Free Republic

Homeland Insecurity: The IRS is diligent to a fault when it comes to vetting conservative groups applying for nonprofit status. But it's out to lunch when vetting employees posing security risks. While the Internal Revenue Service was investigating Tea Party patriots in the run-up to last year's presidential election, it dispensed with basic background checks and hired a convicted Islamist traitor as a high-level official. Mohammad Weiss Rasool, whom the FBI busted last decade for tipping off an al-Qaida terrorist suspect, reportedly now works for the deputy IRS chief financial officer as a financial management analyst, drawing a lucrative salary...

WASHINGTON — Confirming suspicions of Americans and Fox News contributors everywhere, Communist-in-Chief Barack Obama announced today that his plans to downsize the Defense Department in size and spending are singularly rooted in a heartfelt desire to allow the terrorists to win. “I’m doing this because I hate America,” Obama told reporters. “Plain and simple.” Indeed, last week, the president unveiled proposals that would shrink the Army to pre-World War II levels, slash a number of costly programs, and roll back some benefits to service members and their families. Speaking today from the White House briefing room, the president assured Americans...

Wife killed Ga. soldier for insurance, feds say By Jan Skutch Morris News Service March 5, 2014 SAVANNAH, Ga. -- The wife of a slain Fort Stewart soldier schemed with her brother to kill her husband in exchange for a $160,000 insurance policy payout, a federal prosecutor said Tuesday. Lillie Eubank, 39, told investigators she arranged to have her brother, Carl Evan “Cowboy” Swain, travel from Alabama to Savannah, bought a T-ball bat and selected the site for the attack at a recreation park on Fort Stewart, Assistant U.S. Attorney Cameron Heaps Ippolito said. The victim, Army Spc. John Joseph...

ORANGE PARK, FLA. — The death of a Navy commander found in a room at the Astoria Hotel on Feb. 12 was ruled a homicide, the Orange Park Police Department announced Wednesday. The Jacksonville Medical Examiner's Office made the ruling on Feb. 13 in the death of Cmdr. Alphonso Doss, 44, of Pensacola, according to the release from the OPPD. Doss' manner of death is not being released at this time while the OPPD and the Clay County Sheriff's Office investigate. Doss reported to Naval Education and Training Command in Nov. 2011, according to the Navy. While in Jacksonville, he...

On Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, moderator David Gregory appeared to caution President Obama against aggressively confronting Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Teeing up left-wing Daily Beast editor Tina Brown, Gregory declared: "Look, part of the Bush era that a lot of people recoiled against was the idea of talking tough and projecting American power as if some how feeling better about that makes the world better." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] Brown replied: "Absolutely. I mean, there's no need to just go off and be bellicose. And then it's like, 'Now what?'...

Even as the Obama administration denounced what it called anti-gay legislation in Arizona and the president sat out the Sochi Olympics because of Russia’s crackdown on same-sex couples, the State Department allowed an Islamic preacher who called for the death penalty for homosexuals into the country for a tour of hate. Sheikh Mohammad Rateb al-Nabulsi was issued a visa for a 17-city tour of US mosques to raise money and support for the Syrian uprising. He arrived New Year’s Day. The radical Syrian cleric has made no secret of his virulent anti-gay views. Appearing April 28, 2011, on al Aqsa...

Russia, flush with new-found wealth from oil exports, expands its military reach and political influence abroad. A war-weary America slashes defense spending and retreats from the world. The president embarks on a massive government-subsidized program to develop alternative energy to replace fossil fuels. Pundits cluck about America in retreat, and point to the rise of an Asian economic superpower. That’s the world circa 1976, but it sounds like quotes ripped from today’s headlines. History has a way of repeating itself, or to quote the great Yogi Bera, it’s déjà vu all over again. The Obama administration is looking a lot...

**SPOILER ALERT** Most of the suspense and therefore enjoyment of Liam Neeson's new action thriller "Non Stop" comes from trying to figure out who the villain is and why this person is doing what he or she is doing. If you read the rest of this article, it will spoil the entire movie for you. Period. You have been warned. There is no question that "Non-Stop" is a well-made, involving, not-terribly-dumb action-thriller that delivers plenty of suspense and endears Liam Neeson further into the heart of those of us who love well-made, involving, not-terribly-dumb action-thrillers. "Non-Stop" is a good movie....

As you read the following, keep in mind that this happened three weeks ago. The only reason I know about it is because Glenn Reynolds linked to it this morning.WXIA in Atlanta, Feb. 5: The FBI says a Georgia Tech graduate student was burned by a Molotov cocktail at his apartment in the 200 block of 10th Street, not far from Piedmont Park. Atlanta police spokeswoman Kim Jones said Saamer Akhshabi suffered third-degree burns over 90 percent of his body. Lighter fluid and a charred pillow and mattress were found inside the apartment, along with the Molotov cocktail and several...

We don’t usually flak for The Washington Post, but every so often the Washington elite’s liberal “paper of record” gets something right, or at least asks the right question. Such was the case on Monday, February 24, when the Post published an opinion piece by Richard Cohen entitled “Susan Rice and the retreat of American power,” that detailed a bill of particulars against President Obama’s national security advisor, Susan Rice, and the President himself, for the treasonous squandering of American lives, treasure and influence in the world’s affairs. While what happened at Benghazi, Libya and how the events there led...

Dear Congressman ________, The proposed cuts in national defense will injure the security of the United States of America. 1. The most common enemy the USA is now fighting consists of insurgents. The only remedy for insurgency that has worked is General Petraeus' surge strategy of ground troops. It worked in Iraq and Afghanistan when consistently applied, and it's the only thing that has worked. The only way to "air power" insurgents is to bomb villages, and that will never happen. That leaves ground troops being the only answer. Cutting the Army at this time is completely irrational. 2. The...

<p>TUCSON - How secure are U.S. military installations? You would think the answer is: very.</p> <p>But, as the News 4 Tucson Investigators uncovered, one installation, right here in southern Arizona, continues to face potential outside security risks, and the problem doesn't seem to be getting any better.</p>

Grover Norquist, who founded Americans for Tax Reform (ATR)... his connections to Muslim Brotherhood groups and individuals in the U.S. is irrefutable. One such individual is Abdurahman Alamoudi. Another is Suhail Khan, whose father helped found the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Students Association (MSA). His mother sat on the board of a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) chapter... Norquist helped Khan become the White House gatekeeper relative to selecting Muslim leaders who the Bush administration partnered with before and after 9/11. Those Muslim leaders belonged to Muslim Brotherhood front groups. ... Last year it was...

The Department of Defense announced today the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. They died Feb. 12, in Kapisa Province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when they were struck by enemy small arms fire. Killed were: Spc. John A. Pelham, 22, of Portland, Ore., and Sgt. First Class Roberto C. Skelt, 41, of York, Fla. Pelham and Skelt were assigned to 2nd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Bragg, N.C.

Lawyers in the upcoming trial of an alleged top Al Qaeda leader reached a compromise Thursday to allow his defense attorney to submit written questions to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, with government lawyers allowed to review the questions and answers from the presumed Sept. 11 mastermind to ensure no classified material is included. If government national security officials clear those replies, that could lead to highly dramatic testimony from Mohammed during the New York trial of Sulaiman abu Ghaith, possibly through a closed-circuit feed or videotape from Guantanamo Bay. The complex turn of events came after Mohammed agreed to help the...

Ohio National Guard stages drill fighting fictional “right-wing terrorists” Robert Spencer Feb 10, 2014 Useful idiots They had a drill fighting left-wing terrorists last year, until leftists complained, whereupon they apologized. Meanwhile, no one would even dare to suggest that they hold a drill involving fighting against Islamic jihadists. Everyone knows that Islam is a Religion of Peace and that Tiny Minority of Extremists that has hijacked it is nowhere near Ohio, right? Well, there was Nuradin Abdi, who in August 2002 planned a jihad attack against an Ohio shopping mall. And Abdullah Mohammed Muslim, an Ohio Muslim who trained...

The Wall Street Journal's Rebecca Smith reports that a former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman is acknowledging for the first time that a group of snipers shot up a Silicon Valley substation for 19 minutes last year, knocking out 17 transformers before slipping away into the night. The attack was "the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred" in the U.S., Jon Wellinghoff, who was chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the time, told Smith.

The Obama administration has issued new exemptions to a law that bars certain asylum-seekers and refugees who provided “limited material support” to terrorists who are believed to pose no threat from the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department published the new exemptions Wednesday in the Federal Register to narrow a ban in the Immigration and Nationality Act excluding refugees and asylum seekers who had provided limited material support, no matter how minor, to terrorists. “These exemptions cover five kinds of limited material support that have adversely and unfairly affected refugees and asylum seekers with no tangible...

Justice Antonin Scalia predicts that the Supreme Court will eventually authorize another a wartime abuse of civil rights such as the internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II. "You are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again," Scalia told the University of Hawaii law school while discussing Korematsu v. United States, the ruling in which the court gave its imprimatur to the internment camps.

I am weighed down by some thoughts I have been having lately. I think that since you are my family out there is Spectator-land, I will share them with you. (Although usually family are the last people who want to hear your thoughts. My sister is an exception, of course.) First, a few days ago, I had a brief talk with a thoughtful high school student in my beloved Greenville. The topic was whether or not Osama bin Laden had realized his objectives in the attack of 9/11. The woman had all kinds of brilliant insights, and herewith I add...

Iran on Thursday dismissed as “unrealistic and unconstructive” comments by President Barack Obama that international sanctions linked to its nuclear program had forced Tehran to the negotiating table, AFP reported. “The delusion of sanctions having an effect on Iran’s motivation for nuclear negotiations is based on a false narration of history,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham was quoted as saying by state broadcaster IRIB. In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Obama said that U.S. and international pressure had led to the interim deal struck in November between Iran and six global powers, under which Tehran agreed to...

The Wounded Warriors Project, a group that has been called a “legal scam” by veterans, has successfully killed off the all-volunteer Indiana veterans assistance group “Help Indiana Veterans”. Why? Because Dean Graham, the head of Help Indiana Veterans, wrote that Wounded Warriors was a scam because that so-called charitable organization spends but a few pennies on the dollar in grants to fund endeavors to actually benefit wounded servicemen and women, per their IRS Form 990 from 2011.

Beretta doesn’t bluff: Moving production to Tennessee Beretta told Maryland’s state legislature that passage of anti-gun bills early last year would force the company to re-think their plans for growth and expansion in Governor Martin O’Malley’s state. “Berettas don’t bluff,” the Old Line State lawmakers were told. The legislature passed a whole new raft of gun restrictions anyway. Well, not only did Beretta cancel plans for growth and expansion in anti-gun Maryland, they announced their intention to move the whole kit and caboodle to Tennessee later this year. (The Tennesseean) – Beretta, one of the world’s leading gun manufacturers, will...

Last June, Obama used the 200-acre estate dubbed the “Camp David of the West” for two days of talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Islamist militants shot down an Egyptian military helicopter in the Sinai Peninsula with a surface-to-air missile over the weekend, raising new alarms about the terrorist insurgency that developed there in response to the military takeover last summer. The attack — described by witnesses, documented in a video released by the militants, and confirmed by three people briefed on the Egyptian government’s investigation — validated longstanding fears that such weapons would spill into Egypt and beyond after the Libyan civil war tore open Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s fearsome arsenals. Known as manpads, for man-portable air defense systems, the missiles can bring down...

JERUSALEM – Israel's internal security agency says it has foiled an Al Qaeda plan to attack the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and hit other targets in the country.

Compares al Qaeda to junior varsity team putting on Lakers jerseys: "That doesn't make them Kobe Bryant." In his New Yorker interview published over the weekend, President Obama stated that current Al Qaeda was “jayvee” – and said that his analogy was often used around the White House. “The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” Obama said. He then added, “I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is...

The U.S. Justice Department is likely to widen a ban on the profiling of suspects by race to include other categories such as religion, country of origin, gender and sexual orientation, a person familiar with an internal review said on Thursday. Broadening the ban would mark a major policy shift for U.S. law enforcement and would address a frequent complaint by minorities in America who feel they are singled out for unwarranted extra scrutiny. Federal agents have been prohibited from profiling potential criminal suspects by race in almost all cases since 2003, but complaints persist of the unwarranted targeting of...

Reaction from lawmakers, privacy groups, foreign leaders, industry and the intelligence community to President Barack Obama's proposals to change the way U.S. intelligence agencies collect information: ...

There often is a tendency for those concerned about the size and scope of government to feel like everything is getting perpetually worse. But a full look at the evidence shows this isn't so. While critics claim that free trade and globalization are merely a "race to the bottom," the world as a whole has been quietly reducing poverty, disease, famines and war by embracing the free market. University of Michigan-Flint economist Mark Perry has a chart showing the remarkable decrease in the world poverty rate, which has fallen 80 percent, from 26.8 percent in 1970 to 5.4 percent in...

The myth of the poor, oppressed jihadist never dies. U.S. secretary of state John Kerry is the latest Obama administration official to peddle this odious narrative. Cue John Lennon’s cloying “Imagine,” don your plaid pajamas, and curl up with a warm cup of deadly naïveté.While meeting with Catholic Church officials at the Vatican in Rome on Monday, Kerry expounded on their “huge common interest in dealing with this issue of poverty, which in many cases is the root cause of terrorism or even the root cause of the disenfranchisement of millions of people on this planet.” In other words:...

The myth of the poor, oppressed jihadist never dies. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is the latest Obama administration official to peddle this odious narrative. Cue John Lennon's cloying "Imagine," don your plaid pajamas, and curl up with a warm cup of deadly naivete. While meeting with Catholic Church officials at the Vatican in Rome on Monday, Kerry expounded on their "huge common interest in dealing with this issue of poverty, which in many cases is the root cause of terrorism or even the root cause of the disenfranchisement of millions of people on this planet." In other words:...

The U.S. military cannot hunt down and kill people responsible for the deadly 2012 attack on an American compound in Benghazi, Libya, as long as the terrorists are not officially deemed members or affiliates of al Qaeda, newly declassified transcripts from congressional hearings show. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey in testimony on Oct. 10 said the Pentagon’s hands are tied because the groups involved are not covered by the Authorization for Use of Military Force. The AUMF law allows U.S. attacks anywhere in the world only on al Qaeda and “associated forces.” “The individuals related in the...

The trial of four men accused of murdering former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri has begun at an unprecedented tribunal at The Hague. The four - alleged associates of the Syria-backed militant Shia movement Hezbollah - have not been arrested and are being tried in absentia. Hariri and 21 others were killed by a massive car bomb in Beirut in 2005. The killings polarised Lebanon and led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops. Hezbollah denies any involvement. It instead says the assassination was part of an Israeli and US conspiracy. Shortly before the trial was to start, a suicide bomb blast...

The Iron Dome rocket defense system intercepted five rockets fired by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza at Ashkelon early Thursday morning. An additional rocket may have landed in an open, uninhabited area. There were no injuries in the Palestinian attack.

Why does the U.S. media not see an equivalence? Some Japanese PM's, unlike Abe, wouldn't go near that Yasakuni "Tojo" shrine. Which of the two "shrines" is more reprehensible? Didn't the Hezbollah leader kill American's? Didn't Tojo, a war criminal, also kill Americans? Boycott both "shrines" IMHO...

A series of car bombs near Baghdad has killed at least 21 people Monday, in the latest in a series of sectarian clashes ripping through Iraq. The attacks came just hours after the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon urged the Iraqi government to address the root causes behind the clashes, in light of escalating violence. Four car bombs exploded in the Shi'ite districts of the Iraqi capital, killing at least 20 people; Al-Jazeera sets the number at 21 killed, Reuters UK at 25 killed and 76 wounded. In addition, gunmen attacked a checkpoint in Southern Baghdad, killing 3 policeman...

What did Hillary (D-Dem-e) know? Surely she knew at least to a large degree what former Defense Secretary Gates has proffered in his tell-some memoir (as it seriously torpedoes Biden and Obama but not so much Hillary in comparison). Funny... BOTH Chris Christie (R-GOP-e) and Biden (D-Dem-e) have been torpedoed in near-simultaneous fashion, as the memoir was some time in the writing, as well as the info coming out that hurts Chris Christie happened some time back. Coincidence? .......... And all this right after a power base is established with De BLAH-sio being coronated, er, I mean elected as mayor...

McCain blasted Obama on the Al-Qaeda takeover of Fallujah about 3 days ago and the raising of their flag there. This flag-raising and takeover of Fallujah is indeed an abomination in the sight of anyone with a conscience, but can anyone say that McCain has a strict adherence to principles? Would McCain shake hands with Saddam, then later bomb him? Would he pal around with Pinochet, and then later seek to bomb him? Would he seek to overthrow an elected Iranian leader in 1953, only later to regret it? And thus the lesson on why Washington said that we must...

**SNIP** 3) Iranian-born Huma Abedin, who is a close friend of Hillary Rodham Clinton and her former Chief of Staff, has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Saleha Abedin, Huma’s mother, has been identified as one of the leaders of the Muslim Sisterhood. Huma Abedin is also the wife of former Democratic Congressman and failed New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner. Muhammad Morsi is set to go trial in January, along with a number of other Brotherhood leaders, and the talk of possible criminal charges being brought against Hillary Clinton stem largely from her long-time friendship and co-operation with Naglaa Mahmoud....

Politico, trying to find a juicy angle on the latest chapter in the Benghazi saga, asks the arrogant question “Could the New York Times have saved ’60 Minutes’?” They are referring, of course, to “60 Minutes’” infamous use of charlatan Dylan Davies as a source when he did not, in fact, scale the compound wall the night of the attacks, nor see Ambassador Chris Stevens’ body in a Libyan hospital. Davies was outed by Washington Post sleuthing, and then by the New York Times, which spoke with the FBI about Davies. The FBI confirmed that this bad source had told...

One of India’s most wanted and Indian Mujahideen co-founder Muhammad Ahmad Zarar Siddibapa alias Yasin Bhatkal was arrested at the India-Nepal border in August. Bhatkal was accused of several bomb blasts in the last few years. (VIDEO-AT-LINK) Indian Islamist Yasin Bhatkal told officials he was planning a nuclear attack on India with the support of the mujahideen in Pakistan. The Times of India reported, via Religion of Peace: The prospect of terror organisations getting their hands on a nuclear device has long concerned both security agencies and thriller writers. Now, it seems Indian Mujahideen India chief Ahmad Zarar Siddibappa alias...

Video here Moscow (CNN) -- An explosion at a train station in Volgograd, Russia, killed at least 18 people on Sunday, Russian media reported. The RIA Novosti news agency also said dozens were injured, citing police. The ITAR-TASS news agency reported a lower death toll of 13. Russia's National Anti-Terror Committee told CNN that preliminary information suggests the blast was caused by a female suicide bomber.

To the American people an American military life is worth far more than the life of an Afghan soldier or civilian. For the current occupants of the White House and the Administration’s staff it seems to be just the opposite. It appears that to them Afghan civilian’s lives are more highly valued than American soldier’s lives, though this could never be publicly voiced in the politically correct game of semantics that combat commanders are forced to play these days. Still, to a military commander in the thick of battle the unintended killing of enemy civilians is collateral damage, one of...

After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors. But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congress’ investigative report on 9/11 dealing with “specific sources of foreign support” for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals. It was kept secret and remains so today. President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report. Text isn’t just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood (this story by...

After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors. But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congress’ investigative report on 9/11 dealing with “specific sources of foreign support” for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals. It was kept secret and remains so today. President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report. Text isn’t just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood (this story by...

US authorities today announced the arrest of Terry Lee Loewen, 58, of Wichita, Kan. Loewen had attempted to detonate a car bomb at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport, authorities said. He was arrested at approximately 5:40 am today. Loewen "was arrested as part of an FBI undercover investigation, and the device used by the defendant was, in fact, inert and at no time posed a danger to the public," a Department of Justice press release stated. According to the DOJ, Loewen was arrested "without incident" after "he attempted to enter the airport tarmac and deliver a vehicle loaded with what he believed...

A 58-year-old airport worker was charged Friday with allegedly planning a suicide bombing at a passenger terminal at the Wichita Mid-Continent Airport in Kansas. The suspect, Terry Lee Loewen, an avionics technician who lives in Wichita, was arrested earlier in the day as he attempted to use his security pass to drive a vehicle that he thought contained explosives onto the tarmac at the airport, law enforcement officials said at a news conference in Wichita. In fact, the car contained only dummy explosives. U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said Loewen spent months developing a plan to drive a carload of explosives...

Federal officials say they've arrested a Kansas man who allegedly wanted to set off a suicide bomb at the Wichita airport. Officials were to announce details of the case at a news conference at 2 p.m. ET in Wichita. In advance of the news conference, an official familiar with the case told NBC News that the suspect was "an older white man," who became radicalized after reading extremist Islamic material on the web.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said yesterday that Iran has built up a terror infrastructure in Central and South America from which to attack Jewish and Israeli targets in the region and as a base for attacking inside the United States. “The Iranians use diplomatic mail in order to transport bombs and weapons,” he said in a meeting with visiting Guatamalan President Otto Fernando Perez Molina, himself a former intelligence chief in his country. “We know that there are states in South America like Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia where the Iranians have terror bases, both in the embassies and...