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U.S. Navy SEALs, like the teams that killed Osama bin Laden, are grateful for nation's show of support but are growing angry with the continued focus on their operation, tactics, and tools, claiming it could jeopardize future raids and their safety. "My friends in the community tell me they're very glad for the bit of attention they got," said former Pentagon deputy undersecretary Jed Babbin, "but at some point the best way to help them is to stop. You guys in the press have done a good job, but stop for God's sake, stop." [See photos of the reaction to...

It has been my custom to write a lighthearted year-end column, full of cheerful grumpiness that pokes fun at friend and foe alike. But not this year. It’s not that 2009 hasn’t provided a wealth of material. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is a constant source of laughable chicanery, but Reid is beyond parody. He was perfectly serious in saying that opposition to the healthcare bill is tantamount to opposing the elimination of slavery. How can any parodist improve on that? And what better joke to make about our wastrel president than to merely repeat his statement that we...

If Matt Latimer’s new book had been released a few weeks ago, the Tea Party marchers would have hoisted him onto their shoulders and carried him -- laughing and cheering -- all the way up Capitol Hill. Laughing, because Latimer’s new book,Speech-less: Tales of a White House Survivor, renews conservatives’ license to chuckle at ourselves. Cheering, because it lifts the burden of George W. Bush from our shoulders. There are only two kinds of people who won’t like this book. First are the liberal media who tied the Gordian knot that binds conservatism to Bush. As Byron York reported in...

Over ONE MILLION copies sold! #1 on the NYTimes Bestseller List for 17 weeks! Over one million copies in print!Buy it… read it… live it!“Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.” --Mark Levin in Liberty and TyrannyWelcome to “The Levin Lounge”… Step in and have a virtual FRink.Taking the country by storm, one radio station at a time – and kicking the BUTTS of the competition! Welcome all, to the most FUN LIVE THREAD on FreeRepublic.com! You can call Mark’s show: 1-877-381-3811

Panic on Wall Street -- and in every foreign financial market -- was supposed to be calmed by the Bush/Paulson $700 billion bailout of the financial industry. Confidence among investors and bankers would be restored, we were told, if only this huge chunk of our free market were nationalized. XXX ... --- XXX First, let’s minimize government intervention in the free market. If it is necessary to inject capital into banks directly, let it be by loans, not by purchasing the banks. Coupled with that must be cancellation of Paulson’s monarchic plan to make the government the home mortgage broker...

There’s a very odd mood among House Republicans this week. Rebelling against Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s adjournment of the House last Friday, Reps. Mike Pence (R-Ind) and Tom Price (R-Ga) had a sort of Howard Beale moment. Beale, the mad newscaster in “Network," asked his audience to throw open a window and shout, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more.” Pence and Price refused to leave the House floor and began the open revolt against Nancy Pelosi’s “Drill Nothing” Congress. Five days into the revolt -- as I saw yesterday in the Republican cloak room...

It’s enough to make you weep. Conservative House Republicans -- led by Indiana’s Mike Pence and Georgia’s Tom Price -- took Friday’s spontaneous outburst against Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s summer adjournment without a vote on offshore drilling and turned it into an organized revolt that was melting the Capitol’s telephone and fax lines. And then the White House announced that the President wouldn’t call the House back for a special session to deal with the gasoline price crisis. But the House Republicans aren’t dismayed. This isn’t about the President, one told me last evening. It’s about putting pressure on the Speaker....

EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT! Written by Melanie Morgan    Thursday, 05 June 2008 The rest of the country is now being notified in press releases and emails what I have been hinting at on this website for the past few days.The impossibly funny, smart, warm and intellectually driven Ann Coulter is going to join us in the live broadcast "From the Frontlines" on June 26th at HotAir.com presented by Move America Forward, UStream.tv and Kithbridge, Inc.Liberals HATE Ann Coulter. Conservatives LOVE Ann Coulter. Most folks, though, don't know a side of her that I do. Ann is unstintingly generous in giving support to...

Author and magazine editor Jed Babbin is very concerned about two cases being decided in foreign courts that he believes could have an adverse effect on First Amendment rights in the U.S. Jed Babbin, editor of Human Events, served as a deputy undersecretary of defense in President George H.W. Bush's administration. He explains that a Muslim with possible connections to terrorist funding is using a British court to sue Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, an American author who wrote a book critical of Islam that sold in Britain on the Internet. And in Canada, a similar case has been brought against Mark...

RS: Well, about three years ago John McCain became probably the first politician who declared the CIA a 'rogue agency.' And it is because inside the CIA, the bureaucracy at Langley had a priority of leaking and stopping Bush administration programs, rather than following the policy directives of the White House. And we’ve seen that in countless leaks about terrorist surveillance programs, the prisons where they were trying to interrogate top-ranking al Qaeda prisoners, in station reports from Baghdad. When Porter Goss took over the CIA in 2004, really trying to reform it, what happened? He died by a million...

On July 20, the CIA issued the most extraordinary press release. Director of Public Affairs Mike Mansfield wrote: We generally don't comment on books, but we have departed from that on occasion, and have decided to do so in connection with Rowan Scarborough's new book, "Sabotage: America's Enemies Within the CIA."

Yesterday, I participated in a long conference call with Gen. David Petraeus, the new overall commander of coalition forces in Iraq. In a wide-ranging discussion, Gen. Petraeus spoke about a lot of developments, especially the heightened cooperation Americans are receiving not only from the Iraqi government and its security forces but also from the general population. Many of the community leaders across the country, including within the Sunni Triangle, are cooperating and providing highly valuable intelligence about insurgents hiding and operating in their communities. There have been a number of reports that the "ROE" -- rules of engagement under which...

TIME: DO YOU HAVE A COMMITMENT FROM ISRAEL THAT IT WON'T EXPAND THE WAR INTO SYRIA OR IRAN? RICE: The Israelis have said publicly that they do not want to widen this war. And I take them at their word. TIME: IS THERE A PLAN TO PURSUE A COMPROMISE ON EXCHANGING PRISONERS? RICE: The release of the abducted prisoner [by Hamas] unconditionally has been called for by many international bodies, including the G-8. And everybody recognizes there is an issue with Lebanese prisoners. But in the diplomacy, there isn't contemplation of suggesting a prisoner exchange. TIME: MANY COMMENTATORS BELIEVE THE...

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and British Prime Minister Tony Blair want to send an international force to separate Israel from Hizballah terrorists in Lebanon. Mr. Blair said a UN force should be sent to, "...stop the bombardment coming over into Israel and therefore gives Israel a reason to stop its attacks on Hezbollah." Kofi Annan said such a force could, "...pursue the idea of stabilization." But their idea assumes first, that a cease-fire would protect those worthy of protection, and second that restoring the region's ante bellum "stability" would promote long-term peace. Both assumptions are utterly false. Hizballah is...

A new book out today, Showdown: Why China Wants War with the United States, argues that China is bent on picking a fight with the world’s remaining superpower—and shows just how that war might play out, in scenarios that read like episodes from a Tom Clancy novel. Jed Babbin, Showdown co-author (with Edward Timperlake), agreed to answer some questions about the new book, and about what the U.S. needs to do to counter the China threat.

Valerie Plame should be the next Director of Central Intelligence, not Gen. Mike Hayden. Now that the CIA's Praetorian Guard has -- with the connivance of National Intelligence Director John Negroponte -- rid itself of Porter Goss, the CIA is confidently preparing to march back into the intelligence dark ages that preceded 9/11. Gen. Hayden -- former head of the National Intelligence Agency and most famous for his strong defense of the NSA terrorist surveillance program -- is slated to be nominated for the DCI post today. Hayden, now Negroponte's deputy and choice for DCI, will face tough questioning in...

WASHINGTON - Everyone is saying that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s days are numbered, thanks in part to increasing calls by some former generals for Rumsfeld’s resignation. But Rumsfeld was hired by George W. Bush to do precisely what he has done to the consternation of the generals who are now coming out to complain about him. When President Bush brought Rumsfeld back to the Pentagon, the president told him to shake up the Pentagon, to transform it from the Cold War structure and culture that it was stuck in to a new force with strategies that could respond to...

The European Cold War ended when the Soviet Union dissolved. The Pacific Cold War against China has been going on since the first one ended. In this skirmish, China's president Hu Jintao will visit the White House this week. ...Our enormous trade deficit with China aside, Hu Jintao's regime is a partner with Russia in forestalling UN Security Council action against Iran's nuclear weapons program and a major trading partner with every nation on our list of state sponsors of terrorism. While Vladimir Putin toils diligently to reestablish authoritarianism in Russia, Hu's China is a totalitarian state that is pursuing...

By Jed Babbin Whoever said February is the cruelest month was clearly ignorant of April. We haven't even suffered the joys of Tax Day yet, but in ten short days so much has been fouled up it must be some sort of record. The Senate has plumbed the depths of illegal immigration, the New Yorker's Sy Hersh has a case of the nuclear vapors over Iran, disarmed Brit gardeners are being terrorized by a giant rabbit, and the Dems have finally identified a group that is a legitimate target of violence. And while the Dems gasp for air, their EMS...

Earlier this afternoon, I had a very unpleasant conversation with Mr. Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer who is now out and about defending Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame. Johnson, in my interview with him, confirmed some things, left some open, but revealed something startling: the defense of Joe Wilson is apparently being run from inside the CIA. Johnson came up on the scope when he accused Gens. Paul Vallely and Tom McInerny of falsely attacking Wilson. Vallely, you may recall, said last week on John Batchelor's ABC radio show that Wilson -- husband of CIA employee Valerie Plame --...

HERE IS A TASTED TO THOSE INTERVIEWS BY JOHN BATCHELOR you never know what you are going to hear on his show some times it the latest on Space he is a history buff and many times on American or world history many interesting topics! LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW AUDIODownload the MP3 audio file Abu Ahmed, the Deputy Head of Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in the Gaza Strip. Interviewed by John Batchelor and Aaron Klein. Aired March 13, 2006. ( 13M 50S ; 12.6MB) WABC RADIOWMAL RADIO

A useful battle among conservatives began last week when National Review's Rich Lowry fired a salvo at those he calls the "to hell with them hawks." Lowry aims at the head of the conservatives who grow more skeptical of the president's strategy. Lowry accuses them of writing off the reform of Islam, of misunderstanding the lessons of Vietnam, and of failing to understand that our goal in this war is to win the hearts and minds of all Islam. Lowry has picked a good fight, and his challenge must be met because the neo-Wilsonians such as he are profoundly wrong...

Radical Islam (unlike the actual religion) tolerates no other religion, and demands that its adherents give up the basic human freedoms enshrined in our Bill of Rights.

Freedom of speech and freedom of the press aren't in the First Amendment to protect what's popular, because there's no need to. Our Constitution protects the worst because the Founders knew that if you don't, you can't protect the best. The cartoon intifada proves that too many Muslims believe that our First Amendment rights should -- by law or violence -- be limited to what Islamic law allows. Free speech has its limits -- such as leaking government secrets to the press and shouting "fire" in a crowded theater -- but the limits don't depend on whose ox is being...

Turned on the radio, happened to catch the last segment of the John Batchelor show. He was interviewing Jeb Babbin....who many of us know and respect, and read his columns. I was absolutely stunned by what Babbin just said...hadn't seen/heard it anywheres..and thought it merits reposting for your benefit....

I was listening to the John Batchelor Program last night. Jed Babbin, of the American Spectator, was a guest last night, Friday, February 3, 2006. Babbin said several things last night: 1) The Justice Department investigation into the leaking of the NSA program is pointing to Capital Hill. 2) The Justice Department is looking to use polygraphs on members of Congress and their staffers. 3) Any Senate member of Congress who refuses a polygraph directive by the Justice Department automatically loses their security clearance if they have one. 4) The names being rumored to be a target of the investigation...

    Time to Push BackBy Jed Babbin Published 1/9/2006 12:07:56 AM It's time to take the gloves off, and push back -- hard -- against the dishonest and deranged rhetoric of the left. Thanks to their relentless Bush-bashing and their reckless condemnations of how we are fighting the war, the latest polls say that only about one American in three says the nation is headed in the right direction and only 44% say the president is doing a good job. The hyperlib rhetoric not only flies in the face of the facts -- the economy is booming and the war...

Roberts Rakes Rockefeller - Tuesday, December 20, 2005 @ 12:53:30 PM Yesterday, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), co-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee (and probable source of many leaks of secret information) released a hand-scrawled letter he had written to VP Cheney two years ago after being briefed on the NSA domestic intel effort. Rockefeller, trying to score political points, raised the letter as proof of his doubts about the NSA program, and that his hands were tied, unable to do anything about it. This morning, Intel Committee Chair Pat Roberts (R-KS) released this statement which blows Rockefeller out of the...

    All the President's SpiesBy Jed Babbin Published 12/19/2005 12:09:32 AM There are politically motivated criminals in our government who should be unmasked and punished to the fullest extent of the law. These people have leaked some of our most sensitive secrets and damaged our national security for no reason other than to discredit President Bush. Forget the Plame nonsense. That -- according to a CIA assessment -- caused no damage at all. No, I'm talking about the leaks of the secret CIA detention facilities in Europe and elsewhere where terrorist detainees are kept. I'm talking about the leak of...

Last week, I went to Iraq to search for John Murtha's army. You know: the one he described as "broken, worn out," and "living hand to mouth." Thanks to the help of some friends in low places, I met with a lot of the troops and almost all of the commanders around Baghdad and at Camp Fallujah. Murtha was not just wrong, but damnably wrong. And so, unsurprisingly, is Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, who declared the war unwinnable. I promised to bring back as many of the facts as I could. Here are the two most important ones: First,...

HH: Joining me now, Jed Babbin, former assistant secretary of the Defense Department, often heard as my guest host extraordinaire on the Hugh Hewitt Show, just returned, maybe hours ago, from Iraq. Jed, welcome home. Give us the details of your trip. JB: Well, we got there...it's a two day process getting in there, Hugh. You've got to go overseas, then stop in Kuwait. Then you pick up a military plane and fly to Baghdad. We got there early Thursday morning, and went straight into briefings. We basically, over the course of three days, went out and saw a lot...

In Search of Murtha's ArmyBy Jed Babbin Published 12/13/2005 12:10:46 AM Last week, I went to Iraq to search for John Murtha's army. You know: the one he described as "broken, worn out," and "living hand to mouth." Thanks to the help of some friends in low places, I met with a lot of the troops and almost all of the commanders around Baghdad and at Camp Fallujah. Murtha was not just wrong, but damnably wrong. And so, unsurprisingly, is Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, who declared the war unwinnable. I promised to bring back as many of the facts...

Syria? - Friday, November 25, 2005 @ 8:40:37 AM Debkafile was reporting yesterday that American forces had penetrated the Syrian border and were engaged directly with Syrian troops west of the city of al-Qaim. Al-Qaim is a border town on the Baghdad to Damascus highway, where very heavy fighting took place during the 2003 Iraq invasion between US forces and fleeing Saddam forces going to Syria. As of 0820 today, Defense Department sources could not confirm and would not deny the truth of the Debkafile report. If it true, it is of enormous significance. We have tolerated terrorist sanctuaries in...

This comes in the wake of the Woodward revelation that a former administration official discussed Plame/Flame with Bob Woodward before Libby ever spoke to a reporter. Also, that Woodward can not recall if he revealed the information to Libby. I am paraphrasing what I heard on tonight's John Batchelor Program during the 10:30 p.m. to 10:45 p.m. EST time slot on 770 WABC here in New York. Keep in mind that the last time I posted iformation from this program it was regarding John Fund saying Harriet Meirs Harriet Meirs nomination will be pulled. My post was two weeks before...

    White House HalloweenBy Jed Babbin Published 10/31/2005 12:09:09 AM Among the ghosts and goblins that roam the halls of the White House tonight, Dubya can walk confident and unafraid. Never before in American history has such a beleaguered president been so blessed by the weakness and ineptness of his political foes. The mainstream media, the Dems, and even the terrorist nations are lining up, chins jutted forward, perfectly positioned to be knocked clear out of the ring. This week is the tipping point of the George W. Bush presidency: he can move the nation forward -- leaping tall quanta...

Those who despise George Bush see him as the Second Coming of Richard Nixon, and they wish for nothing more fervently than a Second Going: a Watergate-magnitude scandal that will drive him from office. Their last best hope is Patrick Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald, appointed two years ago to investigate the CIA's complaint that Valerie Plame's CIA employ had been leaked to columnist Robert Novak, seemed destined to disappoint them. A month ago, even a week ago, it was possible without delusion to believe that Fitzgerald's investigation would end without indictments. But no longer. Thanks to a stream of leaks that have...

The media have filled the political and intellectual vacuum that left the Dems entirely bereft of ideas, able to say nothing other than "no." Today the opposition party to the Republicans is not the Dems but the mainstream media itself. They write, they speak, and the Dems follow. Sometimes it's so obvious it's comical.

It's now four years since 9-11. Four years since we watched, horrified, as the second airliner hit the World Trade Center tower, since a pal called me to say he was standing out on his balcony watching the Pentagon burn. You can forgive yourself if those images, though etched permanently in your mind, also seem faded into the mists of time. This week end, everyone who loves the freedoms they enjoy should take time to remember 9-11, because we dare not forget. When we remember 9-11, we need to remember it in the context of who we are, and who...

The scenes of the Hurricane Katrina disaster are beyond horrific. As they play across our television screens, they look more like the pictures of last December's Southwest Asia tsunami than anything we've ever seen in America. No one can even collect the dead, because an increasingly desperate search for the living goes on into the night. As the Red Cross and FEMA organize disaster relief, and as Americans reach into their hearts and their pockets to donate to help fellow Americans, there is another part of America working hard. There is one thing the tsunami and Katrina have in common:...

The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into whether Democratic Senators Dick Durbin, Jay Rockefeller and Ron Wyden leaked details about a secret "black ops" CIA satellite program last December in a move that may have seriously compromised national security, former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Jed Babbin said on Saturday. "The CIA made a request to the Justice Department to investigate and possibly bring criminal charges against these three [senators]," Babbin told WABC Radio host Monica Crowley. "My information is that investigation is ongoing." Mr. Rockefeller is the Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Mr. Durbin is...

It's probably not that bad in the United States, but if the al-Q recruiters, the radical imams in mosques and the other terrorist sympathizers here aren't watched and -- when they break the law arrested and imprisoned -- we will have the same problem Britain has. Is this a condemnation of Islam? No. It's only a recognition of reality that should be characteristic of American political speech. Instead, we have the Durbin-Kennedy Deanocrats hammering our soldiers and aiding the enemy. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al Qaeda chief in Iraq, sent a thank you note to the Dick Durbins and Ted...

It matters enormously, in every non-political sense, who President Bush nominates to succeed "moderate" Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. But politically it matters not at all. We are about to endure a Supreme Court confirmation that will make the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention look tame. Only a day after O'Connor announced her retirement, and without a successor in sight, NOW president Kim Gandy declared a state of emergency regarding women's rights. Soon we'll see everything from the Million Mooron March on Washington to a Senate filibuster showdown that the President may not win. This is win or go...

Hillary Clinton is neither the anti-Christ nor the smartest politician around. We know, from pretty much everything she has done in her adult life that she is dishonest, opportunistic, and someone we cannot possibly trust with the security of our nation. Forget all that for the moment. Focus on the fact that she, like Howard Dean, John Kerry and Dennis Kucinich, is a pure-as-Ivory-Soap liberal. Unlike the Deanocrat party leadership, Clinton is smart enough to realize that undiluted hyper-liberalism isn't a platform that will support any successful presidential candidacy. Clinton has, at least since her college days, been a near-radical...

What do our students understand about the war we’re in and how we are fighting it? With all the condemnations from political groups, the media and the Blame America First crowd, what do our young adults believe about our nation? That question is second only to the question of what we have to do to win the war, and not only because our young adults are called on to fight it. This war will outlast our generation and eventually it will be they who have to reckon with our enemies and decide our course. We – and they -- are...

For those of us who are occasional targets of the Soros-funded propaganda machines, it's encouraging to discover a useful purpose that they can serve. The hyperlib machinery, and the reactions it commands, are as accurate a gauge as I can find to measure the import of the key points of the liberal dogma. As demonstrated by the reaction they manufactured to some comments I made on MSNBC last week, the volume of hate mail the organized hyperlibs generate is directly proportional to the importance they assign to an issue and the weakness of their position. At issue was the so-called...

The judiciary is supposed to be the ultimate protector of our freedoms, the Constitutional creature that guards us against the depredations of Congress and the presidency. Instead, it has become our greatest source of anguish. The other branches of government produce enough on their own. The President often reduces liberals to sputtering outrage and has the same effect on conservatives when the subject of illegal immigration comes up. Congress -- when it's not performing its primary role of inside-the-Beltway comic relief -- often leaves us scowling and mumbling (especially in April which, thanks to them, truly has become the cruelest...

Though it's only the second of three interim reports you might think, judging by the mini-feeding frenzy in the conservative media, that the latest report on the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food-for-Bribes-for-Weapons scam was Kofi Annan's death warrant. Forget it, guys. There is a lot in this report that would result in the firing of a mere mortal, but this is the most anti-American and pro-despotism Secretary General in U.N. history. The EUnuchs and all the others who depend on the U.N. to rein in the wild American cowboy can't imagine letting him go. When the first Volcker report came out, Kofi Annan's...

The ancient writ of habeas corpus -- literally, "deliver the body" -- is the legal remedy for illegal detention by the executive branch. Abe Lincoln, in his most dictatorial act, suspended the writ in 1861, trying to suppress secessionist sentiment in Maryland. As dictatorial acts go, the March 12 order of U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer -- banning movement of Yemeni detainees at Gitmo back to Yemen -- ranks right up with Old Abe's. The Gitmo detainees -- the kind of people Gen. Richard Myers once described as being eager to chew through the hydraulic control lines of an aircraft...

Listen While You Freep! All programs are replayed for 23 hours and again on weekends so tune in when it’s convenient for YOU! Call In Number - 866-884-TALK (8255) Heating the EDGE of a New Media! 1pm EST - "American Warriors!" Buzz is joined once again by Ollie North, retired Marine officer, best selling author and star of Fox News' "War Stories." Buzz and Ollie will discuss America's men and women in uniform, the patriots who fight for liberty and national security. War mongers? NO! Selfless citizens who serve their country in time of need? ABSOLUTELY! Colonel North is the...