Free Republic

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...

As the families of Americans celebrate the release of their loved ones held in Iran, the authorities in Tehran said they would not be freeing a businessman arrested in October and were silent on the fate of a former FBI agent who disappeared in the country. It was unclear why Siamak Namazi, 44, an Iranian American based in Dubai, was arrested in October while visiting a friend in Tehran where he had done consultant work over the previous decade. U.S. officials said Saturday that they would continue to talk with Iran to secure the release of Namazi as well as...

The Navy is poised to promote the admiral in charge of its elite SEAL teams and other commando units even though Pentagon investigators determined that he illegally retaliated against staff members whom he mistakenly suspected were whistleblowers. Rear Adm. Brian Losey was investigated five times by the Defense Department's inspector general after subordinates complained that he had wrongly fired, demoted or punished them during a vengeful but fruitless hunt for the person who had anonymously reported him for a minor travel-policy infraction, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. After conducting separate, years-long investigations that involved more than 100...

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s email scandal didn’t stop the head of the CIA from using his own personal AOL account to stash work-related documents, according to a stoner high school student who claims to have hacked into them. CIA Director John Brennan’s private account held sensitive files — including his 47-page application for top-secret security clearance — until he recently learned that it had been infiltrated, the hacker told The Post. Other emails stored in Brennan’s non-government account contained the Social Security numbers and personal information of more than a dozen top American intelligence officials, as well as a government letter...

Now this… A stash of explosives was discovered in Mark Twain National Forest in Mid-Missouri in October....... --snip-- Since the suspicious activity first leaked last week, the investigation has progressively revealed worse details, working retroactively to bring to light every alarming thing that happened before two men were stopped in a Lebanon Walmart. Now, it seems to have reach a head, after an incident in October provides some potential answers as to what is being plotted from the center of our country, and what targets are at imminent risk. A man who was hunting in the Mark Twain National Forest,...

New data from the United Nations on the military advances by a resurgent Taliban is alarming for what it says about the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan — and what it suggests about the American military’s honesty about what is happening there.The fall of Kunduz two weeks ago was a startling sign of how the Taliban has reasserted itself, wresting a northern city from the control of the NATO-trained Afghan Security Forces, who are not doing a great job of showing they are up to defending their country. The United Nations data, reported by The Times on Monday and backed...

SORKHROAD, Afghanistan — At least three times a week, Malaika hikes up the mountain, past mulberry and pine trees, to a clearing where she can get cellphone reception. She calls her family to reassure them that the Islamic State fighters have not come for her yet. Below, her village — Bagh, in the Maamand Valley in eastern Afghanistan — has been gutted by the Islamic State militants who overran it three months ago. Most of the houses have been looted, burned or simply taken over by the fighters, and the 80 or so families that lived there have been forced...

The United States will halt its military withdrawal from Afghanistan and instead keep thousands of troops in the country through the end of President Obama’s term in 2017, Mr. Obama will announce on Thursday, prolonging the American role in a war that has now stretched on for 14 years. The current American force in Afghanistan of 9,800 troops will remain in place through most of 2016 under the Obama administration’s revised plans, before dropping to about 5,500 at the end of next year or in early 2017, senior administration officials said. Some of the troops will continue to train and...

Israeli Ambassador: (Despite Obama’s Requests) Israel Will Not Turn Over Christian Holy Sites to Radical Islam [ Full title ]. In May 2011 Barack Obama urged Israel to hand over half of Jerusalem, the Wailing Wall, The Temple Mount, Old Jerusalem, and the tomb of Jesus Christ to the Hamas-Fatah terrorist organizations. ... In December 2013, Barack Obama again urged Israel to hand over ancient Christian and Jewish holy sites to Islamist terrorists. ... On Friday – Palestinian terrorists set fire to Joseph’s Tomb – a Jewish holy site. ... Israeli Ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer ... warned America...

Donald Trump is right: America's leaders are stupid. They're nothing but a bunch of losers. Well, at least when it comes to Afghanistan and Pakistan. That's the only conclusion to be reached following two big developments this week. The first was President Barack Obama's announcement that the United States will decelerate its military drawdown from Afghanistan. Instead of preserving only a small force of about 1,000 troops, the new plan will station 9,800 in the country until 2016 and 5,500 into 2017. Their mission will be limited to training Afghan forces and supporting counterterrorism operations. This will help promote, in...

A former British stronghold in Helmand has fallen to the Taliban just 12 months after UK combat troops left the province and civilians are fleeing the nearby provincial capital, fearing insurgents will soon move on the town. The heavy fighting north west of Lashkar Gah and unravelling of security in areas UK troops fought bloody battles to secure comes days before the first anniversary of Britain’s withdrawal of combat troops from Afghanistan. The assault also comes only three weeks after the Taliban captured the northern city of Kunduz in their greatest military victory since 2001. A Western official said Lashkar...

Today, 21 October 2015 and over the coming days WikiLeaks is releasing documents from one of CIA chief John Brennan's non-government email accounts. Brennan used the account occasionally for several intelligence related projects. John Brennan became the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in March 2013, replacing General David Petraeus who was forced to step down after becoming embroiled in a classified information mishandling scandal. Brennan was made Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism on the commencement of the Obama presidency in 2009--a position he held until taking up his role as CIA chief. According to the...

A strong employment report for October hasn't solved a conundrum that has persisted for five years: As jobs are created and the jobless rate falls, the number of Americans in the labor force keeps dropping. The Labor Department reported Friday that, including revisions from August and September, hiring was up a brisk 283,000 - about double the meager pace of recent months. Gains were widespread in industries, including business services, health care, retail, food services and even construction, suggesting a housing bounce. Average wages rose 0.35% to $25.20, indicating many workers got raises. We'd love to see 12 months or...

Three months after Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email address and server while secretary of state was referred to the FBI, an intelligence source familiar with the investigation tells Fox News that the team is now focused on whether there were violations of an Espionage Act subsection pertaining to "gross negligence" in the safekeeping of national defense information. Under 18 USC 793 subsection F,the information does not have to be classified to count as a violation. The intelligence source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity citing the sensitivity of the ongoing probe, said the subsection requires the "lawful...

Top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin will be interviewed Friday by the House Benghazi Committee in a closed session in the Capitol, according to a GOP source familiar with the committee's activities. The appearance comes six days before her boss, the former secretary of state and current Democratic presidential candidate, delivers much-anticipated public testimony before the committee.

On SKYKING (8992 or 11175 kHz USB) a call sign called “COLLAPSE” which has not been heard since 2001 has just broadcasted 4 messages to numbered stations/units in the last few minutes. “FUXEBOX” and “Reykjavik,” have also broadcast in the last few days and they haven’t been heard since 1991 (collapse of the Soviet Union). “COLLAPSE” has sent 3 messages in the last few minutes. COLLAPSE message one: http://vocaroo.com/i/s1hGyA2GR6HI Collapse message Two: http://vocaroo.com/i/s1ETZ3l9fp0G Collapse message Three: http://vocaroo.com/i/s03ZI6ui70LY Message Four from “FLATTOP!” (ANOTHER STATION NOT HEARD IN YEARS!): http://vocaroo.com/i/s01smhgkyNDL We do not know what these codes mean, but it considered These...

Two bomb explosions targeting a peace rally in Turkey's capital Ankara on Saturday killed at least 30 people and injured 126 others, Turkey's Interior Ministry said.

After Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in a recent U.N. speech cited a book of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s sayings, the regime responded this week – not by defending what Netanyahu called “a 400-page screed detailing his plan to destroy the State of Israel,” but by promoting a free online version of it. A Twitter account associated with Iran’s supreme leader posted a tweet this week reading, “Download the book which stirred Zionist regime’s reaction,” along with a link to an English translation of the e-book. Entitled, “Palestine: The Most Important Problem of the Islamic World,” the book is a compilation...

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The FBI seized four servers from the State Department building a few weeks ago as part of the investigation into classified material improperly stored on Hillary Clinton’s secret email server, particularly the Top Secret documents that have been discovered in her email trove. This revelation comes from Bill Gertz at the Washington Free Beacon, citing anonymous sources familiar with the investigation. Gertz notes that the State Department referred questions about the seized servers to the FBI, which declined to comment on the matter. It would be interesting to know exactly what the FBI computer forensics team is looking for on...