Free Republic

Does “FBI” now stand for “Following Biden’s Instructions”? The FBI is doing backflips to boost Joe Biden’s re-election campaign. Unfortunately, federal courts don’t recognize law enforcement shenanigans as a violation of the Voting Rights Act.The FBI is categorizing Donald Trump’s supporters as terrorist suspects, according to a new report in Newsweek. The FBI created “a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers,” Newsweek revealed. The FBI is relying on the same counterterrorism methods honed to fight al Qaeda to go after the incumbent president’s political opponents.Naturally, the latest Washington crusade...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Alan Arkin, the wry character actor who demonstrated his versatility in everything from farcical comedy to chilling drama as he received four Academy Award nominations and won an Oscar in 2007 for “Little Miss Sunshine,” has died. He was 89. His sons Adam, Matthew and Anthony confirmed their father’s death through the actor’s publicist on Friday. “Our father was a uniquely talented force of nature, both as an artist and a man,” they said in a statement. Hollywood was in mourning, with Paul Reiser, Michael Rapaport and Patton Oswalt among those praising Arkin. “Such a wonderful,...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Alan Arkin, the wry character actor who demonstrated his versatility in everything from farcical comedy to chilling drama as he received four Academy Award nominations and won an Oscar in 2007 for “Little Miss Sunshine,” has died. He was 89. His sons Adam, Matthew and Anthony confirmed their father’s death through the actor’s publicist on Friday. “Our father was a uniquely talented force of nature, both as an artist and a man,” they said in a statement. A member of Chicago’s famed Second City comedy troupe, Arkin was an immediate success in movies with the Cold...

The raid on Mar-a-Lago was based largely on information from an FBI confidential human source, one who was able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents, two senior government officials told Newsweek. (snip) The senior Justice Department source says that Garland was regularly briefed on the Records Act investigation, and that he knew about the grand jury and what material federal prosecutors were seeking. He insists, though, that Garland had no prior knowledge of the date and time of the specific raid, nor was he asked to approve it....

Update (1700ET): According to Newsweek, the FBI had a 'confidential human source' (a mole) inside Mar-a-Lago, who was "able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents."👀 The FBI is AGAIN sending undercover informants to target President Trump? It’s the Crossfire Hurricane debacle, all over again. This time, likely, at the behest of the Attorney General. https://t.co/f8FXr74qer — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) August 10, 2022* * *The Trumps have revealed more about Monday's FBI raid of their Mar-a-Lago property.For starters, Eric Trump told the Daily Mail that "the 30 agents who...

The raid on Mar-a-Lago was based largely on information from an FBI confidential human source, one who was able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents, two senior government officials told Newsweek. The officials, who have direct knowledge of the FBI's deliberations and were granted anonymity in order to discuss sensitive matters, said the raid of Donald Trump's Florida residence was deliberately timed to occur when the former president was away. FBI decision-makers in Washington and Miami thought that denying the former president a photo opportunity or a platform...

The Posse Comitatus Act holds that federal military personnel may not be used to enforce domestic policies within the United States. The National Guard is an exception to that rule and then only if the state’s governor or the D.C. Mayor requests it. Nevertheless, there are indications that the Pentagon worked with the Department of Justice and the FBI in the lead-up to President Trump’s January 6 rally that ended with Antifa activists and other agitators enticing people into the Capitol. That’s a big no-no, if true. Julie Kelly, who has been following the events of January 6 with the...

The largest undercover force the world has ever known is the one created by the Pentagon over the past decade. Some 60,000 people now belong to this secret army, many working under masked identities and in low profile, all part of a broad program called "signature reduction." The force, more than ten times the size of the clandestine elements of the CIA, carries out domestic and foreign assignments, both in military uniforms and under civilian cover, in real life and online, sometimes hiding in private businesses and consultancies, some of them household name companies.SNIPNewsweek's exclusive report on this secret world...

Code word compromise The Joint Staff at the Pentagon last week ordered an investigation into the compromise of several programs that were revealed in a book by author William Arkin. According to a Jan. 25 cable from the Joint Staff to 14 military units, most of them involved in special operations, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has asked for an "opsec" or operational security assessment of possible national security damage to special access programs and other "operational compromises" in the book, "Code Names." The U.S. Special Operations Command will be the lead...

During the height of tensions with Iran last year, the United States conducted an unprecedented series of war games. Over five months, from May until the end of September, 93 separate military exercises were held, with forces operating continuously in, above and around 29 countries.

A veteran news reporter has quit NBC, accusing the network of pushing anti-Trump, pro-war propaganda. William M. Arkin accused the new outlet of having an "infatuation" with the "Trump circus," claiming it leads to journalists ignoring real stories as they push to turn Americans against their president. Arkin, a seasoned national security reporter, made the revelations in a biting farewell message to his colleagues.

As most of you have read or seen by now, a journalist and NBC/MSNBC media consultant named William “Bill” Arkin has created quite a stir by viciously insulting American soldiers in Iraq. He wrote at his Washington Post blog, “Early Warning: William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security” column (1/30/07), that “… this NBC (Nightly News) report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary - oops sorry, volunteer force that thinks it is doing the dirty work” re Iraq. The “report,” according to Arkin, featured “a number of soldiers (who) expressed frustration with...

When chief of staff Andrew Card knelt down and told George Bush “America is under attack” 15 years ago Sunday, the words he whispered in the president’s ear in a Florida classroom launched what was supposed to be a planned, orderly response to a national emergency. But what followed instead was chaos, a breakdown in communication and protocol that risked international conflict and could have made Sept. 11, 2001, a still bigger tragedy. There were live nukes on the tarmac at U.S. airbases, a failed communications system, and a security protocol for the president and his potential successors — the...

With two Pulitzer Prizes to her name, Dana Priest is one of the Washington Post’s most celebrated reporters. Until Monday, when the Post published the first installment of a bombshell series on post-9/11 intelligence industrial complex, national security blogger William Arkin was hardly known to the paper’s readers. But from a media perspective, Arkin’s role as co-author of the series might be the more important. It marks the first time one of the Post’s bloggers – lately the cause of controversy because they sometimes blur opinion and reporting — has had a byline in one of the paper’s big, investigative...

Since Osama bin Laden made his first appearance in almost three years on Friday, the government and the news media have exhaustively scrutinized his video for clues as to the Saudi terrorist's whereabouts and well-being. ...his message has been dismissed as meaningless psychological warfare and propaganda, put forward in a claim for relevance on the sixth anniversary of September 11. But what bin Laden actually says in his "message from Sheikh Osama bin Laden to the American people" has the potential to be quite revealing. Gone is any mention of Israel, of the Christian and Jewish crusaders, or of the...

First, to debunk the myths: As best as I can determine, having spent tens of hours talking to military sources involved with the issue, intelligence analysts did not identify anyone prior to 9/11, Mohammed Atta included, as a suspect in any upcoming terrorist attack. It is not even clear that a "Mohammed Atta" was identified, let alone that it is the same Atta who died on 9/11. No military lawyers prevented intelligence sleuths from passing useful information to the FBI. Able Danger itself was not an intelligence program. As a representative of U.S. Special Operations Command said at a special...

WONDERLAND Scooter Libby and Reputation Prosecutions that wreak ruin on a lifetime. The trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is the closest version of a Red Queen trial this country has had in a long time. One says that knowing it might start a stampede from past defendants laying claim to the most upside-down prosecution. Lewis G. Carroll's account of the Knave' s trial before the Red Queen and White Rabbit is famous for the Queen's dictum, "Sentence first, verdict afterward." But read the full transcript of the mock trial and one will see that the real subject is not...

In protest of NBC's lack of action after NBC News military analyst William Arkin used his WashingtonPost.com blog to describe U.S. soldiers as "mercenaries" enjoying "obscene amenities" for ungratefully daring to criticize Americans for not supporting the war effort, retired Colonel Ken Allard last week resigned his position as a military analyst for NBC News. In a February 16 op-ed for the San Antonio Express-News, "NBC sinks too low for this talking head," Allard, an "executive-in residence" at the University of Texas at San Antonio, regretted that "sometimes the only way to show where you really stand is to vote...

The Left's Definition of a 'Hero' By Michelle Malkin CNSNews.com Commentary February 07, 2007 Angry, left-wing Washington Post blogger William Arkin considers American troops in Iraq who believe in their mission "mercenaries" who are "naive" and should be thankful they haven't been spit upon yet. Curdled Democrat Sen. John Kerry thinks those soldiers, who volunteer for service, didn't "make an effort to be smart" and are "stuck in Iraq" because of their intellectual deficiencies. At the last anti-war spasm in Washington, liberal peace-lovers vandalized a military recruitment office -- repeating an act of destruction taken by rock-wielding thugs across college...

Well, one thing's abundantly clear about who will actually defend our rights to say what we believe: It isn't the hundreds who have written me saying they are soldiers or veterans or war supporters or real Americans -- who also advise me to move to another country, to get f@##d, or to die a painful, violent death. Contrary to the typically inaccurate and overstated assertion in dozens of blogs, hundreds of comments, and thousands of e-mails I've received, I've never written that soldiers should "shut up," quit whining, be spit upon, or that they have no right to an opinion....