Free Republic

Every fall, it seems, Americans are subjected to the ugly spectacle of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad coming to New York to address the UN General Assembly. There, at the podium, he is placed on a par with President Obama, Prime Minister David Cameron, France's Francois Hollande, and other leaders of civilized states. Ahmadinejad has used this podium to spew his anti-American, anti-Israel hatred. And yet he receives hearty applause from the Islamist delegates seated before him. Iran signed the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights as long ago as 1948. That's when Iran was ruled by the Shah. That UNDHR contains...

A string of bomb attacks across Iraq killed at least 50 people on Monday and wounded 144 more, police and hospital sources said, in one of the bloodiest days in the past weeks. Violence in Iraq has eased since the height of sectarian slaughter in 2006-2007, but insurgents still carry out deadly attacks, especially around the capital, and deadly car bombs on Sunday shattered a lull in violence in the lead-up to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which started on Saturday. …

Somalia's Islamist al Shabaab militants said on Sunday they had executed three of their own members for treason, two of them for guiding U.S. missiles to kill fellow militants. … Al Shabaab, which is affiliated with al Qaeda, said last January that a missile launched from a drone had killed Bilal el Berjawi, a Lebanese al Shabaab fighter with a British passport. Another missile killed four foreign militants south of the Somali capital Mogadishu in February, according to an intelligence officer. …

Questions about Huma Abedin By Andrew C. McCarthy July 21, 2012 4:00 A.M. Der Spiegel pointed out the obvious: “A certain role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the transition process [to ‘democracy’] in Egypt seems acceptable to the Obama White House.” It was early February 2011, the moment when the uprising that would oust Hosni Mubarak was bubbling over in Tahrir Square. The prominent German newsmagazine figured, who better to ask about the Muslim Brotherhood than the American political establishment’s resident foreign-policy genius, John McCain? So, the reporter asked him, does Obama’s tolerance of the Muslim Brotherhood “concern you”? Senator...

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has fled Syria's capital of Damascus for his family's coastal stronghold in Latakia, according to news sources. Opposition sources and a Western diplomat told London's Telegraph that the strongman was in thel city of Latakia, and was directing a response to yesterday's bombing of a cabinet meeting. "Our information is that [Assad] is at his palace in Latakia and that he may have been there for days," a senior opposition figure, who declined to be named, told Reuters. The palace, which Assad has used before to conduct official business, is located in hills near the city,...

The head of Iran’s cultural heritage and tourism organization believes that in addition to economic sanctions, the West is launching another kind of “soft war” on the Islamic republic. Speaking at a ceremony to introduce the nation’s new meteorological department chief, Hassan Mousavi, said that he was “suspicious about the drought in the southern part of the country.” He went on to accuse the West as using “technology” to influence the nation’s climate, saying sand storms, droughts, and other extreme weather were the result of an unspecified method of war. … Last year, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused Western countries...

Why are counter jihad blogs (the less than a handful left) the only ones covering these critical news stories: Chicago imam: “Qital [killing] is an essential element of Islam" July 16, 2012, Creeping Sharia via Sharia 101 from a Muslim American perspective: Silence is not an option! | Just Piper (thanks to David) In a speech by Abdul Malik Mujahid, Columbus, Ohio, September 1995., he puts out a Conference calling for Jihad: Consider the following statement: Qital [killing] is an essential element of Islam. And sometimes you don’t like it. Qital is ordained upon you, though it is hateful to...

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came and went and nothing changed, not even the hot weather, except that the U.S.-led “peace process” was left behind in lost baggage. The only question is if it was lost in Washington or Jerusalem. .....

CAIRO (Reuters) - Protesters threw tomatoes and shoes at U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's motorcade on Sunday during her first visit to Egypt since the election of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi. A tomato struck an Egyptian official in the face, and shoes and a water bottle landed near the armoured cars carrying Clinton's delegation in the port city of Alexandria. A senior state department official said that neither Clinton nor her vehicle, which were around the corner from the incident, were struck by any of the projectiles. Protesters chanted: "Monica, Monica", a reference to Former President Bill Clinton's extra-marital...

The first reports said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Egypt to convince the powerful military to hand the reins of power to "civilians," apparently meaning the Muslim Brotherhood. Before she could make her case, Field Marshall Mohamed Hussein Tantawi announced the army would prevent Egypt from falling under the control of the Muslim Brotherhood (which he did not name but referred to as a "certain group)." Hillary, disadvantaged by the weight of her pantsuit, but still resilient in that uniquely American way, quickly tread the murky waters of politicking and offered bribes. Some influential Christian leaders boycotted her...

US SECRETARY of State Hillary Clinton has been taunted by chants of "Monica, Monica" by tomato-throwing demonstrators as she visited the Egyptian port city of Alexandria. The chants, referring to the Monica Lewinsky scandal when her husband, Bill Clinton, was president, were heard outside the US consulate as she visited for its reopening. An embarrassed Egyptian security official said they were chanting "Monica, Monica" and "Irhal, Clinton" (Get out, Clinton.) Tomatoes, shoes and a water bottle were thrown at part of Mrs Clinton's motorcade as it pulled up, protected by riot police, although a US official said Mrs Clinton's...

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday that the United States and Israel are now on the same page regarding Iran. "It's absolutely fair to say that we are on the same page at this moment trying to figure our way forward to have the maximum impact on affecting the decisions that Iran makes," Clinton said during a press conference in Jerusalem. Clinton said that the proposals Iran has made on its nuclear program in the P5+1 talks were "non-starters." She said that Iran is under more pressure than ever before, and that the U.S. would prefer a diplomatic...

Islamic extremists destroyed another two mausoleums in the northern Malian city of Timbuktu on Tuesday, attacking a graveyard attached to the city's most picturesque mosque, according to a historian specializing in the area's heritage. Salem Ould Elhadj, a researcher at the Ahmed Baba Institute in Timbuktu, said the members of the radical sect set out with picks and shovels to raze the tombs of two of Timbuktu's scholars, Baba Babadje and Mahamane Foulane, both of whom are considered saints. Their mausoleums are in a cemetery attached to the nearly 700-year-old Djingareyber mosque, built in 1325. It's made of mud and...

Newly empowered Republicans in states across the country are pushing to kill public contracts with Planned Parenthood, only to find their efforts blocked by the Obama administration and federal courts. In New Hampshire, the administration circumvented officials by awarding a $1 million grant directly to the nation’s largest provider of abortion services after state officials blocked a grant to the organization. Every federal district court that has ruled so far has sided with Planned Parenthood. That has helped the administration, which has threatened to cut off states’ Medicaid funding if they refuse to work with the organization. The clashes have...

Jim Jones’ sinister grip on San Francisco How the Peoples Temple cult leader ensnared Harvey Milk and other progressive icons “Season of the Witch,” the new book by Salon founder David Talbot, tells the story of the wild and bloody birth of “San Francisco values.” The following excerpt – Part 1 in a three-part series -- recounts one of the darker dramas before the ultimate triumph of those values. Jim Jones, the strange and charismatic leader of Peoples Temple, proved a master at politically wiring San Francisco in the mid-1970s. The driven preacher had begun his climb up the political...

An elderly woman was left on the floor at a care home for up to ten minutes because a nurse was praying, an inquest heard. Alzheimer's sufferer Dorothy Griffiths, 87, was found sitting down after staff heard a bang and a carer went to the office for help to lift her. But agency nurse Abdul Bhutto, who was in charge, said they would have to wait. Carer Zoe Shaw told the Sheffield hearing: "It took between five and ten minutes because he was praying upstairs in the office on his prayer mat. A staff member told me we had to...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – How strongly does Barack Obama believe in unlimited abortions? Strongly enough that the only article he wrote for the Harvard Law Review while he was a law school student talked about how fervently believed in legalized abortion. Obama’s name wasn’t attached to any other legal scholarship during the time. In an article unearthed by the Politico web site, Obama, as the president of the Harvard Law Review, wrote an unsigned article touting abortion. The web site says the article comes in at six pages and is contained in the third volume of the 1990 Harvard Law...

The debate over abortion comes down to one essential issue — the moral status of the unborn child. Those making the case for the legalization of abortion argue that the developing fetus lacks a moral status that would trump a woman’s desire to abort the child. Those arguing against abortion do so by making the opposite claim; that the unborn child, precisely because it is a developing human being, possesses a moral status by the very fact of its human existence that would clearly trump any rationale offered for its willful destruction. This central issue is often obscured in both...

A new UN atomic watchdog agency report raises concerns about Iran's rapid expansion of enrichment activities, as well as its continued foot-dragging in refusing to answer questions about suspected military dimensions of its nuclear program. But the new assessment also hinted at possible technical problems Iran is experiencing, nuclear experts said