Free Republic

Amid a seemingly incessant deluge of leaks and hacks, Washington, DC staffers have learned to imagine how even the most benign email would look a week later on the homepage of a secret-spilling outfit like WikiLeaks or DCLeaks. In many cases, they’ve stopped emailing altogether, deleted accounts, and reconsidered dumbphones. Julian Assange—or at least, a ten-years-younger and more innocent Assange—would say he’s already won. In “Conspiracy as Governance,” which Assange posted to his blog in December 2006, the leader of then-new WikiLeaks describes what he considered to be the most effective way to attack a conspiracy—including, as he puts it,...

Between 2006 and 2007, at least twelve Democratic Congressmen agreed to meet with Iranian officials in the Ayatollah’s regime at the behest of National Iranian American Council (NIAC) President Trita Parsi, according to a report by Hassan Dai of the Iranian American Forum. Parsi allegedly solicited the help of current Iranian Defense Minister Javad Zarif, who was Iran’s Ambassador to the UN at the time. Zarif is now one of the lead negotiators for Iran’s nuclear program on behalf of the Islamic republic.

YEREVAN, May 3 (Itar-Tass) -- Armenia will build a new nuclear power plant with the capacity of 1,000 megawatt, Finance and Economy Minister Vartan Khachatrian said on Tuesday, after the 12th meeting of the Armenian-U.S. economic cooperation group. He said the new power plant will replace the old one with the capacity of 440 megawatt. The United States objects to building a new nuclear power plant in Armenia for safety reasons, as the country is located in a seismically active zone, U.S. coordinator for Europe and Eurasia Thomas Adams said. Not a single American company will agree to build a...

With all the battering prosecutors have taken recently from judges who worry they are too cavalier with the rights of defendants, it’s worth noting a disputed case where the prosecutors apparently got it right – but the judge won’t admit it.In early 2009, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia appeared poised to dismiss a criminal contempt of court case against a confessed supporter of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group.In a Feb. 20, 2009, hearing, Brinkema harrumphed about the government’s contempt case against former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian, saying there was...

The Polk County sheriff says they fired 110 times at the man who `executed' a deputy. October 1, 2006|By Gary Taylor and Kelly Griffith, Sentinel Staff Writers Face to face with an armed man suspected of killing a Polk County deputy sheriff, SWAT officers riddled his body with 68 bullets. Altogether, nine officers fired 110 times Friday at Angilo Freeland, who Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said "executed" one of his deputies. "That's all the bullets we had, or we would have shot him more," Judd said after autopsy results were released Saturday. The slain deputy, Matt Williams, 39, was...

Turkish Media: Washington No Longer Trusts AKP Government The American-Turkish Council's annual conference, which took place in Washington, D.C. in late March 2006, reflected the current chill in Turkish-U.S. relations. While in previous years this conference was always attended by leading Turkish and U.S. government figures, businessmen, and military figures, this year it was marked by sparse participation. Most of the Turkish officials in attendance told the press that Turkish-U.S. relations were in much worse shape than they had previously believed.Two emissaries sent by Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan on a fence-mending mission to Washington following the ATC conference also...

Members of a secretive Turkish Islamic movement that is at the center of a congressional ethics committee investigation have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and to her family’s charity, a Daily Caller investigation has found.The largest donation from a leader of the Gulen movement, which is operated from Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains by a moderate Muslim cleric named Fethullah Gulen, came from Recep Ozkan. A former president of the Gulen-linked Turkish Cultural Center, Ozkan gave between $500,001 and $1,000,000 to the Clinton Foundation in recent months, the charity’s website shows. He also served as a national...

“Welcome to the Poconos. Welcome to the home of gangs,” read a slide at a presentation sponsored by the Pocono Mountains chapter of the Community Association Institute. Interspersed in the slideshow of inner city tribes of Bloods, Crips and Latin Kings were photos of gang members in quaint gated communities and the parking lots of suburban malls. “You never get rid of crime. You displace crime,” said retired Allentown cop Edward Bachert Jr., who worked the gang detail for more than 15 years. “Gangs are like cancer.” … Locally, gangs came to the forefront around 2006 when media attention focused...

(2006) The US media have virtually ignored this story. The Observer is the first newspaper to have spoken to Janet Padilla, and this is the first narrative account to appear in print. The House Of Death suddenly seemed set to become a major national scandal. On 24 February, Sandy Gonzalez, the Special Agent in Charge of the DEA office in El Paso wrote to his Ice counterpart, John Gaudioso. 'I am writing to express to you my frustration and outrage at the mishandling of investigation that has resulted in unnecessary loss of human life,' he began, 'and endangered the lives...

October 28, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: Eleven Members/Associates of Ummah Charged with Federal Violations One Subject Fatally Shot During Arrest United States Attorney Terrence Berg, Eastern District of Michigan, Andrew G. Arena, Special Agent in Charge (SAC), Federal Bureau of Investigation, (FBI), Detroit, Michigan, and Police Chief Warren Evans, Detroit Police Department (DPD), Detroit, Michigan announced a federal complaint was unsealed today charging Luqman Ameen Abdullah, a.k.a.Christopher Thomas, and 10 others with conspiracy to commit several federal crimes, including theft from interstate shipments, mail fraud to obtain the proceeds of arson, illegal possession and sale of...

Update 10:58pm Eastern: Yeah, I’m watching C-SPAN. The motion to concur in the House amendments to HR2764, the omnibus spending bill, just passed…76-17, with 1 present. More here. Update 10:20pm Eastern. Sen. Jim DeMint is on the Senate floor right now blasting the omnibus bill for gutting the fence, removing the ban on sanctuary cities, and funding illegal alien lawyers. Hear, hear. Update 1:20pm Eastern. Omnibusting links the section of the bill containing the border-gutting. Update 10:20am Eastern. The fence gets robbed, but the spending bill gives $10 million in “emergency” funding for attorneys of illegal immigrants?!!?! Fence? What fence?...

You know the deal. Every amendment that adds significant border security to the Gang of Eight bill threatens to scare Democratic votes away, and Rubio, McCain, Graham, and Flake have decided that they’d rather have the bad bill they wrote pass than no bill at all. Four votes against the fence, just as Conn Carroll predicted this morning: Senators on Tuesday rejected building the 700 miles of double-tier border fencing Congress authorized just seven years ago, with a majority of the Senate saying they didn’t want to delay granting illegal immigrants legal status while the fence was being built. The...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said late Tuesday that he supports securing the United States border with Mexico with a double-tiered fence but voted against an amendment to the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill that would have required exactly that. Rubio and his fellow Gang of Eight Republicans helped the Democrats kill an amendment from Sen. John Thune (R-SD) that would have required the double-tiered fence be built, as current law requires, before amnesty was granted to America’s at least 11 million illegal immigrants. The only other Republican to vote against the amendment was Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). “I support Senator...

Minutes after the border fence, senators also voted to weaken current law that requires the government to have biometric checks such as fingerprints or eye-scans for every visitor to the U.S. — a recommendation of the 9/11 commission that looked into the terrorist attacks on Washington and New York. Senators on Tuesday rejected building the 700 miles of double-tier border fencing Congress authorized just seven years ago, with a majority of the Senate saying they didn’t want to delay granting illegal immigrants legal status while the fence was being built. The 54-39 vote to reject the fence shows the core...

by John HillStand With Arizona We've all seen it on TV. Endlessly. Marco Rubio, in an ad from a fake-"conservative" organization, confidently insisting that his amnesty bill would provide the "toughest" border enforcement "in the history of the United States...possibly the world", as the narrator growls about "border security on steroids!" Unless you have been living under a rock the past two months, you know full well the ad is a lie, and Rubio has utterly destroyed his own reputation with repeated, absurd lies about the 'Gang of Eight' bill. Today, with his own vote Rubio officially made a liar...

Senators on Tuesday rejected building the 700 miles of double-tier border fencing Congress authorized just seven years ago, with a majority of the Senate saying they didn’t want to delay granting illegal immigrants legal status while the fence was being built. The 54-39 vote to reject the fence shows the core of the immigration deal is holding. The vote broke mostly along party lines, though five Republicans, including Sen. Marco Rubio and the rest of the bill’s authors, voted against the fence, and two Democrats voted for it.

Update 10:58pm Eastern: Yeah, I’m watching C-SPAN. The motion to concur in the House amendments to HR2764, the omnibus spending bill, just passed…76-17, with 1 present. More here. Update 10:20pm Eastern. Sen. Jim DeMint is on the Senate floor right now blasting the omnibus bill for gutting the fence, removing the ban on sanctuary cities, and funding illegal alien lawyers. Hear, hear. Update 1:20pm Eastern. Omnibusting links the section of the bill containing the border-gutting. Update 10:20am Eastern. The fence gets robbed, but the spending bill gives $10 million in “emergency” funding for attorneys of illegal immigrants?!!?! *** Fence? What...

Update 10:58pm Eastern: Yeah, I’m watching C-SPAN. The motion to concur in the House amendments to HR2764, the omnibus spending bill, just passed…76-17, with 1 present. More here. Update 10:20pm Eastern. Sen. Jim DeMint is on the Senate floor right now blasting the omnibus bill for gutting the fence, removing the ban on sanctuary cities, and funding illegal alien lawyers. Hear, hear. Update 1:20pm Eastern. Omnibusting links the section of the bill containing the border-gutting. Update 10:20am Eastern. The fence gets robbed, but the spending bill gives $10 million in “emergency” funding for attorneys of illegal immigrants?!!?! *** Fence? What...

While attempting to attack an amendment to the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill that would require a fence be built along Mexico’s border with the U.S. before legalization, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) made a significant geographical gaffe. Landrieu, who represents Louisiana in the U.S. Senate, was trying to undermine the amendment Sen. John Thune (R-SD) offered. In doing so, she tried to argue Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was more qualified to talk about border issues than Thune because McCain represents Arizona. “A smart fence, which is what Senator McCain and I want to build--since he’s from Arizona, I think he...

Cornyn ready for challenges, including housing New senator gets eye-opener on prices, discusses priorities 11/15/2002 By DAVID JACKSON / The Dallas Morning News WASHINGTON - Texas' newest senator says he is eager to get to work on national security and confirming judges, but first he needs an office and a house. Congressional leaders haven't assigned workspace to John Cornyn and other freshman lawmakers, and he and his wife are finding Washington's real estate market steep, the state attorney general said Thursday in his first news conference as senator-elect. "Even for a fairly modest hovel here in the district, it's...