Free Republic

Defense: War clouds gather in the East China Sea as China, in one of a series of territorial claims against its neighbors, builds a helicopter base within attack range of Japan's Senkaku Islands, which Beijing claims as its own. When President Obama traveled to China last November, we don't suppose that he discussed with his Chinese counterparts their military buildup in the East and South China Seas and their ambitious territorial claims on island chains such as the Spratly, Paracel and Senkaku. As Bill Gertz reports in the Washington Free Beacon, commercial satellites observed construction of a Chinese military helicopter...

Transparency: The administration is said to be hiding for reasons of damage control a report on the soldier we traded five Taliban leaders for. Bowe Bergdahl's lawyers have already been given a charge sheet for desertion. Both Fox News and now NBC News have reported that Sgt. Bergdahl will be charged with desertion. "I have been told and confirmed by two other sources that his attorney has been given what we call a charge sheet," retired Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, a respected military analyst, told Fox's Bill O'Reilly on Monday. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski quoted senior defense officials on Tuesday...

Energy: While taking credit for increased oil and gas production on private and state lands, the president moves to put 12 million acres of the oil-rich Arctic National Wildlife Refuge off limits. OPEC and the Saudis are smiling. Whoever's in charge of presidential optics these days fits the classic definition of the blind leading the blind. It's bad enough that President Obama doesn't have time to get to Paris for a global protest against terrorism after the Charlie Hebdo attack but can meet and greet the San Antonio Spurs. But then he privately slams an invitation by Congress to Israeli...

Defense Spending: The venerable A-10 Warthog, designed to stop Soviet tanks, and the perfect weapon to "degrade and destroy" the Islamic State, as President Obama promised, faces a budgetary chopping block. We have noted the irony of how Obama was going to war against the Islamic State with weapons systems he had scrapped, ending the production runs of the F-22 Raptor and Tomahawk cruise missiles. They were dismissed by the administration as relics of the Cold War even as Russia was rearming and trying to reassemble the old Soviet Union. We've also mentioned the phasing out of the A-10 Thunderbolt,...

Taliban Swap: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says the report on the possible desertion of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl will be produced "fairly soon." Does it expose his trade for terrorists as another administration disaster? bfrrIt's bad enough that the Obama administration is conducting a clearance sale of al-Qaida detainees at Guantanamo, releasing the worst of the worst like a candy dispenser. But as the Islamic State spawns terror cells in Europe, and al-Qaida, the demise of which was greatly exaggerated, is linked to the terrorist attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris as revenge for...

Homeland Security: To keep out Islamic State terrorists, the Saudis are building a 600-mile-long barrier — complete with five layers of fencing, underground movement censors and radar cameras — on their northern border. If they can do it ... Good fences, it is said, make for good neighbors, which on a grand scale was the intent of the Great Wall of China in antiquity and the Israeli fences of more recent vintage. Both were designed to keep out intruders and to make sure all guests were invited guests. Unlike the Berlin Wall, they were built to keep hostiles out, not...

Military Spending: In the face of an expansionist China seeking to dominate the East and South China Seas, Tokyo has set its largest defense budget ever to help defend islands that it rightfully considers Japanese territory. As its military, economy and ambitions grow, so too does China's assertiveness about control of the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the larger South China Sea. Chinese military doctrine refers to establishing dominance over what it calls the "first island chain," which encompasses the East China Sea. Beijing has long declared the South China Sea to be its territorial waters and has...

Energy Policy: In spite of dramatically lower methane emissions from fracking, according to the EPA's own data, the agency wants to impose draconian regulations on the oil and gas industry similar to those on coal. The new rules that the White House announced on Wednesday aim to cut oil emissions of methane, a target of environmental groups, by 45% below 2012 levels, despite the fact that the emissions already show a sharp decline even as shale oil and gas production has skyrocketed. This war-on-shale action mirrors the administration's war on coal, with EPA rules impossible to meet economically and sometimes...

State Government: Bruce Rauner became Illinois' 42nd governor on Monday, the first Republican since 2003. He inherits a state that's been dubbed "America's Greece," but it's another opportunity to show what a GOP chief executive can do. A big part of the GOP tsunami in 2014 occurred at the state level, with Republicans expanding their hold on governors' mansions and legislatures with wins in blue states such as Maryland, Massachusetts and President Obama's Illinois. The number of GOP governors has grown to 31 from 21, control of legislatures has expanded to 68 of 98 partisan legislative chambers, and Republicans now...

New Cold War: A revised Russian military doctrine identifies NATO as Moscow's No. 1 threat, as the Obama administration announced it was returning control of 15 bases in Europe back to the host governments. Russian President Vladimir Putin gave President Obama a lump of coal in his Christmas stocking in the form of a revised strategic doctrine. It re-emphasizes that NATO, notwithstanding President Obama's "flexibility" and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's "reset" button, is the No. 1 strategic threat facing Russia. We are reminded of Obama's rebuke of Mitt Romney in the third presidential debate, when the GOP nominee...

Security: In the wake of the Islamist terrorist attack in Paris, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani argues to reinstate a policy cancelled by Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has arguably left the city as exposed as it was on Sept. 10, 2001. Although the Paris terrorist attack by Islamists has not been linked to any mosque, the historical record is dotted with similar attacks that have such links, including the Nov. 5, 2009, rampage at the Army base in Killeen, Texas, by Maj. Nidal Hasan that killed 13 and wounded 31 as the self-proclaimed "Soldier of Allah" shouted "Allahu...

Hypocrisy: Mexico's president tells ours that his country will supply any documents needed for illegal aliens to qualify under Barack Obama's executive amnesty. At the same time, Mexico deports more illegals than we do. In an Oval Office meeting with President Obama on Tuesday, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said that his administration "is ready to give (support) to the Mexican population living in the United States so that they can show the documentation that is necessary to prove that they have been in the United States prior to 2010" to meet the five-year requirement of Obama's amnesty plan and...

Environmentalism: Re-upping on delusional climate-change fantasies, "Governor Moonbeam" asked in his inauguration speech Monday for the Golden State to meet half its energy needs with renewable energy by 2030. Gov. Jerry Brown, who leads the state that hosted Solyndra, embraces bird-chopping wind turbines and builds crispy critter-producing solar panel farms, is a leading advocate of renewable energy and environmental protection. As pollution from coal-fired plants and industries in China wafted across the Pacific, he took a deep breath at his fourth inauguration as the state's chief executive and doubled down on green energy's failed promise by tasking California to fight...

Congress: With polls showing most GOP voters in opposition to the Speaker's budget deal and saying they would "probably" or "definitely" prefer a new leader, a Tea Party favorite fires a shot heard around the political world. In 2010, House Speaker John Boehner loved the Tea Party. The grass-roots movement, which arose in opposition to manifestations of big government such as ObamaCare and unlimited taxation and regulation, put the GOP back in control of the House of Representatives and made Boehner Speaker. But by December 2013, Boehner loved the Tea Party and other conservative groups not so much. They had...

Republicans: Political purges may work in totalitarian states, but in a democracy they can be self-defeating. The senator who called the Tea Party "wacko birds" should realize the GOP's real enemies are called Democrats. It's been said that all politics is local, and normally a state party's internal squabbles would not be national news. But when they involve a former presidential candidate on an issue that will affect the selection of the GOP's 2016 presidential nominee and chances, we sit up and take notice. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who lost the 2008 election to Barack Obama and who is running...

Leadership: An Army couple is told to move their wedding from the 16th tee of a golf course so President Obama can play through. Is it any wonder that his approval rating among the military is at a record low? Just 15% of active-duty service members gave their commander in chief a thumbs-up in the most recent Military Times survey, with 55% saying they disapproved of the job that President Obama is doing. It certainly didn't help his image when two Army captains were told hours before their wedding that they had to move it so Obama could play through...

Regulation: Cures for cancer and Ebola having been found, the federal ubernannies have decreed that sprinkles should no longer adorn kids' ice cream because they contain the trans fat that liberal groups once pushed for. Come the New Year, the Food and Drug Administration, ignoring the principle that in most cases it's the dose that defines the poison, will issue new regulations designed to remove even trace amounts of hydrogenate oils, commonly known as trans fats, from our diets. Trans fats have been in our foods since the 1950s to increase shelf life and improve taste. A small amount appears...

Cover-Up: Reporter Sharyl Attkisson alleges the White House and, specifically, press secretary Josh Earnest are hiding official photos of what President Obama was doing the night four Americans died in the Benghazi attack. Other than possibly resting up for a fundraising trip to Las Vegas the night of Sept. 11, 2012, when an American ambassador and three others were killed in a terrorist strike on our Benghazi mission, we do not have a clear idea or a definitive timeline of what President Obama was doing during those fateful hours. As we asked in May 2013, where was the president during...

Crime: Talking about a war on cops motivated by race-baiting is mere "conjecture," according to the NAACP, which says that the assassination of two New York cops is an "example of the need for strict gun-control measures." After the tragic death of Eric Garner while resisting arrest, Mayor Bill de Blasio told New Yorkers how he had warned his biracial son to be wary of cops who, in any confrontation, might misinterpret his actions in a way they would not with a white suspect. Cops are the enemy, not the criminals they try to protect you from. Well, on Friday...

Defense: China has just tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile that can deliver up to 10 independently targeted nuclear warheads, using technology given to them on President Clinton's watch to launch communications satellites. The Dec. 13 test of the DF-41 was the third for the new weapon. But it marked the first test of a multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle, or MIRV, technology and raises by an order of magnitude the nuclear threat to the U.S. as China continues its massive arms buildup. And disturbingly, the threat is in large part of our own making. "The DF-4, which could be...