Free Republic

On Tuesday night, Republicans won big: They picked up governorships in blue states like Maryland, Massachusetts, and Illinois, and they held House seats in competitive districts with embarrassing incumbents like Michael Grimm of New York, who physically threatened a reporter and is under indictment for tax evasion. But their biggest win by far was taking control of the U.S. Senate. As of this writing, Republicans had already secured 52 Senate seats, thanks to knocking off Democratic incumbents or replacing retiring Democrats in Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Montana, North Carolina, South Dakota, and West Virginia. Another GOP pick up is probable in...

Fighting for her political life and effectively abandoned by the Democratic Party, Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu went on the attack against Rep. Bill Cassidy, the Republican congressman challenging her in next month’s runoff. At a Thursday press conference in front of a Veterans Affairs medical facility, Landrieu tried to contrast her efforts to secure federal money for her state after Hurricane Katrina hit the state in September 2005 with Cassidy’s supposed failure to lift a finger.

As Twitchy reported yesterday, Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, facing a runoff election Dec. 6, has resumed campaigning on Twitter, although her #WhereWasBill tweet racked up only one favorite and zero retweets in its first four hours online. (Nearly 24 hours later, it’s up to three retweets and two favorites.) Landrieu’s resurrected Twitter campaign has finally caught someone’s attention, although that person is her opponent, Rep. Bill Cassidy, who was happy to answer where he was during Hurricane Katrina. Check out the favorites and retweets on this one. Bill Cassidy        ✔ @BillCassidy Mary Landrieu wants to know where I was during Hurricane Katrina? Setting...

Former Mayor Ray Nagin's federal trial on 21 public corruption charges was postponed again last week — for the third time. The former mayor is now set to stand trial on Monday, Jan. 27, 2014. If and when Nagin does go to trial — or if he pleads to a reduced charge — it will be the final chapter of Hurricane Katrina's political arc. Guilty or innocent, Nagin's fate will bring closure to a city that arguably suffered as much after the storm as during it, thanks in large measure to the former mayor's failure to implement a recovery program...

Imagine swimming in an underwater primeval forest that nature has preserved for over 50,000 years. Now you can if you are willing to dive 60 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, 10 miles offshore of Alabama. Experts believe 2005's Hurricane Katrina unveiled what had been buried under ocean sediment for centuries. And it took some curious fishermen to discover it by questioning why there so many fishing congregating in one area. The discovery was made in 2012 but only recently became public knowledge. The find was confirmed when a dive team and experts from Louisiana State University...

KRAEMER, La. -- Roland Torres wants you to know a few things. He lives in a rural area where life is pretty straightforward. His family has been active on the bayou for five generations, witnessing a daily battle of survival of the fittest. The birds, animals and reptiles who inhabit the vast swamps of south-central Louisiana live only as long as their wits and luck hold out. They are on their own 24/7. So is Torres. A former game warden, Torres is of Spanish descent and still speaks the language of his Cajun ancestors: French. He makes a decent...

By now, we’ve heard the argument about semi-automatic "assault" rifles: nobody needs one. we’ve heard the only reason why someone would obtain this kind of weapon is so they can kill people, which is far from the truth. We’ve also heard the argument from both the Left and the Right that a pistol is how someone protects their home. "I really don’t know why people need assault weapons. I’m not a hunter but I understand people who want to hunt," Republican Rep. Peter King said on Morning Joe earlier this week. "I understand people who live in rough neighborhoods...

Whether he's publicly recapitulating the hallucinations of an imaginary friend, or wrongly assuring the public that various government programs are "fully funded," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tends to struggle with the truth.  The recent high-octane bout of partisan wrangling over whether to pass a porked-up Sandy relief bill is finally complete, and Reid is unhappy that Congress didn't spend more money.  To emphasize his frustration, he downplayed the severity of Hurricane Katrina's destruction in order to cast Sandy as far worse -- thus indicting those who opposed even one cent of unrelated "relief" spending as uncaring, heartless bastards:  ...

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) criticizes Congress for not hastily appropriating federal money for Hurricane Sandy relief efforts in New York and New Jersey while praising a more prompt response to Hurricane Katrina. REID: It's too bad that it's taking so long. When we had that devastating [Hurricane] Katrina, we were there within days taking care of Mississippi, Alabama, and especially Louisiana -- within days. We are now past two months with people of New York and the people of New Orleans and that area, they were hurt but nothing in comparison to what happened to the people in New England....

Mayor Bloomberg’s Response to Sandy Leaves Many New Yorkers Out in the Cold The mayor has brilliantly stage-managed his handling of the storm, but outside the city’s affluent precincts numerous angry residents feel abandoned by his administration as days have passed and help has remained distant, writes Harry Siegel. “Are you from OEM? Or FEMA?” “No, we’re from Brooklyn.” That was the exchange when, after nearly six hours, the volunteer group I spent Sunday with finally managed to deliver supplies— flashlights, blankets, winter jackets, baby supplies, and pet food—to Staten Islanders who’d been rocked by Hurricane Sandy. On television, New...

Hurricane Sandy brought with it unfathomable destruction. For the past few days we have endless reports of the suffering that is sure to continue for many weeks to come. As the nation prays for the victims and their lost loved ones and sends whatever support they can muster – I am stricken with the difference I see in the news coverage of Hurricane Sandy when contrasted with what we witnessed with Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans just a few short years ago. In early September of 2005 and the months, even years that followed, the media mantra was loud and...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- More than 3,000 lots flooded by Hurricane Katrina and bought with federal money in an emergency bailout sit idle across this city - a multimillion-dollar drain on federal, state and city coffers that lends itself to no easy solution. An Associated Press examination of the properties sold to the government by homeowners abandoning New Orleans after the catastrophic 2005 flood has found that about $86 million has been spent on 5,100 abandoned parcels. *** "Right now nobody on those 3,000-plus properties is contributing. It's costing the city and state government to maintain them. Police got to...

A class-action settlement agreement has been reached to resolve nearly all the remaining court claims over allegations that government-issued trailers exposed Gulf Coast residents to hazardous fumes after Hurricane Katrina, a lead plaintiffs' attorney said Monday. In a court filing late Monday, plaintiffs' lawyers and several companies that manufactured FEMA trailers after the 2005 storm asked U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt to approve an expanded version of a multimillion-dollar deal initially announced in April. A separate agreement with four FEMA contractors that installed or refurbished trailers will be filed Tuesday, lead plaintiffs' attorney Gerald Meunier told The Associated Press. Nearly...

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday that those law enforcement officers who barred pedestrians from crossing the Crescent City Connection in the hectic days after Hurricane Katrina will not face federal prosecution. After a review of Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti's investigation into the incident, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division found the bridge had been blocked for public safety reasons and that there was no sufficient evidence to prove that the officers intentionally broke the law.U.S. Attorney Jim Letten agreed, and the case was closed. "This is not a commentary on what should have happened or how people...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a request to reopen a lawsuit that charged energy companies with contributing to the effects of Hurricane Katrina by emitting greenhouse gases. The result means victory for about 30 energy companies that were being sued by Mississippi homeowners who claimed that by emitting greenhouse gases, the companies helped cause global warming and exacerbated Katrina’s wrath. The Supreme Court was asked to step in after so many members of the 16-judge 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had recused themselves that it could not conduct a rehearing of a partially successful appeal...

ABC News White House Correspondent Jake Tapper attacked former President George W. Bush over his comments about being called a racist by rapper Kanye West over Hurricane Katrina.Writing on Twitter this afternoon while accompanying Barack Obama on his Asian trip, Tapper wrote a series of comments ripping Bush:President Bush says @KanyWest's comments were "one of the most disgusting moments of my presidency." Really?about 2 hours ago via TweetDeck imagine if in 5 years President Obama said one of the most disgusting moments of his presidency was when Glenn Beck called him racistabout 2 hours ago via TweetDeck the dead body...

IPT News June 9, 2010 SNIPPET: "The Turkish-based charity that helped drive last week's deadly confrontation with Israeli commandos has deep ties to Hamas and other terrorist groups. The Hamas ties are not in question. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and IHH officials simply do not acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist group." SNIPPET: "U.S. officials have expressed concern over the fact that "IHH representatives have met with senior Hamas officials in Turkey, Syria, and Gaza over the past three years," but IHH is not a designated terrorist organization in the United States. It's fair to ask, why not?"...

A bill preventing the government from seizing legal firearms during an emergency has been passed by the Hawaii Legislature. Gun-rights activists have pursued this kind of law since Hurricane Katrina, when New Orleans police confiscated guns in an attempt to restore order.

The BP Spill: Tuesday on Capitol Hill, oil executives were subjected to the Senate's latest show trial. Senators did not say the accident in federal waters was a federal responsibility or that nature spills more oil every day. The morning hearing by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee chaired by Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and the afternoon session before California Sen. Barbara Boxer's Environmental and Public Works Committee prove White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's dictum that a good crisis is a terrible thing to waste — especially when your goal is exploiting the Deepwater Horizon disaster...

Media Bias: As the Gulf Coast faced ecological disaster, the president yukked it up with White House correspondents. His Saturday radio address didn't even mention the oil spill. President Bush, call your office. Rarely has media sycophancy been on such sharp display as in the largely indifferent response to President Obama's own indifference to the oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The coverage has been far different from that given to President Bush's handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The White House announced Saturday morning that Obama would head to the Gulf Coast on Sunday, just a...