Free Republic

In the aftermath of the bombing of a bus carrying Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, the Obama administration included an Iranian-American anti-Israel group in a White House meeting and characterized the terror attack as a “tit-for-tat” reprisal by Iran. Wednesday, officials from the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) attended a White House roundtable event for Iranian-American community leaders that featured Valerie Jarrett, one of President Obama’s closest advisers. NIAC bills itself as an Iranian-American community organization, but its work focuses on softening U.S. policy toward Iran. It advocates removing sanctions on Iran and attempted to scuttle Dennis Ross’s promotion to an Iran...

In December, Democratic Senator Bob Menendez blasted the Obama administration for the historic bad deal they reached with the Castro regime in Cuba. Senator Bob Menendez was also a top critic of Barack Obama’s foolish Iranian nuclear deal. This week Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Bob Menendez (D-NJ) spoke about the U.S.-Israel relationship and said that he was not intimidated by anyone, including Israeli’s political enemies or his political friends, when he feels they are wrong.  Today the Obama Department of Justice charged Senator Bob Menendez with corruption. CNN reported: The Justice Department is preparing to bring criminal corruption...

Alternate headline via Dave Weigel: “DOJ confirms that Bob Menendez is a New Jersey politician.”There’s no louder Democratic critic of Obama’s Iran deal than Menendez and now here he is, about to be indicted. Hmmm. Maybe I spoke too soon in questioning Lee Smith’s theory that the White House has decided to start destroying the Iran-deal skeptics on its own side. People briefed on the case say Attorney General Eric Holder has signed off on prosecutors’ request to proceed with charges, CNN has learned exclusively. An announcement could come within weeks. Prosecutors are under pressure in part because of...

President Barack Obama apparently reads articles about him — and he's often not happy about them. Longtime Obama adviser David Axelrod discussed how the president reads about himself in an interview with The New York Times published last Thursday.Look, every president says, 'I never read that stuff,' and no president is telling the truth when they say that," Axelrod said. "It’s only human to be aware of what’s being written and said about you and to be less than happy when you feel like you’re not being treated fairly."

TOKYO — When Islamic State militants posted a video over the weekend showing the grisly killing of a Japanese journalist, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reacted with outrage, promising “to make the terrorists pay the price.” Such vows of retribution may be common in the West when leaders face extremist violence, but they have been unheard of in confrontation-averse Japan — until now. The prime minister’s call for revenge after the killings of the journalist, Kenji Goto, and another hostage, Haruna Yukawa, raised eyebrows even in the military establishment, adding to a growing awareness here that the crisis could be a...

(Rome) Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, Cardinal Patron of the Sovereign Order of Malta , was received on Thursday by Pope Francis in audience. The American cardinal, born in 1948, was ordained a priest by Pope Paul VI after completing his theological studies at the Gregorian University in Rome in 1975 by Pope Paul VI. In the United States he was active in counseling and education, then completed a doctorate in canon law at the Gregorian University and returned in 1984 to the United States where he worked in pastoral care and as Vice-Chancellor of his home diocese in Wisconsin. Because...

John Boehner’s allies have thirsted for the speaker to strike back at those who betray him. He’s been walked all over for too long, they say, and he’s too nice to people who are eager to stab him in the back. He finally has learned the lesson. After he secured his third term as speaker Tuesday afternoon, losing 25 votes on the House floor to some relative-unknown members of the House Republican Conference, Boehner moved swiftly to boot Florida Reps. Daniel Webster and Rich Nugent from the influential Rules Committee. The reason was simple: Webster ran against Boehner for speaker,...

American leftism has gotten an awful lot of mileage by monopolizing the moral high ground. It is the sole force in American that favors the poor. The sole enemy of racism. The sole comforter of rape victims. The sole protector of defenseless Muslims. The sole guardian of the environment, and so on ad nauseum.It all falls apart eventually--with friends like the left, nobody needs enemies. But often overlooked is that fact that it’s bogus from the start. Any prolonged glance at the left reveals it to be an ideology of power, its major tool violence, its goal revenge.Leftism has always...

That was hilarious!

UPDATE: (Jazz) Police Commissioner William J. Bratton identified the slain officers as Wenjian Liu, a seven-year veteran of the force, and Rafael Ramos, who has been an officer since 2012. UPDATE: (Jazz) As is so often the case, the readers here at Hot Air had identified the killer at least an hour before the media put it out, but they have now confirmed what you already knew.

WASHINGTON (WJLA) – After falling victim to thieves who swiped packages off of their front porch several times, a Northeast D.C. couple decided to teach them a lesson. Tis the season for package thieves; many D.C.-area residents have recently caught robbers taking packages on surveillance. But for one couple, caught on camera wasn’t enough—they boxed up a stinky surprise from their two dogs. About 3 p.m. Friday, surveillance footage shows a man walking up and down the sidewalk in front of their home, before stealing their package and taking off. The caught-on-camera incident marked the third package taken from their...

A grieving Afghan mother took bloody revenge on the Taliban militants who gunned down her son, killing 25 and injuring five of them during a seven hour gun battle. Reza Gul watched helplessly as her son died while he manned a village checkpoint with his small team of police officers in the lawless Farah province. But flanked by her daughter and daughter-in-law, she led a counter strike on his attackers killing 25 militants and wounding another five during a ferocious seven hour gun battle. 'I couldn't stop myself and picked up a weapon,' Gul told TOLO News. 'I went to...

He survived the savagery of the Holocaust, made it to America with barely a penny and became a world-famous tailor in Brooklyn, dressing celebrities and presidents. In his new memoir, “Measure of a Man,” Martin Greenfield tells the story of his extraordinary life. In this excerpt, he explains how the concentration camps nearly stripped him of his humanity at age 16 — and the day he got it back. While at Buchenwald, the SS assigned me to work in the munitions factory. But early one morning after roll call, a soldier placed me on a 12-prisoner team to perform repairs...

Furious over the alleged rape of his 14-year-old daughter by a 45-year-old married man, the father called the man to his house on Friday night, treated him to dinner and then tortured him to death, police said. He then went to the police station, surrendered himself and gave police a detailed account on how he tortured and murdered the man. The 36-year-old reportedly burned the man’s genitals using heated tongs and then strangled him to death. The incident was reported from Northeast Delhi’s Khajuri Khas area on Saturday. Based on the man’s statement, police said the deceased, a medicine supplier,...

An abundance of polls over the last week taking the temperature of the American public on the threat posed by the Islamic State have begun to paint a clear picture of how the United States was reshaped by a summer dominated by tales of ISISÂ’s horrors. Americans, it turns out, were profoundly affected by events overseas, disquieted by the apparent new threat to national security posed by this uniquely terrorizing force, and appalled at the slaughter of American hostages.Two polls released this week showed that nine out of every 10 Americans believe ISIS represents a threat to national security....

There’s an aspect of the Ferguson “unrest” that most people don’t get.  From the macro lens of cable news, Internet, and social media, you just can’t understand the stress of the average Ferguson citizen.  A town of under 25,000 people is besieged by protesters, hooligans, criminals, and media.  I wrote this open letter to you, the residents of Ferguson, to let you know that I understand, and to tell you that life will eventually return to normal, albeit a changed “new normal”.  This too shall pass. Dear Ferguson residents,  I sympathize with you.  I know what you’re going through, and...

<p>Apparently, after waiting in line in front of a careless mother and her screaming small child, a man who was having a bad day (and had a headache) decided to ruin that family's day: The child was screaming "I want fucking pie!" so the man bought up every last pie — all 23 of them — and walked out of the Burger King location, turning only to see the enraged mother and child, helpless as the cashier told them that the restaurant had just sold out of pie.</p>

The historical review of this exhortation, made by Barack Obama in 2012, will some day reflect that it captured the essence of what his intentions were and what we have come to witness in his second term as President. To the millions who ignored the debacle that was his first term, congratulations on enabling and exacting your revenge. It should be clear that Mr. Obama’s current preoccupation is finishing his “transformation” of this nation. In foreign affairs, his administration appears to be either befuddled or else apathetic to what has been happening. Iraq is falling apart and Afghanistan will follow....

As we celebrate the Fourth of July, who can argue that our democracy is working the way the Founders intended? And who can deny that most of the blame for dysfunction must fall to the Republican Party? George Washington distrusted all political parties. He warned in his farewell address that, as they alternated power, parties would act in “the spirit of revenge” — rather than, presumably, in the best interests of the nation. The “disorders and miseries” that resulted, Washington feared, would inevitably threaten democracy. Whatever the motivation, Republicans have paralyzed our government in a way that would have shocked...

A Saudi man travelled to Qatar and killed a man who murdered his brother nearly 37 years ago, fulfilling his tribe’s long-standing wish to avenge his death. Sada newspaper said the unnamed Saudi managed to identify his brother’s Yemeni killer and locate his whereabouts in Qatar, where he had got the citizenship. “He travelled to Qatar after getting information on where his brother’s killer lives…he went straight to that man and killed him,” the paper said. It said the Saudi man’s tribe intended to stage a big party to celebrate the killer’s death but was stopped by the Prince of...