behind that...

Regular readers know that I have posted this Department of Justice chart from the 2011 National Crime Survey many times. Take another hard look at it, full size:At this point regular readers would probably expect a string of comparative numbers; For example, In 1993 there were 257,908,000 Americans, 1,926,020 violent crimes, 24,530 homicides, 1,135,610 assaults, but… in 2011 there were 311,591,917 Americans, 1,203,564 violent crimes, 14,612 homicides, and 751,131 assaults, but… Instead I a going to look back at 1993 in a different way, by quoting a 1993 Newsweek column by George Will, titled “Are We ‘A Nation of Cowards’?”...

Real estate mogul Donald Trump said that Republican political consultant Karl Rove, who served as a senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, was responsible for helping Barack Obama win the presidency in the 2008 election. … Then, commenting on how a political action committee founded by Rove raised and then spent money in the 2012 elections, Trump said, “The thing that really bothers me, however, is he raised $400 million—spent $400 million on fighting Democrats—didn’t win a race. Didn’t do well in any races and just took $400 million and threw it out the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a Senate panel

I have closely followed the gun control debate in the US from the outside and, as a European, I am trying to make sense of it because I know that at stake is not just the gun legislation but also the American Constitution, with what it represents as the most historically important declaration of human rights and liberties to be safeguarded against the power of the state; the thorny issues of broken families and of how to treat the mentally ill; and even the always controversal question of race and gang violence. I have never seen a gun in my...

In his State of the Union speech, President Obama proposed “working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every single child in America.” This additional preschool access would, of course, be funded through federal and state coffers. President Obama is headed to Georgia today to “formally unveil his proposal for expanding early childhood education,” reports the Washington Post. You can read the President’s proposal here. It calls for a state-federal partnership guaranteeing that all 4-year olds at families at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty line receive access to preschool, as well as entails a “massively expanded...

A former member of the Westboro Baptist Church--a fringe group based in Topeka, Kansas that pickets soldiers' funerals--apologized to the mother of a 21-year-old soldier killed in Afghanistan on a talk show Wednesday. Libby Phelps Alvarez, the former Westboro member, apologized to Sherry and Randy Wyatt for picketing the funerals of fallen soldiers like their son on Anderson Live Wednesday. Alvarez is the granddaughter of Fred Phelps, the group's founder, and has recently left the group. (Other members of the shrinking group have recently publicly defected as well.) "I just feel sad...and, I'm sorry," Alvarez said. "I thought I was...

Proposed Deodand Pistol, suggested retail, $74.99, a considerable savings over current “buyback” or turn in prices. The presidential push for gun bans has reinvigorated the medieval practice of labeling objects as guilty deodands with gun “buybacks” or turn ins. Organizers of the turn in events typically insist that the guns be destroyed rather than sold do individuals or dealers to provided needed resources to police departments and to reduce demands on taxpayers. In response to increased demand, gun manufacturers would do well to consider producing special “deodand” or “turn in” models. These could satisfy the demand for ceremonial destruction...

LA Police Chief Charlie Beck has made a bad decision. Life is a series of decisions. No one should understand this more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck. For obvious reasons, in any situation your ideal position is one of “win or break even.” Those who are in the public area, especially big city police chiefs, more often than not find themselves in the opposite position; “lose or break even,” but that’s part of the job. Since the “lose or break even” dilemma is virtually unavoidable as a rule, voluntarily placing yourself in one is especially foolish. When the...

For most of the last century, leftists have been infiltrating positions of power in our local, state and federal governments, our schools and every major institution. They have done this in order to promote godless, communist ideology and to subvert traditional American values based on true freedom (not to be confused with immoral license) and common-sense morality that ultimately stems from God’s Word. The result of this long-running invasion of our culture is a degeneracy of the soul and conscience of our nation. Some of the most aggressive tools of the Left in our nation are the members of the...

Radio Talk Show Host Charged with Mortgage Fraud Warren Ballentine, 41, Durham, North Carolina, and formerly of Country Club Hills, Illinois, a lawyer who hosts a national radio talk show, was indicted on federal charges for allegedly engaging in two mortgage fraud schemes that defrauded lenders of a total of approximately $9.7 million. The defendant allegedly schemed with others to obtain more than two dozen fraudulent mortgage loans and represented buyers at multiple closings, knowing that they were fraudulently qualified for loans to purchase homes in Chicago, Illinois, and various southern suburbs. Ballentine owns the Law Office of Warren Ballentine,...

The government won a significant victory against the Philadelphia Mafia earlier this month when a federal jury convicted three defendants -- Joseph Massimino, Damion Canalichio, and Gary Battaglini who allegedly served as underboss, soldier and associate, respectively -- for racketeering conspiracy, and convicted reputed capo Anthony Staino for loansharking. Although the jury deadlocked on the racketeering charges against reputed boss Joseph Ligambi and his nephew George Borgesi, U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno already has scheduled their re-trial date for April 16 and the two defendants remain in jail without bail. The only defendant who obtained a complete acquittal in the...

God Made a Farmer Ram Trucks Super Bowl Commercial with Paul HarveyChrysler’s Super Bowl Ram Truck commercial praising the American farmer was an unexpected big hit and is still being replayed around the country on talk radio. Rich Lowry and Peggy Noonan both contrasted the authenticity of that commercial fantasy with the falsity of the real event. And why not? Even if the clip was a bit corny and overdone, the late Paul Harvey was a masterful throaty narrator in the romantic age before the onset of America’s now ubiquitous metrosexual nasal intonation. Harvey just didn’t sound different from the...

Suicides and Homicides in Patients Taking Paxil, Prozac, and Zoloft: Why They Keep Happening -- And Why They Will Continue Underlying Causes That Continue to Be Ignored by Mainstream Medicine and the Media From almost the day that they were introduced in the late 1980s and early 1990s, sudden, unexpected suicides and homicides have been reported in patients taking serotonin-enhancing antidepressants such as Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft. I'm not surprised this problem hasn't disappeared, nor will it unless we look deeper. I never hesitate to say that these drugs -- selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) -- help millions of people....