Free Republic

Images showing high-powered military rifles in the hands of law enforcement in Ferguson, Mo., after the police shooting of an unarmed black man focused attention on a controversial Pentagon program that supplies that kind of weaponry to local police departments. Now reports reveal how some of those guns have been lost by law enforcement officials who received the weapons.

After Reaching $433,000, Donations For Ferguson Cop Halt Mysteriously By MATT PEARCE Fundraising mysteriously ends for Ferguson police officer who killed Michael Brown After raising more than $400,000 for the police officer who killed an unarmed black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Mo., two online donation pages appear to have been shut down by their organizers without explanation this weekend. On the crowdsourced fundraising site GoFundMe, "Support Officer Darren Wilson" and "Support Officer Wilson" -- two separate pages with similar names -- have raised $235,750 and $197,620, respectively, for the Ferguson police officer who shot Michael Brown on Aug. 9. A similar...

Home Podcast   concept w/Shutterstock iTunes | Download | Report Problem Kirk Sorensen: An Update On The Thorium Story China sprints while the West slumbers by Adam Taggart Sunday, August 31, 2014, 11:54 AM   Two years ago, we interviewed Kirk Sorensen about the potential for thorium to offer humanity a safe, cheap and abundant source of energy.He is an active advocate for developing liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) technology, the details of which were covered in our earlier podcast: A Detailed Exploration of Thorium's Potential As An Energy Source. That interview concluded with Kirk's observation that the West...

Legally, it doesn’t matter that both Mike Brown and Trayvon Martin were “unarmed” when shot to death.One of the most common laments to come out of Ferguson these last days has been that surely it was outrageous for Office Darren Wilson to use his service pistol to shoot an “unarmed” Mike Brown. (Earlier iterations of this narrative went further in their misinformation, describing the 18-year-old 6’4″ 292 pound Brown as a “kid” or “child,” as well as falsely claiming that Wilson shot Brown in the back, but such misinformation falls outside the scope of this post.) Similar arguments were made...

Full title: NBC reporter says military officials are ‘APOPLECTIC’ over Obama’s passive nonexistent foreign policy Meet the Press videoDirect link to youtubewww.youtube.com/watch?v=YENGfHUKwKo

MI6 Hunt British Mum Recruiting UK Muslims For Islamic State In Twisted Jihad Video Rants Aug 31, 2014 By Russell Myers London-born mum-of-one Khadijah Dare last month vowed to become the first female Islamic State fanatic to behead a British or US hostage The twisted jihadist rantings of a young British mum have turned her into such a rising star among fanatics that she has become an “immense threat”. Security services have now made finding London-born Khadijah Dare a “top priority” over fears that radical Muslims are answering her calls to leave the UK to join terror group the Islamic...

Don’t be surprised to lose if you don’t make an effort at being competitive.And if you go out of your way to make yourself less competitive, expect to lose.If that sounds like simple common sense, that’s because it is.But it’s also exactly what the US has been doing for years—enacting tax policies that sabotage its global economic competitiveness.It’s like trying to get in shape for a marathon by going on an all-McDonald’s diet. (Speaking of McDonalds, check out this funny video spoof of what their commercials should really look like.)Here are two major reasons why the US is lagging in...

FERGUSON, Mo. — Dorian Johnson had just moved from his mother’s house in St. Louis to a two-bedroom spot in the Canfield Green Apartments that he was sharing with his then-pregnant girlfriend and another roommate. Sometime in March, a buddy stopped by with a stranger. “Wow,” Johnson said, “that’s a big dude.” The dude, Michael Brown, was 6-foot-4, and he had brushed past Johnson with barely a hello as he headed to the video-game console and began to play. “I asked, ‘Why he don’t speak?’ ” Johnson recalled in a 90-minute interview with The Washington Post last week — his first...

Alana Saarinen loves playing golf and the piano, listening to music and hanging out with friends. In those respects, she's like many teenagers around the world. Except she's not, because every cell in Alana's body isn't like mine and yours - Alana is one of a few people in the world who have DNA from three people."A lot of people say I have facial features from my mum, my eyes look like my dad… I have some traits from them and my personality is the same too," says Alana. "I also have DNA from a third lady. But I wouldn't...

At least two people have been killed and 24 others wounded in Chicago amid a long Labor Day weekend. The weekend's first homicide took place late Friday night in the city's Back of the Yards neighborhood.

The children who set off for their first day of school 10 years ago in the small Caucasus town of Beslan, North Ossetia, will graduate from high school this coming academic year — at least, those who survived will. On Sept. 1, 2004, a group of 32 armed terrorists took as their hostages more than 1,110 people, including schoolchildren, their parents, relatives and teachers. The group demanded that Moscow recognize Chechnya's complete independence and withdraw all Russian forces from the restive republic. The three-day hostage crisis claimed 385 lives, including those of 156 children, and left 700 victims injured. Ten...

On September 1, 2004, Chechen and Ingush militants stormed an elementary school in the town of Beslan in the Russian republic of North Ossetia. Surging through the back-to-school crowds, the militants took 1,100 teachers, children, and relatives hostage, holding them for more than two days and demanding the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya. On the third day, a series of explosions ripped through the building, igniting fires and sparking a deadly gun battle between the militants and Russian security forces. More than 330 hostages died in the violence. A decade later, correspondent Tom Balmforth and photographer Diana Markosian traveled...

Several hundred US citizens may have had contact with Islamic State jihadists in Syria, the chairman of the powerful House Intelligence Committee said Sunday. Republican lawmaker Mike Rogers, a former FBI agent, told "Fox News Sunday" he was concerned about efforts to keep track of Americans who had links to the group. "It's in the hundreds that have at least one time traveled, participated and trained with them," Rogers said. "Some have drifted back, some have gone to Europe."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Members of a Libyan militia have taken over an abandoned annex of the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli but have not broken into the main compound where the United States evacuated all of its staff last month, U.S. officials said on Sunday. A YouTube video showed the breach of the diplomatic facility by what was believed to be a militia group mostly from the northwestern city of Misrata. Dozens of men, some armed, were seen gleefully crowded onto the patio of a swimming pool, with some diving in from the balcony of a nearby building. Libya has been...

Even before divers recovered a handcuffed man’s body from the bottom of the Lake of the Ozarks, some retired Water Patrol veterans already suspected what had gone wrong. The problem, they thought, came down to two issues: training and experience. Trooper Anthony Piercy, who arrested 20-year-old Iowan Brandon Ellingson and placed him in handcuffs minutes before he drowned, lacked enough of both on the water, they say. As evidence, they point to his use of the wrong type of life jacket for a handcuffed suspect; how he seemed, according to witnesses, to rush the arrest after one of Ellingson’s friends...

Years after former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was mocked for being concerned about "death panels," the federal government may reimburse Medicare doctors for end-of-life consultations that critics say would only encourage sick patients to reject costly treatments to prolong life. The New York Times reports that "Medicare may begin covering end-of-life discussions next year if it approves a recent request from the American Medical Association," which is "the country’s largest association of physicians and medical students" and creates "billing codes for medical services, codes used by doctors, hospitals and insurers." According to the Times, the group "recently created codes for...

So much has been written about the incident at Ferguson, Missouri, that it’s remarkable none of it is of any use. So let’s try something new. My idea is to look at the shooting as a shooting, not as an avatar of social malaise, a tragedy or an inevitability. Instead, let’s determine what can be learned from the few facts known and considered incontrovertible. I am no expert but I do know a little about this stuff. The four shots that hit Michael Brown in the right arm, according to autopsy drawing provided by Dr. Michael Baden at the insistence...

Sometimes this administration is simply beyond parody: The FBI’s most recent national threat assessment for domestic terrorism makes no reference to Islamist terror threats, despite last year’s Boston Marathon bombing and the 2009 Fort Hood shooting—both carried out by radical Muslim Americans. Instead, the internal FBI intelligence report concluded in its 2013 assessment published this month that the threat to U.S. internal security from extremists is limited to attacks and activities by eight types of domestic extremist movements—none motivated by radical Islam. They include anti-government militia groups and white supremacy extremists, along with “sovereign citizen” nationalists, and anarchists. Other domestic...

<p>The Obama administration is highly exercised about “inversion,” the practice by which an American corporation acquires a foreign company and moves its headquarters out of the U.S. to benefit from lower tax rates abroad.</p> <p>Not fair, says President Barack Obama. It’s taking advantage of an “unpatriotic tax loophole” that hardworking American families have to make up for by the sweat of their brow. His treasury secretary calls such behavior a violation of “economic patriotism.”</p>

NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS MONTH, 2014 - - - - - - - BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION In times of emergency, our Nation pulls together --neighbors support each other, communities react with compassion, and afterward, our country emerges stronger and more resilient. But before emergencies occur, we must make sure we are ready to respond, and it is every American's responsibility to be prepared. There are simple but important steps we can all take to ensure we know what to do and have what we need in the event of a crisis. National Preparedness Month...