Free Republic

An American freelance photojournalist missing since being abducted in Syria some 22 months ago was apparently beheaded by an Islamic State militant in a graphic video released Tuesday. Titled “A Message to America,” the gruesome clip shows a masked militant saw away at the neck of James Wright Foley, a 40-year-old New Hampshire native captured in Binesh, Syria on Thanksgiving Day 2012. The family, on its "Free James Foley" Facebook page, has yet to confirm his death. (snip down to Foley's statement)“I call on my friends, family and loved ones to rise up against my real killers, the U.S. government....

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — Attorney General Eric Holder on Sunday ordered a federal medical examiner to perform another autopsy on a black Missouri teenager whose fatal shooting by a white police officer has spurred a week of rancorous and sometimes-violent protests in suburban St. Louis. The "extraordinary circumstances" surrounding the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown and a request by Brown's family members prompted the order, Department of Justice spokesman Brian Fallon said in a statement.

BROOKLYN BRIDGE -- Someone has replaced two American flags on the Brooklyn Bridge with mysterious white flags. The white flags - international symbols of surrender - fluttered Tuesday from poles on the stone supports that hold cables above the bridge connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan. One of the flags, viewed via video, appeared to have faint traces of stars and stripes on it. Police say it isn't clear what time they were placed there - or by whom.

A surprising ruling from the notoriously liberal DC Circuit Court. By a 2-1 vote, judges ruled that the subsidies received by purchasing insurance through healthcare.gov website are invalid. In a potentially crippling blow to Obamacare, a federal appeals court panel declared Tuesday that government subsidies worth billions of dollars that helped 4.7 million people buy insurance on HealthCare.gov are illegal. A judicial panel in a 2-1 ruling said such subsidies can be granted only to those people who bought insurance in an Obamacare exchange run by an individual state or the District of Columbia — not on the federally run...

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp will slash up to 18,000 jobs, or 14 percent of its workforce, this year as it almost halves the size of its newly acquired Nokia phone business and tries to transform into a cloud-computing and mobile-friendly software company. The larger-than-expected cuts, announced on Thursday, are the deepest in the company's 39-year history and come five months into the tenure of Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella. He outlined plans for a "leaner" business in a public memo to employees last week.

A Colorado teenager met an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighter online, fell in love with him and tried to join him in Syria. But she didn’t even make it out of America. Shannon Maureen Conley, 19, was arrested by the FBI at Denver International Airport as she was trying to leave the country to join her 32-year-old Tunisian love interest near the Turkish border. She was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, according to ABC News. But Conley isn’t just a normal American teenager. She’s licensed as a certified nurse’s...

Reverend Steve Fielder, a pastor at the First Union Missionary Baptist Church in Meridian, Mississippi, has accused Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran’s campaign of engaging in an illegal and criminal campaign scheme to purchase the votes of black community members. The suspect votes were cast during Cochran’s successful effort to defeat Tea Party challenger Chris McDaniel in the Mississippi Republican primary run-off held last week. If true, such an action would be clearly illegal under both federal law and Mississippi statutes, specifically MS Code 97-13-1; MS Code 97-13-3 (2013) (Federal Code 18 U.S.C. 597, U.S.C. 1973i(c)), each punishable by a prison...

The Sudanese woman sentenced to death for her Christian faith and released from prison yesterday was arrested with her family at Khartoum airport, according to sources. Meriam Ibrahim was arrested in February and gave birth to a baby girl while in custody. She was sentenced to death for apostasy, or renouncing Islam. Ibrahim was arrested today together with her two children and husband, Daniel Wani, an American citizen.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Patent Office ruled Wednesday that the Washington Redskins nickname is "disparaging of Native Americans" and that the team's federal trademarks for the name must be canceled. The 2-1 ruling comes after a campaign to change the name has gained momentum over the past year. The team doesn't immediately lose trademark protection and is allowed to retain it during an appeal.

Hillary Clinton waves to a crowd of commoners. (AP) Hard Knocks Hillary Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant / AP Israeli Official: Iran to Have 50-100 Nuclear Warheads by 2024 Gary Peters Gary Peters Fundraiser Has Ties to Petraeus Mistress Hillary Clinton: We Were Dead Broke Clinton: 'We Gave Speeches to Pay Off Debt, Numerous Homes' Share Tweet Email BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff June 9, 2014 8:40 am Hillary Clinton, who recently raked in $5 million dollars in speaking fees in 15 months, recounted to Diane Sawyer the sad tale of her former destitution, telling her, “We came out of...

The town of Hailey, Idaho has canceled its June 28 event to celebrate the return of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl who was released from Taliban captivity nearly five years after he was reported missing in Afghanistan.The Idaho Statesman posted this news release from organizers saying the the event is canceled "in the interest of public safety." Since Bergdahl's release on May 31, the town of 8,000 has been inundated with negative emails and phone calls. "When the news of Bowe Bergdahl’s release was announced this past Saturday, the organizers joyfully declared that the event would be renamed Bowe is Back, and would...

But the content is eye-opening. O’Keefe’s crew pose as a Middle Eastern potentate named “Muhammad” and his American ad executive. They approach the Tickells with an offer of $9 million to finance an anti-fracking film. “Muhammad’s” motives are clearly expressed: he wants to keep the U.S. dependent on Middle Eastern oil, and to that end he wants to stamp out fracking. The Tickells have no problem with this at all. They discuss the need to keep the film’s source of funding secret, and talk about how they can create a false impression as to who paid for it. You hear...

‘Belligerent’ Alec Baldwin screamed at cops during arrest By Larry Celona, Jamie Schram, Emily Smith and Bruce Golding He is still a hater. Rage-a-holic actor Alec Baldwin was busted in Manhattan Tuesday over a belligerent rant against cops who caught him biking against traffic — and then got the arresting officer’s Hispanic last name wrong when he lashed out at her on Twitter, sources told The Post. “Officer Moreno, badge number 23388, arrested me and handcuffed me for going the wrong way on Fifth Ave,” Baldwin tweeted after being sprung from the 13th Precinct stationhouse. Law-enforcement sources said the cop...

Boko Haram has wreaked havoc in Nigeria and portions of surrounding nations since 2009, when the Nigerian government tried to crack down on their arms-gathering operations. The group of Islamist terrorists had been known for much of that time to have ties to al-Qaeda, both ideological and tactical. Hundreds, perhaps thousands died in terrorist attacks from 2009 to 2013, many of them targeted for their Christianity. And yet, not until November 2013 did the US finally list Boko Haram as a terrorist group. Why? We should ask Hillary Clinton. Josh Rogin at The Daily Beast reported last night that the...

Benjamin Franklin famously quipped, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Franklin evidently failed to envisage today’s postmodern left. For the conservative, there exists at least one other certainty, and it is this: The degree to which “progressives” attack you corresponds precisely to the degree with which you challenge any among their assorted, distorted and sordid sacred cows. What would you call a 33-year-old man who both had and axiomatically acted upon a deviant sexual appetite for underage, drug-addicted, runaway boys? (No, not Jerry Sandusky.) What would you call a man of whom,...

During a speech at the University of Buffalo, a man started yelling 'Benghazi, Benghazi - you let them die' at Clinton Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was relentlessly heckled over the Benghazi terrorist attack as she tried to deliver a speech at a New York university on Wednesday night. Clinton was speaking at the University of Buffalo as part of the university's 'Distinguished Speakers Series' when a man in the crowd began screaming about the attack that left three people dead, including Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens. 'Benghazi, Benghazi - you let them die,' the man screamed as Clinton continued...

Henry Morgentaler, the family doctor who led the abortion movement in Canada, died of a heart attack at his Toronto home early Wednesday. He was 90. Dr. Morgentaler, who was the focus of both reverence and hatred, was one of the key players in the 1988 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that declared the law prohibiting abortion unconstitutional. He is survived by his wife, Arlene, four children, several grandchildren and his extended family. Funeral arrangements are private. Dr. Morgentaler had a complex relationship with women all his life. As a child, he felt his mother didn’t love him as much...