Free Republic

Many already have experience of the war in the Donbas In St. Petersburg, Russia National Bolsheviks openly preparing for a spring offensive to Mariupol. Assault on the city planned for spring. In the meantime, a special training base, the terrorists are trained shooting, tactics, topography and other basics of combat. Total, according to the coordinator of the movement "Other Russia" in St. Petersburg Andrei Dmitriev, but according to him from Russia to fight in the Donbas went 1.5 thousand people. This he said in an interview to the Russian edition of " real time ". Offensive in Mariupol Sturm...

Well Mr. Speaker the charade is over. Obama has received just what he wanted and you and Mitch helped him. You can both now get back in line, knee pads in hand, ready to kiss the bony rear of your leader and ask, "What do you want next, Sire?" A real man once called some of our foes the, "Axis of Evil." Well I see another axis right here in what is left of America. Between you and McConnell and Obama you are destroying the America you grew up in and it apparently isn't going to stop. A more ineffective...

....pushing back against those saying that there was no tactical alternative in his speech, Netanyahu said that he did indeed present a practical alternative that would extend Iran's break out time by adding new restrictions. He also said that he presented a case for not lifting sanctions until the Iranians stop its hostile actions against neighboring countries and stop threatening to annihilate Israel. Netanyahu said that the responses he heard from both Republicans and Democrats were encouraging and that his impression was that they both understand why this is a bad deal. On Tuesday, US President Barack Obama on Tuesday...

Weeks after a United States District Court Judge in Mobile ordered a probate judge there to issue same-sex marriage licenses, the Alabama Supreme Court has ordered a halt to same-sex marriages in the state. The order, called a writ of mandamus, had been requested by the Alabama Policy Institute and the Alabama Citizens Action Program last month. "As it has done for approximately two centuries, Alabama law allows for 'marriage' between only one man and one woman," the order said. "Alabama probate judges have a ministerial duty not to issue any marriage license contrary to this law. Nothing in the...

Conservative firebrand Sen. Ted Cruz is spearheading an alternative to Obamacare in the GOP's latest bid to show the Supreme Court it has a Plan B if the court eliminates subsidies for millions of Obamacare customers.The bill filed by the Texas senator Tuesday would remove the healthcare law's insurance mandate and allow residents in one state the option to purchase a health plan of their choice in any other state. It is co-sponsored by Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming, Mike Crapo of Idaho and Marco Rubio of Florida, all Republicans.Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., introduced companion legislation in the House, according...

The Justice Department will issue findings Wednesday that accuse the police department in Ferguson, Mo., of racial bias and routinely violating the constitutional rights of black citizens by stopping drivers without reasonable suspicion, making arrests without probable cause and using excessive force, officials said. Federal officials opened their civil rights investigation into the Ferguson police department after the uproar in the St. Louis suburb and across the country over the fatal shooting in August of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, by Darren Wilson, a white Ferguson police officer. A grand jury in St. Louis declined to indict Wilson in...

David H. Petraeus, the best-known military commander of his generation, has reached a plea deal with the Justice Department and admitted providing his highly classified journals to a mistress when he was the director of the C.I.A. Mr. Petraeus has agreed to plead guilty to one count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material, a misdemeanor. He is eligible for up to one year in prison but prosecutors will recommend a sentence of probation for two years and a $40,000 fine. The plea deal completes a spectacular fall for Mr. Petraeus, a retired four-star general who was once discussed...

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) proposed last week to prohibit gun companies from manufacturing and selling 5.56mm projectiles for M855 cartridges that provide ammunition for AR-15 rifles. The Protecting Second Amendment Rights Act, introduced Friday by Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.), would roll back the ATF’s power to regulate ammunition. “The Obama administration’s proposal would unilaterally strip law-abiding hunters and sportsmen of their Second Amendment rights,” Rooney said in a statement. “Congress has made its intentions clear that this ammunition is for sporting purposes and should not be restricted. We cannot and we will not stand by...

03/03/2015 - Complete Transcription

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the State of Israel reset the agenda for the Western world in a speech before a joint session of Congress. For weeks, the Obama administration has attempted to direct attention away from Netanyahu’s actual agenda – stopping the Iranian nuclear deal – and toward petty political maneuvering over permissions to speak and Democratic boycotts. All of that fell away in the wake of a clear, powerful, and emotional call by Netanyahu for the United States and Israel to stand united against the evil terror of Iran. Netanyahu opened by expressing his humility for...

Our coverage of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint meeting of Congress gets underway at 10:45 a.m. ET. Mr. Netanyahu is expected to use the speech to lay out the case against a deal with Iran over its nuclear program.

On the threat of a nuclear Iran, Israel's long-serving hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has frequently cited the wisdom of Israel Zangwill, an early 20th-century British Zionist who tried to establish a Jewish homeland in places as diverse as Canada, Australia and Uganda. Mr. Zangwill's motto, as the former commando and diplomat has often been recalled favourably, was "obsta principiis," Latin for "resist beginnings," or as he described it, "oppose bad things when they are small." For Mr. Netanyahu, the first Israeli prime minister born in Israel proper, that meant railing against the Iranian threat back in the early 1990s...

Several EU politicians and Russia's opposition leader have been barred from attending the funeral of murdered Russian politician Boris Nemtsov. A Polish politician was denied a visa and a Latvian MEP turned back at a Moscow airport, while Alexei Navalny was denied permission to leave jail.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used a personal e-mail account to exclusively conduct official business during her time at the State Department, a move that raises questions about access to the full archive of her correspondence, as well as the possibility that she violated federal law requiring official messages to be retained for the record. The existence of the account was discovered by the House select committee investigating the deadly 2012 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and was first reported by The New York Times.

A task force appointed by President Barack Obama to reform policing in the U.S. is recommending that the Department of Justice scrap an FBI database that gathers and maintains information on certain “immigration violators.” The recommendation, handed down by the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing in an interim report on Monday, pertains to FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database. NCIC is used by local law enforcement officers during traffic stops and other encounters with the public. The database, developed in 1967, allows officers to find out if the individuals are wanted for crimes in other jurisdictions. An...

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest confirmed Monday that President Obama is "very interested" in the idea of raising taxes through unitlateral executive action. "The president certainly has not indicated any reticence in using his executive authority to try and advance an agenda that benefits middle class Americans," Earnest said in response to a question about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) calling on Obama to raise more than $100 billion in taxes through IRS executive action. "Now I don't want to leave you with the impression that there is some imminent announcement, there is not, at least that I know of,"...

US Secretary of State 'concerned' by reports of an information leak; Iranian foreign minister says agreement dependent on removal of sanctions. US Secretary of State John Kerry is warning that public discussion of details of the ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran will make it more difficult to reach a deal that prevents the country from developing atomic weapons. In comments to reporters in Geneva on Monday, Kerry said he was concerned by reports that some details of the talks would be revealed in coming days. He did not elaborate, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will speak in opposition to...

Gov. Scott Walker still hasn't spoken with President Barack Obama about the president's love for America, but the possible contender for the Republican nomination now has an opinion on the subject. Wisconsin's governor tells "Fox News Sunday" that Obama or "anybody else who is willing to put their name on the ballot certainly has to have the love for country to do that." ...

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said on Sunday that the Senate should change its rules in order to pass a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). "I think they should change the rule," McCarthy said on NBC's "Meet the Press," suggesting the Senate invoke the so-called "nuclear option" to allow spending bills to only require a simple majority to advance instead of 60 votes.

EVELETH, Minn. – Workers in a call center on Minnesota’s Iron Range don headsets each day knowing their employer’s core business: Get Democrats elected. For years, prominent Democratic candidates and political groups have used the obscure center tucked among hills and pines to canvass and raise money from small donors. DFL organizations, state and national, have paid the phone bank’s current and former owners about $80 million over the last decade, campaign records show. The call center relocated to Eveleth in 2006 thanks in part to a $625,000 loan from a unique state agency called the Iron Range Resources and...

BEN GURION AIRPORT, Israel: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu headed to Washington on Sunday on what he said was a “historic” mission to try and stop a nuclear deal with Iran, an AFP correspondent said. The controversial 48-hour visit will see the Israeli leader addressing a joint session of the US Congress in a bid to garner last-minute support to halt an emerging world deal with Iran over its nuclear program, in a move which has infuriated the White House. But Netanyahu, who will also address the annual policy conference of the pro-Israel AIPAC lobby, has refused to back down....

WASHINGTON—The U.S. is providing spy-satellite imagery to Ukraine to help in its fight against Russia-backed rebels, but with a catch: the images are significantly degraded to avoid provoking Russia or compromising U.S. secrets. The White House agreed last year to Ukraine’s request to provide the photos and other intelligence. But before delivering them, U.S. officials black out military staging areas on Russian territory and reduce the resolution so that enemy formations can’t be clearly made out, making them less useful to Ukrainian military commanders. Those steps, which delay the delivery of the images by at least 24 hours, are designed...

The powers behind the FCC’s muscling of the Internet Today’s vote by a bitterly divided Federal Communications Commission that the Internet should be regulated as a public utility is the culmination of a decade-long battle by the Left. Using money from George Soros and liberal foundations that totaled at least $196 million, radical activists finally succeeded in ramming through “net neutrality,” or the idea that all data should be transmitted equally over the Internet. The final push involved unprecedented political pressure exerted by the Obama White House on FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, head of an ostensibly independent regulatory body. “Net...

No Senate Democrats block measure backing Bibi’s speechThe Senate on Thursday unanimously passed a resolution welcoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to America and endorsing his speech before a joint session of Congress. Critics of the Obama administration view the unanimous approval as a rebuke to the White House and Democrats, who have vowed to boycott Netanyahu’s address and work to counter his warnings about the dangers of a nuclear Iran. No Senate Democrats sponsored the measure, which attracted 50 Republican cosponsors. However, none attempted to block its passage, signaling that support for Israel and Netanyahu’s message has outweighed a pressure...

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — In a surprise speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) unloaded on former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush—systematically dismantling Bush’s push for amnesty and a massive increase in guest workers from around the world. “Right now, there are two conferences—one of them in public where candidates are out there having to speak and defend and answer questions on their views and on their positions on important issues facing America,” Sessions said to open up his remarks to the Breitbart News-sponsored meet-and-greet with CPAC activists. “Many people at this conference here and watching...

Washington (CNN)The Department of Homeland Security moved closer to running out of money Friday after the House rejected a bill that would have kept the agency open for three more weeks. Unless another deal is reached by midnight, DHS will fall into a partial shutdown, leaving thousands of workers furloughed while forcing others to show up on the job without being paid. The House vote was a shocking twist to a dramatic day on Capitol Hill. For most of the day, lawmakers seemed poised to avoid a partial shutdown. The House cleared a procedural hurdle earlier in the day, indicating...

This week, prosecutors in New York introduced eight documents recovered in Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan as evidence in the trial of a terrorism suspect. The U.S. government accuses Abid Naseer of taking part in al Qaeda’s scheme to attack targets in Europe and New York City. And prosecutors say the documents are essential for understanding the scope of al Qaeda’s plotting. More than 1 million documents and files were captured by the Navy Seals who raided bin Laden’s safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan in May 2011. One year later, in May 2012, the Obama administration released just 17...

Leonard Nimoy, the sonorous, gaunt-faced actor who won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the television and movie juggernaut “Star Trek,” died on Friday morning at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. He was 83. His wife, Susan Bay Nimoy, confirmed his death, saying the cause was end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee announced on Thursday night that hundreds of former IRS official Lois Lerner’s previously “lost” backup tapes have been recovered, which could result in the recovery of a new trove of her emails. IRS Deputy Inspector General Timothy P. Camus told Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) on Thursday that it took investigators just two weeks to recover 424 backup tapes that were previously said to be unretrievable. “To date, we have found 32,744 unique emails that were backed up from Lois Lerner’s email box. We are in the process of comparing these emails to what...

It’s starting. As promised, President Obama is using executive actions to impose gun control on the nation, targeting the top-selling rifle in the country, the AR-15 style semi-automatic, with a ban on one of the most-used AR bullets by sportsmen and target shooters. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives this month revealed that it is proposing to put the ban on 5.56mm ammo on a fast track, immediately driving up the price of the bullets and prompting retailers, including the huge outdoors company Cabela’s, to urge sportsmen to urge Congress to stop the president.

The US Department of Justice and embattled mayor Rahm Emanuel are under mounting pressure to investigate allegations of what one politician called “CIA or Gestapo tactics” at a secretive Chicago police facility exposed by the Guardian.Politicians and civil-rights groups across the US expressed shock upon hearing descriptions of off-the-books interrogation at Homan Square, the Chicago warehouse that multiple lawyers and one shackled-up protester likened to a US counter-terrorist black site in a Guardian investigation published this week. As three more people came forward detailing their stories of being “held hostage” and “strapped” inside Homan Square without access to an attorney...

(Reuters) - U.S. regulators are poised to impose the toughest rules yet on Internet service providers, aiming to ensure fair treatment of all web traffic through their networks. The Federal Communications Commission is expected Thursday to approve Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposed "net neutrality" rules, regulating broadband providers more heavily than in the past and restricting their power to control download speeds on the web, for instance by potentially giving preference to companies that can afford to pay more. The vote, expected along party lines with Democrats in favor, comes after a year of jostling between cable and telecom companies and...

Investigators said Thursday they have recovered 32,000 emails related to a former IRS official at the heart of the agency’s tea party scandal. But they don’t know how many of them are new. The emails were to and from Lois Lerner, who used to head the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. Last June, the IRS told Congress it had lost an unknown number of Lerner’s emails when her computer hard drive crashed in 2011. At the time, IRS officials said the emails could not be recovered. But at a congressional hearing Thursday evening, investigators said they recovered...

February 26, 2015 Scott Walker found his stride in a rowdy Conservative Polical Action Conference crowd Thursday during a speech aggressively touting his record as Wisconsin governor to offer evidence for why he's ready to take on the White House in 2016. "If we can do it in Wisconsin, we can do it across America," Walker said. After refusing to answer questions about whether President Obama was Christian and declining to clearly outline his position on evolution in recent weeks, Walker did not shy away from some contentious social issues, such as abortion, that have become stumbling blocks for him....

Because the GOP has a majority in the Senate, it also has a majority on all Senate committees — 12 to 9 in the case of the Judiciary Committee. But since Lynch’s confirmation has become a referendum on executive amnesty and the GOP is riddled with amnesty shills, there was no doubt that a few would cross over and vote with Democrats today to send her through to a floor vote of the entire Senate.The three defectors: Jeff Flake and Lindsey Graham, both members of the Senate’s Gang of Eight on immigration, and Orrin Hatch, who sold himself as...

It’s started. As promised, President Obama is using executive actions to impose gun control on the nation, targeting the top-selling rifle in the country, the AR-15 style semi-automatic, with a ban on one of the most-used AR bullets by sportsmen and target shooters. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives this month revealed that it is putting the ban on 5.56mm ammo on a fast track, immediately driving up the price of the bullets and prompting retailers, including the huge outdoors company Cabela’s, to urge sportsmen to urge Congress to stop the president.

Kansas appears on the verge of becoming among the most welcoming states to people who want to pack heat. A bill promising Kansans the ability to carry concealed firearms — without taking safety training or weathering the background checks required in most of the country — won initial approval in the state Senate on Wednesday. The change, expected to pass Thursday to a likely receptive House, would make Kansas a “constitutional carry” state. That would mean citizens would not need a permit to carry a hidden gun. The bill would maintain the current permit process for people who want to...

(Reuters) - Ukraine announced on Thursday that it would begin withdrawing artillery from the front line with separatist rebels in the east, a move that amounts to recognition that a ceasefire meant to take effect on Feb. 15 is holding at last. The pro-Russian rebels have already been pulling back heavy weapons for two days, but Kiev had held back, arguing that fighting had not yet ceased. However, the army reported no combat fatalities at the front for a second straight day on Thursday, the first time no troops have been killed since long before the French- and German-brokered truce...

Some bureaucrats could end up in prison for implementing President Obama’s amnesty plan for illegal aliens. Even if they don’t violate the brand-new court injunction, they are accountable under a special federal statute. It’s illegal to spend federal money on purposes never approved by Congress. Yet Mr. Obama has bureaucrats going full-speed ahead to create the mechanism that would process amnesty for millions, even while a court injunction requires that actual processing cannot yet begin. Preparations are proceeding “full-throttle,” according to Judicial Watch, which works to make government accountable. The group has uncovered details about some of the tens of...

The Wisconsin Senate narrowly approved a "right-to-work" bill on Wednesday that would bar private-sector employees who work under union-negotiated contracts from being required to join their unions or pay them dues. The bill, which would make Wisconsin the 25th U.S. state with a right-to-work law on the books, cleared the Republican-led Senate on a 17-15 vote following hours of debate marked by periodic angry shouts from opponents in the Senate gallery. Supporters of organized labor chanted "Shame!" as the legislation was passed and sent for further consideration to the state Assembly, where Republicans also hold a majority. One Republican senator,...

A confident President Obama said Wednesday he won’t be stopped by “one federal judge,” telling a Miami crowd he’ll move ahead with his controversial executive action on immigration and vowing his administration will become even more aggressive in the weeks and months to come. At a town hall meeting hosted by Telemundo and MSNBC, the president also threatened to veto GOP-backed legislation that would undo his immigration action. That measure is expected to come up for a vote later this week. Mr. Obama took executive steps last year to halt deportations for millions of illegal immigrants, but a federal judge...

Washington, DC (February 25, 2015) – This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in Yates v. United States. This case highlights the problem of overcriminalization and specifically the dangerous consequences stemming from prosecutorial expansion of the laws passed by Congress. In Yates v. United States, the Court today rejected the government's use of an overly broad interpretation of a post-Enron anti-shredding statute (18 U.S.C. §1519), a statute that provides for up to a 20-year prison sentence, to prosecute a fisherman for the disappearance of some undersized fish from his shipping vessel. While the dissent differed in its interpretation...

By Rabbi Shmuley BoteachJerusalem, Israel — February 25, 2015 … Is there any dirty job for the Obama Administration that Susan Rice is not prepared to do? Need someone to fraudulently blame the murder of an American Ambassador in Libya on a stupid film? Send Susan to the Sunday talk shows. Need someone to savage the leader of the only democracy in the Middle East as damaging the “fabric” of Israel’s relationship with the United States? Put Susan in the makeup chair of Charlie Rose. Yes, it seems there is nothing Susan isn’t prepared to do. And why should that...

[T]he Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is set to roll out something called the Critical Information Needs study, which will embed government “researchers” into media organizations around the nation to make sure they are doing their job properly. The purpose of the CIN, according to the FCC, is to ferret out information from television and radio broadcasters about “the process by which stories are selected” and how often stations cover “critical information needs,” along with “perceived station bias” and “perceived responsiveness to underserved populations.”

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has made some last-minute revisions to his net neutrality plan after Google and public interest groups pressed for the changes, according to sources at the commission. Google, Free Press and New America’s Open Technology Institute last week asked the commission to revise language they said could unintentionally allow Internet service providers to charge websites for sending content to consumers. Such a scenario could open the door to an avalanche of new fees for Web companies and threaten their business models. Google executives on Feb. 19 called aides to Wheeler and staffers for the FCC’s two other...

Just weeks before Secretary of State John Kerry held new nuclear talks with Iran’s foreign minister in Geneva, Iranians were hanging Kerry's boss in effigy at a huge Tehran-sponsored rally marking the Islamic Revolution’s 36th anniversary, an event that critics say underscores the absurdity of the ongoing diplomatic effort. The U.S. and Iran are trying to reach a final nuclear agreement by a March 31 deadline against a backdrop of ongoing anti-American hatred in the Islamic republic. Photos posted by the Middle East Media Research Institute this week show Iranians marching in front of a display depicting President Obama hanging...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — For two straight days this week, 2,000 union members converged on Wisconsin's Capitol to rally against a new right-to-work bill, chanting, marching and hurling profanities at GOP lawmakers and Gov. Scott Walker. The tone of the rallies has been bitter and angry but hasn't come close to matching the energy that coursed through the building four years ago during massive protests against Walker's proposal to strip public workers of most of their union rights. This time around, union members said Republicans are moving too fast to organize large crowds. Some have even conceded it's a lost...

Reports are beginning to pop that Ted Cruz is on the brink of hiring the men who will run his campaign in Iowa, a state the Texas senator believes he very much has the chance to win come January 2016. A well-sourced Republican operative in the state tells me Cruz is hiring 2002 Senate candidate Bill Salier, who run Tom Tancredo’s 2008 presidential campaign, and Bryan England, who has served as aide to both Iowa congressman Steve King and Bob Vander Plaats, the three-time Republican gubernatorial candidate and political activist. A spokesman for Cruz did not immediately respond to a...

ISIS is holding many more Assyrian Christians hostage than previously thought -- and it is reportedly planning to release a message Wednesday threatening to kill them. Osama Edward, founder of the Assyrian Human Rights Network, told CNN that the extremist group is now believed to have 150 hostages, citing the latest information from the network's team on the ground. Initial estimates put the number seized at between 70 and 100 people, among them women, children and the elderly. The video message will be directed to President Barack Obama and other members of the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS, Edward said from...

China has dropped some of the world's leading technology brands from its approved state purchase lists, while approving thousands more locally made products, in what some say is a response to revelations of widespread Western cybersurveillance. Others put the shift down to a protectionist impulse to shield China's domestic technology industry from competition. Chief casualty is U.S. network equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc (CSCO.O), which in 2012 counted 60 products on the Central Government Procurement Center's (CGPC) list, but by late 2014 had none, a Reuters analysis of official data shows. Smartphone and PC maker Apple Inc (AAPL.O) has also...