Free Republic

I am President Obama’s classmate at Columbia University, Class of ’83. I am also one of the most accurate Las Vegas oddsmakers and prognosticators. Accurate enough that I was awarded my own star on the Las Vegas Walk of Stars. And I smell something rotten in Denmark. Obama has a big skeleton in his closet. It’s his college records. Call it “gut instinct” but my gut is almost always right. Obama has a secret hidden at Columbia- and it’s a bad one that threatens to bring down his presidency. Gut instinct is how I’ve made my living for 29 years since...

@mrubin1971Two news stories from recent weeks, if true, should raise a red flag in the United States that Iran is preparing to use Hezbollah to strike at U.S. interests in Latin America, if not in the United States itself.First, this story from the Lebanese news portal Naharnet and sourced in part to Israeli radio. The Naharnet story was taken down shortly after it appeared: Hezbollah is using a training base established by Iran in northern Nicaragua near the border with Honduras, the Israeli radio reported on Thursday [September 6]. “The area is cordoned off and there are around 30 members...

Will the Cartagena brothel case make an unwelcome reappearance in the middle of Barack Obama’s re-election efforts? That’s what sources from law enforcement and Capitol Hill told Fox News yesterday, saying that an upcoming report on the Secret Service scandal will also name two White House staffers as suspects: "Federal law enforcement personnel and a congressional committee are anxiously awaiting an overdue inspector general’s report that they believe may reveal the involvement of two White House advance team members in the Secret Service prostitution scandal in Colombia earlier this year." more at link-

The Mexican government will aim to follow the lead of Colombia in the fight against drug trafficking, according to the country's elected president. Enrique Peña Nieto, who met with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos on Tuesday, will take office in Mexico on December 1 and he has already revealed his desire to learn from Colombia’s strategy on drug control. Several drug cartels are currently in the midst of a fierce fight for power in Mexico, leading to continued violence which has allegedly left at least 55,000 people dead in six years. Peña Nieto will succeed current Mexican President Felipe Calderon...

U.S. weapons that were exported to Mexico as part of the controversial "Fast and Furious" program ended up in the hands of Colombia crime syndicate Oficina de Envigado, reported newspaper El Tiempo Monday. According to the newspaper, investigations by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) have established that some of the weapons found during the arrest of Oficina boss "Sebastian" were part of the thousands of arms lost in the Fast and Furious program. "Two rifles that were seized in February with "Frank," the brother of Sebastian also are part of the tracking operations of the ATF,...

Griselda Blanco, the drug kingpin known for her blood-soaked style of street vengeance during Miami’s “cocaine cowboys” era of the ’70s and ’80s, was shot to death in Medellin by a motorcycle-riding assassin Monday.

The US authorities say they have seized $150m (£95m) from a bank allegedly linked to a money-laundering scheme of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Last year, US officials accused the Lebanese Canadian Bank (LCB) of helping the group launder profits from drug trafficking and other crimes. The funds were allegedly used to ship cars from the US to West Africa, with the proceeds smuggled back to Lebanon. The US classifies Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation. "As we alleged last year, the Lebanese Canadian Bank played a key role in facilitating money laundering for Hezbollah-controlled organisations across the globe," the head...

Former GM Workers Sew Mouths Shut to Protest Work ConditionsPublished August 16, 2012 Fox News Latino Disabled workers from General Motors in Colombia have gone on a hunger strike and sewn their mouth shut with threads. The workers, who say they were injured on the job and then fired, want GM to give them other jobs. The workers, who’ve been camping out in front of the United States embassy in Bogotá for three weeks, say if they don’t get another job, they will die. “I have terrible pains in my stomach, my lips are swollen and sore, and I am...

The plea agreement drops robbery and battery charges against the man, who was to be released. A man who grabbed a stranger in downtown Roanoke in March pleaded guilty Thursday to attempted abduction. Mauricio Ramirez-Diaz, 22, initially had been charged with assault and battery and attempted robbery, but in June a Roanoke grand jury added abduction with attempt to defile and misdemeanor sexual battery to the counts against him. Through a plea agreement, prosecutors dismissed the robbery and battery charges and amended the abduction charge to a lesser felony. Ramirez-Diaz, who had been held since March, was given a two-year...

Excluding the cost of Colombian prostitutes for U.S. Secret Service agents, U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor has discovered that hotel rooms and rental vehicles alone for President Obama's scandal-plagued trip to Colombia cost taxpayers nearly $1 million. Slated for inclusion in the presidential entourage had been "the Secretary of State, several other Cabinet members, and at least one CODEL," or congressional delegation, according to U.S. Department of State planning documents that the Monitor has obtained. The trip called for the rental of 1,046 hotel rooms at 13 separate establishments in Cartegena, Colombia, where the sixth annual Summit of the Americas...

One of the Colombian escorts at the center of the Secret Service scandal emerged from hiding today, recounting in detail her night in Cartagena with a member of President Obama's protective detail and saying she fears for her safety. Dania Suarez, a 24-year old dark-haired beauty, appeared on a call-in show carried by Colombia's W Radio and Carocol Television Friday morning, telling callers the agent was "heavily intoxicated" and everything in his luggage and his papers was left open in his room and could have been easily stolen.

What the Secret Service could learn from drunken sailors Roberto Loiederman, a merchant seaman from 1966 to 1974, is a writer in California. He co-authored “The Eagle Mutiny,” an account of the 1970 mutiny on a U.S. vessel. What happened in Cartagena, Colombia, with the Secret Service seems unsavory to me, but not for the reasons you might think. I make no judgments about men spending a night with escorts. As far as I’m concerned, those who take a holier-than-thou attitude about this are like Inspector Renault in “Casablanca” when he says he’s “shocked, shocked” to discover there is gambling...

It was easy to see this coming. When the news about Secret Service agents hooking up with prostitutes in Columbia first broke we were told there were 11 men (some reports had it at 12) being investigated. Immediately we heard six were kicked out leaving; five “still under investigation.” In this case “under investigation” meant being squeezed to see if they would break and roll on their partners. Three decided to clam up and take whatever was coming instead of turning on their teammates. That left two. Any good cop knows why those two weren’t immediately fired. They handed up...

The investigation into the Colombia prostitution scandal has broadened to include the White House Communications Agency, Nextgov has learned. Laura Williams, a spokeswoman for the Defense Information Systems Agency, which manages the White House office that provides the president with secure communications, confirmed that one individual from WHCA is under investigation, but could not provide any more details at this time.

Secret Service Colombian Hooker Prostitute Brought to Light By Paula Reid, South American Chief & Rising Black Star in AgencyThe Secret Service officer responsible for the recall of 11 agents in a dispute with Colombian prostitutes over payment to Dania Suarez, has been revealed as Paula Reid, a rising black star in the agency. She recently became the head of the agency’s Miami office after 21 years on the force. Ms. Reid uncovered the scandal and alerted her superiors about the “egregious behavior” of the agents. Paula Reid was in Cartagena ahead of President Obama’s trip, laying the groundwork for...

f Six Secret Service agents quit the force over scandalPresident personally briefed on state of the investigationColombian prostitute at the hear of affair has gone into hidingSays she was eventually paid $225 for the eveningClaims to fear retaliation by the U.S. government The prostitutes involved in the Secret Service scandal that cost six agents their jobs may have been underage, according to a new report.A Colombian government official told a newspaper group that investigators from the Colombian attorney general’s office have questioned employees of the hotel in question, and the taxi driver who drove home the woman who triggered the...

Ms. Sandra Fluke is attached to an organization with high moral values, that places an emphasis on ethics, honesty and integrity. There is in fact not only a student code at Georgetown University, there also an ETHOS CODE , and there is also the history, tradition and mission statement of the Catholic university guiding certain behaviors (both on and off campus as stated and each student is to be aware of this).It is this very essence and aspect of core institutional values which "15-Minutes-of-Fame Sandra" very publicly whined about, mocked and assailed on national TV and also asserted that the...

Sarah Palin joined FOX News tonight to discuss the Secret Service prostitution scandal as well as the GSA spending scandal. Palin also reacted to news that broke this afternoon about another Secret Service scandal, this time involving her. "Well check this out, bodyguard -- you're fired. And I hope his wife sends him to the doghouse. As long as he's not eating the dog, along with his former boss. Greta, you know, a lot of people will just, I guess say that this is boys being boys. And boys will be boys, but they shouldn't be in positions of authority."

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter told radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday that Democratic attempts to highlight presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s wealth are not only unfair, but likely to backfire. Earlier this week, President Barack Obama said that he and his wife Michelle were not born with a “silver spoon” in their mouths, a comment which was widely considered to be a jab at Romney, the son of a successful CEO. Although Obama’s spokesman Jay Carney denied that was the case, the Democratic Party has been attacking the former Massachusetts governor in an effort to paint him as out-of-touch...

The Secret Service this week fired supervisors David Chaney and Greg Stokes following the incident immediately preceding President Barack Obama’s trip to Colombia for the Summit of the Americas. One of the agents, David Chaney, joked on Facebook that he checked out former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin while on assignment during the 2008 campaign. On his Facebook page, former Secret Service agent David Chaney admitted checking out former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin during the 2008 campaign. (CNN)