Free Republic

On Wednesday September 12, 2012 blogger Speak With Authority discovered that five days before 9-11, the US State Department sent out a memo announcing no credible security threats against the United States on the anniversary of 9-11. The Overseas Security Advisory Council, who posted the memo, is part of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security under the U.S. Department of State. The OSAC memo said: Terrorism and Important Dates Global 9/6/2012 OSAC currently has no credible information to suggest that al-Qa’ida or any other terrorist group is plotting any kind of attack overseas to coincide with the upcoming anniversary of September...

The audacity of the Obama administration never ceases to amaze. On Friday, they threatened to veto a defense appropriations bill because it, in part, does not include hikes in healthcare fees for members of the military. The House bill  passed 299-120 in May. The official policy statement offers this objection: TRICARE Fees and Co-Payments.  The Administration is disappointed that the Congress did not incorporate the requested TRICARE fee initiatives into either the appropriation or authorization legislation.  The Administration asks the House to reconsider the TRICARE fee proposals, which are essential for DOD to successfully address rising personnel costs.  The $1.8...

Anyone who was following the news, this week, had to be shocked at the immediate, smash-mouth response from the Obama White House to the Supreme Court's ruling to uphold the most important part of the Arizona immigration law. He ordered his entire administration and all the government agencies to IGNORE any immigration violations reported by Arizona law enforcement. "If Arizona calls, hang up" is basically what he told his people. At the same time he provided a toll free number for illegals to call to report any perceived profiling by Arizona authorities. And, of course, the harassment of sheriff Joe...

Air Force One turned to Air Force Waaaaahhhh yesterday in Atlanta. Barack Obama tied up lunch time traffic in the Peach State once again while he milked it for money. During a public speech, President Obama formally abdicated his role as Commander in Chief to become Chief Victim. Those dirty Republicans are outspending him, he cried to a sympathetic audience. In fact, this may be the first time Barack Obama has ever been outspent and he just can’t handle rejection. In 2008, the Annenberg Public Policy Center reported that Barack Obama outspent John McCain 3 to 1 and “raised more...

The normally-reserved Yves Smith asks whether Obama should be impeached over it. Democratic Senator Wyden – the head of the committee which is supposed to oversee it – is so furious about the lack of access that he has introduced legislation to force disclosure. Republican House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa is so upset by it that he has leaked a document on his website to show what’s going on. What is everyone so furious about? An international treaty being negotiated in secret which would not only crack down on Internet privacy much more than SOPA or ACTA, but would...

If you are still listening to those in the political class who are falling over each other to condemn leaks from the government to the media, you'd think the leaks had revealed private information in which the public has no legitimate interest, or perhaps a planned secret government mission to rescue innocents. Neither is the case. Republicans and Democrats in Congress, most of them from the House and Senate intelligence committees, have blasted the White House for leaking to The New York Times and others the existence of President Obama's secret kill list and his cyber-warfare against Iran. According to...

Within days of SEAL Team Six's killing of Osama on that midnight mission in Pakistan, Defense Secretary Bob Gates, reading all about the raid in the press, went to the White House to tell President Obama's national security adviser pungently to "shut the (bleep) up." Leaked secrets of that raid may have led to the imprisonment for 33 years of a Pakistani doctor who helped us locate bin Laden. Yet, according to Judicial Watch, the White House has been providing Hollywood with details of the raid for a movie that will, we may be sure, heroize our commander in chief....

By opening an investigation into the leaks of classified information, the Obama White House appears to be entering the kind of perilous Fill-In-The-Blank-Gate terrain that has eventually engulfed most administrations in the modern era. The pattern: an initial investigation launched to relieve mounting political pressure snowballs into a much larger scandal, leaving a trail of broken careers in its wake. And the beginnings of that pattern are in place: Attorney General Eric Holder Friday appointed two federal prosecutors to oversee multiple FBI investigations into leaks involving stories in recently published books and articles in the New York Times, AP, and...

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," June 11, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. "..PAT CADDELL, FORMER DEMOCRATIC POLLSTER: I'll make news -- the culprit is clear. It's Tom Donilon, the National Security adviser. Tom Donilon is a political hack. He was a political operative. He was the delegate counter for Carter and then Mondale. And he is now running around -- he was also the guy working with Jim Johnson, corrupting Fannie Mae. And somehow, he is National Security adviser and he is known in Washington as the leaker in...

A new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) so secret it has no name yet has been successfully tested in Russia, the defence ministry says. The new weapon is designed to penetrate Nato's European missile defence shield, Russian defence sources told the Interfax news agency. The test came days after Nato said its system had reached "interim operational capability". Nato says its shield is meant to protect members from a missile fired by a rogue state - understood to mean Iran. It plans to increase its capability by deploying further assets in the years ahead. However, Russia says the shield upsets the...

The letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta suggests the administration waited until Daqduq was in Iraqi custody before filing murder, terrorism and other charges. It also states the administration intentionally kept information from Capitol Hill lawmakers, who learned about the purported charges and Daqduq’s ordered release through New York Times stories. “Eight pages of charges ... appears to indicate that either the administration was purposefully withholding information from Congress or it had not done the due diligence required to file charges,” states the letter signed by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the committee’s ranking GOP lawmaker,...

This week, the Obama administration quietly released $1.5 billion in foreign aid to the new Egyptian government, now dominated by a Brotherhood-led coalition in parliament — soon to be joined by an Ikhwan (i.e., Brotherhood) luminary as president.

As President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ended a public conference in South Korea (a nation demonstrably threatened by North Korean ballistic missiles), a still-open microphone inadvertently recorded a stunning tete-a-tete. The brief but jaw-dropping act of personal diplomacy yoked U.S. and Russian arguments over missile defense systems, a serious international security issue of long-term geo-strategic consequence, to Obama's short-term domestic political plan to secure his own re-election come November. The whispered exchange: Obama: "On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved, but it's important for him (Putin) to give me space." Medvedev:...

Ronald Reagan, together with Margaret Thatcher, stood up to Moscow, and brought the Soviet Empire to its knees. In contrast, Barack Obama has gone on his knees to grovel before the Russians. The exchange between President Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in Seoul was a display of supplication before a major strategic adversary on an issue of great importance for US national security – missile defence. -excerpt- Barack Obama’s comments are disturbing on several levels. First, they display a willingness to placate America’s enemies, and cede ground over issues of national interest. Second, Obama is linking foreign policy...

Whoever chooses to merely dismiss the significance of today’s exchange between our President and Russia’s President should have their intelligence and patriotism questioned. Let this exchange be a warning to voters: President Obama will have “more flexibility” to weaken us if he’s re-elected in November. He was caught speaking candidly to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev before a “hot mic” today (and surely one must believe he didn’t know the mics were still on; surely he’s not so audacious as to purposefully broadcast his intentions), as reported by ABC’s Jake Tapper. Here’s the exchange: President Obama: On all these issues, but...

Obama tells Russia to give him time... 'I will transmit this information to Vladimir'...

The US government is sending an arms shipment to Egypt – a former US ally that just elected an anti-American Islamic regime into power. The Arab Times reported, via Lucianne: Amnesty International has called on the United States to clarify the final destination of an arms shipment it said was headed to Egypt, in a statement late on Thursday. The London-based rights group had earlier said the shipment may be abused by Egyptian security forces, which had fired at protesters in deadly protests in recent months. But the US Navy said the shipment would not be offloaded in Egypt without...

Having just attended Sheriff Joe Arpaio's "Cold Case Posse" news conference in Phoenix, Arizona, we candidly admit we have never seen a greater example of raw media bias in our 30 years of watching the fourth estate. Arpaio organized the cold case five-member law enforcement posse last year to investigate allegations that the Obama birth certificate released to the public by the White House on April 27, 2011 might be a forgery, and he said he constituted the posse after a request by 250 Maricopa County citizens. In less than an hour, Arpaio's team laid out a compelling case that...

In response to weekend reports that the United States is close to a deal for the release of five Taliban leaders from Guantanamo prison, Rep. Rohrabacher issued the following statement: “The Taliban is a terrorist organization responsible for the death and maiming of hundreds of Americans in Afghanistan, and were in league with al-Qaida when 3,000 people were murdered in the U.S. on 9/11,” said Rohrabacher. “While President Obama refuses to talk to America’s natural allies in Afghanistan, the Northern Front, he is in the processes of making one-sided concessions to the Taliban that will put some of its worst...

It isn’t just Richard Cordray. Obama is also set to use recess appointments to install his picks to the National Labor Relations Board, according to White House officials and others familiar with ongoing discussions. The move, which is arguably as impotant as the Cordray appointment, will ratchet up opposition from Republicans and make this an even bigger fight, since they have been attacking the NLRB regularly for its moves to streamline union elections and inform workers of their rights. Obama is set to appoint Sharon Block, Terence Flynn, and Richard Griffin to the board — something unions have made a...