Free Republic

In a recent report, NGO Monitor revealed that the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a non-profit funded largely by the U.S. Congress (i.e. American taxpayers), gave approximately $232,000 to the Holy Land Trust (HLT) between 2006 and 2012.  A search of NED’s website confirms that it has given multiple grants to the organization. HLT is a Bethlehem-based “peacemaking” organization whose leader, Sami Awad, has stated publicly that his organization has given training in non-violence to Hamas and other militant groups in Palestinian society. He did it in a speech he gave at the National Leadership Conference for the Vinyard Church in Galveston,...

Did Putin Blow Up the Whole Polish Government in 2010? A Second Look. A plane crash at Smolensk in Russia four years ago wiped out the Warsaw leadership. It used to be seen as an accident. Now, after Putin’s games in Ukraine, people aren’t so sure. Four years ago this week, Polish President Lech Kaczynski was killed in a plane crash near the Katyn Forest in Russia where he was flying to honor the 22,000 Polish officers, lawyers, priests and professors slaughtered there by the Soviets 70 years before. Ninety-five other military, political and public figures including his wife died...

For better or worse, ours is today a warlike nation that depends on volunteers to fill the ranks of its armed forces. Young men and women have a variety of motives for signing up. No doubt some do so for high-minded, even idealistic reasons. For many, however, more pragmatic considerations figure: a job with salary and benefits, a chance to escape from a humdrum or dispiriting existence. In all likelihood, few volunteers know what they are getting into, particularly in wartime. Fully disclosing what service in a distant war zone might entail is not a high priority for recruiters trying...

Obama waited too long to help the Syrian FSA against the monstrous Assad regime. When some sort of intervention was talked about: (bombing, indirect support, arms, etc) it was TOO late to help, and it would most likely have helped (either directly or indirectly) terroristic elements and possibly Al Qaeda elements which had taken the lead in Syria against Assad. NO WAY ON DOING THAT. PERIOD. And, once again, it is too late to help the Ukrainians against the thug Putin. (strike one against helping them). And as long as the Ukrainian gov't hasn't ran Svoboda and Right Sector and...

Kim Ji-gwan has a succinct explanation for why he, his father, and two brothers all chose to go to jail rather than be drafted into the South Korean armed forces. “It is very simple,” says Mr. Kim, chatting in a coffee shop in the city’s posh Kangnam district. “Jesus commanded all his followers to love your neighbor.” In the past, the US and many other countries accepted religious beliefs as grounds for opting out of military service. Not so South Korea, where men still serve a minimum of 21 months in the military. The UN Human Rights Council reports that...

The State of Indiana is reopening discussions with Midwest Fertilizer and Fatima Group about a multi-billion fertilizer plant in Posey County. Governor Mike Pence says the decision comes after the group and government of Pakistan took steps to make it more difficult for terrorists to obtain the company's products. Pence pulled state support for the project last year. Economic Development Coalition of Southwest Indiana Chief Executive Officer Greg Wathen says the company hopes to begin construction later this year.

“A commitment to press freedom is in my blood,” Lawrence Pintak insists in Islam for Journalists, which has been heartily endorsed by Hamas-linked CAIR. Then he proceeds to qualify his commitment to press freedom right out of existence. Referring to the Muhammad cartoons and the Muslim riots that followed them, he says that “many Muslim journalists simply couldn’t understand why Western news organizations would republish the offensive images just because” of a legal right, for “journalism is not supposed to be a weapon”; it is meant “to inform, not inflame.”This amounts to an endorsement of the idea that Western journalists...

The relative calm of the last two weeks as US talking-heads proclaim Ukraine 'fixed', Russia 'under control', and Europe 'recovering' is being obliterated this morning. The storming of various non-Crimean Ukrainian city government buildings suggest round two of the push is beginning and Russia is wasting no time explaining how this will go down. Russian Senator Viktor Ozerov stated that "Russia has no right to [send peacekeepers] unilaterally" to Eastern and Southern Ukraine (unless the UN agrees)... but... "Russia is interested in stability in Ukraine. At the same time, the will of the people must be documented. A referendum is...

After being publicly sacked by al Qaeda leader Aymann al-Zawahiri and accidentally beheading a fighter from one of their main allies in Syria, it’s fair to say the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)’s PR campaign has suffered in recent weeks. So, like any half decent group of militant extremists, they obviously want to address this slip. Unfortunately, a traditional media outreach is very difficult for them, given ISIS’s policy of kidnapping journalists. So they've turned, like many before them, to social media. Over the past few weeks, foreign fighters from ISIS and their subgroup the Muhajireen Brigade have been...

If Masood Farivar had been a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, would the Voice of America have hired him? If he were calling for members of the Aryan Nations to be “reintegrated” into Western society, would the New York Times have given him a platform? Islamic jihadists are no less violent, ruthless, and oppressive than the KKK or the Aryan Nations — indeed, more so. But they have a better PR arm.If a Muslim from the United States returns from waging jihad in Syria and sets off a jihad mass murder attack in New York or Washington, will...

A 17-year-old boy has been arrested over the disappearance of a terror suspect, who absconded after changing into a burka at a London mosque. Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed, who is still missing, escaped from government minders in November while subject to an order restricting his movements. Mr Mohamed had been linked to Somali militant group al-Shabab. The 17-year-old was arrested on on suspicion of conspiring with another to breach a so-called TPim order. Scotland Yard said he had been taken to a south London police station where he remained in custody.

Fort Hood gunman Ivan Lopez sought mental health treatment Published: April 3, 2014 7:05 AM By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FORT HOOD, Texas - An Iraq War veteran being treated for mental illness was the gunman who opened fire at Fort Hood, killing three people and wounding 16 others before committing suicide, in an attack on the same Texas military base where more than a dozen people were slain in 2009, authorities said.

Islamofascism: With an eye toward the 2016 election, the radical Muslim Brotherhood has built the framework for a political party in America that seeks to turn Muslims into an Islamist voting bloc. 'Muslim voters have the potential to be swing voters in 2016," said Nihad Awad in launching the benign-sounding U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations, whose membership reads like a Who's Who of Brotherhood front groups. "We are aiming to bring more participation from the Muslim community." USCMO also aims to elect Islamists in Washington, with the ultimate objective of "institutionalizing policies" favorable to Islamists — that is, Shariah law....

KFC diner told 'you can't have bacon in your burger here - we're now halal' A diner was left fuming after a KFC restaurant took his favourite meal off the menu because it breached their new halal regulations. Alan Phillips was told he would have to travel five miles to another branch if he wanted the Big Daddy, a chicken burger, topped with bacon, cheese and salad. The branch, in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, is one of 86 KFC restaurants which is running trials of a scheme where they sell nothing other than halal meat. The company has taken the burger off...

“The Last Hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews. The Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: ‘Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him.” Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Fitan wa Ashrat as-Sa’ah, Book 41 of Koran, 6985 The Islamic group “Ask a Muslim” is running “Jesus is Muslim” billboards in Columbus, Ohio. Mohammad, the founder of Islam, was born 500 years after Jesus’s death. The Christian Post reported, via Free Republic:

The Washington Post released a lengthy article this weekend based on a survey of 819 veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Buried deep in the article by Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran, who spent two years in Iraq as the Post’s bureau chief, is this bombshell: “When it comes to their most-senior commander, the vets decisively prefer George W. Bush to Obama. Only a third approve of the way Obama is handling his job, and 42 percent of them think he has been a good commander in chief despite his decisions to bring troops home from Iraq, wind down...

Fears of a cover-up over the fate of flight MH370 grew yesterday after claims that a photo of two passengers was tampered with. Images of two men who boarded the Malaysian Airlines jet with stolen passports appear to show them having the same set of legs. CCTV footage stills released by officials three days after the Boeing 777-200 vanished from the skies shows the pair with identical green trousers and brown shoes.

In the race for U.S. Senate, Republican challenger Jim Oberweis is getting shunned by two top Republicans - one local, one national. Dick Durbin is such a favorite for reelection that Republican Senator Mark Kirk says he’s not even planning to campaign with fellow Republican Oberweis. “I’m going to be protecting my relationship with Dick and not launching into a partisan jihad that hurts our partnership [in which we] both pull together for Illinois.” And at his side at an unrelated news conference was Republican Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, in town for a fundraiser, who took a...

<p>Those convicted are part of a group of 545 defendants on trial for the killing of a police officer, attempted killing of two others, attacking a police station and other acts of violence.</p> <p>More than 150 suspects stood trial, the others were tried in absentia. Sixteen were acquitted.</p>

“LIGNET put out a report, substantiated yesterday, that there sources got their information from Boeing sources, which is covert. Not that they got their information from the Boeing Company because they’re involved in the investigation, that the airplane was in Pakistan. That was confirmed by LIGNET on Monday and I got another source at LIGNET that confirmed it yesterday… I do believe that those people in Pakistan, in the ISI, those people who knew where Osama Bin Laden was and didn’t tell us. I believe those same elements could be involved with getting that airplane into a Pakistan air force...

New Levels Of Cruelty Reached by Arabs in Jerusalem Update: The source for this post is the “0404 News“, an internet based outlet that report predominantly about Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, IDF. More often than not, they are tipped directly by IDF and Police personnel about items, especially items that do not gain media attention, like rock throwing, firebombs, and other attacks on armed forces and civilians, often accompanied with private photos taken with their cellular phones. While I personally do not doubt the veracity of this report, it should be stated that as of now, no other news outlets...

CALGARY — The Calgary woman who was killed by Taliban gunmen in a luxury hotel in Kabul Thursday was devoted to peace and wasn't afraid, her grieving brother said Friday. Zeenab Kassam, 57, one of two Canadians killed in the attack, had been teaching English to girls and boys as an aid group volunteer in Afghanistan's capital city for the past year and a half and didn't express fear, Karim-Aly Kassam said. "This is not about the Afghan people, this is about a small, extreme minority of very dangerous people who've found a home in Afghanistan," Kassam said. "She was...

What would you do if the Internet or the power grid went down for over a year? Our key infrastructure, including the Internet and the power grid, is far more vulnerable than most people would dare to imagine. These days, most people simply take for granted that the lights will always be on and that the Internet will always function properly. But what if all that changed someday in the blink of an eye? According to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's latest report, all it would take to plunge the entire nation into darkness for more than a year would...

Saudi scholar says buffet meals are Haram A member of the Standing Committee of the Council of Senior Scholars, Sheikh Saleh bin Abdullah Al-Fawzan, said that buffets offered at restaurants are haram. The basis of his statement was that buffet meals have a fixed price, but the quantity of food that can be consumed is unknown or unlimited. According to Sabq news, the senior scholar said that the quantity of food and the price of the meals must be clear and known. He was responding to a listener‘s question about buffets on Holy Quran Radio. “One must not simply go...

Burned Georgia Tech student dies from injuries The Georgia Tech graduate student burned over 90 percent of his body last month died Thursday, the Institute said. Saamer Akhshabi was burned in a Feb. 4 explosion inside his apartment, where investigators found a suspected Molotov cocktail and several plastic bottles filled with gasoline and kerosene. Akhshabi, 26, was transported in critical condition to Grady Memorial Hospital, where he died early Thursday, Georgia Tech shared with the campus. "We have worked closely with other law enforcement agencies during the investigation of this tragic incident," Robert Connolly, interim police chief for Georgia Tech,...

"It's our innocents for your innocents. It was justified. As per the Koran, as per the relgion of Islam, Westgate was 100% justified." - Kenyan imam who claims he is just a simple man promoting true Islam When Islamist gunmen stormed Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall on a busy Saturday in September, the ensuing carnage also intensified fears that Kenya's homegrown Islamists were on the rise. Although the attackers were from Somalia's Al-Qaeda-inspired Shebab rebels, the group's ability to infiltrate and operate in Kenya, as well as find a stream of willing recruits, has focused attention on radical Islamists based down...

A man has been arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle drugs into a prison using a drone, Australian police say. The drone was "hovering in the vicinity of a prison" in Melbourne on Sunday afternoon, police said in a statement. The drone appeared to have "four engines" and was carrying "a small quantity of drugs", police added. Australia's parliament recently held a roundtable on drones and privacy. During the roundtable, Brad Mason, secretary of the Australian Certified UAV Operators Association, said there was "a lot of illegal and unauthorised use of UAVs. "We understand that the regulator is doing its...

The most anti-Israel President in US History We were warned. [video] BUT THIS IS STUNNING– A top Obama official this weekend told the Palestinian Al-Quds newspaper that there is no need for Palestinians to recognize Israel. Israel National News reported: The United States believes there is no need for the Palestinian Authority (PA) to recognize Israel as a Jewish state as part of a peace agreement, State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Saturday. Psaki, who spoke to the PA-based Arabic-language Al-Qudsnewspaper, said, “The American position is clear, Israel is a Jewish state. However, we do not see a need that...

Transformers are the most vulnerable components in the power grid and they are under attack. The main components in our power grid distribution system are transformers. They step up the generated voltage to a higher level for more efficient transport over very long lines. Then they step the voltage back down in several stages for final consumption. These transformers are located at the power plants and thousands of substations. They are big and right out in the open. Weather does not bother them, but bullets do. They are the weak links in our power grid. Last year someone decided to...

Russian forces tighten grip on Crimea despite U.S. warning By Alissa de Carbonnel SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine Sun Mar 9, 2014 9:25am EDT (Reuters) - Russian forces tightened their grip on Crimea on Sunday despite a U.S. warning to Moscow that annexing the southern Ukrainian region would close the door to diplomacy in a tense East-West standoff. Russian forces' seizure of the Black Sea peninsula has been bloodless but tensions are mounting following the decision by pro-Russian groups that have taken over the regional parliament to make Crimea part of Russia. The operation to seize Crimea began within days of Ukraine's pro-Russian...

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...