Free Republic

“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

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands has announced her abdication in favour of her son, Prince Willem-Alexander. The queen made the announcement in pre-recorded address broadcast on Dutch television. The queen, who is approaching her 75th birthday, said she had been thinking about this moment for several years.

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands is to make a televised announcement, amid speculation in local media that she will abdicate the throne. … Unconfirmed Dutch reports say she will announce her abdication in favor of her son, Prince Willem-Alexander. …

BOMBSHELL: US troops in Benghazi would not have been painting targets on the ground unless there was air support overhead. But someone called it off – And the decision most likely came from the White House. FOX News reported earlier today that security officers on the ground in Benghazi had a laser planted on a target that was firing on the annex. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA...

...Then there’s this bombshell at BlackFive from a former Delta operator: Having spent a good bit of time nursing a GLD (ground Laser Designator) in several garden spots around the world, something from the report jumped out at me. One of the former SEALs was actively painting the target. That means that Specter WAS ON STATION! Probably an AC130U. A ground laser designator is not a briefing pointer laser. You do not “paint” a target until the weapons system/designator is synched; which means that the AC130 was on station. Only two places could have called off the attack at that...

Full Tittle: Former National Security Adviser Bud McFarlane: For Obama to Do Nothing During Benghazi Attack is “Dereliction of Duty” Video at link... Former National Security Adviser Bud McFarlane told FOX News today: “You don’t just passively allow Americans to remain under attack for eight hours at a time when you have forces within range and do nothing. The Secretary of Defense was in the White House at five o’clock within an hour of when the attacks started. He could have told him, “Yes. We have special operations peope and F18 aircraft that could be deployed right away. To have...

Central Intelligence Agency director David Petraeus has emphatically denied that he or anyone else at the CIA refused assistance to the former Navy SEALs who requested it three times as terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on the night of Sep. 11. The Weekly Standard and ABC News (report) that Petraeus's denial effectively implicates President Barack Obama, since a refusal to assist "would have been a presidential decision." Earlier today, Denver local reporter Kyle Clarke of KUSA-TV did what the national media largely refuses to do, (asking) Obama directly whether the Americans in Benghazi were denied requests for aid....

In the month and a half since our consulate in Benghazi was sacked and our ambassador and three other staffers killed the Obama regime is no closer to presenting a coherent, truthful narrative of what happened before, during, and after the incident than it was when it uttered its first deliberate lies and misdirections on September 12. Right now we are being treated to the vision of the highest level of the ongoing criminal enterprise that governs us playing the equivalent of a game of musical chairs. About a week ago, the political branches of the regime decided to finger...

The Benghazi debacle may yet make Mitt Romney president. Barely 10 days before the election, the persistent whiff of scandal surrounding Barack Obama exploded into the banner headlines of a cover-up – at least among certain press outlets. Everything changed Friday afternoon with the stunning revelations by Fox News that CIA operatives defending the embattled consulate in Benghazi, Libya, called three times for emergency assistance while the attack was in progress. Each time, they were shamefully turned down. One of those defenders, Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods, was apparently able to use a laser designator to pin-point the location of the...

Yesterday, Leon Panetta told reporters that the US military didn’t intervene to assist our consulate in Benghazi during the attack because of a lack of real-time intelligence.  Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin now reports that the CIA got at least three requests for support from the annex in the city to help fend off the attack — and that the chain of command not only refused the requests, but ordered its personnel to “stand down.”  Two of the Americans killed in the terrorist attack disobeyed orders and attempted to rescue their fellow Americans: Fox News has learned from sources who were...

# Revelations shed new light on the effectiveness of the CIA at Benghazi and the level of support they were given # When the CIA annex come under attack they were denied a request for military help despite a counter terrorism team being two hours away in Italy # There was full communication between operatives on the ground and headquarters - with the ability to laser guide drones, planes or special forces to enemy targets It has been claimed that CIA operatives on the ground during the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi twice asked for permission to...

Fox News has learned from sources who were on the ground in Benghazi that three urgent requests from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. Consulate and subsequent attack nearly seven hours later were denied by officials in the CIA chain of command -- who also told the CIA operators to "stand down" rather than help the ambassador's team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11. Former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were part of a small team who were at the CIA annex about a mile...

Those in the CIA Annex requested permission to aid the consulate. Were told to stand down at least twice. Went anyway after being told to stand down the second time

Across 166 pages of internal State Department documents -- released Friday by a pair of Republican congressmen pressing the Obama administration for more answers on the Benghazi terrorist attack -- slain U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and the security officers assigned to protect him repeatedly sounded alarms to their superiors in Washington about the intensifying lawlessness and violence in Eastern Libya, where Stevens ultimately died. On Sept. 11 -- the day Stevens and three other Americans were killed -- the ambassador signed a three-page cable, labeled "sensitive," in which he noted "growing problems with security" in Benghazi and "growing...

Senior State Department officials provided a more detailed picture Tuesday of the consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. A look at how they say the attack took place: Sept. 10-11, 2012 Stevens arrives in Benghazi and holds meetings on and off the consulate grounds on Sept. 10. He spends the night, and for the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. holds meetings only inside the compound. It is an enclosed area about 300 yards long by 100 yards wide, with a 9-foot outer wall topped by barbed wire...

Barack Obama has lied about the terrorist attack on the American Consulate in Libya for over 15 days, even going so far as to overtly imply that this attack was prompted by an obscure internet movie trailer in his speech at the United Nations two weeks after it was confirmed the White House knew it was an Al Qaeda sponsored attack. Additionally, during the current campaign the lies and obfuscations about Mitt Romney and the Republicans have been so fast and furious that it is nearly impossible to keep up with them. The administration's reaction to what went on in...

While Washington vacationed in August, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service issued a now prescient-sounding report warning that Libya's security concerns were an "immediate priority" that might require far more attention and resources than the United States had given it. That self-restraint broke down severely this week as, according to U.S. officials, an apparently coordinated attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi emerged from a crowded protest, leading to the death of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and others. It was the apex of a string of concerning violent incidents dating back months. The author of the report, Christopher Blanchard, specialist in...

Yesterday at approximately 2:45PM I got a Google alert in my email linking me to the this story. The Vetting - Exclusive - Obama's Literary Agent in 1991 Booklet: 'Born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii' Read this piece twice to make sure I comprehended what I was reading. I then tried to verify this agent, and I did see their website here. I quickly sent the link to Drudge and before this story was 30 mins old it was on Drudge and exploding all over the internet. For most of the day it was the hottest link...

Despite Johnson’s turning his back on such a fundamental liberty as the right to own property, the Republican establishment apparently sees nothing wrong with putting Johnson in charge of a subcommittee that, as stated in Illinois’ News-Gazette, “deals with issues such as rural development programs…and family farming matters.”

Wallis Simpson was branded a 'miserable second-rate American woman' by BBC founder Sir John Reith after he learned Edward VIII was to abdicate to marry her, it has emerged in his diaries. The eyewitness account of the abdication crisis by the corporation's then director general shows a distinct lack of appreciation for the divorcee.... He wrote a diary account of the events surrounding the address and extracts are featured in a collection of radio broadcasts, and television footage telling the Abdication story. The material has been put online to commemorate the anniversary of the broadcast... "He said that the King...

Watching Obama and clinton press conference live on CNN. Obama tries to nudge Clinton off stage, you can even see him lower his shoulder to push his way in front of podium but clinton would not move. Finally after standing around looking like a child who's dad has to fix things, Obama pats clinton on the back and tries to save face by exiting the stage. clinton simply keeps on talking as if he is still president and a servant just left the room. I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS!

Two-hundred-and-thirty-four years ago our forbears rose up and overthrew the existing government in a just and honorable rebellion against a tyranny which forced them to pay taxes to a body in which they had no representation. While they did not like the taxes themselves, it was not the taxes alone against which they revolted, rather it was being taxed by a disconnected government in which they had no voice or representation. America was founded upon the very principle that we would elect “representatives” to go to Washington D.C. to express our will. Ours is a government which only legitimately does...

WASHINGTON – GOP Chairman Michael Steele thinks Republicans have "screwed up" for the most part in the years since Ronald Reagan was president. And, he adds in an interview on the heels of his new book's release, Republicans won't win back the House in fall elections and might not be ready to lead even if they do. That forecast of failure sparked a pushback Tuesday at the GOP's own National Republican Congressional Committee, whose aim is to elect Republicans, and delight at its counterpart, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Gout forced Charles V abdication, study finds By Gene Emery BOSTON (Reuters) - Tests of a 500-year-old pinky finger confirm that Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was debilitated by gout and the painful joints it produces, Spanish researchers reported on Wednesday. Jaume Ordi of the University of Barcelona and colleagues used a microscope to examine the tip of one of Charles' pinkie fingers, which was preserved separately from his body in a small red velvet box. After rehydrating and slicing the mummified fingertip, the Ordi team found telltale signs of gout, including the buildup of uric acid crystals. At the...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- When Pope John Paul II was healthy, talk of papal resignation was taboo. Now, as the 82-year-old pontiff struggles with his physical frailty, even top aides like Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the doctrinal congregation, are discussing the possibility that the pope may one day choose to step down. Cardinal Ratzinger's comments in mid-May and those of other church leaders have given rise to a rash of resignation scenarios. The most-discussed theory hinges on the pope's planned visit to Poland in August. Some people think the pope has in mind a one-way trip to his...