Free Republic

AAAN has long been tied to President Obama. In 2001 and 2002, the Woods Fund of Chicago, with Obama on its board, made grants totaling $75,000 to the AAAN—about a fifth of AAAN’s overall budget. Obama served in that role alongside Bill Ayers and received $6,000 a year from 1999-2002. AAAN’s founder Rashid Khalidi and his wife Mona hosted Obama in their home on at least one occasion. Obama praised Khalidi’s insights, which had been “consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases.” Khalidi returned the compliment, telling a mostly Arab audience, that Obama is...

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested a 39-year-old Afghan national who was previously convicted of attempting to murder his teenage sister in what was described as an "honor" attack. Waheed Allah Mohammad was taken into custody on January 1 in Rochester, New York. According to ICE, the incident occurred in 2008 when Mohammed stabbed his then-19-year-old sister multiple times during a heated argument. Mohammad reportedly called his sister a "bad Muslim girl" and accused her of disgracing the family by dressing immodestly and frequenting nightclubs and dance clubs. "This criminal illegal alien tried to kill his own sister,"...

The Cubanization of Venezuela began a long time ago, but it took another large step in early February, when Cuban general Ramiro Valdés arrived in Caracas to serve as a government consultant. Valdés, 77, has been one of the most brutal enforcers of the Castro regime, beginning in the 1960s when he was responsible for crushing popular protests over energy-use restrictions. He established Castro’s ruthless G2 intelligence service and is currently number three in the Cuban hierarchy. According to Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, Valdés and his retinue are there to help the South American country solve its dire electricity crisis....

The FBI has added a former Venezuelan ambassador to Lebanon and Syria to their Terrorism “Seeking Information” list, after evidence indicated that Ghazi Nasr al Din was using his position to help fundraise for the Shiite terror group Hezbollah. Nasr al Din, a dual Venezuelan and Lebanese citizen, served both of his terms under socialist leader Hugo Chávez before his death and has also served at the head of the Shi’a Islamic Center in Caracas, Venezuela, according to the United States Department of Treasury. The Treasury designated Nasr al Din a “supporter” of Hezbollah in 2008, with Adam J. Szubin,...

War: A Spanish court has charged Venezuela with collaborating in a terrorist plot to assassinate President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia. That's an attempt on a top U.S. ally, and calls for a hard response. If it's not predator-drone time, it's time to name Venezuela as a state sponsor of terror. What came to light Monday isn't the first time Venezuela's Hugo Chavez has been caught aiding terrorists, but it may well be the most egregious. Spanish Judge Eloy Velasco named a Venezuelan government official as a key link between 12 FARC and ETA terrorists who were indicted in a 2003...

Fox news alert that the House Democrats are calling to have all US refineries nationalized!!

The US State Department announced plans on Monday to promote online youth groups as a new and powerful way to fight crime, political oppression and terrorism. Drawing inspiration from a movement against FARC rebels in Colombia, the State Department is joining forces with Facebook, Google, MTV, Howcast and others in New York City next week to get the "ball rolling." It said 17 groups from South Africa, Britain and the Middle East which have an online presence like the "Million Voices Against the FARC" will attend a conference at Columbia University Law School from December 3-5. Observers from seven organizations...

ARLINGTON, Va. — A small company is offering to the Navy a small, high-speed craft that it says can take on some of the missions of the littoral combat ship (LCS) in regional operations. The Ghost, a small waterplane-area twin-hull (SWATH) craft designed by Juliet Marine Systems Inc. of Portsmouth, N.H., has been tested in prototype form at sea and has been demonstrated to potential customers, including the U.S. Navy, said Greg Sancoff, chief executive officer of Juliet Marine. The Ghost is designed to perform anti-surface (ASUW) and antisubmarine warfare (ASW) and mine countermeasures (MCM), the three intended roles of...

Some of the Democrats who have been spiking the ball in the end zone after the passage of the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” probably didn’t read all of the finer details in the bill. They’ve been celebrating its passage along with Joe Biden as the “biggest climate legislation” to ever be passed. They have also been grudgingly thanking West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin for getting the bill over the finish line. But it turns out that Manchin snuck in a few items that haven’t drawn many headlines yet and the climate warriors aren’t going to be very happy about them....

The suspected terrorist charged with gunning down two Israeli embassy workers in Washington Wednesday is associated with radical socialist groups funded by the far-left Chinese sympathizer, millionaire Neville Singham and his activist wife Jodie Evans. Elias Rodriguez, 31, who allegedly confessed to killing the couple outside the Capital Jewish Museum and chanted “free, free Palestine!” was part of that network through his association with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), a Communist political organization that has fielded presidential candidates since 2008. In 2018, Rodriguez also raised $240 in a GoFundMe campaign to join the March to Fight Poverty in...

It is election season in King County and several seats on the King County Council are up for grabs. This year, riding on the energy that was felt during last year’s election cycle, Black women continue to be at the forefront of politics across the nation and in the State of Washington. Saudia J. Abdullah, Lydia Assefa-Dawson, Shukri Olow and Ubax Gardheere are four Black women looking to bring new and empowering energy to politics in the Pacific Northwest, as all four a vying for seats on the King County Council. Now let’s talk about Ubax Gardheere! This is what...

A great crisis in 2008, followed by an even greater one in 2020, as an "authoritarian, severe, unyielding" leader from the baby boomer generation resists a historic moment of change afoot in the US. Would you believe this was all predicted almost 25 years ago? In a book championed at the highest levels of the Trump administration, no less? Oh, and it was also written by the guys who invented the term "millennial." It was all prophesied in 1997 in Neil Howe and William Strauss' "The Fourth Turning," and, depending on who you ask, it was either a breakthrough in...

Hillary Clinton bundler pleads guilty to illegal contributions By JOSH GERSTEIN | 4/17/14 5:03 PM EDT A prominent New York hotel magnate who was a top bundler for then-Sen. Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign pled guilty in federal court Thursday to making more than $180,000 in illegal campaign contributions and to witness tampering. Sant Chatwal, 70, admitted using employees and vendors for his hotels as straw donors to avoid limits dictated by campaign finance law. Investigators also recorded Chatwal telling an associate not to admit that donations were reimbursed, court papers say. "Without [donations] nobody will even talk to you,"...

A hotel executive and Democratic fundraiser has pleaded guilty in New York to witness tampering and conspiracy to evade campaign finance laws. Sant Singh Chatwal appeared Thursday in federal court in Brooklyn. The candidates were not identified. Chatwal had raised at least $100,000 for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign against Barack Obama

New And Deadly Viruses Passed Through Sweet Food And Domestic Animals ScienceDaily (Apr. 6, 2008) — Nipah virus is a new and deadly brain and lung disease that emerged from Singapore and Malaysia ten years ago. It is now spreading into rural India and Bangladesh killing up to three-quarters of the people who become infected in some outbreaks, scientists heard April 3, 2008 at the Society for General Microbiology's 162nd meeting. "People are catching this disease by drinking date palm juice or probably by eating fruit contaminated by the virus, or through contact with infected animals. We have seen nine...

In the United States, several transcripts of conversations between Russia's leader Vladimir Putin and former US president George Bush have been published, in which Putin argued that Ukraine is an artificial state with a fragmented society and warned of a long-term confrontation with the West if Ukraine were admitted to NATO.Source: European Pravda with reference to the non-governmental research institution the National Security ArchiveDetails: In a conversation dated 16 June 2001, Putin, speaking in a passage about the need for honesty in relations and saying that he senses the mood of Russian society well, spoke about his disappointment with the...

As Russian tanks rumble through Georgia, and Western pundits talk of the "new Cold War," one trope keeps reappearing in their discourse. Russia's newly aggressive stance, we are told, is partly our fault: After the fall of Communism, the West went out of its way to humiliate and trample Russia instead of treating it as a partner--and now, an oil-powered Russia is striking back. "Russia's litany of indignities dates to the early 1990s when the Soviet empire collapsed," Samantha Power, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and former Barack Obama adviser, wrote in Time. "A bipolar universe gave...

Thousands of Guineans on Wednesday cheered a young army captain chosen as de facto head of state by the military junta that took over the West African country in a coup after the death of President Lansana Conte. The installation of Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara as leader of the world's top bauxite exporter went ahead despite international condemnation and statements opposing the coup from civilian leaders and the top military commander. The coup leaders, calling themselves the National Council for Democracy and Development (CNDD), appeared unopposed in their control of the Guinean capital Conakry two days after Conte's death from...

"US Accuses Guinea-Bissau Military Officers of Drug Trafficking Two top officers are named as major players in cocaine shipment from Latin America to Guinea-Bissau" SNIPPET: "Na Tchuto denied the allegations on Friday and said that he will cooperate with the United States government. He also said the charges of drug trafficking do not make sense because he was in Portugal on June 29, 2008 when the cocaine shipment from Venezuela arrived. Na Tchuto said he did not return to Guinea-Bissau until July. Na Tchuto also pointed out that he was not arrested by Interpol when he was in Gambia or...

Researchers have discovered there was an anomaly in Earth's gravitational field between 2006 and 2008, potentially caused by a mineral shift deep within Earth's mantle...The large gravitational anomaly lasted for about two years over the eastern Atlantic Ocean. It peaked in January 2007, the same month Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone (though, of course, there was no connection between the two events).Researchers recently discovered the signal while analyzing data collected by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites between 2003 and 2015. The gravitational anomaly happened around the same time as a geomagnetic "jerk" -- an abrupt change...