Free Republic

I thought the biggest scandal to come from the shooting today would be the fact that the Pentagon didn’t run a full background check on this guy when he was re-hired as a contractor in July. All they did, which is apparently standard practice, was check to make sure his security clearance from 2007 was still intact. No interviews with family members, co-workers, or employers; if there had been, maybe someone would have tipped them to the fact of his mental problems. But no, that’s not the biggest scandal if this BBC report is right. This … can’t possibly be...

The Weekly Standard offers a glum assessment of Obama’s fiasco in Syria: “With the Russian proposal on Syrian chemical weapons, the United States is being escorted out of the Middle East.” Reset with Russia was originally a strategic priority for the Obama administration because it saw Moscow as the key to getting Iran to come to the negotiating table. Putin, from the White House’s perspective, was destined for the role of junior partner. Now Putin has turned “Reset” upside down. By helping Obama out of a jam with Syria, Putin has made himself the senior partner to whom the White House is...

A powerful blast on the main street in the Libyan city of Benghazi early Wednesday damaged a foreign ministry building and a branch of the Central Bank of Libya, an eyewitness said. The explosion comes on the anniversary of the September 11, 2012, assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Eyewitness and Benghazi resident Sami Berriwen told CNN he saw no casualties as a result of the blast in the eastern city, which occurred at about 7 a.m. (1 a.m. ET.) Berriwen, a university student, said that if the blast had happened...

Obama promised justice. He promised that the killers would be “held accountable.” One year later, those promises have not been kept.

Susan Rice Will Brief Congress on Syria on Anniversary of Benghazi September 8, 2013 - 2:36 PM By Terence P. Jeffrey (CNSNews.com) - Susan Rice, who falsely told the nation that the terrorist attacks in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012 had developed out of a spontaneous demonstration against a YouTube video, will mark the one year anniversary of those attacks by briefing Congress to make the administration's case for authorizing President Barack Obama to use military force in Syria. The administration has decided to make Rice a key point person for pushing military intervention in Syria. On Monday, Rice will...

Hicks – who had a brief phone conversation only hours before with Stevens before the line went dead — was informed of his death by Libya’s prime minister. snip Hicks said he doesn’t understand why more military resources were not sent to Benghazi after he notified State Department officials in Washington that the consulate was under attack. “I don’t know exactly what was available…And I still don’t quite understand why…they couldn’t fly aircraft over to Benghazi,” he said. “When I was a kid, I grew up watching western movies… the cavalry always came,” Hicks said in an interview taped Friday...

Barack Obama is, without question, the most embarrassing president of my lifetime — and that is saying something, since my life so far has encompassed 12 presidencies, some of which have brought a lot of embarrassment to the nation. Even Richard Nixon, with his Watergate scandal, Jimmy Carter, with his malaise, and Bill Clinton, with his lewd behavior in the Oval Office, could not top this president for pure, unadulterated disgrace. Of course, in Obama’s case, it is not a matter of personal scandal like it was for Clinton. By telling the world a year ago that he was drawing...

WILMINGTON, Del. (CBS) — Neighbors near Kosciuszko Park in Wilmington expressed anger and outrage Friday, after learning the details of a brutal gang-rape that happened in the park Thursday. Police say two women, ages 32 and 24, were reportedly attacked and sexually assaulted by a group of 10 to 12 black male juveniles in Kosciuszko Park at about 6:54 p.m. Thursday. According to police, the suspects, who range in age from 12 to 17-years-old, remain on the loose. The victims were transported to Christiana Hospital for treatment. Wilmington police increased patrols Friday in the park which is located in the...

President Barack Obama pledged he’d appoint “outside experts” to review the country’s surveillance practices, but he’s since tapped largely insiders for the key posts. The group, formed to examine the policies and procedures at the National Security Agency as it tracks terrorism suspects’ digital communications, is composed mostly of Washington types, many with connections to the very intelligence establishment they’re now tasked with scrutinizing in the wake of Edward Snowden’s leaks. There’s Michael Morell, a CIA veteran who once led the agency on an interim basis; Richard Clarke, a top counter-terrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations; and Cass...

The National Security Agency (NSA) has admitted some of their officers misused the agency’s massive spying powers to keep tabs on their love interests, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Friday night. NSA employees reportedly dubbed the practice with its very own spy label: LOVEINT. U.S. officials said some of the violations included overseas communications, but claimed the practice was “very rare,” according to the WSJ. Officials reportedly said all employees involved were appropriately disciplined. The incidents were often self-reported, revealed while the officers took polygraph tests during routine security clearance renewals, according to the WSJ. “NSA has zero tolerance...

Award-winning journalist Michael Hastings told his neighbor that he was afraid to drive his Mercedes because he believed it had been tampered with, according to a LA Weekly report.

More than 40,000 defendants may be affected by the alleged drug tampering of “rogue” chemist Annie Dookhan, a sign the state’s massive drug lab scandal grew beyond initial estimates, according to the near year-long work of the lawyer tasked with determining the scope of the state-shaking saga... Meier found that the actual list of defendants affected grew to 40,323. Of those, 10,000 were in prison, or parole or probation and had been previously convicted of a drug offense in Superior Court. More than 300 state prison inmates have been released, and prosecutors have opted to dismiss or drop more than...

Maj. Nidal Hasan appears to be stoically slouching toward martyrdom at his court-martial – instead of using the trial as a soapbox to spout jihadist ideology, as have others in a similar position. Inside a heavily fortified compound at Fort Hood, Texas, a court-martial expected to take months is moving quickly ahead of schedule. The Army psychiatrist, accused of murdering 13 fellow soldiers and injuring more than 30 in an attack on Nov. 5, 2009, has remained cool, collected, and businesslike, even amid riveting and horrific testimony. To be sure, he could still let loose invective on the courtroom, particularly...

Casey James Fury simply didn't want to be at work, and in the process cost the Navy nearly a half-billion dollars and one attack submarine. Fury admitted to setting fire to the USS Miami, a nuclear sub, in May 2012 while it was in dry dock. Fury also admitted to starting a second fire at the dry dock three weeks later, according to federal court documents. In both cases, he told investigators that he started the fires because he was having extreme anxiety and was trying to get out of work, according to federal documents. On Tuesday, the Navy announced...

When former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked the existence of a massive spying program siphoning up Americans' personal phone records earlier this year, President Obama declared: "I welcome this debate and I think it's healthy for our democracy."Shortly thereafter, his administration revoked Snowden's passport and hit him with Espionage Act charges (filed under seal, naturally).That's the thing about the self-styled "most transparent administration in history": Often you can't find out what they're up to until somebody breaks the law to let you know.One suspects Obama "welcomes this debate" about as enthusiastically as Anthony Weiner greets the debate over...

Today, the Thomas More Society has submitted an updated second memorandum to Congressman Aaron Schock (IL-18) of the House Committee on Ways and Means, detailing additional evidence of continued IRS targeting of pro-life organizations. Despite claims by the Obama Administration that the harassment has ceased, the Society produced over 230 pages of documentation showing that the federal government is still interrogating pro-life groups beyond the scope of its legal authority, infringing upon these organizations’ First Amendment rights of assembly, free speech, and religious liberty.“Despite claims to the contrary, the IRS continues to target and harass pro-life and conservative charities, illegally questioning...

When it comes to the facts and how they are portrayed in Washington, it is a subjective thing. On any given issue, the facts are manipulated so they will appear to support a particular argument. We may want to deny it, but both sides of the political spectrum do this. So, when President Obama doubled down against the Keystone Pipeline in Chattanooga, TN yesterday, it was no surprise that he chose his own facts to support his argument that the pipeline was not a jobs plan. Hat tip to Texas Fred. Fox News - President Obama doubled down Tuesday on...

CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Treasury secretary Jack Lew on Sunday got specific about President Obama’s contention that “phony scandals” are distracting lawmakers from tackling the important issues facing the country. With regard to the IRS’s targeting of tea-party groups, Lew said, there is “no evidence” that any political appointee was involved in the matter, and “The attempt to try to keep finding that evidence is creating the kind of sense of a phony scandal that was being referred to there.” “We have to distinguish reality from the part that is phony,” Lew told NBC’s David Gregory. He went...

Amazingly, Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew doesn't think it's "appropriate" for him simply to ask the IRS's chief counsel (and President Obama's political appointee) William Wilkins what he knows about the targeting scandal. Obviously, it's much easier to continue to insist that there's "no evidence" of wrongdoing if one goes far out of one's way to avoid learning any potentially unwelcome facts. Jack Lew Refuses To Answer If William Wilkins Has Been Asked About IRS Targeting

The establishment press's general refusal to cover clearly newsworthy developments in the Obama administration scandal involving the targeting of conservative, tea party, prolife and other groups by the Internal Revenue Service has been so negligent and blatant that several leading conservatives, including the MRC's Brent Bozell and talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh, called it out in an open letter earlier this week. Consistent with the rest of their colleagues, the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, appears to have had no substantive story on the scandal since July 18 -- and that one was about primarily Democrats beating the false meme...