Free Republic

FORT HOOD — The past few days have featured harrowing testimony from witnesses and victims who described the gruesome, blood-soaked scene inside the medical processing center where Maj. Nidal Hasan killed 13. Yesterday columnist Ken Herman sat in the courtroom and described the scene in today’s Statesman: In a day of often harrowing testimony — “It was squirting across the room,” victim Mick Engnehl testified when asked how he knew he was bleeding — I found the most disturbing moments to be the silent ones, when prosecutors, in advance of offering them as evidence, handed Hasan small containers holding bullets...

FORT HOOD — Update 1:39 p.m.: During the height of the November 2009 shooting, Sgt. First Class Maria Guerra barricaded herself and two others in her office and listened to the rapid fire of gunshots and screaming of victims. Amid the chaos, she heard a woman’s voice yell out “Please, don’t, please don’t! My baby, my baby!” It was an apparent reference to Pvt. Francheska Velez, a 21-year-old from Chicago who had just returned from Iraq and was pregnant when she was killed during the rampage. Moments later she heard gunshots and the voice go silent. At that point Thursday,...

The Army psychiatrist behind the shooting rampage at Fort Hood nearly four years ago called himself a "mujahideen" in a short and unrepentant opening statement at his military trial, which will likely feature the bizarre spectacle of him questioning his own victims.

With only 69 days until the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges open for enrollment, Obama administration officials face major logistical and structural challenges. This two-part blog series details some of the major issues with ACA implementation. This post, Part I of the series, highlights various logistical problems, while Part II will focus more specifically on fraud and consumer privacy-related concerns. Delayed Enforcement of the Employer Mandate The Obama Administration acknowledged July 3rd the necessity to delay a major component of the ACA, the “employer mandate,” until 2015. The provision requires employers with more than 50 workers to provide their employees...

Aafia Siddiqui is a MIT-trained neuroscientist who married a top Al Qaeda operative who intended to blow up gas stations or poison water reservoirs in the United States. She is known as “Lady Al Qaeda,” and was convicted of attempting to murder Americans in Afghanistan after she was found with plans for a “mass casualty attack” in the United States, along with a list of New York landmarks. Aafia Siddiqui named Farha Ahmed as her legal counsel in a handwritten letter in October of 2010. Farha Ahmed was running for office in Texas. Farha Ahmed was the leader of the...

War On Terror: The jury has been selected and the trial date set for the jihadist accused of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 of attempted premeditated murder acting, as he says, in defense of the Taliban. Army Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford has not received a phone call from Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. Nor does the African-American veteran who was shot seven times by Maj. Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood expect to. He is merely relieved that nearly four years after the massacre at the Army base in Texas, a jury has finally been selected and a trial date...

GREENVILLE, PITT COUNTY - NewsChannel 12 has learned new details on what police seized at the home of the suspect in the Greenville shooting spree. According to the latest search warrant, investigators took a copy of the Qur'an, the holy text of Islam, and other Muslim books from the apartment of 23-year-old Lakim Anthony Faust, 23, has been charged with four counts of attempted first-degree murder. Police said the suspect used a pistol-grip shotgun, similar to the one shown here. According to the latest search warrant, investigators took a copy of the Qur'an, the holy text of Islam, and other...

This is not in the news yet. The article is a press release from family and friends of a Homeowner jailed for "domestic terrorism" after challenging fraudulent foreclosure records -- nothing related to terrorism in any way. The government is using domestic terrorism charges (five felony counts!) to go after a citizen who challenged the banks' authority to foreclose on her home without due process. This is pure fascism.

It's becoming increasingly difficult to give the government the benefit of the doubt in regards to dragnet domestic surveillance. Even before Glenn Greenwald published a top secret court order compelling Verizon to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems and interviewed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, there were credible reports that the NSA was intercepting U.S. communications. The most significant of those occurred in July, when the court that was established to "hear applications for and grant orders approving electronic surveillance," called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), found that the NSA violated the Fourth Amendment's restriction...

The Department of Defense confirms to NBC 5 Investigates that accused Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan has now been paid more than $278,000 since the Nov. 5, 2009 shooting that left 13 dead 32 injured. The Army said under the Military Code of Justice, Hasan’s salary cannot be suspended unless he is proven guilty.

Bill Ayers, the 1960's radical who went on to become a college professor and associate of President Obama, said Saturday the bombings he helped the Weather Underground carry out to protest the Vietnam War bear no resemblance to the deadly Boston Marathon attack - and glossed over the fact that his group's bombs killed three fellow terrorists and have been linked to the murder of a San Francisco police officer. “How different is the shooting in Connecticut from shooting at a hunting range?” Ayers told a reporter who asked him to compare the incidents after Ayers spoke at a commemoration...

<p>The FBI has taken into custody a Minnesota man who was believed to be plotting a terrorist attack. Buford Rogers, 24, of Montevideo, was arrested Friday after authorities searched his home and found guns and explosive devices, according to an FBI news release.</p>

Attorney Alan Dershowitz on Monday struck back at Robert Redford and other liberals for their seeming devotion to violent, homegrown activists. Appearing on NewsmaxTV's Steve Malzberg Show, Dershowitz said, "I don’t understand the way some people on the Left glorify American terrorists" (video follows with transcript and commentary):Dershowitz: 'I Don’t Understand the Way Some People on the Left Glorify American Terrorists' STEVE MALZBERG, HOST: Robert Redford before this bombing was on Good Morning America, and he made a movie about the Weather Underground, and he was specifically asked by George Stephanopoulos, “You were followers of them. You kind of rooted...

The United States Army has blocked the website of the Southern Baptist Convention from government computers, saying the Christian site contains "hostile content." An Army officer assigned to a U.S. base said he tried to access SBC.net from his government computer, but instead, he got a message that said the site was being blocked by "Team CONUS": Team CONUS protects the computer network of the Department of Defense. "So the Southern Baptist Convention is now considered hostile to the U.S. Army...it just corroborates the recent string of events highlighted by AFA," the officer wrote in an email to American Family...

Had this crime been perpetrated by a roving band of evangelicals who object to scientific treatment of autism and schizophrenia, you might have heard a lot about it this week. As it is, that would never happen, and it was animal-rights activists who did the damage. Will the reputation of their cause and mainstream activists have to contend with their actions? Activists occupied an animal facility at the University of Milan, Italy, at the weekend, releasing mice and rabbits and mixing up cage labels to confuse experimental protocols. Researchers at the university say that it will take years to recover...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s failure to recognize political Islam as a driver of jihadist terrorism is partly to blame for the FBI not identifying one of the Boston Marathon bombers in 2011 as a security risk, according to U.S. officials and private counterterrorism analysts. The FBI revealed last week that it was warned by a foreign government in 2011 that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed Friday, was tied to “radical Islam” but the FBI was unable to confirm the links. “The fact is religion has been expunged from counterterrorism training,” said Sebastian Gorka, a counterterrorism specialist with the Foundation...

Full title...'My brother made me do it': Boston 'bomber' reveals in scrawled note that older sibling 'wanted to defend Islam from attack' - but that they acted ALONE Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, has claimed he and his brother were not linked to any Islamic terrorist groups He has also told interrogators that his older brother, Tamerlan, 26, was the ring leader in last Monday's attacks Suspect is scrawling handwritten responses to questions in his hospital bed Was formally charged Monday with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction Judge described Dzhokhar as 'alert, mentally competent and lucid' at hospital court...

It’s too soon to make sense of anything, but too hard to focus on anything else. Please consider the following thoughts about the horror, kindness, hope, and courage we all witnessed, which I posted as events unfolded. A bomb at the Boston Marathon? Awful! It’s presumed an act of terrorism until we learn the bomber shouted “Allahu Akbar!” when it will be deemed a case of workplace violence.Please, friends, learn the difference between “tragedy” and “atrocity.” How we talk about it affects how we feel and respond to it.Horror at what happened. Rage at wanton cruelty. Contempt for leaders whose...

FBI Was Warned 2 Years Ago of Alleged Bomber’s Radical Shift By Mark Arsenault, Bryan Bender, Milton J. Valencia and Maria Cramer Russian authorities warned the FBI in early 2011 that suspected bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev may have been a follower of “radical Islam,” a revelation that raised new questions in Congress on Saturday about whether the Boston Marathon attacks that killed three and wounded more than 170 could have been prevented. A senior congressional aide privy to the Boston Marathon terror investigation confirmed Saturday that the FBI received the warning after Tsarnaev’s apparently suspicious activities caught the attention of Russian...

Two men told police they were experimenting with making explosives after watching a how-to on YouTube when their attempt exploded on a Bayonne fire escape yesterday afternoon, WPIX reported last night. Christopher Ziobro, 21, and Ghaias Mirza, 18, were being questioned in the 33rd Street incident in which no one was injured, the television report said. A man who lives in the apartment directly below told the station there were two loud blasts and milk containers were involved. WPIX Video at link