Free Republic

WASHINGTON – No charges will be filed against the CIA's former top clandestine officer or anyone else in the destruction of CIA videotapes of harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists, the Justice Department announced Tuesday. Another part of the nearly three-year-old criminal investigation is continuing into whether CIA interrogators went beyond the legal guidance given them on the rough treatment of suspects during questioning, a Justice Department official said.

Prisoners are to have the right to vote after the Coalition conceded defeat in a long-running battle with Europe. The Government has confirmed it will change the law to remove the voting ban on the 70,000 inmates of British jails. It is being forced to do so after admitting it cannot win its fight against the European Court of Human Rights, which has been urging prisoners to seek compensation for being denied a voice in elections. David Cameron is said to be exasperated and furious but accepts the government has little choice but to end the 140-year blanket ban.

Gov. Charlie Crist is employing President Barack Obama's famous "Yes, we can" campaign slogan as he heads toward the finish line in Florida's three-way U.S. Senate race... At an early morning stop Sunday at a senior citizens facility, Crist responded "Yes, we can" after former state Rep. Addie Greene said the election was not about Republicans or Democrats, but moving Obama's agenda forward.

"The Swiss couple who recently renewed their marriage vows in a Maldives beach ceremony can scarcely have expected the shaky handheld video of the ceremony to turn them into temporary celebrities, but thanks to YouTube, and the addition of subtitles, this is exactly what has happened.... Despite the grovelling apology issued by the Maldivian authorities, the victims in this story are not the Swiss couple but the "celebrants" who have now been arrested, and the thousands of other Maldivians who will doubtless be under harsher pressure to bite their tongues and keep smiling over the cocktails."

... the title is drawn from how Karl Rove told Matthews that the CIA agent Valerie Plame was fair game for critics of her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson. Wilson, you’ll recall, was dispatched by the CIA in 2002 at the behest of Vice President Dick Cheney’s office to investigate whether Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from the African country of Niger. Wilson came back with the answer no, and he was outraged when President Bush nevertheless stuck with the claim in his 2003 State of the Union address, which made the case for war with Iraq. Just three...

Does anyone know the whole story with this "Commit to Vote Challenge" that's popping up all over social media sites such as Facebook? Is it a stealth operation or do they openly admit funding and support from the Obamanation?

In primaries this year, Republican voters in Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Nevada, and Utah, have rejected—en masse—the candidates preferred by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which Rove is said to informally advise. The Conservative Party candidate Tom Tancredo—a known enemy of Rove—is trouncing the GOP-backed candidate in the race for governor of Colorado.

the enthusiasm gap has been pretty overblown

At least two other gunmen ran into the building shouting "Allahu Akbar" as they opened fire on the people inside, Bekkhoyev said. The attackers were killed in an ensuing gunfight with police, said Chechen presidential spokesman Alvi Kerimov.

On Tuesday, the Prime Minister will outline a timetable under which Britain’s one fully operational aircraft carrier, HMS Ark Royal, is immediately retired. The Navy’s other carrier, HMS Illustrious, will continue to function as a helicopter platform stripped of jets before retiring in 2014. The first of the new carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth, will enter service in 2016, configured to carry helicopters, not jets. The second new carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, will arrive in 2019. At that point, HMS Queen Elizabeth will be put into “extended readiness”, effectively mothballed indefinitely.

"The View" co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar stormed off the set Thursday during a contentious interview with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly. As the cast debated whether there should be a community center and mosque built in Lower Manhattan, O'Reilly declared that "Muslims killed us on 9/11" to back up his position that it's "inappropriate." "Oh my God!" Goldberg responded, before uttering a few words bleeped out.

The second person, a former housing industry executive intimately familiar with of Fannie Mae's operations, agreed that Donilon was at the head of an unceasing anti-regulatory campaign that the company waged throughout his tenure. The former housing executive said that on political issues, especially regulatory oversight, Donilon was the right-hand man to Fannie Mae chairman and CEO Franklin Raines.

With polls showing Republicans increasingly well-positioned to seize control of the House, the Democrats are planning TV ad blitzes to shore up their best-positioned incumbents and a handful of challengers in races they believe they can still win.

Mr. Donilon began as a young political operative for President Jimmy Carter and later was chief of staff for Secretary of State Warren Christopher in the Clinton administration. He has long operated in the area between politics and national security. He coached Mr. Obama on foreign policy for his debates in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Ghailani is charged with conspiring in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. The attacks killed 224 people, including a dozen Americans. He was smiling and conversing with his lawyers at the defense table after the judge ruled.

The denials follow comments made by journalist Bob Woodward during a CNN interview Tuesday night in which Woodward suggested that the White House is seriously discussing dumping Vice President Joe Biden in favor of the Secretary of State. "It's on the table," Woodward said yesterday on John King, USA. "Some of Hillary Clinton's advisers see it as a real possibility in 2012."

I shall argue two points about this sequence. First, that the right of Westerners to discuss, criticize, and even ridicule Islam and Muslims has eroded over the years. Second, that free speech is a minor part of the problem; at stake is something much deeper – indeed, a defining question of our time: will Westerners maintain their own historic civilization in the face of assault by Islamists, or will they cede to Islamic culture and law and submit to a form of second-class citizenship?

SHIKARPUR, Pakistan – Suspected militants in southern Pakistan set ablaze at least 27 tankers carrying fuel for U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan on Friday, police said. The attack followed the Pakistani government's decision to shut a vital border crossing in apparent protest of a NATO incursion that killed three of its soldiers, and further underscored the risks posed to Western forces who rely heavily on land routes in Pakistan to supply their troops.

Also watching at home on television were at least five whistle-blowers who noted that the Reds were violating Ohio's indoor-smoking ban. They called Cincinnati's health department to report the team and now the Cincinnati Enquirer reports the club is under investigation.

....Could the plates beneath this election be shifting? Obama's trip to Madison was therefore more than a journey down memory lane. It reflected the White House's realization that Sanders is right that there is no substitute for a president making a coherent argument, taking on opponents who are eviscerating him daily, and acknowledging his dependence on those who brought him to office. "I need you fired up!" he declared in a stump line that could not have been more accurate. "You can't lose heart!" .... Thus the irony: A president who largely disdained a mobilizing strategy for his first year...