Free Republic

Japan’s much admired Emperor Akihito plans to abdicate on April 30, 2019, at age 85 in the first such abdication from the Chrysanthemum Throne in about 200 years, the government said Friday. Akihito’s elder son Crown Prince Naruhito will ascend the throne a day later, on May 1, 2019, beginning a new as yet unnamed era. The decision was made Friday at a meeting of the Imperial House Council, which included politicians, judicial officials and imperial family members. Akihito expressed his apparent wish to abdicate in 2016, citing his age and health. Formal Cabinet approval of the decision is due...

"STUNNING ADMISSION: Hyper-Progressive Cardinal Danneels Admits Being in Mafia Dedicated to Unseat PBXVI" Pride goeth before the fall. The modernists are apparently feeling very powerful and secure, because they are starting to open their mouths and crow about both their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI, dropping hints they played a role in his abdication, as well as quite possibly illicitly organizing to elect Pope Francis. Further serious concerns are being raised about Cardinal Godfried Danneels, one of the papal delegates chosen to attend the upcoming Ordinary Synod on the Family, after the archbishop emeritus of Brussels confessed this week to...

A new Government Accountability Institute (GAI) report reveals that President Barack Obama has attended only 42.1% of his daily intelligence briefings (known officially as the Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB) in the 2,079 days of his presidency through September 29, 2014. The GAI report also included a breakdown of Obama’s PDB attendance record between terms; he attended 42.4% of his PDBs in his first term and 41.3% in his second. The GAI’s alarming findings come on the heels of Obama’s 60 Minutes comments on Sunday, wherein the president laid the blame for the Islamic State’s (ISIS) rapid rise squarely at...

Rochdale, Rotherham, Derby, Oxford. The towns change, but the pattern is always the same. Gangs of men, mainly of Pakistani Muslim heritage, lure white girls as young as 10 with gifts and displays of affection. Next, the girl is raped as a way of “breaking her in”. Once the child’s spirit is subdued, and her mind fogged with drugs, she is sold for sex to multiple men at £200 a time. If the girl tries to break away, a gang member might threaten to behead her or firebomb her home. Mohammed Karrar, who was found guilty in the Oxford sex-grooming...

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin said she felt Congress lacked the guts to impeach President Barack Obama for acting like a "tyrant" by refusing to enforce the country's immigration laws and deliberately causing a humanitarian crisis at the border. She said the only way to solve the illegal immigration crisis is at the ballot box and sending a message, like voters in Virginia's seventh congressional district did by ousting pro-amnesty House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), by voting against elected officials who have enabled the Obama administration's lawlessness. In a blistering Friday Facebook post that showed she, like many Americans,...

MADRID — King Juan Carlos of Spain is abdicating in favor of Crown Prince Felipe, his 46-year-old son, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced on Monday. The king’s abdication, after almost four decades on the throne, follows health problems but also comes amid a decline in his popularity, particularly as a result of a corruption scandal centering on his son-in-law that has also put the spotlight on the royal family’s lifestyle and finances at a time of economic crisis and record joblessness. The king, 76, announced his abdication in a letter to Mr. Rajoy, who then made the decision public in...

“What, me worry?” seems to be the operating philosophy of President Obama as a serious crisis brews in Eastern Europe. Daniel Halper reports an almost unbelievable level of Obama nonchalance toward his national security responsibilities in the Weekly Standard: A White House official emailed some reporters to say that President Obama's team met today to discuss the ongoing situation on Ukraine. It appears President Obama did not attend. "The President's national security team met today to receive an update on the situation in Ukraine and discuss potential policy options. We will provide further updates later this afternoon," reads the full...

A White House official emailed some reporters to say that President Obama's team met today to discuss the ongoing situation on Ukraine. It appears President Obama did not attend. "The President's national security team met today to receive an update on the situation in Ukraine and discuss potential policy options. We will provide further updates later this afternoon," reads the full statement.

When the Senate held a drama-filled procedural vote on raising the debt limit this week, there was one element missing from what should have been a typical roll call vote — the calling of the ayes and nays. In nearly every roll call vote held on the Senate floor, the clerk reads who voted in the negative and in the affirmative before the final vote is called. But on Wednesday, with the Senate engaged in arm twisting, senators switching votes, and the full faith and credit of the United States on the line, the Senate floor broke from normal procedure...

The House GOP again collapsed in the absence of leadership today, a complete mess of missed opportunities and unforced errors. No strategy. No tactics. No repeal of the terrible cut to the retirment benefits of active duty military that was the lowpoint of the House GOP tenure in the majority since January 2010–a slap in the face of the military that fought the war for the past dozen years. Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam fired his front office today, including CEO Joe Banner, after a miserable season, but the House GOP seems doomed to be chained to the gang that...

I thought the biggest scandal to come from the shooting today would be the fact that the Pentagon didn’t run a full background check on this guy when he was re-hired as a contractor in July. All they did, which is apparently standard practice, was check to make sure his security clearance from 2007 was still intact. No interviews with family members, co-workers, or employers; if there had been, maybe someone would have tipped them to the fact of his mental problems. But no, that’s not the biggest scandal if this BBC report is right. This … can’t possibly be...

There is a problem with President Barack Obama’s long-form birth certificate: It’s a forgery, say multiple forensic experts who have examined it. A report detailing the evidence will soon be presented to Congress. On April 27, 2011 the White House released Mr. Obama’s long-form birth certificate in an attempt to quell a public firestorm over the validity of the shorter version he provided prior to his 2008 election. A group of concerned citizens in Arizona suspected the Certificate of Live Birth produced in 2011 by the administration was fabricated; they asked Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County to investigate. “We...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday that four members of Army special forces in Tripoli were never told to stand down after last year's deadly assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, disputing a former top diplomat's claim that the unit might have helped Americans under siege. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey said timing and the need for the unit to help with casualties from Benghazi resulted in orders for the special forces to remain in Tripoli. Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, died in two separate attacks several hours apart...

You know the people I’m talking about. The Know-Nothings. You know the folks who pushed that one law regarding almost 20 percent of the entire economy before they even read the bill? The ones who rushed it into law just to see what was in it? The ones who managed to write a bill, while still not being familiar with what the bill actually did?   Yeah, those guys? The Know-Nothings. Well, they know nothing about a lot of other stuff too. Obama’s one of those guys. So is Eric Holder. So, apparently, is the entire staff at the IRS...

Thomas Pickering - the former UN ambassador who along with former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen prepared the Accountability Review Board report on the State Department's handling of the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya - says he didn't think it was necessary to interview former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "because in fact we knew where the responsibility rested." BOB SCHIEFFER: And good morning again. Ambassador Thomas Pickering is the one who led the State Department's investigation into how those Benghazi attacks where handled. Mr. Ambassador, you and I have known one another as you had...

The U.S. government had the ability to “react and respond” to the Benghazi terrorist attack and could have had forces on the ground before the second wave of the assault began, a special operator with knowledge of the response told Fox News in an exclusive interview. Due to the explosive nature of his allegations, the special ops member asked to remain anonymous. “I know for a fact that C 110 the UComm CIF was doing a training exercise, not in the region of northern Africa, but in Europe. And they had the ability to react and respond,” he told Fox...

by John HillStand With ArizonaWebsite | Facebook | Twitter The failure of this Administration to protect our homeland from jihadist threats - despite clear warnings before the Boston attacks - continues to be exposed. And it also calls into serious question how the FBI and DHS can be trusted to handle the increased numbers of asylum visas called for under the 'Gang of 8' immigration bill. As we reported on April 19, the FBI was warned by a "foreign government" - reportedly Russia - that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a "follower of radical Islam" with a potential for "terrorist activities". The...

Barack Obama certainly enjoys the trappings and perks of the Office of President. The actual job of being President, however, doesn't seem to interest him. His desire to avoid being tied to any specifics of any proposal have caused him to do what no modern President has done. He is the first President since 1921 to abdicate the task of drafting a federal budget to Congress. Congress established the modern budget process in 1921. Under the terms of the law, the President is required to submit a budget for the federal government no later than the first Monday in February....

egensburg - Again, he sat in front of the TV and looked at "Joseph". This is the name Georg Ratzinger uses for his brother, who has been called Benedict XVI for almost eight years and on Wednesday had his last major appearance as Pope. Although he can no longer see so well, the 89-year-old in Regensburg wanted to see as much of the general audience as popssible of the outgoing head of the Church in St. Peter's Square. "It was very touching," the prelate said to the news agency dpa. "There was a melancholy mood." And Georg Ratzinger added reassuringly...

If the story Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is telling is correct, then the story the State Department Accountability Review Board (ARB) and the Central Intelligence Agency have told is not. If the story the State Department and the CIA have told is correct, than Gen. Dempsey is telling an inaccurate story to explain why the Defense Department sent no help to the State Department and CIA personnel who were attacked by terrorists in Libya on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11