Free Republic

Did Dicks make the corporate decision to stop selling the dreaded AR, high capacity mags and change the age to sell a firearm to 21 on their own or were they pressured? At any rate I will not be shopping at Dicks any longer over their stupid heart string tug decision. The AR has never killed a sole or creature without the assistance of a human to make the interaction function as designed.

In a stunning reversal of fortune for President Barack Obama, top progressives are attacking the health-reform plan moving through the Senate as “hollow,” “unsupportable” and a sellout to corporate interests. Republicans, after plotting for months to sink the signature legislation of Obama’s first year, suddenly think that Democrats might wind up doing it for them. Most dangerously for White House chances of assembling 60 Senate votes, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean launched a third day of attacks on the emerging bill, arguing in a Washington Post op-ed that it meets none of his benchmarks for “real reform

So Michael Vick is an Eagle now. That’s ok with me. I’m a Giants fan. Or I was a Giants fan, when I could stand to follow pro football. For a long time now, I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch more than a few games a season. These days, I feel nearly as out-of-place at a Super Bowl party as I would at an Oscar party. Here in the DC area, the Redskins religion has begun its sacramental advent count-down to opening Sunday. I wish I could share the excitement. Part of the problem is that I’m...

NEWARK, New Jersey: A Muslim cleric on Monday graphically described the torture to which he claims he was subjected in Israeli custody, as he fought to block U.S. efforts to deport him on grounds he lied on his residency application. The issue of torture is at the heart of the deportation proceedings against Mohammad Qatanani, a Palestinian who has been the spiritual leader at the Islamic Center of Passaic County in New Jersey since 1996. U.S. officials, in rejecting his bid for permanent U.S. residency, said Qatanani failed to disclose on his green card application a 1993 arrest and conviction...

GAZA CITY (AFP) - In Gaza City's Firas market the stalls are laden with gift items and toys, fireworks and new clothes, cooking utensils and fish, as people crowd around, looking, touching and walking on. As the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan draws to an end and people look ahead to the Eid al-Fitr holiday that follows, there is little thought of feasting, except to look back fondly to Eids gone past. Amid the din of shopkeepers hawking their wares over loudspeakers, Abdulkarim says "people are coming, but they're not buying ... They don't have any money." "I only get...

ATLANTA (AP) Rep. Cynthia McKinney has lost a runoff election for her district's Democratic nomination to attorney Hank Johnson, a former county commissioner.

From Larry's very own corner of the internet, No Quarter: Sacrificing Our Troops on the Altar of Republican Politics byLarry C JohnsonLeave it to the Porcine Draft Dodger--Karl Rove--to impugn the character of combat veterans.  Can't blame him for trotting out the same playbook that worked so well in 2004 against the candidacy of John Kerry.  If it worked once it should work again.Of course I am referring to Karl's speech Tuesday night to Republicans in New Hampshire.  According to a piece in Wednesday's Washington Post: In a speech to New Hampshire Republican officials here Monday night, the White House...

WASHINGTON - The frame surrounding an image of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's head, revealed to the world as proof the terrorist is dead, is bizarre. When the picture was displayed at a U.S. military news briefing, Zarqawi's face was seen inside what appeared to be a professional photographic mat job, with a large frame, as if it were something one might preserve and hang on the wall next to other family portraits. One function of frames is to bound an image, and close down its open edges; frames delimit, both physically and by extension, metaphorically. But that was the last thing...

Yvette Louisell has been incarcerated for half her life. Louisell was a 17-year-old Iowa State University student from Kalamazoo, Mich., when she stabbed Keith Stilwell, a 42-year-old paraplegic from Ames, to death on Dec. 6, 1987. The next day, she was arrested at North Grand Mall after she tried to use Stilwell's credit cards. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 1988 for first-degree murder and three counts of forgery. Now, a group of more than 25 of Louisell's supporters has Louisell organized, saying that she should be pardoned because a life sentence is...

Weve all seen and heard of a place called Free Republic, its full of divorced or wife-beating conservative slobs who have the hygene of John Goodman after a long picnic. They thrive on stupid,worthless topics that focus around the "wonder of life" and "lets keep people who cant feel or think alive because were to stubborn to admit that its pretty damn foolish". But above all other abominations in this world is the wretched "Admin Mod", a man of horrible values and the judgement of a meth lab. It is he who makes free republic, well not free at all,...

KABUL, May 11 (MASNET and News Agencies) - Afghan troops were deployed on the streets of an eastern city after four people died and scores were injured in riots sparked by reports that U.S. interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center had desecrated the Qur’an. Police in Jalalabad, 80 miles east of the capital, opened fire Wednesday to break up an enraged mob of several thousand people that torched the governor's house, the Pakistani consulate and several foreign aid agencies, police and witnesses told Agence France-Presse (AFP). As black smoke rose over the city, the crowd went on the...

Upset France cries foul over AI’s Boeing dealPosted online: Thursday, May 05, 2005 at 1145 hours IST NEW DELHI, MAY 5: Disappointed over Air India's decision to buy 50 aircraft from Boeing and not Airbus Industrie, France feels that "some factors other than commercial" have influenced the deal. French Ambassador to India Dominique Girard still hopes India will consider "comprehensive factors" while going for 126 fighter planes for the Air Force in which French Mirage jets will be competing. "We are surprised and disappointed. Airbus definitely has an advantage over Boeing," Girard said here when asked to comment on the...

I enjoy this forum, but lately I've noticed a troubling tendency for posters here to descend into horrible and immature name-calling. Such name-calling, and extremism without reason does nothing but harm our cause. It turns off casual lurkers and readers of this forum. It provides fodder for this forum to be demonized and non-respected elsewhere. Below I provide a few examples. I call on Freepers to stop using such terms voluntarily. If that doesn't work, I call on the moderators to warn, if not censor, posters who use such terms. I realize that Democratic Underground uses even more ridiculous terms...

Salma Hayek claims she's being discriminated against in Hollywood because of her Mexican roots. She reckons people look down on actors who are from a Mexican background. The actress is up for a Golden Globe for her role in hit movie Frida, which she returned to Mexico to film. "In Hollywood, everybody looks down on you if you are Mexican," she told TV Movie magazine. "They all let you know you are not wanted here." Salma adds that she often wonders whether she was of a sane mind when she agreed to star in Frida. "I go and shoot a...

I wanted to invite everyone to greet our newest signup, whyareyoudumbandhateful. Do you think his or her first post will be to make a donation on the Freepathon thread?

Anyone who saw yesterday's great news of the booming economy, followed by economists' predictions of President Bush's re-election, knew what would come next: the Democrat White House wannabes bitching and moaning and trying to talk down the economy. And that's just what happened. Hear them roar: Sen. John Edwards issued this statement even before the remarkable 7.2 percent annual growth rate was announced: "The Bush administration has dug a hole so deep and so wide that it's going to take a lot more than one quarter to get back on solid ground." Howard Dean: "President Bush has compiled the...