Free Republic

* Divers spent two years recovering the haul from the bed of the Caribbean * The unnamed galleon is thought to have sunk around 1540 * It held 1,200 top quality items, bound for Spanish ambassador's mansion Specialist divers spent two years extracting the pewter plates and bowls from beneath the waves off the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean. More than 1,200 items of the finest quality English pewter were recovered from the wreck of the unnamed galleon which is thought to have sunk around 1540... It is believed the ship was transporting the incoming Spanish ambassador from Seville to...

President Obama's on-and-off-again planned American attack on Syria is nothing new. Besides its five declared wars, America has a habit of intervening all over the world. Even apart from clandestine CIA operations, and even after the unhappy end of the Vietnam War, we have attacked lots of countries and non-state militias. The roll call of recent American military interventions is quite astounding: Cambodia, Iran, Libya, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Liberia, Iraq, Haiti, Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, Zaire and Afghanistan. Even the notion of Past American isolationism is a myth. In the four years between 1912 and 1916 alone, the U.S. sent...

(NOTE: Huffington had to shorted to Huff because the original title exceeded the limit of characters.) Dana Loesch is a well-known conservative writer and thinker. Her fame comes about in part because, aside from being one heck of a smart gal and a good writer, she’s also extremely beautiful. Perhaps that beauty is what drove a Progressive Huffington Post contributor to abandon his political argument with her on Twitter and simply threaten her with anal rape. Loesch is a chronic irritant to Progressives. She’s a pro-gun conservative who looks like a fashion model and who can communicate her conservative ideas...

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin took to Facebook Thursday to slam a racially-charged website operated by a Homeland Security employee, calling it "Unflippingbelievable." "So, the Federal Government, er, We The People, are employing someone at the Department of Homeland Security whose side job is running a hate website advocating ethnic cleansing and other despicable acts?!" Palin posted late Thursday, according to The Huffington Post. "Unflippingbelievable," she added. The Associated Press, citing an unidentified Homeland Security official, reported Friday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) employee Ayo Kimathi is allegedly operating a website that advocates a race war. "War on the...

BROCKTON — Firefighters driving to work at the Pleasant Street station on the edge of downtown started reporting interference on their car radios this week. Then on Wednesday, music started playing over the speakers in the station used for dispatching fire engines and garbling emergency communications. “In the station, those speakers are used to alert firefighters to an incident, and that’s how we get the type of call and location,” said Deputy Fire Chief Kevin Galligan. “Any interference is a serious issue.” Galligan called officer Scott Uhlman, the Brockton Police Department’s radio guru, and City Councilor Dennis DeNapoli to help...

A little girl received a big scare in Reading Tuesday after she was nearly robbed at knife-point.

<p>EXCLUSIVE Food-stamp fraud has turned into foreign aid — to black-market profiteers in the Dominican Republic.... welfare recipients buy food with EBT cards and ship it to relatives. But not to starving children. The NY Post found people hawking barrels of American products on Dominican streets. “It’s a really easy way to make money, and it doesn’t cost me anything,” a seller said. She also vends EBT goods out of her Dominican home “I know a lot of people are doing it,” she said.</p>

Food stamps are paying for trans-Atlantic takeout — with New Yorkers using taxpayer-funded benefits to ship food to relatives in Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Welfare recipients are buying groceries with their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards and packing them in giant barrels for the trip overseas, The Post found.

<p>EXCLUSIVE Food stamps are paying to buy and ship food to Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. A spokeswoman for the US Dept of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service said the $86 BILLION welfare program is reserved for poor US households that buy and prepare food.</p>

(CNSNews.com) – The State Department through its Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs is planning to spend $95,000 to provide vocational training to Haitian inmates in textile production and assembly. “The applicant should demonstrate an ability to conduct job training on clothing production (including skills such as sewing, tailoring, and/or clothing assembly) within individual prisons in Haiti’s Ouest Department. This training should be hands-on and allow prisoners to get real practice working with textile materials,” the grant said. The International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) specifically targeted the textile industry, “which is projected to grow in Haiti as...

His wife may be the official ambassador for the U.S., but Bill Clinton sure does get a lot of requests about his opinion on foreign affairs. Clinton is expected to take the stage around 4 p.m. at the Americas Conference, being held at the Biltmore in Coral Gables and he won't be talking about his good times in the Oval Office. The former president is expected to address the recent political upheavel in Honduras, which has become the dominating theme at the conference. Outside of the hotel, about 50 protesters chanting "Elections yes, Zelaya no" greeted guests and speakers. They...

On April 8, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi headlined a Boston conference on ''media reform.'' She was joined by four other congressmen, a senator, two FCC commissioners, a Nobel laureate and numerous liberal journalists. The 2,500-person event was sponsored by a group called Free Press, one of more than 180 different media-related organizations that receives money from liberal billionaire George Soros. Soros, who first made a name for himself in investing and currency trading, now makes his name in politics and policy. Since the 2004 election, the controversial financier has used his influence and billions to push a laundry list...

First there’s a tap on the shoulder. A huge palace-guard policeman in full body armour and a black balaclava uses a riot stick to suggest it’s time to go. Then he swings the truncheon high in the air and it comes down with a sickening thud on the back of a demonstrator. Beside him a man lies groaning as blood drips from a deep hand wound. The President of Haiti, Michel Martelly, stands just yards away, surrounded by a crowd of 10,000 people in the central square of the capital Port-au-Prince. This pop-star leader – a former Creole singer known...

International affairs can be complicated, but sometimes a case comes along that’s so simple it’s almost absurd. In 2010, the United Nations made a horrendous mistake that, so far, has claimed more than 8,000 lives. Its officials tried to cover it up. When the evidence came out anyway, lawyers for victims’ families petitioned the U.N. to end the crisis, pay damages, and apologize. For a year and a half, the world’s leading humanitarian organization said nothing. Then, last week, it threw out the case, saying, “The claims are not receivable.” The background should be well-known by now. But despite the...

Prisons for Haiti: U.S. to Build Two Complexes Near Port au Prince (NEWS BRIEF)By Steve Peacock, U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor (Dec. 20, 2012) The U.S. Department of State is arranging the construction of two prison facilities outside Haiti's capital of Port au Prince. The project, with an estimated top-cost of $10 million, includes a 150-bed prison and 200-bed womens prison in Petit Goave and Cabaret, Haiti, respectively. State tentatively scheduled a "pre-proposal conference and site visit" for prospective prison-industry contractors in Port au Prince for February 5-6, 2013. Source document: Solicitation #SAQMMA13R0067. FOR ADDITIONAL COVERAGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE ISSUES,...

A Travel Channel episode of No Reservations, [..], took viewers to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I had heard that the show offered unique insight into the country and its troubles. I couldn't imagine how. But it turns out to be true. Through the lens of food, we can gain an insight into culture, and from culture to economy, and from economy to politics and finally to what's wrong in this country and what can be done about it. Through this micro lens, we gain more insight than we would have if the program were entirely focused on economic issues. Such an episode...

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation "Fast and Furious" to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales. PICTURES: ATF "Gunwalking" scandal timeline In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the "big fish." But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called "gunwalking," and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder...

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has attended the launch of a $300m (£187m) industrial park in the Haitian town of Caracol. The project is part of US efforts to help Haiti recover from the devastation it suffered in the 2010 earthquake. The US has invested $124m (£77m) in the project, which it hopes will create thousands of jobs. At a grand opening ceremony Haiti's President Michel Martelly said the country was "open for business".

The government of Haiti is hosting Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton today, along with a delegation of foreign investors and a crowd of celebrities. They're gathering to inaugurate an industrial park that is the centerpiece of the U.S. aid effort since the 2010 earthquake. The Clintons and others hope the facility will transform northern Haiti by providing thousands of jobs. The industrial park is more than a hundred miles from the slowly-recovering quake zone.

Wyclef's Haiti Charity Is Now Defunct After Mishandling $16M In Donations Aly WeismanOct. 12, 2012, 6:52 PMWyclef's Yéle charity is no longer.Wyclef Jean's Yéle Haiti charity, once what the singer said was the country's "greatest asset and ally" is now defunct and in debt. The charity's collapse comes after years of accusations of mishandled funds, which amounted to a reported $16 million following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. "Yéle was small before the earthquake, with only $37,000 in assets," reports The New York Times. "Immediately afterward, money started pouring in. Mr. Jean said he raised $1 million in 24 hours...