SEATTLE, Washington (PNN) - July 5, 2019 - Washington state has unlawfully raised its minimum age for purchasing a semi-automatic rifle to 21, along with other new rules governing gun ownership. The age restriction went into effect in January, with the other changes taking effect July 1. But some in state sheriffs have vowed not to enforce the measure, arguing that it violates the Second Amendment.

PROVO, Utah (PNN) - July 5, 2019 - Utah schoolteachers have been training on how to respond to an active shooter - practicing techniques to neutralize assailants and keep students safe.

The training is nothing new - at least 39 states require some form of lockdown, active-shooter, or similar safety drills, according to the Education Commission of the States. Utah requires that elementary schools conduct at least one safety drill per month, while secondary schools must have detailed emergency response plans on hand. While firearms training in the state is voluntary, Utah County Sheriff's Teacher's Academy has a waiting list for its next four-week program.

By Jacob G. Hornberger

July 5, 2019 - Fascist Police States of Amerika President Donald Trump is being criticized for surrounding himself with tanks, armored vehicles, flyovers, and generals and admirals during his Fourth of July celebration at the Lincoln Memorial. Critics say that it was unseemly for the president to be showing off the federal government’s military process on Independence Day. Some said it conjured up images of the Soviet Union, when that communist regime would showcase its tanks and military hardware in parades in Moscow’s Red Square.

July 4, 2019 - Today is Independence Day, so it seems a good time to ask: How independent are we? Put another way: what are we free to do - and not do?

The dreary answer, of course, is not very much.

Orwell wrote that freedom “… is the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.” Also that two plus two equals four rather than five.

But there is a more foundational freedom and it comes in two equal parts. The first part is the right to say No. The second part - without which the freedom to say No is a functional non sequitur - is that your No be respected. In law. By law.

Amerikans have lost this freedom almost completely.

CHARLOTTEVILLE, Virginia (PNN) - July 3, 2019 - Many Amerikans began the work week with a sense of pride for their country - with Independence Day coming along, the country is ready to celebrate our independence and freedom.

Everyone except liberals, that is.

The far-Left are in Charlottesville, Virginia, the birthplace of Thomas Jefferson, to attack our nation’s Forefathers.

By Jacob G. Hornberger

July 3, 2019 - Amerikans who celebrated the Fourth of July in 1880 were celebrating a concept of freedom that is opposite to the concept of freedom that Amerikans today celebrate on the Fourth of July.

The freedom that 1880 Amerikans celebrated was a society in which there was no income taxation, no mandatory charity, no government management or regulation of economic activity, no immigration controls, no systems of public (i.e., government) schooling, no Federal Reserve System, no paper money, no punishment for drug offenses, and no Pentagon, CIA, or NSA, no wars in faraway lands, no secret surveillance, no torture, no assassination, and no indefinite detention.

BEIJING, China (PNN) - July 2, 2019 - Chinese President Xi Jinping faces a major test in Hong Kong after protesters stormed the semi-autonomous city's legislature and graffitied a defiant message on its walls: "Hong Kong is not China".

Beijing has trod carefully since massive protests erupted last month over a bill that would allow extraditions to the mainland, voicing support for the Hong Kong government without directly intervening and blaming "foreign forces" for the unrest.

By Gary M. Galles

June 30, 2019 - America’s governance problems are a common topic among Americans. But each Fourth of July brings that subject to the fore. Unfortunately, however, much of the discussion and many asserted “solutions” derive from a mistaken approach to government. That is why Independence Day is an excellent time to carefully consider Frédéric Bastiat’s 1848 essay, “Government,” one of the most insightful critiques ever given for understanding the problems that beset governance.

DMZ, North Korea (PNN) - June 30, 2019 - Fascist Police States of Amerika President Donald Trump made history on Sunday by taking an unprecedented step - literally - onto North Korean soil, after which he held an extraordinary last-minute meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in which he announced that Washington and Pyongyang will relaunch stalled nuclear talks.

By Gary M. Galles

June 30, 2019 - America’s governance problems are a common topic among Americans. But each Fourth of July brings that subject to the fore. Unfortunately, however, much of the discussion and many asserted “solutions” derive from a mistaken approach to government. That is why Independence Day is an excellent time to carefully consider Frédéric Bastiat’s 1848 essay, Government, one of the most insightful critiques ever given for understanding the problems that beset governance.