Free Republic

It’s a sad fact of modern American life that no one reads the results of the investigations that are so often demanded in Washington DC. Sen. Levin has been a member on the Senate Intelligence Committee for a long, long time. Yet, he apparently isn’t even reading the reports that the Committee’s staffers work so hard to write. This is evidenced in the Michigan senator’s recent article in the Los Angeles Times, “Tell us another one, Mr. Vice President, Dick Cheney is still trying to link Iraq with Al Qaeda and 9/11” By Carl Levin, April 12, 2007. In this...

MERIDA, Mexico - President Bush sought to soothe strained ties with Mexico on Tuesday by promising to prod Congress to overhaul tough U.S. immigration policies. But Mexican President Felipe Calderon criticized U.S. plans for a 700-mile border fence and said Bush must do more to curb American drug appetites. Mexico was the last stop on Bush's five-nation Latin American tour, and the one where the political stakes seemed the highest. Bush walked a high wire: He wants to improve frayed ties over immigration and drug trafficking and the Iraq war, but without alienating supporters back home, particularly Republican lawmakers advocating...

U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak’s scheduled appearance at next month’s Council on American-Islamic Relations’ banquet has enraged conservatives who say the group sympathizes with terrorist groups. "Just showing up to an event makes it seem as though this organization is credible," said Joe Kaufman, chairman of the Florida-based Americans Against Hate. "The congressman should be working to shut down this organization for its ties to Hamas." Last month, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer rescinded an award her office gave to the head of CAIR’s Sacramento office, saying her staff had turned up a "laundry list" of problems with the Islamic advocacy group....

Truro Episcopal Church, which once included George Washington among its vestrymen, and The Falls Church, two of the oldest Episcopal churches in Virginia and the country, have both decided that they've had enough: In a congregational meeting Sunday afternoon, Nov 12, the Vestry of Truro Church, Fairfax, announced to their parish that they unanimously recommend that Truro should sever its ties to The Episcopal Church (TEC) and remain as full members of the Anglican Communion by joining the Anglican District of Virginia Anglicans in the Convocation for Anglicans in North America (CANA). On the following Monday, Nov. 13, the Vestry...

We’ve all waited 4 years to see a good report on what happened to Saddam’s WMD and September 8, 2006 the last investigative report was released by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The only problem is…I searched the entire 400 pages of this “Phase II report” (or rather both reports that make up the Phase II report) and I couldn’t find those two words: “Bush lied.” I can’t even find, “Bush mislead” in those 400 pages. What I did find was 400 pages of evidence showing that the intelligence community used small amounts of weak intelligence from a decrepit...

DNA Ties Together Scattered PeoplesData on descendants of the Chumash spur new ideas about the first settlers of the Americas. By Steve Chawkins, Times Staff Writer September 11, 2006 Over the years, a couple of dozen descendants of the Chumash Indians have complied with the odd requests of their old friend John Johnson, a leading scholar of the tribe's culture and head of the anthropology department at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. After all, what harm could come from parting with a few of their hairs or letting him swab the inside of their cheeks for a saliva...

This is my line in the sand. This is where I have decided that I will no longer allow lies about the war in Iraq, the global war on terror, or the decay of America's intelligence services. I will make my stand here, now, on this issue. No more will their lies go unchecked. The Senate Phase II report has been marketed as some sort of evidence that Al Queda and Iraq are not related. They are. I examined the report, stomached it's political lies (lies it admits to having within its own text!), and I have taken my action....

Senate: No Prewar Saddam-al-Qaida Ties By JIM ABRAMS Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- There's no evidence Saddam Hussein had ties with al-Qaida, according to a Senate report on prewar intelligence that Democrats say undercuts President Bush's justification for invading Iraq. Bush administration officials have insisted on a link between the Iraqi regime and terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Intelligence agencies, however, concluded there was none. Republicans countered that there was little new in the report and Democrats were trying to score election-year points with it. The declassified document released Friday by the intelligence committee also explores the role that...

WASHINGTON, Sep. 4, 2006 – Citing media reports suggesting a possible connection between three U.S. soldiers killed in June and the alleged rape of an Iraqi girl and murder of the girl and her family in March, military officials in Iraq today issued a statement saying “no evidence” connects the dead soldiers to the incident. “Past articles could be read to imply that the three deceased soldiers were somehow involved in the alleged crimes,” Multinational Corps Iraq officials said in the statement. Spc. David Babineau, Pfc. Thomas Tucker and Pfc. Kristian Menchaca – all assigned to Company B, 1st Battalion,...

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Syrian President Bashar Assad told the U.N. secretary-general Friday that his government is prepared to establish formal diplomatic relations with Lebanon and delineate the border, steps Syria has resisted for six decades. Many in Lebanon expressed skepticism, saying Assad's promises to U.N. chief Kofi Annan would likely remain just talk unless international pressure mounted on Damascus. For Syria, the step would be seen as recognition that its decades-long domination of its smaller neighbor is truly over after crumbling the last year. Many Lebanese suspect Syria has never really accepted Lebanon's independence and remains angry that parts of...

QALAT, Afghanistan, July 11, 2006 – U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld today called the provincial reconstruction team here a shining example of how the teams develop relationships with the local Afghan government. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld (right) meets with Del Bar Jan Arman (left), governor of Afghanisan's Zabul province, during a visit to the Qalat Provincial Reconstruction Team July 11. Photo by Staff Sgt. Gary Hilliard, USA  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. When the coalition began using provincial reconstruction teams in Afghanistan, officials were constantly evaluating their work to see if they were worth the time...

A Chicago man arrested last month and charged with illegal possession of a weapon has been identified by federal prosecutors as a former member of an alleged group of aspiring terrorists based in Miami. In court documents filed Thursday, prosecutors identified the man as Charles Stewart or "Sultan Khan Bey," and said he apparently belonged to an organization called the Moorish National Republic, for which he was trying to recruit members. Stewart has not been charged in the terrorism case. The group in Miami was arrested June 22. Six men are accused of seeking to support what they thought was...

WASHINGTON - A prosecutor said Monday that a Bush administration official chose the interests of lobbyist Jack Abramoff over those of the public and should be convicted of covering up what he had done. David Safavian, the former chief of staff at the General Services Administration, "was trying to hide a secret, inappropriate and unethical relationship with Mr. Abramoff," prosecutor Nathaniel Edmonds told a federal jury in final arguments. Edmonds said that every public official has "moments of truth" in which he can act ethically or unethically and that Safavian failed the test by lying to the GSA's ethics officer,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors said on Wednesday that a former Bush administration official lied to investigators and hid his ties to Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist at the center of an influence-peddling scandal. In opening statements at the first trial in connection with the Abramoff scandal, prosecutors tried to paint David Safavian as a liar while his lawyer denied the charges and accused the government of basing its case on "guilt by association." Justice Department lawyer Peter Zeidenberg said Safavian took advantage of his position to help his friend, a former top Washington lobbyist with strong ties to leaders in...

A Pakistani man charged with lying to immigration authorities by falsely claiming he was a Nobel Prize nominee to obtain a U.S. visa is now also accused of having ties to a leader of an international terrorist organization. A federal judge in Oakland ordered Shehrezad Faruk Czar, 38, jailed Thursday after prosecutors said he admitted exchanging e-mails with Altaf Hussain, head of the Pakistan-based Muttahida Quami Movement, or MQM. Hussain is in exile in London after being sentenced in absentia in Pakistan to 27 years in prison for helping organize the murder of four Americans and their Pakistani driver in...

WASHINGTON - A batch of 278 e-mails between lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a Bush administration official show a highly inappropriate relationship where gifts and business interests mixed freely and frequently, federal prosecutors said Friday. The prosecutors hope to use the e-mails in the criminal case against David Safavian, who is accused of lying and obstruction of justice in connection with investigations of an Abramoff-sponsored golf outing to Scotland in August 2002. The e-mails show that Abramoff and Safavian, then chief of staff at the General Services Administration, were in frequent contact, played golf often and traded workplace gossip. Abramoff showered...

FAIRCHILD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash., April 3, 2006 – Foreign exchange pilots from Australia assigned here are helping their U.S. counterparts carry out global air refueling, airlift and humanitarian assignments. The exchange program selects the best pilots in the Royal Australian Air Force with a minimum of 1,500 flying hours. Although instructional experience is not essential, it is a highly desirable factor to be selected for the three-year program, officials said. "They are sending us their best qualified pilots," said Air Force Maj. Dennis Bernier, 93rd Air Refueling Squadron assistant director of operations. "They are all outstanding pilots and huge...

WASHINGTON, March 22, 2006 – The proposed U.S. ballistic missile defense system is intended to tie numerous independent elements into a sophisticated web of protection, U.S. military officials said. Integrated ballistic missile defense system. Image courtesy of the Missile Defense Agency  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The stated mission of the Missile Defense Agency is to field a layered missile defense system that integrates land-, sea-, and air-based missile defenses to protect the U.S. homeland, deployed troops, and America's friends and allies against all types of ballistic missiles in all phases of flight. Basically, that means the United...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record) on Thursday denied any connection between special projects he gained for his state and a Washington lobbyist whose wife works in Specter's office. The Pennsylvania Republican lawmaker's statement was in response to a USA Today report published Thursday which said Specter had succeeded 13 times over the past four years in securing $48.7 million worth of defense projects for six clients represented by a lobbying firm co-founded by Michael Herson. Herson is the husband of Vicki Siegel Herson, Specter's legislative assistant for appropriations. "Ms. Siegel's husband did not lobby my office....

KFAR MALAL, Israel - In moments of reflection, Ariel Sharon liked to describe boyhood images that always drifted back to the land: tilling the sun-hardened soil with his father, the sticky-sweet aroma of lemon groves, daybreak hikes into the desert that slope down to the Dead Sea. As Sharon's prominence grew, so did the significance of these tales to Israel's collective conscience. They form part of the core of a modern mythology that was laid down bit by bit as Sharon moved from the fields to the battlefields to politics, creating a larger-than-life aura for a nation hungry for heroic...