Free Republic

(STACKER) — The ever-expanding American military footprint covers nearly every continent. While the United States has long had a military presence in other nations, the scope significantly expanded following the passage of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which, in the wake of 9/11, permitted the support of foreign forces against various terrorist groups. The U.S. has since had 173,000 troops deployed in 159 countries as of 2020 and currently maintains at least 750 foreign military bases across 80 countries, according to the Conflict Management and Peace Science journal.As the top military power in the world, according to...

This week's progressive playbook is as easy to predict as (abc.) Distract attention from the Obamacare debacle, by stirring up the illegal immigration debate. The Marxist Democratic Party of America will find willing, cowardly accomplices, in the persons of Elitist Progressive Republican Party of America. They will be counting on the distraction, and willful ignorance, of Americans, to put this final death nail in the heart of Liberty's last stronghold. Let's make sure they counted wrong. This link with the single caption, 'WE KNOW THE TRUTH,' is all you need to bombard your "representatives," with irrefutable evidence of the deceptive,...

Egyptian security and medical officials say an American has been killed in the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria during clashes between supporters and opponents of Egypt's embattled President Mohammed Morsi. Alexandria security chief Gen. Amin Ezz Eddin told Al-Jazeera TV that an American was killed Friday in Sidi Gabr Square while photographing the battles between opposition youth and members of the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Morsi hails. A medical official told The Associated Press the American was wounded by gunshots and died at the hospital. SNIP Six Egyptians have been killed in days of clashes ahead of nationwide protests Sunday...

All can agree that the Obama administration is mired in myriads of scandals, but as yet no one can quite figure out what they all mean and where they will lead. Benghazi differs from all the other scandals — and from both Watergate and Iran-Contra — because in this case administration lapses led to the deaths of four Americans. Nine months later, the administration’s problems of damage control remain fourfold: (a) there was ample warning that American personnel were in danger in Libya, and yet requests for increased security were denied; (b) during the actual attack, the American tradition of...

The short but profitable tale of how 483,000 private individual have "top secret" access to the nation's most non-public information begins in 2001. "After 9/11, intelligence budgets were increased, new people needed to be hired, it was a lot easier to go to the private sector and get people off the shelf," and sure enough firms like Booz Allen Hamilton - still two-thirds owned by the deeply-tied-to-international-governments investment firm The Carlyle Group - took full advantage of Congress' desire to shrink federal agencies and their budgets by enabling outside consultants (already primed with their $4,000 cost 'security clearances') to fulfill...

The Washington Post has published a remarkable report showing that the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been monitoring the central servers of major Internet companies -- Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple -- and "extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time." Why did a government source leak information of this program, dubbed "PRISM," to the Post? What follows is perhaps the most chilling paragraph I've read to date about U.S. government surveillance: Firsthand experience with these systems,...

The U.S. government can require gun dealers in border states to disclose records of certain firearm sales, a federal appeals court has ruled, upholding a key component of the government’s recent crackdown on illegal gun trafficking. The ruling on Friday, by a unanimous three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Washington, comes over strenuous objection by the firearms industry. And it could renew calls among gun-rights supporters that the government’s program trammels rights of gun sellers and owners. In 2011, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearm and Explosives began issuing so-called “demand letters”...

PHOENIX (CBS5) - Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officials say the man who owns the SUV that struck and killed a Phoenix police officer is not in the country legally.((snip)) "In March 2012, ICE placed Mr. Cabrera-Molina in removal proceedings and detained him following his incarceration in the Maricopa County Jail on a charge unrelated to this most recent arrest. Mr. Cabrera-Molina was ordered released from ICE custody in May 2012 after he posted the $5,000 bond granted by an immigration judge with the Department of Justice's Executive Office of Immigration Review. His removal proceedings remain pending at this time. In...

Authorities say a shooting spree through Orange County, Calif., has left four people dead, including the shooter, and two others injured before the man stopped and shot himself to death in a stolen car, police said. The shootings began early Tuesday morning when deputies responded to a call in Ladera Ranch, a sleepy inland town about 55 miles southeast of Los Angeles. They found a woman shot multiple times. Police have identified the gunman as Ali Syed, a 20-year-old unemployed part-time student. Police say Syed lived at the Laderaa Ranch residence where the first victim was killed.

The men and women charged with enforcing federal immigration law are being prohibited from doing so by the Obama administration, according to Chris Crane, president of the union that represents officers and agents employed by the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “I think most Americans assume that ICE agents and officers are empowered by the government to enforce the law,” Crane said on Wednesday at Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on immigration reform. “Nothing could be further from the truth. With 11 million illegal aliens in the U.S., ICE agents are now prohibited from arresting illegal aliens...

NAFBPO rejects the President's proposal out of hand. It is unacceptable in that it contains not so much as a nod to immigration enforcement or a secure border. It is predicated upon administration claims that the border is secure now, or at least, secure enough. That claim is at best wishful thinking but is more likely willful misdirection of the public's opinion of the situation. A study of Border Patrol operations by the Government Accountability Office indicates that the Border Patrol is about 60% effective, a deplorable figure even if accurate. NAFBPO members maintain contacts with many field officers and...

President Obama and the Department of Homeland Security care more about “special interests” in the Democratic campaign base than the lives of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, the ICE union boss told Congress today. “Death or serious injury to ICE officers and agents appears more acceptable to ICE, DHS, and Administration leadership, than the public complaints that would be lodged by special interest groups representing illegal aliens,” Chris Crane, president of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement 118, told the House Judiciary Committee this afternoon. Crane based that statement on the way government policies handcuff the ICE officers charged...

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- The sight of Army helicopters and the sound of gunfire created a lot of concern Monday afternoon in one Houston neighborhood. We received a lot of phones calls, Tweets and Facebook posts from worried neighbors, wondering what was going on. SkyEye 13 HD was over the south side where at first look, it appeared there was a massive SWAT scene happening. With military helicopters flying above her southeast Houston neighborhood, Frances Jerrals didn't know what to think. "When you see this, you think the worst. When you hear this, you think the worst," Jerrals said. And so,...

The United States military is preparing to establish a drone base in northwest Africa so that it can increase surveillance missions on the local affiliate of Al Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups that American and other Western officials say pose a growing menace to the region. For now, officials say they envision flying only unarmed surveillance drones from the base, though they have not ruled out conducting missile strikes at some point if the threat worsens. If the base is approved, the most likely location for it would be in Niger, a largely desert nation on the eastern border...

The authorities in Yemen have seized a boat in their territorial waters filled with a large quantity of explosives, weapons and money, according to American officials briefed on the interdiction. The officials said Monday that there were indications that Iran was smuggling the military contraband to insurgents inside Yemen, although they declined to provide details. The captured weapons included surface-to-air missiles used to shoot down civilian and military aircraft, C4 military-grade explosives, 122-millimeter shells, rocket-propelled grenades and bomb-making equipment, including electronic circuits, remote triggers and other hand-held explosives, the statement said. If the weapons turn out to include the Iranian-made...

As the U.S. government continues to expand surveillance and monitoring systems to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars within the borders of the United States, a recent announcement regarding the country’s southern air defense systems is raising eyebrows. Our southern border is, in part, protected by the Tethered Aerostat Radar System (TARS), which utilizes moored balloons hovering at about 15,000 feet to identify low flying aircraft and missiles that may penetrate the border and cross into U.S. airspace. The system is utilized by the U.S. Air Force, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), and U.S. Customs and Border...

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French fighter jets struck deep inside Islamist strongholds in northern Mali on Sunday, shoving aside months of international hesitation about storming the region after every other effort by the United States and its allies to thwart the extremists had failed. For years, the United States tried to stem the spread of Islamic militancy in the region by conducting its most ambitious counterterrorism program ever across these vast, turbulent stretches of the Sahara. But as insurgents swept through the desert last year, commanders of this nation’s elite army units, the fruit of years of careful American training, defected when they were...

An Egyptian magazine claims that six American Islamist activists who work with the Obama administration are Muslim Brotherhood operatives who enjoy strong influence over U.S. policy. The Dec. 22 story published in Egypt's Rose El-Youssef magazine (read an IPT translation here) suggests the six turned the White House "from a position hostile to Islamic groups and organizations in the world to the largest and most important supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood." The story is largely unsourced, but its publication is considered significant in raising the issue to Egyptian readers. The six named people include: Arif Alikhan, assistant secretary of Homeland...

MEXICO CITY -- Only days after U.S. Marine veteran Jon Hammar was thrown into a Mexican prison for carrying an antique shotgun into the country, gangsters in the jail warned him of his likely fate – beheading.