Free Republic

Nobody is allowed to fly them. But Boeing can't stop churning them out. A federal probe into electrical fires has grounded all 50 Boeing 787 Dreamliners around the world. But Boeing has little choice but to keep its assembly lines in South Carolina and Washington State running at their normal pace, building five jets a month. A significant slowdown in production, let alone a full shutdown, would be too costly for both Boeing and its suppliers who are counting on making parts for the aircraft.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio just made a small but significant move that indicates he is preparing to run for the presidency. He has hired Jamie M. Fly, until recently executive director of the Foreign Policy Initiative and a former Bush administration official, to serve as his senior national security adviser. It's a shrewd decision, and one that further testifies to the mounting dominance of the neocons. By and large, they set the template for the discussion of foreign policy in the GOP. Their ascendance suggests that it is most improbable that a debate will erupt within the GOP over foreign...

There has been “an alarming rise in the number of attacks against Jewish targets” over the past year, according to a new report issued by the Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Ministry on Sunday. The 2012 report on anti-Semitism, which was presented to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu by Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein during Sunday’s cabinet meeting, indicated that the confluence of extreme rightwing political movements and Islamic radicalism have been responsible for a new wave of anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe. The report’s release was timed to coincide with the commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on...

Bethlehem’s PA governor, Abdel Fattah Hamayel, on Sunday issued an order banning Palestinian institutions in his district from having any direct contact with Israel. The order applies to all municipal and village councils in the Bethlehem area, as well as Palestinian NGOs and trade institutions. The governor justified the ban by arguing that Israeli authorities have been avoiding dealing with Palestinians through the Palestinian District Coordinating Office [DCO]. “In wake of repeated Israeli calls to deal directly with Palestinian municipalities and institutions and hold meetings and conferences with the Israeli side, it is forbidden to have direct contact or coordination...

A few weeks ago, author and Manhattan-based lawyer Brett Joshpe penned a pro-gun-control piece whose thrust was that conservatives need to be sensible with respect to firearms legislation. It's not sensible, said he, to oppose any and all further restrictions on Second Amendment rights. Well, let's discuss what's "sensible." For much of the US' history, we had virtually no gun-control laws (for white people). But then came Prohibition, gangsters, and Tommy guns, and people wanted to be sensible. So we ended up with the 1934 National Firearms Act, which restricted ownership of fully automatic weapons. Al Capone was unimpressed. But...

Rubio staked his marker in the education-reform debate last week when he delivered a speech at the Chamber of Commerce calling for policy changes to improve the skills of the American workforce. Education is not a high-profile topic in Washington, but some Republicans see it, along with immigration reform, as crucial to winning a key part of the electorate: women voters. “We need a champion in both areas. We lost the last election at the PTA meeting and the Hispanic chamber of commerce. Jeb Bush wins elections at the PTA meeting and Hispanic chamber,” said Don Gaetz, president of the...

Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister of Israel whose last claim to fame was his expulsion of some 10,000 Jews from their homes in Gush Katif and northern Samaria, is still in a coma, as he has been since 2005. But recent medical treatments show that there is activity in Sharon's brain – specifically when it comes to recognizing photos of family members. Sharon was recently examined by experts at Ben Gurion University and Soroka Hospital, where he underwent an MRI scan, Voice of Israel public radio reported. .....

Sen Dianne Feinstein (D, CA) takes on "Assault Weapons" "The NRA is venal. They come after you, they put together large amounts of money to defeat you," she (Feinstein) said on CNN's "State of the Union."

SASEBO NAVAL BASE, Japan — The Navy minesweeper USS Guardian — stuck on a protected reef off the coast of the Philippines for a week — will most likely stay there up to two more weeks, Navy officials said Thursday. Rear Adm. Tom Carney, Joint Group Unit Guardian commander, said two contracted heavy-lift ships from Singapore are scheduled to arrive next Wednesday or Thursday at the site near Palawan Island to begin removing the stranded ship. The work ultimately depends on conditions at sea and efforts to stabilize the vessel and lighten its load. During a news conference with Philippine...

Jack Koency, an 86-year-old California man, was one of nearly 1.5 million surviving World War II veterans. He was neither terminally ill, nor bedridden, nor immobile. His neighbors remember him as quiet and good natured. Koency died at the hands of Elizabeth Barrett, an acquaintance of his. She served the decorated war vet a cup of yogurt in which she ground up a lethal dose of Oxcontin with two other medications. Barrett, a social worker, pled guilty a fortnight ago to so-called “assisted suicide.” She could have received up to three years in state prison for her role in Koency’s...

LYNNWOOD, Wash. - New information is coming to light about a man accused of hog-tying his 4-year-old stepdaughter and shooting her with a pellet gun. The suspect, Stetson G. Tedder, 26, of Lynnwood bailed out of jail Saturday night after he was arrested Thursday on suspicion of second-degree assault on a child and unlawful imprisonment. Court documents say the pain he inflicted on the girl was "the equivalent of that produced by torture." Tedder's family now has confirmed to KOMO News that Tedder has a military past. He spent four years with the U.S. Air Force, and a photo taken...

Found this little gem today, thanks to Say Uncle. A $2 Zip gun. What you need? Rubber dishwashing gloves A 3/8ths inch female to female coupling A 2″ 3/8ths inch pipe A 3/8ths to 1/4-inch adapter A drill bit wrapped in duct tape (a 10- to 16-penny nail or similar will suffice in lieu of the drill bit) A round of 9mm ammo, with the case wrapped in duct tape. Want to know the best part? If you make this for your personal use only, it’s completely legal. You can’t sell it or give it away, because that would be...

In a sycophantic interview with The New Republic, conducted by former campaign staffer Chris Hughes and leftist writer Franklin Foer, President Obama suggested that he had all the answers to the pressing issues facing America and therefore no compromise was necessary with Republicans. He added that Republicans should compromise. And if those Republicans don’t compromise, Obama suggested that the fault would lie at the feet of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh – and that the calculus had to be changed to force Fox News and Limbaugh to stop holding Republicans accountable to conservatism.

Will You Submit & Obey? Eric Peters January 27th, 2013 In New York, we have a prequel of what’s to come – the repeal of the Second Amendment and summary criminalization of peaceful citizens merely for possessing the means of self-defense, even in their own homes. As in Great Britain, citizens of NY face prison if they use proscribed weapons against murderous thugs – even in their own homes. The tyrants Michael Bloomberg and Andrew Cuomo have made their decision. Now New Yorkers will have to make theirs. And so will the rest of us – if, as seems likely,...

Now that President Obama has been re-elected, the vaunted jobs council is about to meet its demise. The Obama administration’s original announcement of a jobs council back in 2011 surprised few observers of the partisan political scene; the council was obviously designed as a fig leaf to cover up the administration’s complete lack of direction on economic policy. During its two year existence, that fig leaf council has met just four times formally, and just 18 times informally for “listening and action sessions” – i.e. gobbledygook – in different locations around the country. And while President Obama has suggested that...

On the morning of the day she died, 31-year-old Lori Stodghill balanced her breakfast plate on her very pregnant belly and watched it bob up and down as the twin boys inside her kicked and kicked. The saucer-sized dish was "bouncing back and forth," her husband, Jeremy Stodghill, remembers — a sure sign that at 28 weeks, the babies were strong and healthy.But by that afternoon, Lori wasn't feeling well. At about 3:30 p.m., she called her obstetrician, Dr. Pelham Staples, and reported that she was vomiting and out of breath. It was New Year's Day 2006, and Staples wasn't...

FANTASISTS AND ZEALOTS can be found on both sides of the debate over guns in America. Many gun-rights advocates reject even the most sensible restrictions on the sale of weapons to the public. And proponents of stricter gun laws are often unable to understand why a good person would ever want ready access to a loaded firearm. Between these two extremes, we must find grounds for a rational discussion about the problem of gun violence. Unlike most Americans, I stand on both sides of this debate. I understand the apprehension that many people feel toward "gun culture," and I share...

"One only wishes Wayne LaPierre and his NRA board of directors could be drafted to some of these [violent] scenes, where they would be required to put on booties and rubber gloves and help clean up the blood, the brains, and the chunks of intestine still containing the poor wads of half-digested food that were some innocent bystander’s last meal." So wrote horror writer Stephen King in a Kindle essay Friday entitled "Guns." "Plenty of gun advocates cling to their semi-automatics the way Amy Winehouse and Michael Jackson clung to the shit that was killing them," King wrote in his...

The second of three recently scheduled Miami gun buyback events was held at an Overtown church Saturday -- with people turning everything from handguns to shotguns to assault rifles. Seventy-nine firearms were obtained during the four-hour buyback at St. John Baptist Church at 1328 NW Third Ave., police said. An AK-47 assault rifle that was turned in was among the weapons that officers were glad to see off the streets, police Sgt. Freddie Cruz said. “Here we have a perfect example of what we need to get off the streets: It's a sawed-off AK-47 with a 40-round clip,” Cruz said....

New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says handguns are the main problem on New York City streets when it comes to gun violence. In an interview Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation," Kelly said he supported an assault weapon ban, but that in New York City, "the problem is the handgun." He said 60 percent of murders in the city are done by handguns.