Free Republic

*snip* [just updated info included below. See link below for full article] As The War Zone points out, New Mexico is indeed home to White Sands Missile Range, the sprawling stretch of desert where the U.S. military has long tested everything from nuclear weapons to V-2 rockets. The site is actually the birthplace of America’s space program, and today is home not just to a space capsule landing field, but the latest in weapons tech, too, from lasers to electromagnetic railguns. But White Sands is approximately 400 miles away from the site of Sunday encounter’s west of Clayton, New Mexico,...

Republicans have criticized Democrats for continuing to push their pandemic stimulus package while accepting little to no Republican input. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Wednesday out of 286 amendments proposed by Republicans for the $1.9 trillion spending package, only two were accepted. “Republicans offered 286 amendments to President Biden’s massive $1.9 TRILLION spending blowout. Democrats accepted 2 of them. So much for Biden’s calls for ‘unity,'” McCarthy said in a statement. On Feb. 19, Democrats unveiled the full text of a 591-page bill (pdf) titled the “American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.” House Republicans held a press conference...

President Joe Biden is reportedly considering “every tool” at his disposal to crack down on Second Amendment rights as left-wing activists are pushing him to deal with the issue of gun violence by declaring a national emergency and using executive orders. “Among the executive actions under consideration by the administration is one that would require buyers of so-called ghost guns — homemade or makeshift firearms that lack serial numbers — to undergo background checks,” Politico reported. A White House official told Politico that Biden was considering “every tool at our disposal, including executive actions” to crack down on the Second...

A journalist who has perpetuated multiple conspiracy theories on social media will serve as one of House Democrats’ witnesses at Wednesday’s hearing on misinformation in the media. Soledad O’Brien, a former CNN anchor turned media critic, will speak before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology as part of the Congressional probe into the role misinformation in news media played in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The hearing is being led in part by Reps. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.) and Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), who sent a letter on Monday to a dozen cable, satellite and streaming video companies...

Lady Gaga’s father told The Post Thursday the family is devastated over the dognapping of the star’s two beloved French Bulldogs, who were stolen at gunpoint in Los Angeles late Wednesday. “We’re just sick over it, it’s really horrible,” Joe Germanotta, a Manhattan restaurateur, said by phone. “It’s like someone took one of your kids.”

Children and young people are far less likely than adults to get severe cases of COVID-19 infection, and death from the pandemic disease among children is exceptionally rare, according to UK research published last summer. A study of COVID-19 patients admitted to 138 hospitals in Britain found that less than 1% were children, and of those fewer than 1% – or six in total – died, all of whom were already suffering serious illness or underlying health disorders. “We can be quite sure that COVID in itself is not causing harm to children on a significant scale,” said Malcolm Semple,...

When a handful of potential Republican presidential hopefuls convene on Thursday for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), there will be one notable absence from the speaking lineup: Nikki Haley. Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a potential 2024 White House contender, has found herself isolated from former President Trump and the populist wing of the GOP that he commands after a scathing interview with Politico in which she denounced her former boss and wrote off his future influence in Republican politics. The fallout from Haley’s remarks underscores the risks associated with her strategy of...

Biden has made it clear that his number one mission as president is to undo everything the Trump administration accomplished over the last four years. His newest cancellation simply does not make sense. Biden’s administration recently cancelled Operation Talon, a Trump administration program aimed at removing convicted sex offenders living in the United States illegally. Though the program seems to be something everyone should support, it clearly isn’t. Why would anyone want sex offenders to remain in the country? South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson joined a coalition of 18 state attorneys general to urge Biden to reverse the cancellation,...

Sen. Cornyn says he'd like to travel to Texas with President Biden, telling Hill pool: "If I could do that I would, I would like to do that. I think it would be appropriate."

People have tried to sneak onto Air National Guard (ANG) bases 13 different times so far since the start of 2021. ANG Director Lt. Gen. Michael A. Loh told Air Force Magazine that, as of Friday, Feb. 19, the service has seen 13 attempted or successful infiltrations of their bases. Loh did not disclose the locations where the security breaches occurred, due to security concerns. Loh said nine of the incidents have occurred at “installation-control points” at the bases. “Most of them come in, they don’t realize that they’re coming on a base, that they’re supposed to stop, and they...

I was sitting in the parking lot of my church on Ash Wednesday, just about to go inside to get my ashes, when the radio told me that Rush Limbaugh had died. With him passes both an era in politics, and an era in my own life. If you’re a showman – and Rush was that above all else – they say that it’s best to go out on top. And he did, just at the moment when it became apparent that the approach to politics that he championed his whole life won’t be enough to save us; that superior...

As the Crime Prevention Research Center has pointed out many times, television crime shows seem to think criminals are constantly using machine guns to commit crime. This episode of NBC’s Blacklist (Season 8, Episode 1, November 13, 2020) starts off with a machine gun being used to break a federal witness out of federal protection. In real life, criminals generally use machine guns so rarely that a 2016 survey of prison inmates only broke down the numbers for uses in crime of handguns (11.2%), rifles (0.8%), and shotguns (1.1%). There are few rifles, and the survey did not even mention...

On March 5, Pope Francis will make history as the first pope to visit the country of Iraq. During his four-day visit, he will hold an inter-religious prayer service at a ziggurat, an ancient Mesopotamian site built in the 21st century BCE. Next week, the Pope will hold a service the Vatican has named “Prayer for the sons and daughters of Abraham”. Reuters reported that the “inter-religious prayer service will be attended by Christians, Muslims, Mandaean-Sabaean, Yazidi and other religious minorities present in Iraq.” There is no mention of Jews, descendants of Jacob, being included in the “Prayer for the...

The Federal Reserve’s systems for electronic money transfers between banks suffered a widespread disruption Wednesday. The Fedwire Funds Service, Fedwire Securities Service, and National Settlement Service have resumed processing and are operating normally. The Federal Reserve Banks have taken steps to help ensure the resilience of the Fedwire and NSS applications, including recovery to the point of failure. Nevertheless, it is critical that you reconcile the messages you believe you had sent or received through the services after waiting several minutes for the backlog of messages to finish processing before you submit additional messages to the Fedwire Funds Service and...

I don't want to know how much ammo you have, rather general ideas as to how much ammo think they should have on hand to feel comfortable for each type of gun? Especially with a trend towards potential anti-gun legislation. Ex:.38 revolver and recommend 500 rounds or AR15 5.56 and 1,000 rounds.

HOUSTON — Last week, the Texas power grid was “4 minutes 37 seconds away from a total collapse,” meaning a statewide blackout, ERCOT officials said at an emergency board meeting Wednesday. Had it happened, Electric Reliability Council of Texas says Texas would have been in the dark for weeks if not longer.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Illinois public health officials announced Thursday nearly 56,000 people in the state were vaccinated against COVID-19 on Wednesday as state Republicans questions Gov. J.B. Pritzker on why Illinois’ efforts in the area is lagging.

Former House sergeant-at-arms Paul Irving told senators he did not hear from Sund until 1:28 p.m. and that no formal request for National Guard assistance was lodged until after 2 p.m. Pittman’s testimony appears to back up the narrative shared by Sund, who resigned shortly after violent insurrectionists threatened the presidential transfer of power. That discrepancy between former officials’ recollections of their response is an early, defining element of the investigation into the handling of the insurrection. And Sund’s recollection appeared suspect, since video of Irving on the House floor at 1:09 p.m. seemed to confirm his account. But Pittman’s...

Forty states have laws that prohibit the seizure of guns during emergencies, six states have laws that allow such seizures, and four states and the District of Columbia have no such laws on the books. These laws largely passed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall on August 29, 2005. The 37 states that we are certain passed their laws after Katrina are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas,...

A Philadelphia man is accused of raping and robbing a Macy’s customer after hiding in a women’s restroom and jumping over a stall to attack her over the weekend. Jaleel Uqdah, 22, was arrested Wednesday after surveillance footage of the suspect leaving the store and walking into a train station led to numerous tips on his whereabouts. The accused rapist was armed with several barbecue skewers when he went into the Center City department store Sunday morning with the goal of attacking someone, Philadelphia Police Capt. Mark Burgmann said. “He went into that store at 11:11… Within three minutes, he...