Free Republic

I don't believe in coincidences, and this latest event is really just too much. Back on May 1st, I wrote an article detailing my suspicion that the Deepwater Horizon explosion was no ordinary accident and possibly was even a deliberate attack by forces unknown. Of course I was drilled over it (no pun) and called every name under the sun for stating my thoughts. We still don't know the cause of that explosion, and we may never know the actual truth, but at least the oil flowing into the Gulf has been stopped. Now this. Last Wednesday, a federal judge...

May 29, 2008 By Andrew Walden (Hawai'i Free Press) Nadhmi Auchi, seen here with the Governor of Illinois, Rob Blagojevich (middle) at a 2004 Chicago dinner in Auchi's honor arranged by Antonin Rezko (potentially, right)[1]. All three men have been convicted of corruption related charges (Auchi 2003, Rezko 2008, Blagojevich 2009).[2] “A British-Iraqi billionaire lent millions of dollars to Barack Obama's fundraiser (dual US-Syrian citizen Tony Rezko) just weeks before an imprudent land deal that has returned to haunt the presidential contender, an investigation by The Times discloses. The money transfer raises the question of whether funds from Nadhmi Auchi,...

Walter Edmund Bond was taken into custody Thursday in Denver after allegedly telling an informant that he started the Glendale fire and two fires in Utah because they were businesses that "profited from animals." At the time of his arrest by FBI and ATF agents, Bond was carrying a backpack, according to an affidavit by Rennie Mora, a special agent for the ATF. Agents searched the backpack and found literature titled, "The Declaration of War - Killing People to Save the Animals and the Environment - Strike a Match Light a Fuse We've Only Have the Earth to Lose." Bond...

Police investigating a fire that destroyed a Denver-area business say they're seriously considering a claim by an animal rights activist who takes credit for it. Glendale Police Chief Victor Ross says his department is looking closely at a claim on a website associated with the Animal Liberation Front. The posting by "ALF Lone Wolf" ... The Animal Liberation Front is aligned with the Earth Liberation Front, whose members were convicted in a 1998 fire at the Vail ski resort that did $12 million in damage.

Santa Cruz police are working with the FBI to investigate the vandalism of a car belonging to a University of California at Santa Cruz researcher on Sunday morning. The spouse of the researcher, whose name is being withheld, found the car at about 11 a.m. Sunday with its brake lines and cables to the emergency braking system cut, police said. The damage had left the braking system inoperable. Officers responded to the victim's home in the 1200 block of Laurent Street and after speaking with the 55-year-old researcher, determined the motive behind the vandalism may be related to the victim's...

44-year-old Stephen Murphy ...pleaded guilty in January to conspiring with another member of the environmental extremist movement Earth Liberation Front to burn down the multimillion-dollar condos with a juice bottle containing gasoline in 2006. The timer attached to the bomb failed.

Van Jones, President Obama's former "green jobs" czar and newly appointed Princeton lecturer, has teamed up with a coalition of extremists to push an environmental activist agenda to "transform the American economy" and bring about "social change." The groups working with Jones have been described as using the tactics of guerrilla communication, agitation and disruption techniques. One organization working alongside Jones, the radical Earth First! environmentalist group, has a history of violence and sabotage. Jones spoke Monday at a Northern Arizona University event titled "Challenging America: Achieving Sustainability and Justice Through the Green Collar Economy." He spoke with Billy Parish,...

Unfortunately, there are dangerous kooks, trigger-happy wackos, and lone gunmen out there. Bad people exist. Crazy people exist -- and every so often, one of them snaps and there's a resulting body count. To most people, this is just a tragic fact of life. However, to liberals in the media who are forever baffled by events that the average person has grasped since he was a child, these killers tend to break down into three groups. If they're devout Muslims and are connected to terrorists, then they must have killed for some reason OTHER than their religion. If they're...

You might remember the 2004 animal-rights attack on a University of Iowa animal laboratory, carried out by the terrorist Animal Liberation Front (ALF). Here’s the scene: 55-gallon drums filled with acid-soaked research documents, 401 “liberated” laboratory animals, the continuous harassment of researchers, and a warning to “stop or be stopped.” So what does a former PETA lawyer who works for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) have to do with this? That’s likely the question a prosecutor has for HSUS attorney Leana Stormont, who was subpoenaed Monday to testify before a federal grand jury about the raid.Who...

According to a criminal complaint, 41-year -old Stephen Louis Olson of Backus was angry the county planned to log the trees. Cass County officials say the stand is thinned every ten to 15 years. About 100 of the 600 trees were slated to be cut down and sold this month. The money would have benefitted the community and school district. - Authorities say the entire forest must be cut down due to safety concerns. Mike Diekmann of the Cass County Sheriff's Office says that if a saw hit one of the nails, "it would explode like a gun going off"...

MORROW, Ga. - A man dressed as an elf was jailed after he told a mall Santa that he was carrying dynamite, police said. Southlake Mall in suburban Atlanta was evacuated but no explosives were found. Police in Morrow, Ga., arrested 45-year-old William Caldwell, who was being held without bond Thursday in the Clayton County jail. He was not part of the mall's Christmas staff.

DALI, China — Justin Franchi Solondz, an environmental activist from New Jersey who spent years evading charges of ecoterrorism in the United States by hiding out in China, was sentenced to three years in prison by a local court on Friday on charges of manufacturing drugs in this backpacker haven. After serving his time, Mr. Solondz, 30, who is on the F.B.I.’s wanted list, will be deported to the United States, where he faces charges stemming from what the authorities say was his role in an arson rampage that destroyed buildings in three western states as a member of a...

DALI, China — Justin Franchi Solondz, an environmental activist from New Jersey who spent four years evading charges of ecoterrorism in the United States by hiding out in this backpacker haven, was convicted by a Chinese court on Friday of manufacturing drugs. After serving a three-year sentence, Mr. Solondz, 30, who is on the F.B.I.’s most wanted list, will be deported to the United States, where he faces charges stemming from what the authorities say was his role in an arson rampage that destroyed buildings in three western states as a member of a group related to the environmental extremist...

Earth First! made headlines with its tree-spiking in the 1980s, but the guy who helped make the anti-logging tactic famous didn't invent it. Mike Roselle even titled one chapter of his new book "Why I Quit Spiking Trees." In it, the co-founder of Earth First!, the Rainforest Action Network and the Ruckus Society described how the practice brought old-growth timber cutting to national awareness, but became a public relations disaster for the protesters. "I think the Wobblies can take credit for it if they want, but it's been around as long as logging," Roselle said, referring to the Industrial Workers...

Craig Rosebraugh, a longtime activist, former Earth Liberation Front spokesman and former Portland restaurateur, has started up a new quarterly magazine: "Resistance, Journal of the Earth Liberation Movement."View full sizeDoug Beghtel/The Oregonian Craig Rosebraugh in 2000.The Arizona-based magazine isn't striving for mainstream balance; it describes itself as "radical" and names Shell oil company as its "Ecoterrorist of the Season." Today's release is the second edition, but Rosebraugh is describing it as a "national launch," saying the magazine is now available at Borders and hundreds of other stores in the United States and Canada after signing on with Disticor Distribution. Rosebraugh...

In 1999, Ian Wallace was elected king of Memorial High School's Winter Carnival and was named co-captain of the varsity hockey team. In 2003, he was named to the dean's list for his academic achievement as an anthropology student at the University of Minnesota. In between, he admitted to federal officials last year, Wallace attempted to firebomb two buildings at Michigan Technological University in an act of eco-terrorism. As a result, the former Memorial honor student and student council member is locked up in federal prison and not scheduled for release until Jan. 12, 2012. Ian J. Wallace, now 28,...

Stephen James Murphy was detained in Texas by the FBI in connection with an incident in 2006 at a construction site for townhouses.The FBI has arrested an environmental activist in connection with the attempted arson of unfinished town homes in Pasadena in 2006, authorities said Thursday. Stephen James Murphy, 43, was arrested without incident Wednesday at his home in Arlington, Texas, after being named in a criminal complaint filed last week in U.S. District Court, said FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller. According to the complaint, the Pasadena Fire Department responded to a construction site on Sept. 19, 2006, and found what...

At approximately 2 a.m. on Sept. 25, a small improvised explosive device (IED) consisting of three or four butane canisters was used to attack a Banamex bank branch in the Milpa Alta delegation of Mexico City. The device damaged an ATM and shattered the bank's front windows. It was not an isolated event. The bombing was the seventh recorded IED attack in the Federal District - and the fifth such attack against a local bank branch - since the beginning of September. The attack was claimed in a communique posted to a Spanish-language anarchist Web site by a group calling...

The Herald newspaper says the graffiti sprayed on buildings associated with the Skotdal family is visible from Highway 522. The message appears to be a followup to last month’s sabotage at the KRKO (1380) transmitter site that toppled a whole tower. It says, in part: “MBA KRKO/Snotdol [sic] Empire. If you continue to risk killing children, mother earth and her creations, all your holdings are targets.“ This extra-long graffiti message ends this way: "Authentic ELF [Earth Liberation Front]? Ask ATF/FBI about restricted water mains. Little water, better burn. ELF.” KRKO recently turned on its new 50-kw daytime facility, a move...

PORTLAND, Ore. - Vandals in Portland targeted some pretty pricey cars over night, throwing acid or paint stripper all over them. No one has claimed responsibility, and there's no telling just how many people were involved. The damage to as many as 15 cars is expensive. Here's one, a Hummer from the besieged Vic Alfonso Cadillac Dealership in Northeast Portland. You can see a number of spots where the paint is now peeling off the car. A sociology professor at Portland State University said there are plenty of reasons that could have motivated the vandals to do all of...