Free Republic

You wouldn’t know it from the cable news crapstorm currently going on over Donald Trump’s 2006 bus ride with Billy Bush, but there was another Wikileaks document drop yesterday. While there’s plenty of material to dig through, the Daily Caller almost immediately highlighted one item which could involve a violation of the law on the part of the Clinton campaign. Super PACs and other outside groups spending big money on political advertising aren’t supposed to be coordinating with the campaigns they support, but at least one email exchange between Clinton campaign chair John Podesta and an organization run by Democrat...

Russia and Iran have stepped up coordination inside Syria as they move to safeguard President Bashar al-Assad’s control over his coastal stronghold, according to officials in the U.S. and Middle East, creating a new complication for Washington’s diplomatic goals. Senior Russian and Iranian diplomats, generals and strategists have held a string of high-level talks in Moscow in recent months to discuss Mr. Assad’s defense and the Kremlin’s military buildup in Syria, according to these officials. U.S. officials said they haven’t unraveled the full extent of the cooperation or its intention. “We assume [the Russian buildup in Syria is] being coordinated...

A group of anti-Israel activists and journalists are engaged in a coordinated campaign to stifle criticism of controversial secretary of defense nominee Chuck Hagel by attacking the former Republican senator’s critics, according to emails obtained by the Free Beacon. Fenton communications chief executive officer David Fenton, the Atlantic’s national correspondent James Fallows, former diplomat Charles ‘Chas’ Freeman, Just Foreign Policy director Robert Naiman, and American Conservative founding editor Scott McConnell participated in a recent email exchange dedicated to silencing Hagel’s critics, the emails reveal. The emailers targeted recent comments made by Elliott Abrams, a former Bush administration National Security Council...

(5th LD) N. Korea gives notice of satellite launch in early April By Kim Hyun SEOUL, March 12 (Yonhap) -- North Korea gave a notice that it will launch a satellite between April 4-8, an international agency said Thursday, prompting brisk talks among regional countries to prepare their coordinated measures. Pyongyang's state media said earlier in the day that it has informed the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) of the planned launch, without specifying the date. The IMO confirmed it has received a letter from Pyongyang that said the launch would be between April...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2007 – The departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs have partnered to put in place 10 federal recovery coordinators charged with managing the care of severely injured servicemembers and their families for as long as a lifetime. Officials from the two departments today signed an agreement outlining the role of the coordinators. These are the first positions of their kind in the military health care system and were put into place in response to recommendations from servicemembers, families and by the President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors. “This agreement will help ensure our...

MANAMA, Bahrain (NNS) -- The U.S. Naval Forces Central Command’s (NAVCENT) command center answered a distress call from the owner of the Indian-flagged merchant vessel Kayana, after the ship sank off the coast of Somalia, June 22. Lt. j.g. Brad Fancher, NAVCENT’s watch commander at the time, received the call. He then set in motion the chain of events that led to the safe rescue of Kayana’s 18 crew members. “I called the Rescue Coordination Center [RCC] in Falmouth, England, because they coordinate most rescue operations around the world,” said Fancher, a native of Lumberton, Texas. After the vessel sank,...

2/2/2006 - EASTERN AFGHANISTAN (AFPN) -- The sounds of cargo aircraft echo through the Afghan hillside. Families huddle against their makeshift homes, watching air-dropped bundles glide to the ground. These deliveries contain blankets, firewood, medical supplies and food -- a gesture of compassion and a foundation to build on. Since October 2004, the men and women of the air mobility division at the Combined Air Operation Center in Southwest Asia have planned and executed missions, airdropping more than 2.1 million pounds of humanitarian aid throughout Afghanistan. “The Afghan people see things dropping out of our aircraft, and they know these...

Senate and Assembly Democrats announced plans this week for a coordinated statewide campaign to take on parts of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget, which leaders charged borrows ideas from "right-wing think tanks" and hurts middle-class families. Democratic leaders said they will present an alternate plan to the governor's $111.7 billion budget proposal, including his plans to freeze spending for schools, highways and the poor. They said they will seek to seal off tax loopholes and to win more federal money for the state instead of calling for raising taxes, but would not categorically rule out a tax hike. They also reacted...