Free Republic

Large pockets of Mexico are little more than a third world enclave. The streets run freely with the blood of honest and dishonest people alike. Many of the criminals in Mexico are armed with very dangerous guns given to them by Eric Holder through his Fast and Furious scheme to discredit all guns in America. Until now no one seemed able or inclined to stop this carnage, but that is changing in one besieged area of Mexico. The people of some of the towns surrounding Acapulco have witnessed the deaths of over 70,000 men women and children since 2006, some...

In January 2008 Barack Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle: “Under my plan of a cap and trade system electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Businesses would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that cost onto consumers.” He promised that his plan would cause electricity rates to skyrocket. ... Barack Obama’s EPA just killed off another 3,900 energy jobs in Texas. ... Obama’s new EPA regulations will cost the coal industry $180 billion and force electricity rates to skyrocket.

The first line of attack in political battles is language. Getting people to phrase things your way is the first step to getting them to think your way. In the foggy mess of the debate over women in combat, you will see media references to a “ban” being “lifted.” Bans are bad. Lifting bans is good. Therein lies the bias strangling this issue in the dominant media culture. Am I “banned” from the women’s restrooms at work? No, I’m just not supposed to be in there, so that word doesn’t come up. The left has commandeered combat as a rhetorical...

Tucson police dog Ivan did his job and protected officers "in the dark who were in harm's way," said Officer Ron Payette, speaking at a memorial service for the fallen K-9. Payette relived on Thursday, outside police headquarters, that Dec. 12 night when he and other patrol officers were chasing an armed carjacker that led to the fatal shooting. Some 200 people, including officers representing more than a dozen agencies from the Tucson area and Scottsdale, paid their respects to the 3-year-old Belgian malinois and Officer Chris Fenoglio, Ivan's partner. Ivan's ashes were in a wooden urn that was placed...

Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s claim that he heard the gunshots of a 2006 school massacre while playing golf is raising questions about his veracity or his memory. Mr. Biden told a meeting of mayors in Washington Thursday that he was about a quarter-mile away from an Amish schoolhouse on Oct. 2, 2006, when a gunman shot and killed five students and wounded five others. “I happened to be literally — probably, it turned out, to be a quarter of a mile [away] at an outing when I heard gunshots in the woods,” Mr. Biden recounted. “We didn’t know …...

Another RINO bites the dust!!

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, moving to take a lead role in the gun control debate, is turning up the pressure on banks that do business with firearms manufacturers. Emanuel is sending letters to two major financial institutions, TD Bank and Bank of America, which offer lines of credit to gun makers suggesting that they stop lending money to the manufacturers if they don’t come out for new gun restrictions. “TD Bank currently aids the gun manufacturing industry through a $60 million revolving line of credit with Smith & Wesson, a gun manufacturer that produces the AR-15 – an assault weapon...

HH: I am joined by Mark Steyn, Columnist To the World. You can read everything Mark writes at www.steyonline.com. And Mark, we’ll be together tomorrow in Washington, D.C. at the National Review Institute. MS: Yeah, I’m already here in Washington, great feral for a country boy like me to come down from the hills, so I’m doing all the good city stuff. I was just in a karaoke bar lip synching to Beyonce lip synching to the Star-Spangled Banner. I got $3.79 in tips. It worked out great. HH: Well, I know you’re on the schedule to talk on Saturday...

Welcome to New York, pal — now go to jail. An Italian tourist spent his second night in the city behind bars after staff at an upscale East Side steakhouse called cops when he claimed he left his wallet at a friend’s place. Graziano Graziussi, a 43-year-old lawyer from Naples, is a regular at Smith & Wollensky — but this time, barely 24 hours into his latest two-week stay in New York, he realized he didn’t have his wallet on him when a waiter presented him with the $208 bill Monday night. “I forgot my wallet,” the clean-cut Graziussi told...

JERUSALEM — Prophesy sites are having a field day with President Obama getting worldwide attention for sparring with a fly yesterday. News media reports document how Obama has somewhat of a larger history of attracting flies during multiple recorded interviews and speeches. Already, religious and other sites are using the headlines to point out that a biblical reference for Satan, the Semitic deity Beelzebub, literally translates from Hebrew into “lord of the flies.” As Obama yesterday nominated two new members of his second administration it was a swarming fly that stole the show. “This guy is bothering me here,” said...

Earlier this week a New Zealand politician, Gareth Morgan, asked his countrymen to get rid of housecats. Morgan didn't ask for these cats to be euthanized; he just asked to make sure they don't have any offspring. His problem with cats is one that's growing in developed nations-how to preserve animals living in an urban setting against a natural born killer. Yes, your housecat is one of the most destructive killing machines on the planet, and environmentalists have taken notice. Several studies in recent years confirm housecats and their feral cousins have a destructive streak that, according to the University...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned on Thursday that a major cyber attack is a looming threat and could have the same sort of impact as last year's Superstorm Sandy, which knocked out electricity in a large swathe of the Northeast. Napolitano said a "cyber 9/11" could happen "imminently" and that critical infrastructure - including water, electricity and gas - was very vulnerable to such a strike. A cyber security bill failed in Congress last year after business and privacy groups opposed it. The measure would have increased information-sharing between private companies and U.S. intelligence agencies and...

Since 23 September 2012, the weekly data for seasonally-adjusted new jobless claims has been especially volatile. The data reported last week, which applies for the week ending 12 January 2013, would appear to be more of the same. At least, that's what you might first think when you see where the data falls with respect to our statistical equilibrium chart of the trends in new jobless claims.It looks just like an outlier, right? And truth be told, it definitely is. However, this outlier is not like the others, where we were able to easily identify the cause of the discrepancy...

The Obama Administration now believes the attack and hostage-taking at a natural gas plant in Algeria last week is the work of al Qaeda operatives based out of northern Mali. U.S. officials say al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was behind the attack and may also have operated a communications network from northern Mali. Despite the recent French intervention, large areas of Mali remain in the hands of jihadist groups. One senior U.S. official said "elements of AQIM" may have carried out the offensive in tandem with fighters loyal to Moktar Belmoktar, a veteran militant based in northern Mali...

A robot avatar for physicians that can navigate hospital corridors on its own has received the green light from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The RP-VITA robot represents the "smartest" telepresence robot that physicians can control remotely to interact with patients in hospitals hundreds or thousands of miles away. Onboard software "brains" from iRobot — the company that makes the self-driving vacuum "Roombas" — allow the new robot to obey movement orders without requiring direct human control. "Previous generations have had to be driven," said Charlie Vaida, a public relations manager for iRobot. "This one you can operate on...

When a Houston-based company purchased a refinery in Nixon about six years ago, it had been mothballed for years — and it showed. Rust streaked the plant’s storage tanks and piping. But after refurbishing, the 15,000-barrel-a-day refinery began to process crude oil about a year ago, with every drop coming from the Eagle Ford shale. “The drilling in the area is very impressive,” said Jonathan Carroll, CEO of Houston-based Blue Dolphin Energy Co. “You can look at maps and see that we are sitting right in the middle of the Eagle Ford, which is great.” Nixon, about 54 miles east...

Police in one Iowa city could soon be buying their own assault rifles to carry in squad cars to ensure they aren't outgunned by criminals in the wake of several high-profile shootings involving semi-automatic AR-15s, FoxNews.com has learned. Half of the 50-member force in Marion, Iowa, will take part in the upgrade, paying for the $2,000 guns in installments deducted from their paychecks, according to Police Chief Harry Daugherty. He said the proposal, expected to be approved by the city’s seven-member City Council late Thursday, will mean initial responders will have enough firepower to deal with heavily armed suspects. Currently,...

The American gun owning public is being duped again, just like we were duped the two weeks before the election when we were convinced that Romney was ahead by several percentage points. The media, including our “friends” at Fox, Drudge, and other “conservative” outlets, are attempting to sell us the concept that the “assault weapon ban” legislation can’t pass, and this is a lie. We are told that Bill Clinton sternly warned his party that they will be punished in the mid-terms, and that the NRA is “too powerful” for any real legislation to make it through congress. This is...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal called on the Republican Party to "stop being the stupid party" on Thursday as GOP leaders promised fundamental changes to help stave off future losses. In the keynote address at the Republican National Committee's winter meeting, Jindal said the GOP doesn't need to change its values but "might need to change just about everything else we are doing." "We've got to stop being the stupid party. It's time for a new Republican Party that talks like adults," he said. "We had a number of Republicans damage the brand this year with offensive...

It's today. He's got a giant s@#$-flavored cake in heck, with 1,400 some-odd sticks of dynamite for candles, exploding just for him. All I got for Mad Mo's B'day was to listen to some Imam saying something or other in Arabic over a loudspeaker. You, however, get to make fun all weekend. Have a blast.