Free Republic

When two men attempted to rob two other men Tuesday night on the 2300 block of Fontaine Avenue, the victims didn’t let their assailants get away. “The two victims took them on,” Charlottesville police spokesman Lt. Ronnie Roberts said. “The suspects tried to flee and the victims tried to hang onto them.” As the “physical fray” continued near the victims' home, their roommate called police, who arrived three minutes later, Roberts said. When police arrived, they found Johnny Calderon, 19, and Gerald William Allen, 18, down on the pavement, being detained by the victims, he said. Authorities are still unsure...

Israel could be forgiven for having a siege mentality -- given that at any moment, old frontline enemies Syria and Egypt might spill their violence over common borders. The Arab Spring has turned Israel's once-predictable adversaries into the chaotic state of a Sudan or Somalia. The old understandings between Jerusalem and the Assad and Mubarak kleptocracies seem in limbo. Yet these tragic Arab revolutions swirling around Israel are paradoxically aiding it, both strategically and politically -- well beyond the erosion of conventional Arab military strength. In terms of realpolitik, anti-Israeli authoritarians are fighting to the death against anti-Israeli insurgents and...

U.S. Department of Defense education materials obtained by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, warn of “extremists” that will “talk of individual liberties, states’ rights, and how to make the world a better place.” Judicial Watch and other conservative media outlets claim the disclosure indicates the department is teaching that conservative views are “extremist” in nature. The guide is reportedly authored by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, a Defense Department-funded diversity training center. Further, the documents cite the left-leaning Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) when identifying “hate groups.”

Brazil and Turkey Create Groups to Study Defense Development Projects (Source: Brazil Ministry of Defence; issued Aug. 22, 2013) (Issued in Portuguese only; edited unofficial translation by defense-aerospace.com) ANKARA --- Brazil and Turkey will strengthen bilateral cooperation in defense through the creation of five working groups to study partnerships in the naval, aeronautics, space, command and control and cyber defense fields. The decision is the result of an official trip this week by Defense Minister Celso Amorim, Over three days, Amorim and his entourage met with Turkish political, military and corporate executives in Ankara. The decision to create working groups...

It has been bothering me for sometime, but on my way to work this AM, it made my blood boil to a point where it needs to be addressed... We as Real Americans need to stop elevating persons that we stand against.

There are many things for which on principle we should stand. As long-time readers know, I’m keenly sensitive to oil price movements, believing that high oil prices, more than any other single factor, were responsible for the systemic failure of the financial industry worldwide in 2008. I have often argued, thanks to the work of the our contributors at Political Calculations, that high gas prices result in layoffs in the private workforce, something we can ill afford right now. In general, my strongest indictment of the Obama administration is the abandonment of the common sense and common policy that gives...

Are America’s nuclear-power facilities uniquely vulnerable to terrorist attack? A new report by the Department of Defense says none of the 107 reactor sites in the US have adequately protected themselves against terrorist attack, but the bar seems a little high — at least as McClatchy reports: All 107 nuclear reactors in the United States are inadequately protected from terrorist attacks, according to a Defense Department-commissioned report released Thursday.The report, by the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project at the University of Texas at Austin, warns that the current security required of civilian-operated reactors fails to safeguard against airplane attacks, rocket-propelled grenades...

Knife-wielding burglar bruised and battered by 72-year-old retired boxer by Brent McCluskey 23-year-old Gregory McCalium, bit off more than he could chew when he threatened 72-year-old retired boxer, Frank Corti. When McCalium forced his way into Corti’s house, he had no idea what he was getting himself into. Corti may be advanced in age, but he still means business. Corti, who lives in Botley, Oxford, served with the Royal Engineers in North Africa from 1956-58 and had years of boxing experience, McCalium only had half a plan and a knife. McCalium lunged with his blade, but Corti was quick. He...

Shelton Orders Shutdown of Space Fence By Mike Gruss | Aug. 6, 2013 A two-mile array that makes up a part of the U.S. Air Force Space Fence. Credit:Navy photo/SpaceNews artist's concept UPDATED 1:45 p.m. EDTWASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force is shutting down a key part of its network for tracking satellites and orbital debris, possibly as soon as Oct. 1, according to an Aug. 1 memo obtained by SpaceNews.Gen. William Shelton, commander of Air Force Space Command, “has directed that the Air Force Space Surveillance System be closed and all sites vacated” effective Oct. 1, the memo said. The...

The recommendations in the Department of Defense’s latest strategic review would produce both a hollow and aging military unable to engage in simultaneous conflicts involving U.S. interests, defense budget experts said Tuesday. The experts spoke at the Brookings Institution about the Pentagon’s efforts to prepare for $500 billion in spending cuts during the next decade due to budget sequestration. Mackenzie Eaglen, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, noted that the sequestration cuts come on the heels of about $1 trillion in military spending reductions already enacted under President Barack Obama’s administration. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel discussed the...

Spend the money! Spend it all! Spend it now! That’s the distinct impression created by a recent e-mail sent by Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) contracting and budget officers to their colleagues. “Our available funding balances remain large in all appropriations — too large to spend” just on small supplemental funds often required by existing contracts, the June 27 e-mail said. DISA’s budget is $2 billion. “It is critical in our efforts to [spend] 100% of our available resources this fiscal year,” said the e-mail from budget officer Sannadean Sims and procurement officer Kathleen Miller. “It is also imperative that...

Former Director of Central Intelligence, R. James Woolsey led a panel discussion on the growing and imminent threat a nuclear or natural electromagnetic pulse, EMP, to America's power grid and devastating loss of life that would follow such an attack. President Bill Clinton’s former Director of Central Intelligence, R. James Woolsey, led a panel discussion on Natural EMPthe growing – and perhaps imminent – threat of a natural or nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) to the U.S. electric grid and other critical infrastructures that sustain modern civilization and the lives of millions of Americans. The event was sponsored by the newly...

The Obama administration is threatening to veto the 2014 defense authorization bill unless health care insurance premiums and co-pays are increased, Investor's Business Daily said Wednesday. The administration also wants to reduce the proposed 1.8 percent pay increase for military personnel. According to the Army Times, the administration says the bill is "too generous with military pay" and not generous enough for civilian employees. The administration only wants to give service members a one percent raise. "A 1.8 percent increase would keep pace [with] the average increase last year in private sector salaries, while the 1 percent raise would create...

Politics: A veto of the defense authorization bill is threatened unless the president gets his way. He wants health care insurance premiums and co-pays increased for troops and scheduled military pay raises to be reduced. Being used as photo-ops for presidential speeches and willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for your country apparently does not exempt our troops from the rising health care premiums that President Obama said, along with sea levels, would not rise under his administration. The next time a soldier hears "give me 50," it might be dollars and not push-ups. The White House has threatened to...

We have listened to President Obama's comments about the verdict in the Zimmerman Case. People are focusing on this quote: "Trayvon Martin could've been me 35 years ago." To focus on this one line misses the nuances of the President's message, which includes comments about how African Americans view the Zimmerman Case in the context of the history of racial disparity in America. For more than a year, we have been listening to the conversation about this case – from voices on every side – and we have become very sensitive to the racial context that surrounds this case. We...

Shew said that after Ms. Brower was told that she could get water from a hose attached to a spigot on the outside of the Newman house, she and two men forced their way into the house. He said the two men were later identified as Colin Smith, 18, of 117 South Holden Road in Greensboro and Don Delevicchio Thompson, 36, of Raleigh. Shew said he was told that Robert Monroe Newman, holding a gun, came down a hallway in the house and an exchange of several rounds of gunfire followed. He said that in addition to Robert Monroe Newman...

Police were called to a home on Pawnee Avenue off of East 185th Street just after 9 a.m. 19 Action News has learned a woman was leaving with her two children when one child noticed the armed suspects and said, "Mommy, he has a gun." The armed suspects demanded the woman hand over her purse and cell phone. The woman's fiance, who was inside the home, saw the armed suspects with his family, pulled out his own gun and opened fire through the window. "I see a man in a grey hoodie, dickies and a white little mask covering half...

Huh. Roderick Scott went out of his house to confront a trio of punks breaking into cars in his Greece, New York neighborhood. Scott’s story was that he fired two rounds at one of them when the young man charged him after being told to freeze and wait for the cops. So, we largely have an inverse image of the incident in which Trayvon Martin perished, complete with the kinfolk weeping thusly . . . “The message is that we can all go out and get guns and feel anybody that we feel is threatening us and lie about the fact,” said...

African Americans benefit from Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law at a rate far out of proportion to their presence in the state’s population, despite an assertion by Attorney General Eric Holder that repealing “Stand Your Ground” would help African Americans. Black Floridians have made about a third of the state’s total “Stand Your Ground” claims in homicide cases, a rate nearly double the black percentage of Florida’s population. The majority of those claims have been successful, a success rate that exceeds that for Florida whites. Nonetheless, prominent African Americans including Holder and “Ebony and Ivory” singer Stevie Wonder, who...

<p>A man is in critical condition Saturday after being shot by a homeowner who says he opened fire in self-defense after the man pulled out a screwdriver during a fight.</p> <p>Neither the homeowner nor the man have been identified by authorities.</p>