Free Republic

Once upon a time, there was a safe welfare state called Sweden, where people rarely locked their doors. Now, this country is a night-watchman state -- each man is on his own. When the Minister of Justice, Morgan Johansson, encourages breaking the law, it means opening the gates to anarchy. Mr. and Mrs. Swede have every reason to be worried, with the influx of 190,000 unskilled and unemployed migrants expected this year -- equivalent to 2% of Sweden's current population. The number is as if 6.4 million penniless migrants who did not speak English arrived in U.S. in one year,...

In defiance of European Union guidelines, Hungary will not label products from Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights. Indeed, its foreign minister urges greater cooperation with Israel in fighting global terrorism. Speaking at a breakfast meeting of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, Hungarian Foreign Minister and Trade Minister Peter Szijjarto, who was on a 24-hour visit to Israel, said that his country will not label products from Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights, calling the EU’s decision to do so “irrational.” “We do not support that decision. It is an inefficient instrument. It is irrational and does...

In Israel today, five people were murdered and more wounded in two separate terrorist attacks. In southern Tel Aviv, an Arab terrorist murdered two Jews at prayer and wounded a third. In Gush Etzion region, just south of Jerusalem, terrorists shot three people fatally and wounded seven more. Several of the victims, including one of the dead, are reported to be Americans.This is, of course, the same Islamic terrorism that has struck Paris; and, while the numbers killed in Israel today are far smaller, the cumulative numbers lost to Islamic terrorism in Israel are much higher. Yet the outrages committed...

Iraq may increase oil output further in 2016, although less dramatically than this year, intensifying a battle for market share between OPEC members and non-OPEC rivals that has forced Baghdad to sell some crude grades for as little as $30 a barrel. Iraq's output in 2015 has jumped almost 500,000 barrels per day (bpd), or 13 percent, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). That has made Iraq the world's fastest source of supply growth and a key driver of surging OPEC production. At most, that growth is likely to give way to a modest rise next year, easing downward...

In a stinging rebuke to President Barack Obama by Republicans and Democrats, the House ignored a veto threat Thursday and overwhelmingly approved GOP legislation erecting fresh hurdles for Syrian and Iraqi refugees trying to enter the United States. Forty-seven Democrats joined all but two Republicans as the House passed the measure by a veto-proof 289-137 margin, a major setback to the lame duck president on an issue —the Islamic State group and the refugees fleeing it — that shows no signs of easing. The vote exceeded the two-thirds majority required to override a veto, and came despite a rushed, early...

Los Angeles International Airport police were looking for a man reportedly dressed as a commercial airline pilot who disappeared on the jetway of a New York-bound flight Thursday morning, authorities said. The incident happened about 6 a.m. in the bridge between Gate 31B at LAX’s Terminal 3 and a JetBlue aircraft preparing to take off to JFK airport in New York, airport officials said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will be back in town on Tuesday for another round of pressing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to give Mahmoud Abbas another boost in confidence by surrendering more sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. Kerry also will meet with the Palestinian Authority chairman, but there has been no mention of a joint meeting. Whenever the Secretary of State comes, he wants something in return for having taken his precious time to talk with the Prime Minister, who is his biggest obstacle to giving him at least one supposed achievement before he leaves Foggy Bottom when President...

Monday, November 09, 2015 How Obama and Kerry Caused the Stabbing Terror Spree in Israel Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog Before the Muslim terror stabbing spree, Netanyahu had made repeated efforts to meet with the leader of the PLO. And for once, Abbas, the PLO leader, had not been averse to a meeting.   Instead it was Secretary of State John Kerry who told Abbas not to meet with Netanyahu. Abbas went to the UN and disavowed the Oslo Accords. The first Muslim stabbings of Jews, with the encouragement of the PLO, began a few days later....

Sixty-four percent of American adults said they disapprove of the way that President Barack Obama is dealing with the ISIS terrorist group, according to a Gallup poll that was conducted Nov. 4-8.The results of the poll, which was completed five days before the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris, were cited and linked in a Gallup analysis released Monday.Gallup asked 1,021 people 18 and older living in the United States whether they “approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling” four different policy areas. These included “the economy;” “healthcare policy;” “foreign affairs,” and “the situation involving Islamic militants,...

We've sought answers amid shifting cultural sands, flighty influences, and perpetual disappointments in politicians and public policy. People ask me all the time, "I want a happy, productive life for me and my country, but what can we do? What is the answer?" Well, the answer is within your grasp. First, look back at our foundation. Inland from the rocky shores welcoming our nation’s first settlers were towering evergreen trees and white pines soaring 250 feet in the air, solidly rooted to support their enormous girth. This massive find of a healthy natural resource was better than striking gold. The...

The horrific attacks in Paris prompted a swift response from French President Francois Hollande, as he dispatched an aircraft carrier to the Eastern Mediterranean a day after airstrikes hit the key city ISIS stronghold of Raqqa. The United States responded with airstrikes on Monday, November 16, targeting hundreds of trucks that the U.S. military believes are used for smuggling oil. The NYT reported that 116 trucks were destroyed in American airstrikes by A-10 planes and AC-130 gunships in eastern Syria. ISIS generates millions of dollars per day by smuggling oil from Syrian oil fields, a source of revenue that has...

Suggestion for John Kerry: if traveling makes you so tired that you say things undermining the war against radical Islamic terrorism, stay home on Nantucket and conduct your diplomacy by Skype . . . On today's Morning Joe, here's how Mark Halperin explained Kerry's despicable statement about the "legitimacy" and "rationale" of the Charlie Hebdo attacks: "Secretary Kerry has a history when he's tired in particular after he hurtles around the world of speaking imprecisely." Was Kerry speaking "imprecisely"—or did he let the truth slip of precisely how he and President Obama really feel? View the video here.

US authorities have charged at least 66 men and women with ISIS-related terror plots on American soil - including a handful of refugees, Daily Mail Online can reveal. The terror group has set its sights on Washington, D.C. as it vows to further infiltrate the West and ramp up its blood-soaked offensive. Presidents Obama insists says that 'slamming the door' on Syrian refugees fleeing ISIS would be a betrayal of American values. But 34 governors are refusing to take in any more, in case jihadi fighters slip into their states and repeat the carnage of Paris. Analysis by Daily Mail...

French President Francois Hollande today promised that 'France will remain a country of freedom,' defending his decision to honor a commitment to accept migrants and refugees despite Friday’s deadly terrorist attacks in Paris. ... In the same spirit, he added, '30,000 refugees will be welcomed over the next two years. Our country has the duty to respect this commitment,' explaining that they will undergo vigorous security checks.

French President Francois Hollande today promised that "France will remain a country of freedom," defending his decision to honor a commitment to accept migrants and refugees despite Friday's deadly terrorist attacks in Paris. “Life should resume fully,” Hollande told a gathering of the country's mayors, who gave him a standing ovation. “What would France be without its museums, without its terraces, its concerts, its sports competitions? "France should remain as it is. Our duty is to carry on our lives." In the same spirit, he added, "30,000 refugees will be welcomed over the next two years. Our country has the...

Tell us something we don’t know, Mr. President. We could have guessed as much by the puny air campaign more worthy of the Grand Duchy of Fenwick in The Mouse That Roared than by what was once the world’s only superpower. We wouldn’t be mounting any air campaign at all, had not the radical Islamists of the “JV team” Islamic State had not cut off the heads of two American journalists, Steven Sotloff and James Foley. Our delusional commander-in-chief, who still believes the massacre at Ft. Hood by jihadist Nidal Hasan is a case of “workplace violence” and that...

There's been a lot of arrant nonsense spoken since the Paris attacks, but Margaret Carlson's might just take the cake . . . On today's Morning Joe, Bloomberg columnist Carlson suggested that because the US is better than Europe at assimilation, potential terrorists sneaking into our country might not carry out their plots. Said Carlson: "maybe they become Americanized, maybe the anger goes away. Maybe what they snuck in to do they're not going to do because we do have an acceptance of these people." Great point, Margaret. If only we'd had a little longer to hug it out with...

Editor's Note: This piece was coauthored by Tim Graham.After seven years of media adoration, President Obama was stunned and prickly. At a press conference in Antalya, Turkey, American reporters kept asking him why he was declaring his anti-ISIS strategy was working, when clearly it isn't. NBC's Chuck Todd found Obama "extremely defensive and almost not yet realizing that many of the reporters in that room, they're channeling the public in this case." For seven years, we've watched the White House press corps channel Obama back to Obama. But this time, on the heels of the Paris massacre, they were in...

The NRA -- and their gun-loving Republican cohorts -- are refusing once more to stop terrorists intent on getting armed in the U.S.A. A legal loophole allows suspected terrorists on the government's no-fly list to legally buy guns, but a bill to fix that will likely wither on the vine. The federal Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act, even in the wake of last week’s terrorist killing of 129 people in Paris, remains a long shot due to its rabid pro-gun opponents. "Anything which they feel restricts the use or the ability to retain a gun they’re opposed...