Free Republic

I ran out of good concealed carry weapons and you just can't live like that. I carry a 38sp 5 shot wheel gun but not accurate enough. I have a cw vest that carries my 1911 but I'm wat to skinny now, I walk like Barney Fife. I bought a very nice Taurus Millenium PT 145 tonight. It carries 10+1 45ACP and is incredibly small. Wieghs in at 16oz empty. The only fault I have found is the mags are hell to load with my aging hands. It was about $400 and shoooo is purdy. Any downsides or good stuff...

A young Marine restores my faith Golden Pen Award Each Sunday The Orange Register recognizes a letter that eloquently expresses a viewpoint or engenders a debate on a topic of public interest. Today's winner is Ann Baker, a real-estate agent who lives in Huntington Beach It was our normal Thursday morning business meeting at our real-estate office. No big deal. Before the meeting we hung around the bagel table, as usual, with our coffee. He stood aside, looking a little shy and awkward and very young, a new face in a room full of extroverted salespeople. An average looking guy,...

Holding us backAdmit it: You knew we would not get very far in our war on terrorism before various voices of dissent would arise. This is, in fact, a sign of a free and healthy society. But in a country with a huge collection of disparate views, some observations will be appropriate and others will not. So, now that most of us are comfortable hearing and sometimes offering criticism of how post-9/11 America is being run, let's examine some points along the spectrum of dissatisfied opinion. First, let's look at criticism of President Bush. I hope we are past the...

They pay me to tease shades of meaning from social and cultural issues, to provide words that help make sense of that which troubles the American soul. But in this moment of airless shock when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes, the only thing I can find to say, the only words that seem to fit, must be addressed to the unknown author of this suffering. You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard. What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn? ...

." Option 7 How many readers have grown tired of phoning a company with whom you're conducting business, only to be subjected to a long-winded recorded message offering every option but a live person? Well, here's something that should pick up your day. 1. Dial Deutsche Bank/National Discount Brokers toll-free at 1-800-888-3999.2. Listen to all the options. It only takes a moment. 3. After hearing the seventh option, press 7 and listen. As veteran journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave, who dials the Deutsche Bank regularly, points out: "Every company should have an Option 7."

Greetings from Seabrook Island, South Carolina to all Land-Locked Freepers! Chesty Puller, Smartaleck, GRRRRR, USConservative reporting! (USConservative actually doing the typing.) Well, it's going on 3pm, and we've hooked up so far with Syncro and Katie_Fr. We're in Chesty's villa (which is very VERY nice) waiting for our fellow freepers to show up. We're kicking back, having a few drinks and shooting the shat. Wishing you all were here, we're having a great time! Be posting some follow-ups as the weekend goes on!

Yes, Americans could learn much from Vietnam Dear Ann Landers: Your Saturday column included a letter from Howard F. Cook of Houston, who waxed wistful about a recent trip to Vietnam. Cook wrote of what a wonderful place the Southeast Asian nation is today, full of gentle people with the "highest moral standards," whose children all "behave beautifully" because they don't want to embarrass their parents. He commended the country for its ban on firearm ownership by citizens. He complimented the fact that anyone who breaks a law spends three years in jail with only one bowl of rice to ...

EDITORIAL The opinion of the Mercury News Well-lubricated administration AS it turns out, we have a Texas oilman as president and a whole passel of appointees likewise steeped in oil and gas, just when California is floundering around in an energy crisis, with the rest of the country on the brink. Only a true cynic would view this as a conspiracy rather than a coincidence. Only a fool would think it makes no difference. Earlier this week, Jim Puzzanghera of The Mercury News Washington bureau listed the oil industry connections to 11 high-ranking members of the new administration: the president, ...

Do we have the right to a dead infant? This newspaper reported on the 28th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade that "women's rights activists" are alarmed at the idea that President George W. Bush might "undo former President Clinton's handiwork, primarily on abortion rights." And Bush's first executive order has ignited a firestorm. But as the new president said on Monday, abortion will not go away quickly or easily. The Supreme Court has ruled authoritatively on the issue. Abortion on demand is the law of our land. Those women's rights activists want pro-lifers to move on. So without conceding the ...

Sunday,October 15,2000 By DAVID K. LI in Detroit and MARILYN RAUBER in Washington Feeling the Heat:Recent polls show Vice President Al Gore, campaigning yesterday in Detroit, falling further behind GOP nominee George W. Bush. AP Texas Gov. George W. Bush shows a little body language during a recent campaign stop in Michigan.Reuters Recent polls show Vice President Al Gore, campaigning yesterday in Detroit, falling further behind GOP nominee George W. Bush.APGeorge W. Bush relaxed at his Texas ranch yesterday, but he had presidential rival Al Gore on the run - as new national polls show Bush cementing his lead in ...

For Harry Browne, less is better Harry Browne doesn't have a double-wide's chance in a F-5 tornado of making it into the White House in January, but that doesn't mean that the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate can't shake things up during the campaign season. "The federal government has made a mess of everything it has moved into in the 20th century," Browne said during a telephone interview this week. "And it's moved into thousands of things it has no constitutional basis for meddling in." Thus is delineated the candidate's bottom line: If you want smaller government, he's the only real ...

Nugent on 'God, Guns and Rock 'N' Roll' Whoever said there wasn't any controversy at the GOP convention just didn't know where to look. Far from the podium, rock star Ted Nugent is holding court and signing copies of his entertaining new book, God, Guns, and Rock 'N' Roll. The crowd lined up to see the "Motor City Madman" includes Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and various federal agents taking a break from convention security detail. "Nuge" offers me his views on a range of topics. His plan for dealing with the northern spotted owl is different from that of ...

Pay and pray Democrats on Capitol Hill continue to wrestle with how to reprimand Rep. James A. Traficant Jr., the Ohio Democrat who vows to vote to elect House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Illinois Republican, in the next Congress. There's talk of expelling Mr. Traficant from the caucus and stripping him of his seniority, all as rumors continue to fly that the outspoken lawmaker eventually will jump the Democratic ship. In the meantime, Mr. Traficant goes on doing what he does best — delivering, all sides agree, the most popular, if not sensible, one-minute speeches on the House floor. This ...

Don Erler The Constitution and partial-birth abortion Opinions written by Supreme Court justices can be valuable expressions of our country's republican genius. Unlike presidents, who can order troops into battle, or Congress, with its power to tax and spend, the court can secure compliance with its orders only by persuading our self-governing citizens that its decisions are reasonable. Last week's decision on partial-birth abortion fails that test. The 5-4 majority held that Nebraska's (and, presumably, 29 other states') statute against this gruesome procedure "violates the Constitution." But it never -- not so much as a solitary line of a ...

DeLay Criticizes Supreme Court Decision Permitting Partial Birth Abortion P.R.Newswire, 6/28/2000 11:26 WASHINGTON, June 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Tom DeLay (R-TX), the House Majority Whip, today criticized the U.S. Supreme Court for its decision sanctioning the brutal practice of partial birth abortion. Congressman DeLay's statement concerning the Supreme Court's decision in Stenberg v. Carhart follows: "This flawed decision, upholding a manufactured right to kill a child as it literally is being born, demonstrates the extreme parameters of Roe v. Wade. The Court is interpreting Roe to protect a practice in which only six inches separates infanticide from a court-sanctioned medical procedure. ...

For years in North Texas schools, football and prayers have been a team We did a lot of praying at my high school football games in North Texas. I hardly noticed the pre-game public prayers. But I knew personally about the private praying going on among my football teammates at Bowie, a town of about 5,000. We tried to persuade God to be on our side. It didn't always work. If the players from Jacksboro, Graham, Olney and other surrounding towns were stronger, faster or more skilled, God seemed to be on their side, no matter how hard we prayed. ...

HILLARY-BASHER'S LISTENING TOUR MSNBC's conservative news analyst Laura Ingraham could turn out to be Hillary Clinton's worst nightmare. Ingraham - author of just-released "The Hillary Trap: Looking For Power in All The Wrong Places" (Hyperion) - is taking her show on the road, with a book tour hot on the heels of Hillary's "Listening Tour." "I'm doing my own listening tour, and hearing a lot of anti-Hillary sentiment," said Ingraham after her stop in Buffalo where "we just missed her." While Hillary is out on the hustings in her race for the Senate, Ingraham is pumping her tome, which portrays ...

Published Friday, June 9, 2000, in the San Jose Mercury News Death . . . but not taxes? WHY is it that every House GOP tax plan seems to be written by the rich for the rich? The latest major tax cut proposal to come before the House is gradual elimination of the estate tax, scheduled for a vote today. As with the flat tax, the bulk of the dollar benefits will go to the folks with the bulk of the dollars. The estate tax, assessed when someone dies and passes on an estate, collects $28 billion a year. ...

A GOVERNOR WITH GUTS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- President Clinton was among those paying tribute to former Gov. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, who died in his sleep Tuesday night at the age of 68. That's appropriate: Casey was a true profile in political courage. But it's worth remembering that, in life, Bill Clinton was so terrified of the same "commitment to his convictions" for which he now hails Casey that he repeatedly trampled all over Casey's efforts to demonstrate that commitment. Bob Casey was that most singular anomaly: a pro-life Democrat. A devout Catholic, he fervently opposed abortion; an avowedly liberal Democrat, ...

Standing up for belief right thing to do Before I could finish telling the story about applying for conscientious objector status during the height of the Vietnam War, some readers already had judged me a coward. "You're not honorable," one phone message said. "You're a draft dodger." Another flatly declared, "You're a yellow-bellied you- know-what." Regardless of what anyone thinks, I chose to fight the draft in 1969 not by "dodging" it or leaving the country, but by facing it head-on. Based on my beliefs as a pacifist, I prepared a case for my draft board, represented myself at a ...