Free Republic

For years, voices have cried in the urban wilderness: We need to talk about gun control. Yet the guns blazed on. It took a small-town slaughter for gun control to become a political priority. Now, decades' worth of big-city arguments against easy access to guns are finally being heard, because an unstable young man invaded an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., with a military-style assault rifle and 30-bullet magazines. Twenty young children and six adults were slain....

<p>I caught the press conference live like many people did and by the time it finished I could not stop but smile thinking that the old coots can deliver harm to the politicians and play a mean game of PR chess to the Media and the Opposition.</p>

From RetiredTexasVet and Family: We're not Progressive and do not celebrate the Winter Festival, We're not politically correct and do not have a Holiday Tree, We have neither Facebook with friends and unfriends, likes or dislikes, Nor have we twitters or tweets other than the birds feeding in the back yard, What we do have is an old fashioned country wish for you to have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, And may God bless you all and keep you in the coming new year.

President Barack Obama is in Hawaii for Christmas. Right now, he's golfing with White House chef Sam Kass, staffer Marvin Nicholson, and friends Mike Ramos and Bobby Titcomb, according to the White House pool report. Titcomb was arrested in Honolulu last year for soliciting a prostitute.

Sarah Cleveland: Thinking about the people I met this morning while on the sidewalk. It was so bitterly cold... Dozens of parents and grandparents went inside today. It was so busy.. There were several of us counseling and praying outside of the mill today and as always, we spoke to as many people as we could going in, reaching out equally to the people standing on the steps having a cigarette, the workers, and the people walking out of the building. I spoke with Renee, a mother of two. A child, age 5 at home, and another, age 4 months,...

Since removing constitutional rights is all the rage now, I have to ask: when does dislocation from reality become severe enough to justify involuntary commitment? A good study case is NYC's Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who recently uttered a real gem on his weekly radio show. Writes Politicker.com:

The authorities in Argentina and Chile have issued an alert over increased activity at the Copahue volcano, which has begun spewing smoke and gas. Many residents have already left the area as a precaution. An orange volcano alert, the second highest, has been issued in both countries. The 3,000m (10,000ft) volcano is in Argentina's south-western Neuquen province, which borders the Biobio region of Chile.

FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS (KMOX) - An East St. Louis couple is charged with beating an elderly employee at a Metro East Best Buy. It’s considered normal procedure by most to be asked for your receipt while leaving a busy store like Best Buy with expensive items. But Latoya Greenwood, 38, didn’t take kindly to the request. Police say she began shouting obscenities at the 61-year-old Fairview Heights Best Buy employee at the exit door. Her husband got into the act and smacked the man across the face, sending him down to the ground while his wife didn’t flinch and kept the...

Obama Golfing in Hawaii With Pal Arrested in Prostitution Sting HONOLULU, Hawaii — Taking a break from the fiscal cliff negotiations, President Obama is spending the first day of his holiday vacation golfing with friends and aides, including longtime pal Bobby Titcomb, who was arrested last year on suspicion of soliciting a prostitute. After arriving in Hawaii late last night, the president spent this morning at his family’s vacation residence along the shores of Kailua, a quiet town on a stretch of beach on the east end of Oahu. Shortly before noon, the president made the trip to the Kailua...

The DC Chapter held its Christmas Party on Saturday, December 17. The day started out with our weekly Saturday morning Support the Troop Rally in Olney. Weather was great - in the upper 40s. We had 8 FReepers and Legionnaires in attendance. We then gathered at Lurker Bill’s for the party. This is Lurker Bill and Paula’s 3rd year hosting the Chapter’s Christmas Party. And they were ready for us. This year they were so well organized that they did not have to rush around. They were able to enjoy themselves. We had 25 FReepers and spouses in attendance. We...

Aside from the gold rings and maybe the geese and French hens (great for urban farmers), the traditional 12 days of gifts just don’t cut it for the modern Christmas list. Swans bite; 12 drummers would give anybody a migraine in an enclosed space — ditto, the 11 pipers. Eight maids could at least help with the entertaining, but you get the idea: We need a better list. So here, for your “true love,” we offer the 12 Books of Christmas, a dazzling spectrum of publishing ingenuity. There are even holiday zombies, although their ideas of red and green decorations...

        GIVING There is a story of two young men who were working their way through Stanford University. The day came when they were broke, and something had to be done. One of them had an idea. They would engage the great Paderewski for a piano recital and put their profits toward their board and tuition. All they had to do was guarantee two thousand dollars. The recital was held but only sixteen hundred dollars was raised. Following the performance, the two young men went to Paderewski, offered him the $1600 and added a promissory note...

Montgomery Blair Sibley, the disbarred lawyer who once represented the so-called "D.C. Madam" and today spends his time attempting to disprove President Obama's birth certificate, is upset that a federal judge is not acknowledging his hobby. In a news release, Sibley says that Judge John D. Bates of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia "continues to ignore court rules" by not ruling on his motions to hold Obama, Harvard Law School, the Social Security Administration, the Selective Service System and the State Department in contempt. He also claims that he now has "photographic evidence" that someone tampered with...

Amid talk of reinstating the assault weapons ban that expired eight years ago, police departments nationwide are thinking of ways to confiscate such weapons. As WCBS 880’s Marla Diamond reported, among the departments considering taking action is the NYPD. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said if Congress were to reinstate the ban, police are wondering whether it will be their responsibility to confiscate them.

Puzzling me for a long time is the inconsistency between two claims by gun and Second Amendment supporters. One is that what they worship is critically needed to defend themselves against a government that they would view as oppressive and unacceptable. The other is their belief that the US government has already become awful, stealing their liberties. Why then, I keep asking myself, have we not seen a violent uprising among the untold millions of Americans owning guns to take back their government? Why do we not see what goes on in European nations, namely violent public uprisings against governments?...

My family and I just returned from a week long vacation at DisneyWorld. Just thought I'd share a few thoughts. I suppose the first thing that comes to mind is that absolutely nothing at Disney World is small,...with perhaps the exception of 'Small World' which actually isn't all that small. 43 square miles can be a very large place. To give you some comparison, All the existing DisneyWorld current properties could fit into 'Animal Kingdom' -alone - with space left over. If you've been there, you know! If you're going,...bring comfortable walking shoes. You have never walked so far in...

The Prince of Peace wants to come in and give you peace, he wants to calm every fear and heal every hurt. And he has a system for doing exactly that. His word is the means of bringing you peace. James 1:21 says, "To receive with meekness the engrafted word, which has the power to save your soul." The engrafted word, which has the idea that you are going to have to put the word on the inside of you. The word of God is the sword of the spirit and with it you cut the roots which in turn...

A National Health Service hospital in Great Britain has paid claims by 38 patients or their families, and has apologized to all of them for the grossly negligent care it provided. The Telegraph headlines:”Hospital apologises to 38 families for appalling care that saw a patient starve to death.” An NHS hospital has apologised to 38 families after a patient starved to death and it left other dying people screaming in pain. In one of the worst cases, a man had starvation recorded as the cause of his death after being treated at the hospital for two months. … Bereaved relatives...

Gun enthusiasts thronged to shows around the country on Saturday to buy assault weapons they fear will soon be outlawed after a massacre of school children in Connecticut prompted calls for tighter controls on firearms. Reuters reporters went to gun shows in Pennsylvania, Missouri and Texas, and found long lines to get in the door, crowds around the dealer booths, a rush to buy assault weapons even at higher prices and some dealers selling out. …

Donkey cheese is irresistible, or at least articles about it are. A week ago, several British newspapers, notably The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Mail, reported that Novak Djokovic, the top-ranked men’s tennis player, had bought the entire world supply of pule, a Serbian donkey cheese, for his restaurants. The cheese, produced on a lone farm on Zasavica, a nature reserve west of Belgrade, had already made a small splash for its exorbitant price. At 1,000 euros per kilo, or about $600 per pound, it seemed to have inched past moose cheese to top the list of the world’s most...