Free Republic

Labor Raid: The FBI raids the Chicago home of a local union leader looking for terrorist connections as the union's former chief is investigated for corruption. Why are we not surprised? Thuggery and corruption are not quite synonyms for unionism, but it gets very close when you consider the Service Employees International Union, formerly led by Andy Stern. From being involved in fraudulent voter registration in Texas to beating up Tea Party activists outside town hall meetings in Missouri, SEIU's reputation is well-established. Now we can possibly add a linkage to terrorism. On Friday, the FBI searched eight addresses in...

Online shoppers were amused when they spotted an advertisement that offered them a chance to purchase former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein at a bargain price of $20. The unusual ad was put out by Wish store. Several people posted screenshots of the ad for the deceased leader on social media. "Enjoy much cheaper items sold by Wish. don't miss 60-80% OFF store prices," the ad was captioned. The viral screenshot of the ad made "Saddam Hussein" trend on Twitter. One user asked, "Who wants to buy Saddam Hussein for $20?" Another wrote, "Can’t believe the U.S. spent all that time...

Exactly 30 years ago, Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and created a set of consequences that are with us today, including sectarianism, terrorism, and Iranian militancy. The Bush presidencies made a number of historical mistakes in dealing with Iraq and Iran. Iran, as a result, reaped the rewards of Saddam Hussein’s cruelty and greed, and American errors. The George H. W. Bush administration, for its part, was given a mandate by the United Nations to undo Saddam’s aggression in Kuwait. It should have been used to eliminate Saddam Hussein alone. At the same time, the collapse of the Soviet...

AFP/File Photo: The UN-appointed panel probing the scandal-tainted oil-for-food program for Iraq, headed by Paul Volcker, seen... Slideshow: Oil-for-Food Corruption Probe Video AP Video By NICK WADHAMS and EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writers 39 minutes ago NEW YORK - A formerUnited Nations procurement officer pleaded guilty Monday to soliciting a bribe under the oil-for-food program, making him the first U.N. official to face criminal charges in connection with the scandal-tainted operation. Alexander Yakovlev, a Russian, also pleaded guilty in federal court to charges of wire fraud and money laundering for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes...

The French government has been notably restrained in their criticism of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for unleashing a pandemic upon the world.  One possible reason for their reticence is a single, highly embarrassing fact: They essentially built the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s P4 lab in which the coronavirus now sweeping the world was being researched, and from which it escaped.  That the French delivered the turn-key, high-containment biolab to China has long been public knowledge, but now a German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, has added riveting details to the story.  The insider information comes from interviews with French...

When President George W. Bush asked Colin Powell if the United States should invade Iraq in 2003 and overthrow dictator Saddam Hussein, the secretary of state and former general refused to give a straight answer. “I didn’t say to him, ‘I oppose this war,’” Powell says in a book published today about U.S. foreign policy after the Cold War. “Because it wouldn’t have worked.” That admission sheds light on Bush’s decision to launch the war that defined his presidency. Powell acknowledged his muted opposition in James Mann’s new book, The Great Rift, an account of how Powell’s rivalry with Vice...

Americans have to face the painful reality that Arabs are, when judged by 21st century Western Standards, a crazy people. This is not meant as an insult. Early this year, the Iraqi parliament proposed a law that would permit men to marry 9 year old girls. The law had the support of a majority of parliament. The law would also permit men to beat up and rape their wives, and prevent women from leaving the house without the permission of the husband. These SOBS are supposed to be the allies of America in the fight against ISIS. The Shia regime...

Already missing from the news cycle is the story of Muslim leader Siraj Wahhaj, who alerted authorities to the squalid conditions in New Mexico in which his son, two daughters, another man and woman, and 11 children were living.Authorities arrived at the compound to some of the most horrifying conditions they had ever seen, and prosecutors identified the makeshift home as a training ground for militant children, including in carrying out school shootings. The imam’s son had been wanted for kidnapping his own four-year-old child, who had severe disabilities. The body of a young child was recovered from the...

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) issued a barrage of criticism about the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 on Wednesday, which marked the 16th anniversary of the start of one of America's longest-running armed conflicts. In a series of tweets, the Minnesota congresswoman labeled the George W. Bush administration's invasion of Iraq "illegal" and called for those involved in the explanation and lead up to the war to be held accountable. "16 years ago the U.S. illegally invaded Iraq, leaving a trail of destruction and lives lost," Omar tweeted. "4,496 U.S. troops lost their lives. 100,000+ Iraqi civilians [were] killed." "We...

I received my Academy screener of "Vice" -- Adam McKay's intermittently black comic biopic of Dick Cheney --- just a few days before its Christmas opening and watched it almost immediately, even though I knew I would hate it. I did. It had exactly the retrograde, conformist Hollywood politics I expected. What I didn't expect was that it would be an aesthetic jumble and quite boring. Nevertheless, "Vice" led the pack of Golden Globe nominations with six and is an early favorite for the Best Picture Oscar. So unfortunately, due to the biased state of our educational system, this could...

The passing of President George H. W. Bush and the ruckus caused by the Yellow Vests in France make this a good time to review the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait. Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait and as a deterrent to those who might oppose him, he threatened environmental warfare. This threat took advantage of the concerns first aired by a group known as TTAPS, an acronym of the names of the authors, Turco, Toon, Ackerman, Pollack and Sagan. They had postulated that a nuclear exchange would induce a “Nuclear Winter”. The TTAPS climate model was a...

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan24) – Amb. Kenneth Ward strongly criticized Iran and Russia on Thursday for maintaining chemical weapons programs, in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention to which they are both signatories. Ward, the US Permanent Representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), addressing that organization, cited Iran and Russia for their own chemical weapons programs. He also criticized their support for Damascus, which, he said, is “enabling Syria’s chemical weapons use by shielding the Assad regime from consequences in international fora.” Turning to Iran, Ward explained that the US “has had longstanding concerns that [it]...

Former Indiana Congressman Lee Hamilton (D) and former CENTCOM Commander Anthony Zinni told the Inter Press Service that they were paid to appear at recent events supporting the MEK, an Iranian opposition group currently considered a terrorist organization by the State Department. Hamilton and Zinni are among the many big time former government officials and military leaders who have appeared at recent pro-MEK events sponsored by a group called Executive Action, LLC. (The events true organizers remain unclear, Executive Action's CEO Neil Livingstone would only tell TPM they included Iranian American groups.) Speakers at the events have portrayed the MEK...

This past fall The New York Times began publishing a powerful, ongoing series revealing the U.S. militaryÂ’s mistreatment of soldiers who were exposed to decades-old chemical weapons during Operation Iraqi Freedom. According to The Times, between 2004 and 2011 U.S. troops stumbled across about 5,000 Iraqi chemical munitions of various types, and at least 17 American personnel, mostly bomb disposal experts, were wounded by them. All of the ordnance was manufactured by Iraq prior to the 1991 Gulf War, during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.Much of the conservative media has seized on the Times articles as long-awaited, sweet vindication...

Moments ago the U.S. Treasury Department announced official sanctions against Tareck Zaidan El Aissami Maddah (El Aissami). El Aissami is the Executive Vice President of Venezuela. WASHINGTON—Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Venezuelan national Tareck Zaidan El Aissami Maddah (El Aissami) as a Specially Designated Narcotics Trafficker pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act) for playing a significant role in international narcotics trafficking. El Aissami is the Executive Vice President of Venezuela.

Traditionally on Oscar weekend we offer an Academy Award-winning song, going all the way back to the very first, "The Continental" in 1934. But not all great movie songs are, formally speaking, movie songs. On the big night exactly a quarter-century ago, two of the five Best Song nominees came from the Kevin Costner/Whitney Houston film The Bodyguard. They were up against a brace of numbers from Disney's Aladdin, plus a sensual ditty I was quite partial to but is now entirely forgotten: "Beautiful Maria of My Soul" from The Mambo Kings. Come Academy night, the Bodyguard songs wound up...

Toppled dictator Saddam Hussein's exiled daughter is among dozens named on Iraq's "most wanted" list of people accused of supporting acts of terror. Those on the list are wanted for belonging to or having an affiliation with ISIL, Al Qaeda or Saddam's Baath Party regime. Raghad Saddam Hussein responded on Monday by pledging to take legal action against those who have "insulted her". Iraq's government has been seeking to prosecute Ms Hussein since 2006 for allegedly supporting violence in the country. The list echoes the US set of 55 playing cards, released in 2003, that depicted the most wanted members...

THE HAGUE (AFP) — Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic stood before the UN war crimes court Thursday to face genocide charges, in his first public appearance since his arrest after nearly 13 years on the run. Shorn of the beard and long hair he had used as a disguise until his capture on July 21, Karadzic was again recognisable as the man who became one of the most reviled figures in the Bosnian conflict of the 1990s. Wearing a dark jacket and tie, Karazdic appeared before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to hear the 11...

Moshe Arens, Israel’s defense minister at the time of the 1991 Gulf War, wanted to launch a ground operation against Iraqi missile launchers firing missiles at Tel Aviv, but ran into strong opposition from then-IDF Chief of Staff Dan Shomron, according to recordings from IDF archives released Thursday on the 26th anniversary of the war. After American forces invaded Iraq in January 1991, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein fired a total of 39 modified Soviet ‘Scud’ missiles at Israel in the hope the Jewish State would respond to the provocation by striking back at a Iraq. He reasoned the move would...

A friend of mine called me up and directed me to a thread over on the FreeRepublic.com on a Fox News Channel interview with a former U.N. weapons inspector named Bill Tierney. Tierney was a former US Army Military Intelligence Chief Warrent Officer who was recruited in 1996 as a weapons inspector. He made two highly charged accusation. First, the French were spying on the U.N. weapons inspection teams by providing the Iraqis lists of sites to be inspected. Second, he is convinced the Iraqis have operational nuclear weapons. In the interview, Tierney detailed how the French had a spy...