Free Republic

Putin says spies expelled from US had 'tough lives' Russian PM Vladimir Putin during a visit to Ukraine. Photo: 24 July 2010 Mr Putin said that the spies "had a tough life" Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says he has met the Russian agents recently deported from the US - and claimed they were living "tough lives" and had been "betrayed". He told journalists that he had sung Soviet-era patriotic songs with the agents. However, Mr Putin did not say where the meeting took place. The 10 Russians admitted in a US court earlier this month to being agents for...

Dear President Obama, Every citizen with a modicum of insight into public affairs would say that America is now at a crossroads of decision about what kind of future we want for our nation - and, by extension, for the rest of the world. Whether we like it or not, you are the one who is designated by a vote of the electorate to lead us in that decision-making process. You have asked for the job, and you have proposed yourself as being competent for it. History will judge your Administration on its own merits when your term is complete,...

War On Terror: Attempts to punish the Haditha Marines and Navy SEALs for their courage and bravery under fire failed. Now some would reward timidity and cowardice with a medal for "courageous restraint" under fire. A nonsensical proposal circulating in the Kabul headquarters of the International Security Forces in Afghanistan would give a medal to soldiers in battle who show restraint in the use of deadly force in situations where civilian casualties might result. This will not protect civilians as much as it will endanger the lives of our troops. Our soldiers are already disciplined and trained not to wantonly...

A trial attorney with the Department of Justice’s Voting Rights Section has resigned, citing concerns about the government’s refusal to prosecute a case involving voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party. A letter of resignation obtained by The Washington Examiner from a former Justice Department employee makes clear DOJ has refused to allow attorneys in the Voting Rights Section to testify before the congressionally-chartered bipartisan U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, despite subpoenas that could result in their being held in contempt. In his letter of resignation, J. Christian Adams said: **** I have incurred significant personal expense in retaining...

According to a search done by former British police detective Neil Sankey, now a U.S. citizen and a licensed private investigator in Los Angeles, Barack Obama reportedly has 27 different social security numbers under 21 different personal and/or familial name variations in 22 different states plus the District of Columbia. Along with PI Susan Daniels, Sankey generated a large social security public data base in his lengthy research project, titled “List of Properties associated with Barack Obama and his family.” Sankey’s research is featured in a web video entitled Dossier2MP4 produced by Jim Przybowski. The Sankey/ Daniels social security investigation...

Senior administration officials say that Faisal Shahzad was put on the no fly list on Monday at 12:30 pm ET. So how was he able to board the Emirates Airlines flight to Dubai? “It takes a few hours for the airlines system to catch up,” a senior administration official tells ABC news. Another senior administration official adds that Emirates refreshes their system to update with US intelligence information periodically – but not frequently. In any case, the first official says that airlines were “within minutes” of Shahzad being put on the no-fly list told to “look at a web-board” and...

WASHINGTON — Pentagon officials on Tuesday agreed to release some documents subpoenaed by the Senate Homeland Security Committee but still refuse to send witnesses to testify about the soldier accused in last fall’s deadly shooting at Fort Hood. Leslie Phillips, spokeswoman for the committee, in an e-mail called the decision “an affront to Congress’s Constitutional obligation to conduct independent oversight” and said that committee chairman Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., is weighing further legal action. But lawmakers may be limited in what they can do to force the Pentagon to comply with the subpoena, according to legal experts. At issue is...

In a speech to political allies gathered at Cape Canaveral last week, President Obama laid out his vision for America's space program. Under the Obama plan, NASA will spend $100 billion on human spaceflight over the next 10 years in order to accomplish nothing. Of course, that's not how Mr. Obama phrased it. But beneath the President's flowery rhetoric, that's how things add up. Here's the background. In 2004, the Bush administration launched a program called Constellation to develop a set of flight systems, including the Orion crew capsule and the Ares 1 and Ares 5 medium and heavy lift...

RUSSIA HAS warned that it could withdraw from a new nuclear arms reduction pact with the United States if it feels threatened by Washington’s planned missile defence system in central Europe. Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov issued the warning as his president, Dmitry Medvedev, and US counterpart Barack Obama prepared to head to the Czech Republic for tomorrow’s signing of a long-awaited treaty to cut their countries’ arsenals of deployed nuclear warheads by about a third. As Prague ramped up security for the visit of the two leaders, Mr Obama’s administration yesterday unveiled a new policy renouncing the development of new...

Two weeks after a conservative group disparaged Justice Department lawyers who previously represented terror suspects, Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday weighed in for the first time, calling such lawyers "patriots." “Those who reaffirm our nation’s most essential and enduring values do not deserve to have their own values questioned,” Holder told a group of lawyers who offer "pro bono," or voluntary, legal services. "Let me be clear about this: Lawyers who provide counsel for the unpopular are, and should be treated as what they are: patriots." The crowd, gathered to honor Holder with an award from the Washington-based Pro...

Two reviews outlining the Obama administration’s defense and security strategy have avoided any mention of anti-Muslim labels, reported the Washington Times on Friday, February 12. "(President Barack Obama) had made it clear as we are looking at counterterrorism that our principal focus is al Qaeda and global violent extremism,” David Heyman, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Policy, said. “And that is the terminology and language that has been articulated." A 108-page review by the Homeland Security Department has dropped any reference to words such as “Islamists” and “Islamic”. Instead, the document used the terms of “Al-Qaeda”, “terrorist”, “extremist” and “violent...

Frank lauds Dodd fight for US financial watchdog2010-02-09 19:24 WASHINGTON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - A senior U.S. lawmaker on Tuesday said he supports Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd's fight for the Obama administration's proposed independent financial consumer watchdog agency. "I welcome Senator Dodd's intention to fight to preserve an independent consumer agency," said House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, adding that past consumer protection failures helped cause the financial crisis. "Those who cite safety and soundness as a major reason to oppose increased consumer protection have it exactly backwards. In fact, the inability to protect consumers from abuse...

On Monday, the nation’s capital was still digging out from the weekend’s record snowfall that would effectively shut down the federal government for days. Making matters worse was the awareness among DC residents that their shoveling would require a repeat performance quite soon, as another major winter storm was due to hit early Wednesday. What a perfect day to announce the formation of a new federal agency to study and report on global warming.

While many accounts have been written about the extremely 'shady' dealings which Goldman Sachs has/had with AIG – which led directly to AIG's $180 billion bail-out – unless I've missed it, one of the key issues has been soft-pedaled and another has been ignored altogether. These two topics which I intend to discuss are a) that Goldman Sachs used AIG as its financial 'toilet'; and b) that Goldman Sachs had begun openly and deliberately misrepresenting assets/investments to investors starting in 2006 or 2007 – at a time when all the other banker-oligarchs were continuing to assert their “mark to model”...

In an oped in USA Today, John Brennan -- Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism -- responds to critics of the Obama administration's counterterrorism policies by saying "Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda." Brennan writes that, "Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill." In the oped, titled "'We need no lectures': Administration disrupts terrorists’ plots, takes fight to them abroad," Brennan writes that politics "should never get in the way of national security. But too many in...

On February 2nd, NBC correspondent Pete Williams announced Breaking News during the 5 PM ET edition of Hardball: the Christmas Day Bomber, Umar Abdul Mutallab, was giving fresh, actionable information to the FBI which the United States is in turn "aggressively chasing down." Less than an hour later, this NewsBuster [AKA FReeper governsleast] blogged on the matter, wondering whether by leaking the news, "the Obama administration compromised national security," in an attempt to deflect the criticism it had been receiving for mirandizing Mutallab rather than treating him like the enemy combatant he is. On today's Fox News Watch, panelist Jim...

As he professes to want to reduce the dangerous budget deficit, Obama brings to mind the hapless engineers at Toyota who find that their vehicles accelerate whether or not the driver wants them to. It appears that no matter how hard Obama jams on the brakes with his new-found commitment to deficit reduction -- having already almost doubled the deficit in one year -- the level of red ink just seems inexorably to rise. Obviously, more fundamental change in the budget's engineering is needed. But, unfortunately, it is easier to recall a car than a president. Obama's announced intention to...

There is a saying in police work and in military service that certain very noxious, offensive substances always roll downhill. That is to say, foul-ups instigated by bad policy will always be blamed on the lowest possible links in the chain of command. Such is the case now in Afghanistan. Diana West writes extensively about U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal’s (pictured above with CIC Obama) “hearts and minds” Afghanistan counter-insurgency campaign: Sacrificing American lives by denying artillery and air support to our ground troops pinned down under heavy enemy fire is acceptable, because artillery and bombs may cause collateral damage...

Has the Obama administration compromised national security by leaking the fact that it's obtaining actionable intelligence from Umar Mutallab? On this afternoon's Hardball, Justice Department correspondent Pete Williams reported the breaking news that Obama admin officials have told him that the Christmas Day bomber, Umar Mutallab, is providing actionable, fresh intelligence. View video here.

He's the expert's expert on this issue and it's impossible to ignore his reasoning!In an op-ed in Sunday's Washington Post Former CIA Director Michael Hayden describes how the political decisions taken by Obama and his Dept. of Justice have undermined our national security. Covering areas like CIA interrogations and the KSM trial, the op-ed deserves to be read in full. The following excerpts deal primarily with the issues raised by the handling of the Christmas Day aka "Underwear" Bomber: Obama administration takes several wrong paths in dealing with terrorism By Michael V. HaydenWashington Post Sunday, January 31, 2010 ...We got...