Free Republic

..... John Howard was the only world leader besides president George W. Bush who could see and feel the trauma, the chaos, the panic, the fear Americans felt that day. ..... The next day, vice-president Dick Cheney loaned us Air Force Two to get the prime minister back home to Australia. (The PM come over on a Qantas commercial flight and the president’s order to ground all commercial flights meant Qantas wouldn’t fly that day). ..... The secure communications on Air Force Two were quickly put to use. The prime minister called foreign minister Alexander Downer to tell him he...

An ex-CIA agent who stashed $40 million in gold bars at his Virginia home for “work-related expenses” could land a plea deal with federal prosecutors, according to court documents. David Rush, 49, and the Justice Department have made significant progress toward a “plea agreement in principle,” the feds and Rush’s lawyers wrote in a joint motion Friday in the case — one of the most significant financial crimes in the history of the CIA. Rush was arrested in late May after the feds removed a staggering 303 gold bars that were US government property and worth $40 million in a...

“It’s astonishing that anything exists.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein Is this a week to drain our souls, or what? Yesterday, the memory of Charlie Kirk, a decent young man known for acting nobly in an ignoble era, cut down (it is alleged in court) by a pathetic product of Woke cultism — the trans avenging angel, avatar of our national mental illness. And today, the memory of 9/11, for which no alt-theory or engineering lecture can obviate the lonely arc of those little bodies free-falling out of the flaming towers into nothingness. So, we move on because there is nothing else...

The Cook County judge who released repeat violent felon Alphanso Talley on electronic monitoring before he was charged with killing a Chicago police officer is accused of holding two courtroom deputies in contempt this week for not immediately removing handcuffs from a different inmate charged with murder. It’s an upside-down world in Judge John Lyke’s courtroom, where deputies are locked up and repeat violent offenders are sent home. On Wednesday, two deputies were escorting the inmate into Lyke’s courtroom at the Leighton Criminal Court Building when he ordered them to remove the man’s handcuffs, according to Teamsters Local 700, which...

[Catholic Caucus] Brazilian bishop’s Mass includes heretical creed featuring ‘goddess,’ ‘sexual diversity’ A Mass for Brazil’s ‘Cry of the Excluded’ event featured the radical ‘Creed of the Ecclesial Base Communities,’ which denounces ‘rules governing love’ and a ‘hierarchical Church.’A heterodox creed recited during the annual “Cry of the Excluded” Mass celebrated by Bishop José Valdeci Santos Mendes of Brejo, Maranhão, Brazil, last week, which featured leftist language, included a reference to a “God/Goddess.”As first reported by EWTN News, during the September 7 Mass (the video for which has since been deleted from YouTube), the “Creed of the Ecclesial Base Communities”...

Bishop Schneider: Synodality is a ‘code word to undermine Catholic doctrine’ Bishop Athanasius Schneider pointed out that the word ‘synodality’ is purposely ambiguous and is used in a 'cunning' attempt to promote moral relativism within the Church.Bishop Athanasius Schneider warned that “synodality” is a “cunning code word used to undermine Catholic doctrine.”In an interview published Thursday with AdVaticanum that discussed Our Lady’s title of Co-Redemptrix, the suppression of the Traditional Latin Mass, and interreligious contact, the auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan gave his view on the meaning of “synodality.” Schneider suggested that the meaning of “synodality” has deliberately been kept...

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Thursday asserted that Somali-born Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) “married her brother” as part of an alleged fraudulent immigration scheme — and could face deportation. Mullin made the comment to conservative podcaster Benny Johnson, as he discussed the “ongoing” federal investigation into the “Squad” congresswoman, at the GOP midterm convention in Dallas. “We know that she married her brother to try to bring him to the United States,” Mullin said confidently. “We know he lives now in London,” the DHS chief added, referring to Omar’s ex-husband.

GOP super PACs have committed more than $40 million to the race over the last week, as the attorney general faces a tight race with Democrat James Talarico. DALLAS — Texas Republican Ken Paxton is getting a major infusion of financial help in his Senate battle with Democrat James Talarico.A new super PAC linked to Senate Republican leadership has purchased at least $32 million in airtime to boost the controversial Republican attorney general, according to the tracking service AdImpact. And President Donald Trump’s super PAC threw $10 million into the race last week.The wave of GOP spending comes as a...

So many conversations just gated up like we are Cattle and just livestock. I saw that happen. The OP realized that there was already a thread to the same topic of interest. But still there were conversations and sentiments being also shared in this second post too and it is rude to just shut it off like that. Doesn't anyone know how to just "forward" any new comments to the older thread? It is not rocket science and only take minimal effort... I can teach you how... That way those conversations are not lost to the wind... Does anyone care...

on Gruden has never had a problem speaking his mind. The former NFL head coach, famous for his fiery sideline outbursts during his coaching days, showed that same side again on his podcast, where he blasted the league's international expansion and insisted that taking games overseas is a major mistake. During the September 10 episode of the Gruden Family Football Show, a caller challenged Gruden's opposition to the NFL's international schedule, pointing out that Red Grange's barnstorming tour in the 1920s helped save and legitimize the NFL when professional football was struggling to survive. Gruden, however, didn't hesitate to respond....

The NBC10 Boston Investigators are uncovering new details about the lone holdout juror from the Lindsay Clancy murder trial. Court documents and interviews with family members reveal a history of domestic violence allegations. We discovered a pending eviction case tied to months of not paying rent. The NBC10 Boston Investigators also found an active restraining order against him, while he was listening to evidence in the case. Those details raise questions about the jury selection process and how the Plymouth County resident was picked for the high-profile case that ended in a mistrial. NBC10 Boston has repeatedly attempted to contact...

Six defendants, including several Chicagoans, have been indicted in federal court for a scheme to defraud Twin Cities financial institutions. One of the suspects was employed by the U.S. Postal Service and used her position to identify and steal targeted mail pieces containing checks as part of the scheme. Willie Roy Turner Jr., aka “J.S.B.” and “Little Willie,” 29, of Chicago, along with five co-conspirators, has been indicted on one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, one count of bank fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft, and one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, announced U.S. Attorney...

This is a re-publication of the column he wrote on 9.11 With some commentary Prescient. We are fools. Exactly a quarter-century ago, I was pottering about the kitchen when the newsman broke into the morning show to say that there were reports that a 'plane had flown into the World Trade Center. I assumed it was an unfortunate mishap by a Piper Cub from Long Island or some such, switched off the radio and went about my business. So I did not hear that a second 'plane had hit until twenty minutes later when two of my editors called from...

The children of bloodthirsty Somali dictator Siad Barre, whose rule left as many as 200,000 people dead, are quietly living in the US — alongside victims of his regime. The Post located the despot’s “right-hand man” son Ayanle and daughter Deka Mohamed Siad, in Columbus, Ohio, where they lead unassuming suburban lives. However, among the wider Somali community, their presence is a painful reminder of the regime and some are calling for US authorities to investigate. “Siad Barre and his men committed so many war crimes so I was shocked to see his son [Ayanle] in the mosque enjoying his...

Muslim NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were seen laughing as the names of the honored dead were read aloud at the 9/11 memorial on Friday. Friday marked the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. Nearly 3,000 Americans were killed on 9/11. The world changed that day. Time stood still. Everyone remembers where they were when the Twin Towers came down.

In the early years of the Classic Learning Test’s existence, we believed that our fight for acceptance as a college entrance exam nationwide would happen in admissions offices. We were wrong. The legacy tests have lobbied to weave themselves into myriad state government mandates nationwide, making the college entrance exam business as political as it is academic. Knowing this, the SAT and ACT are lobbying aggressively to try to maintain their political moat. In several states — including Georgia, Oklahoma, Texas, and more — they’ve hired lobbyists, even if one or both had not previously had one, and worked side-by-side...

Bill Clinton's White House was warned that Osama bin Laden wanted to crash a bomb-packed plane into an American city three years before the hijackers struck, explosive CIA files reveal. The warning was a part of a September 10, 1998 report prepared for senior Clinton officials cleared to read the then-president's most secret morning intelligence digest, according to the Wall Street Journal. Headlined 'Bin Laden's Location and Intentions,' it offered no date or target, but made clear the terror chief had Washington, DC, in his sights. Bin Laden's terrorists would crash an airplane into the Pentagon three years later. Other...

Video: CBS News' Gayle King reacts live on air to learning Clancy "holdout juror" was the only "person of color" on the jury

The Justice Department announced Friday that an Afghan woman whose sons were connected to the 2024 Election Day terror plot has been deported from the United States through the never-before-used Alien Terrorist Removal Court. Nazira Haji Zada, 47 years old and living in Fort Worth, Texas, was deported last month through the unusual court, and she agreed to accept the "terrorist" label that bars her from ever returning to the United States, the department said. The Justice Department accused Zada of working to “indoctrinate her children with ISIS ideology and have them pledge loyalty to ISIS," which resulted in her...

For several days the pontificating media have been parading around the various jurors in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial, using the mostly white women to frame the deliberations as sexist and insensitive to the emotional plight of a woman who strangled her three children to death with an exercise band. Millions of middle-age, suburban, angry white females have proclaimed that American men should not have an opinion in the case while simultaneously using toxic sympathy as a weapon to defend the murderer. The previously described “one male holdout juror” who created a mistrial by failing to find the murdering mother...