Free Republic

North Korea greeted the weekend by stating through its KCNA news agency that it is entering a "state of war" with South Korea. This seems like much more serious news than an earlier KCNA story about using nutritious leeks in seasonal dishes, but there's reason to be skeptical that NoKo's latest declaration means anything at all. The statement wasn't accompanied by an actual attack, which would have been the most obvious sign that North Korea was serious about this. Instead, it's just more chest-beating, this time in response to the "provocation" of the U.S. flying stealth bombers over South Korea....

(Reuters) - Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi threatened on Sunday to take unspecified steps to "protect this nation" after violent demonstrations against his Muslim Brotherhood, using vague but severe language that the opposition said heralded a crackdown. In remarks following clashes outside the Brotherhood's Cairo headquarters on Friday, Mursi warned that "necessary measures" would be taken against any politicians shown to be involved in what he described as violence and rioting. "If I am forced to do what is required to protect this nation, then I will do it. And I fear that I might be on the verge of doing...

A former leader of an armed Islamic group in Libya, Numan Bin Uthman, has written a letter to al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri telling him that Jihadi groups in Arab countries have failed and that the strategy of using nonconventional WMD to deter an invasion of Afghanistan was a misguided and failed strategy. The letter needs to be understood in the context of the fact that the microbiologist that Ayman Zawahiri and Mohammed Atef used to infiltrate US biodefense, Ali Al-Timimi, had a stern warning not to invade Iraq hand-delivered to every member of Congress on October 6, 2002...

Bob Woodward called a senior White House official last week to tell him that in a piece in that weekend’s Washington Post, he was going to question President Barack Obama’s account of how sequestration came about - and got a major-league brushback. The Obama aide “yelled at me for about a half hour,” Woodward told us in an hour-long interview yesterday around the Georgetown dining room table where so many generations of Washington’s powerful have spilled their secrets. Digging into one of his famous folders, Woodward said the tirade was followed by a page-long email from the aide, one of...

The White House official whom Bob Woodward charged had crosssed a line by saying he would "regret" printing his version of a set of Washington negotiations was Gene Sperling, the director of the White House Economic Council, a source familiar with the exchange told BuzzFeed Wednesday. The email from Sperling to Woodward, which Woodward read to Politico Wednesday, has transfixed Washington, with Republicans and some in the press charging that it embodies a White House lording it over a cowed press corps. Woodward, Politico reported, called the top official — identified to BuzzFeed as Sperling — to tell him that...

The FALSE POPE – Saint Hildegard Forewarned is forearmed! Saint HILDEGARD of BINGEN (d. 1179), the newest Doctor of the Church, wrote that when the new Pope is elected immediately before the Antichrist, a cardinal will kill the elected pope before he is crowned through jealousy, he wishing to be Pope himself. Then when the other cardinals elect the next Pope this cardinal will proclaim himself (anti) Pope, and two-thirds of the Christians will go with him. She notes that this Antipope as well as the Antichrist are descendents from the tribe of Dan. If this private revelation of St....

BISBEE — Three reports of a “ransom scam” during the past two weeks has prompted the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office to issue a public warning. “This scam has been in existence for some time and has recently resurfaced in more metropolitan areas,” a press release issued Tuesday morning states. “This scam incorporates a malware virus into your computer and creates significant issues for the victim.” “Ransomware” begins when a message pops up on the computer screen, informing the user that they have a virus and no longer have access to any of the data files on the machine. “According to...

Newt "evolves" on gay marriage

To Chairman Reince Priebus, Thank you for inviting me to present an analysis for the Republican National Committee about the current challenges Republicans face at every level. Our working together goes all the way back to your early years in politics. I enjoyed doing events with you in Wisconsin and admired the work you did in helping Scott Walker become Governor. I was delighted when you became RNC Chairman and I know how much you accomplished in the last two years rebuilding RNC finances and developing a better ground game. Your creation of the Growth and Opportunity Project chaired by...

<p>Newt Gingrich said that conservatives will have to accept marriage equality after three more states this year voted to allow same sex marriage and more will likely do the same in the 2014 election.</p> <p>The former Speaker of the House said he didn’t expect gay rights to become the “wave” issue it has, but that he can accept the difference between a marriage in a church and a legal document, reported Huffington Post.</p>

If I could choose to have my readers learn one and only one thing from what I write, it would be that America's problems are not the result of blind, much less inevitable, forces, but are the consequences of deliberate political action by motivated individuals and groups. Nowhere is this clearer than in the case of our ongoing immigration crisis. Let's trace the lines of influence in the open-borders conspiracy, a word I use despite its connotations of grassy knollology because in this case it is factually appropriate. Given who has been pushing mass immigration in America and how open...

Sorry for the vanity; especially the vanity in Breaking News; however, I thought this important enough that it should receive high visibility. I have reason to believe that some Staff Judge Advocates and Special Security Officers are looking into the secession petitions at whitehouse.gov From what I have heard if you are on Active Duty and sign a secession petition, you will be pursued as being in violation of your contract. SSOs are screening the lists too; you can potentially say goodbye to your security clearance. Don't do this to be a smart ass, funny, or cute. Understand the gravity...

IDF spokesman, Brigadier General Yoav (Poly) Mordechai held a press conference Wednesday night and addressed the military operation in Gaza. He said the operation was launched "After a long period of several years of unbearable fire aimed at residents of the south, which has intensified even more in recent weeks, including launches aimed at communities in the South and attacks against IDF forces." Mordechai said that so far, the IDF has attacked dozens of targets, and noted that "the IDF operates with pinpoint accuracy to try to make as clean a hit as possible, but unfortunately some of the weapons...

The IDF fired warning shots into Syrian territory on Sunday after a mortar shell fired from Syria hit an IDF outpost in the Golan Heights. The incident follows a similar spillover from Syria on Thursday, when a shell from Syria exploded in Moshav Alonei Habashan. "Further attacks [from Syria] will illicit a vigorous response," the IDF Spokesman's Office stated. The military also sent a letter to the United Nations warning Syrian forces to be careful in avoiding fire into the Golan. Just hours earlier, Defense Minister Ehud Barak threatened that Israel would respond should stray Syrian ordnance continue to strike...

<p>The Alaska Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer issued a tsunami warning Saturday evening for Southeast Alaska and the British Columbia coast minutes after a strong earthquake struck the region.</p>

On Thursday, the White House denied that it had advance warning that embassies in the Middle East might be targeted for attacks on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, Politico reported. "We are not aware of any actionable intelligence indicating that an attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi was planned or imminent,” Shawn Turner, spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said in an email. A report in the Independent said that "the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may...

That attractive woman befriending you on Facebook? She may be a Taliban soldier in disguise, trying to squeeze you for vital information—at least if you're an Australian soldier, The Sunday Telegraph reports. An Australian government review found that Taliban had duped unsuspecting Aussie soldiers online, that 1,577 members of the nation's defense office knew nothing about it, and 58% of its staff had no instruction in social media. What's more, the review says, soldiers are too trusting online: "Most did not recognize that people using fake profiles, perhaps masquerading as school friends, could capture information and movements." The review also...

Seems that clear warnings re. the Democatic Party's actual, undeclared intentions have been falling on deaf ears for over 60 years now...

More shake, rattle and roll on the other side of the planet. 8.7 this morning; Tsunami warning for Indonesia, not for Japan. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usc000905e#summary

Sunday, March 25, 2012Blog comment: "...you are making a lot of potentially very powerful people very, very angry." In one of his last homilies, Archbishop Oscar Romero, the martyred Archbishop of San Salvador, said: "A preaching that does not point out sin is not the preaching of the gospel. A preaching that makes sinners feel good so that they become entrenched in their sinful state, betrays the gospel's call. A preaching that does not discomfit sinners but lulls them in their sin leaves Zebulun and Naphtali in the shadow of death. A preaching that awakens, a preaching that enlightens --...