Free Republic

Bank of America officially took sides in America’s gun debate Tuesday, announcing it would no longer make loans to companies that make “military-style” weapons. The second-biggest U.S. bank announced Tuesday that it would drop current loan-customers Vista Outdoors, Remington and Sturm Ruger, and blackball any other manufacturer of assault weapons. Bank of America Vice Chairman Anne Finucanetold Bloomberg TV on Tuesday her bank has told those companies “it’s not our intent to underwrite or finance military-style firearms.” “We have had intense conversations over the last few months,” Ms. Finucane told Bloomberg, a network founded by tycoon and gun-control-financier Michael R....

A Look That’s Bulletproof By RUTH LA FERLA JACK BAUER is in play again, and so is his hard-guy attire — sweaty T-shirt, leather jacket and that government agent’s staple: a bulletproof vest. The tactical gear that lends special agent Bauer his menacing mien on “24” is the hidden armor of counterterrorist operatives, heads of state and paranoid plutocrats. It has also been appropriated by Hollywood dignitaries and hip-hop moguls, enhancing the rogue personas of artists like 50 Cent. So it may have been only a matter of time before aspiring hipsters embraced the style — the sartorial equivalent of...