Free Republic

As the civil war in Syria enters its third year, there is much discussion of the regimeÂ’s chemical weapons and whether SyriaÂ’s Bashar al-Assad will unleash them against Syrian rebels, or whether a power vacuum after AssadÂ’s fall might make those horrific tools available to the highest bidder. The conversation centers on SyriaÂ’s chemical weaponry, not on something vastly more serious: its nuclear weaponry. It well might have. This is the inside story of why it does not. Relations between the United States and Israel had grown rocky after IsraelÂ’s incursion into Lebanon in 2006, for Secretary of State Condoleezza...

The exodus of senior aides from the White House continued as Gen James Jones, Barack Obama’s head of National Security, resigned. His departure, which comes a week after Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff, resigned, removes one of the few senior officials not belonging to the US president’s coterie of long-time advisers. Brought in originally for his vast experience and independent voice, it had been clear for some time that the former Nato supreme commander had failed to gel with the president’s inner circle. Gen Jones is being replaced by one of those close aides, his former deputy Thomas Donilon....

Gates: Software billionaire Bill Gates, who previously has advocated the reduction of the human population through the use of vaccines, and his wife Melinda marked the 100th year since the First International Eugenics Congress in London with a “family planning” summit with abortionists and the United Nations. The July 11 event, co-hosted by the United Kingdom Department for International Development, included organizations such as Planned Parenthood, Marie Stopes International and the U.N. Populations Fund, as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Critics pointed out the summit was held 100 years after the July 1912 eugenics conference led by...

CHESAPEAKE, VA. (Catholic Online) - This letter,offered below, was written by Obianuju Ekeocha, a 32-year-old Nigerian woman. For the past six years she has been living and working as a biomedical scientist in Canterbury, England. Most of her family and many friends still live in Nigeria. She is active in her parish and says she is grateful to God for the graces she receives as she serves the Church. She praises Catholic radio in America, specifically the programs of Teresa Tomeo and Al Kresta, for keeping her "informed and inspired in all the things that 'matter most,'" and for providing...

uly 31, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano newspaper has published an article attacking Melinda Gates’ recently-launched campaign to distribute contraceptives to African women, saying that it is based on “an unfounded and second-rate understanding” of the issue. Click here for full translation of article. The article, written by Italian journalist Giulia Galeotti, and titled “Birth control and disinformation: The risks of philanthropy,” notes that Melinda Gates has expressed “anguish” over her new initiative, due to the conflict it creates with the Catholic hierarchy. It adds that Gates is apparently unaware of the reliability of the Billings Ovulation Method...

"If you want to get involved in business," Sen. Orrin Hatch warned technology companies at a conference in 2000, "you should get involved in politics." Hatch was referring to the shortcomings of then-software king Microsoft, which he had spent most of the previous decade harassing from his perch as Judiciary Committee chairman. The message was clear: If you become successful, you must hire lobbyists, you must start a political action committee, and you must donate to politicians. Otherwise Washington will make your life very difficult.

"The most important men in town would come to fawn on me! They would ask me to advise them, Like a Solomon the Wise. "If you please, Reb Tevye..." "Pardon me, Reb Tevye..." Posing problems that would cross a rabbi's eyes! And it won't make one bit of difference if i answer right or wrong. When you're rich, they think you really know!" C-FAM is reporting that Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and a Catholic, is telling governments to dismiss the controversial link between contraception and population control and explicitly rejects Catholic social teaching along...

Forrester Research last week recommended corporate IT departments let workers use Macs on their networks because these employees are more likely to be power users, the ones working longer hours, being more productive and making more money. The folks at Forrester Research    reversed themselves last week with the recommendation that corporate IT departments need to make it easier for workers to use Mac computers and devices. The tech research firm had long told the same IT departments not to bother accommodating devices from Apple Inc.    Why the change of mind? Forrester says it is because the most productive...

Being endorsed by scary, hateful, self-marginalizing extremists isn’t necessarily the kiss of death in American politics. After presidential candidate Ronald Reagan was endorsed by a Louisiana chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in 1980 –an endorsement he quite correctly and forcefully rejected— he prospered and went on to evict Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter from the White House. But it’s different when the endorsee shares the core tenets of the fringe-dwelling endorsers. It really shouldn’t be altogether surprising that Occupy Wall Street is now endorsed by both the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and the American Nazi Party. After all, the rhetoric...

This week Apple co-founder Steve Jobs passed away after a lengthy battle with cancer. As a household name, people naturally mourned the man most had never met. Like his historical comparison, Thomas Edison, Jobs was a brash provocateur, did little of the hands-on inventing in his shop, enjoyed a non-conventional libation, and he oversaw monumental failures. Jobs's sometimes nemesis, Bill Gates, has many of the same type-A traits, but Microsoft was essentially forbidden to fail, and that is the reason Apple is worth 25% more than Microsoft today. Failure is the common thread among all great innovators. Edison's monumental failure...

Former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates blasted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that his policies were ungrateful towards the US and were isolating Israel on a global level. Gates’ harsh words were said during a meeting of the National Security Council Principals Committee, Bloomberg’s Jeffrey Goldber reported Tuesday. Gates believes Netanyahu’s government has offered the Obama administration “nothing in return” for its generous security aid, which includes access to top-quality weapons, assistance in developing missile-defense systems and high-level intelligence sharing. The former defense secretary said that not only is Netanyahu ungrateful, but his polices were “endangering his country by...

Former US defense secretary Robert Gates lashed out Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, calling him an ungrateful ally and blaming him for diplomatically isolating Israel and hurting American interests, according to a Tuesday column. The criticism, which was revealed in a Bloomberg column by Jeffrey Goldberg, apparently peaked after Netanyahu met with US President Barack Obama last March, lecturing him on the Israeli security situation with a level of "impudence" that shocked many in the White House, including Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. Gates felt that while the US had laid out "many steps" to "guarantee Israel's

The opposition is called "son of a bitches" at one Labor rally and "barbarians" at another rally. Here's an angry Joe Biden at the AFL-CIO rally in Cincinnati just a short time ago.

BEIJING (AP) -- Chinese search giant Baidu Inc. will use Microsoft's Bing for some English-language results as the software giant tries to expand its small share of China's search market.... ...For this deal, it appears that Microsoft will censor English-language Bing search results in China. Microsoft said in a statement that Bing will use "certain filtering technologies and processes to ensure that we are in compliance with local laws."

Harmony Public Schools, a high-performing charter school network that focuses on math and science, has been the target of activists concerned that its leaders are non-U.S. citizens with ties to Turkey. Led by the Texas Eagle Forum, a conservative pro-family organization, Harmony's critics have issued a flurry of legislative alerts in recent weeks that said the state's $25 billion endowment for "our children's textbooks" was imperiled by "Turkish men, of whom we know very little other than most are not American citizens."

As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates prepares to retire to private life — after five years as the head of the Department of Defense in both the Bush and Obama administrations — praise is being heaped on him by Democrats and Republicans alike. Herein a dissenting view. History will not be kind to Gates. Despite some noteworthy accomplishments, he will be remembered as the single most important facilitator of an Iranian regime with nuclear weapons. Future historians will compare him to Neville Chamberlain’s military advisers who opposed all forms of military intervention against the greatest potential danger of the era:...

The Fethullah Gulen movement, which seeks to restore the Ottoman Empire, has found a friend and benefactor in Bill Gates of Microsoft fame. Mr. Gates is ranked the third wealthiest person on planet earth. In 2007, through the Texas High School Project, the Gates Foundation shelled out $10,550,000 to the Cosmos Foundation, a Gulen enterprise that operates 25 publicly funded charter schools in Texas. The Internal Revenue Service Form 990 for Cosmos shows that the Cosmos Foundation received $41,570,721 from taxpayers. At present, there are 85 Gulan madrassahs (Islamic schools) in the United States, and all operate with public funding.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is unlikely to certify repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” before leaving office next week, senior defense and military officials said. Two weeks ago, Gates said that he would finalize the repeal of the 18-year-old ban on openly gay troops if the service chiefs give him their OK before he retires on June 30. And in a message to commanders earlier this month, Army leaders said assessments on the progress and impact of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal training — underway since February — are due this Friday, leaving open a slim possibility that certification...

With little fanfare or controversy, the Senate on Tuesday unanimously confirmed Leon Panetta as the next Defense secretary as a debate rages in Washington over the cost and scope of military operations abroad. Panetta, President Barack Obama’s CIA director, succeeds Robert Gates, who has led the Pentagon since late 2006 and is retiring at the end of the month. Panetta’s confirmation comes just a day before Obama’s major address on the Afghanistan war in which he is expected to announce he’ll withdraw all 33,000 “surge” troops from the region by the end of 2012. In addition to the troop drawdown,...

Hint: It’s not what you think. In his exit interview with Chris Wallace, soon to be former Defense Secretary Bob Gates told Wallace what he worries about the most. And, no it’s not Islamic terrorism. It’s us! Gates bemoaned the loss of bipartisanship in DC as our biggest problem. When asked by Wallace what he worries about as he looks to the future, the Secretary didn’t mention the two new wars that Obama has dragged America into. He didn’t mention the rise of home grown jihadism. Or the war in Afghanistan. Nope, it’s not Pakistani nukes either. Nor is it...