Free Republic

JAKE TAPPER: One woman still looking for answers is Pat Smith. Her son, State Department Information Officer Sean Smith was one of the four Americans killed. Pat, thanks so much for being here. I know this is not an easy time. How are you holding up?

Nearly eight months after terrorists killed J. Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three others at the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Vice President Biden on Friday will officially recognize them and four other diplomats killed in the line of duty. Biden will be joined by Secretary of State John Kerry and other top administration officials to unveil the addition of the eight names on the Memorial Plaque in the lobby of the State Department. "Last year was a horror," said Thomas W. Switzer, spokesman for the American Foreign Service Association. "Sadly, this will be the biggest

Cost of amputating a leg? At least $20,000. Cost of an artificial leg? More than $50,000 for the most high-tech models. Cost of an amputee's rehab? Often tens of thousands of dollars more. These are just a fraction of the medical expenses victims of the Boston Marathon bombing will face. The mammoth price tag is probably not what patients are focusing on as they begin the long healing process. But friends and strangers are already setting up fundraisers and online crowd-funding sites, and a huge Boston city fund has already collected more than $23 million in individual and corporate donations....

First of all, the president’s delivery was incredibly robotic. There was absolutely no emotion in his voice. There was no sound of anger. There was no sound of relief. There was no sound of resolve whatsoever. Instead, what I heard was a robotic, monotone president who said words that even he himself has not typically followed.

The Chinese Consulate in New York said this evening that the latest fatality of the Boston Marathon explosion was a Chinese national. The consulate's statement came a few hours after Boston University said that the victim was a BU graduate student. Colin Riley, a BU spokesman, declined to release the student's name, pending discussion with the family. According to BU Today news site, the student was one of three friends who had been watching the Marathon near the race finish line. One of the three was injured and is in stable condition at Boston Medical Center, according to the university....

The victims of the Boston Marathon bombings include a 9-year-old girl who lost a leg and a 10-year-old boy who suffered deep shrapnel wounds to his legs, according to the director of the trauma program at Boston Children’s Hospital. The most seriously injured children had BBs and nails embedded in their bodies, said Dr. David P. Mooney -- objects that were apparently packed into the explosive devices. The 9- and 10-year-olds are in critical condition but are expected to survive. They will need multiple surgeries to recover from their devastating injuries, Mooney said in an interview with the Globe Tuesday...

The woman’s eyes stared vacantly into the sky. The runners had been bounding in, beaming with relief. On both sides of Boylston Street, hundreds of spectators still had packed the area, many cheering with hoarse voices for the late finishers surging in, scores of them every minute. An elderly volunteer greeting runners kept repeating this mantra: “You’re all winners.” When the first boom shattered the bliss and the haze of white smoke washed over the finish line, I could see in the eyes of the woman what had happened. She wasn’t breathing. She wasn’t moving. Her eyes appeared lifeless as...

Senate Mulls Background Checks on Potential Victims April 10th, 2013 Scott Ott Potential mass-shooting victim background checks mulled by SenateSome senators worry that a bill to screen for potential mass-shooting victims could lead to empty classrooms and theaters, or worse, the specter of armed security personnel or even armed, law-abiding citizens depriving people of their natural right to remain defenseless. The U.S. Senate next week will reportedly take up debate on a bill to require background checks on potential victims of mass shootings. The alternative to increased gun-purchase background checks came out of closed-door negotiations among Senate leaders when they...

President Barack Obama is bringing 11 relatives of those killed in the shooting at Connecticut´s Sandy Hook Elementary School to Washington on Air Force One on Monday so they can personally encourage senators to back gun legislation that faces tough opposition. A nonprofit organization that works with the families, Sandy Hook Promise, said that after Obama´s speech on gun control in Hartford, he is flying with relatives of seven children and one staffer killed during December´s massacre at the school. The White House says Obama is going to argue that lawmakers have an

On its most recent magazine cover with the "The Great American Housing Rebound" as the title, Bloomberg BusinessWeek featured characters that, as the New York Post put it, were "drawn to look like minorities." Perhaps eager to make a lot of noise, Ryan Chittum of the Columbia Journalism Review responded that "minority borrowers were disproportionately victimized in the bubble. But BusinessWeek here has them on the cover bathing in housing-ATM cash, implying that they're going to create another bubble. That's not okay." Though it apologized for the alleged offense, Bloomberg BusinessWeek should have stood firm. It did nothing wrong. Though...

**SNIP** Langevin, who is serving in his seventh term, has invited one of his constituents, Jim Tyrell, to attend the address. Tyrell’s sister, Debbie, was murdered in 2004 during a robbery at a convenience store she owned in Providence, R.I. Langevin is the first quadriplegic to serve in the House. As a 16-year-old, he was injured while working with the Warwick Police Department in a Boy Scout Explorer program when an officer handling a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol thought the chamber was empty, and pulled the trigger. A bullet bounced off a metal locker, striking Langevin in the neck and severing...

Larry Elder explains how Barack Obama's party has betrayed minorities In 13 wards in Philadelphia, reports the Inquirer, President Barack Obama received 99 percent of the vote! A local Democratic ward leader outlined the strategy: “In this election, you had to point out to people what was at stake. And in many cases, they felt that the Romney doctrine was not going to favor the working man.” Obama appears to have held on to most of his percentage of the black vote from 2008 – even though the black unemployment rate in October reached 14.3 percent. Emmanuel Cleaver, the head...

Do you remember the concert to support the victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2007? Kanye West came on to ask for donations and in the course of his time said, "George Bush Hates Black People!" So, with all the misery and inaction going on in New York and New Jersey, can I expect some Hollywood Libtard to come on tonight during the NBC-sponsored concert and exclaim "Barack Obama Hates White People?" Right!

we are going to get screwed in the second debate. the obamites are desperate. it's a town hall meeting. they will stack the deck in the audience with 26 year old lesbians with breast cancer that need their birth control pills paid for. "how can you take my obamacare away from meeeee? I will die!!" candy is an absolute leftist, and she is listening to the MSM uproar over the last debate. she will whack mitt at every opportunity in the next debate.

Mitt Romney echoed the sentiment in a video secretly recorded at a fundraiser ... in which he argued that the 47 percent of Americans who don’t pay federal income taxes would vote for Obama “no matter what.” As an explanation for electoral trends, though, this theory doesn’t hold up. One major reason for the growth of the federal government in recent years has been that entitlement spending per beneficiary has increased, and so has the number of beneficiaries as people have retired. Yet senior citizens -- who benefit from federal programs, on average, far more than younger people -- have...

World Trade Center – New York City Gordon M. Aamoth, Jr. - Edelmiro Abad - Maria Rose Abad - Andrew Anthony Abate - Vincent Abate - Laurence Christopher Abel - William F. Abrahamson - Richard Anthony Aceto - Jesus Acevedo Rescand - Heinrich Bernhard Ackermann - Paul Acquaviva - Donald LaRoy Adams - Patrick Adams - Shannon Lewis Adams - Stephen George Adams - Ignatius Udo Adanga - Christy A. Addamo - Terence E. Adderley, Jr. - Sophia Buruwad Addo - Lee Allan Adler - Daniel Thomas Afflitto - Emmanuel Akwasi Afuakwah - Alok Agarwal - Mukul Kumar Agarwala -...

9/11: The Falling Man, a journey to identify the falling man from one of 9/11's most startling images

Germany did not even make a “minimal effort” to save the lives of 11 Israeli athletes massacred by Arab terrorists at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, according to Israeli government archives that were opened up after 40 years. The documents include statement by then-Mossad director Tzvi Zamir, who returned from Munich after the massacre and told Prime Minister Golda Meir and senior ministers of apathy and lack of professionalism displayed by German authorities. “They didn't make even a minimal effort to save lives, didn't take even a minimal risk to save people, neither theirs nor ours, Zamir said, adding that...

American gymnast Aly Raisman has revealed the music for her gold medal-winning floor routine at the London Olympics was a tribute to the victims of the 1972 Munich Games terror attack. The 18-year-old said choosing Hava Nagila- a traditional score used for wedding dances and bat mitzvah - was a response to the International Olympic Committee's failure to mark the 40th anniversary of the tragedy. And for Aly, from Needham, Massachusetts, she said it made her gold even more special. 'I can only imagine how painful it must be for the families and close personal friends of the victims,' she...

A former Catholic priest who now heads a charity that assists sexual abuse victims said Thursday his group is representing a previously unknown victim of Jerry Sandusky. Robert Hoatson, co-founder and president of New Jersey-based Road to Recovery Inc., said the man claims he was abused by Sandusky about 25 years ago, when he was 15, visiting for a summer football camp. The man, now about 40 years old, is currently incarcerated in a Massachusetts state prison “for serious crimes,” and does not want to be identified, because he fears repercussions in the prison, Hoatson said. Speaking outside Beaver Stadium,...

Am I the only one who feels utter and total contempt for the so called poor? This is the most free, by far, any country in the history of the world, and yet we have these scum-sucking parasites that have not taken advantage of it, instead they cannot take care of themselves, their children, nor their elderly. When I see a poor person, I am filled with disgust. How can this individual(or group of individuals) live like this and not feel that they have the opportunity just in front of them that the rest of the world would kill for?...

“Justice delayed is justice denied” is a maxim generally attributed to 19th century British Prime Minister William E. Gladstone. We’ve heard that phrase often, and the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is based on this principle. “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial,” it provides. Let’s place “speedy trial” on the back burner for a moment as we consider Saturday’s arraignment of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Here’s a brief timeline of the life of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of 9/11, since his capture and custody at the military prison...

Glenn invited people who had lived under communist rule to GBTV tonight. What advice did they have for people here in America?

It seems like liberals and the MSM are constantly providing us with an endless parade of victims--most who we shortly discover are misreprentations if not down right lies to advance their agenda. Let's see how many we can remember. I'll start: Jane Roe: Women who later admitted lying about being raped to pass Roe vs. Wade. Your turn.

There are Labradoodles in the produce aisle. There's a little Australian terrier sniffing the potato chips. Yes, there are dogs in the supermarket, particularly in San Francisco. And God help us, one of these days there may be a miniature pony in the checkout line. Seriously. And it's all perfectly legal. Or imperfectly legal, depending on whom you ask. Technically, these are service animals. But the technicality is starting to drive customers, supermarket owners and animal control officials around the bend. "This service animal thing is getting a little out of control," said Vicky Guldbech, captain of San Francisco's Department...

News Release Americans For Truth About HomosexualityNovember 10, 2011; Contact: Peter LaBarbera: americansfortruth@gmail.comCHICAGO—The discovery that former Penn State University defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky has been molesting boys as young as 10 years old – and that university officials including head coach Joe Paterno did not do more to apprehend this predator – has shocked America. Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), said the scandal exposes the continuing problem of homosexual predators in society. He offers the following observations related to the PSU scandal: Many openly homosexual (“gay”) men, like CNN anchor Don Lemon, were molested as...

He was the last victim, that we know of, to come forward. But in many ways, he was the first. He was one of the first with enough courage to say something. To stick around for three years while police and a grand jury talked to dozens of people and combed through thousands of documents. To hang on emotionally. To take a stand against a Goliath. A legend. A man that some saw as a god. He was the first to be believed. Authorities even call him Victim One. The mother of the Clinton County boy is telling her family...

When? When should Joe Paterno have gone above his athletic director? That's the question the legal community and college football fans and media try to wrap their heads around in assessing the despicable allegations coming out of Happy Valley. But for eight young adults, their question would have been far more urgent and desperate as Jerry Sandusky allegedly robbed them of their innocence, one by one: When is somebody going to put an end to this? On Sunday, Paterno issued a 265-word statement that attempted to offer perspective in the wake of a sexual abuse scandal that is gutting Penn...

MONTOURSVILLE, Pa. — Another potential victim has contacted authorities in the child sexual abuse investigation of former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, a state police criminal investigation supervisor said Tuesday. The man, now an adult, contacted the department on Sunday after seeing media accounts of Sandusky's arrest, Lt. David Young at the Montoursville station said. Young said investigators took a statement from him and forwarded it to the Rockview station for officers there to pursue. The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, which first reported that the man had come forward, said he is in his 20s, knew Sandusky from The Second...

In his debut PJ Crime column Rob Taylor reveals the painful price of moral relativism.While the big story in conservative circles is the stunning amount of criminality coming out at the Occupy Wall Street protests, I’m shocked there hasn’t been more. The Occupy protesters are — by and large — downwardly mobile, sheltered, white drug users who have joined a variety of fringe movements and refuse to cooperate with police in any criminal matters. In the highly politicized blogosphere where most of these stories are being broken we often call people like these “radicals� or “revolutionaries,� but in the real...

Terror victims' group Almagor demanded Thursday that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak immediately publish the conclusions of the Shamgar Committee, which was appointed to set rules for cases in which soldiers and/or civilian citizens are abducted by the enemy. Its conclusions have not yet been made public because the committee met after the Shalit abduction and did not want to influence activity that might have already begun to free him. The group also announced plans for a new campaign calling for a return to the spirit of Yoni Netanyahu, brother of the prime minister. Yoni was...

Despite the revelation Sunday that 24-year-old Asher Palmer and his infant son Yehonatan were murdered by terrorists and not killed in a car accident, their family has yet to receive the support normally given to those bereaved by terror. Relatives of the two victims told Maariv that the state has yet to make contact. Normally, social welfare workers contact the relatives of those slain by terrorists and offer assistance with the funeral and the shiva, the traditional seven-day mourning period. Relatives are immediately given an aid package, and professionals form ties with the family to assist them in surviving their...

In case you haven't seen it, Bristol Palin was verbally accosted in a bar by a big mouth she correctly identified as a homosexual. (The video is embedded in the link.) He didn't seem gay, happy. In fact, he was the rudest kind of boor you'd never hope to meet. The gist of his magisterial disquisition is that Sarah Palin is evil, will go to hell if there is one, and is a woman of easy virtue. That's funny because Sarah Palin married the first boy she ever kissed, has five children in wedlock--including one she was advised to kill,...

Almost all of them jumped alone, although eyewitnesses talked of a couple who held hands as they fell. One woman, in a final act of modesty, appeared to be holding down her skirt. Others tried to make parachutes out of curtains or tablecloths, only to have them wrenched from their grip by the force of their descent. The fall was said to take about ten seconds. It would vary according to the body position and how long it took to reach terminal velocity — around 125mph in most cases, but if someone fell head down with their body straight, as

"Asian" is British dhimmi media code for "Muslim." However, the racial breakdown of this study -- "white" and "Asian" -- obscures the possibility that white Muslims could have been involved in some of these cases, and ignores utterly the Islamic legal justification for sex slavery of unbelievers, which has the result of making this sort of exploitation of Infidel children more acceptable. "More than 2,000 children 'victims of sex grooming,'" by Dominic Casciani for BBC News, June 29 (thanks to all who sent this in): The first UK-wide study of street grooming of children has found more than 2,000 victims...

A group of New York City atheists is demanding that the city remove a street sign honoring seven firefighters killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks because they say the sign violates the separation of church and state. The street, “Seven in Heaven Way,” was officially dedicated last weekend in Brooklyn outside the firehouse where the firefighters once served. The ceremony was attended by dozens of firefighters, city leaders and widows of the fallen men. “There should be no signage or displays of religious nature in the public domain,” said Ken Bronstein, president of New York City Atheists. “It’s...

CNN) - As a young man studying for the priesthood, Patrick Wall imagined life as a professor and football coach at a Catholic university. It didn't work out that way. Two decades later, Wall has not only left the Catholic Church, he has become one of its most tireless opponents. He's an ex-priest, driven from ministry by the feeling that his superiors used him to help cover up sex abuse by other clergymen. And he's using the training he gained as a priest to work with victims of abuse who want to take the church to court. Since 1991, Wall...

THIS WILL DISTURB YOU, PARTICULARLY BECAUSE ALL OF THIS TRAGEDY COULD HAVE AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama smiled when he said his large ears and funny name once made him a target of school-yard harassment. But he was all seriousness Thursday when he told a White House conference on bullying that torment and intimidation must not be tolerated. Some 13 million students, about a third of all those attending school, are bullied every year, the White House said. Experts say that puts them at greater risk of falling behind in their studies, abusing drugs or alcohol, or suffering mental or other health problems. Kids who are seen as different because of...

Florida governor Rick Scott spent Monday at a luncheon with African-American lawmakers, speaking to the group about the upcoming legislative session. In doing so, Mr. Scott seems have set off a debate over race and politics. “I grew up probably in the same situation as you guys,” Mr. Scott said to the group of 20 Democrats. “I started school in public housing. My dad had a sixth-grade education.” A number of state Democrats objected to the assumption. State Rep. Betty Reed said she was offended by the remark, adding “He assumed that everyone [[n the room] was poor and that...

One of the standard tropes of mainstream-media discourse in the post-9/11 era is that American Muslims have been subjected to a backlash in which they have been subjected to discrimination and hate crimes. Though there was little or no actual statistical evidence of bias attacks or any sort of official discrimination, this notion that America is a hostile place for Muslims helped change the nature of the debate over the proposed Ground Zero Islamic Center and mosque that dominated the airwaves this past summer. Publications such as Time magazine asked, “Does America Have a Muslim Problem?” in August despite the...

Nearly 90 percent of home owners have stayed current on their mortgages throughout the housing meltdown. Yet, in what should be his final act as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Chris Dodd is holding hearings today about how the 10 percent of homeowners who are either seriously delinquent or in default on their loans are being screwed by the banking system. The hearing, of course, won't dwell on the mistakes of the vast majority of alleged victims of this scandal -- namely, how they rolled the dice on the housing bubble, taking out loans they knew they couldn't afford....

The state of Oklahoma is planning to execute death row inmates with drugs intended for use on animals. Lawmakers want to switch away from the only brand of anaesthetic that has been used in the US for lethal injections because there is not enough to go around. The replacement is likely to attract controversy because it is currently used by vets to anesthetise animals for operations. Other states are watching closely and may well follow suit, but such a move is likely to face a challenge from human rights groups to ensure that it is safe to use.

Elderly Chicago crime victims fighting back with guns, 2 cases this week * September 30th, 2010 11:10 am CT * By Deborah O'Malley, Chicago Crime Examiner There's another report of a senior citizen using a gun to fight back agains thugs. This time, one of the alleged thugs was killed. Authorities say Frank T. Obrochta, 45, of Melrose Park and Franko Martinelli, 32, of the 2200 block of West Erie, Chicago, broke into a Ukrainian Village home on the 2100 block of West Huron at about 11 p.m. Monday. The 79-year-old man who lived in the house confronted the pair....

(09-16) 14:36 PDT SAN BRUNO -- Two women were charged Thursday with trying to impersonate victims of last week's deadly pipeline blast in San Bruno, as state and local authorities warned that identity thieves, unscrupulous contractors and others seeking to wring profit from tragedy would be punished severely. "We view them as vermin," said Steve Wagstaffe, San Mateo County's chief deputy district attorney, referring to anyone caught exploiting the fiery rupture of a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. natural gas transmission line, which destroyed 37 homes and killed at least four people. He said suspects would not be offered plea...

[caption id="attachment_9110" align="alignright" width="240" caption="It's Nobody's Fault"][/caption] A brief survey of stories about murders around the country shows how frequently family members, victims, the police, and others involved gravitate toward the notion that the murderer was crazy or as some call it, “mentally” ill. It isn’t always stated that way, but sympathy for the murderer is sometimes given more coverage than for the murder victim. Suggestions that the perpetrator “must have snapped” is simply a way to excuse murder. In fact, a reality television with the name “Snapped” has been created to explore stories of women who murdered their husbands....

The victims of the Tuesday night terrorist attack near Hevron – Yitzchak Imas, his wife Talia Imas, Kokhava Even-Chaim, and Avishai Shindler – were buried Wednesday. The funeral procession began in Beit Chagai. As the town does not have its own cemetery, the burials were conducted in various cities around Israel. Yitzchak and Talia Imas, parents of six children, were buried in the Mount of Olives (Har Hazeitim) cemetery in Jerusalem. Their daughter Rut eulogized them, saying, “For 19 years you raised me... G-d, thank you for giving me wonderful parents.” She recalled their 25th wedding anniversary just two weeks...

One of the people murdered by Palestinian Authority terrorists Tuesday used to carry a gun for self-defense, but Israeli authorities took away his permit in late 2009 – leaving him defenseless. Attorney Yitzchak Bam of the Forum for the Land of Israel represented the deceased man in his legal attempts to win back his gun permit. “In December, he received a letter according to which the permit is suspended because of closed criminal files regarding disturbance of the public peace,” he related. “The last closed file was from the period immediately after the Disengagement,” he said. The permit was extended...

Serial Killer Who Targeted US Blacks is Palestinian Arab Illegal Alien, Police Hid “Mid-Eastern” DescriptionFor several weeks, police have been quietly searching for a serial killer who stabbed poor Black victims in Flint, Michigan, then fled to Leesburg, Virginia, where his sister lives. Many family members of the victims were angry that the police did not disclose the White identity of the murderer, saying it was racist. But, now, it’s very clear why they hid his identity and true visual description: Elias Abuelazam is a Palestinian Arab illegal alien who was here on an expired passport.

NEW ORLEANS — Out-of-work Gulf Coast shrimper Todd Pellegal spent his first $2,500 check from BP quickly, paying off bills and buying groceries for his family. He never even considered putting some of it away for taxes. Now he's among the people up and down the Gulf Coast reeling from the oil spill disaster who are surprised — and frustrated — to find out the Internal Revenue Service may take a chunk of the payments BP PLC is providing to help them stay afloat.