Free Republic

An Obama program within the Department of Homeland Security is tasked with turning foreigners into citizens as quickly as possible. The Obama administration’s efforts to transform the nation’s electorate through immigration is running at full speed. White House employees have been sent to the Department of Homeland Security to accelerate President Obama’s efforts to integrate foreigners into the American political landscape as quickly as possible — preferably by November 2016. Meet Mariestella Fischer Vélez. Velez has joined the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizen and Immigration Service. Velez is on a detailfrom the White House for 120 days to steer...

Why are the news medias ignoring the unborn child killed on that infamous media day of ignorance NOV. 05. 2009? Where is the outrage of the killing of an unborn child that no media names the 14th. Even the Military.. I thought outrage was reserved for the worst of the worst of those who commit acts that disturbe so many that there is a fury of such that cannot be stopped. Where is the fury? Fetal Homicide? Unborn child killed, four wounded in south Bakersfield shootingAn unborn child was killed Thursday morning in a shooting that wounded its mother, two...

Francheska Velez was due home soon from Fort Hood. The army private, stationed in Iraq, returned to Chicago to celebrate her 21st birthday last August. Back in Iraq, where she disarmed bombs, she learned she was pregnant, her family said, and arranged for maternity leave. "She was supposed to be coming very, very soon. Everyone's devastated. Everyone's at a loss for words," said her cousin Jennifer Arzuaga. "She was very young. She wasn't supposed to die the way she died." Velez, whose father came from Colombia and mother from Puerto Rico, attended Kelvyn Park High School and joined the army...

A fresh tragedy added to the horror of the Fort Hood massacre Friday when it was revealed that one of the victims was a pregnant soldier. Francheska Velez, who returned to the U.S. just three days earlier from a foreign posting, was filling out paperwork when a gunman hollered "Allahu Akbar!" and embarked on a bloody rampage that left her and a dozen others dead. A 21-year-old Chicagoan, Velez was six-weeks pregnant when she was cut down on Thursday, FOX Chicago News reported. Velez was a sitting duck when the accused gunman, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, yelled "God is...

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) -- One of two brothers who died while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan committed suicide, family and military officials said Thursday. Army Spc. Andrew Velez, 22, died last month in Afghanistan, a little more than a year after his older brother, Cpl. Jose "Freddy" Velez, 23, was killed in Iraq. They are the first brothers to die in the two conflicts, the military said.

The story about Andrew Velez, the Army specialist from Lubbock who died in Afghanistan, was tragic. Then it got worse this week ... leading to a number of long discussions in The A-J's newsroom on how to handle the story. This column normally runs in Sunday's paper, but it's in today's paper because I wanted you to know why: • We're reporting Andrew's suicide. • Why we knew about it for a number of days and held the story. • How we decided to handle coverage of the idiotic protesters from that sad "church" in Kansas who came here Thursday...

War killed Andrew Velez from the inside out. It took his brother, strained his marriage and fractured his psyche. "He carried a monster inside of him," said Roy Velez, Andrew's father. He took that monster to Afghanistan and on July 25 it consumed him. According to Army documents provided by his family, Andrew was found inside an office building that morning with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. His rifle, the same weapon carried by his brother, lay nearby. The Army is investigating the circumstances surrounding his death and who the 22-year-old Army specialist may...

Hundreds of people packed into a Lubbock church to remember the life of Andrew Velez, a 22-year-old Army specialist who died while serving in Afghanistan. The family described Thursday's service as a "celebration," a celebration of Andrew and his service. "I am glad you are here to celebrate the homecoming of this young man," Roy Velez said of his son. He assured the crowd that filled the First Church of the Nazarene in Southwest Lubbock that he was not sad, that his son died while serving his country. "This was not a direct blow to our country," he said. "Because...

Body of Lubbock Soldier Returns Home The body of fallen soldier Andrew Velez has returned to Lubbock. The military transport plane carrying Velez` body arrived in Lubbock just after 4 p.m. Wednesday. Family members were there to meet the plane, while a hearse transported the body to Resthaven. Meanwhile, members of a radical religious group from Kansas plan to picket Thursday night`s memorial service for Velez. But another group has been invited to help silence the protesters` anti-war message. The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas claims the soldiers are dying because God is punishing America for tolerating homosexuality. As...

Kansas Church to Protest Velez Memorial Church has drawn national attention for signs like "Thank God for IED's". Thursday service will not be peaceful like those held over the past week in Lubbock. Tuesday, August 1, 2006 A group of protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, plan to protest a memorial service scheduled for Thursday evening to remember Lubbockite Andrew Velez. 22-year-old Velez died last Monday while serving in Afghanistan. According to a release posted last week on the Defense Department Web site, Velez died of non-combat-related gun fire. His brother, Freddy, died in 2004 while serving...

The Department of Defense announced Thursday that it is investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of Andrew Velez, a 22-year-old Army specialist from Lubbock. According to a statement issued by Fort Irwin in California, Velez died of a non-combat-related gunshot wound early Monday morning. Velez is the second of two brothers who have died while serving their country. Jose "Freddy" Velez, a 23-year-old Army corporal, was shot and killed in 2004 while fighting in Iraq. He received two Purple Hearts and a Silver and Bronze Star for his bravery. John Wagstaffe, a spokesman for Fort Irwin, said that it may...

~~~~ LUBBOCK, Texas -- A Texas family that had already paid a hefty price in the war on terror is in mourning again. Two years after a son was killed in Iraq, their only other son has died in Afghanistan. Cpl. Jose Velez was killed in 2004 when his unit came under fire in Fallujah. At that point, his brother, Army Spc. Andrew Velez, was given the option of not having to return to combat. But his father said he wanted to. This week the family learned Andrew was killed. Their father said that while he feels like his heart...

Fallen brothers gave their all in war and in life BY JASON WOMACKAVALANCHE-JOURNAL The last time Sarah Harris saw Andrew Velez, he was dressed in uniform carrying the casket of his brother. They spoke briefly that day about the war that took Andrew's brother Freddy. "He told me he wanted to go back immediately and finish the job his brother had started," she said. The 22-year-old Army specialist left for Afghanistan in March. On Monday, he was shot and died there. Joe Don Buckner / Staff Velez displays stones that he carried to feel close to his two sons...

Leftist “militants” ushered in the new year in Colombia in true form: Members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) murdered 17 peasants, including 6 women and 4 children, who were gathered to celebrate New Year’s Eve. When I say “true form,” I mean FARC was practicing the art that the extreme left has mastered, perhaps invented: terrorism. On this New Year’s Eve, the FARC was proving it believes the “end justifies the means,” as it is the grotesque, disfigured child of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and, yes, even Hitler -- remember, he was a National Socialist (Nazi). FARC is...

(CNSNews.com) - An Iranian man recently convicted of drug trafficking, is also suspected of money laundering and smuggling people from Iraq, Iran, Syria and Jordan into the United States. According to federal court documents, Mehrzad Arbane also told a former associate turned government informant in October of 2001 that he "may have smuggled two of the hijackers who flew the planes into the towers in New York on September 11, 2001." In the shadowy world of terrorist groups and those who enable their activities, it's doubtful that any comprehensive records are kept on the identities of people secreted into the...

While Washington’s attention is focused on the Middle East, communism and communist terrorism are threatening America's security in Latin America, where another Axis of Evil is spreading its tentacles throughout the region. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is getting credit from the Internatinal Monetary Fund and Wall Street's useful idiots for following the orthodox economic policies of former president Fernando Cardoso while plunging his nation into communism and allying himself with Fidel Castro and Castro's puppet in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. So radical is the regime under Lula that the Rio de Janeiro city council recently declared President Bush...