Free Republic

Three years ago he was a long-haired, bandana-wearing hippie walking for peace, now he’s been arrested for plotting to kill Americans for ISIS. Such is life in Obama’s America. Alexander Ciccolo at a peace walk’ in 2012 against nuclear power and weapons. Photo, ABC News from the Napanee Beaver. Another photo can be seen here. Alexander Ciccolo, “Ali Al Amriki” to his Muslim terrorist friends, was busted by the FBI on July 4 after buying firearms from a confidential source working for the FBI, reported WCVB-TV. Ciccolo also reportedly bought a pressure cooker to make an IED. He allegedly was...

A heckler was ejected from Hillary Clinton’s economic speech in New York City Monday after asking the former secretary of state about her position on investment banking regulations. Business Insider reported that Daniel Burke, a self-identified organizer for the LaRouche PAC which supports political activist Lyndon LaRouche, yelled at Clinton at the conclusion of her speech, “Senator Clinton, will you restore Glass-Steagall?” Clinton did not respond to the inquiry, and Burke was removed from the event location, the New School in Manhattan, by security. Passed in 1933 and then repealed 66 years later, the Glass-Steagall Act separates commercial banks from...

DEVELOPING: The son of a Boston police captain was an ISIS supporter who planned to set off an improvised explosive device and was arrested after illegally purchasing four firearms on July 4, according to the AP and a Justice Department press release. Authorities say 23-year-old Alexander Ciccolo, who also went by the name Ali Al Amriki, spoke about setting off an explosive device “in places where large numbers of people congregate, such as college cafeterias,” and was seen purchasing a pressure cooker similar to the kind used by the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing.

Bill Cosby's faithful wife is aware of her husband's cheating ways, but believes the women he's accused of slipping drugs to and then sleeping with actually consented to take the pills, it was reported Sunday. Camille Cosby, 71, made her stance known in a war room with PR reps and attorneys she and Cosby, 78, held at their Massachusetts home Tuesday night, the New York Post reports. 'Camille still doesn't believe that Bill provided drugs and had sex with women without their consent...She's well aware of his cheating, but she doesn't believe that her husband is a rapist,' a source...

Nearly two years after Veo Vessels died, her daughter, 70-year-old Mary Frances Hickman, decided to sell the home her mother had left to her. A sprawling brick house in Oklahoma City’s historic Highland Park neighborhood, it was built in 1924, just a year after Mary’s birth. Decades later, one of Vessels’ great-grandchildren fondly recalls the wood and tile floors, the fish pond, the butler’s quarters, and the multi-car garage where children played house. “It was really, really nice,” says Hickman’s granddaughter, Andrea Martin. That’s part of the reason she’s so surprised her grandmother sold the home in 1993 for a...

Twenty-five army, navy and coast guard men -- the entire crew and passenger list of a converted Flying Fortress carrying the homeward-bound servicemen from Gander, Newfoundland -- were killed last night when the plane crashed against 1200-foot Mount Tom. Salvage crews summoned to the scene of New England's worst air disaster

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) are reintroducing legislation to revive the Glass-Steagall Act, which would force big banks to split their investment and commercial banking practices. Glass-Steagall was first passed in 1933 but repealed during the Clinton administration, leading many progressives to argue that it contributed to the 2008 financial collapse. Warren and McCain, along with their cosponsors, Sens. Angus King (I-Maine) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), said in a statement that the legislation would make big banks that are "too big to fail" smaller and safer and minimize the likelihood of a government bailout....

A hapless man was taken to hospital after claiming a banana launched from a passing vehicle slammed into his private parts in a drive-by 'fruiting'. Police said the man was discovered lying at the roadside, writhing in agony, near the Quick Food convenience store in Westfield, Massachusetts. A passer-by had raised the alarm after seeing him stumbling towards the store. When asked by officers what the issue was, he apparently described how he had been struck by the yellow fruit which had been flung from a car window.< -- SNIP -- >

Bernie Sanders will never be president. But unless Hillary changes her strategy – and soon – he can still wind up toppling her. Something remarkable is happening in American politics. For the first time in our history, a socialist is running a close second and gaining ground on the frontrunner in a presidential race. Anyway you look at it, Senator Bernie Sanders is making history and may very well play a deciding role in who will be the next president. How real is the Sanders movement? Well, at this point in his campaign in 2007, Barack Obama had 180,000 donors...

The Boston Museum of Fine Arts is being called "racist" after it encouraged visitors to dress in a kimono to celebrate Claude Monet's 1876 painting "La Japonaise." The painting contains a woman dressed in a kimono: A group called "Stand Against Yellow-Face @ the MFA" has planned a protest for tomorrow at six o'clock. According to Stand Against Yellow-Face, "There is no education from curators or staff on the painting itself, nor the "orientalism" that was ocurring [sic] at the time, nor is there any sort of education on the kimono itself. "The act of non-Japanese museum staff throwing these...

Initially, most Republican candidates tried to ignore him. But as major corporations cut ties with Trump over his declaration that some Mexican immigrants are rapists and drug-runners, and as the issue continues to fill the airwaves of Spanish-language media, more candidates have spoken out, separating into two camps. Donald Trump's comments on immigration complicate GOP's 'Latino problem' Donald Trump's comments on immigration complicate GOP's 'Latino problem' Those who hope to appeal to Latino voters, including the two Floridians in the race, former Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio, as well as former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, have criticized Trump.

Motormouth Donald Trump isn’t doing the Republican Party any favors — and his fellow GOP candidates are adding to the damage by being slow to condemn him, Latino advocates said Friday. “Trump’s comments are causing irreparable harm to the brand. It’s going to be very hard to come back from it,” said Felix Sanchez, chairman of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts. The billionaire candidate sent the debate over border control into overdrive — and cost himself business deals — by saying Mexico exports “rapists” and drug dealers to the U.S. He upped the ante Friday after Kate Steinle,...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney attacked real estate mogul and 2016 GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump on Saturday, telling a CNN reporter he thinks Trump’s remarks on illegal immigrants were a “severe error.” “Do you think Donald Trump’s comments on Mexicans have hurt the Republican Party?” a reporter asked Romney in video carried on CNN on Saturday. “Yes, I think he made a severe error in saying what he did about Mexican-Americans,” Romney replied. “And it’s unfortunate.” “Do you think the candidates should speak up about that?” the reporter followed up. “I think a number of them have,” Romney replied.

Donald Trump didn’t make any comments about “Mexican-Americans,” he made them about illegal aliens. Which makes it quite clear Romney believes Mexican illegal aliens have a right to be here and have a right to citizenship and voting, and indeed already are Americans, hyphenated in his speech as “Mexican-Americans,” like the term “African Americans.” The only other possibility is that Romney’s such a lowlife he’s knowingly and intentionally lying about what Trump said when he claims Trump was talking about “Mexican-Americans,” in order to make it look like Trump was criticizing ALL Mexicans in the U.S. In other words, Romney...

2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney will be hosting two rival Republican presidential contenders at a holiday sleepover Friday evening. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio will both be staying over at Romney’s property in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, an aide to Romney confirmed. The aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of what the aide called the private nature of the event, said the former governor and his wife opened their home to the Christie and Rubio families after hearing they would be in town for the holiday weekend. Both candidates are scheduled to march...

Massachusetts authorities are seeking help in identifying a little girl whose body was found on Deer Island in Boston Harbor last week. The child was found in a garbage bag on the western shore of the 185-acre peninsula on June 25. Her body showed no obvious signs of trauma, and investigators said her body had only been there for a short time ... A Massachusetts State Police Facebook post urged the public to “be alert for any children who seem to have gone missing from their communities” over the holiday weekend.

commentary by John Velisek USN (Ret), staff writer Via CNS News: “ ‘There is nothing sanctimonious’ or arrogant in the State Department’s publication of an annual report on human rights around the world, Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday, adding that the U.S. cannot help but be humble itself given the racial tensions at home over the past year. Releasing the latest report – covering 2014 and issued 120 days late – Kerry said some foreign governments may take issue with it. ‘My advice to any leader who is upset by these findings is really to examine them, to...

A top GOP strategist and pollster for newly re-elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is warning that New York Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, "will pay a heavy price" at the polls next year if they don't break with President Obama's policies on Israel and reject any deal he makes with Iran. "Hillary Clinton, [Sen.] Chuck Schumer, [Reps.] Nita Lowey, Steve Israel, Jerry Nadler, Eliot Engel and others are about to get a whole new wave of pressure from Republicans on whether they agree or not with Obama on Israel," New York-based national GOP pollster and strategist John McLaughlin told The Post....

PROVINCETOWN – Hillary Clinton visited Provincetown on Thursday. Here is my only official reporter-heard Hillary quote: “I have been called a lot of things in my life. Quitter is not one of them.” I do not know the context of her saying it, but I heard it clearly. Clinton and her presidential campaign, or at least the fundraising portion of it, came to Provincetown to talk to about 300 people who donated at least $1,000 (and some $2,700) each to attend the event. The media were not invited, nor was the public. A small curious throng were kept a couple...

Hillary Clinton and her campaign cronies saw something frightening yesterday: a fired-up crowd of ten thousand people in Madison, Wisconsin, packing the Veterans Memorial Coliseum to the rafters in support of a candidate best known as Not Hillary. The previously fairly obscure Senator Bernie Sanders is drawing the same kind of enthusiasm that Eugene McCarthy sparked in 1968 when he drive an even more inevitable nominee from the Democratic ticket, incumbent President Lyndon Johnson. It is clear that the progressive base of the Democratic Party is fed up with Hillary Clinton, the cozy-with-Wall-Street party insider who parlayed political connections into...