Free Republic

New York, September 16, 2015--The Committee to Protect Journalists deplores a decree signed by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko today which, according to a copy viewed by CPJ, bans at least 41 international journalists and bloggers from Ukraine for one year. The journalists and bloggers were among 388 people named as representing an "actual or potential threat to national interests, national security, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine," according to news reports. "We are dismayed by President Poroshenko's actions, including a ban on dozens of international media covering Ukraine," CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. "While the...

The Daily Mail reported last year: A self-selected group of former top military officers, CIA insiders and think-tankers, declared Tuesday in Washington that a seven-month review of the deadly 2012 terrorist attack has determined that [Gaddafi offered to abdicate as leader of Libya.] ‘Gaddafi wasn’t a good guy, but he was being marginalized,’ [Retired Rear Admiral Chuck ] Kubic recalled. ‘Gaddafi actually offered to abdicate’ shortly after the beginning of a 2011 rebellion. ‘But the U.S. ignored his calls for a truce,’ the commission wrote, ultimately backing the horse that would later help kill a U.S. ambassador. Kubic said that...

Florida Jew arrested for posing as online jihadist, encouraging terrorism Joshua Ryne Goldberg faces 20 years in jail; same man reported to have posted foul, hoax blog on Times of Israel in April The FBI arrested a 20-year-old American Jewish man for posing as an Islamic State extremist, calling for terrorist attacks, claiming to be planning attacks in Australia and the United States, and providing information on bomb construction to a second party. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the same man, who it named as Florida resident Joshua Ryne Goldberg, also posed as a respected Australian lawyer in April...

What has been well-known amongst informed observers for quite some time is now becoming so obvious that it is almost impossible to hide except from the most gullible members of the general public – that fact the United States is not only not interested in fighting ISIS, but they are actively protecting and shielding it. In truth, the US relationship with ISIS goes much deeper since the US created, armed, and trained the terrorist organization from its inception for the purpose of destroying the secular government of Bashar al-Assad and providing a bogeyman for the fearful masses back home...

The United States is a nation of laws, we have federal laws, state laws, and local laws. One would think all of them are to be followed, yet it depends on the political climate at the time which ones are followed and ignored. Apparently, it also depends on what Federal judge at the time decides what can and cannot be done lawfully. Case and point, we have Rowan County Kentucky clerk Kim Davis recently released from jail after refusing to issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples. Davis spent 5 nights behind bars because she allegedly broke the law, according...

Fort Meade (United States) (AFP) - US President Barack Obama said Friday that Russia's decision to send military advisors and equipment to Syria extended a strategy "doomed to failure," and could kill off already stagnant peace efforts. Obama said that Russia's decision to ramp up its military presence in war-torn Syria represented a "doubling-down" of Moscow's support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. US officials say Russia has sent ships, armored personnel carriers and naval infantry to the country in recent weeks, a move which Obama said showed Assad was worried his grip on power is slipping. "The strategy that they...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia called on Friday for Washington to restart direct military-to-military cooperation to avert "unintended incidents" near Syria, at a time when U.S. officials say Moscow is building up forces to protect President Bashar al-Assad's government. The United States is leading a campaign of air strikes against Islamic State fighters in Syrian air space, and a greater Russian presence would raise the prospect of the Cold War superpower foes encountering each other on the battlefield. Both Moscow and Washington say their enemy is Islamic State. But Russia supports the government of Assad, while the United States says his...

World | Fri Sep 18, 2015 11:37am EDT Related: World, Russia, Syria Syrian jets pound Islamic State-held areas for second day BEIRUT Syrian army jets carried out at least 25 air strikes on the Islamic State-held city of Palmyra on Friday, a group monitoring the war said, the second intense bombardment in two days of territory held by the militants. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was one of the most sustained government bombardments of Palmyra. On Thursday, Syrian jets had carried out at least 12 air strikes on Raqqa, Islamic State’s de facto capital in the north....

Warnings of jihadists among Syria’s rebels came early, were ignored Obama administration’s picture of Syrian moderates either dangerous naivete or an outright lie, according to government’s internal assessmentsIntelligence revealed extremists were recruiting or routing mainstream fighters, Free Syrian Army no match for better-armed jihadists Read more here: http://www.heraldonline.com/news/article31183583.html#storylink=cpy

The Secret Arms Deal Behind America’s Syria Fiasco A multimillion-dollar deal with a minuscule arms dealer led to the death of a US citizen, delays in arming Syrian rebels, and the purchase of weapons from a pro-Russia dictatorship — all for a pile of defective 30-year-old weapons. posted on Sept. 17, 2015, at 11:00 a.m. Aram Roston BuzzFeed News Reporter At the heart of the high-stakes U.S. program to train and equip Syrian rebels to fight ISIS is a multimillion-dollar arms deal that the Pentagon farmed out to a tiny, little-known private company called Purple Shovel LLC. A BuzzFeed News...

September 15, 2015 U.S. training helped mold top Islamic State military commander “More than anything else, Batirashvili has legitimized ISIS in the Caucasus by the power of his exploits, which is amplified by slick ISIS propaganda,” said Michael Cecire, an analyst of extremism for the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute. ...snip Those seeking an explanation for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s insistence on sending military supplies and manpower to Syria to bolster the government of President Bashar Assad would do well to consider Batirashvili. Putin not only personally oversaw the Russian push into Georgia, but he has twice waged war against...

A few days ago when asked about the couragous stand of Kim Davis, Trump essentially came out in support of gay marriage. "Its the law of the land," he said. “I hate to see her being put in jail." Well, isn't that swell Trumpy, but he added “I understand what they’re doing. It would be certainly nice if she didn’t do it." Lets get this straight, while bold leaders like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Mike Huckabee are coming out in support of Kim Davis and her religious stand of conscious, Trump is busy kowtowing to the gay mafia, turning...

From the moment he walked onto the Republican debate stage in Cleveland, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has been Donald Trump's most relentless critic. He has called him a "fake conservative," a "chameleon," a man who "buys and sells politicians." Long before former Florida Jeb Bush hit Trump with a video of his most liberal statements, Paul had his campaign team on the case. Yet in a Friday interview with Michael Smerconish, first spotlighted by Mediaite's Matt Wilstein, Paul got a chance to mock Trump's stumbling "commander in chief interview" with Hugh Hewitt. He did not take it. Instead, he defended...

<p>Washington (CNN)Republican front-runner Donald Trump said Friday that he wished a Kentucky county clerk, Kim Davis, was not jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but he added that the Supreme Court has ruled and it is "the law of the land."</p>

Syria: Bashar al-Assad ready to share power, says Vladimir Putin By Tom Porter September 4, 2015 14:05 BST Russian President Vladimir Putin said Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad is ready to share power and even could hold snap parliamentary elections. Russia has been Assad's main international ally during the four-year civil war that has caused millions to flee the country and cost more than 200,000 lives. Moscow has repeatedly resisted calls for Assad to step aside, and Putin said the West should work with Assad's regime to combat jihadist organisation Islamic State, which now controls more than half of Syria. "We...

Rand Paul said he supports a county clerk from his home state for standing her ground against granting marriage licenses for same-sex couples, saying there should be room "for people to exercise their religious beliefs and not be told they have to do something they find morally objectionable." "I have never been opposed to contracts between consenting adults," Paul told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" co-host Bill Hemmer. "But I am very much sympathetic to the idea that an individual shouldn't have to sign or give their stamp of approval that they object to." There is an easy way out for...

Sen. Rand Paul's (R-KY) said on Thursday it was "absurd" that Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis had been jailed for contempt after refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. "I think it’s absurd to put someone in jail for exercising their religious liberties," the GOP presidential candidate and outspoken advocate of states' rights told CNN on Thursday, shortly after Davis' fate was decided by a U.S. District Court Judge David Bunning. "This is really the problem when from on high we decide to get involved on a federal level with something that has always been a local issue," Paul...

FULL TITLE: Embattled Kentucky clerk who opposes gay marriage unwittingly gave marriage license to transgender couple: report Kentucky's Rowan County clerk Kim Davis, who's defying the U.S. Supreme Court by refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, unwittingly granted one to a transgender couple, according to a report. Camryn Colen, who is transgender, and his wife Alexis, said they obtained a marriage license in February from Davis' office, without being asked to present a birth certificate for Colen, who is identified as a female on the document, the couple told The Courier-Journal.

It is tempting to dismiss the latest anti-choice salvo from Ohio lawmakers, which would criminalize abortions based on a fetal diagnosis of Down syndrome, as a blatantly unconstitutional ploy that would never be enforced. That would be a mistake. The bill stands a disturbingly good chance of approval this fall by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature A similar bill passed in North Dakota in 2013 bans abortions on the grounds of fetal genetic anomalies, including Down syndrome. The law has not yet been enforced — under existing Supreme Court precedent it is hard to see how it could be — but...

<p>“I identify with some things as a Democrat…I was never a Bush fan. [When] the economy crashed so horribly under George Bush, because of mistakes they made having to do with banking and lots of other things, I don’t think the Democrats would have done that.”</p>