Free Republic

The government-sanctioned gunrunning operation Fast and Furious was a plot to undermine Second Amendment rights in the United States, National Rifle Association officer Wayne LaPierre charged on Friday in an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV. “It’s the only thing that makes any sense,” LaPierre said. “Over a period of two or three years they were running thousands and thousands of guns to the most evil people on earth. At the same time they were yelling ’90 per cent… of the guns the Mexican drug cartels are using come from the United States.’ “That was a phony figure from the very start....

African Americans appear to be cooling their support for President Obama, with “strongly favorable” views of the president dropping dramatically from 83 percent five months ago to 58 percent today, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows. The drop in support among black voters mirrors the declining support for Obama among all groups.

With the United States and European economies having slowed markedly according to the latest data, and with global growth continuing to disappoint, a reasonable question increasingly arises: Are we in another Great Depression? The easy answer is "no" - the main features of the Great Depression have not yet manifested themselves and still seem unlikely. But it is increasingly likely that we will find ourselves in the midst of something nearly as traumatic, a long slump of the kind seen with some regularity in the 19th century, particularly if presidential election-year politics continue to head in a dangerous direction. The...