Free Republic

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The White House this week assured anxious Hispanic lawmakers on Capitol Hill that President Obama will use executive action before the holiday season closes to reform U.S. immigration law, after breaking his pledge to make changes by the end of summer. The message was delivered in a meeting Thursday with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and other administration officials, including domestic policy adviser Cecilia Munoz, a key player for Obama on the issue, according to Politico.

President Barack Obama and White House national security adviser Susan Rice met with a delegation of Christian Middle Eastern leaders in Washington, D.C., on Thursday that included at least one Hezbollah-supporting Lebanese cleric. The meeting came one day after Sen. Ted Cruz was booed off the stage for defending Israel while giving a keynote address at a conference for the same delegation of Christian leaders. The In Defense of Christians summit, which was aimed at raising awareness of persecution against Arab Christiansa, featured speeches by several Hezbollah supporters and some of Bashar al-Assad’s most vocal Christian allies. One of the...

Nearly fifty senior commanders of a major coalition of Islamic 'moderates' opposed to ISIS in Syria have been killed by an explosion at their secret command bunker as they met to discuss strategy against the the Islamic State. The blast in the Northwest region of Idlib, Syria on Tuesday killed senior members of rebel group the Ahrar-al-Sham brigade (AaS), including leader Hassan Abboud and 45 others including senior members from other rebel alliance groups, reports The Times. The Idlib region stands in AaS territory, but it is close to the front-line with ISIS in neighbouring Aleppo.

full title....Mystery of the missing tanker: Ship carrying $100million in Kurdish oil vanishes from radar screens 60 miles off the coast of Texas A tanker loaded with $100 million of crude oil that has been at the center of a dispute over Iraq's oil billions vanished off the coast of Texas on Thursday. The Kurdish tanker disappeared from Coast Guard radar screens following a month of legal wrangling over whether it can offload its cargo in the U.S. As the disintegration of Iraq amid mounting violence continues, the semi-autonomous regime in Kurdistan – in the north of Iraq – is...

President Obama reportedly plans to do an end-run around Congress to forge an international climate change deal, effectively bypassing the Constitution's requirement to get the Senate's approval for a treaty. The New York Times reported that the agreement is slated to be signed at a United Nations meeting next year in Paris. However, because the U.S. Senate is unlikely to ratify any international climate treaty, Obama’s negotiators reportedly are working toward an alternative agreement – a “politically binding” deal that would serve in lieu of a bona-fide treaty.

full title...President Obama is scheduled to make a statement on the ISIS beheading of journalist James Foley at 12:45 p.m ET. banner only

Texas Gov. Rick Perry plans to turn himself into authorities Tuesday afternoon at a local Texas jail on the heels of his indictment for alleged abuse of power, a member of the governor's legal team told Fox News. The governor is expected to be processed quickly and to leave. He is not subject to an arrest warrant.

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WASHINGTON — Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon called the National Guard to Ferguson late Sunday without letting the White House know first. “Folks didn’t know,” an administration official told BuzzFeed Monday. “The White House did not know they were sending it in.” Nixon gave “no heads up,” the official said.

Ferguson, Missouri (CNN) -- An independent autopsy into the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, provides "ample" evidence to support the arrest of the police officer who shot him, family attorney Daryl Parks said Monday at a news conference. Parks was particularly concerned about gunshots that medical examiners hired by the family indicate came from behind and above. "Why would he be shot in the very top of his head, a 6-foot-4 man?" Parks asked. "Makes no sense." The autopsy could support witnesses' suggestions that Brown was holding his hands up in the air, said Shawn Purcell, who assisted...

A medical examiner has ruled the recent death of former White House press secretary James Brady, who was wounded in the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, a homicide, raising the possibility John Hinckley Jr. could be charged with murder. Members of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch, the United States Attorney’s Office, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are reviewing the case, according to a police press release issued Friday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the United States did things that were wrong and crossed the line. He says, quote, "we tortured some folks." Obama is commenting on a Senate investigation into the CIA's interrogation techniques.

The White House on Friday blasted Hamas for violating a 72-hour cease-fire agreement, calling the abduction of an Israeli soldier “barbaric.” White House spokesman Josh Earnest acknowledged reports that Hamas had used the cease-fire as cover to carry out an attack on Israeli soldiers. “That would be a rather barbaric violation of the cease-fire agreement,” Earnest said on CNN’s “New Day.” “Hamas is entirely responsible for upholding their end of the bargain, and it’s apparent that they did not do that."

Full title....State Department approved 215 Bill Clinton speeches, controversial consulting deal, worth $48m; Hillary Clinton's COS copied on all decisionsA joint investigation by the Washington Examiner and the nonprofit watchdog group Judicial Watch found that former President Clinton gave 215 speeches and earned $48 million while his wife presided over U.S. foreign policy, raising questions about whether the Clintons fulfilled ethics agreements related to the Clinton Foundation during Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state. According to documents obtained by Judicial Watch and released Wednesday in an ongoing Freedom of Information Act case, State Department officials charged with reviewing Bill...

Obama is expected to make a move before November's federal elections Among the proposals: giving work permits to parents of children legally residing in the U.S.

Rep. Steve Scalise, the incoming House Majority Whip, said Sunday he will stay in Washington until Congress agrees to an emergency spending plan for the border-immigration crisis, but declined to say whether he will cancel the lower chamber’s August recess. “I’m going to stay until it’s done,” said Scalise, R-La., the Tea Party-backed lawmaker who in June became the No. 3 Republican in the GOP-led House after Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his re-election bid.

When a New York Times article cast doubt on the accusation Usama bin Laden had a hand in the 1998 bombings of African embassies, President Clinton questioned his own CIA, according to a note he scrawled to his national security adviser The memo, part of a 1,000-page release of documents Friday afternoon by the National Archives, was written after the president apparently read an article in the self-professed "paper of record" casting doubt on the U.S. Justice Department's case that the Al Qaeda mastermind was involved in the Aug. 7, 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Some...

full title..The Lewinsky affair may have been 'the best thing to ever happen to' Hillary's career, claims new bookPortions of the book, Clinton, Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine, by Daniel Halper, have been leaked online In one section a former aide to the Clintons claims Hillary played up Bill's affair with Monica Lewinsky to gain the sympathy of voters In another a source is quoted as saying that Bill and Hillary paid for Chelsea's $10.5 million apartment in Manhattan

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio signed into law a measure that creates a municipal identification card that can now be used by illegal immigrants to access government services, rent an apartment and open a bank account. “Today we’re living up to our highest ideals, and today we’re saying that no one should be left out,” said City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, calling the signing of the bill into law an “historic” moment, the New York Daily News reported. Ms. Mark-Viverito, along with fellow council members Carlos Menchaca and Daniel Dromm — all Democrats — said the new ID...