Free Republic

As mayor of Bogota, Gustavo Petro has put forth a ban on carrying guns in public even with a legal permit. Skeptics have countered that criminals will not follow the ban, and the result will only disarm citizens legally carry guns for security reasons. In 2002 Brazil implemented restrictions which made it virtually impossible for citizens to obtain a permit. According to Brazil’s National Confederation of Municipalities as recently as 2008, more than half of the homocides in Brazil were perpetrated with a firearm, despite restrictions on legal ownership of firearms. The nation suffers at three times the global average...

More On Nancy Pelosi's Socialist TiesSarasota Herald-Tribune (Florida) March 13, 1999What to call left-wing politicians I find it interesting that the mass media uses such terms as Christian radical right, radical right, far right, conspiratorial right, etc. When the left is mentioned, such terms as liberal, progressive, etc., are used. As an independent but conservative, I have found some information that I consider interesting. I wonder how many people are familiar with the Democratic Socialists of America, which is affiliated with Socialist International of London. At least 58 Democrats in the House of Representatives - about one-fourth of the Democrats...

(15:20) Terror suspect tells German court: 'You're all Jews.' By Melissa Eddy, The Associated Press April, 16 2002 FRANKFURT, Germany - The trial of five Algerian men charged with plotting to blow up a French holiday market opened with a flourish today when a defendant disrupted the proceedings and was removed from court. While the other defendants shielded their faces from a TV camera allowed to tape the opening five minutes, 31-year-old defendant Lamine Maroni, speaking in Arabic, recited Koranic verses, swore and urged the others not to testify. He was warned not to continue, but went on in English...

In Salt Lake City, Utah, on February 12, 2007, wearing a tan trench coat, Sulejman Taloviæ , age 19,went on a shooting rampage killing five civilians and wounding several others at Trolley Square, a Salt Lake City shopping mall, before being fatally shot by police. The killings by Talovic, a Bosnian Muslim, was immediately labeled NOT a terrorist act. Both the authorities and the media took pains NOT to identify him as a Muslim. In 2002, Muslim convert John Allen Muhammad, one of the Washington, DC snipers, killed 10 innocent Americans and wounded three more critically. Authorities claimed no connection...

White House officials rolled out a list of 15 visa-lottery jihadis and chain-migration terrorists to pressure Democrats towards a compromise on the president’s “framework” amnesty-and-immigration plan. The February 2 list of jihadis includes a senior leader in the Islamic counter-attack against personal freedom, Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook. He is an “alleged United States Hamas leader [who] received his green card through a predecessor program to the visa lottery,” said the statement. “Marzook was deported in 1997 for terrorist activities.” The statement backs up Trump’s speech in the State of the Union speech, where he urged elimination of the visa lottery...

The Bush Administration has obtianed information that North Korea possesses at least three nuclear bombs as well as an undermined amount of fissile material.The officials said the material is being stored in underground bunkers kept off limits to both the United States or the International Atomic Energy Agency.Geostrategy Direct.com Backgrounder:Compiled by Bill Gertz U.S. Downgrades Saudi Arabia as secure oil sourceIran training Palestinians to use shoulder-fired missilesReconnaissance Photos Show Iraq Converting UN trucks to launchers for artillery, missilesSecret agenda for Arab summit is funding for the Palentinian war

Late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s Palm Beach lair was decorated with an immense collection of framed photographs showing off naked women and the creep’s meetings with high-profile figures, according to resurfaced police footage. The inside look into Epstein’s Florida abode was included in videos released Tuesday by the House Oversight Committee as part of a 33,295-page document dump from files provided by Justice Department. In the tranche were several videos, recorded in 2005, showing Epstein’s home as part of an investigation into allegations the financier molested a 14-year-old girl. Epstein’s since-demolished mansion is replete with photographs of women, many of whom...

MINNEAPOLIS – A man who authorities believe might have been part of an al-Qaida "sleeper cell" obtained a license to haul hazardous materials months after he was identified as a suspected terrorist by the FBI, officials said. The FBI identified Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi as a suspected terrorist before the attacks of 2001, the Star Tribune reported Wednesday, citing unidentified law enforcement officials. Yet Minnesota Department of Public Safety officials said they did not know that Elzahabi was suspected of having al-Qaida connections when he applied in early 2002 for a commercial license to drive a school bus and haul hazardous...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – A Malaysian recruited by al-Qaeda to pilot a plane in a second wave of Sept. 11-style attacks on the United States pulled out after observing the carnage of the 2001 assaults, Southeast Asian officials said Friday. President Bush on Thursday outlined details of an alleged plot to hijack an airliner and fly it into a skyscraper in Los Angeles. He said cooperation between Washington and several Asian countries helped expose it. The plan never appeared close to the stage where it could be put into execution. Scores of arrests in the aftermath of the Sept. 11,...

Highland Park shooter Bobby Crimo III was left in a hot car by his mom for 27 minutes as a toddler - with his mother later convicted over the incident. The disturbing 2002 incident was one of multiple brushes with the law Crimo's mom Denise Pesina and dad Bob Crimo Jr had with cops prior to Monday's massacre in Chicago that killed seven. It is unclear if the hot car incident left Crimo, now 21, with any physical or mental injuries that may have ultimately led to the horrific shootout. Police were also called to his family's home 10 times,...

Where did all the Republican votes go in Bridgeport, Connecticut? Either over half of the traditional Republican voters in gubernatorial elections were no-shows on November 2 or the Constitution State's most populous city...lost its constitution. Bridgeport is certainly not the sort of idyllic Norman Rockwell town found throughout most of Connecticut. It has long endured political corruption and patronage, high rates of poverty and crime, a shrinking economy, a  declining population, and more recently, an infestation of radical progressive groups such as ACORN, AFL-CIO, WFP, and SEIU. Bridgeport did not earn the nickname "Chicago of the East" for nothing. Despite its...

The US government was accused today of subsidizing and training Albanian paramilitaries in Macedonia, in a secret European report leaked to Dutch National Radio. The furor over a clandestine connection- frequently alleged, but never proven- further worsens transatlantic relations that have already been strained by an ongoing trade war. The Dutch report comes at a particularly sensitive time for President Bush, who is currently seeking to solidify international support for a wider war on terror. The US Embassy in Skopje was not aware of the charges by late Friday evening, and could not yet make an official statement.Because specific...

Anxious FBI chiefs are trawling through 'numerous' top-level investigations spanning 22 years for fear they were compromised by convicted bureau spook Charles McGonigal, DailyMail.com can reveal. The forensic clean-up operation ranges over the entire time the philandering former head of counterintelligence in New York worked for the agency. McGonigal, 55, has already been sentenced to four years and two months in prison for taking money and conspiring with a sanctioned Russian oligarch who is a crony of despot President Vladimir Putin. But the full possible repercussions of his treachery are outlined in a sentencing memorandum by the US government for...

AP: Administration Freed Terror Suspect By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Nabil al-Marabh was No. 27 on the FBI (news - web sites)'s list of terror suspects after Sept. 11. He trained in Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s militant camps, sent money to a roommate convicted in a foiled plot to bomb a hotel and boasted to an informant about plans to blow up a fuel truck inside a New York tunnel, FBI documents allege. The Bush administration set him free — to Syria — even though prosecutors had sought to bring criminal cases against him and judges...

Minneapolis-AP -- He was identified years ago as a terror suspect -- but he was still able to get a licence to haul hazardous materials in Minnesota. Minnesota officials say they didn't know that the man (Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi) was suspected of having al-Qaida links when he applied in early 2002 for a commercial license to drive a school bus and haul hazardous materials. Sources tell the Star Tribune of Minneapolis that the F-B-I identified him as a suspected terrorist before Nine-Eleven. He was charged recently with lying to federal authorities about helping to ship portable field radios to Pakistan...

The last time Jim Ryan ran for governor of Illinois, he offered voters a clear choice between a man who never took a dime in public life and Rod Blagojevich. And though many would like to forget it, they chose Blagojevich. "The infrastructure of the Illinois Republican Party has never really been for me," Ryan said over breakfast the other day as we talked about that 2002 campaign and his current run in the crowded GOP primary for governor. "I'm not a deal-maker. And senior Republicans knew my reputation. They knew I wouldn't be flexible." Seven years ago, Ryan, then...

Poll: Few get Ryans confused By Kurt Erickson Statehouse bureau chief SPRINGFIELD -- For months, Republican Jim Ryan has complained that more people would support his bid for governor if they realized he was not related to the scandal-plagued predecessor with the same last name. But a poll that sought to clarify his perceived problem shows that only 1 percent to 2 percent of those surveyed were confused about the two Republicans. The survey, conducted for The Pantagraph and WEEK-TV of Peoria, found Democrat Rod Blagojevich is favored by voters over Jim Ryan 53 percent to 39 percent. Once voters...

Virginia man charged in alleged plot to assassinate Bush By MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press Writer ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- A former high school valedictorian in Virginia was charged Tuesday with conspiring to assassinate President Bush and conspiracy to support the al-Qaida terrorist network. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 23, a U.S. citizen, made an initial appearance Tuesday in U.S. District Court. He claimed that he was tortured while detained in Saudi Arabia since June of 2003 and offered through his lawyer to show the judge his scars. The indictment said that in 2002 and 2003 Abu Ali and an unidentified coconspirator...

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, a Falls Church man and a member of al Qaeda who admitted he was planning to assassinate then-President George W. Bush, was sentenced to life in prison Monday at federal court in Alexandria. Abu Ali was originally sentenced in 2005 to 30 years in prison. U.S. Judge Gerald Bruce Lee of the U.S. District Court for eastern Virginia ruled Monday that Abu Ali should spend life in prison partially because he never renounced his al Qaeda ties. After the initial sentencing, both sides filed appeals. Abu Ali completed some of his sentence in solitary confinement at...

(Excerpts, suggest reading entire article) Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears is facing off against former Democrat Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger in Virginia’s closely watched 2025 gubernatorial race. While Spanberger appears to have the edge in the race so far, recent shocking revelations about the origins of the Trump-Russia collusion narrative – “Russiagate” – could create some uncomfortable questions for Spanberger and perhaps give Sears an opportunity to portray her opponent as a dishonest, untrustworthy career bureaucrat. Before she was elected to Congress in 2018, Spanberger was a CIA operative. She has leaned heavily on that experience in her campaign, repeatedly describing...