Free Republic

Documents obtained by The Daily Caller and interviews with American veterans reveal a shocking government program: The Department of Veterans Affairs is disarming America’s veterans by getting them placed on the FBI’s criminal background-check list. The VA sends veterans’ personal medical and financial information directly to the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which can seize their guns in home raids. Veterans deemed mentally incompetent or financially incapable are finally speaking out about the errors in the system and the fearful harassment they and their families face from the federal government. And it all starts when vets...

<p>Not certain if the above is the same Brandon Walker from Yakima, but it seems likely.</p> <p>The gun was carried "open Carry"</p> <p>It was a 357 sig We think this person was trying to get the handgun by knockout hitting him in the head with a aluminum bat.</p>

Comedian and performance artist Adrienne Truscott plans to fight against what she sees as male-dominated culture by telling rape jokes and exposing her vagina onstage. The act, called “Asking for It,” is performed by Truscott. According to her website, Truscott will be “dressed only from the waist up and ankles down,” and the show “undoes and does in the rules and rhetoric about rape, comedy and the awkward laughs in between.” Her site continues, “With commentary from George Carlin, Louis C. K. and Robert De Niro, ducks, whistles and enough gin and tonics to get a girl in trouble, she...

The headline alone is painful to read: "Transgender teenager, 17, leaves heartbreaking suicide note blaming her Christian parents before walking in front of tractor trailer on highway." The story itself is even more painful to read, while the loss of life is absolutely tragic.Is there blood on the hands of these Christian parents?What makes this story all the more heartrending is that the teenager, born Joshua Alcorn but who used the name Leelah to identify as a female, left a suicide note that was scheduled to be posted in the event of his death. (If you are a transgender advocate and...

What are we to make of Andreas Lubitz piloting a Germanwings airplane into the side of a mountain? There is an unhelpful tautology, meant to be explanatory, that arises at times like this. How could someone have done something this evil? Because they were evil. Or: How could someone have done something this heartless? Because they were heartless..

Insurgent co-star Shailene Woodley is cementing her reputation as a modern-day hippy. The actress, who recently attended a premiere for the aforementioned film barefoot, has now disclosed she likes to eat insects. While answering a series of questions for Nylon Magazine’s 16th anniversary, Woodley, 23, disclosed her lifestyle choices, answering questions about her favorite color, her dreams, and yes, her unusual diet. “I’ve eaten ants and that was great, uh, and June bugs that was great,” she said eagerly. “I think the future of food is in insects, so we’ll see what happens.” Woodley doesn’t just eat bugs, though, as...

Killer pilot Andeas Lubitz’s mental illness was caused by living in a capitalist society, Russell Brand has claimed. In his latest video, the activist comedian says that 50 percent of people will suffer from a mental illness at some point in their lifetimes, asking: “Why is it happening all the time? Why are we living in the times of a mental illness plague?” The reason, he says, is Fox News. “The reason Fox News can’t be honest about what causes mental illness is that Fox News IS what causes mental illness. “Fox News are the propaganda machine of capitalism –...

A year after Blake Brockington was voted homecoming king at East Mecklenburg High School in Charlotte, North Carolina, the transgender teen died from an apparent suicide, The Charlotte Observer reported Tuesday. Brockington, 18, was the school’s first transgender homecoming king. When he was voted king, he told local LGBT newspaper QNotes: "I honestly feel like this is something I have to do. Nobody should be scared to be themselves, and everybody should have an equal opportunity to have an enjoyable high school experience." The transgender youth activist became open about his identity when he was a sophomore. He explained to...

The NUS Women's Campaign, which states that it "exists to represent and extend and defend the rights of women students," is asking people to be "mindful" about clapping, as the loud noise could be "triggering" for some people. Instead, the group is asking members to use "jazz hands," as they are silent. This is not a joke. This is the actual tweet that went out:

...Although bread is one of the easiest, most reliable items for which to dumpster dive — it’s thrown away all the time, it’s dry, non-perishable, and relatively non-pathogenic — I also scavenge produce, chocolate, and flowers from the garbage. Sometimes it can be pretty icky; various slimes attend the decay of vegetables and fruit, and dumpsters are occasionally coated in unidentifiable goo.... Although I’m not by any means rich (after earning an expensive college degree, I am, like many of my generation, right back to where I started: in the service industry... But, you might protest, (as have many of...

Jakob Rumble was in severe pain when he came to the emergency room of Fairview Southdale Hospital in Edina with his mother. What happened next provoked a federal lawsuit by the West St. Paul resident and a decision by U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson that is being hailed by national transgender and gay rights organizations. Nelson ruled this week that Rumble, who identifies himself as a transgender man, has built a “plausible” case that he was a victim of discrimination and mistreatment by an emergency room doctor on the basis of gender identity. She denied a motion by the...

Stacie Laughton, the state's first openly transgender legislator who was elected to the House of Representatives and then withdrew her candidacy days later, said Thursday that she is the person responsible for calling in a hoax bomb threat at a local hospital. After spending two weeks receiving treatment at a Vermont hospital for bipolar disorder, Laughton walked into the Nashua Police Department at noon on Thursday and turned herself in on a warrant for the Feb. 27 incident. “I have had a mental illness my whole life, and I guess this was my worst break with it. I was untreated...

*A white, Atlanta-area police officer shot and killed a naked and unarmed African-American man who was said to be acting erratically in his apartment complex and possibly suffering from a mental illness, reports Reuters. This becomes third African-American man to be shot dead by police since last Friday, who either was or seemed unarmed. In Monday’s shooting, a Dekalb County police officer responded to a caller who said a man was “acting deranged, knocking on doors, and crawling around on the ground naked,” on Monday around 1 p.m. local time, county police chief Cedric Alexander told reporters. The officer confronted...

When a Texas jury rejected an insanity defense and convicted Eddie Ray Routh in the murder of "American Sniper" Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield, it raised a question: If this guy isn't crazy, who is? Routh had a voluminous history of mental illness. After being discharged from the Marines in 2010, doctors hospitalized him because he thought a giant tapeworm was eating him. He had several more stints in psychiatric facilities and regularly took medications for psychosis. A few weeks before the shootings, doctors concluded he was a danger to himself and others. After his final release from a Veterans...

Now that Time Magazine has told us that transgender is the new black, I’m going to say something politically incorrect: Your gender is not whatever you think it is. Put another way, there is no such thing as, “My gender is ‘fill in the blank.’”Unfortunately, Facebook didn’t get the memo, and so, according to AP’s Martha Mendoza, “Facebook users who don't fit any of the 58 gender identity options offered by the social media giant are now being given a rather big 59th option: fill in the blank.” (Yes, I know this sounds crazy, but it’s true.)One year ago, I...

Full Title: Strong cannabis causes one in four cases of psychosis: Users three times more likely to have an episode than those who have never tried it ªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªª As many as a quarter of new cases of psychotic mental illness can be blamed on super-strength strains of cannabis, scientists will warn this week. The potent form of the drug – known as ‘skunk’ – is so powerful that users are three times more likely to have a psychotic episode than those who have never tried it.

Williamsburg, Va. – Kimberlyn Williams feels unsafe in her own home because of her 12-year-old son. “I am his mother and I do love him, but he`s dangerous,” Williams says. She says he’s so dangerous that she is prepared to face jail time to keep him out of the house, to not only protect herself, but her two younger children. “I have been hit, bit, kicked,” she says. “He has threatened to stab children at school, to kill them. He has these outbursts.” She says her son is now at Riverside Behavioral Health Center in Hampton. He was put there...

One day in 1977, about a year after Bruce Jenner shattered a world record to win the decathlon gold medal at the Montreal Summer Olympics, he met up with his sportswriter friend Barry McDermott to play tennis in New York City. McDermott suggested a match at his private club — but that wasn’t Jenner’s style. Privacy was never his priority. The pair went to Central Park, where word quickly spread that Bruce Jenner (Bruce Jenner!) was playing on the public courts. McDermott remembers the crowd growing, as he had known it would, gawkers pressed against the chain-link fence, watching the...

The couple thought that they finally had everything lined up: Their paperwork for a marriage license, their attendance to mandatory counseling, and — just to be safe — an order from Mexico's Supreme Court to honor their request to complete the first same-sex union in the state of Baja California. But on January 11, in their fourth attempt at marriage since June 2013 in Mexicali, Baja's desert capital, Victor Manuel Aguirre and Victor Fernando Urias were met with closed doors and once more couldn't get married. Instead, religious conservatives picketed the municipal registrar offices (along with alleged non-interested parties meant...

What does it take to protect a child from a crazy parent? Seriously, when is enough enough? In Tampa, Florida, a deranged father threw his beautiful, loving, precious 5 year old daughter off a bridge, in front of an officer. Tragic? Yes. Preventable? I say yes in this case. The government had lots of warning signs and took no action. i contend it is because citizens and law enforcement officers (LEOs), are too often afraid of legal reprisals, but that is a false fear.Here's all that the government knew, or could have easily known, which happened in the 24 hours...