Free Republic

Kiriakou, 47, was a source for stories by The New York Times and other news organizations in 2008 and 2009 about some of the agency’s most sensitive operations after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. ......... that the information Kiriakou supplied to journalists ... enabling defense attorneys there to obtain photographs of CIA operatives suspected of being involved in harsh interrogations. Some of the pictures were subsequently discovered in the cells of high-value detainees.

Mystery plane kills two in Sudan air raid Posted 4 hours 53 minutes ago An air strike on a car on Sudan's Red Sea coast killed its two passengers and destroyed the vehicle, the head of the state assembly said. "A plane bombed a small car which was coming from Port Sudan airport to the town... There were two people in the car and both were killed. The vehicle was completely destroyed," Mohammed Tahir said. The unidentified plane, which struck about 10:00pm (local time), flew in from the Red Sea to which it then returned, Mr Tahir added. There was...

A congressional panel is examining whether the Obama administration tried to unduly influence Standard & Poor's before the credit rater revised its outlook on the debt rating to negative. Randy Neugebauer, the Republican chairman of a House oversight panel, said on Wednesday his staff is probing whether Treasury tried to make material changes to a draft of S&P's news release announcing the negative outlook revision in April. "Our concern was if the administration was trying to influence this rating decision some -- above what would be a normal practice," Neugebauer told reporters after a hearing examining oversight of the credit...

There is much turbulence in the Iranian government today. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is not happy that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fired Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi last month. He has now given Ahmadinejad an ultimatum to either re-instate Moslehi or resign. A sullen Ahmadinejad caught a bad case of the “blue flu,” and stopped showing up for work. According to the BBC, one of his aides wrote a blog post that said the Iranian president “is in pain, as if a thorn is stuck in his throat… he cannot take it out or swallow in.” Try that one the next time...

Wednesday, April 27, 2011 ~ Updated 11:06 AM By M.D. Kittle ~ Southeast Missourian The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this hour is setting up a joint information center in Sikeston, Mo., and has tentatively scheduled a news conference for 1 p.m., according to a corps spokeswoman, although the timing has yet to be confirmed. Officials at the headquarters could not be reached for comment. Meanwhile, a barge loaded with explosives was making its way from Memphis, Tenn., to Charleston, Mo., destined for the Birds Point levee as the ash gray sky prepares to unleash more heavy rains and a...

Diplomacy: Well, it's out — the invitation list to the biggest U.K. royal wedding in three decades. A Mustique bartender merited an invite, but it seems the Obamas did not. It's pretty obvious the Brits are sending a message. Sure, the royal wedding is a ceremonial affair, and news that the U.S. president and first lady weren't invited to the nuptials of Prince William and Catherine Middleton on April 30 won't rupture normal diplomatic relations. Still, it's eyebrow-arching, given that U.S. presidents have always been invited up till now. And the slowly leaking list of people who did get invited...