Free Republic

Abortion and Newtown: The Culture of Violence Jeffrey Lord “The horrifying truth is this: we live now in a culture that not only does not respect life, but discards it like trash — not only at the beginning of life, but also at the end, and every place in between. “What has happened to us?” — Catholic Deacon Greg Kandra October 2, 2011 Discards life like trash. One does not have to be a Catholic, which I am not, to appreciate the irony today in the words above from over a year ago by a Catholic Deacon named Greg Kandra....

One of the most fascinating characteristics of government borrowing - whether at the local, state, or federal level - is that debts contracted over time are obligations tied to specific geographical boundaries but not to the citizens living there when those debts were incurred. For example, while it's customary to say that each of the 210,000 residents of Stockton, California, are on the hook for their share of the bankrupt municipality's estimated $700 million in unpaid bills, the day one of them picks up and moves, personal responsibility for that debt drops to zero.

One week before a new minimum wage law for Long Beach hotels goes into effect, two hotels have told employees to expect layoffs of as many as 75 people, according to union representatives. At a confrontation with union activists Friday, a manager at one of the hotels, the Best Western Golden, denied that a local ballot measure triggered the cuts. He said bad economic conditions were to blame. In November, Long Beach voters approved a measure requiring hotels with 100 or more rooms to pay their employees $13 an hour. In a letter to employees posted at the hotel Monday,...

Just watched O'Reilly interview the parents of Jon Hammar, the Marine, detained in Mexico for a bogus gun charge. O'Reilly says he's going to give Obama and the State Department 3 days to get this done. Otherwise he says there will be "hell to pay"

Gun control is a subject which lies dormant in the hearts, minds, and souls of the American public. Its menacing social connotation rises and set as often as the sun itself. With respect to the recent shootings of innocent children and adults at the Sandy Hill Elementary School in Connecticut, and previous gun related violence, gun control once again is a national hot topic which offers various opinions among groups who support the letter of the law regarding the Second Amendment and those who oppose the Amendment altogether. read more at: http://jxb7076.hubpages.com/hub/Gun-Ownership-In-America-Right-Privilege-or-Curse

Gun control is a subject which lies dormant in the hearts, minds, and souls of the American public. Its menacing social connotation rises and set as often as the sun itself. With respect to the recent shootings of innocent children and adults at the Sandy Hill Elementary School in Connecticut, and previous gun related violence, gun control once again is a national hot topic which offers various opinions among groups who support the letter of the law regarding the Second Amendment and those who oppose the Amendment altogether. read more at: http://jxb7076.hubpages.com/hub/Gun-Ownership-In-America-Right-Privilege-or-Curse

DENVER (CBS4) – A woman accused of bringing a gun to a Denver middle school and menacing several students has been formally charged. Lynn Kimbrough with the district attorney’s office said Monica Avila, 34, was charged with four counts of menacing and one count of possession of a weapon on school grounds.

AUBURN HILLS — When Michigan-based Android Industries needed a place to expand this year, it chose Ft. Wayne, Ind. "Indiana became a right-to-work state and (it) offers us a competitive location," Android Vice President of Human Resources David Donnay told the Indiana Economic Development Corp. Android added 4,000 square feet to a building and invested $7.3 million at the facility with a target of adding 70 employees. So did the pending right-to-work law come too late for the company to consider Michigan? "There are many factors that go into a decision on where to expand," Donnay said. He said Android...

America's thriving gun industry, which has been riding high on a surge in sales, is under increasing pressure in the wake of Friday's elementary school massacre. Responding to a national wave of revulsion over the 27 murders in Newtown, Conn., retail chain Dick's Sporting Goods Inc. on Tuesday suspended sales of semiautomatic rifles at its 480 stores, while Wal-Mart Stores Inc. WMT +0.43% deleted from its website a listing for one such rifle. Private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP said Tuesday it would try to sell Freedom Group Inc., the manufacturer of the Bushmaster rifle that police say Adam Lanza...

In the NFC, five 8-6 teams appear to be competing for two available spots, though the 9-5 Seahawks haven't secured their postseason berth yet. And while the Steelers, Cowboys and Giants wouldn't make the playoffs if the season ended today, all would get in by winning their remaining two games. The Vikings, who would make it right now, do not control their own fate.

Murders of school-age children---those between the ages of 5 and 18—declined by 42 percent between the 1992-93 school year and the 2008-2009 school year, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, and only about 1 percent of the school age children murdered during the 2008-2009 school year were murdered at school. In February 2012, the Bureau of Justice Statistics published a report—“Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2011”—that included statistics on homicides committed at schools for the school years from 1992-93 through 2009-2010. The report also included the total number of all school-age children who were murdered at school or...

The patient didn’t overdose on medication. She overdosed on grapefruit juice. The 42-year-old was barely responding when her husband brought her to the emergency room. Her heart rate was slowing, and her blood pressure was falling. Doctors had to insert a breathing tube, and then a pacemaker, to revive her. They were mystified: The patient’s husband said she suffered from migraines and was taking a blood pressure drug called verapamil to help prevent the headaches. But blood tests showed she had an alarming amount of the drug in her system, five times the safe level. Did she overdose? Was she...

December 19, 2012   Wednesday of the Third Week of Advent   Reading 1 Jgs 13:2-7, 24-25a There was a certain man from Zorah, of the clan of the Danites,whose name was Manoah.His wife was barren and had borne no children.An angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her,"Though you are barren and have had no children,yet you will conceive and bear a son.Now, then, be careful to take no wine or strong drinkand to eat nothing unclean.As for the son you will conceive and bear,no razor shall touch his head,for this boy is to be...

An independent panel charged with investigating the deadly Sept. 11 attack in Libya that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans has concluded that systematic management and leadership failures at the State Department led to "grossly" inadequate security at the mission in Benghazi. "Systematic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department resulted in a Special Mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place," the panel said.

“Hi, I’m Edwin, and I own firearms!”Right now, in the shadow of the horrors of the Sandy Hook shooting, it feels as if every gun-owner is on edge.  Some are apologizing, distancing themselves from gun advocacy groups.  Some are saying all the right words, “well, my target gun is locked in a safe.”  Like telling your Baptist Preacher grandpa, “my whisky is in a cabinet and is only for medicinal purposes, of course.”  Some are saying, “well, I like guns, but nobody needs automatic guns that can be sprayed across a room.”The thing is, we didn’t want to talk about...

Not all black mob riots start with an armed robbery and car chase. But this one did. Just like on TV. This riot is also on TV: YouTube. Not quite as polished but you get the picture. The attacks are part of an epidemic of hundreds of cases of black mob violence in more than 80 cities over the last three years, as documented in the book “White Girl Bleed a Lot: The return of racial violence to America and how the media ignore it.” Chicago is Ground Zero for violence and denial. So much so that the riot did...

The movie "Zero Dark Thirty" suggests the CIA's harsh interrogation techniques led the U.S. to Osama bin Laden. Sen. John McCain watched the movie Monday night and says it left him sick — because it's wrong.

I went to a gun shop this evening in the "South". This is a well-known gun shop but it's in the middle of freakin nowhere. Drove an hour to get there. I went there tonight because, yesterday morning, I bought a "piece" over the phone so they had it locked up in the back for me. So I had to pick it up tonight. But the real story was I couldn't believe how many people were in there. There were at least 150 people in there. All the parking spaces in the lot were full. Black guns were flying off...

The Newtown school shooting. It’s a tragedy that a mass shooting requires a qualifier, but this is America so we need to be specific as not to be confused with Aurora, Columbine, Arizona, or Virginia Tech. Colorado massacres require a site specific qualifier.There are 2 common elements with all these massacres: mental illness and guns (not hunting rifles, but firearms designed to cause maximin human carnage in the shortest amount of time).And both deserve our attention.Mental illness, because people who commit mass murder have some mental health condition found in a psychiatric textbook. They are either schizophrenic, psychotic, or sociopaths....

Ten Saints Every Worrier Should Know Nov 12th, 2012by Gary Zimak   Although we’d rather not admit it, many of us worry (or are tempted to worry) each day of our lives. One of the reasons that we worry is that we sometimes feel we are facing our problems alone. Once we meet others who are dealing with similar problems, we usually feel better. Even more comforting is when we encounter someone who has survived the issue that is troubling us. As Catholics, much can be gained by studying the lives of the saints. Far from living easy lives, these...