Free Republic

It’s business as usual for Senator Robert Menendez, who boasted to a talk-show host that he is still attending top secret briefings — despite being charged with working as a foreign agent for Egypt. The embattled New Jersey Democrat who was indicted on federal corruption charges in September told New Jersey PBS’s Chatbox with David Cruz show “I still have all my intelligence credentials” and that he still attends regular briefings of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “I was not barred from going into an intelligence briefing,” he said when Cruz asked if he had been sidelined after his...

Rudy is doubling down. Former mayor Rudy Giuliani acknowledged his speech criticizing President Obama’s patriotism last week “hit a nerve” but went even further Sunday denouncing the president’s foreign policy agenda. “I said it maybe 30 times before but somehow this time it hit a nerve, maybe because the president is on such defense for his unwillingness to face Islamic terrorism,” Giuliani told John Catsimatidis on 970 AM The Answer. “We need a American president more like Ronald Reagan who gave us a sense of optimism,” said Giuliani. “There’s something about his unwillingness to talk about Islamic extremist Muslims that...

Federal employees whose compensation averages more than $126,000 and the nation’s greatest concentration of lawyers helped Washington edge out San Jose as the wealthiest U.S. metropolitan area, government data show. The U.S. capital has swapped top spots with Silicon Valley, according to recent Census Bureau figures, with the typical household in the Washington metro area earning $84,523 last year. The national median income for 2010 was $50,046. The figures demonstrate how the nation’s political and financial classes are prospering as the economy struggles with unemployment above 9 percent and thousands of Americans protest in the streets against income disparity, said...

Senior Hizbullah official Mahmoud Kamati on Wednesday mocked IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, and said all of Israel was within his group's fire range. "Ashkenazi's threats are baseless and are an attempt to draw attention away from the enemy's defeat in Gaza and in Lebanon," Kamati said in an interview with Al-Jazeera. He went on to boast that "all the cities and all Israeli military and industrial centers are within Hizbullah's fire range."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi used the Democrats' weekly radio address Saturday to tout her party's passage of legislation to implement major recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. The House passed the bill Friday on a 371-40 vote, a day after the Senate passed it 85-8. The White House said the president would sign it. The legislation would shift money to high-risk states and cities, expand screening of air and sea cargo and put money into a new program to ensure that security officials at every level can communicate with each other. Its passage ranks among the top accomplishments of the 6-month-old...

(IsraelNN.com) In a Tuesday evening address to a forum of the Presidents Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem, Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spoke of his support for a Gaza withdrawal from its earliest stages, adding he was also aware of the level of difficulty involved, but still supported the move. “Their opposition prevented us from assisting them,” added Mr. Olmert.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Sept. 21, 2005 – Rich Owens takes great pride in his role as the "owner/commander" of Kulis Air National Guard Base's "Ice Cream Support Squadron" here. Owens bought Tastee Freez ice cream shop and restaurant on Aug. 1, 1994, near the base, which is home to the Alaska Air National Guard's 176th Wing. He didn't know anyone from Kulis then, but 16 days later that would change. Three of his friends were in a Cessna 172 that crashed near Anchorage. "The 210th Rescue Squadron, which is part of Kulis ... happened to be at a training mission right...

NEW YORK (AP) - A Yemeni sheik accused of funding terrorist organizations boasted of his ties to Osama bin Laden and Palestinian militant leaders on surveillance tapes played Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court. "He used to say that I'm his sheik," Mohammed Ali Hasan al-Moayad said of bin Laden on the tapes secretly recorded in a German hotel room. "I used to teach him some of the Islamic laws," he added. Defense lawyers said al-Moayad made idle boasts to wheedle millions of dollars from an FBI informant posing as a militant Islamist. The informant had proposed giving al-Moayad $2.5 million...

DES MOINES, Iowa - Sen. John Edwards, campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president, said Monday his targeted tax-cut proposal would create 5 million new jobs in his first two years in office and end the "two Americas" that President Bush (news - web sites) has created. "One America does the work, while another America reaps the reward," Edwards said in a speech detailing his efforts to bolster quality of life for middle-class Americans. "One America pays the taxes, while another America gets the tax breaks." Much of the package Edwards spelled out Monday had been made public earlier, but...