Free Republic

These three interrelated teachings of Islam — loyalty and enmity, jihad, and dhimmitude — are unequivocally grounded in Islamic law, or Sharia. They are not matters open to interpretation or debate. By eliminating or lessening the focus from all those other “problematic” teachings that affect Muslims only — but which tend to be conflated with those (three) teachings that directly affect the non-Muslim — one can better appreciate, and thus place the spotlight on, the true roots of conflict between Islam and the West.

...Jerusalem MoveLeave it to CAIR, who is one of 82 groups from around the world that was (designated) as a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates, placing it in the company of Al Qaeda and ISIS – to organize a protest against President Donald Trump.

Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “The Ingraham Angle,” Rep. Scott Taylor (R-VA) took on host Laura Ingraham on the issue of the legal status of the so-called DREAMers — children brought to the United States illegally. Taylor insisted giving legal status to the DREAMERs through DACA was not “amnesty.” Transcript as follows: INGRAHAM: Above all else President Trump was elected on one clear issue, stop illegal immigrant. And that would mean build the wall, no amnesty, you know the drill. But there are some Republicans in Congress including the guy right here who still believes that the DACA amnesty thing...

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is showing no signs that he's on the way out the door. He's planning some trips next year to Africa and Latin America. He's also pushing ahead with his plan to redesign the State Department, brushing off accusations that he's gutting it. Tillerson held a town hall with State Department employees today. NPR's Michele Kelemen has more. MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: For more than an hour the former Exxon Mobil CEO walked the stage, talking about foreign policy challenges. He says U.S. diplomats are trying to resolve the crisis in Ukraine, pushing back...

Thirty-three minutes. That’s all the time we’d have to respond to an incoming intercontinental ballistic missile from anywhere in the world. Roughly half an hour to avert disaster – if we’re lucky. Sure, that isn’t the most cheerful thought to entertain, especially at Christmas time. But with all the saber-rattling coming from North Korea these days, not to mention other global hotspots, we don’t have the luxury to pretend this threat doesn’t exist. A successful nuclear strike would carry an unthinkable toll. The bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945 had an explosive yield of 15 kilotons of...

MOSCOW, Dec 14 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin warned on Thursday that some of his opponents would destabilise Russia and usher in chaos if they were elected in a presidential election next year, but promised genuine political competition. Putin, who is running for re-election in March, was answering a question at his annual news conference about opposition leader Alexei Navalny who looks unlikely to be allowed to contest the election due to what Navalny says is a trumped up criminal case. The question was put to him to Ksenia Sobchak, a television personality who has said she plans to run...

Now that President Trump has recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, what will the State Department do? It resents Israel and has been fighting the Jewish state for years. Is it ready to comply? Don’t bet on it. That’s my advice. Foggy Bottom is the worst swamp in Washington, haunted by the ghost of Loy Henderson, the diplomat who tried to defeat the very idea of Israel. He lost decisively 70 years ago, when the United Nations voted to partition Palestine, clearing the way for a Jewish state. And, in May 1948, when President Harry Truman recognized Israel 11...

A proposed law giving the government formal powers to send the military into the streets to fight crime in Mexico faces unified opposition from human rights groups and the United Nations. The “internal security” law currently before Mexico’s Senate passed the lower house of Congress last month, pushed through by President Enrique Peña Nieto’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) party. In a statement opposing the proposed law, U.N. human rights commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said the Mexican government has been using the military to fight organized crime and drug cartels for the past decade, but without success. “Violence has...

For the second time in two months, someone who has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State has plotted to kill innocents in New York City and has executed his plot. According to police, at the height of the Monday morning rush hour this week, in an underground pedestrian walkway that I have used many times, in the middle of Manhattan, a permanent legal resident of the United States named Akayed Ullah detonated a bomb he had strapped to his torso in an effort to kill fellow commuters and massively disrupt life in New York. The bomb was inartfully constructed, and...

About a year into President Donald Trump's first term, the jury for much of the country and for most of the major media has returned its verdict: Trump is a failure. Trump is incompetent. Trump cannot lead. Trump has no legislative victories. Even former President Jimmy Carter said he had never seen a president so maligned in the media. Meanwhile former President Barack Obama all but compared Trump to Hitler. Trump endures a nightly beating from the cast of late-night comedians who take turns calling Trump racist, sexist, dumb, inarticulate, overweight, overwrought and, of course, clueless. His reported consumption of...

Pilot Yousef Dajah widely praised in Jordan after he told his passengers that their Amman-NY flight path would take them over “Jerusalem, capital of Palestine”; “He knew there were many Americans on the flight, but he did it anyway,” says co-pilot.The pilot of a Royal Jordanian fight enjoyed praise in his country after he announced to passengers on the in-flight PA system that the plane was flying over “Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine” and along the Palestine Mediterranean coast. His announcement on flight RJ216 from Amman to NYC was greeted with enthusiastic applause by the passengers and a recording of...

Sweden's top court on migration cases has issued a landmark ruling which could put an end to the deportation of foreign professionals over minor errors in their work permits. The Swedish Migration Court of Appeal ruled that the Migration Agency should make assessments based on an overall assessment of an individual case, and that small errors should not automatically lead to expulsion. It was ruling in the case of Danyar Mohammed, an Iraqi pizza chef who has lived and worked in Jokkmokk, northern Sweden for eight years. As The Local previously reported, Sweden's Migration Agency ordered him to leave the...

Francisco Núñez Olivera, the Spaniard who holds the title of the world's oldest man, celebrates his 113th birthday today. He was born on December 13th 1904 in the village of Bienvenida in Badajoz, in the region of Extremadura, western Spain. Francisco - known as Marchena - fathered four children, and has nine grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren. He became the world's oldest man in August on the death of Yisrael Kristal, a holocaust survivor who lived to the age of 113 years and 330 days. He has been a widower since 1988 and his two sons have died but he lives...

The Hamas terrorist organization declared on Wednesday that “Al-Quds [in its entirety] is the eternal capital of Palestine, not its eastern or western part, and is an Arabic Islamic city.” The statement, released in honor of the 30th anniversary of the founding of Hamas, is in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel will not cancel the right of the Palestinian national and religious people to the city, and Al-Quds will remain an Arab Islamic state, Hamas stressed. The terrorist group further stressed that...

Mr Tillerson said on Tuesday that he was ready to open dialogue with Pyongyang, without preconditions. But within a day, the White House and State Department had reiterated the administration's hard line, stressing that North Korea must first commit to abandoning its nuclear weapons. The mixed messages mark the third time in recent months that Mr Tillerson has been publicly at odds with the White House.

Pentagon to boost U.S. weapons under nuclear posture review Russia is aggressively building up its nuclear forces and is expected to deploy a total force of 8,000 warheads by 2026 along with modernizing deep underground bunkers, according to Pentagon officials. The 8,000 warheads will include both large strategic warheads and thousands of new low-yield and very low-yield warheads to circumvent arms treaty limits and support Moscow's new doctrine of using nuclear arms early in any conflict. In addition to expanding its warheads, Russia also is fortifying underground facilities for command and control during a nuclear conflict. One official said the...

Breaking with years of courting the U.S., Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called Wednesday for the United Nations to replace Washington as a Mideast mediator and suggested he might not cooperate with the Trump administration’s much-anticipated effort to hammer out an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. At a summit in Turkey, Arab and Muslim leaders “rejected and condemned” President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital — the trigger for Abbas’ sharp policy pivot — but stopped short of backing his more combative approach toward Washington. A possible Palestinian refusal to engage with the U.S. and growing backlash against Trump’s shift on...

US State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert said, “We will continue to work through all our partners to try to stabilize the country.” Spokesperson Nauert commented on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that Russian soldiers will be pulled out of Syria and said, “If Russia chooses to pull out, certainly, that is its choice to do so, but we continue to work through all our partners to try to stabilize the country.” US State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert answered questions about Syria in the daily press briefing. Nauert said the following on the question about Russian President Putin’s announcement that Russian...

The leaders of 57 Muslim nations have called on the world to recognise "the State of Palestine and East Jerusalem as its occupied capital". An Organisation of Islamic Co-operation communique declares US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise the city as Israel's capital as "null and void". It also says the move has signalled Washington's withdrawal from its role in the Middle East peace process. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas earlier said the UN should take over. In a speech to the OIC summit in Istanbul, Mr Abbas said it would be "unacceptable" for the US to be the mediator "since...

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is warning that Iran may be defying a U.N. call to halt ballistic missile development even as it complies with the nuclear treaty with six world powers. He says in a report to the Security Council that the United Nations is investigating Iran’s possible transfer of ballistic missiles to Houthi Shiite rebels in Yemen that may have been used in launches aimed at Saudi Arabia. He says several other launches have also been brought to his attention. …