Free Republic

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....