Free Republic

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...

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears before both houses of Congress next week, Secretary of State John F. Kerry won’t be there — he’ll be in Geneva trying to hammer out the final details of a nuclear deal with Iran that the Israeli leader in coming to Washington to argue against. Mr. Netanyahu will use the speech to warn U.S. lawmakers of the danger associated with cutting a nuclear deal with Iran that allows the Islamic republic to continue enriching uranium at any level — even for producing electricity. But when Mr. Netanyahu appears before Congress on March 3,...

Two prominent House committee chairs are “deeply disappointed” in Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler for refusing to testify before Congress as “the future of the Internet is at stake.” Wheeler’s refusal to go before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday comes on the eve of the FCC’s vote on new Internet regulations pertaining to net neutrality. The committee’s chairman, Representative Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah), and Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Fred Upton (R., Mich.) criticized Wheeler and the administration for lacking transparency on the issue.

Saudi Arabia is prepared to let Israeli fighter jets use its airspace if it proves necessary to attack Iran’s nuclear program, an Israeli TV station reported Tuesday, highlighting growing ties in the shadow of Tehran’s nuclear drive. Riyadh’s only condition is that Israel make some kind of progress in peace talks with the Palestinians, Channel 2 reported Tuesday, citing an unnamed senior European source. “The Saudi authorities are completely coordinated with Israel on all matters related to Iran,” the European official in Brussels said. Jerusalem and Riyadh do not have diplomatic ties, but unconfirmed reports have swirled for years of...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined on Tuesday an invitation to meet with US Senate Democrats during his trip to Washington next week. "Though I greatly appreciate your kind invitation to meet with Democratic Senators, I believe that doing so at this time could compound the misperception of partisanship regarding my upcoming visit," Netanyahu wrote in a letter to Senators Richard Durbin and Dianne Feinstein obtained by Reuters. Durbin and Feinstein had invited Netanyahu to a closed-door meeting with Democratic senators in a letter on Monday.

WASHINGTON — Last April, a dozen New York-based Internet companies gathered in the Flatiron Building boardroom of the social media website Tumblr to hear dire warnings that broadband providers were about to get the right to charge for the fastest speeds on the web. The implication: If they didn’t pay up, they would be stuck in the slow lane. What followed has been the longest, most sustained campaign of Internet activism in history, one that the little guys appear to have won. On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission is expected to vote to regulate the Internet as a public good....

An Iranian dissident group known for exposing key aspects of Iran’s secret nuclear work claims it now has evidence of “an active and secret parallel nuclear program” operated by Tehran. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), also known as the MEK, said in a report released Tuesday it has found concrete evidence of an “underground top-secret site currently used by the Iranian regime for research and development with advanced centrifuges for uranium enrichment,” according to a copy of the findings. The NCRI, an Iranian opposition group, is known for making big reveals about clandestine nuclear work in Tehran,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Conservative Republicans urged House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner not to capitulate in a fight with Democrats over President Barack Obama's immigration policy that threatens a partial Homeland Security shutdown later this week. The conservative lawmakers, led by Representative Jeff Duncan, circulated a letter to Boehner and other House leaders telling them to hold the line in opposing Obama's executive actions shielding millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation, a Duncan aide said on Tuesday. "Now is the time to stand firm against these unlawful executive actions," said the letter, signed by about 20 conservative Republicans so far.

Islamic State militants have abducted at least 90 people from Assyrian Christian villages in northeastern Syria, a monitoring group tracking violence in Syria said on Tuesday. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said they carried out dawn raids on rural villages inhabited by the ancient Christian minority west of Hasaka, a city mainly held by the Kurds. [....] Islamic State did not confirm the kidnappings. Supporters posted photos online of the group's fighters in camouflage attire looking at maps and firing machine guns. The website said the photos were from Tel Tamr, a town near where the Observatory said...

US Secretary of State John Kerry defended the ongoing nuclear talks with Iran on Tuesday in comments that appeared to be directed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As Netanyahu accused the P5+1 group of world powers of giving Iran a green light to maintain the ability to make nuclear weapons, Kerry said that those bad-mouthing the deal are doing so prematurely, before the contours of the deal have been determined. During a tour of the IDF's Southern Command, Netanyahu said that "the information I have received in recent days reinforces our fears in regard to the emerging deal between world...

In September 2013, Jeri Wright, daughter of Reverend “God Damn America” Wright, and 12 other Democrats were charged with embezzling $16 million in Federal health grants that should have gone to AIDS charities and other programs for the poor and needy. More than one of the defendants had direct ties to President Barack Obama. In March 2014 Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s daughter Jeri was found guilty on eleven counts that included money laundering and lying to federal agents. This week US District Judge Sue E. Myerscough sent Jeri Wright to prison. The Chicago Sun-Times reported: Jeri L. Wright, the daughter of...

"...Over the past year, China’s Spratly outposts have been systematically undergoing a process known as “land reclamation,” where dedicated dredging vessels dig up sediment from the sea and dump it on top of submerged reefs to make islands. China has already built five islands through reclamation, and at least two additional islands are in the early stages of development. China is not the first claimant to reclaim land – Malaysia’s Swallow Reef and several Vietnamese islands have been artificially built or extended – but China’s reclamation efforts are operating at a larger scale than any previous project. Already, the artificial...

Robert A. McDonald, the secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department, apologized on Monday for falsely claiming last month that he had served in the United States Special Forces. Mr. McDonald, a 1975 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, served in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, where he completed jungle, arctic, desert warfare and Ranger training, according to his official biography. But his assertion to a homeless veteran in Los Angeles that he was in Special Forces — captured on camera for a CBS News report — was false, he acknowledged on Monday. His initial claim was...

The GOP needs a politically defensible alternative if the Supreme Court overturns federal-exchange subsidies. On March 4 the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell, with a decision expected in late June. If the court strikes down the payment of government subsidies to those who bought health insurance on the federal exchange, Republicans will at last have a real opportunity to amend ObamaCare. Doing so, however, will be politically perilous. The language of the Affordable Care Act states that subsidies should only be paid through state exchanges. The bill’s authors perhaps believed that pressure from citizens and...

The Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization were found liable on Monday by a jury in Manhattan for their role in knowingly supporting six terrorist attacks in Israel between 2002 and 2004 in which Americans were killed and injured. The damages are to be $655.5 million, under a special terrorism law that provides for tripling the $218.5 million awarded by the jury in Federal District Court. The verdict ended a decade-long legal battle to hold the Palestinian organizations responsible for the terrorist acts. While the decision was a huge victory for the dozens of plaintiffs, it could also serve...

A top aide to Gov. Peter Shumlin is defending the administration's handling of a contract with Massachusetts Institute of Technology health economist Jonathan Gruber, after criticisms were lodged by the state auditor. Administration Secretary Justin Johnson made public his reply to Auditor Doug Hoffer, in which Johnson says officials in the state office of health care reform kept a close eye on work done by Gruber. Hoffer says the evidence suggests that Gruber overstated the hours worked by a $100-per-hour research assistant, and that top state health care officials ignored the obvious signs that something was amiss. The state rewrote...

The U.S. government asked a federal judge Monday to lift a temporary hold on President Obama’s executive action to protect millions of immigrants from deportation, Fox News has confirmed. Justice Department lawyers requested a “stay” to delay a federal judge’s decision to block Obama’s immigration order, which legally allows 5 million immigrants to stay in the countRy. More at link. . .

GENEVA (AP) — The United States and Iran are working on a two-phase deal that clamps down on Tehran's nuclear program for at least a decade before providing it leeway over the remainder of the agreement to slowly ramp up activities that could be used to make weapons.

Washington (CNN)They're carrying out sporadic terror attacks on police, have threatened attacks on government buildings and reject government authority. A new intelligence assessment, circulated by the Department of Homeland Security this month and reviewed by CNN, focuses on the domestic terror threat from right-wing sovereign citizen extremists and comes as the Obama administration holds a White House conference to focus efforts to fight violent extremism. DHS Secretary: ISIS reaching into U.S. to recruit DHS Secretary: ISIS reaching into U.S. to recruit 03:30 PLAY VIDEO Some federal and local law enforcement groups view the domestic terror threat from sovereign citizen groups...

Kansas could be the first state to outlaw a certain type of abortion commonly used during the second trimester of pregnancy. A bill banning what's known as the "Dilation and Evacuation" procedure, commonly known as partial birth abortion, passed Friday in the Kansas Senate. The abortion method, which includes extracting the fetus in pieces, was described by lawmakers supporting the bill as "gruesome" and "barbaric." Another state senator said it's "unimaginable that such a procedure could be used by a medical practicioner." The measure is expected to pass in the Republican-controlled state House of Representatives then gain the signature of...