Free Republic

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem joined a list of Republican state leaders who have said they will deploy troops to the country’s southern border, which she called a “warzone” in a post announcing the move. “The border is a warzone, so we’re sending soldiers,” Noem posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “The SD-Guard’s primary mission will be construction of a wall to stem the flow of illegal immigrants, drug cartels, and human trafficking into the United States of America.” In a statement released Tuesday, Noem said 60 South Dakota soldiers will be deployed to Texas in the...

A surge of shootings in D.C. that left 13 people dead in the first five days of August has rattled neighborhoods from Adams Morgan to Anacostia, with each new victim a grim reminder of the city’s failure to contain violent crime.

... This is where we have arrived. Here we are. Article 28 (3) of the Charter of the United Nations stipulates: “The Security Council may hold meetings at such places other than the seat of the Organization as in its judgment will best facilitate its work.” What is its work? And what is, at this point, the most appropriate place? The Security Council's work is “to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations (…) for the maintenance of international peace and security.” More: it is for this purpose that all UN members “confer on the Security Council primary...

Cops appear to do nothing amid a drive-by shooting in Atlanta as residents of the wealthy Buckhead area say it's a warzone and demand to secede. Video shows people lining up near a dark-colored van parked on the side of the road. A white car passes by and shots ring out with one going straight through the dark van striking a passersby and sending people scrambling. A few seconds later blue lights could be seen reflecting off the windshield of the black van symbolizing police cars passing by and not stopping at the scene in the wealthy Buckhead neighborhood. Bill...

A U.S. Department of Justice lawyer argued Monday that the United States can kill its own citizens without judicial review when litigation would reveal state secrets. The argument drew alarm among judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Courthouse News Service reports. Judge Patricia Millett characterized the DOJ’s argument as giving the government the ability to “unilaterally decide to kill U.S. citizens,” according to coverage of the argument by Courthouse News Service. “Do you appreciate how extraordinary that proposition is?” The government’s brief in the case supplies details of the lawsuit. The plaintiff, Bilal...

Yoko Ono on Tuesday announced that she is releasing a new album at age 85, saying that her lifelong message of peace was sorely needed in 2018. "Warzone," which will come out on October 19, will revisit songs penned by Ono since 1970, concluding with "Imagine," her seminal pacifist anthem with her late husband John Lennon.

Hospitals in Mayor Sadiq Khan’s London resemble those in a war zone, a senior surgeon working to save victims of the capital’s surging violent crime wave said. The comments come after two more men were killed overnight, a couple of days after another night of violence saw a boy, 16, stabbed to death and a 17-year-old girl shot in a “drive by”. Wednesday night’s killings brought the death toll from suspected murder in the capital to 50 so far this year. Dr. Mark Griffiths, lead surgeon at Barts Health NHS Trust in East London, said knife and gun wounds had...

The Greek island of Lesbos has been turned into a war zone by rioting migrants, leaving the island’s 85,000 residents in despair. Around 25,000 migrants are currently camped out on the island with hundreds more arriving daily, leading to frequent violent clashes and rioting despite their claim to be fleeing violence. Located just 6 miles from the Turkish shore, the migrants come over in inflatable boats which they cut up on arrival to prevent being turned back, expecting to be able to quickly travel on by ferry to mainland Europe, German station RTL has reported. Instead, they are being held...

"The solution does not just include policing — although we'll continue to look for ways to put more police where they're needed. We also have to give our young people alternatives to the street, and as a community we need to demand more of ourselves and our neighbors." — Mayor Rahm Emanuel, on Chicago's blood-soaked Fourth of July weekend As Sunday night crept (no doubt cautiously) to Monday morning, residents of the South Chicago neighborhood endured a firefight. They witnessed a tide of mayhem worthy of urban war zones worldwide. This is not how Chicago wants to build its reputation...

A seasoned Army sergeant makes a split-second decision to stop a possible bombing. Now he's stunned to be charged with negligent homicide. Sgt. 1st Class Walter Taylor's life collapsed in four interminable seconds in a dusty field in central Afghanistan. His convoy was reeling from a roadside bomb, his fellow soldiers were engaged in combat with insurgents — and a mysterious black car had just screeched to a stop in the middle of the firefight. Some nine minutes later, a black door opens. Second 1: A figure dressed in dark, bulky clothing emerges. Second 2: The figure begins walking toward...

Assailants kidnapped and killed a reporter who covered crime news in Veracruz State, officials said Thursday, the latest in a series of attacks on journalists in a relentless drug war across the country. The reporter, Víctor Báez, who worked for the Mexican daily newspaper Milenio, was abducted as he was leaving his office in the town of Xalapa late Wednesday. The police found his body on Thursday morning in the city center, said Gina Domínguez, a spokeswoman for the Veracruz State government. Several journalists have left Veracruz State in recent months, fearing for their lives, but Mr. Báez had insisted...

A 16-year-old boy was shot and killed in a dispute over a bicycle Saturday afternoon on the South Side, authorities said, and another man was killed in West Humboldt Park late Saturday night. Fifteen others were shot and survived Saturday night and Sunday morning, police said.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A federal judge in Maryland today granted the Military Voter Protection Project’s request for a preliminary injunction to ensure that Maryland’s military members have sufficient time to vote in November. Under the terms of the order, the Maryland State Board of Elections will be required to count all military and overseas absentee ballots so long as the ballot has been cast on or before Election Day and is returned by 5:00 p.m. on November 22, 2010. The MVP Project filed this case after the Maryland State Board of Elections sent military voters an absentee ballot that only...

KABUL, Afghanistan – One gave up a lucrative practice to give free dental care to children ... Others had devoted whole decades of their lives to helping the Afghan people through war and deprivation. The years of service ended in a hail of bullets in a remote valley of a land that members of the medical team had learned to love. The bodies of the 10 slain volunteers - six Americans, two Afghans, a German and a Briton - were flown Sunday back to Kabul ... friends and family bitterly rejected Taliban claims the group had tried to convert Afghans...

Note: The following text is a quote: WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2010 – A joint task force in Afghanistan is working hard to make sure detention operations are in order, the officer in charge of that effort said today. “We maintain the legitimacy of detention as a warfighting tool, and this requires that we demonstrate our commitment to transparency, the rule of law, and to individual human dignity,” Navy Vice Adm. Robert S. Harward, commander of Joint Task Force 435, said during a “"DoDLive" bloggers roundtable. Defense Secretary Robert Gates established the task force in September to oversee detainee review processes,...

Haitian President Rene Preval said: "The damage I have seen here can be compared to the damage you would see if the country was bombed for 15 days. It is like in a war." The 7.0-magnitude earthquake that devastated much of the hilly coastal city on Tuesday also collapsed the elegant presidential palace and his own home. Authorities in Haiti, already the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, are saying they believe the death toll will be between 100,000 and 200,000 and that three-quarters of the city will need to be rebuilt.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10, 2009 – Military veterans transitioning from service to the classroom face challenges more complex than simply memorizing dates, learning theories and mastering equations. Adjusting to the college environment, in general, often is the most difficult part of the transition from military life, said John Schupp, who recently launched the Supportive Education for the Returning Veteran program at Cleveland State University in Ohio, specifically designed to help veteran students make those adjustments. The program is open to veterans only and is geared to ease them into student life rather than let them become overwhelmed, Schupp said. Campus life...

TIJUANA, Mexico – Two people were shot to death at a taco restaurant in the border city of Tijuana on Saturday, hours after a man's decapitated head was found wrapped in duct tape. Prosecutors in Baja California state, where Tijuana is located, said two other people were wounded in the restaurant shooting, which apparently involved assault rifles. Another man was shot to death at a pool hall, and two men were found shot to death on a street. On Friday, gunmen attacked a state police convoy on a main boulevard in Tijuana, across the U.S. border from San Diego, but...

Mexico is beginning to look like a real war zone. The headlines in the news media are reminiscent of those from some of the most brutal days of the Iraq War. They speak of executions, beheadings, cryptic messages and dozens of people killed in a single day. But the war against drugs that Mexico is waging is not one that can easily eliminate the enemies. snip The Mexican government has made the fight against drugs its No. 1 priority.snip The rival drug cartels are killing each other off, law enforcement agents are hunting down drug dealers, and their hit men...

You'll recall Hillary Clinton's recent speech in which she attempted to play up her foreign policy experience by recounting her "harrowing" 1996 trip to Bosnia. "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." Well, mainstream media has discounted that account, and such luminaries as comedian Sinbad have chimed in as well. It appears, however, that Clinton caved in too soon when she admitted overstating the dangers, as Barely Political...