Free Republic

Barack Obama's remarkable powers of oratory are well known: In support of Chicago's Olympic bid, he flew into Copenhagen to give a heartwarming speech about himself, and they gave the games to Rio. He flew into Boston to support Martha Coakley's bid for the U.S. Senate, and Massachusetts voters gave Ted Kennedy's seat to a Republican. In the first year of his presidency, he gave a gazillion speeches on health care "reform" and drove support for his proposals to basement level, leaving Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to ram it down the throats of the American people through sheer parliamentary...

There was an emotional ceremony at the White House on Monday when President Obama welcomed slain journalist Daniel Pearl’s surviving family members to witness the signing of the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act. Pearl, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was brutally murdered in Pakistan as he was following up some leads on al-Qaeda financing in early 2002. Four Pakistanis were convicted in Pearl’s murder in July of that year. The mastermind of the kidnapping and murder, however, may have been Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who confessed to the murder under interrogation by the CIA. According to the...

The video of Dear Leader's horrific 'slip' is over at GatewayPundit. The profound idiocy of his 'captured the world's imagination' statement is so vapid and ugly that I cannot even make a TOTUS joke.

President Obama today signed into law The Daniel Pearl Freedom of Press Act, which expands efforts to identify countries that don’t share our love for the First Amendment. He also took time to honor the man the bill is named after, journalist Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and beheaded by Islamic extremists in 2002 in what the President — with nary a teleprompter in sight — called a moment that ‘captured the world’s imagination.’ The Obama administration has pushed to have Pearl’s professed killer, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, tried in civilian court.

HR 3714, The Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act, is supposed to require the State Department—those folks who apologize to China for Arizona’s imaginary human rights atrocities—to recognize “global threats” to journalists. At the signing ceremony, the president refused to take questions, thus avoiding embarrassment to the jihad community. At no time did Obama identify the barbarians who tortured and beheaded WSJ reporter Danny Pearl, then thirty eight years old. Danny, the lionhearted used his last moments of life to embrace his Jewish heritage rather than capitulate to his bloodthirsty butchers.

At a signing ceremony for the Freedom of Press Act, it is ironic and shameful that Obama could not bring himself to identify the killers who beheaded the man who fearlessly reported on the jihadist terrorists. Obama had this to say: All around the world there are enormously courageous journalists and bloggers who, at great risk to themselves, are trying to shine a light on the critical issues that the people of their country face; who are the frontlines against tyranny and oppression. (Snip) If you didn’t know already, you’d never figure out that he was talking about the Islamic...

WASHINGTON D.C. - Before family and friends of the late Wall Street Journal reporter, Daniel Pearl, President Barack Obama signed into law, the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act. Gathered in the Oval Office with President Obama were his widow, Marlane, his parents, Judea and Ruth, his siblings, Michelle and Tamara, along with his son, Adam, who, will turn 8 years old on May 28th. Other guests included Senator Chris Dodd and Representative Adam Schiff, who were the primary sponsors of the bill.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama has signed a law intended to provide more protections for a free press around the world. The law, the Daniel Pearl Freedom of Press Act, expands efforts to identify countries where press freedom is being violated.

MONDAY: President will sign 'Freedom of Press Act' in Oval Office. The signing will be pooled press... Developing...

The American Civil Liberties Union, which for years has scorned the Pentagon's military commissions as "kangaroo courts," has announced that it will mount an effort to provide top civilian defense attorneys for alleged terrorists facing trial at Guantanamo, notably the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Former Attorney General Janet Reno is among top lawyers who have endorsed the $8.5 million effort, which will helpdefray the expenses of civilian defense attorneys working on the terrorism cases. Under the military commissions scheme, the Pentagon will not reimburse volunteer civilian attorneys for their expenses. ACLU executive director Anthony Romero...

Statement by Judea and Ruth Pearl as read at the New York rally by Brian Dennehy on December 5 2009 Friends, On behalf of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, we wish to join you today in a call to reverse Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try America's new-type of enemies in New York Federal court. We wish to add to your rally the perspective of our own personal tragedy which, in many ways, has come to symbolize the depth of inhumanity that has swept our planet in the 21st century, and the sense of urgency with which this planet is...

ISLAMABAD: Omar Saeed Sheikh, a detained Pakistani militant, had made hoax calls to President Asif Ali Zardari and the Chief of Army Staff, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, in a bid to heighten Pakistan-India tensions after last year’s terrorist attacks on Mumbai, investigators have told Dawn. ‘Omar Saeed Sheikh was the hoax caller. It was he who threatened the civilian and military leaderships of Pakistan over telephone. And he did so from inside Hyderabad jail,’ investigators said. The controversy came to light after Dawn broke the story, exactly one year ago, that a hoax caller claiming to be then Indian foreign...

That’s certainly the conclusion one can draw from two stories over the last couple of days. Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA), who pushed Barack Obama to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to the US for criminal trials, says that criticism of the decision is “un-American”: Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) has strong words for the Republicans opposing Attorney General Eric Holder’s plan to bring five 9/11 suspects to New York City to face trial. “They see this as an opportunity to demagogue,” he said. “They will seize on any opportunity to do that, and that means they’ll even take a stand that’s un-American.”...

The father of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl slammed the Obama administration's decision to hold a public trial for admitted 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed -- who boasted of killing his son in Pakistan. Judea Pearl said he was "sick to the stomach" when he heard that the Justice Department decided to prosecute Mohammed in Manhattan federal court. "I don't want to hear every morning in the papers what KSM did," Pearl told The Post last night. "Danny was killed once. Now he will be killed 10 times a day. Leave him alone." VIDEO: 9/11 SUSPECTS TO BE...

"I decapitated with blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan," Mohammed said in a written declaration submitted to a military tribunal at Guantanamo last weekend. "For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Iternet holding his head," KSM said in his statement. US officials had told ABC News that identifying marks on the hand of the masked man holding Pearl's head matched those of KSM.

These are the remarks Sen. Joseph Lieberman delivered at the fourth annual Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture at Stanford University on October 18: It has been nearly eight years since Ruth and Judea Pearl were confronted by the most unspeakable horror that any parent can contemplate. But rather than retreat into grief and anger, they have instead ensured that the flame of their son’s memory, and everything he stood for, has continued to burn with undiminished urgency and relevance. Because of their work, and the work of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, Danny’s life continues to illuminate our world. Daniel Pearl’s legacy...

While an Associated Press photographer was embedded with Marines in Helmand last month, a Marine convoy was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, or RPG. It struck Lance Corporal Joshua M. Bernard severing his legs. He was treated on the scene, but later died at a combat field hospital. The AP took still photos and video of the attack, and of Bernard, as he lay dying. Several weeks later, while working on a feature story about the war in Afghanistan, the AP reporter met with Bernard's family and told his father that they had photos and video of their son before...

SNIPPET - Quote: Pak raids unravel Taliban-drugs link ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities arrested 13 Islamist militants in separate raids that police said on Monday foiled major terrorist attacks and provided clues to how drug sales help fund the Taliban.

They murdered her husband.  They killed his father.Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously wrote of American society rationalizing acceptance of ever rising levels of crime and self-destructive behavior in the 1993 Winter edition of The American Scholar.  The title of his essay was Defining Deviancy Down and became a frequently used part of the lexicon in the ensuing battles and debates in our culture wars.  The same concept of acquiescence writ large on the international stage is the subject of a Wall Street Journal column published yesterday and written by Judea Pearl, father of Danny and UCLA professor.  Judea Pearl, whose journalist son was brutally slain by...

(excerpt) Neither he, nor the millions who were shocked by his murder, could have possibly predicted that seven years later his abductor, Omar Saeed Sheikh, according to several South Asian reports, would be planning terror acts from the safety of a Pakistani jail. Or that his murderer, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now in Guantanamo, would proudly boast of his murder in a military tribunal in March 2007 to the cheers of sympathetic jihadi supporters. Or that this ideology of barbarism would be celebrated in European and American universities, fueling rally after rally for Hamas, Hezbollah and other heroes of "the resistance."...