Free Republic

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...