Free Republic

With Memorial Day just around the corner, let us remember our family, friends, and fallen heroes in their eternal rest. Let us especially remember the fallen of Benghazi. They have left this life, but cannot be fully at rest until the nation acknowledges the truth about their sacrifice upon the altar of progressive politics. What follows is a compilation of salient timestamps regarding the national disgrace that was Benghazi. They were gleaned from reputable sources—none of which had all the facts, but most of which reported identical information, and they are the best available at this writing: CBSNews.com, TheHill.com, Breitbart.com, Doug...

Every year beginning on May 15th, the United States observes Peace Officers Memorial Day and National Police Week to recognize and pay tribute to the law enforcement officers who have given their lives in the line of duty. This week, I joined thousands of families of the fallen and their larger law enforcement families who came to Washington, D.C. to mourn their loss and honor the 252 additional names that will be etched into the National Law Enforcement Memorial Wall this year. The deep feelings of pain and sorrow they are experiencing are something I am all too familiar with....

Another terrorist attack, another refusal by President Obama to tell the truth. Instead of admitting that Islamic terrorists had staged another murderous assault on innocent people, he turned the victims into a political prop. Instead of explaining how he intended to stop terrorists from killing Americans, he launched another campaign to stop Americans from owning guns. As Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr., pointed out, America's best defense against violence is law-abiding folks arming themselves. The tragedy of San Bernardino did not happen because good people owned guns. Yet the effect of gun control is to ensure that only bad...

What should we do about terrorism? After the attacks on Paris, the French government passed a law that allows anyone suspected of being a security threat to be placed under house arrest and searches to be conducted without warrants. Reason's Anthony Fisher reports that this can lead to nasty experiences for anyone who associates with people from the Middle East. A Halal-Mexican restaurant near Paris "was raided by upwards of forty police armed with rifles and clad in body armor, helmets, and riot shields. After terrifying diners, who were ordered to sit still and not touch their phones, officers proceeded...

The Syrian refugee crisis is the only issue many people in the media are talking about today, and many on social media are crying, "If you don't let the terrorist in, the terrorists win."But does the United States really have a refugee crisis, or has the Obama administration created this controversy? Over the past 100 years, America has often served as the watchdog for freedom in the world, but is acting as the world's police officer really the right course of action in these troubled times, or are we too unstable ourselves? How can we help others if we can't...

Earlier this year, my column asked, "Will the West Defend Itself?" I pointed out that America's leftists and progressives believe that the U.S. should become more like Europe (http://tinyurl.com/nfk2c4d). I wonder whether they also want to import European policies that created barbaric extremism among its Muslim population. France's recent tragedy is not surprising, given some of its policies that are not widely publicized abroad. France has no-go zones, which are officially called "zones urbaines sensibles," or sensitive urban zones, where police are reluctant to go. Some of these zones are dominated by Islamic extremists. According to some reports, there is...

It is an oft-stated maxim that acts of terrorism are carried out by organizations with weak military power and a strong political motive. Despite receiving some funding and munitions by way of black market oil sales Isis is a miniscule military force, especially when compared against the military power of their two most recent targets France, Lebanon and (likely) Russia. But Isis' goal in these attacks was not to achieve a military victory, but to instill fear in the hearts and minds of the people who were attacked, and to use that fear to provoke overreaction and political instability for...

The other day I was talking to an acquaintance of mine at the gun range about the Paris terrorist attacks. What he surmised was the root cause of that senseless slaughter by Islamic radicals nearly made me drop my Sig Sauer on the range floor. The Texan told me that he believes Islam wouldn't be killing innocent peeps as they ate their dinner or enjoyed a death metal concert or watched a soccer game if said nutters had more "job opportunities". What he said was shocking to me because of two primary things: 1). A frickin' Texan said that crap....

My sympathy and empathy for those in Paris is not without a certain degree of confusion. I must admit that a "War On" and a "War With" brings certain differences that must be explained and hopefully understood. We have been engaged for several years in a "War On" drugs and also a "War On" obesity. Both seem to be sliding off the front pages as it would appear, by simple observation, that the battles are being lost. One could include in that group poverty, ignorance and even ethnic fatherhood. A "War On" something allows the net to be cast far...

Many Christians are torn between a desire to help those in need and a desire to keep our nation secure. Perhaps these reflections will prove helpful as we seek to navigate a difficult and divisive issue. 1) The government should major on security; the Church should major on compassion. I don't mean that the government should be harsh or that the Church should be foolish, but it is not the primary job of the government to care for the needs of refugees and it is not the primary job of the Church to provide national security. The government should do...

One of many questions that have surfaced after German pilot Andrea Lubitz allegedly drove a commercial airliner into a mountain in Southern France last week is whether or not he planned to carry out such a despicable act of cowardice in advance. Bearing in mind the obvious caveat that the investigation is still underway – and investigators can never know with absolute certainty what happened – the preliminary evidence suggests that it was. The New York Times reports: The co-pilot at the controls of the Germanwings airliner that crashed into the French Alps last week had been searching the Internet...

Resident Barack Obama has a knack for repeatedly declaring peace. Now he is taking America to war against the Islamic State and its barbarian army of Islamist terrorists. The focal battlefield for President Obama's war on terrorists is, of all places, Iraq. In 2011, as he oversaw the withdrawal of U.S. forces, Obama touted Iraq's stability. Obama's Iraq war may extend into Syria, the sad land of Bashar Assad's dictatorship. Once upon a time, Obama drew a "red line" and promised to punish Assad if his regime used chemical weapons against civilians. Assad used nerve gas, but he suffered no...

Testing, 1, 2, 3, testing. Jihadists never go on furlough. While shutdown theater preoccupies Washington, terror plotters remain on the clock. The question is: Will America keep hitting the post-9/11 snooze button? At Los Angeles International Airport, two dry ice bombs exploded this week, and two others were found in a restricted area of the airport. According to the Los Angeles Times, the devices "appeared to be outside the terminal near planes where employees such as baggage handlers and others work on the aircraft and its cargo." That reminds me: It's been more than a year since watchdogs warned Capitol...

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano suddenly announced last week that she was resigning her position at the embattled agency in order to take a $750,000-a-year job as president of the University of California system. This will more than triple her salary, which was $200,000 at DHS. The timing of her resignation is highly unusual for a member of the president’s cabinet. Most cabinet members who leave after a president’s first term don’t wait an extra six months into the second term. Many believe she abruptly left DHS because of some sordid dealings that are about to be discovered. Her tenure...

After a week of enduring the crossfire over the relative benefits and dangers of the deeds of NSA leaker Edward Snowden, I am left wondering whether this has been good or bad for our nation. The answer depends on the lens we use for viewing America and the world. I belong to two groups that are not large enough. The first is the portion of America that is very, very serious about fighting terror. I have not forgotten 9/11 or the fact that its hatchers would love to do it again. Stopping them has been an all-consuming pursuit for our...

The unfolding story of the Obama administration monitoring not just telephone records but Internet usage has drawn media coverage with adjectives like "astonishing." No doubt about it, even the pro-Obama press acknowledges it is a scandal. Still, it is laughable that the media would label him a "dictator" or discuss the "I word." That's not what greeted George W. Bush at the end of 2005. Just eight years ago, journalists openly discussed tyranny and the possibility of impeachment. On Newsweek's website on December 19, 2005, Jonathan Alter went ballistic: "We're seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license...

Scary. Unacceptable. This is not America. Those are some of the comments that I have heard about the revelations regarding government snooping on our cell phones. The statement that one man made that something is wrong with you if you don’t think something is askew here -- that would be about right. If you are not upset about this situation then you are clueless. There is a dangerous extension of government that no true American could possibly endorse or accept. Our government has no right to randomly rummage through our cell phone or email records. If you think that the...

If there was a moment when the United States could have productively intervened in Syria, it looks like that moment has passed. Shiite militants, including Hezbollah -- partly at the behest of their paymasters in Iran -- are racing to the defense of Bashar Assad's regime. According to a witness account in the New York Times, there were some 11,000 Hezbollah fighters in the besieged town of Qusair alone. A Shiite religious student in Najaf, Iraq, told the Times that his colleagues believe the leader of Qatar, a backer of Sunni Syrian rebels, is a long-prophesied demonic figure who, it...

In a hallmark speech last week, President Obama unilaterally declared the war on terror over. The end of that war, Obama stated, meant we could return to the halcyon days of the Clinton-era law enforcement, during which America experienced a spate of terrorist attacks ranging from the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 to the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996 to the bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 to the USS Cole bombing in 2000. What justified Obama's announcement? Nothing, except his need to pacify his leftist base. With scandals brewing on the...

The Boston Marathon Bombing, where three people were killed and 264 wounded, many with legs or feet blown off, continues to be a big media story, but we are still waiting for answers to many questions. How did our government miss so many clues that the Tsarnaev brothers were a deadly danger to Americans? They came into the United States as visitors from Kazakhstan, where many ethnic Chechens live without persecution and then cooked up a claim to be refugees, which was a fraud. After a few years, the father returned to Dagestan, Russia, where he now lives safely. Once...