Free Republic

A Newark, New Jersey deli owner who shot and killed an armed man will not face charges, police and prosecutors say. Acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn Murray as well as Newark Police Director Eugene Venable say that the owner of the deli had a permit for the gun that he used to defend himself. New Jersey is notorious for having some of the strictest gun regulations in the nation. The robber apparently thought that meant there was no legal way for his would-be victims to arm themselves. According to Guns.buzz, Mark Robinson’s last words inside the New Neighborhood Deli Supermarket...

"Sharpton and Trump forged an unlikely friendship over Atlantic City boxing deals that has lasted for decades, through ups and downs. Even as the Tawana Brawley scandal unfolded and Sharpton faced a 67-count indictment involving how he used funding for his youth organization, Trump remained a prominent supporter of the agitator, numerous sources close to the two men tell National Review."

Donald Trump apparently smelled a rat planted at Thursday night's debate on Fox News, causing him to back out of the final showdown event before the Iowa Caucus. But the question remains: Who planted the rat at Fox? The story is being played in the establishment media as a feud strictly between Trump and Fox News' Megyn Kelly. But to get to the source of the feud, some pundits are saying it goes beyond Kelly. Look to her bosses, they say. Fox had selected a couple of dyed-in-the-wool Democrats to try to trip Trump with questions that his supporters say...

(CNN)A high-speed getaway attempt and a reach for the waistband are said to have prompted police SWAT team members to open fire on a group of leaders of the Oregon armed occupiers. A law enforcement official described the dramatic showdown that occurred Tuesday night on a desolate stretch of U.S. 395, some distance away from the federal wildlife refuge where the group took over federal buildings nearly a month ago. FBI and Oregon State Police at a command center in Burns were monitoring the group when they departed the refuge to attend a town hall meeting with local residents in...

If history holds true, the ranchers courageous enough to bring needed attention to land use rights being subverted by government regulation will be shackled, and the unjustifiable death of a good man will be overlooked Pathetic is the only word that could describe the skimmed over media treatment of the indiscriminate gunning down of a rancher in Oregon in favor of covering the non-news of Trump’s debate antics. A peaceful standoff in Harney County, Oregon, came to a violent end as a contingent of protesters were traveling to John Day, Oregon, to meet with the sheriff about resolving the Malheur...

Sen. John McCain, the man who in 2008 put losing like a gentleman above doing what was necessary to keep then-Senator WrightAyersRezkoPleger out of the White House, appeared on CNN Wednesday with a fistful of red herrings designed to seek favor with his friends in the media by “othering” Donald Trump as a threat to all that holy and virtuous in America. Speaking to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, McCain once again proved that he had what it took to defeat  Barack Obama but that he’d prefer to save his blistering rhetoric for his fellow  Republicans. McCain also proved that he knows...

...so in order to justify Trump's lead, somehow 50,000 more caucus attendees will have to show up and vote for Trump than have ever shown up before. Trump has 12 paid staffers in Iowa, led by Tana Goetz, a 48-year-old former runner up on "The Apprentice." Wow, what raw horsepower...

And it’s good news for more than one reason, although the current temperature of the electorate may not appreciate the nuances at the moment. The RNC set a record for off-year fundraising in 2015, chair Reince Priebus announced on Twitter earlier today, with a total haul of $105 million. The party entered 2016 with nearly $19 million in cash, too: BREAKING: Historic year for @GOP. Raised off-year record $105.6M in 2015, $18.7M COH. We're the only org focused/ready for general election— Reince Priebus (@Reince) January 27, 2016 Much of that came from smaller donors, according to The Hill’s sources:...

Not because it broke the law or compromised national security It’s a cringeworthy four minutes - during her editorial board interview with the Quad-City Times - but it’s also an enlightening case study in how a person bobs and weaves when completely in denial and unwilling under any circumstances to acknowledge culpability:

A legislative oversight committee is unfairly targeting gay rights organization in Iowa over its programming at an annual anti-bullying youth conference, the leader of the group said Tuesday ahead of a meeting to address the issue. Nate Monson, executive director of Iowa Safe Schools, said some members of the House Government Oversight Committee plan to sensationalize his group's work at a meeting Wednesday at the Capitol.

71-year-old grandmother sitting by herself on a subway car in Lower Manhattan. A 30-year-old man walking down a street in the East Village, listening to music and enjoying a leisurely Saturday afternoon. A 24-year-old woman heading to her job at Whole Foods in Chelsea. All strangers. All slashed by men wielding knives or razors.

The problem of forged or fraudulent passports in Europe – especially from the Middle East – is so bad that it has forced the U.S. government to warn five countries that they have until next week to act, or they will lose their visa-free travel rights. Interpol says there are 250,000 passports, mostly from Iraq and Syria, that have been lost or stolen in the last five years.  And that includes blank documents. Politico: American and European security officials speak of an “epidemic” created by a spike in demand from asylum-seekers — and from terrorists like those who carried...

Strained to the breaking point by the largest per capita influx of Muslims claiming to be “refugees,” Sweden’s government is finally planning to vet and even expel those invaders who are not legitimately escaping the threat of death.  If, that is, they can find them (which is a big if). The U.K. Guardian reports: Sweden is gearing up to reject up to 80,000 people who applied for asylum in the country last year, as many as half of whom will be forced to leave against their will, according to official estimates. The interior ministry has called on police and...

In what could be the biggest shock in the S.C. primary this far, Trump received an endorsement Wednesday from McMaster, the second high-ranking S.C. politician to back a 2016 hopeful. McMaster's endorsement of Trump was a surprise because the former state attorney general, U.S. attorney and S.C. GOP chairman is considered one of the top establishment members in the state party. Much of the S.C. party's establishment base has endorsed Bush in the GOP race after initially backing U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Seneca Republican who pulled out of the presidential race last month. Graham, the only other statewide politician...

Why Holy Days and the Sanctoral Cycle Are Important Msgr. Charles Pope • January 27, 2016 • In last Sunday's Mass we read from the eighth chapter of the Book of Nehemiah. I posted a lengthy commentary on it last week (On the Wonder of the Word of God). In today's post I would like to ponder a rather surprising emphasis of that text. Let's start with a little background.In a stunning reversal for the Jewish people, the Babylonians invaded Jerusalem and destroyed not only the city, but the Temple as well! Prophet after prophet had warned the people...

The other day a commentator asked a GOP candidate this simple question. "What is the Federal Government doing that it should not be doing?" The candidate did not have a ready answer, and did the soft shoe talking point response that had little to do with this question. But, isn't the answer to this question the crux of conservatism? Should not each candidate running for office under the guise of conservatism not have, at the constant ready, a litany of unnecessary federal government programs and activities? Admittedly, the easier response is to take the question in the negative and respond...

Chelsea Clinton hosted her highly-hyped Soul Cycle fundraiser for her mother in New York City on Wednesday afternoon. The $2,700-a-head event, which offered just 60 seats at the popular cycling studio's Tribeca location, was expected to sell out quick while raising some easy money for the Hillary Clinton campaign but was ultimately a flop. Such a flop in fact that in the end some seats were being sold for just $50, roughly the same price it costs to take a regular Soul Cycle class.

Poster-updating costs alone would reach into the millions. The Department of Labor has proposed a rule that would remove the words 'he' and 'she' from an anti-discrimination regulation in order to "avoid the gender binary" - which is obviously something that must be avoided at all costs. The rule replaces "he" or "she" with the individual, 'person,' or other appropriate identifier," according to the document's text. (So - wait - does that mean "he" and "she" are inappropriate identifiers?) It also updates the list of things that count as banned discrimination under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act to include...

After my dad became a Christian, we all moved together to Houston. And seeing the amazing transformation in her husband, my mom became a Christian within a year as well. Thus, by age 4, I was blessed to be being raised in a Christian home with two strong (but new) believers as parents.I was raised in the church. Each night, my dad would read with me from our children's Bible. We'd memorize Bible verses, and compete to see who could do the best. We'd act out scenes from the Old Testament. We attended Clay Road Baptist Church, pastored by the...

Hillary Clinton and her campaign minions are trying mightily to dismiss the conclusions of the intelligence community inspector general that highly classified Special Access Protocol (SAP) documents were transferred to Clinton’s unsecured private server. The first line of Clinton’s defense is (as usual) that the allegations are 1) nothing new and 2) politically motivated. But beyond this usual rote Clintonian response is the additional claim that the documents were also 1) not so classified when Clinton received them and 2) even if they were classified documents the information they contained was public knowledge anyway, so no harm, no foul.