Free Republic

Presidential candidate and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) is furious about Fox News' rules for the first GOP primary debate. In a Fox News interview on Friday, Graham blasted the right-leaning network's "dumb" rules, which will limit the participants to 10 candidates polling the best in an average of the five most recent national polls. "I think that this is a dumb way to weed out the field," Graham declared. Many critics say the August 6 debate's rules harm the candidates campaigning in the early voting states and elevate those who have been getting those most national TV exposure or...

To keep conservative rebels in check, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his allies have been doling out punishments at an aggressive clip in the 114th Congress. From kicking unruly members off the Rules Committee and GOP whip team to stripping a lawmaker of his subcommittee gavel, leadership has been growing more comfortable with taking retaliatory measures to try to enforce party discipline. But several Tea Party targets haven’t gone quietly. They’ve been fighting back with help from Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan’s conservative House Freedom Caucus, which successfully pressured leaders this week to return a subcommittee gavel to one of their...

HOUSTON (AP) — A Houston attorney on the National Rifle Association's board of directors is blaming the deadly Charleston church shooting on one of the victims, saying the slain pastor had opposed concealed carry legislation as a state senator that could have saved him and his fellow worshippers. Related Stories 1. NRA executive suggests slain Charleston pastor to blame for gun deaths Reuters 2. Slain Pastor Clementa Pinckney’s Mission Suited His Storied Church The Wall Street Journal 3. And The First Person To Blame The Charleston Shooting On A Lack Of Guns In Church Is... Huffington Post 4. White gunman...

Luciano Fontana: I would like to start with a question concerning Russian-Italian relations. This relationship has always been close and privileged, both in the economic and political spheres. However, it has been somewhat marred by the crisis in Ukraine and the sanctions. Could the recent visit by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to Russia and your upcoming visit to Milan somehow change this trend, and if so, what is needed for that? Vladimir Putin: First, I firmly believe that Russia was not responsible for the deterioration in relations between our country and the EU states. This was not our choice;...

A new Pew Research Center report states that 52 percent of Americans support gun rights, the highest percentage in the last two decades. Yet the gun rights that they believe are guaranteed by law may very well be an illusion.. That's because we have allowed lawyers instead of language professionals to interpret the Constitution of the United States. Ask any high school English teacher to parse the Second Amendment, and they will say that it does not prohibit common-sense restrictions on the purchase and possession of guns, in spite of the National Rifle Association's claim to the contrary. The proof...

Glenn Beck says he is no longer a member of the Republican Party. “I’ve made my decision — I’m out," Beck said on his radio show Wednesday, according to Mediaite.com. "I’m out of the Republican Party. I am not a Republican; I will not give a dime to the Republican Party. I’m out.” The former Fox News host and founder of the Blaze supported the GOP during the last election cycle but has become disillusioned with the party in recent years over what he believes was its failure to stand up to the Obama administration — specifically, the Affordable Care...

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) suggested her Democratic colleague and close friend, Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings, had a right to call the Lone Star State a “crazy state” in which he will never live. “In debate, our speeches are colorful, and I know he likes Texans because he likes me,” Jackson Lee said during a brief interview. “I’m not going to comment on members’ oratorical expressions on the floor — they are protected and privileged,” she continued. “And I’m going to leave it at that.”

Shedding a new skin is Bush's euphemism for national transformation: purge public institutions of what doesn't work and ingest the fruits of radical connectivity to inspire and support innovators.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a historic Oval Office ceremony on Thursday morning, President Barack Obama signed an executive order closing Congress, effective immediately. The President said that the move would dramatically increase the efficiency of the federal government, noting how much he had accomplished since he stopped working with Congress in November. Additionally, he said, the elimination of Congress would result in annual savings of more than five billion dollars, which Obama said would be refunded to American taxpayers. Acknowledging that “some sticklers” would argue that the Constitution calls for three branches of government, the President said, “All this order...

...While the controversy-generating doc director doesn’t like Sniper or snipers, he is a big supporter of fellow Best Picture nominee Selma..."

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Some city officials are upset over a photo posted to Instagram by a West Philadelphia paramedic, showing two black men pointing a gun at a police officer and describing police as “the enemy.” ~snip~ The paramedic has since taken the photo down and responded on Facebook saying that he deeply apologizes and that he did not mean to hurt his brothers in blue or offend anyone. It is not known at this time if the paramedic will be disciplined.

I never thought I'd be an open-carry advocate. However, I'm a firm believer in working within the American political system in order to change the status quo. If the Second Amendment is cherished by millions of Americans, then why not use it to further certain liberal ideals? Protecting African-American lives and alleviating tensions between the black community and law enforcement should be a top priority of all Americans and especially Congress; however, this is not the case. It speaks volumes that African-Americans vote over 90 percent Democrat during national elections, yet our future nominee in 2016 still hasn't addressed an...

Baghdad (AFP) - The Islamic State group has carried out a fresh wave of mass killings, officials said Sunday, executing more than 200 members of an Iraqi tribe which took up arms against the jihadists. Women and children were said to be among scores of Albu Nimr tribespeople executed over the past 10 days in western Iraq's Anbar province. Reports of the killings came with the country on edge as hundreds of thousands of Shiites prepare to travel to shrine city Karbala this week for a major annual pilgrimage. IS, a Sunni extremist group that has seized large parts of...

IS militants have controlled Mosul since June 10, the second day of a major offensive that saw jihadist fighters seize swathes of land in five Iraqi provinces. They have used the city, Iraq's second largest, as a de facto capital for the Iraqi half of the "caliphate" which their leadership proclaimed in June and also includes large parts of Syria. "After going after the ethnic and religious minorities, they are now hunting down Sunni members of civil society groups and anyone remotely connected with the government," Edwar said. She said IS was probably trying to sow maximum fear among the...

CHULA VISTA, Calif. (AP) — For a company that booked $12 million in annual sales importing snacks like chile- and lime-flavored chips from Mexico, Baja Distributors Inc.'s offices were oddly quiet. There were no signs outside. Its small warehouse was almost empty. Phones went unanswered. Investigators say there was a reason for the anonymity: The business was laundering money from Mexican drug traffickers. Baja Distributors, whose executives denied laundering drug money, brought more than $17 million from Mexico in 18 months. U.S. front companies for cartels aren't new, but U.S. officials say they took a more prominent role after Mexico...

Yep, that's definitely it. The railgun, hailed as the future of the United States Navy, sounds exactly like this. No joking here at all.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - An Israeli-owned container ship that was blocked from unloading its cargo at the Port of Oakland by pro-Palestinian protesters over the weekend was headed to Los Angeles on Monday, according to a ship-tracking website. The Zim Shanghai left Oakland with its cargo still onboard on Sunday evening, according to the website marinetraffic.com. It was expected to arrive in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Some 200 people angry over Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas rocket salvoes staged a protest of the Zim Shanghai at the Port of Oakland on Saturday morning and again...

As part of a legal settlement that will allow some illegal immigrants who deported themselves from Southern California to return to the United States, the federal government has agreed to advertise the settlement on various Mexican and Spanish-language media outlets. The ACLU filed a class-action lawsuit last year on behalf of eleven illegal immigrants who deported themselves. The settlement reached on Wednesday will only cover "longtime California residents with relatives who are U.S. citizens and... young migrants whose parents brought them into the country illegally" who deported themselves between 2009 and 2013. An ACLU official has indicated that there were...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. authorities have agreed to stop pressuring undocumented immigrants in Southern California to sign off on their own deportations under a legal settlement that may later allow some deportees to return from Mexico to seek U.S. legal residency, advocacy groups said on Wednesday. The deal reached between the American Civil Liberties Union and federal officials stems from a lawsuit brought last year on behalf of other immigration rights groups and about 10 immigrants who accepted so-called "voluntary returns" to Mexico. All of the immigrants had strong grounds for being allowed to remain in the United States...

~ snip ~ Despite the move, however, Kirby insisted the Defense Department was not "militarizing" police departments and that the program as a whole was "useful" and "served a purpose." "Let’s be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater here," Kirby said.