Free Republic

Islamist groups seized the headquarters of the Libyan army's special forces in Libya's second city Benghazi after days of fighting, as a huge blaze raged at a fuel depot near the capital's airport. An Islamist and jihadist alliance announced the capture Tuesday of the main military base in the eastern city in a statement which was confirmed by an army official. He said jihadists of Ansar al-Sharia, blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Washington, were among the groups. Intense fighting in Benghazi for the past week has claimed about 60 lives since Saturday, medical officials in the city said. "Special...

Following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, psychologist and U.S. Air Force veteran Dr. James Mitchell was called back to national service. Along with a partner, Bruce Jessen, he was tasked with developing the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, or EITs. Designed to elicit time-sensitive intelligence from hardened al Qaeda leaders, the EITs later became immersed in controversy. In 2014, Senate Democrats released a report accusing Mitchell of torturing suspects with EITs and producing no results. In his new book, Enhanced Interrogation, Mitchell offers his own testimony on the EITs. He argues that the techniques were critical in saving the lives...

Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney who was fired today was also the attorney who brought charges against conservative activist and author, Dinesh D’Souza back in 2014. D’Souza was sentenced to 5 years probation and 8 months in a community confinement center. Dinesh D’Souza faced political persecution after he directed and released anti-Obama film, “2016: Obama’s America”. He was indicted over illegal campaign contributions. It was an obvious witch hunt. Read more about D’Souza’s political persecution here.

The Obama administration recently gave a $270,000 grant to an Islamic charity that has been banned by Israel and the United Arab Emirates because of alleged financial ties to the terrorist group Hamas and to the Muslim Brotherhood. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provided the funds last month to the U.K.-based Islamic Relief Worldwide ... In 2014, Israel and United Arab Emirates banned IRW, which is headquartered in Birmingham, England, from operating within its borders alleging that the group supports and funds Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood’s military arm in Palestine. Israeli defense minister Moshe Yaalon alleged in...

<p>VATICAN CITY (AP) — Conservative criticism of Pope Francis intensified Saturday after his intervention in the Knights of Malta order, with posters appearing around Rome citing his actions against conservative Catholics and asking: "Where's your mercy?"</p> <p>The posters appeared on the same day that Francis cemented his authority over the Knights by naming a top Vatican archbishop, Angelo Becciu, to be his special delegate to the ancient aristocratic order.</p>

VILE members of a Rotherham sex gang shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ today as the group were handed sentences totalling more than 80 years for their crimes. Six men were given sentences between 10 years and 20 after the court heard details of how two young girls were groomed and sexually abused in the South Yorkshire town between 1999 and 2001. There were emotional and chaotic scenes at Sheffield Crown Court after two of the defendants shouted “Allahu Akbar” as they were led from the dock. ... One woman – who was was sexually exploited by a number of men in Rotherham...

(Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin shows off AK-47’s now banned in the United States)A new round of sanctions by the United States targets Russia’s financial, energy and defense sectors.The Executive Order signed on Wednesday by President Barack Obama is being called “evil” by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and bans, among other things, the sale of all Russian-made AK-47 semi-automatic rifles, Saiga-12 shotguns, and all other firearms and parts manufactured by Kalishnikov Concern.According to the U.S. Treasury Department, Americans will still be able to purchase AK-47’s in the secondary market, as long as Kalishnikov Concern does not have a direct...

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for national security adviser, among the most important jobs in the still-forming Trump administration, has said some pretty incendiary things on the Internet. Before being tapped to advise Trump on national security issues, retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn was an intelligence officer and head of the Defense Intelligence Agency under President Obama until he was removed from his command in 2014 over his leadership style. Flynn went on to criticize some of his superiors, including Obama, regarding their stances on Islamist extremism. He also traveled to Russia on a trip paid for by state-run media...

**SNIP** Valerie Plame, the ex-CIA operative outed by the W. Bush administration, also chimed in. “Astonishing: White House mistakenly identifies CIA chief in Afghanistan,” she tweeted in a sardonic message on Monday. The name of the CIA’s chief of station in Kabul, the agency’s top spy in Afghanistan, was listed among the 15 officials briefing Obama upon his arrival at Bagram Air Base. The White House only caught the error when Washington Post reporter Scott Wilson alerted the press office, after Obama’s schedule was included in an email that was circulated to as many as 6,000 members of the media.

The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor has suggested the US may have committed war crimes in Afghanistan. An investigation would expose US forces to ICC scrutiny for the first time. Delivering her annual report to members of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague on Monday, chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said she would decide “imminently” whether to ask judges for permission to launch a full-blown investigation as to whether US military forces and CIA operatives may have committed war crimes in Afghanistan through the “cruel or violent” interrogation of detainees. Bensouda said the Taliban, Afghan government forces and US...

The National Security Agency's massive data collection program has prompted lawsuits, internal reviews and a fierce congressional debate over whether to scrap it. But Director of National Intelligence James Clapper apparently forgot the program even existed during a key hearing two years ago. ....

A former senior adviser to the Joint Chiefs told me that the document was an ‘all-source’ appraisal, drawing on information from signals, satellite and human intelligence, and took a dim view of the Obama administration’s insistence on continuing to finance and arm the so-called moderate rebel groups. Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, director of the DIA between 2012 and 2014, confirmed that his agency had sent a constant stream of classified warnings to the civilian leadership about the dire consequences of toppling Assad. The jihadists, he said, were in control of the opposition. Turkey wasn’t doing enough to stop the smuggling...

The soon-to-be White House chief strategist laid out a global vision in a rare 2014 talk, one where he said racism in the far right gets “washed out” and called Vladimir Putin a kleptocrat. BuzzFeed News publishes the complete transcript for the first time.

Only weeks after the White House made headlines with a directive urging prosecutors to get tougher on corporate crime, the Obama administration has moved to protect a convicted financial firm from punishment. The bank, Credit Suisse, has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to President Barack Obama’s political campaigns. It also employs the Podesta Group, a lobbying firm with family connections to the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. In 2014, Credit Suisse pleaded guilty to criminal charges for operating “an illegal cross-border banking business that knowingly and willfully aided and assisted thousands of U.S. clients in opening and...

An email released by WikiLeaks on Thursday provides new insight into Hillary Clinton’s carelessness with sensitive information in her emails and shows she was warned by close confidants to be more cautious — even long after leaving the State Department. WikiLeaks released a 2014 email conversation between Clinton and her current campaign Chairman John Podesta about the tactical situation in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. In what until today was the latest available email in the chain, Clinton stated that "there may be opportunities as the Iraqi piece improves." She also asked Podesta if he had "any idea...

The White House announced that Vice President Joe Biden would spend the weekend vacationing in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It's his second vacation there in three months. His White House schedule reads: DAILY GUIDANCE FOR THE VICE PRESIDENT Friday, March 7 – Sunday, March 9 The Vice President and Dr. Jill Biden will visit the U.S. Virgin Islands. There are no public events scheduled. And as Geoff Earle of the New York Post reported on December 27, the vice president spent New Year's on the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Early voting in Illinois got off to a rocky start Monday, as votes being cast for Republican candidates were transformed into votes for Democrats. Republican state representative candidate Jim Moynihan went to vote Monday at the Schaumburg Public Library. “I tried to cast a vote for myself and instead it cast the vote for my opponent,” Moynihan said. “You could imagine my surprise as the same thing happened with a number of races when I tried to vote for a Republican and the machine registered a vote for a Democrat.” He notified the election judge at his polling place and...

Re: Fwd: 31 March Meeting From: Eryn_M_Sepp@who.eop.gov To: john.podesta@gmail.com Date: 2014-03-14 02:23 Subject: Re: Fwd: 31 March Meeting OK. Will make it work and fly you to Berkeley the next AM if you want it to work. From: John Podesta [mailto:john.podesta@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2014 11:05 PM To: Sepp, Eryn Subject: Fwd: 31 March Meeting Let's discuss. JP --Sent from my iPad-- john.podesta@gmail.com For scheduling: eryn.sepp@gmail.com Begin forwarded message: From: robbymook@gmail.com Date: March 13, 2014 at 9:15:40 AM EDT To: Cheryl Mills > Cc: "daplouffe@icloud.com" >, John Podesta > Subject: Re: 31 March Meeting Roger all of that. I...

Earlier this week the United States and other western powers evacuated Yemen, citing concerns about security in the rapidly deteriorating country. On the way out of the country, U.S. Marines were instructed to destroy their weapons and U.S. vehicles were taken over by Houthi rebels.  Now, without a presence there, the State Department is arguing rebel Houthis can be trusted to keep their word and to respect the U.S. embassy until it can be reoccupied. Houthis have been seen on video calling for "death to America," just brought down the U.S. backed Yemeni government and have ties to terrorism.  Last...

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton sent an email to her campaign chairman John Podesta in 2014, who was then-counselor to President Barack Obama, that said Saudi Arabia and Qatar are both giving financial and logistical support to the Islamic State and other extremist Sunni groups, according to a recent Wikileaks release. Clinton sent the email on August 17, 2014 to Podesta. It was an eight-point plan to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Clinton’s email said that the United States should support Kurdish forces on the ground with U.S. military advisers and avoid the use of a conventional military ground...