Free Republic

Former Gov. Michael Dukakis says a Cambridge man facing five years in federal prison for repeatedly lying to the FBI about his pal Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is “a fine young man” who “could have a great future in public service.” Dukakis went to bat for Robel Kidane Phillipos, 21, in a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock ahead of Phillipos’ sentencing today for making false statements to the FBI in its investigation of the Boston Marathon bombings. Prosecutors want five years. Phillipos and Tsarnaev, both 21, grew up together in Cambridge and were classmates at the University of...

The revelations of the so-called Panama Papers that are roiling the world’s political and financial elites this week include important facts about Team Clinton. This unprecedented trove of documents purloined from a shady Panama law firm that arranged tax havens, and perhaps money laundering, for the globe’s super-rich includes juicy insights into how Russia’s elite hides its ill-gotten wealth. Almost lost among the many revelations is the fact that Russia’s biggest bank uses The Podesta Group as its lobbyist in Washington, D.C. Though hardly a household name, this firm is well known inside the Beltway, not least because its CEO...

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid could be deposed for ICE whistleblower Taylor Johnson’s new lawsuit because complaints from his office precipitated her ouster. Johnson’s attorney, Morris Fischer, told the Washington Gadfly that, “We will attempt to depose whoever is involved in this corruption up to and including Harry Reid. His fingerprints are all over the place.” The veteran law enforcement agent, who DHS fired in February after she rejected $100,000 in hush money, filed a Merit System Protection Board claim against the agency earlier this month. Johnson, a single mother of four, had a storied career until she ran afoul...

In the face of scandal allegations, the normal response of Democrats is to circle the wagons and defend their comrade under fire. That’s not happening now that the dam is breaking, and people are catching on that the hysteria ginned over alleged Trump collusion was a cover, a means of deflecting attention away from the real corruption.   Both the Clinton and Obama wings of the Democrat establishment are implicated, and so are the henchmen who got the Special Counsel investigation of Trump going. So when Tom Perez, the head of the DNC ran for the hills, I took...

They love death “like you love life.” They are the enemies of life, and of creation, and of creativity, of love, of art, of civilization. All they love is death and pain and destruction. They are the quintessential force of evil.“ISIS Vows to ‘Fill The Streets Of Paris With Dead Bodies,'” by Vladi Vovcuk and Gilad Shiloach, Vocativ, July 22, 2015 (thanks to Jerk Chicken): ISIS’ official media wing in Syria’s Hama province published a video Wednesday showing a French-speaking militant shooting a Syrian army prisoner and declaring that the Islamic State “will fill the streets of Paris with dead...

Sepp Blatter will call extraordinary meeting for a new election to replace him!

Windows were broken out on the second and third floors, while debris was piled on the sidewalk beneath a first floor window holding an Obama '08 poster." Irony, both that Cummings was one of those defending those defending Baltimore rioters as a "few bad apples" and that it could happen anywhere (anywhere apparently was through his ground floor window), and in front of a poster for the Savior that was to change race relations for the better. Congressmam Elijah Cummings Baltimore home catches fire. "Windows were broken out on the second and third floors, while debris was piled on the...

Firefighters were called to the three-story brick rowhome in the 2000 block of Madison Ave. at 10:42 a.m., where they found smoke coming from the roof, said department spokesman Samuel Johnson Jr. They placed the one-alarm blaze under control by 11 a.m. Windows were broken out on the second and third floors, while debris was piled on the sidewalk beneath a first-floor window holding an Obama '08 poster.

Hillary Clinton will attend a fundraiser in New York on Tuesday hosted by Facebook millionaire and vertically integrated media company caretaker Chris Hughes, who recently described himself in a Vanity Fair profile as “the Antichrist, or something pretty close to it.” Hughes is best known for being Mark Zuckerberg’s roommate at Harvard and for pioneering the “poke” button feature on the popular social media website Facebook. His husband, Brown graduate Sean Eldridge, was the worst candidate of the 2014 election cycle. Eldridge ran for Congress in New York’s 19th Congressional district after Hughes bought him a mansion there. He ended...

The Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race, has asked President Trump’s political organization to gather and produce all Russia-related documents, emails and phone records going back to his campaign’s launch in June 2015, according to two people briefed on the request. The letter from the Senate arrived at Trump’s campaign committee last week and was addressed to the group’s treasurer. Since then, some former staffers have been notified and asked to cooperate, the people said. They were not authorized to speak publicly.

Several floors of a Senate office building on Capitol Hill were evacuated on Tuesday afternoon, following a report of a suspicious package that Capitol Police are calling a bomb threat.

Police released a surveillance video Saturday of a man suspected of vandalizing a mural in the Mission District. Around 11:10 p.m. on June 29, police responded to the corner of 24th Street and Bryant Street regarding a building fire, police said. Upon arrival, police discovered the mural had been burned. Por Vida Mural Torched A San Francisco Mission District mural celebrating LGBT and Latin street life was torched on June 29. (CBS) The mural belongs to the Galeria De La Raza and is titled “Por Vida” or “For Life.” The mural was unveiled by San Francisco’s Galeria de la Raza...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday revived a damages lawsuit against Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who in 2015 refused to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples because it conflicted with her Christian beliefs. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati said a lower court judge erred in finding that damages claims by David Ermold and David Moore became moot, after a new state law last July excused clerks like Davis, from Rowan County, from having to sign marriage license forms. While the couple eventually did get a license, a three-judge appeals court panel said they could...

Hackers have breached a database containing a wealth of sensitive information from federal employees’ security background checks, the Obama administration said Friday — news that experts say could deal a devastating blow to U.S. intelligence gathering. The revelations came just a week after officials disclosed a previous massive cyber intrusion into the same federal personnel office, compromising records of more than 4 million current and past employees in a breach that administration officials have privately blamed on Chinese hackers. The stolen records in the hack disclosed Friday included data on intelligence and military personnel, The Associated Press reported. A senior...

<p>NEW YORK – Two New York residents accused of conspiring to support ISIS and plotting to set off a pressure-cooker bomb in the city have pleaded guilty to all charges against them, federal prosecutors and New York City officials said.</p>

The Indian Army on Tuesday conducted a cross-border revenge attack in Myanmar by killing nearly a dozen militants said to be involved in the massacre of 18 soldiers last week in Manipur's Chandel district Reports said the strike was done in coordination with the Myanmar regime after the clearance to conduct the surgical strikes were given at the highest level in the government. "Any threat to safety, security and national integrity will meet with a similar response," an Army spokesman said. However, a report in the Economic Times claimed India will not admit to carrying out the rare cross-border operation....

Paralysis and “paranoia’’ brought on by US Attorney Preet Bharara’s ongoing corruption probe have come to define Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his administration with just seven days to go in the legislative session, a worried Cuomo ally and others have told The Post.

From:hms@sandlerfoundation.org To: ses@sandlerfoundation.org, james@sandlerfoundation.org Date: 2015-06-22 18:26 Subject: FW: PICO: Vatican Visit I thought you might find this of interest. From: Knaebel, Sergio Sent: Monday, June 22, 2015 12:58 PM To: Sandler, Herbert Subject: FW: PICO: Vatican Visit Herb, In case you did not get this from Steve. Sergio Knaebel Grant Director Sandler Foundation sknaebel@sandlerfoundation.org From: Scott Reed [mailto:sreed@piconetwork.org] Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2015 8:39 AM To: Knaebel, Sergio Subject: PICO: Vatican Visit Hi Sergio: I just sent a note to Steve with this summary of our visit to the Vatican. I look forward to talking soon. PICO sent a...

Weeks before the Iran nuclear deal was finalized last summer, a former U.S. ambassador reportedly told a senior Hillary Clinton campaign adviser he was struck by “the depth of antipathy and distrust of President Obama” he encountered among Israeli officials and former officials across the political spectrum, who viewed the president as “‘weak,’ ‘pro-Muslim,’ and ‘anti-Israel.’” The observation is contained in one of a series of emails purported sent by Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat to Clinton campaign adviser Jake Sullivan, among a batch of leaked Clinton campaign-related emails released by Wikileaks late last week and early this week. “I was struck...

The mosque at the centre of the San Bernardino terrorist attack is back in the spotlight after one of the organisation's clerics, Roshan Abbassi, was found to have had repeated contact with terrorist Syed Farook in the months before the deadly attack which left 14 people dead and 24 people injured. Mr. Abbassi and his fellow teachers at the mosque had previously claimed that they barely knew Mr. Farook, despite his repeat attendance at the Dar al Uloom al Islamiyyah mosque in San Bernardino.The mosque is now believed to be a haven for Tablighi Jamaat activists - a fundamentalist, proselytising Islamic...