Free Republic

The secret, one-on-one nuclear negotiations President Barack Obama launched with Iran have run into a blank wall. A senior Iranian team member, Mostafa Dolatyar, said Friday, Dec. 14 in New Delhi that the diplomatic process for solving the nuclear issue with Iran was in effect going nowhere, because the demand that Tehran halt its 20-percent enrichment of uranium “doesn’t make sense.” He went on to say: “They [the world powers] have made certain connections with purely technical issues and something purely political. In so far as this is the mentality and this is the approach from 5 + 1 (the...

The federal government will likely be involved in running the ObamaCare exchange in at least 30 states, 26 of which expressly declined to establish state exchanges. One health-policy expert refers to it as an "administrative nightmare" for the Department of Health and Human Services. Friday was the deadline for a state to let HHS know if it planned to establish a state exchange. Thus far only 18 states and the District of Columbia are planning on doing so. As of right now only Utah and Florida remain undecided. Utah may still decide to set up a state exchange, but few...

December 14, 2012 Fox News Contributor Steven Crowder Files Criminal Complaint After Alleged Assault By Pro-Union Protester Noah Rothman Fox News commentator Steven Crowder has filed a complaint with the Michigan State Police in relation to an assault he sustained by a pro-union protester while attending a demonstration outside Michigan’s state capitol on December, 11. The protesters were demonstrating against the state legislature’s efforts to pass right to work laws in the heavily unionized state. Crowder joined the protests in support of those controversial laws. The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple spoke with Richard Hale, the shift supervisor at the Lansing...

<p>State police are responding to a report of a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dickinson Drive, school officials said.</p> <p>Police are reporting a number of injured parties. The nature of their injuries is not clear.</p> <p>There are unconfirmed reports of two shooters — one dead, one still at large.</p>

(CNN) -- The United States is to deploy 400 troops and two Patriot air-defense missile batteries to Turkey in the coming weeks to defend against potential threats from Syria, defense officials said Friday. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta signed the order en route to Turkey, where he is visiting Incirlik Air Base, Pentagon spokesman George Little told reporters.

A Russian official has said for the first time that the Syrian government may be defeated by opposition forces. President Bashar al-Assad's forces are "losing more and more control and territory", deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov said. He said Russia, one of Syria's staunchest allies, was making plans for a possible evacuation of thousands of its citizens. Separately, Syria denied reports it had fired Scud missiles at rebels. Nato's Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen earlier said the organisation had detected the launch of such short-range missiles, saying it showed an "utter disregard" for the lives of the Syrian people. 'Unacceptable...

Embattled U.N. envoy Susan Rice is dropping out of the running to be the next secretary of state after months of criticism over her Benghazi comments, she told NBC News on Thursday.

MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian rebels are gaining ground and might win, Russia's Middle East envoy said on Thursday, in the starkest such admission from a major ally of President Bashar al-Assad in 20 months of conflict.

Top U.S. intelligence officials gathered in the White House Situation Room in March to debate a controversial proposal. Counterterrorism officials wanted to create a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S. citizens—even people suspected of no crime. ~ snip ~ The rules now allow the little-known National Counterterrorism Center to examine the government files of U.S. citizens for possible criminal behavior, even if there is no reason to suspect them. That is a departure from past practice, which barred the agency from storing information about ordinary Americans unless a person was a terror suspect or related to an...

A House GOP source has confirmed to Breitbart News that House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy was the one who drafted the secret criteria list House Speaker John Boehner used in his purge of conservatives from House committees. The source, someone with inside knowledge of how Boehner conducted the purge, told Breitbart News that McCarthy crafted the list, which included a scorecard of where several conservative members stood on certain votes. According to the source, it’s unclear at this time whether McCarthy made the list of his own accord or if he did so at the request of somebody else in...

A gunman who witnesses say was wearing camouflage and a white plastic mask opened fire in a shopping mall near Portland, Ore., in a rampage that left three dead, including the shooter, and multiple wounded, police said. Authorities say police "neutralized" the gunman but have yet to elaborate on how he died. Witnesses described a harrowing scene, as the gunman appeared to be dressed in body armor while firing off an estimated 60 shots from a semi-automatic rifle. One witness told KPTV that the gunman ran past her and her boyfriend and "had the look of death in his eyes."

ONTARIO, 11 December, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An illustrated graphic released by one of Canada’s leading national newspapers is being welcomed by pro-life activists after it showed life-sized illustrations of unborn children next to statistics about how many babies that age are being aborted. At 9-12 weeks, for instance, where 41.2 percent of babies are aborted, the image shows a small baby with already discernible toes, fingers and eyes. “I was absolutely thrilled to see a secular news source cover this,” Jonathon Van Maren, communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, told LifeSiteNews. The graphic provides a breakdown of...

CHICAGO — A federal appeals court has struck down a ban on carrying concealed weapons in Illinois — the only state where carrying concealed weapons is entirely illegal. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals announced Tuesday that state lawmakers have 180 days to write a new law that legalizes concealed carry.

UPDATE 12:15 pm EST: The Republican controlled legislature has passed the right-to-work legislation 58-51. Michigan Governor Snyder is expected to sign the bill into law later today. The vote to turn Michigan into a right-to-work state will take place today after days of protests in Lansing about the pro-worker legislation that prevents having to pay dues to a union. Not surprisingly, local police are bracing for possible violence today as more protests are planned. Even with the outcome considered a foregone conclusion, the heated battle over right-to-work legislation in the traditional union bastion of Michigan shows no sign of cooling....

Global concerns over Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles grew after U.S. officials this week privately said the regime had begun mixing chemicals that could be used for the lethal nerve agent sarin. On Saturday, Syrian told the United Nations that it would never use chemical weapons against its peoples and warned that opposition fighters are the ones who could use chemical weapons. But videos uploaded on the web by activists proved otherwise. The video showed the destruction caused by what they identified as chemical weapons. They said the fire was caused by a tank dropped from a Syrian warplane and was...

The Talk Shows December 9th, 2012 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Chuck U. Schumer, D-N.Y., and Bob Corker, R-Tenn.; Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the U.S.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, leaders of President Barack Obama's now-defunct deficit commission; Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, N.J.THIS WEEK (ABC): Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.; Reps. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, and Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): hristine Lagarde, managing director of the International...

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) said no progress has been made with the White House in talks to avert the so-called fiscal cliff: across-the-board tax-rate hikes and automatic spending cuts (sequestration) at the beginning of the new year. “This isn’t a progress report because there’s no progress to report,” Boehner said during a Capitol Hill press conference on Friday. “When it comes to the fiscal cliff that is threatening our economy and threatening jobs, the White House has wasted another week.” …

Welcome to Zimbabwe.  This is not a parody -- it is an actual report from the Washington Post:   Some economists and legal scholars have suggested that the “platinum coin option” is one way to defuse a crisis if Congress can’t or won’t lift the debt ceiling soon. At least in theory. The U.S. government is, after all, facing a real problem. The Treasury Department will hit its $16.4 trillion borrowing limit by next February at the latest. Unless Congress reaches an agreement to raise that borrowing limit, the government will no longer be able to borrow enough money...

CAIRO: Struggling to subdue continuing street protests, the government of PresidentMohamed Morsi has approved legislation reimposing martial law by calling on the armed forces to keep order and authorizing soldiers to arrest civilians, Egypt's state media reported on Saturday. Morsi has not yet issued the order, the flagship state newspaper Al Ahram reported. But even if merely a threat, the preparation of the measure suggested an escalation in the political battle between Egypt's new Islamist leaders and their secular opponents over an Islamist-backed draft constitution. The standoff has already threatened to derail the culmination of Egypt's promised transition to a...

President Barack Obama will attend a charity concert where PSY is scheduled to perform after reports that the South Korean rapper participated in anti-American protests several years ago. A spokesman says Friday that the Obama family will attend the Dec. 21 Christmas in Washington concert, as is custom.