Free Republic

'I’m trying to be as politically correct as possible when I say this but I don’t know what kind of third-world life they’re coming from, but it must have been pretty bad... ' Two illegal immigrants who reportedly shot and killed a bald eagle to eat for dinner have been let off the hook by federal authorities. The incident took place in Stanton County, Nebraska, where authorities have allowed the illegal immigrants to go free despite their criminal activity. Both will be charged with misdemeanors, and will go to court on March 28, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Officials discovered...

Insider and several other news organizations have identified 76 members of Congress who've recently failed to properly report their financial trades as mandated by the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012, also known as the STOCK Act. Congress passed the law a decade ago to combat insider trading and conflicts of interest among their own members and force lawmakers to be more transparent about their personal financial dealings....

In an astonishing stroke of irony, the New York Times has outed the name of the CIA operative who interrogated 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, over the objections of CIA Director Michael V. Hayden and a lawyer representing the operative. Agency officials and legal counsel told the Times that publishing the agent's name would "invade his privacy and put him at risk of retaliation from terrorists or harassment from critics of the agency." In an Editor's Note linked from the story on KSM's interrogation, the Times defended its decision by stating that "other government employees" had been "named publicly in...

Pardon our morbid fascination with this story, but in a way it makes us feel vindicated. We first noted that something wasn't quite right with John Kerry way back in December 2002, but even we didn't realize how not quite right he was until this week. At a news conference yesterday, Kerry offered the latest "explanation" for his statement suggesting that the troops in Iraq are stupid and uneducated: My statement [Monday]--and the White House knows this full well--was a botched joke about the president and the president's people, not about the troops. The White House's attempt to distort my...

They strike at night. While Back Bay sleeps, the vandals creep around the parked Volvos, Audis, and Lexus sport utility vehicles and toward the elegant brick buildings. In white, black, and neon-green paint, they leave their mark in the alleyways. By morning, when dwellers of this historic neighborhood wake up and head to their cars, they find out who has been on their property. Zorg, Utah, and Des are the names of graffiti vandals whose very mention causes residents around Newbury Street and Commonwealth Avenue to shudder. On Sept. 1, one of the neighborhood's biggest menaces -- Gonzo, whom police...

Israel plans to submit criminal charges against senior Hamas leaders arrested Wednesday night, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz rules; according to Central Command chief, detainees won't be used as bargaining chip Attorney General Menachem Mazuz ordered security forces to carry out criminal, rather than civilian arrests of Hamas senior officials, so that they can be tried according to the Terror-Prevention Act, sources in the Justice Ministry told Ynet Thursday. Vice Premier Shimon Peres said in an interview to CNN that Israel intended to submit indictments against the Hamas members under arrest. Peres was asked in the interview why the Hamas top...

<p>Thanks to John McCain, Free Republic will shut down tomorrow at high noon for 30 days. No non government approved electioneering messages may be transmitted over the internet for the 30 days immediately preceding a primary election.</p> <p>That is all.</p>

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 — In March 2004, the science and technology directorate of the Central Intelligence Agency called a secret meeting of hundreds of the government's top experts in nuclear intelligence to address a problem that had bedeviled Washington for decades: how to know, with precision, when a country is about to cross the line and gain the ability to build an atomic bomb. The aim of the two-day conference was to reinvigorate the nation's atomic espionage efforts, not with spies on the ground or satellites in space but with a new generation of advanced technologies meant to detect the...