Free Republic

The Senate on Friday approved an amendment to a Hurricane Sandy disaster relief bill that would prohibit dead people and anyone with "serious delinquent tax debts" from receiving the funds. The Senate approved the amendment from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) in a voice vote, along with several other amendments to the bill. The Democratic legislation would provide $60 billion in spending for Sandy cleanup, but Coburn and Republicans have said for the last several weeks that the bill is much bigger than it needs to be. Many GOP senators put forward amendments aimed at reducing the size of the bill,...

My friend Brett Joshpe has published an uncharacteristically soft-headed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle arguing that in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook, conservatives and Republicans should support what he calls “sensible” gun-control laws. It begins with a subtext of self-congratulation (“As a conservative and a Republican, I can no longer remain silent . . . Some will consider it heresy,” etc.), casts aspersions of intellectual dishonesty (arguments for preserving our traditional rights are “disingenuous”), advances into ex homine (noting he has family in Sandy Hook, as though that confers special status on his preferences), fundamentally misunderstands the argument for the...

<p>In the hours and days following the Newtown massacre, the media reported a metric sh*tload of what were later discovered to be incorrect details, including the identity of the shooter, his mom's connection to the school, where she was killed, how Adam Lanza got into the building, and the weapons he used. Now we can add another one to the list: Adam Lanza was not wearing body armor, but "a fishing type vest, a jacket with a lot of pockets," according to a Connecticut state police spokesman.</p>

Nearly two months after homes in Staten Island, NY were devastated by Hurricane Sandy, residents say they’re still struggling with red tape as they try to get the government to help. … Victims are shuffled from one desk to another for registration, an identification check, and one-on-one interviews—then referred to something called a “Mitigation Desk,” a FEMA official at a local Disaster Recovery Center explained to MRCTV. …

The Belle Harbor section of the Rockaways in New York, where so many heroes emerged during Superstorm Sandy, has lost one of them to a tragic surfing death in Puerto Rico. ((snip)) The New York City lifeguard was widely praised after the storm for using his surfboard to move several Queens neighbors endangered by high water and a fire to safety.

During the debate over the so-called fiscal cliff and how politicians in Washington are hoping to avert the cliff and instead just steer the economy toward its continuing downward slope, there has been a plethora of rhetoric spewing from both sides of the debate. But yesterday Barack Obama took the honor for most irrelevant and most heartless rhetoric when he invoked the tragedies of Superstorm Sandy and the Sandy Hook elementary school killings to try to shame Republicans into caving to his proposals.

Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s executive VP, says that our violent culture is to blame for gun violence and that, as long as the culture is what it is, school children should have police protection.  Despite the fact that the majority of Americans agree with him, the drive-by media is excoriating as if he had just announced that he eats children for breakfast and urges us all to do the same.  Americans, who have been schooled out of rational thinking, will soon be referring to LaPierre in the appropriate pariah-like terms and, like the useful idiots they’ve been trained to be,...

Today, President Obama took to the podium to declare his unsurprising support for new, poorly-calibrated gun laws. His logic was simple: a horrific massacre occurred in Newtown, Connecticut at Sandy Hook Elementary, and we must try something. Anything. Well, not anything -- the same tried-and-true liberal gun control measures that have failed time and again.-snip-Obama explained what he wouldn’t really try: anything having to do with mental health (even though shooter Adam Lanza clearly suffered from mental health issues, as did the Gabby Giffords, Virginia Tech, and Aurora, Colorado shooters); anything having to do with the entertainment industry’s emphasis on...

Video response from Sturmgewehre (Military Arms Channel) on the Newtown tragedy. http://youtu.be/6R5VxAebCng

Mary Katharine Ham wrote last week about the porkfest in the Senate bill authorizing emergency relief spending for Hurricane Sandy, but the Senate hasn’t gotten the message yet. David Francis reports on more aspects of the larded-up bill for The Fiscal Times, while noting that this has become business as usual on Capitol Hill — especially while the normal budgeting process has been derailed: The Sandy emergency spending package also contains provisions that had previously been rejected or had not yet been considered by Congress. This includes a measure that alters how the federal government manages areas prone to flooding,...

Full Title-"ABC News producer inundated with porn spam after tweeting interview requests to relatives of shooting victims" A spokesman for ABC News told The Daily Caller on Monday that an influx of emailed pornography led the network to close down an email account and several social media profiles belonging to an editorial producer, in the days following the Friday mass-murder at a Connecticut elementary school. “We’ve had to change all of her accounts,” ABC News Senior Vice President Jeffrey Schneider said of Nadine Shubailat in a voicemail message left Monday morning. Shubailat sent tweets Friday to at least two people...

SALT LAKE CITY — More guns in the hands of teachers and administrators could effectively make schools safer and better prepared for active shooters, a Utah gun instructor said. It's in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary that left 20 children and six workers dead. It's also as state school districts are reviewing their security policies and lawmakers are expressing interest in revisiting state gun laws. "Just one person with one firearm and perhaps one round of ammunition could have changed the entire outcome of Sandy Hook Elementary," said Clark Aposhian, chair of the Utah...

If this didn’t come from long-time correspondent, photographer, reporter, bumper sticker aficionado, and music impresario Danelle, I wouldn’t believe it. Made a quick stop at my favorite firearms shop today just to see what was in stock. The store was fully staffed, with a help wanted sign on the door.Every salesman, the owner, his wife and all 4 of his children were waiting on customers. The place was packed. Sure enough, they had a great price on a 9mm that I had been considering acquiring. As has been reported, the Federal Background Check system is severely stressed in the last...

When’s the last time you heard about a deranged gunman going on a shooting spree at a shooting range? Other than a spoof article on the Onion, a shooting range isn’t the preferred venue for a murderous shooting rampage. Despite all of the shooters, guns and ammo, I feel safer at a shooting range than just about anywhere else. It doesn’t require expert analysis to understand why gun-free areas, not shooting ranges, are the preferred venues of those who want to murder as many victims as possible before encountering return fire. Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old murderer of 20 young children...

Similar to the way Obama used the families of victims of the Benghazi murders for which he is responsible, Obama licked his chops over the opportunity to use the victims at Sandy Hook Elementary to further his assault upon the constitution...

Waiting () was both the humane thing for the NRA to do and the smart thing tactically. By waiting until today, the NRA now knows what the media's tactics are; and by waiting a few days after making this announcement to hold the actual presser, they will have an idea of how our unbiased, objective, open-minded, impartial, non-ideological media intends to absolutely crush and destroy them. What the NRA now has is the time needed to formulate arguments and to put forward that which our craven, opportunistic media has not -- a serious, pro-active plan to ensure Sandy Hook can’t...

Psychiatrist James Knoll told CNN’s Headline News today that Adam Lanza, the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, was acting in a “ritualistic” way during the horrific events. Knoll, who does research at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University, said in a recent report that killers like Lanza see themselves as “pseudocommandos … driven by strong feelings of anger and resentment, in addition to having a paranoid character. He plans out the offense ritualistically, and comes prepared with a powerful arsenal of weapons.” The report continues: “[The pseudocommando] most often kills in public during the...

REMEMBERING SANDY HOOK Twas' 11 days before Christmas, around 9:38 when 20 beautiful children stormed through heaven's gate. Their smiles were contagious, their laughter filled the air. They could hardly believe all the beauty they saw there. They were filled with such joy, they didn't know what to say. They remembered nothing of what had happened earlier that day. "Where are we?" asked a little girl, as quiet as a mouse. "This is heaven." declared a small boy. "We're spending Christmas at God's house." When what to their wondering eyes did appear, but Jesus, their Savior, the children gathered near....

“From what I've been told, Adam was aware of her petitioning the court for conservatorship and (her) plans to have him committed," Flashman told FoxNews.com. "Adam was apparently very upset about this. He thought she just wanted to send him away. From what I understand, he was really, really angry. I think this could have been it, what set him off.” A senior law enforcement official involved in the investigation confirmed that Lanza's anger at his mother over plans for “his future mental health treatment” is being looked at as a possible motive for the deadly shooting. Flashman was told...

They won the campaign handily and even had $14.2 million to spare, but the Obama-Biden campaign is still raising money, this time off the president's comments about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Connecticut. In email from chief campaign advisor David Axelrod that urges supporters to watch President Obama's moving address to the community of Newtown, there are two links that open a page with a video player featuring the president's speech and two donate buttons asking for $15-$1,000 for his campaign. "The next chapter begins today. Stand with President Obama for the next four years," headlines the donation...