Free Republic

With thanks and credit to Brugmansian, it's looking like all the LSM fuss about Michelle's extravagant vacation in Spain, just might be a distraction to cover up a much more sinister reason for her trip. Brugmansian uncovered the following article in EL MUNDO and the last paragraph is of specific importance. Varias casas reales árabes también pasan sus veranos en Marbella desde hace años. Así, habrá un encuentro entre Michelle Obama y el príncipe Salman bin Abdelaziz, gobernador de Riad y hermano del fallecido Rey Fahd de Arabia Saudí; mientras que se baraja otra reunión de la primera dama con...

'Probably don’t want to mention to Transatlantic in case we can’t deliver though I guess...' ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ President Joe Biden and embattled son Hunter find themselves under scrutiny as their close ties to indicted Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., surface through a 2010 email obtained from Hunter’s infamous laptop. This revelation has raised questions about the extent of Biden’s connections with Menendez and has added to the mounting controversies surrounding the president, who is facing allegations of bribery himself. The emails reveal that Menendez’s chief of staff, Danny O’Brien, reached out to Hunter and his former business partner, Eric Schwerin, with a...

FORMER US President Bill Clinton has sensationally been accused of an affair with Ghislaine Maxwell – the British socialite alleged to have procured girls for Jeffrey Epstein. Ex Commander-in-Chief Clinton – who infamously had a sexual liaison with White House intern Monica Lewinsky during his presidency – is claimed to have romped with Maxwell during overseas trips on Epstein’s jet. The former president also repeatedly visited Maxwell – a close friend of Prince Andrew - at her Manhattan townhouse, according to a new book. Clinton has denied the Maxwell claims. But a source is quoted in ‘A Convenient Death: The...

SNIPPET: "The top US general in Iraq has identified the three main Shia terror groups in Iraq that are backed by Iran. General Ray Odierno said Iran continues to back the League of the Righteous (or Asaib al Haq), the Mahdi Army spin-off Promised Day Brigade, and the Hezbollah Brigades (or Kataib Hezbollah). "The Iranians... continue to fund, train and provide weapons and ammunition to Shiite extremist groups," Odierno told reporters in Baghdad according to AFP. Qods Force, the special operations branch of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, has "gone to a more sophisticated program with a smaller set of...

THE US government secretly advised Scottish ministers it would be "far preferable" to free the Lockerbie bomber than jail him in Libya. Correspondence obtained by The Sunday Times reveals the Obama administration considered compassionate release more palatable than locking up Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in a Libyan prison. The intervention, which has angered US relatives of those who died in the attack, was made by Richard LeBaron, deputy head of the US embassy in London, a week before Megrahi was freed in August last year on grounds that he had terminal cancer. The document, acquired by a well-placed US source, threatens...

WASHINGTON -- The Securities and Exchange Commission tapped Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive Adam Storch on Friday to serve as the agency's first-ever chief operating officer of the enforcement division. The new hire represents the latest personnel change at the SEC in its effort to improve its operations following its failure to detect Bernard Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme. Enforcement Division Director Robert Khuzami created Mr. Storch's position of managing executive as part of the major re-structuring effort he announced earlier this year. Mr. Storch will oversee division operations that include budget, information technology and administrative services. He will also supervise...

Most sapient Americans—those who are skeptical of the mainstream media—know the outrageous but largely unreported story that Bill and Hillary Clinton, with the help of Obama officials and over congressional experts’ objections, allowed Russia to gain control of 20 percent of America’s uranium supplies. What is unknown is whether the Clintons sweetened the deal for their Russian friends by engineering closure of a million federal acres of the nation’s best source of uranium. The “evidence” of such mischief is purely circumstantial, but it is disconcerting. Here is what we know, thanks to the reporting of the estimable Andrew C. McCarthy,...

All Russian roads lead to Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is neck deep in a Russian scandal involving bribery, kickbacks and extortion. FBI documents show that a Russian spy ring was simultaneously targeting her before and during her time as Secretary of State. The FBI arrested 10 Russian spies in June of 2010 and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quickly rushed them back to Moscow on a busy 4th of July weekend before the FBI was finished questioning them. Returning the spy ring to Moscow also prevented them from standing trial. Why???

Gerald Walpin, whose lawsuit to win back his job as inspector general overseeing the Americorps program was dismissed two weeks ago, has filed an appeal in the case. Walpin, who was fired by President Barack Obama during his dogged efforts to investigate Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.,...

Military officers from the U.S.-led United Nations Command (UNC) and North Korea ended a rare meeting Thursday, officials said, the first such meeting since the March sinking of a warship blamed on the communist country. "The meeting ended at around 11:30 a.m.," said an official at the UNC. The official said he had no information on the results of the meeting that lasted about one and a half hours, adding they will be announced later in the day. The colonel-level meeting was aimed at arranging talks of general-grade officers between the two sides for discussions on the sinking, which a...

A major US-South Korean military exercise involving about 20 ships, 200 planes and 8,000 personnel will start Sunday in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) to deter North Korea, the US military said on Tuesday. The July 25-28 drill will highlight the resolve of the two countries "to face any threat North Korea may pose", the US-led United Nations Command said in a statement. The war games are a response to the sinking of a South Korean warship earlier this year, which Seoul and Washington blame on North Korea. The announcement followed talks between visiting US Defense Secretary Robert Gates...

As United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates this week met in Seoul with their Republic of Korea , the defining crisis that was supposed to highlight the relevance and effectiveness of their relationship, instead cast an ugly shadow over the event. The United States failed to organize a vigorous international backlash against North Korea for its sinking of the South Korean frigate Cheonan, and has now exhibited disconcerting second thoughts about its own response.

An Iranian nuclear scientist who returned home last week from the United States provided valuable information about the CIA, a semiofficial news agency reported Wednesday, adding that his spy's tale would be made into a TV movie

A missing Iranian nuclear scientist, who Tehran claims was abducted by the U.S., has taken refuge at a Pakistani embassy office in Washington and is planning to return to his homeland, the State Department said Tuesday. It was the latest development in a murky case that has been shrouded in mystery since the scientist, Shahram Amiri, disappeared while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in June 2009. "He has been in the United States of his own free will and obviously he is free to go," department spokesman P.J. Crowley said. "In fact, he was scheduled to travel to Iran...

SNIPPET: "According to police, three baggage handlers were loading luggage on to a flight bound for Bermuda around 10:56 a.m. when two of the handlers noticed a third was not wearing an identification badge. When questioned about it, the third man took off and has yet to be found by police." SNIPPET: "Investigating agencies include the Philadelphia Police, the F.B.I. and Homeland Security."

Overpopulation panic is back. Concerns about a world too full of “filthy human children” motivated eco-terrorist James Lee when he held employees of the Discovery Channel hostage at gunpoint in September. But the deranged Lee is far from alone when it comes to worrying about overpopulation. The May-June cover of the progressive magazine Mother Jones asked, “Who’s to Blame for the Population Crisis?” British journalist Matthew Parris wrote an op-ed in September in the London Times asserting, “If you want to save the planet, stop breeding.” Parris further coyly suggested that we study “China’s example, for lessons good and bad.”...

WASHINGTON — When Aleksandr Zaporozhsky, one of four Russians delivered to the West in this week’s spy swap, joins his family in the United States, it will be only the latest unexpected twist in a classic story of espionage and deception. For several years in the 1990s, Mr. Zaporozhsky, a colonel in Russian intelligence who became deputy chief of the American Department, was secretly working for the C.I.A., one of the highest-ranking American moles in history, Russian prosecutors say. After surprising his colleagues by retiring suddenly in 1997, he moved with his wife and three children to the United States...

by John HillStand With ArizonaBarack Obama's Tantrum-on-the-Tarmac in Phoenix Wednesday has given an unprecedented boost to the memoir of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer. In the 48 hours since Obama confronted Brewer over her depiction of their July 2010 Oval Office meeting - turning his back and walking away from her as she was still talking - her book, Scorpions for Breakfast, has exploded up the charts on Amazon.com. SWA staffers took a screenshot of the book's rank of #344,761 an hour after the confrontation, and noticed that it had exploded to a stunning #26 by Friday morning: an increase of...

Wall Street's most vocal critics of the new financial regulations aren't invited to the party. Neither Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein nor JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon were asked to attend President Obama's signing ceremony set for today in Washington. FinReg, as the financial sector overhaul is known, is likely to alter the state and style of business of Wall Street and, potentially, sap billions of dollars of revenues from some of the most powerful financial institutions in the country. The high-profile ceremony is expected to be attended by a few hundred guests including Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren, viewed by...

Deep in your heart you knew there are tax-payer’s money wasted somewhere in the whole Russian spy drama. Why did the Obama administration and the Russian government wanted to get rid of them so fast? We may never know. However we can prove that USAID funded the agro- and eco-tourism project in 2004 run by the company 4Vlast for which Anya Chapman and Vasily Kushchenko worked at the time. As you know from the previous research Chapman was the London contact person for the 4Vlast firm, Kushchenko was running their tourism firm and worked for the 4 Vlast Mrs. World...