Free Republic

John Brennan, President Obama’s top terrorism adviser, rallied to the defense of the administration Sunday, taking on critic-in-chief Dick Cheney and explaining the deep-seated “systemic failure” that Obama mentioned in comments last week. Mr. Obama has come under heavy criticism from Republicans since an attempt to blow up Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit failed on Christmas Day, primarily because the man charged in the incident, Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was on a US terrorism watch list. Mr. Cheney has arguably been the most pointed in his criticism of Obama, declaring last week that the president “is trying to pretend that...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama has treated first lady Michelle Obama to a surprise birthday party at a tony Washington restaurant known for its commitment to organically grown food. Surprising the birthday girl Saturday night at Restaurant Nora in Washington's Dupont Circle neighborhood were her mother Marian Robinson and friends, including Attorney General Eric Holder, White House Adviser Valerie Jarrett and Jocelyn Frye, who is a domestic policy adviser to both the president and first lady. Mrs. Obama walked into the restaurant in a dark, knee-length frock. President Obama was dressed casually with no tie. Michelle Obama will turn 46...

And the Central Command web site says Gottlieb was detailed from the White House for a time to a joint inter-agency task force focusing on detainee operations in Afghanistan. He was in Kabul from January 2010 through March 2011, according to a biography. Gottlieb, as a White House employee, is allowed to bring guests to dine in the White House mess -- basically an employee cafeteria.

Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan, by Caroline Fourest; foreword by Denis MacShane (Encounter Books, 262 pp., $23.95) In the 1990s, Western liberals, alarmed at the presence of Islamic fundamentalists in their midst, turned in desperation to Muslims whom they dubbed “reformers” or “modernizers.” They hoped that these figures would have a moderating influence on disaffected Muslim youths who refused to integrate into Western society. One such “reformer” is Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss-born academic. Ramadan has won the confidence of many in the West, including the British government, which asked him to serve on its task force for...

The unfortunate drama surrounding the collision and sinking of the Ady Gil has finally reached a conclusion. An arbitrator last week ruled that the Sea Shepherd acted “wrongful” in their decision to scuttle the ship and not allow for proper salvage efforts. The trimaran, named for its benefactor and owner Ady Gil, a Hollywood TV businessman and animal activist, famously collided on January 7th, 2010 with a Japanese whaling vessel. The event, captured on film for Animal Planet’s “Whale Wars” reality series, drew international attention for both the conservation organization and its anti-whaling mission. While the Ady Gil was disabled...

A prominent Muslim scholar banned from the United States for six years returned Wednesday for visits to four cities... "In the name of your fear or mistrust of Muslim-majority countries, you may end up betraying your own values," Tariq Ramadan ... Ramadan said he was happy to be in the U.S. ...to speak on a panel Thursday at The Cooper Union college. "My name has been cleared," he said. The 47-year-old professor at Oxford University in England was permitted to return to the United States after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in January signed orders enabling re-entry for him...

Yet, of the Americans who died last week in the suicide bombing at the CIA’s most sensitive outpost in Afghanistan, it is the seventh whose presence has raised the most urgent questions as the US scrambles to repair — and avenge — the damage done to the hunt for Osama bin Laden. According to a security official in Kabul with close ties to the CIA, when Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi carried out his deadly mission at Forward Operating Base Chapman, he managed to kill the agency’s deputy head of station for the whole of Afghanistan. The senior agent was waiting...

On The Daily Show, President Obama blamed Republicans for the IRS scandal: “You’ve got this back office, and they’re going after the Tea Party. Well, it turned out, no, Congress had passed a crummy law that didn’t give people guidance in terms of what it was they were trying to do. They did it poorly and stupidly. The truth of the matter is that there was not some big conspiracy there. They were trying to sort out these conflicting demands. You don’t want all this money pouring through non-for- profits, but you also want to make sure everybody is being...

Full title.....Gold Mine: Hillary Clinton’s Brother Granted Super-Rare Mining Permit from Haiti After State Dept. Sent Country Billions Hillary Rodham Clinton’s brother, Tony Rodham, sat on the board of a self-described mining company that in 2012 received one of only two “gold exploitation permits” from the Haitian government—the first issued in over 50 years. The tiny North Carolina company, VCS Mining, also included on its board Bill Clinton’s co-chair of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC), former Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive. The Rodham gold mine revelation is just one of dozens featured in a forthcoming bombshell investigative book by...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has lifted a U.S. ban on a planned visit by a leading European Muslim critic of the Iraq war, in a move rights groups hailed as a victory for civil liberties. Clinton signed orders which ended the ban on Professor Tariq Ramadan of Oxford University, who was barred due to alleged terrorism ties which he denies, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said on Wednesday.

Visitor logs show that Derrick A. Bell visited the White House at least twice since President Obama took office. The logs show two visits by an individual of that name on January 29 and 31, 2010. Derrick Albert Bell, the late Harvard professor and controversial scholar in the field of Critical Race Theory has been thrust into national headlines after conservative bloggers at Breitbart.com posted video of Obama lauding his work at a 1991 rally at Harvard.

America's biggest strategic problem in the Balkans is the role of Turkey, through its pawn, Haris Silajdzic is trying to compete with neootomannic position in the Balkans and the Middle East - said in a dispatch of the U.S. ambassador in Ankara since January this year, which was sent to the State Department called " Ankara87 ", published on page Wikiliks. Comparing the Turkish efforts as "ambition" Rolls-Royce ', but with the resources of' Rover ', "the ambassador wrote that, being aware that they have their own resources for this policy, they must find" your own errand boy in the...

Last year, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet and her senior staff secretly met with a select group of Muslim, Arab, and Sikh organizations. Among the mix were three organizations directly associated with an outlawed terrorist entity — the Muslim Brotherhood, who are involved in the current uprising in Egypt. Walid Phares, director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, criticized the partnership concept: “Through the so-called ‘partnership’ between the Jihadi-sympathizer networks and U.S. bureaucracies, the U.S. government is invaded by militant groups.” Just recently, a Washington, DC-based legal group uncovered documents from the Department of...

I can't confirm that (al Qaeda's responsibility for the attack) nor can we confirm the authenticity of the tape, but assuming that it is him, his message contains the same hollow justifications for the mass slaughter of innocents that we've heard before," David Axelrod said on CNN's "State of the Union" program. The audiotape that aired on Al Jazeera television on Sunday claimed responsibility for the attempted Christmas Day bombing of the Detroit-bound plane. A Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, has been

A man is being questioned by police after trying to force his way into the cockpit of a plane flying from Cardiff to the Canary Islands. He was overpowered and restrained by passengers and flight attendants on the 0810 GMT Thomson Airways service. He was arrested by police when the aircraft landed safely at Las Palmas airport in Gran Canaria. Thomson Airways said the man "demonstrated aggressive behaviour towards customers and crew". The company said: "Thomson Airways can confirm that a passenger became disruptive during flight TOM 6102, flying from Cardiff to Las Palmas airport, Gran Canaria, on 25 January,...

American security forces were last night searching for a two-man al-Qaeda team about to attack. Airports are on high alert as experts think the terrorists from the Yemen are on their way - but they could already be in the country. Security analysis seen by the Mirror says the Christmas bomb plot by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, was a test run. They think it was to see if his underpants explosives plan would work. The document says: "Two people suspected of plotting further attacks are being pursued."

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Concerns over an unruly passenger forced a plane to turn around and head back to Portland Wednesday. The Maui-bound Hawaiian Airlines plane was turned around during the flight and landed safely at PDX. Officials with the Portland Air National Guard Base said two fighter jets were scrambled at 1 p.m. to escort the plane. Send pics Hawaiian Airlines said the situation was not security related Flight 39 left for Maui from PDX at 10:10 a.m. and was an hour-and-a-half into its direct flight when the crew turned the plane around and brought the plane citing issues with...

Six months ago, authorities seized a cargo plane in Bangkok that contained 35 tons of North Korean military weapons. These included versions of the Chinese HN-5 “man-portable air defense system,” or MANPADS. The MANPADS were being shipped to Iran. The HN-5 — a copy of the Soviet SA-7— is less capable than the MANPADS Iran produces on its own. Why, you ask, would Iran be importing more primitive missiles than the ones it already makes? The only conceivable answer is that Iran was planning to provide North Korean missiles to Iran’s proxy terrorist groups, to gain plausible deniability in case...

The continued cooperation of Najibullah Zazi with the investigation into his attempt to carry out terrorist attacks in New York City has led to the arrest of a fourth suspect, a Pakistani citizen, two days ago, and has shed some new light on the details of the case and the specific targets Zazi and his co-conspirators intended to hit. Few developments in the case have come out of Pakistan, where the fourth suspect, who has not been named, was arrested. Authorities say he will be extradited to the United States soon, but that "he may not ultimately be charged in...

Two Guatemalan brothers who allegedly helped a prominent lawyer organise his own murder, and then blame the president of Guatemala for the crime, have turned themselves in. Francisco and Jose Valdes Paiz were said to have hired a contract killer to murder Rodrigo Rosenberg. An international commission found in January that Mr Rosenberg had organised his own killing. He is said to have wanted to highlight unsolved murders in Guatemala. Before he was shot dead in May 2009, Mr Rosenberg had warned in a video that he would be murdered on the orders of President Alvaro Colom. Mr Colom was...