Free Republic

There are some undeniable facts about America's history with communism that make many "mainstream" conservatives uncomfortable. These troubling facts fall into a category that I call "Facts About Communism that Your Favorite Conservative Columnist Did not Tell You About". 1. Karl Marx was the European correspondent for America's largest circulation newspaper, "The New York Daily Tribune", from 1852 to 1863. The paper was the New York Times of its day, and the paper carried Marx's articles for an amazing 11 years, which was long enough for his ideas to gain influence. Marx's articles were very popular among liberal elites in...

Lawmakers in France's lower house of parliament on Tuesday night narrowly voted to pass a highly controversial proposal to amend the constitution to strip people convicted of terrorist offenses of their French nationality, AFP reported. The measure, passed by 162 votes to 148 with 22 abstentions, followed weeks of debate after it was proposed as part of a set of measures by President Francois Hollande in the wake of the jihadist attacks in Paris in November that killed 130 people. The nationality measure has strong public support, but has deeply divided Hollande's ruling Socialist Party. ...

The Pentagon is ordering the top brass to incorporate climate change into virtually everything they do, from testing weapons to training troops to war planning to joint exercises with allies. A new directive’s theme: The U.S. Armed Forces must show “resilience” and beat back the threat based on “actionable science.” It says the military will not be able to maintain effectiveness unless the directive is followed. It orders the establishment of a new layer of bureaucracy — a wide array of “climate change boards, councils and working groups” to infuse climate change into “programs, plans and policies.” The Pentagon defines

The Iowa Democratic caucus which I've already described as akin to the Marxist Zimbabwe Farmers-workers confabs is over, and it appears -- as Mark Steyn ably notes -- "almost certain" that Hillary Clinton did not win it. If Iowa were one of those banana republics in which the president-for-life has been prevailed upon to hold an election and Jimmy Carter and a bunch of UN observers had flown in to certify it, none of the above would pass muster. But in the Democrat Party it does:[snip] In effect, Hillary and Bernie fought Iowa to a draw. But a miss is...

The Douglas County School District in Colorado, under fire for saying that schoolgirls might have to cover up from head to ankle for a field trip to a Muslim mosque, has confirmed that such Shariah requirements will be enforced on the outing. “Students who choose to attend the [Rocky Heights Middle School] world religion field trip are expected to respect the dress code of the host facility,” the school said in a statement posted online. The explanation followed a firestorm of criticism of the school for announcing the field trip for seventh-grade students and including a note that the Shariah...

EXCLUSIVE: Highly classified Hillary Clinton emails that the intelligence community and State Department recently deemed too damaging to national security to release contain “operational intelligence” – and their presence on the unsecure, personal email system jeopardized “sources, methods and lives,” a U.S. government official who has reviewed the documents told Fox News. The official, who was not authorized to speak on the record and was limited in discussing the contents because of their highly classified nature, was referring to the 22 “TOP SECRET” emails that the State Department announced Friday it could not release in any form, even with entire...

The State Department just knocked a gaping hole in Hillary Clinton's happy e-mail fable. State, the Associated Press reports, won't release 22 of Clinton's messages to the public because they contain too much most-secret information. OK: Clinton's only promised that none of her e-mails were labeled "classified" - so she's technically not a blatant liar. But US intelligence agencies have determined these message contain enough sensitive information that even blacking out whole passages isn't enough to make them safe for public view. These e-mails are part of a trove of 7,000 pages - the last from Hillary's private server the...

I cannot link for same reason, but here is the opening paragraph... WASHINGTON — The Obama administration confirmed for the first time Friday that Hillary Clinton's unsecured home server contained some of the U.S. government's most closely guarded secrets, censoring 22 emails with material demanding one of the highest levels of classification. The revelation comes just three days before the Iowa presidential nominating caucuses in which Clinton is a candidate.

Memories of the Walker family spy ring and British double agent Kim Philby could be resurrected if a new angle of the FBI investigation works toward its logical conclusion. Catherine Herridge of Fox News reports that the FBI is going directly to the intelligence agencies that generated the assessments to determine the original classification level. The investigators "will go directly to depose specific individuals in agencies who generated the highly classified materials." This is the prudent and smart thing to do in order to get specifics on the classification authority and to compare original documents with those that were stripped...

HAVANA(Reuters)-Philip Agee, a former CIA spy who exposed its undercover operations in Latin America in a 1975 book, died in Havana, the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma said on Wednesday.Agee, 72, died on Monday night, the newspaper said, calling him a "loyal friend of Cuba and staunch defender of the people's struggle for a better world.".His widow, German ballet dancer Giselle Roberge, told friends he had been in hospital since December 15 and did not survive surgery for perforated ulcers.Agee worked for the Central Intelligence Agency for 12 years in Washington, Ecuador, Uruguay and Mexico. He resigned in 1968 in...

... The first report on the incident, released Monday, noted the loss. “A post-recovery inventory of the boats found that all weapons, ammunition, and communication gear are accounted for minus two SIM cards that appear to have been removed from two handheld satellite phones,” said the report from the U.S. Central Command. ... “Those SIM cards don’t just contain the satellite links,” he said. “They also include encryption codes, and otherwise unpublished data relating to specific orders and personnel,” he added. The former naval officer said those SIM cards should not have been allowed to fall into Iranian hands. .......

Huntington Ingalls Industries is in discussions with defense officials about potentially putting missile defense radars and laser weapons on San Antonio-class amphibious transport docks, a company executive said Jan. 13. “You can put a lot of additional weight on the ship and you can put … some modern technologies like ballistic missile defense radars that are very heavy,” Brian Cuccias, corporate vice president at HII and president of Ingalls Shipbuilding, told reporters on the sidelines of a Surface Navy Association symposium in Arlington, Virginia. “We think it’s a great idea.” The vessels, which are manufactured by the company, have design...

The leaking of the Clinton emails has been compared to as the next "Watergate" by former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova this week, if current FBI investigations don't proceed in an appropriate manner. The revelation comes after more emails from Hilary Clinton's personal email have come to light. "[The investigation has reached] a critical mass," DiGenova told radio host Laura Ingraham when discussing the FBI’s still pending investigation. Though Clinton is still yet to be charged with any crime, DiGenova advised on Tuesday that changes may be on the horizon. The mishandling over the classified intelligence may lead to an imminent...

How does Iran spell relief? K E R R Y. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters at the State Department that the lifting of sanctions on Iran is just "days away." The $150 billion windfall for the terrorist state will happen "sooner rather than later," Kerry said. Meanwhile, there will be a vote in the House next week that would prevent the administration from lifting sanctions on Iranian banks and financial institutions unless the administration can certify that the companies are not financing terrorism or ballistic missiles. The Hill: According to reports, the White House has backed away from...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Syrian scientist stricken with cancer and seeking a new start for his family in Michigan will represent Syrian refugees as a guest of first lady Michelle Obama for the president's final State of the Union address. President Barack Obama has committed to accepting an additional 10,000 Syrian refugees, but some Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates are critical of the expansion. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, for example, noted the recent arrest of two Iraqi refugees.

A recent poll shows a slight majority of Americans believe the government should negotiate with terrorists. A YouGov poll conducted from Dec. 10-14 asked 1,000 American adults, "If a U.S. soldier is captured by a terrorist group, do you think the United States should or should not negotiate with that group for the release of the soldier?" In response, 52 percent of Americans responded the government "should" negotiate with terrorists for the release of an American soldier while 24 percent responded the government "should not" negotiate with terrorists. ...

The new surge of illegal immigrant youths has forced the federal government to look at an emergency plan to house them at six military bases at at least two federal worker centers, according to the administration. The Pentagon is beginning "site assessments" at bases as far north as North Dakota and Massachusetts. "The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) at HHS is expanding its capacity to provide shelter for the current influx of unaccompanied children at the U.S. Southern Border. This temporary increased shelter capacity is a prudent step needed to ensure ORR meets its statutory responsibility to provide shelter for...

The National Rifle Association, the country's most influential gun-rights supporter, is challenging President Obama's new plan to use his presidential power to tighten firearms laws, calling it a "political stunt" that fails to increase public safety. President Obama said this weekend that he'll meet Monday with Attorney General Loretta Lynch to discuss his "options” toward curbing gun violence, after ordering his White House team several months ago to identify "new actions" that he can take. The president also said that he's taking action because Congress has failed to act. He is expected to use so-called executive orders to tighten federal...

In the final hours of 2015 the Obama administration has quietly proposed a host of rule changes that critics say will end up being a bonanza for foreign students and illegal immigrants seeking work in the U.S. while putting a dagger in the hearts of thousands of American workers. The rules, as proposed by Obama's Department of Homeland Security, make it easier for employers to hire and retain foreign workers who have not yet received their green cards or "lawful protected resident" status. The U.S. already hands out approximately 1 million green cards per year, but under the proposed changes...

Senate bill 153, the Immigration Innovation Act (or I-Squared), led by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), would allow for virtually unlimited Muslim immigration into the United States. Several of Rubio's most prominent financial backers are among the bill's boosters. Rubio's campaign theme, "A New American Century," employs a euphemism commonly used to describe demographic transformation of the United States brought about by immigration. A recent Pew Research report found that "nearly all Muslims in Afghanistan (99%) and most in Iraq (91%) and Pakistan (84%) support sharia law as official law." Yet in the last five years, the U.S. has issued 83,000...