Free Republic

WikiLeaks: The sleazy criminal organization dedicated to publishing U.S. secrets may loudly deny its leaks led to the hanging of a man in Iran Tuesday. But that's irrelevant because WikiLeaks gave Tehran the pretext it sought. A 24-year old Iranian man was the latest victim of the mullahs' monstrous tyranny this week, executed as a spy for Israel, supposedly for killing an Iranian nuclear scientist on behalf of his Zionist masters. That's a whiff of the twisted kangaroo court verdicts typical of Iran. In reality, Majid Jamali Fashi was a young kick-boxing instructor who visited Baku, Azerbaijan, for a tournament...

Ace links to another blog, that speculates the Breitbart breaking story will be about NEA. From Patterico's Pontifications comes this: If I were a betting man, I’d be betting big that the upcoming bombshell will relate to the NEA. You read it here first. But I think Breitbart’s overarching target is even bigger than that: the national media as a whole. Just as the media was caught flatfooted by the ACORN scandal, so too will they be rocked back on their heels by the next bombshell. Kudos to Andrew Breitbart. He’s making it fun to be a conservative again.

On August 25th 2009, Big Hollywood’s Patrick Courrielche broke the story of a conference call he attended with other “rising artist and art community luminaries”: On Thursday August 6th, I was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts to attend a conference call scheduled for Monday August 10th hosted by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve. The call would include “a group of artists, producers, promoters, organizers, influencers, marketers, taste-makers, leaders or just plain cool people to join together and work together to promote a more civically engaged America and celebrate how...

In Congo, Hillary Clinton Suggests Government Ownership of Industry Would be a Good Thing Wednesday, August 12, 2009 By Adam Brickley (CNSNews.com) - In a television interview Monday in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested that it would be a good thing for the government to take an ownership interest in industry.

If Republicans on Tuesday win the majority of seats in the House, that body's intelligence panel is likely to give fresh oversight of the Obama administration's prosecution review of the CIA's enhanced interrogation program. Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the highest-ranking Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told The Washington Times last week that he would expect the next Republican chairman of the committee to hold hearings on how the threat of prosecutions has affected the CIA's morale. "I expect vigorous oversight of this administration now," Mr. Hoekstra said. "What has been the impact of [Attorney General...

Dani Rodrik has just returned from Turkey, shunned while defending his father-in-law, the main defendant in the military coup plot case. The Harvard professor explains his take. IN DECEMBER I traveled to Turkey with my wife and young son, as we do every year during winter break. This time, though, we had more than visiting family and friends in mind. We were on a mission to demonstrate that what many have called the trial of the century in Turkey is in fact a sham built on fabricated evidence. Nearly two hundred Turkish military officers stand accused of having plotted a...

Mohamed Osman Mohamud: Misunderstander of Islam He yelled "Allahu akbar" and tried to kick agents as they swooped in to arrest him. DoJ press release here. "Feds Arrest Somali-Born Teen in Car Bomb Plot," from the Associated Press, November 27 (thanks to Markus): PORTLAND, Ore. -- A Somali-born teenager plotted to carry out a car bomb attack at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony in downtown Portland on Friday, but the bomb turned out to be a dud supplied by undercover agents as part of a sting, federal prosecutors said. Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested at 5:40 p.m. just...

SNIPPET: "ABU DHABI // A Lebanese American who faces terrorism charges is linked to al Qa’eda, the Federal Supreme Court was told yesterday. Naji Hamdan, 43, is charged with promoting terrorism, participating in the work of a terrorist organisation and funding a terrorist organisation. Details of the charges, all relating to alleged activity outside the UAE, emerged for the first time yesterday. A lawyer for the State Security Public Prosecution told the court: “Naji Hamdan is directly linked to Ansar al-Sunna and al Qa’eda members through electronic communication.” Ansar al-Sunna is a militant Sunni faction in Iraq connected to al...

IBD Exclusive Series: Government-Run Healthcare: A Prescription For Failure Discourse: At a town hall last week in Dallas, an elderly "mob" with "manufactured" outrage questioned AARP's support for nationalized health care, asking: "Do you work for us or do we work for you?"There were no swastika-wearing grannies at Tuesday's meeting, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might claim. Nor were they "taking their cues from talk show hosts, Internet rumor-mongers . . . and insurance rackets," as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said. But they were mad as hell at the perception that AARP was selling them out in the...

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) wants answers from the US taxpayer supported Export-Import bank about a $2 billion loan to Brazil for offshore drilling. Vitter’s home state is suffering under a moratorium imposed by President Barack Obama. Vitter said Louisianians “are frustrated” and he wants to know “why permitting domestically is nearly stalled…” Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) had questions about ExIM—nine years ago when he asked Congress to reject the reauthorization of ExIm for “economic, constitutional and moral reasons.” Vitter sent a letter to Fred Hochberg, Ex-Im president, on March 17. Vitter asked Hochberg to identify all US companies that have...

JANUARY 23, 2010 Obama's Lead Blocker on Wall Street UBS Executive Advises President on Economic Issues Even as Feud Between White House, Finance Industry Heats Up By NEIL KING JR. President Barack Obama's long feud with Wall Street is getting only hotter. He is pushing a regulatory revamp that would rein in the size and power of the big banks, after jabbing at "fat cat bankers" and denouncing Wall Street greed. But Mr. Obama has at least one buddy in the banking business: a former University of Pennsylvania fullback and ex-Salomon Brothers bond trader who now serves as an outside...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 24, 2009 PRESS RELEASE BROOKLYN RESIDENT INDICTED FOR CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT MURDER OVERSEAS AND CONSPIRACY TO PROVIDE MATERIAL SUPPORT TO TERRORISTS An indictment was unsealed in federal court this morning charging Betim Kaziu, a U.S. citizen and resident of Brooklyn, with conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists.1 Kaziu is scheduled to be arraigned later today before United States Magistrate Judge Joan M. Azrack, at the U.S. Courthouse, 225 Cadman Plaza East, Brooklyn, New York. The charges were announced by Benton J. Campbell, United States Attorney for...

The U.S. Department of State has bought more than $70,000 worth of books authored by President Obama, sending out copies as Christmas gratuities and stocking “key libraries” around the world with “Dreams from My Father” more than a decade after its release. The U.S. embassy in Egypt, for instance, spent $28,636 in August 2009 for copies of Mr. Obama’s bestselling 1995 memoir. Six weeks earlier, the embassy had placed another order with the same book seller, Kalemat Arabia, for more than $9,000 for copies of the same book, federal purchasing records show. Around the same time, halfway around the world,...

A former Guantánamo guard who had flown to the UK to address a support group for inmates of the camp is to be deported back to the US this morning after being denied entry on arrival at Heathrow airport yesterday. Terry Holdbrooks, who has been an outspoken critic of the US government over the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo, said that immigration officials told him he was being refused entry because he was unemployed and living in rented accommodation in the US, raising suspicions he would not leave the UK. The former soldier, who converted to Islam after discussions with...

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Eric Holder named federal prosecutor John Durham to investigate alleged CIA mistreatment of terrorism suspects overseas during the Bush administration. Mr. Durham is currently investigating the destruction of videotapes made of certain CIA interrogations of detainees. He will now also be tasked with probing whether CIA officers or contractors broke any laws with their use of harsh tactics. The decision comes on the day the Justice Department released a long-awaited report from the Central Intelligence Agency's inspector general, as well as several hundred pages of additional documents on the CIA's interrogation program. The report says one...

Britain feared that Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi could “cut us off at the knees, just like the Swiss”, unless the Lockerbie bomber was released, leaked WikiLeaks cables show. Sir Vincent Fean, the UK's ambassador to Tripoli at the time, also warned that continuing to hold Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi in a prison in Scotland could have “disastrous implications for British interests in Libya”. Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, 57, was jailed in 2001 for the atrocity which claimed 270 lives in 1988. He was freed on compassionate grounds in August 2009. The warnings were contained in secret communiqués sent from US embassy staff...

The Russian security service released the crew of the Arctic Sea in Moscow on Sunday. The 11 members of the crew of the hijacked ship were flown from Cape Verde to Russia nearly two weeks ago. The Russian news agency Interfax reports that the men returned to their home town of Archangelsk, where they were met by their families. On Sunday, Russian authorities gave conflicting accounts of whether or not all of the crew would be released. The online portal life.ru reported that only nine members of the crew had been released. Rabbe von Hertzen of the Finnish National Bureau...

Russia says it tracked hijacked Arctic Sea all along, but questions grow over cargo Tony Halpin in Moscow Russia’s top general hinted today that the ship allegedly hijacked by pirates earlier this month may have been carrying a secret cargo, as it emerged that the country’s Navy tracked the vessel throughout its journey. President Medvedev sent the Russian Navy to find the Arctic Sea after it apparently disappeared while passing through the English Channel en route to Algeria from Finland. However, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow now says that Russian and international agencies had monitored the ship throughout its strange...

Was Israel's secret service behind the mysterious hijacking of a Russian freighter to foil a secret attempt to ship cruise missiles to Iran? The mystery surrounding the hijacking of a Russian freighter in July has taken a new twist with reports claiming the pirates were acting in league with the Israeli Mossad secret service in order to halt a shipment of modern weapon systems hidden on board and destined for Iran. While Israeli and Russian officials dismissed the reports, accounts published in the Russian media sounded more like a spy thriller than a commercial hijacking.

The military airlifted the suspected hijackers of the Arctic Sea and most of its Russian crew from Cape Verde to Moscow on Thursday, after the lumber freighter mysteriously vanished and reappeared in the Atlantic. Eleven of the 15 crew members arrived in Moscow, while the captain and three sailors remained on the ship, which was adrift about 200 nautical miles from the West African island nation of Cape Verde. Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said the freighter was sailing to the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk. The sailors and their suspected captors arrived in two separate Il-76 cargo jets at the...