Free Republic

A weekend drone attack on Saudi Arabia that cut into global energy supplies and halved the kingdom’s oil production threatened Sunday to fuel a regional crisis, as the U.S. released new evidence to back up its allegation that Iran was responsible for the assault amid heightened tensions over Tehran’s collapsing nuclear deal. President Donald Trump said the U.S. had reason to believe it knew who was behind the attack — his secretary of state had blamed Iran the previous day — and assured his Twitter followers that “we are ... locked and loaded” depending on verification and were waiting to...

US President Donald Trump on Sunday issued a veiled warning to Iran following the attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities. While Trump did not mention Iran, he wrote on Twitter, “Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!” Saudi Arabia said that the drone strikes on its key oil facilities disrupted about half of the kingdom's oil capacity, or...

Crude prices surged Sunday evening following an attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure and announcement from President Trump that he has authorized the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. U.S. oil futures advanced about 12% to $61.60 a barrel shortly after trading opened at 6 p.m. ET. Brent crude, the global gauge of oil prices, soared 13% to nearly $69 a barrel. If those moves held, they would mark some of the biggest intraday for crude in years. ...

Two major Saudi oil facilities hit by explosions and set ablaze early Saturday morning in what Iranian backed Houthi rebels are calling an attack launched by 10 drones. Reuters and Wall Street Journal are reporting with sources saying that Saudi Arabia's oil output has been reduced by half. The Houthis have been launching attacks on Saudi Arabia, which has been leading a military coalition fighting on the side of Yemen's government against the Houthi's with support from the United States and United Kingdom.... The Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif says...... After leaving his job as National Security Adviser John Bolton...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is blaming Iran for drone attacks Saturday against Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure. The attacks, attributed to Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, sparked huge fires at a vulnerable chokepoint for global energy supplies. But in Saturday tweets, Pompeo says "there is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen" and points the finger at Tehran. He adds, "Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply."

(Moderator, if I can't excerpt the BBC, please note) Drone attacks have set alight two major oil facilities run by the state-owned company Aramco in Saudi Arabia, state media say. Footage showed a huge blaze at Abqaiq, site of Aramco's largest oil processing plant, while a second drone attack started fires in the Khurais oilfield. The fires are now under control at both facilities, state media said. A spokesman for the Iran-aligned Houthi group in Yemen said it had deployed 10 drones in the attacks. The military spokesman, Yahya Sarea, told al-Masirah TV, which is owned by the Houthi movement...

Former President Barack Obama was honored with the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award at a gala in midtown Manhattan Wednesday evening. "I'm not sure if you've heard, but I've been on this hope kick for a while now. Even ran a couple of campaigns on it. Thank you for officially validating my hope credentials," Obama said during his remarks. The organization's president, Kerry Kennedy, presented the award, which celebrates leaders "who have demonstrated a commitment to social change." Past recipients include Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Bono, George Clooneyand Robert De Niro. "If we summon our best selves, we can...

In the wake of Trump’s announcement this week that his administration would continue to “stand with Saudi Arabia” despite the recent murder of Washington Postcolumnist Jamal Khashoggi, America’s mainstream media elites erupted in their usual paroxysms of despair and condemnation of the president. Although this time the typical “orange man bad” stories tended to omit calls for Trump to be immediately overthrown by the military or his own cabinet, almost every other major trope was preponderant. This was especially true of Khashoggi’s former place of employment at the Post, where journalists almost universally portrayed Trump as having blood on...

Las Vegas Shooter Targeted Secret Government Planes In Addition To Victims Stephen Paddock ‘might have held anti-American views,’ expert says. By Radar Staff Posted on Oct 5, 2017 @ 13:27PM Las Vegas Shooter Targeted Secret Government Planes In Addition To Victims thumbnail Las Vegas madman Stephen Paddock not only targeted innocent concertgoers — but also seemingly the hanger for the U.S. government’s super secret JANET airlines. Law enforcement sources exclusively told RadarOnline.com that just afield of the two massive, circular fuel tanks at which Paddock fired, lies the shadowy terminal for JANET. “JANET is essentially an airline that doesn’t exist,”...

During a panel discussion Thursday at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual conference, CIA Director John Brennan was trying to make the point that just because an individual has an “activist” background, that wouldn’t, or shouldn’t, keep him from working for the federal government in sensitive positions. After all, he said, the CIA hired him even after he admitted voting for a communist in the 1976 presidential elections.In 1980, Brennan was trying to obtain a top security clearance for the Central Intelligence Agency, and part of the process involved taking a lie detector test. He was asked: “Have you ever...

President Obama on Monday said he has selected W. Neil Eggleston to become chief counsel, adding the expertise of a veteran attorney who was involved in some of the most heated legal battles of the Clinton administration. Eggleston, a white-collar defender who is now at Kirkland & Ellis, will replace departing White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler in mid-May. "Neil brings extraordinary expertise, credentials, and experience, to our team," Obama said in a statement. "He has a passion for public service, is renowned for his conscientiousness and foresight, and I look forward to working closely with him in the coming years."...

A day after President Obama went on a rant about why he doesn't use the phrase “radical Islam," CNN asked if the leaders, like Hillary Clinton who have used the phrase, have undermined U.S. strategy. What should’ve been a relatively straightforward briefing on the threats posed by ISIS turned into a tirade against Republicans and Donald Trump from the president. He also used it as a staging ground to lecture us about reinstating the so-called assault weapons ban and confirming a treasury nominee that’s been held up for over a year. Yesterday, CNN’s Michelle Kosinski pressed the White House on the...

The FBI has been conducting a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information for months. An explosive new report reveals just what it is that the FBI is looking to: emails in which then-Secretary of State Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations in Pakistan with her cellphone. From 2011 on, the State Department had a secret arrangement with the CIA, giving it a degree of say over whether or not a drone killing would take place. The U.S. drone program has killed hundreds of civilians in Pakistan and other countries. Under Sec. Clinton, State Department officials approved almost every...

At the center of a criminal probe involving Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information is a series of emails between American diplomats in Islamabad and their superiors in Washington about whether to oppose specific drone strikes in Pakistan. The 2011 and 2012 emails were sent via the “low side’’—government slang for a computer system for unclassified matters—as part of a secret arrangement that gave the State Department more of a voice in whether a Central Intelligence Agency drone strike went ahead, according to congressional and law-enforcement officials briefed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation probe. Some of the emails were...

President Barack Obama is acknowledging that “civilians have been killed that shouldn’t have been” in past U.S. drone strikes, but says the administration is now “very cautious” about taking strikes where women or children are present. […] He says the U.S. has to take responsibility when it is not acting appropriately. …

U.S. Africa Command records – heavily blacked out – show military gathered forces to support “anti-terrorist” actions in Benghazi day after attack Obama was AWOL Stevens Died Obama Lied(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that the Obama administration finally turned over hundreds of pages of documents about the military response to the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the U.S. Special Mission Compound and other facilities in Benghazi. The documents, which are heavily blacked out (redacted), confirm that the U.S. Military, through its U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) drafted orders for a military response to the attack, specifically “to protect...

Heartbreaking news, and a demonstration of the limit of remote-control warfare. The US drone program in Pakistan inadvertently killed two Western hostages being held by al-Qaeda, including an American whose family had repeatedly appealed for his release based on his age and health: A U.S. drone strike in January targeting a suspected al Qaeda compound in Pakistan inadvertently killed an American and Italian being held hostage by the group, senior Obama administration officials said.The killing of American development expert Warren Weinstein and Italian aid worker Giovanni Lo Porto is the first known instance in which the U.S. has accidentally...

While Iran’s march toward a nuclear bomb has provoked a major clash between the White House and Congress, Iran’s march toward conventional domination of the Arab world has been largely overlooked. In Washington, that is. The Arabs have noticed. And the pro-American ones, the Gulf Arabs in particular, are deeply worried. This week, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels seized control of the Yemeni government, heretofore pro-American. In September, they overran Sanaa, the capital. On Tuesday, they seized the presidential palace. On Thursday, they forced the president to resign. The Houthi have local religious grievances, being Shiites in a majority Sunni land. But...

Oscar-winning actor Matt Damon says his love affair with President Barack Obama is finally over. "He broke up with me," the once ardent supporter and campaigner for Obama told the Black Entertainment Network (BET) in a recent interview. The A-list movie star and Democrat said there were "a lot of things" he questions about Obama's second term, specifically the legality of drone strikes and the NSA's secret surveillance programs.

Drones -- unmanned flying machines -- will soon fill our skies. They conjure up fears, especially among some of my fellow libertarians, of spying and death from above. These fears aren't groundless. President Bush approved the use of armed drones against suspected terrorists overseas, and President Obama vastly increased their use. Drones have killed thousands of people in places such as Pakistan and Yemen, countries against which we have not declared war. Drones keep getting more sophisticated. The Air Force is now developing what it calls MAVs, Micro Air Vehicles, tiny drones that can quietly search for an individual terrorist...