Free Republic

A Grammy Award-winning rapper and music producer originally sentenced to 14 years in prison for smuggling cocaine is one of 16 people receiving pardons or reduced sentences from President Bush. John Edward Forte of North Brunswick, N.J., a graduate of the elite Phillips Exeter Academy prep school who later became a producer for the rap group The Fugees and released two albums on his own, was caught in 2000 at Newark International Airport with two briefcases filled with $1.4 million worth of liquid cocaine, according to court documents. Forte, 33, a first-time offender, was convicted of possessing the 31 pounds...

A Broadway theater producer is the latest New Yorker to be caught on film brazenly tearing down fliers of civilians in Israel kidnapped by Hamas terrorists, The Post has learned. In a video shared online by neighborhood blog I Love the Upper West Side, James L. Simon, who co-produced the 2022 Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” is seen at West 62nd Street and Broadway using scissors to remove a poster featuring one of the roughly 200 hostages taken by Hamas during its Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel. The stone-faced Simon then crumpled up the flier,...

A senior CIA official this week said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is "absolutely wrong" to oppose placing all components of the intelligence community -- including those now under the authority of the Pentagon -- under the centralized control of the director of central intelligence. James Simon, assistant director of central intelligence for administration, said he supports a recommendation advanced by retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, head of the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, to transfer the National Security Agency, National Imagery and Mapping Agency, and National Reconnaissance Office from the purview of DOD to direct DCI control. "Brent...