Free Republic

  "German Islamists Target Youth on the Internet" By Christoph Sydow 11/01/2012 "Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan." PHOTO CAPTION: "A growing community of German-speaking Islamists has developed on the Internet. Aiming to find new recruits, they glorify jihad and call for attacks on Germany. A new study warns that such online propaganda might foster a new generation of terrorists." SNIPPET: "International terrorist groups like al-Qaida recognized the importance of the Internet for recruiting new supporters early on." SNIPPET: "Intelligence services can also take advantage of the anonymity of Internet forums to deliberately plant false information or obtain insider...

The House science committee is demanding the White House explain why top administration officials are using secret e-mail accounts and other techniques to conceal their taxpayer-paid activities from public oversight. The evidence of officials’ efforts to evade transparency laws includes EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s use of the fake name “Richard Windsor”, and hidden e-mail accounts, according to a Nov. 16 letter sent by the committee to several White House officials, including Jackson. (RELATED: EPA chief’s secret ‘alias’ email revealed) (snip) “The use of these [hidden] accounts could seriously impair records collection, preservation, and access, therefore compromising transparency and oversight,” said...

The real Petraeus scandal is why the bureau was rummaging around in his private communications in the first place. For the past week, Washington has been embroiled in an ever-escalating sex scandal involving Gen. David Petraeus, his biographer Paula Broadwell, and a third woman named Jill Kelley, and now, tangentially it seems, Gen. John Allen. The affair between Petraeus and Broadwell was discovered by the FBI and revealed late last week when Petraeus resigned as director of the CIA. But while the salacious details have kept Washington's press corps busy, the details about how the bureau ever got this information...

Petraeus could probably have used better technology. Its however safe to assume if you write something in a digital realm, the Federal Government can find it if they want to find it. If you need to be discreet, feel you deserve your privacy, or otherwise want the Government and others to stay away there are some good practices to follow...

Depending on who you are, if you receive e-mail updates from the Obama-Biden campaign you may have gotten a few strident notes in your inbox over the last week. In making the closing pitch to supporters and potential donors, the President’s campaign has struck a negative tone attempting to shame supporters who haven’t done enough into doing more. “You’ve waited until the last minute here,” one e-mail dated November 2 fumes to a supporter who has not contributed enough money to Obama for America. Noted for its versatile use of technology and micro-targeting, the Obama campaign blew its Republican opposition...

A series of internal State Department emails obtained by Fox News shows some some of the initial assessments of last month's deadly consulate attack in Libya, including one email within hours of the attack that noted that the group Ansar al Sharia had claimed responsibility. Ansar al Sharia has been declared by the State Department to be a an Al Qaeda-affiliated group. A member of the group suspected of participating in the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi has been arrested and is being held in Tunisia. The emails obtained by Fox News were sent by the State Department to a...

As the leak investigation into the unauthorized disclosures of classified information enters into its third week, White House staffers have been warned not to delete any emails or destroy other information that could be pertinent to investigators, according to officials familiar with the matter. The warning email was sent internally in an office-wide message from administration lawyers last week, according to two U.S. officials, the latest indication that the two FBI investigations into the alleged disclosure of classified information is aimed, at least in part, at the White House. The email included senior members of the White House staff as...

Attorney General Eric Holder claimed during congressional testimony today that internal Justice Department emails that use the phrase “Fast and Furious” do not refer to the controversial gun-walking operation Fast and Furious.Under questioning from Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who read excerpts of the emails at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Justice Department oversight, Holder claimed that the phrase “Fast and Furious” did not refer to Fast and Furious but instead referred to another gun-walking operation known as “Wide Receiver.” However, the emails refer to both programs -- "Fast and Furious" and the "Tucson case," from where Wide Receiver

15 desperate emails and texts from the Obama campaignBy The Week's Editorial Staff | The Week – Fri, May 25, 2012 Did you hear you can win an evening with President Obama, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Anna Wintour? If you're on Obama's mailing list, there's no escaping the news. **SNIP** 7. "Throw Bo a bone on his anniversary" From: BarackObama.com, April 14 Main pitch: "On April 14th, 2009, Barack followed through on his promise to Malia and Sasha — the Obamas welcomed Bo into their home. Now he's got three years under his collar as the First Dog. This April,...

New emails obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform show a direct link between the Department of Energy’s controversial green energy loan program and the White House, Republicans on the committee said Wednesday. The White House and Energy Department have long held there was no political influence in the decision-making process that awarded billions of dollars in federal loan guarantees to renewable energy companies. However, emails disclosed at the hearing reference to communications with the White House. House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) said the emails are the first in the committee’s more than yearlong investigation...

EVERY few years, the conflicts of interest so deeply embedded in the Wall Street business model emerge from the shadows for all to see. Coming to light last week, courtesy of Massachusetts regulators, was UBS’s dual roles in the auction-rate securities market, which have had devastating effects on the people and institutions that invested in them. Because every big brokerage firm that participated in this market faced the same conflicts as both underwriters of the securities and managers of the auctions that set their prices, similar ugliness will likely turn up elsewhere as regulators continue their digging..... The problem UBS...

PITTSBURGH — Wednesday night the 14th, 15th and 16th bomb threats were reported at different buildings on the University of Pittsburgh campus. School officials sent out the following alert to students and staff just after 5 p.m., "A general bomb threat has been received for the Cathedral of Learning, Posvar Hall and Litchfield Tower C. Please evacuate these buildings. If safe to do so please tell others of this message." Wedneday morning a 13th bomb threat was reported at a building on the University of Pittsburgh's campus. The threat was reported at Thackeray Hall around 10:30 a.m. University officials increased...

Peter Gleick, a global warming true believer and purported scientific ethics expert, has admitted soliciting, receiving then distributing confidential fundraising and budget documents from the Heartland Institute under false pretenses, all to discredit Heartland, a free-market think tank that disputes global warming alarmism. We await determinations of whether violations of state or federal laws on wire fraud and identity theft, and perhaps other offenses, occurred. Illinois-based Heartland has called in the FBI...

The Gun Control Monkeys -- ATF & The Joyce Foundation -- Joined at the hip. = Roseanna Ander, executive director of the University of Chicago's Crime Lab, backed the Police Department while noting that "it would be great if we had more resources and more could be done." She said she understood the argument set forth in the opinion — that people in high-crime areas might believe they'd be safer with a gun in their home. But research shows that gun availability leads to more bloodshed, not less, she said. "I understand the concern about public safety, but that is...

ANAHEIM (KNX 1070) A member of an employees group is asking for a criminal investigation in the wake of a controversial directive asking city employees to delete potentially embarrassing emails. Last week, employees of the Planning Department were told to clean out old messages and files that might be unflattering to city leaders or developers. “Employees are stuck in an incredibly difficult position where they have to decide whether they’re going to follow a directive given from their boss or face potential disciplinary action that could, you know, amount to being fired,” Jennifer Muir of the Orange County Employees Association...

Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? James 2:5 Round two of the Climategate look inside agenda driven science fraud. Just when you thought they may have learned their lessons from the first round we have the same crooks doubling down for their own enrichment and their war on capitalism. Scientists have become drunk from their own power and position inside the cult of liberalism where they are the High Priests and have...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney on Monday defended his administration’s efforts to cover its electronic tracks with the purchase of hard drives from state computers, saying he had no intention of providing ''opposition research teams'' with electronic communications from his term as governor. Meeting with the editorial board of the Nashua (N.H.) Telegraph, Mr. Romney was questioned about a Boston Globe story (snip) Last week, Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades accused Mr. Patrick of running a ''dirty tricks''shop for the president’s benefit and requested documents on any contact his administration has had with top Obama White House or campaign operatives.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration wanted the failing solar energy company Solyndra to delay announcing an early round of employee layoffs until after the 2010 midterm elections, according to newly released emails. An October 2010 email from a Solyndra investment adviser to a colleague said Energy Department officials were pushing "very hard" to delay making the layoffs — an early sign of the company's financial woes — public until Nov. 3, 2010 — the day after the midterm elections. "Oddly they didn't give a reason for that date," the email states. The email was released Wednesday by the House...

The Washington Post reports on newly released emails that reveal "the Obama administration urged officers of the struggling solar company Solyndra to postpone announcing planned layoffs until after the November 2010 midterm elections" Solyndra’s chief executive warned the Energy Department on Oct. 25, 2010, that he intended to announce worker layoffs Oct. 28. He said he was spurred by numerous calls from reporters and potential investors about rumors the firm was in financial trouble and was planning to lay off workers and close one of its two plants. But in an Oct. 30, 2010, e-mail, advisers to Solyndra’s primary investor,...