Free Republic

What Obama didn't mention By: Mike Allen June 23, 2009 06:04 PM EST A couple of surprising words were missing from President Barack Obama’s 55-minute news conference on Wednesday: “Iraq” — and “Afghanistan.” Also MIA: “Korea,” “Pakistan,” “soldiers,” “surge” and “war” — as well as the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. The omissions were partly a result of the short attention span of the press, which did not ask about those topics after the president did not mention them in his opening statement. But the silence on those subjects also provides a striking illustration of one of the singular...

Six Missing Israeli Soldiers By Norma Zager and Ari Bussel “The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see…” Ayn Rand Three years ago a Jewish son was taken from his parents. Hamas terror organization kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad during an incursion from Gaza into Israel. His captors have denied access to him by Red Cross workers in violation of the Geneva Convention. For three years his parents have suffered with worry for their son. For three years a merciless enemy has held captive a young man, a soldier. While Gilad Shalit became...

Mystery surrounded South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, whose whereabouts haven't been revealed since Thursday, when he took off in a sport-utility vehicle normally driven by a bodyguard, turned off his mobile phone and stopped communicating with his office, family and close political allies. On Monday, South Carolina elected leaders considered temporarily transferring the governor's power to another state official, according to people familiar with the situation. Officials decided against the move after being told by aides to the governor that they knew Mr. Sanford's location. ... Republican state Sen. John "Jake" Knotts, a former police officer and a political opponent...

Sanford, missing since Thursday, reportedly located The whereabouts of Gov. Mark Sanford was unknown for nearly four days, and some state leaders question who was in charge of the executive office. But Sanford’s office told the lieutenant governor’s office Monday afternoon that Sanford has been reached and he is fine, said Frank Adams, head of Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer’s office on aging. Neither the governor’s office nor the State Law Enforcement Division, which provides security for governors, had been able to reach Sanford after he left the mansion Thursday in a black SLED Suburban SUV, said Sen. Jake Knotts and...

<p>The whereabouts of Gov. Mark Sanford have been unknown to state officials since Thursday, and some state leaders are questioning who is in charge of the executive office.</p> <p>Neither the governor’s office nor the State Law Enforcement Division has been able to reach Sanford, who left the mansion in a black SLED Suburban SUV, said Sen. Jake Knotts and three others familiar with the situation who declined to be identified.</p>

Good morning America! On June 3, either an attempted attack on the economy of the U.S. on an unprecedented scale was narrowly averted--or a criminal conspiracy involving the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve that would legitimize the most radical of globalist conspiracies of all time--was exposed. In either event, a deliberate media blackout was employed in the U.S. When news of the event gained traction in the foreign media, the U.S. media was compelled to report it as well, but only after facts could be changed and damage control employed by the highest levels of the U.S. government, aided and...

A reporter is sent to Italy to learn more about the bond smuggling story. But nobody knows where the two men are. At least the Japanese press is sitll interested in story of the two Japanese men caugh withs ome $134.5 billion in (presumably fake) US bearer bonds. We can't read Japanese, and Google Translate isn't particularly helpful, but a reader informs us that the gist of this story is that a newspaper sent a reporter to Como, Italy and found that the men had been released, with their whereabouts unknown. Now, the easiest, most-benign explanation for this whole thing...

A Michigan man said Wednesday he is "99% convinced" that he's the Long Island toddler kidnapped in a long-unsolved 1955 crime. >

One of India's leading nuclear scientists has gone missing in mysterious circumstances provoking fears he has been kidnapped for classified information. Lokanathan Mahalingam had access to some of the country's most sensitive nuclear information and the government has ordered an inquiry into his disappearance. Mr Mahalingam, 47, worked at the Kaiga Atomic Power Station in Karnataka, close to Project Seabird, a major military base. He went for a walk early on Monday morning and has not been seen since. Authorities are not yet sure whether his disappearance poses a security threat and the Indian Intelligence Bureau is investigating whether he...

French aviation officials have said they may never find the flight data recorders of an Air France jet that went missing over the Atlantic. The officials promised a thorough investigation but said the circumstances were very difficult. Flight AF 447 was heading from Rio to Paris with 228 people on board on Monday when it was lost over the ocean. Debris has been spotted 650km (400 miles) off Brazil's coast and navy vessels are converging on the area. Brazilian and French officials said there was no doubt the debris was from the missing plane. A Brazilian air force plane found...

A commercial pilot has said he saw a "fire" on the Atlantic Ocean close to the route of a missing Air France plane. The pilot, for TAMAirlines, said he spotted what appeared to be orange marks in the ocean near to where the jet went missing. More follows...

PARIS — An Air France passenger jet traveling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris disappeared after its electrical systems malfunctioned during a storm with heavy turbulence on Sunday evening, and officials said Monday that a search had begun for the wreckage near a small archipelago off the Brazilian coast. “We are very worried,” said an aviation official in Paris interviewed by Agence France-Presse. “It could be a transponder problem, but this kind of fault is very rare and the plane did not land when expected.” The plane, an Airbus 330, was carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew members. The passengers...

They pledged to leave no man behind, so for 43 years the mystery of what happened to Huey 808 has tortured veterans of the First Air Cavalry. The helicopter and its four-man crew failed to return from a routine mission in December 1965, soon after braving enemy fire at the battle of Ia Drang, America's first great clash of arms in Vietnam. Pilots spent months scouring the jungle looking for traces of a crash site, and for years afterwards, comrades of the lost crew made trips to the steamy hill villages of the Central Highlands looking for clues to what...

The US National Archives offered a cash reward of up to 50,000 dollars Friday for the recovery of a missing computer hard drive containing sensitive personnel data from the Clinton administration. Described by the archives as a "Western Digital MY BOOK external hard drive" with a 2-terabyte storage capacity, it contained copies of backup tapes from the White House dating back to president Bill Clinton's tenure in the 1990s.

The U.S. National Archives on Wednesday said it is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of a missing hard drive that contains personal information of former Clinton administration staff and visitors. The small portable hard drive was being kept as a backup, the National Archives explained in a question-and-answer document (PDF) on its Web site. It held copies of about 113 four-millimeter tape cartridges of "snapshots" of hard-drive contents of employees who left the Executive Office of the President. Because the staff maintained White House entry information and electronic address books, the external drive contains personally...

A massive amount of sensitive, national security-related information from the Clinton administration has gone missing from the national archives. The Inspector General of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) told congressional committee staffers Tuesday that a hard drive containing over a terabyte of information -- the equivalent of millions of books--went missing from the NARA facility in College Park, Md., sometime between October 2008 and March 2009. The Department of Justice and the Secret Service are conducting an investigation, but it's so far unclear whether the drive was lost as the result of a crime or an accident. That...

Etan Patz, the first missing child pictured on a milk carton, has been gone for 30 long years but has not been forgotten. Six year old Etan Patz went missing on May 25, 1979. It was the Friday before Memorial Day. He disappeared from his Soho, New York neighborhood while on his way to school. He insisted on being able to walk to the bus stop by himself just like all the other kids. Etan's parents were not keen on the idea. But, after arguing the point with Etan, his parents finally relented, and let him walk alone to the...

His was the first photo of a missing child to appear on a milk carton. Almost 30 years later, Etan Patz is still missing. Etan was 6 when he disappeared on May 25, 1979, the Friday before Memorial Day. He was on his way to school in what is now the upscale Soho neighborhood of New York. It was the first time he'd walked to the bus stop by himself. It was just a few blocks away. Etan, like any 6-year-old, argued that all of his friends walked to the bus stop alone, and his parents relented. His mother, Julie...

Fugitive murder suspect George Martin Zinkhan III dug his own grave and covered himself with debris before firing a single bullet into his head, investigators said Saturday. “A person not accustomed to the woods would not have found it,” Athens-Clarke County Police Chief Jack Lumpkin said. “The body was beneath the earth… The body was purposely concealed in a manner not to be discovered.” Searchers found two handguns in the grave. Zinkhan’s well-hidden body was discovered Saturday by cadaver dogs — an Australian shepherd and a German shepherd — at 9:50 a.m. Saturday. The civilian Alpha Search and Rescue Team...

TERRE HAUTE - Indiana State University officials hope increased public awareness will lead them to missing student Gerald Smith of Avon. Wabash Valley Crimestoppers has agreed to use its resources to spread the word about Smith's disappearance via television public service announcements, billboards and a reward of up to $1,000. In addition, the Indiana State University Foundation is accepting contributions for an additional reward fund.