Free Republic

The Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility launched its TV advertising campaign yesterday to promote Initiative 594, a statewide ballot measure to broaden background checks on all gun purchases. The ad, titled "Prevent," features former Bellingham Chief of Police Don Pierce. Citing FBI data, in the ad, Pierce credits current background check laws with stopping more than 40,000 people — "felons, domestic abusers, you name it" — from purchasing guns in Washington state.

(edit)  The goal of "Twitterpated" is to encourage conversations about same-sex relationships in a disarming way, said Oksendahl, adding that he chose bunnies for the game because "they are known for being very active as far as their reproductive strategy." The game contains no sex, and instead, the bunnies rub their noses and hearts when paired together, he said. "I came up with some game mechanics that I thought would be kid friendly, but at the same time expose kids to the idea that there's more than one way to be," he said. "I grew up as a youth with...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)There are 65 prominent people who might run for president in 2016. The Democratic and Republican fields contrast sharply. Hillary Clinton is the clear front-runner, while there is no front-runner on the Republican side. Twenty-three Democrats have been mentioned as a candidate or are eyeing a bid, according to an analysis by The Hill. The GOP side has 42. Most of the people on this list won’t run, and some have adamantly claimed that they’re not interested. But many politicians have changed their minds on seeking the White House. Before mounting his 2008 bid, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said he...

Religious directives that some worried could restrict medical care at a new health clinic preparing to open on the Washington State University Spokane campus are being jettisoned. The announcement Friday by Providence Health & Services comes two days after the American Civil Liberties Union expressed concern about the clinic’s bylaws and asked WSU regents to address the matter at their Sept. 11 meeting. The Spokane Teaching Health Center is a consortium of Providence, WSU Spokane and the Empire Health Foundation. It’s expected to open on the WSU Spokane campus in 2016, and regents will consider selling $15 million in revenue...

British diplomats in the US have been forced to apologise after revealing they were hosting a party to celebrate the anniversary of the burning of the White House. The British Embassy in Washington held a ‘White House barbeque’ yesterday to mark the two hundredth anniversary of Britain capturing the US capital and setting fire to the President’s iconic address. The Embassy even sent a message on Twitter from its official account with a photograph of a White House cake, flanked by British and American flags and surrounded by sparkler fireworks.

MADISON, Wis. – Conservative targets of a Democrat-launched John Doe investigation have described the secret probe as a witch hunt. That might not be a big enough descriptor, based on records released Friday by a federal appeals court as part of a massive document dump. Attorneys for conservative activist Eric O’Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth point to subpoenas requested by John Doe prosecutors that sought records from “at least eight phone companies” believed to serve the targets of the investigation. O’Keefe and the club have filed a civil rights lawsuit against John Doe prosecutors, alleging they violated conservatives’...

Just how wrong does someone have to be to lose their job in Washington, D.C.? For John McLaughlin, even historically wrong wasn’t enough. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, maybe you know his work. He’s the Republican pollster who predicted just weeks before the June election that then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) would win his primary by 34 points. This week, Cantor packed up his Capitol Hill office, having lost that election by 10 points. “The worst part of it is, you build a relationship with a longtime friend and you never want to lose,” McLaughlin says now,...

Between 1989 and 2010, Congress rejected nearly 700 cap-tax-and-trade and similar bills that their proponents claimed would control Earth’s perpetually fickle climate and weather. So even as real world crises erupt, President Obama is using executive fiats and regulations to impose his anti-hydrocarbon agenda, slash America’s fossil fuel use, bankrupt coal and utility companies, make electricity prices skyrocket, and “fundamentally transform” our economic, social, legal and constitutional system. Citing climate concerns, he has refused to permit construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, and blocked or delayed Alaskan, western state and offshore oil and gas leasing and drilling. He’s proud that...

A palate cleanser via Time, which notes that the “Redskins Facts” site is behind this and that the team itself is apparently behind “Redskins Facts.” (The anti-Redskins ad that inspired this rebuttal is also embedded below for context.) This is really just a taste of what they’ve got cooking; go to their YouTube account and you’ll find interviews with individual Native Americans defending the name. It’s an understandable counterattack — if your critics claim you’re victimizing a group, the natural response is to find members of the group who don’t feel victimized — but realistically we’re past the point...

You know, being a fan of the Minnesota Vikings is difficult enough just based on what happens on the field. We’re 0-4 in Super Bowls. We’ve got to deal with the stomach-curdling memories of the 1999 NFC Championship Game, not to mention 41-doughnut in the same game two years later, and the bounty-hunting Saints putting out a contract on Brett Favre in 2010. But on a cultural level . . . hey, what the heck did we do? We were just sitting here minding our own business. First we got stuck with a petulant, attention-mongering punter who couldn’t and can’t...

Socialist Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant drafted a letter this week calling for an immediate end to all U.S. government military aid for Israel.

Seven months after major glitches in the Washington health exchange were discovered, authorities acknowledge that thousands of state residents still don't have insurance they can use to go to the doctor or fill a prescription. [Snip] Some people aren't being properly credited by the exchange for their insurance payments. In some cases, money and information has been lost somewhere between the exchange and the insurance companies. And some people have been told by their doctors that the insurance company has no record of their coverage.

As a hardcore baseball guy, I often wonder why people needlessly waste their time on all those other, lesser sports. But I suppose everyone has a right to their insane opinions. In any case, football fans may want to keep an eye on this development: The NFL announced this week that it will be using RFID tracking chips on players during select games in the 2014 season. The high-tech chips — RFID stands for radio-frequency identification — will generate precise positioning data on each player on every play. Football Uniforms Throughout History For the initial rollout, the RFID system will...

A former Washington Redskins player is fuming mad because Hillary Clinton had the audacity to call the football team's controversial name "insensitive." Clint Didier, a former tight end for the team for seven years who is now running for Congress as a Republican in Washington State, released a six-paragraph statement Wednesday evening demanding Clinton's apology. In it, Didier also criticized remarks made by Clinton unrelated to the football team and closed with a reference to alfalfa. "I'm just flabbergasted that Hillary Clinton now thinks she's the expert on what's insensitive. But if she has suddenly become the Miss Manners of...

A flash mob broke out in the Petworth neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Friday night, prompting police to fire a riot control agent into a crowd near a subway station.The episode underscores boiling tensions in a neighborhood that — like many inner-city communities across the country — is trying to launch a major “revitalization” project that will see the opening of upwardly-priced new apartment units this summer to accompany a major new chain store.Reports on social media suggest that D.C. Metropolitan Police broke up a party in Petworth due to fighting, prompting a crowd of teenage partiers — at least one...

PATEROS — Residents returning here Friday picked through the ash and rubble of homes incinerated the night before by raging wildfire. Baby pictures, gone. Family antiques, gone. Grandma’s recipes, gone. In a half-block line of charred homes — mostly burned down to their foundations — each resident echoed their neighbors: “We lost everything.” More than 30 homes were destroyed here Thursday night by wind-whipped flames racing down a grass-and-sage bluff and into this river town of 650 residents. Nearby, flying embers jumped the Methow River to torch another 40 homes along the Alta Lake Golf Course. An estimated 20 homes...

UPDATE: BREWSTER, Wash. - There are LEVEL 3 evacuations being ordered in the town of Pateros which has a population of 650 people, as the Carlton Complex Fire burns out of control. 40-50 homes and businesses have burned to the ground. The Brewster Three Rivers Hospital has been evacuated as well. Staff and patients were transferred to Mid Valley Hospital in Omak. The retirement center in Brewster was evacuated to Bridgeport. Housing is available for those who have been evacuated in Chelan at the High School. Residents from Harmony House are being moved to Bridgeport, believe they said the school...

Well before Mr. Smith went to Washington D.C., politicians and civil servants have set out to change the Washington culture and bring about serious change, only to be ensnared in it themselves. Between the Georgetown dinner parties, the media obsession with the city that borders on self-parody, and the allure of power and prestige, the DC experience has proven itself to be an intoxicating one for even the most civic minded bureaucrat. While there have been calls to change the culture of the city for nearly as long as it has existed, few real solutions have been put forward to...

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder says that the Washington Redskins' name 'ought to be changed' and that it's 'an offensive name,' reports TMZ. Holder made the comments in an appearance on ABC News.

It's rare when any business in Clark County attracts national or even regional interest, so the media throng that greeted last Wednesday's opening of Main Street Marijuana was quite a curiosity. The clever "weed and weenies" event that accompanied the store's opening, along with the presence of Mayor Tim Leavitt at the ribbon-cutting, captured the attention of media outlets that devour eye-catching visuals. But business likely would still have been brisk at Main Street Marijuana even if it hadn't snagged the free publicity. With a state-imposed limit of just 15 retail outlets for all of Clark County, and with some...