Free Republic

President Donald Trump's pick to replace Mike Pompeo as director of the Central Intelligence Agency has a controversial past at the CIA that will likely resurface during her confirmation hearing in the Senate.Trump announced Tuesday that he has chosen Deputy Director of the CIA Gina Haspel to be the next director of the agency. If confirmed by the Senate, she will become the first woman to lead the CIA.When Trump first selected Haspel to the position of deputy director of the CIA, the move was met with opposition by some lawmakers because of her involvement in the CIA's "extraordinary rendition...

Police Chaplain Was Suspended for Exposing Muslim UK Child Abuse March 13, 2018 Daniel Greenfield 16 The first rule of Muslim grooming gangs is that no one is allowed to mention them. Not even when they abuse 1,000 girls.  A pair of whistleblowers who raised fears over the Telford child sex abuse scandal which affected up to 1,000 girls were both punished and silenced, it emerged today.  The brutal sex gang targeted the innocent girls over a 40-year period in what may be Britain's 'worst ever' child abuse scandal. Girls in the town of Telford in Shropshire were drugged, beaten and...

On March 1, The European Commission -- the unelected executive branch of the European Union -- told social media companies to remove illegal online terrorist content within an hour, or risk facing EU-wide legislation on the topic. The ultimatum was part of a new set of recommendations that will apply to all forms of "illegal content" online, "from terrorist content, incitement to hatred and violence, child sexual abuse material, counterfeit products and copyright infringement." The European Commission said, "Considering that terrorist content is most harmful in the first hours of its appearance online, all companies should remove such content within...

Rejected asylum seekers and other foreign citizens facing deportation due to criminality at the controversial Kærshovedgård expulsion center failed to meet registration requirements on thousands of occasions, according to a report. Residents at the Jutland center are not incarcerated, but are required to live at the center and register with authorities there up to seven times weekly. But registrations have been missed 10,057 times since the center was opened in 2016, Central and West Jutland Police have confirmed, according to a report by newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Some have absconded completely, while others have absented themselves for long or short periods before...

Despite a death rate higher than its birth rate, Germany managed to grow by two million people in two years due to high levels of immigration, statistics released on Tuesday showed. While no conclusive number have been released for net migration last year, the federal statistics agency Destatis estimated on Tuesday that it stood at around 450,000 more arrivals than departures from the country. Immigration outstripped emigration by 1.15 million in 2015, slowing slightly to 500,000 in 2016. That accounted for a rise in the total population by around 2 million inhabitants in a three-year period. By the end of...

Palestinian Authority officials did not attend the meeting, which focused on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. WASHINGTON – Israeli national security officials sat around the same table on Tuesday morning with their counterparts from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, discussing a dire humanitarian situation unfolding in the Gaza Strip. The summit on Gaza, called by Jared Kushner, the US president’s son-in-law and senior adviser on Middle East peace, as well as Jason Greenblatt, his special representative for international negotiations, marks an unprecedented moment for Israeli diplomacy, as their dialogue with officials from Arab states is...

The Turkish foreign minister says Turkey and the United States have reached an agreement on a plan to jointly station Turkish and U.S. forces in the Syrian Kurdish-held town of Manbij. Washington has not confirmed any such plan — and a small contingent of U.S. forces is already in Manbij. Turkey is riled by U.S. support to the Syrian Kurdish militia known as the YPG, and accuses the U.S. of allegedly not fulfilling a promise to move the Syrian Kurdish fighters in Manbij east of the Euphrates River. Ankara has threatened to expand its current offensive in northern Syria to...

The explosion went off shortly after the convoy entered Gaza through the Erez crossing with Israel. The Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah was unharmed and went on to inaugurate a long-awaited sewage plant project in the northern part of the strip. Fatah quickly held Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers responsible for the "cowardly attack" on the convoy, further escalating tensions between the bitter rival factions. Three of the vehicles in Hamdallah's convoy were damaged, their windows blown out. One had signs of blood on the door. Hamas confirmed an explosion struck the convoy but said no injuries were reported. It condemned...

One guess which president made this judicial appointment. ​Last Thursday, March 8, Imran Awan was supposed to appear in federal court on bank fraud charges. The decision to push the case to May 4 left many wondering what, exactly, is going on with the Democrats’ favorite IT man. Quite a bit, as it turns out, and not just bank fraud.  As Frank Miniter noted in Forbes, Imran Awan was born in Pakistan and got a green card through the immigration lottery system, similar to Sayfullo Saipov, the Uzbeki terrorist who killed eight people in New York in October. Awan became...

In a recent article for the New Republic, Nell Irvin Painter, a retired Princeton historian whose work focuses largely on race, discussed “othering” – a concept that she explained with reference to Flannery O’Connor’s 1955 story “The Artificial Nigger”:  A white man, Mr. Head, and his grandson Nelson visit Atlanta for the day. Mr. Head, a poor and sad old man, undertakes to tutor Nelson in racial hierarchy. On the train to the city, a prosperous black man passes by. At first, Nelson sees “a man.” Then, under Mr. Head’s questioning, “a fat man…an old man.” These are wrong...

...Alaklouk — a Saudi citizen and native of Tunisia — had no gun permit, an expired Indiana driver’s license and had been living in Indiana illegally on a terminated student visa since September 2017, according to the criminal complaint. He’s now facing federal charges for possessing a gun while living in the country illegally. If convicted, he could face up to 10 years in federal prison.... Realizing his room overlooked the march, the hotel asked police to remove Alaklouk. Indianapolis police had Alaklouk and two unidentified men leave the room, according to the criminal complaint, and then authorities monitored Alaklouk...

The United States is still unsure who directed a February 7 attack on US and US-backed forces in Syria, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Saturday, even as he acknowledged accounts that Russian civilian contractors were involved. Reuters has reported that about 300 men working for a Kremlin-linked Russian private military firm were either killed or injured in Syria. The US has estimated about 100 pro-Syrian government forces were killed by US strikes to repel the Febuary 7 attack. Russian military officers told the United States during the incident that Moscow was not involved. The Pentagon has declined to comment...

Leaked audio recordings said to be of Russian mercenaries in Syria capture expressions of lament and humiliation over a battle in early February 2018 involving US forces and Russian nationals. Published by Polygraph.info — a fact-checking website produced by Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, news organizations that receive funding from the US government — the audio recordings paint a picture of Russian mercenaries essentially sent to die in an ill-conceived advance on a US-held position in Syria. Polygraph says the audio recordings are from a source close to the Kremlin. ... First clip: “The reports that are...

A Turkish newspaper close to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling party is urging 57 Islamic nations to build a joint army specifically to attack Israel, notes a new report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin. The Middle East Media Research Institute reports the article appeared on the paper’s website under the title “What If an Army of Islam Was Formed against Israel?” It was published shortly ahead of a summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which has 57 members, MEMRI reported. The article notes, MEMRI said, “that such a joint army will greatly exceed the Israeli army in...

Buddhist mobs in Sri Lanka last week led anti-Muslim riots that left at least three dead and more than 200 Muslim-owned establishments in ruins, just the latest bout of communal violence there stoked by Buddhist nationalists. In Myanmar, ultra-nationalist monks led by firebrand preacher Wirathu have poured vitriol on the country's small Muslim population, cheering a military crackdown forcing nearly 700,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh. And in neighbouring Thailand, a prominent monk found himself in hot water for calling on followers to burn down mosques. ... After the Taliban's destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan ...Islam as invasive, toppling...

February 1. Foreign Office officials invited 1,800 female staff members to wear Islamic headscarves to mark World Hijab Day. The department gave away taxpayer-funded headscarves, claiming they symbolized "liberation, respect and security." Critics, citing the compulsory veiling of women in Islamic countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, said the garment is a symbol of male oppression. Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said, "I'd like to know whose bright idea this was. It is ridiculous, a complete waste of taxpayers' money and not the business of a government department. I can't see the Foreign Office promoting Christianity or the handing out...

Police pulled three security guards away on Thursday afternoon after they marched on the Israeli stand at the ITB Berlin tourism fair shouting “Free Palestine.” The men, who were employed at the ITB Berlin fair by a private security firm, surrounded the Israeli tourism board’s stand and shouted “Free Palestine” and “Freiheit für Palästina”, according to Tagesspiegel. Police pulled the men away and they were later suspended from their jobs. According to witnesses spoken to by Tagesspiegel, the three men appeared to be of Arabic background. …

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday invoked President Donald Trump's name multiple times in response to a question about what advice he can give progressive leaders who have a tough time condemning noted anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan. Several House Democrats have come under fire in the last week for their association with Farrakhan, including Democratic National Committee vice chairman Rep. Keith Ellison (D., Minn.), who recently earned a "Four Pinocchios" rating from the Washington Post Fact Checker concerning his interactions with the controversial Nation of Islam leader. Sanders sat down with CNN's Jake Tapper at the South by Southwest conference in Austin,...

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) is up to its usual tricks. This time, in the state of Georgia, CAIR is waging a disinformation campaign to end valuable counterjihad training that has been conducted by a military and law enforcement professional across the southeastern United States for years. The thorough and authoritative training is led by a man named David Bores. Bores is a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel and Vietnam combat veteran who, upon retiring from the Army embarked upon a successful law enforcement career, rising to the rank of Major in one of Georgia’s sheriff’s...

MANILA (Reuters) - At least 44 pro-Islamic State militants were killed and 26 more were wounded when Philippine soldiers shelled positions held by the rebels in southern Maguindanao province, the army said on Sunday. The fighting, initially with about 50 members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), broke out in a remote village in Datu Saudi Ampatuan town from Thursday morning and lasted the following day, said Lt. Col. Gerry Besana.