Free Republic

The Obama adminstration must react responsibly to China’s declaration that military operations in space are inevitable, a top China expert says. “How will the US react to Chinese diplomatic efforts in light of the PLA’s blunt statements on space warfare? This is something the Obama administration has to take into account,” said Dean Cheng, China specialist at Washington’s Heritage Foundation. “Are we going to see outrage, any meaningful reactions to the Chinese statements or again that it was someone speaking out of school and we just aren’t sure.” Cheng was referring to what appears to mark a major shift...

The Obama adminstration must react responsibly to China’s declaration that military operations in space are inevitable, a top China expert says. “How will the US react to Chinese diplomatic efforts in light of the PLA’s blunt statements on space warfare? This is something the Obama administration has to take into account,” said Dean Cheng, China specialist at Washington’s Heritage Foundation. “Are we going to see outrage, any meaningful reactions to the Chinese statements or again that it was someone speaking out of school and we just aren’t sure.”

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton (L) holds an Albanian traditional hat called Plis alongside Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu during his visit to Pristina, November 1, 2009. Clinton is in Kosovo where he unveiled his statue in Clinton's Boulevard. Former US president Bill Clinton addresses thousands of ethnic Albanians in Pristina, Kosovo, on Sunday, Nov. 1, 2009. Thousands of ethnic Albanians braved low temperatures and a cold wind in Kosovo's capital Pristina to welcome former President Bill Clinton on Sunday as he attended the unveiling of an 11-foot (3.5-meter) statue of himself on a key boulevard that also bears his name....

For the first time in a decade, Beijing on Thursday will showcase its latest armored vehicles, ballistic missiles and fighter jets in a demonstration of military ambition meant to befit the nation's economic rise. The display of hardware -- part of the nation's 60th anniversary celebrations -- will no doubt stoke national pride. But it's also a chance for China to show an international audience that the world's third-largest economy is investing heavily in defense technology, a strategic sector that Beijing believes will strengthen its regional security and global influence. Expected to be on display is a new generation of...

Just heard on FoxNews. Former Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu (shoo) is headed for a lengthy prison sentence after his conviction for violating campaign finance laws. Story still developing.

In a soon-to-be-released book based on taped interviews, Bill Clinton discusses his presidency, while dishing on Al Gore, Maureen Dowd, and GOPersOn Monday, USA Today ran a front-page article on the soon-to-be-released book chronicling a series of secret interviews Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch held with President Bill Clinton throughout the Clinton presidency. The piece focused on a bizarre episode in which Russian President Boris Yeltsin during a visit to Washington in 1995 ended up in his underwear and drunk on Pennsylvania Avenue, trying to hail a cab. As for the Lewinsky affair, Clinton told Branch, he "just cracked" under...

Former Russian president Boris Yeltsin got so drunk during a visit to Washington that he was found standing outside the White House in his underpants trying to hail a cab to go and buy a pizza. The following night he was mistaken for a drunken intruder when he was discovered stumbling around the basement of his guest house by secret service agents. The drunken behaviour of Yeltsin, who was known for his fondness for vodka and died two years ago aged 76, were revealed by former US president Bill Clinton. Russian President Boris Yeltsin (L) taps his watch to end...

Name That Party: Alleged Fraudster Was Finance Chair for Hillary Clinton, John Kerry By Ken Shepherd Created 2009-08-25 13:53 Gabriel Malor at Ace of Spades HQ has a great "name that party" catch today [1]. Malor noted that at least three major news outlets all failed to note the high-powered Democratic Party ties of one Hassan Nemazee, a businessman arrested this morning on a charge of bank fraud against Citigroup: Do you know what's not in the CNN article [2]?* Or this Reuters one [3]? Or this AP one [4]? A crucial detail from Nemazee's bio: [5] National Finance Chair...

NEW YORK CITY (BNO NEWS) -- Hassan Nemazee, CEO of Nemazee Capital and former Finance Chairman to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, was arrested and charged with bank fraud on Tuesday, prosecutors said. According to officials, Nemazee engaged in a fraudulent scheme to induce Citibank to lend him up to $74 million based on false representations that he owned millions of dollars in collateral. Nemazee submitted numerous documents that purported to establish the existence of accounts in his name at various financial institutions containing many hundreds of millions of dollars. In fact, those were fraudulent and forged documents, according to the...

NEW YORK, Aug 25 (Reuters) - The U.S. attorney in New York on Tuesday charged a New York investor and major Democratic fund-raiser with a $74 million scheme to defraud Citigroup Inc (C.N). Hassan Nemazee, 59, was charged with one count of bank fraud, and faces up to 30 years in prison plus a fine. His lawyer Marc Mukasey, a former federal prosecutor, did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Nemazee was a national finance chair of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, and a supporter of John Kerry's run for the White House in 2004....

In a blunder that might top the Baby Shaker app on Apple's App Store, retailing giant Sears.com has been caught offering a Bar-B-Que grill specially designed to roast infants and other human morsels.

Here is video of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today in the Congo letting her placid facade down for a moment and showing the Hillary we always knew was there. She thought she was being asked what her husband would think about an International Financial matter, but it turns out the translator was actually asking what President Obama thought. Pity the poor translator. Hillary flashed with anger and said, "You want to know what my husband thinks? My husband is not the Secretary of State." . . . . . (Watch Video)

PRAGUE — Europe’s leading human rights group began an investigation on Monday into Serb allegations that Serbian civilians were abducted in Kosovo during the Kosovo war of 1998-99 and taken to Albania, where their organs were extracted for sale before they were killed. The inquiry, by the Council of Europe, based in Strasbourg, France, is being led by Dick Marty, a Swiss senator, who previously investigated the existence of alleged secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons in Europe used to interrogate terrorist suspects. The Council said Mr. Marty would meet this week with leading war crimes officials and human rights groups...

When First Lady Michelle Obama planted an organic vegetable garden on the White House lawn in March 2009, she hoped to both set an example of healthy eating and to grow tasty edibles for her daughters and husband. But Michelle's organic dream has been dashed by a nasty toxic legacy lurking in the soils of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It turns out that a previous Presidential gardening team had used sewage sludge for fertilizer

A 12-year-old girl was arrested on aggravated sexual assault charges Sunday, accused of coercing four younger children to perform sex acts on one another. Dallas police say she told the children – two girls 5 and 7, and two boys 4 and 5 – that she would shut them in a closet Saturday afternoon if they didn't do as she said.

14 yers ago today, on July 20, 1993, the body of Vincent Walker Foster, Jr. was found in a Virginia park, next to a civil war cannon, with an unidentified revolver lodged in the right hand. Vincent Foster died of a small-caliber gunshot wound to his head. Vince Foster was not only deputy White House counsel but also the personal attorney to Bill and Hillary Clinton. On the night of Foster’s death, top Clinton aides made a frantic effort to enter and remove documents from his West Wing office. In the days that followed, federal investigators were stymied in their...

On Wall Street and Main Street they call William Jefferson Clinton the "Comeback Kid," but it's not because of some Election Day surprise. It's because almost everything he did regarding financial-services regulation has come back to haunt us. If it wasn't apparent before, the former president's handiwork became clear when President Barack Obama announced his plans for sweeping financial-services reforms. Obama's efforts to bring fair dealing to the mortgage markets, rules to the derivatives marketplace and restraint to big financial companies underscore the missteps of Clinton's second term. We had weakly regulated markets when Clinton took office, but by the...

A trio of regulatory changes and missteps on the former president's watch let the banks run wild and encouraged the housing bubble. But he had help, of course. On Wall Street and Main Street they call William Jefferson Clinton the "Comeback Kid," but it's not because of some Election Day surprise. It's because almost everything he did regarding financial-services regulation has come back to haunt us. If it wasn't apparent before, the former president's handiwork became clear when President Barack Obama announced his plans for sweeping financial-services reforms. Obama's efforts to bring fair dealing to the mortgage markets, rules to...

"The author is ending her marriage. Isn’t it time you did the same?” So The Atlantic provocatively introduces its July/August feature “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.” It comes at a propitious moment. This seems to be the week for TMI — too much information. South Carolina governor Mark Sanford has told more, much more, than we needed to know about his mistress (how he met her, how their relationship ripened), his views on God’s laws, on the Appalachian Trail, and on forgiveness. Why must wayward American public figures stage these auto autos-da-fé — these self-immolations on TV? Dignity, which...

BELGRADE, Serbia -- Serbia's war crimes court convicted a Croatian Serb on Tuesday for his role in the 1991 torture and killing of 200 Croatian prisoners at a pig farm during the Balkan conflicts. Damir Sireta was sentenced after a six-month trial to serve 20 years in prison for war crimes. He was the 14th former paramilitary convicted for the killings near the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar during Croatia's 1991-95 war for independence from the former Serb-led Yugoslavia - one of the worst massacres of POWs during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Serb paramilitary units seized the victims...

9/11, Info Sharing, and “The Wall” The rise of “the wall” between intelligence and law enforcement personnel that impeded the sharing of information within the U.S. government prior to September 11, 2001 was critically examined in a detailed monograph (pdf) that was prepared in 2004 for the 9/11 Commission. It is the only one of four staff monographs that had not previously been released. It was finally declassified and disclosed earlier this month [http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/wall.pdf --searchable HTML transcript at http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:KyzY5fDka0AJ:www.fas.org/irp/eprint/wall.pdf+%22legal+barriers+to+information+sharing:+the+erection+of+a+wall+between+intelligence+and+law+enforcement+investigations%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us]. In April 2004, Attorney General John Ashcroft testified (pdf) that the failure to properly share threat information in the summer of...

link only

Queens, New York... A little girl was burned over a 25 percent of her body and police said Thursday her mother and grandmother are responsible. What's even more disturbing is the fact that they said it happened during a ritual at the family's Queens Village home. The Queens district attorney said she was just 6 years old. And deliberately set on fire by her mother and grandmother. In what the top cop called a Haitian voodoo ritual. "She had accelerant poured on her and that a ring of fire was created. She was then placed inside the ring of fire...

Dr. Vaknin States "I must confess I was impressed by Sen.Barack Obama from the first time I saw him. At first I was excited to see a black candidate. He looked youthful, spoke well, appeared to be confident - a wholesome presidential package. I was put off soon, not just because of his shallowness but also because there was an air of haughtiness in his demeanor that was unsettling. His posture and his body language were louder than his empty words. Obama's speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history.. Never a politician in this land...

NEW YORK (AP) - Terry McAuliffe's crushing defeat in Virginia's gubernatorial primary is the latest blow to former President Bill Clinton's political legacy, still reeling from Hillary Rodham Clinton's loss to Barack Obama in last year's Democratic presidential contest. McAuliffe, a longtime fundraiser and close friend of both Clintons, brought money and attention to an off-year election that otherwise would have commanded little notice outside Virginia. Bill Clinton appeared at five rallies across the state for McAuliffe, lent his voice to radio commercials and recorded telephone endorsements to help get out the vote. Clinton also attended a fundraiser at McAuliffe's...

For the last few years Monica Lewinsky has done her best to avoid the limelight. The 35-year-old is rarely seen in public, but was out-and-about in New York with her actor friend Alan Cumming yesterday.

NEW YORK (AP) — Terry McAuliffe's crushing defeat in Virginia's gubernatorial primary is the latest blow to former President Bill Clinton's political legacy, still reeling from Hillary Rodham Clinton's loss to Barack Obama in last year's Democratic presidential contest. McAuliffe, a longtime fundraiser and close friend of both Clintons, brought money and attention to an off-year election that otherwise would have commanded little notice outside Virginia. Bill Clinton appeared at five rallies across the state for McAuliffe, lent his voice to radio commercials and recorded telephone endorsements to help get out the vote. Clinton also attended a fundraiser at McAuliffe's...

On Thursday, Josh Meyer of the Los Angeles Times broke the story that the FBI is edging the CIA out of the business of fighting international terrorism. Under the bureau’s “global justice” initiative, Meyer reported that “FBI agents will have a central role in overseas counter-terrorism cases. They will expand their questioning of suspects and evidence-gathering to try to ensure that criminal prosecutions are an option.” Who needs a War on Terror, or even an “overseas contingency operation,” when all the world’s a crime scene? If you’re thinking, “Hey, we’ve seen this movie before,” you’re right. Slowly but surely, it’s...

Begin my translation: From a dispatch in Seoul per Japanese JIJI wire services, North Korea's Central News Agency [KCNA] on Wednesday, May 27th said that with South Korea's threatened "total" participation in the PSI Initiative (which allows North Korean ships to be stopped and checked by various nations for nuclear weapons being exported) that it amounts to a "declaration of war against North Korea". The statement was released by the North Korean military representative in Panmunjom military armistace area. He iterated that from now on, South Korean and American vessels traveling in the Yellow Sea (West Sea, just off...

New York (AP) -- Longtime fundraiser Norman Hsu was convicted Tuesday of violating campaign finance laws in a case that became an embarrassment to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other prominent Democrats. Prosecutors had argued that Hsu, 58, used straw donors to make thousands of dollars in campaign donations to bypass rules limiting the amount any single individual or group can donate. Hsu's defense argued he was framed by investors who cut deals with the government to avoid prosecution.

A new exhibition featuring preserved dead bodies having sex opened in Berlin on Thursday with critics saying a maverick German anatomist dubbed "Doctor Death" has gone too far this time. The couple, part of Gunther von Hagens's exhibition "The Cycle of Life", is the "low point in his tastelessness", Michael Braun, culture expert from the conservative CDU party, told AFP. Von Hagens said his copulating couples show the sexual act in "bracing clarity".

As Judge Fernando Andreu of Spain's National Court decided on Monday to push on with the inquiry into a 2002 IAF bombing in Gaza that killed Hamas terrorist Salah Shehadeh and 14 others, Almagor, the Terror Victims Association, was finalizing a lawsuit against NATO personnel who approved bombings in Yugoslavia in the 1990s that killed some 2,500 civilians. In this July 23, 2002 photo, people sift through the rubble of a Gaza house destroyed in an IAF strike, in which Hamas military wing head Salah Shehadeh and 14 other people were killed. Photo: AP [file] SLIDESHOW: Israel & Region |...

Lanny Davis talks to Bill Clinton on release of the torture memos, and prosecution of Bush officials, from todays washingtontimes. No doubt Bill Clinton, deep down, would love to see Bush officials prosecuted, to level his image as President...

Police Swoop on Beijing University 2009-04-22 Comments by a Beijing professor enrage petitioners, who descend on his office and prompt a police crackdown. Police in Beijing move in on petitioners in the capital in several locations during a sensitive anniversary year. HONG KONG—Authorities in Beijing have begun moving to clear large numbers of people from the capital who have a grievance against the government as security tightens, with local residents and petitioners reporting detentions in several sensitive locations. Hundreds of protesters have traveled from all over China to the capital's prestigious Beijing University following recently reported remarks about petitioners by...

An international human rights group demanded Thursday that NATO be held accountable for civilian casualties in the bombing of Serbia's state television headquarters a decade ago, calling the attack a "war crime." Sixteen civilians were killed and 16 others injured during the attack on April 23, 1999, on the headquarters and studios of Radio Television Serbia in central Belgrade. Amnesty International called on NATO and its member states to ensure independent investigations, full accountability and redress for victims and their families.... ....The bombing was a part of a 78-day air-raid campaign against then-President Slobodan Milosevic to halt his onslaught against...

Barney Frank's Rental ReversalApril 21, 2009 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Now, we've got a couple Barney Frank spites here. He's always good for a couple sound bites. We thought about getting a Barney Frank translator in here but that would sorta destroy it. I mean, I can do it myself but sometimes it's better to leave Barney Frank un-translated. He was on Tavis Smiley's show, PBS, last night, and Smiley said, "What did you do today relative to low-income housing?" FRANK: One of the causes of the terrible crisis we had over the last few years, which has given us today's...

If the rumors are true, PetroChina, a Chinese “Government Controlled Entity” (pdf), is on the verge of buying McDermott International, a company that, as I understand things, is the U.S. Navy’s sole provider of nuclear fuel and nuclear fuel assemblies. McDermott, a Panama “based” corporate tax-avoider, also manages the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. (along with a lot of other critical national defense infrastructure. Take a look.)

Gan Yulan, a woman from a small town in Jianxi Province of China, was blindfolded and forced to have a sterilization operation by local township officials on March 23. Gan told a reporter that she was assaulted by the deputy director of the Local People's Congress on the way to the hospital and was forced to be sterilized without any family members present. Four officers took her into custody without showing any legal warrant. The officer who assaulted her on the way to the hospital was deputy director, Wang Xuebing. When asked why he hit her, Wang said: "You are...

Michael Montgomery BBC Radio 4, Crossing Continents The man spoke plainly as he explained the horrors he lived through in a Kosovo Liberation Army prison camp 10 years ago. He told me about how he watched people beaten with steel pipes, cut with knives, left for days without food, and shot and killed. Civilians were detained by the KLA and kept in prisons where some were killed "What can you feel when you see those things?" he said. "It's something that is stuck in my mind for the rest of my life. You cannot do those things to people, not...

I really went on a rant today about the number of out of wedlock pregnancies in the U.S. It's too long to post here but I'd love some feedback on it. K3nn3th aka Angry Black Man. HA!

The successful demonization of the Serbs, making them largely responsible for the Yugoslav wars, and as unique and genocidal killers, was one of the great propaganda triumphs of our era. It was done so quickly, with such uniformity and uncritical zeal in the mainstream Western media, that disinformation had (and still has, after almost two decades) a field day.The demonization flowed from the gullibility of Western interests and media (and intellectuals). With Yugoslavia no longer useful as an ally after the fall of the Soviet Union, and actually an obstacle as an independent state with a still social democratic bent,...

UNIONTOWN, Pa. — Police say a western Pennsylvania mother drugged her 13-year-old daughter so her boyfriend could get the girl pregnant. Uniontown police say 32-year-old Shana Brown is no longer able to have children, but wanted a baby with her boyfriend.

A western Pennsylvania mother has been charged with giving her 13-year-old daughter drugs and alcohol so the woman's boyfriend could impregnate the girl without her knowing, police said Thursday. Shana Brown, 32, is no longer able to have children but wanted to have a baby with her current boyfriend, Duane Calloway, said Uniontown Police Detective Donald Gmitter. The pair decided to drug the girl so Calloway, 40, could have sex with her, he added. "There's some sick people on this case," Gmitter said. Brown has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child. She turned herself in Thursday and...

In what has become an annual event over the last few years, there are another batch of rumors out of China that the DF-21 ballistic missile has been equipped with a high-explosive warhead and a guidance system that can find and hit a aircraft carrier at sea. The DF-21 has a range of 1800 kilometers and normally hauls a 300 kiloton nuclear warhead. It's a two stage, 15 ton, solid fuel rocket that could carry a half ton penetrating, high-explosive warhead, along with the special guidance system (a radar and image recognition system). As the story goes, the Chinese have...

EDMONTON -- Somewhere in the city, children as young as 11 and 12 are gathering in basements and playing intricate, graphic sex games. I first heard about these parties a few years ago from my 12-year-old daughter, who said kids at her school played games where each girl had to perform oral sex on several boys

VINA DEL MAR, Chile (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Saturday his country's relationship with Spain went beyond disagreement over a Spanish decision to pull troops out of Kosovo. Biden and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero held bilateral talks during a pre-G20 warm-up meeting of center-left leaders in the Chilean coastal resort of Vina del Mar on Saturday. "The relationship we have with Spain exceeds whatever disagreement we may have over Kosovo," Biden said at the end of the summit. "We talked about the need for expanding communications." .... Spain confirmed on Sunday it would...

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder jokingly asks U.S. President Barack Obama to stop talking during a ceremonial installation with his wife Dr. Sharon Malone at George Washington University in Washington, March 27, 2009 U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (L) acknowledges the crowd and applause of U.S. President Barack Obama during a ceremonial installation at George Washington University in Washington, March 27, 2009 U. S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., left, and Vivian Malone Jones' children, Michael Anthony and Monica Alicia, right, unveil a portrait of Jones Malone, first African American to graduate for the University of Alabama in 1965,...

It's become conventional wisdom that Alan Greenspan's Federal Reserve was responsible for the housing crisis. Virtually every commentator who blames Mr. Greenspan points to the low interest rates during his last few years at the Fed. [Commentary] Martin Kozlowski The link seems obvious. Everyone knows that the Fed can drive interest rates lower by pumping more money into the economy, right? Well, yes. But it doesn't follow that that's why interest rates were so low in the early 2000s. Other factors affect interest rates too. In particular, a sudden increase in savings will drive down interest rates. And such a...

A former college classmate, friend and financial account manager who handled money for former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to stealing $473,000 from Cisneros’ accounts over a three-year period. Cisneros’ former friend, Fred L. May III, appeared before Judge Orlando Garcia in U.S. District Court to plead guilty to a felony charge of fraud. The judge set May’s sentencing hearing for June 25. May was arrested on March 4, a day after the U.S. Attorney filed a federal lawsuit naming May as a financial account manager in San Antonio who had defrauded an unnamed...

SERBIANS marked the 10th anniversary of the start of a NATO blitz on the former federal republic of Yugoslavia on Tuesday with commemorations honouring over 3,000 victims. Air-raid sirens sounded at noon throughout the country, while schools opened classes with a minute's silence for the 89 children who were killed in the 78-day bombing campaign, which was initiated without UN security council backing. NATO claimed that it had launched Operation Allied Force in order to force then president Slobodan Milosevic to stop a military crackdown against Western-backed separatist insurgents in Kosovo province and pull out his troops. But the US...