Free Republic

A US soldier accused of plotting an attack on a military base after fleeing his post as a Muslim conscientious objector went on trial Tuesday wearing a surgical mask and manacled to the floor. Courtroom security agents behind him wore protective goggles, an apparent reaction to an incident in which the soldier, Naser Jason Abdo, who claims to be HIV positive, bit his lip and spat blood at law enforcement officers. Prosecutors called the first of 43 witnesses to the stand in a bid to show that Abdo, who fled his post in Kentucky, was gathering bomb-making materials and weapons...

  “Act of Valor” Isn’t About Acting, It’s About Valor David C. Stolinsky Mar. 1, 2012 The film “Act of Valor” opened on Feb. 24. The film is a sort of docudrama. Most of the persons in it are not actors but active-duty SEALs. The film shows episodes that are based on actual SEAL operations, using actual SEAL equipment and tactics. Obviously, I didn’t go to such an unusual − in fact, unique − movie expecting to see polished actors reciting unrealistic dialog written by screenwriters who never heard a shot fired in anger, or fired at all. I...

Yes, Ron Paul has a bead on revamping or dissolving the Federal Reserve (I did read The Creature From Jekyll Island). Lots of corruption, secret undertakings, and opacity dominate the Federal Reserve, but what would be the alternative? A presidential, or congressional commission that oversees the U.S. banking system? No. Elected representatives overseeing the quasi government agency Fed? Not likely. Governments, for eons of time, have been in charge of the coinage, and it cannot be any other way. The Buck does Stop there.Ron Paul has no alternative to the Fed that would guarantee fairness and honesty. Ron Paul...

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, in a harsh attack on the Obama administration Monday, accused the president of viewing American military power as a negative force in the world, and planning to “gut” defense spending through the congressional deficit-reduction committee. “It is my suspicion that the White House and congressional Democrats” designed the supercommittee process “for one purpose: to force Republicans to choose between raising taxes or gutting defense,” said California Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, the House Armed Services Committee chairman.

Something may be either helpful or hurtful, depending on the intentions of the user. If I see a man limping, I can offer him a cane to help him get around, or I can use the cane to beat him bloody. An idea can be used to diagnose and treat human suffering, or it can be used to stigmatize and slander the sufferer − and increase the suffering. For example, take PTSD. Dave Grossman, Lt. Col., USA (Ret.) is a former Army Ranger who became a clinical psychologist. Having looked at combat trauma from both sides, he is a true...

In an effort to tap the tea party voter base, Ron Paul announced Tuesday that he will be forming a presidential exploratory committee, offering up a second chance at the Republican presidential bid. Congressman Paul formed a sort of "cult" following during the 2008 election, raising more than $35 million but falling short of wooing any caucasus or primaries. But Paul claims the country has changed since 2008, with "literally millions of more people now concerned about things I talked about four years ago." This may be true, and so far Paul's views on high government spending and the Federal...

According to National Journal, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas will be running for president in 2012: Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, whose outspoken libertarian views and folksy style made him a cult hero during two previous presidential campaigns, will announce on Tuesday that he’s going to try a third time. Sources close to Paul, who is in his 12th term in the House, said he will unveil an exploratory presidential committee, a key step in gearing up for a White House race. He will also unveil the campaign’s leadership team in Iowa, where the first votes of the presidential election will...

Ron Paul, the Texas congressman and libertarian with an army of followers, says he will decide on a third presidential bid "in a month or so." But appearing on the Alex Jones Show, a syndicated radio program, Paul appeared to suggest Tuesday he is ready to take the plunge again "We are getting awfully close, and there is just a few other things that I have to iron out personally to make my final decision. But it has to come," said Paul. Paul's fundraising prowess in 2008 shocked the political establishment, though his legions of supporters failed to translate into...

Public Policy Polling is showing Ron Paul with a surprising showing of strength in early polling for retiring Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's Texas seat: The top two choices of Texas Republicans to be their Senate nominee next year are David Dewhurst...and Ron Paul. The duo is basically tied with 23% saying Dewhurst would be their top pick as the GOP candidate and 21% picking Paul. Maybe a couple years ago the thought of Senator Paul would have seemed ridiculous but after his son breezed through both the Republican primary and the general election in Kentucky last year it seems a...

"From now on I'll be a staff officer without a bunch of people working under me, so I won't have the moral conflict with having to enforce this new policy on them. "...the state is actually standing by my position." The officer, who formerly commanded a battalion-sized unit, has strongly held religious beliefs that homosexual behavior is morally wrong, and he thinks the military will be damaged severely if it implements the Obama administration's plan to allow homosexuals to serve openly....many of the men under his command share his views. "The only real argument the senators made for repealing DADT...

The US government under Obama, through the National Endowment for the Humanities, recently used US taxpayer money to fund a conference that accused the US military of atrocities. Only coming to light in the last several days because of an intrepid professor by the name of Penelope Blake, the anti-American conference was held over the summer in Hawaii and was known by the misleadingly benign title "History and Commemoration: Legacies of the Pacific War." Since this story broke, there have been rightful calls to withhold funding to the NEH, and Professor Blake herself appeared on Hannity last night to discuss...

Note: Chart included. Formatting will be off. Go to the original url to view the chart. NOTE The following text is a quote: FOUR MEN FOUND GUILTY IN MANHATTAN FEDERAL COURT OF PLOTTING TO BOMB SYNAGOGUE AND JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER AND TO SHOOT MILITARY PLANES WITH STINGER MISSILES PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that JAMES CROMITIE, a/k/a "Abdul Rahman," a/k/a "Abdul Rehman," DAVID WILLIAMS, a/k/a "Daoud," a/k/a "DL," ONTA WILLIAMS, a/k/a "Hamza," and LAGUERRE PAYEN, a/k/a "Amin," a/k/a "Almondo," were found guilty today after a jury trial that started on August...

Even though America is fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, members of President Obama's Cabinet are three times more likely to have attended law school than boot camp. Only two - Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki - among the 16 Cabinet and six Cabinet-rank officials are military veterans. With last week's departure of National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones, a former Marine, the ranks of vets in Obama's national security inner circle just got thinner. Replacement Tom Donilon is another lawyer (and former lobbyist) with no military training.The Democratic Party has come a long way...

The Republican Party has a history of using desperate times to call for drastic measures and when bailing out AIG, bolstering Medicare or bombing Iraq, that party has always been willing to go big and bold on some of the largest government expansions in this nation’s history. But what about cutting government? You know, that stuff GOP politicians always talk about during election time? One might think that in a political environment in which so many are desperate to reverse what they see as unsustainable government growth, Republican rhetoric might at least attempt to reflect that desperation. But when GOP...

Barack Obama is to go ahead with plans to sell Saudi Arabia advanced aircraft and other weapons worth up to $60bn (£39bn), the biggest arms deal in US history, in a strategy of shoring up Gulf Arab allies to face any military threat from Iran. According to the Wall Street Journal, the administration is also in talks with the Saudis about possible naval and missile-defence upgrades that could be worth tens of billions of dollars more over five to 10 years. Plans to go ahead with the package, which has been under secret negotiation since 2007, have been known for...

A hero soldier who had just arrived home from a tour of Afghanistan was refused service at a supermarket after being told they didn't serve people in army uniform. Sapper Anthony Walls, of the 21 Engineer Regiment, popped into the Co-op in Croydon for some beers after a gruelling 34-hour journey from Kandahar. The 27-year-old, said it was his 'first hour back in the real world' after dodging Taliban bullets for the past four-and-a-half months helping build 'the most dangerous road in Afghanistan'. But when he arrived at the till to pay he was met with a blank stare from...

Why We Must Carry the Fight Forward to Stop Elena Kagan  Move America Forward For our troops, we must fight to keep Kagan off the highest bench in the land Today will be a historic day for our nation as the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote to either send  Elena Kagan to the next step in her appointment process, or send her back to the office of Solicitor General, where she currently resides. Win or lose tomorrow, we must continue the fight to keep activist judges like Kagan, who don’t respect our military or our mission to defeat radical...

Observers have characterized President Obama's many efforts to nationalize industries a systematic form of "wealth redistribution." But the activities instigated by the White House go beyond redistribution and devolve straight into reparations. Consider: Race Gender Quotas in "Financial Reform" Section 342, which declares that race and gender employment ratios, if not quotas, must be observed by private financial institutions that do business with the government. In a major power grab, the new law inserts race and gender quotas into America's financial industry... ...Section 342 sets up at least 20 Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion. Racial Preferences in Obamacare Transfer...

In introducing his last Supreme Court nominee 13 months ago, President Obama gushed forth like an out-of-control oil spill about what he saw as Sonia Sotomayor’s main qualification—her “wisdom accumulated from an inspiring life's journey.” Obama lavishly praised her “distinguished career,” which included having worked “at almost every level of our judicial system.” All this courtroom time, he assured us, provided Sotomayor “with a depth of experience and a breadth of perspective that will be invaluable as a Supreme Court justice.” “Walking in the door,” he continued, “she would bring more experience on the bench and more varied experience on...

The late William F. Buckley, Jr., once famously observed that he would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the entire faculty of Harvard. Buckley was prescient and correct about many things, but in this case his wish turned out to be spectacularly wrong: with President Obama’s choice of Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court, Buckley’s nightmare has come true, and the Harvard faculty now really is running the country. Starting with Obama himself, whose transition team alone included 20 Crimson classmates, there are more than 70 graduates of Harvard Law in...

The U.S. Supreme Court, in rare 8-0 unanimous decision, ruled that Obama court nominee Elena Kagan was wrong to ban ROTC military recruiters from the Harvard campus in 2004-05. Even the liberals on the Court ruled against her. But Kagan went further than merely banning the military from Harvard. She attempted to ban federal funding from any institution of higher learning that allowed military recruitment on their campuses. The reason for Kagan's vendetta against the U.S. military was its 'don't ask, don't tell' policy toward gays. Interestingly enough, it was Kagan's own former employer, President Bill Clinton, who first implemented...

Obama picked an anti-military loon to sit on the Supreme Court today. Elena Kagan expelled military recruiters from the Harvard campus in defiance of The Solomon Act. Her case was rejected by even the most liberal justices of the Supreme Court. Of course, the fact that Obama would nominate some radical with such poor judgement to the Supreme Court surprises no one. Leftwing activist Kagan protests the military. This photo shows Dean Elena Kagan protesting against the military at a LAMBDA-sponsored rally at Harvard in 2004. (HL Record) Kagan told fellow protesters at the rally: “I’m very opposed to two...

Conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh have been quick to paint Elena Kagan as an "idealist" and a "radical," but her track record shows that clearly she is not. With a straight face yesterday, Rush Limbaugh whacked Elena Kagan as a pure academic idealist radical. GOP party chair Michael Steele said senators must scrutinize her endorsement of the liberal agenda. Hours after she’s been nominated, they’re trying to turn the Senate’s duty of "advise and consent" to a nomination into the power to "despise and prevent" her from getting on the court. The reality is, Kagan’s appointment is more legitimately...

With apologies to Cole Porter — France does it, the UK does it, and even humanitarian Croats do it. The only one who won’t do it is the country that has sent the overwhelming majority of supplies and resources to Haiti after their devastating earthquake. The US refuses to fly its flag at its main relief installation in Port-au-Prince, and Army Times wonders why:

SNIPPET: "WASHINGTON: A US official identified as Michael Furlong organised a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan with the purpose of finding and killing suspected militants, The New York Times reported Monday. Citing unnamed military officials and businessmen in Afghanistan and the United States, the newspaper said Furlong, who works for the Defence Department, hired contractors from private security companies that employed former CIA and Special Forces members. These people gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps, the report said. After that, the information was sent to military units and intelligence...

Tuesday's unequivocal statement by the Pentagon's top two officials that openly gay men and women shouldn't be barred from serving in the nation's military should be the beginning of the end of an outdated policy. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that repealing the Clinton-era "don't ask, don't tell" policy is "the right thing to do" because the policy forces service members to lie about themselves or abandon their careers. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said ending the prohibition is inevitable, because attitudes toward gays have changed among the public...

Note: The following text is a quote: Obama Reaffirms Desire to End ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ By Donna Miles American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2010 – President Barack Obama announced during his State of the Union address tonight that he intends to work with Congress and the military during the year ahead to repeal the so-called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law. Obama said he will aim “to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are.” “It is the right thing to do,” he said. The...

December 25, 2009 Avatar the movie: the religion of the left By Phill Kline The visuals are stunning, the story borrowed and the message shallow and false. John Cameron's new epic Avatar features a jump in animation technology and a throwback of over 1,000 years to pantheism. Set in 2154, the movie features a U.S. mega-corporation mining the distant planet of Pandora for a rare mineral that suspiciously looks like a carbon spewing lump of coal. The mining is conducted with smoke belching machinery that rape the planet while the human workers are protected by Marine mercenaries from the...

Taliban sympathizer Jodie Evans and President Barack Obama, Oct. 15, 2009 In a wide-ranging interview released this week by MIPtalk, Obama funder, terrorist sympathizer and Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans spoke about her meetings with the Taliban and President Barack Obama. She lauded the Taliban for bringing peace and justice to Afghanistan while saying that the U.S. has failed to deliver either. In a separate interview with Lauren Steiner, Jodie Evans went further in her criticism of the United States saying that we had created “hell on earth” in Afghanistan. Jodie Evans also spoke about being called on by Obama’s...

People often mistake being named Time’s “Person of the Year” as an honor, but that men as sinister as Adolph Hitler, Josef Stalin and Rudy Giuliani have all been given the title suggests otherwise. According to Time, the award is primarily a recognition of influence and by that measure the 2009 selection of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke makes sense. Explains Time, the Fed is “an independent government agency that conducts monetary policy, which means it sets short-term interest rates - which means it has immense influence over inflation, unemployment, the strength of the dollar and the strength of your...

What about duty, honor, country? What about comradeship? What about loyalty unto death? That about Semper Fi? What about it, Hollywood? Even liberal President Obama used his Nobel Peace Prize address to praise the role of the U.S. military in overcoming tyranny. Why can’t you find a good word to say about those who are risking their lives for us all? Now that would be news.

Those tingles up his leg that MSNBC talker Chris Matthews gets from President Barack Obama (D) have apparently zapped Matthews' brain. Analyzing Obama's speech at West Point last night with Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann, Matthews observed "It seems like in this case, there isn't a lot of excitement. I watched the cadets, they were young kids - men and women who were committed to serving their country professionally it must be said, as officers. And, I didn't see much excitement. But among the older people there, I saw, if not resentment, skepticism. I didn't see a lot of warmth...

Yesterday, 13 of our own troops were killed and 30 others were injured in Fort Hood, Texas at a secure U.S. Army base and the president is nowhere to be seen. This doesn't even surprise us, but for the people who still support Obama, you now further understand why we call you 'idiots.' Signs of Trinity church, Black Liberation Theology, Bill Ayers and Marxist professors? Hmmm.... After all, President Obama seemed to make it to Manhattan last month when Goldman Sachs, his number one Wall Street campaign contributor along with several other shadow banking firms attended an expensive DNC fundraiser...

This video linked here contains 13 sniper shots upon coalition forces.   Specifically at:   :24 1:21 1:50 2:45 3:23 3:47 4:26 5:03 5:28 6:44 7:20 7:45 8:05 There are several other instances where it appears that there may have been a sniper shot, but it's not so clear as the 13 listed above.   Some will say that we can't tell what this video is really saying because we can't translate from Arabic, etc.  The terrorist symbol in the upper left, coupled with the superimposed image of former President Bush over flag draped coffins leaves little to translate.  This...

CBS announcer: Any U.S. soldier would shoot Pelosi, strangle Reid @ 5:16 pm by Michael O'Brien CBS Sports commentator David Feherty drew criticism Friday for suggesting any U.S. soldier would murder House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) if given the chance. "From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this, though: despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid,...

AFTER a mere 100 days, the "Obama Doctrine" for our foreign and security poli cies has emerged. And it's terrifying. The combination of dizzying naivete, dislike of our allies, disdain for our military, distrust of our intelligence services and distaste for our own country promises the worst foreign policy of our lifetimes. That includes President Jimmy Carter's abysmal record of failure. The core tenets of the Obama Doctrine to date would make a charter member of the Weather Underground cheer: We're to blame. If there are problems anywhere, they're America's fault. This central conviction of leftist ideology appears to have...

Two deputies were murdered over the weekend by a member of the Florida National Guard who was “severely disturbed” by the election of Barack Obama, and believed the US government was conspiring against him.

WASHINGTON – While Barack Obama is basking in praise for his "decisive" handling of the Somali pirate attack on a merchant ship in the India Ocean, reliable military sources close to the scene are painting a much different picture of the incident – accusing the president of employing restrictive rules of engagement that actually hampered the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips and extended the drama at sea for days. Multiple opportunities to free the captain of the Maersk Alabama from three young pirates were missed, these sources say – all because a Navy SEAL team was not immediately ordered to...

Reporting from Carlisle Barracks, Pa. -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday that the Obama administration would move cautiously in shifting policies on gays serving openly in the military, but he signaled that service members should prepare for possible changes. In his most extensive remarks to date about the ongoing ban on gays who serve openly, Gates said he and other military leaders had "begun a dialogue" with President Obama about the issue. Obama promised during last year's presidential campaign to end the ban on gays in the military, and the White House said recently that it was reviewing...

WASHINGTON -- The former head of the Department of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush warned Friday that the release of documents detailing harsh interrogation methods holds major risks for U.S. security. Bush's former CIA chief added that the release will have a chilling effect on officers assigned to conduct interrogations. "Whenever you release material that secretly relates the way we conduct operations against terrorists you run two risks. One is that you're giving terrorists insights into things they need to prepare for, and they do prepare. And the second thing is you're sending a message to our allies...

Forty years ago today, Harvard University caved to pressure from violent student radicals and banned the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) from campus. The ban continues because Harvard finds the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy too offensive to be countenanced. In those same 40 years, Harvard has hosted at least one terrorist - Yassir Arafat - and the former president of Iran’s terror-sponsoring regime. The latter, Mohammad Khatami, was asked to speak on the eve of 9/11. Current Harvard policy is to accommodate Muslim fundamentalists who demanded single-sex gym time in the name of Sharia law. They even...

SAN DIEGO — Hope is the political message of the moment, courtesy of President Barack Obama. Tell that to Lincoln High School students Jennifer Astudillo, Sakeenah Shabazz and Alex Velarde, a trio of increasingly polished political activists. Sakeenah, 16, said hope isn't part of her political equation. “Always go in prepared for the worst, not with your hopes up,” she said. What they've displayed instead is persistence, as they've led a group of high school students in persuading the San Diego Unified School District board to shelve campus air-rifle marksmanship programs. The board confirmed the decision Tuesday, although members eased...

Barack Obama, concerned about offending Britain and Germany, rebuffed strenuous attempts by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France to persuade the new American president to make a trip to Normandy this week. White House officials travelled to France at the start of March to discuss a visit by Mr Obama to Omaha Beach, the site of the American Cemetery, established in 1944 just after D-Day and where 9,387 American personnel are buried. Among them is Theodore Roosevelt Jr the eldest son of the 26th US President. French officials and senior American military officers walked with White House staff through the cemetery...

<p>Most students at Columbia do not have firsthand knowledge war. Military violence has been a vicarious experience, channeled into our minds to television, film, and print.</p> <p>The more sensitive among the struggle to extrapolate experiences of war from our everyday experience, discussing the latest mortality statistics from Guatemala, sensitizing ourselves where parents were time memories, or incorporating into our framework of reality as depicted by a mailer or a Coppola. But the taste of war-the sounds and chill, the dead bodies-are remote and far removed. We know that wars have occurred, will occur, are occurring, but bringing such experienced down and tour hearts, and taking continual, tangible steps to prevent war, becomes a difficult task. Two groups on campus, Arms Race Alternatives (ARA) and Students Against Militarism (SAM) work within these mental limits to foster awareness and practical action necessary to counter the growing threat of war. Through the emphasis of the two groups differ, they share an aversion to current government policy. These groups, visualizing the possibilities of destruction and grasping the tendencies of distorted national priorities, are throwing their weight into shifting America off the dead-end track.</p>

There has been some confusing reporting in the past few days regarding President Barack Obama's plans for the Defense Department budget. Officially, the Office of Management and Budget is claiming that it will increase the budget by 8 percent. But because most of the Iraq and Afghanistan war costs have been funded through supplemental appropriations rather than the regular department budget, total military funding remains a mystery. Mark me down as suspicious. I have been told by sources at the Pentagon that they have been told not to expect full funding of all existing programs. And there is evidence that...

The Obama administration has asked the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff to cut the Pentagon's budget request for the fiscal year 2010 by more than 10 percent -- about $55 billion -- a senior U.S. defense official tells FOX News.

Obama: "But it’s also important that a president speaks to military service as an obligation not just of some, but of many. You know, I traveled, obviously, a lot over the last 19 months. And if you go to small towns, throughout the Midwest or the Southwest or the South, every town has tons of young people who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s not always the case in other parts of the country, in more urban centers. And I think it’s important for the president to say, this is an important obligation. If we are going into war,...

Even as the U.S. confronts two long wars, neither Sen. John McCain nor Sen. Barack Obama believes the country should take the politically perilous step of reviving the military draft. But the two presidential candidates disagree on a key foundation of any future draft: Mr. Obama supports a requirement for both men and women to register with the Selective Service, while Mr. McCain doesn't think women should have to register. Also, Mr. Obama would consider officially opening combat positions to women. Mr. McCain would not. "Women are already serving in combat [in Iraq and Afghanistan] and the current policy should...

When I heard Barack Hussein Obama mention last night that the government invented computers, I immediately thought it was invented by kids (not Al Gore) working in a garage. Guess I was wrong as today I discovered the following on another blog: Was this a McCain moment by obama? Quick takeaway from the 2nd presidential debate - Obama claimed specifically that U.S. government invented the computer, and Obama was very wrong. The computer was developed over a long period of time, and by most historical accounts trace back to Europe with British and German inventors in the late 19th and...

Should public schools open their doors to military recruitment, of any type, on campus? That was the question San Francisco voters took up in 2005, when they overwhelmingly passed Proposition I, which urged the city's schools to reject military recruitment in favor of college scholarship programs. The San Francisco Unified School District responded in 2006 by beginning to phase out of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, a long-standing and well-funded recruitment instrument of the Department of Defense, which targets San Francisco students of color, often from poor families, who attend seven public high schools, while steering clear of the...