Free Republic

Following the most recent school mass shooting – this time in Santa Fe, Texas, where 10 students and teachers were killed and 10 were wounded Friday – family members, friends and investigators find themselves searching for illusive answers. Why did this happen? How do you make sense of such a senseless tragedy? Texas Gov. Greg Abbott pointed out that unlike other recent mass shootings, “there were not those types of warning signs. The red-flag warnings were either nonexistent or very imperceptible.” The accused shooter’s parents said the media reports of the shooting seemed “incompatible with the boy (they) love,” and...

Nanny-state-imposing left-wing billionaire Michael Bloomberg is now on video admitting how much he likes to raise taxes on poor people, calling such tax hikes a “good thing.” For years, Bloomberg has personally funded and promoted all sorts of regressive taxes and regulations in an attempt to push people around. He uses the coercive power of the government to force people to live their lives as he sees fit. So here is Bloomberg on stage with another global mandarin, Christine Lagarde of the International Monetary Fund. He refers to low income individuals as “those people” and then takes a shot at...

In one respect, it seems to me, the presidency of Donald Trump has been remarkably successful. In 17 months, he has effectively erased Barack Obama’s two-term legacy. I don’t want to say or face this. I still want to believe my colleague, Jonathan Chait, whose thesis is that the changes Obama made in his difficult but tenacious eight years in office are too great to reverse. And there are a couple of shifts that do indeed seem to be as permanent as anything is in politics: marriage equality and legal cannabis. But neither, one recalls, was a signature goal of...

Sources tell The Daily Caller several FBI agents want congressional subpoenas to testify about the agency’s problems. The sources claim there is a demand within the agency to prosecute former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. They also say the bureau has become totally politicized. The subpoenas are desired by the FBI agents because it requires Congress to pay for their legal fees and protects them from agency retribution. Many agents in the FBI want Congress to subpoena them so they can reveal problems caused by former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, three people in...

When it was noted that the carry-on bags of multiple airline passengers traveling from Minneapolis to Somalia contained millions of dollars in cash, on a regular basis, law enforcement was naturally curious to know where the money came from and where it was going. It soon emerged that millions of taxpayer dollars, and possibly much more, had been stolen through a massive scam of Minnesota’s social-services sector, specifically through fraudulent daycare claims. To make matters worse, the money appears to have wound up in areas of Somalia controlled by al-Shabab, the Islamic jihadist group responsible for numerous terrorist outrages. Starting...

A man is dead and another was taken to Harborview Medical Center on Saturday afternoon after a highly unusual fatal mountain lion attack near North Bend east of Seattle in the Cascades... The mountain lion was tracked and killed.

At least 8 people are dead, several injured after a gunman opened fire at Santa Fe High School in Texas Friday morning. This is who is responsible for killing 8-10 people this morning at Santa Fe High School. Dimitrios Pagourtzis.

The Senate on Thursday confirmed Gina Haspel, President Donald Trump's divisive pick to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. The intelligence veteran will become the next CIA director and the first woman to lead the spy agency, despite concerns about her role at the CIA when it employed the "enhanced interrogation" program that used some tactics broadly considered torture. After controversy surrounding Haspel's qualifications, enough Democrats supported her to secure her confirmation. The chamber confirmed Haspel by a 54 to 45 vote. Six Democrats supported her, while two Republicans voted against her. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who was tortured himself and...

Scot Peterson, the sheriff’s deputy vilified for failing to confront the Parkland school shooter, has begun receiving a state pension of $8,702.35 a month. Peterson resigned and retired Feb. 22, a week after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where he waited outside as Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people and wounded 17 others. Peterson began to receive his pension in April, according to the Florida Department of Management Services. He can receive the payments for the rest of his life. The 55-year-old Peterson, a Broward deputy for 32 years, was paid $101,879.03 last year — $75,673.72 in base...

Republican Tim O’Neal cracked the 4,000-vote threshold in Washington County’s 48th Legislative District, according to unofficial returns from the Washington County elections office, and declared victory. O’Neal, a veteran of the Afghanistan War who earned a “V” for valor and a Bronze Star, advertised this in contrast to that of Mitchell, an attorney, whom he portrayed playing the video game “Call of Duty.”

Late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel says that the American people have had enough of the type of anti-Trump humor that he regularly spews and that it is now time for him to “make fun of ourselves.” In an interview with Deadline, Kimmel was asked whether he had prepared a “barrelful of barbs” for President Trump in his upcoming standup routine for ABC’s upfronts. “Oh, wow. Yeah, you know, I hadn’t really thought about it that way, but I guess you’re right. Hopefully, it’ll be the last upfront of the Trump era, too,” Kimmel said. “So, I don’t know, I don’t know...

She said she had been subjected to countless rape and death threats, as well as profanities on social media such as “b***h” and “c**t”. “The more successful a man becomes the more people like him,” Ms Clinton told the audience at Sydney’s International Convention Centre. “With women it’s the opposite. “Calling a woman incompetent or disagreeing might not be pleasant but it’s fair game ... But when it goes into the most foul, really horrible insults and accusations where there’s no argument or debate, and it’s just name calling of the most vile sort, that’s something different.”

The teenagers tucked their hands into their sweatshirt pockets as they shuffled to form a circle. Some gazed at the asphalt, trying to avoid the game they had been drafted to play. “It’s like hot potato/musical chairs, but with a penis,” said the girl leading the group. The kids gathered on a spring morning in South Los Angeles were about to get a hands-on lesson in sex education. Many health experts say that public health problems are best tackled outside the doctor’s office — that fixing the culture that perpetuates them is more effective than changing a single patient’s behavior....

"The United States does not need John Kerry’s possibly illegal Shadow Diplomacy on the very badly negotiated Iran Deal. He was the one that created this MESS in the first place!"

Democratic Party members in Lubbock, Texas, have been getting blasted on Facebook for cropping First Lady Melania Trump out of a now-viral picture from Barbara Bush’s funeral. The original photo features former presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — posing alongside Melania and first ladies Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Michelle Obama. Someone at Lubbock Democratic Party Headquarters posted the edited version on Sunday and later claimed they did it by accident. But Facebook users weren’t buying it. ---snip--- While party officials told KCBD that they never intended to edit Melania out of the...

Former First Lady Michelle Obama offered herself as America’s “forever First Lady,” at a college signing day event at Temple University in Philadelphia on Wednesday. “We have such high hopes for you. See, I am not one of those doubters. I know that you have everything it takes to succeed,” Obama said. “I know you are me, and if I can be standing here as your forever First Lady, then you can do anything you put your mind to.”

The shadow war between Israel and Iran in Syria escalated sharply on Monday after suspected Israeli strikes killed 26 Iranian and Assad regime fighters, according to monitors. One strike tore through a military base dug into a mountain near the central city of Hama on Sunday night, causing an explosion so large it registered as a 2.6 magnitude earthquake. A second strike targeted an airbase near the northern city of Aleppo. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack but suspicion immediately fell on Israel, which has carried out a number of strikes as it tries to prevent Iran...

Enthusiasm for the Democratic Party is waning among young voters, so-called millennials, as its candidates head into the crucial midterm congressional elections, according to the Reuters/Ipsos national opinion poll. The online survey of more than 16,000 registered voters ages 18 to 34 shows their support for Democrats over Republicans for Congress slipped by about 9 percentage points over the past two years, to 46 percent overall. And they increasingly say the Republican Party is a better steward of the economy. Although nearly two of three young voters polled said they do not like Republican President Donald Trump, their distaste for...

NEW YORK (FOX5NY) - A woman on Staten Island went on a rampage at a Popeye’s restaurant after apparently trying to order an item that’s only available at fast food rival Wendy’s. The incident ended with the woman shattering a plate glass window in the front of the store with a chair. The NYPD says the woman entered the Popeye’s location on Forest Ave. at around 8:30 p.m. on April 8. She apparently became angry that her meal didn't come with a soda. The employees suggested that she might have mixed up Popeye’s “$4 Wicked Good Deal” with Wendy’s “4...

Salem Media, owner of the influential conservative outlet RedState, froze the site on Friday and dismissed many of its writers. Bloggers were locked out of their accounts -- some just temporarily, while the cuts were made, and others permanently. Erick Erickson, the site's longtime editor who left in 2015, tweeted about what he called the "mass firing" on Friday morning. "Very sad to see, but not really surprising given Salem's direction," he wrote. "And, finally, after all these years, they've turned off my account." RedState writers work on contract and are paid based on the amount of traffic to their...