Free Republic

Many New Zealand gun owners have refused to participate in a mandatory buyback program of military-style semi-automatic weapons implemented after the Christchurch massacre in March. Despite a penalty of up to five years in prison, up to two-thirds of firearms banned by the legislation were not turned in before the Friday deadline by New Zealand gun owners, the Washington Post reported. While 47,000 semi-automatic rifles have been collected, according to police statistics, a government commissioned study determined that the small nation likely contains between 56,000 and 170,000 now banned weapons, according to 1 News. New Zealand’s largest gun rights advocacy...

Democrat Debate Rating hit lowest point of 2020 Presidential Campaign...a Miserable, Paltry 6.1 million TV viewers in total. The Democrat Party continues to destroy itself internally...period!!!

Multiple forms of socialism, from hard Stalinism to European redistribution, continue to fail. Russia and China are still struggling with the legacy of genocidal communism. Eastern Europe still suffers after decades of Soviet-imposed socialist chaos. Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea, and Venezuela are unfree, poor, and failed states. Baathism—a synonym for pan-Arabic socialism—ruined the postwar Middle East. The soft-socialist European Union countries are stagnant and mostly dependent on the U.S. military for their protection. In contrast, current American deregulation, tax cuts, and incentives, and record energy production have given the United States the strongest economy in the world. So why, then,...

The Darwin Awards are out ... Yes, it's that magical time of year again when the Darwin Awards are bestowed, honoring the least evolved among us. Here is the glorious winner: 1. When his .38 caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked. And now, the honorable mentions: 2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting machine and after a...

In many respects, the New York Yankees just completed an extraordinary decade. Over the past 10 regular seasons, they won 921 games, more than any other team in baseball. They made the playoffs seven times—no other team played into October more often. The 2010s were a success by every measure—that is, except for the only one their fans actually care about: winning the World Series. New York’s season-ending defeat to the Houston Astros in the American League Championship Series on Saturday means that for the first time since the 1910s, they have gone a full calendar decade without so much...

Please see the video! Ha Ha Ha White House wannabe Sen. Kamala Harris is not a very good candidate.

On Tuesday morning, former First Lady Hillary Clinton said not getting a divorce from former President Bill Clinton was the "gustiest thing" she's ever done, personally. Publicly and politically, she said the gutsiest thing she's done is run for president. "I think the gutsiest thing I’ve ever done ... Personally, make the decision to stay in my marriage. Publicly, politically, run for president," Clinton said at an event for her latest book. She co-wrote The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience with her daughter, Chelsea.

Democrats in New Jersey love to attack President Trump, but they are now begging his Administration to fix Newark’s lead-tainted water that they ignored. Here is another parable of how liberal governance is corroding America’s big cities from the inside out. ... Newark officials last fall handed out filters to residents while still insisting the water is safe. “When you make a statement that the drinking water is not safe, it is yelling fire in a crowded room,” Mayor Ras Baraka explained at a press conference. “In fact, Newark has some of the best drinking water. The problem is that...

Few people have the opportunity to create bold new fake pedagogy. This is an elite, exclusive world. Fake means something guaranteed not to work. You say you teach reading but the kids are illiterate. You say you teach history but your kids don’t know Ben Franklin from Ben Affleck. You say you teach general knowledge but your students can’t find Washington DC on a map of the US. Who can get away with swindles like these? Well, of course, members of our very own Education Establishment can get away with anything. But not ordinary people. Fair warning, this fake-pedagogy business...

After months of deliberation, former Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday announced his decision to run for president for a third time, answering one of the biggest outstanding questions about the makeup of the 2020 race. The announcement came in a campaign video released Thursday morning.

...The A380 might have built more momentum if not for production debacles. Around the time of the first test flight in 2005, Airbus realized it had underestimated the complexity of wiring the superjumbo. Managers discovered that French and German designers had used incompatible software. ...More setbacks followed. The engine of an A380 blew up during a passenger flight in 2010. Nobody was hurt, but it drew negative attention to the plane. Wing cracks discovered on many A380s led to costly repairs. Customers, including Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd., Air France-KLM SA and Qantas Airways Ltd. , canceled orders. The...

President Barack Obama secured $8 billion in his 2009 economic stimulus package to start building toward the dream of true high-speed trains whisking passengers between major American cities. It was a paltry amount compared to the hundreds of billions it would actually take to fulfill that dream, but it was considered a serious down payment. At the time, Obama’s transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, said, “I’m not a historian, but I know this: One of the legacies for this administration, for the president and the vice president, will be high-speed rail. That will be their transportation legacy.” A decade later, little...

Failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams prepared the Democrats' response to President Trump's State of the Union address. Going into it, none of us really knew what to expect but honestly, the bar wasn't set too high. Abrams never conceded to Brian Kemp and she's continually pushed the idea that "voter suppression" (not the people's voice) is what kept her from winning her bid for governor of Georgia. Although the Democrats might not have known exactly what President Trump was going to address on Tuesday night, whoever wrote her speech cast a really, really wide net. She mentioned issues Trump didn't even touch on,...

Caracas -- Europe has now joined the movement against embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, which continues to grow outside the South American nation. Inside the country, millions of Catholics have also joined the push for change, led by their church. In January, bishops called Maduro's presidency illegitimate. CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer has visited a parish in La Vega, a working class slum of Caracas, where Mass not only fills the church, it draws an overflow crowd. Father Alfredo Infanta's spiritual message carries a strong political subtext, though he says it's not directly anti-Maduro, as people must decide for themselves....

WASHINGTON — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez didn’t get a seat on the powerful tax writing committee where she sought to push her progressive agenda of Medicare for All, free college tuition and a green new deal. Instead, the open downstate New York slot on the House Ways and Means Committee went to a moderate Democrat, Long Island Rep. Tom Suozzi, a former CPA, attorney and county executive. Suozzi will assume the committee seat of Rep. Joe Crowley, the Queens Democrat Ocasio-Cortez defeated last year in a stunning upset. Ocasio-Cortez sought a spot on the committee—which is usually off limits to freshman...

A Failing Papacy The current regime in Rome will damage the Catholic Church. Pope ­Francis combines laxity and ruthlessness. His style is casual and approachable; his church politics are cold and cunning. There are leading themes in this pontificate—­mercy, accompaniment, peripheries, and so forth—but no theological framework. He is a verbal semi-automatic weapon, squeezing off rounds of barbed remarks, spiritual aperçus, and earthy asides (­coprophagia!). This has created a confusing, even dysfunctional atmosphere that will become intolerable, if it hasn’t already. Every pope sets a particular tone, a party line. Benedict made no secret of his desire for the Church...

New York (CNN Business)The Weekly Standard, the magazine that espouses traditional conservatism and which has remained deeply critical of President Donald Trump, will shutter after 23 years, its owner Clarity Media Group announced Friday morning. The magazine will publish its final issue on December 17. * * * Employees were told at an all staff meeting, which CNN obtained an audio recording of, that they would be paid through the end of the year, and that afterward they would receive severance which would range in scale depending on factors like seniority. To receive severance, however, employees would need to sign...

On Tuesday, Emerald Robinson, chief White House correspondent for One America News Network (OANN), unleashed a powerful rumor that The Weekly Standard is on its last legs. Sources confirmed to CNN that Editor-in-Chief Stephen Hayes warned staff the future of the paper is uncertain. One of the magazine's key editors, Bill Kristol, has adopted a firmly anti-Trump stance, becoming a well-known #NeverTrump leader.

Michael Avenatti announced that he is out of the race for president in 2020 even though he never officially entered the race to begin with. Avenatti became a household name as Stormy Daniels attorney in her legal battles with President Donald Trump. Because the lawyer had such a contentious relationship with the president, many hinted that he should run for president against Trump in 2020. Of course, Avenatti did nothing but add fuel to those fires by making visits to Iowa and posting several heavyhanded tweets.

1 Kings 3:5-12; 2 Kings 19:14-22, 32-35 GOD'S ANSWER TO THE DEFEATED BELIEVER, or, WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS! It’s amazing how when things are going our way how we live by faith. Amen? But when it goes a little crazy, we become skeptics and we try to do things on our own. That’s when we are tested. People can’t understand why they never grow, they never get close to God—it’s because when He puts something in your way for you to trust Him, you don’t trust Him. You always use plan B. And if you are a Christian, it just...