Free Republic

In his new suburban American home, Shaker Yakub, a Yemeni Jew, folded a large scarf in half, wrapped it around his head and tucked in his spiraling side curls. "This is how I passed for a Muslim," said the 59-year-old father of seven, improvising a turban that hid his black skullcap. The ploy enabled Mr. Yakub and half a dozen members of his family to slip undetected out of their native town of Raida, Yemen, and travel to the capital 50 miles to the south. There, they met U.S. State Department officials conducting a clandestine operation to bring some of...

Baucus Supports Reid's MoveOctober 26, 2009 In announcing a health care bill with a public option, it sounds like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has already lined up the support of Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT). Said Baucus: "It is time to make our system work better for patients and providers, for small business owners and for our economy. It is time for health care reform. For more than a year, we've been working to meet the goals of reducing the growth of health care costs, improving quality and efficiency and expanding coverage. There are a tremendous number...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian court on Friday jailed a Serbian national for eight years for attempting to pass secrets about Russian missile and other defense projects to a Pentagon intermediary, Interfax news agency reported on Friday. Aleksandar Georgijevic took his orders from a U.S. citizen who worked for a firm acting on behalf of the U.S. Department of Defense, Interfax reported. In 1998, Georgijevic attempted to collect information on a number of Russian military projects, including the Iskander tactical missiles and the R-500, a supersonic cruise missile. But only information on the "Arena" tank protection system was passed on...

Former Secret Service agent opens window into private lives of presidents October 14th, 2009 Jamie Weinstein In his In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents they Protect, journalist Ronald Kessler gives us a peek inside the intimate lives of our presidents. Through interviews with over 100 secret service agents from the past and present—dating all the way back to John F. Kennedy—Kessler paints a picture of what our presidents are like when no one is looking. They're always watching. We learn from the agents Kessler interviews that John F....

RABAT (Reuters) – Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi will discuss domestic policy on Tuesday in what he termed a "secret" speech to high-ranking supporters that will not be broadcast. Gaddafi has been uncharacteristically quiet on domestic issues in recent months and Tuesday's speech will be the first time he has discussed internal policy since February. "We will meet tomorrow and the talk and the speech will be secret," he told thousands of supporters, including government officials, military and policy commanders, gathered to mark the 50th anniversary of his Free Unionists Movement on Monday. "Our meeting tomorrow will focus on our own...

Stores, hospitals, entertainment venues, and other places where the public are together in large numbers, use secret codes to pass information between store employees. These are meant to be a secret as they don’t want to alarm the non-staff members or alert someone (like a thief) to the fact that they have been noticed. Many stores have their own codes – for example WalMart, but there are a number that are nearly universal in application. This is a list of ten secret codes that may prove useful to you in future, or at least dispel any curiosity you may have...

In an exclusive interview with TIME, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says America should back off from allegations about Iran's nuclear program...video

SAN FRANCISCO -- After years of wrangling over legal procedures, the lawyer for a defunct Islamic charity laid out his case Wednesday that former President George W. Bush's secret wiretapping program was illegal - an argument that an Obama administration attorney refused to discuss. "May the president of the United States break the law in the name of national security? ... We're asking this court to say, 'no,' " Jon Eisenberg, lawyer for the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, told a federal judge in San Francisco. Neither the president's constitutional powers as commander in chief nor Congress' authorization to use military force...

London - Researchers found that women will typically spill the beans to someone else in 47 hours and 15 minutes. A study of 3 000 women aged between 18 and 65 also found that four in ten were unable to keep a secret, no matter how personal or confidential the news was. Michael Cox, UK Director of Wines of Chile which commissioned the research said: "It's official - women can't keep secrets." No matter how precious the piece of information, it's often out in the public domain within 48 hours. The study found that the average woman hears three pieces...

Rush just said he is heading to Washington, DC on a "super-sectret" mission this weekend, having nothing to do with the Jindal conservative conference. Mmmmm, I wonder what it could be? Any ideas, FReepers??

(IsraelNN.com) A secret IDF Intelligence (AMAN) assessment warned as early as 1993 that the Oslo Accords would likely end with The Rabin government 'completely ignored' IDF assessments. rocket attacks on Ashkelon, according to former AMAN Maj.-Gen. Yaakov Amidror. The politicians, however, were not interested. Amidror leveled the charges during a lecture at the Netanya College on Monday. According to Amidror, who headed the IDF's Research and Assessment Division responsible for preparing the National Intelligence Assessment, the decision to go ahead with the Oslo agreements between Israel and the PLO terrorist organization was made without taking into account the military implications....

Some scholars squabble about the particulars, but there is no question that democracy's roots go back at least 2,500 years to practices developed in the Greek city-state of Athens. But the adoption of a key pillar of democracy — the secret ballot — came far more recently. In England in the 1830s, disenfranchised working-class men and sympathetic members of Parliament launched the Chartist movement. The most crucial of its six objectives was universal suffrage for all men over 21, but not far behind was the secret-ballot provision. It took decades, but eventually the secret ballot became the democratic norm —...

This letter was sent to the NY Times but they never acknowledged it. Since it hit the internet, however, it has had over 500,000 hits. Keep it going. All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing. =============== Dear President Obama: You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me. You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you. You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle...

SANTA ANA, CA—A former Rockwell and Boeing engineer from Orange County was remanded into custody this morning after a federal judge convicted him of charges of economic espionage and acting as an agent of the People’s Republic of China, for whom he stole restricted technology and Boeing trade secrets, including information related to the Space Shuttle program and Delta IV rocket. Dongfan “Greg” Chung, 73, of Orange, Calif., who was employed by Rockwell International from 1973 until its defense and space unit was acquired by Boeing in 1996, was found guilty by United States District Judge Cormac J. Carney, who...

( cue eerie music)I live about a mile from our former President George Bush. Ever since he moved into the "neighborhood" car alarm remotes in my complex and around the area randomly stop working. Luckily I don't have an alarm that cuts the engine. I have to drive with the alarm blaring another mile just to use the remote to kill the alarm. At 6 in the morning it's not uncommon now to hear car alarms go off all over the place as people try to start their cars. My roommate started to have the same problem also. I've seen...

Venezuela and Bolivia are supplying Iran with uranium for its nuclear program, according to a secret Israeli government report obtained Monday by The Associated Press. The two South American countries are known to have close ties with Iran, but this is the first allegation that they are involved in the development of Iran's nuclear program, considered a strategic threat by Israel.

Two weeks before Election Day, Barack Obama's campaign was mobilizing millions of supporters; it was a bit late to start rewriting get-out-the-vote (GOTV) scripts. "BUT, BUT, BUT," deputy field director Mike Moffo wrote to Obama's GOTV operatives nationwide, "What if I told you a world-famous team of genius scientists, psychologists and economists wrote down the best techniques for GOTV scripting?!?! Would you be interested in at least taking a look? Of course you would!!" ...

President Obama's efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons threaten to expose and derail a 40-year-old secret U.S. agreement to shield Israel's nuclear weapons from international scrutiny, former and current U.S. and Israeli officials and nuclear specialists say.

The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz has let the cat out of the bag in the Post’s April 27 issue about a regularly scheduled secret media dinner attended by some of the top left-wing journalists in the country. But it isn’t just the lefty scribblers that have attended these secret, off-the-record dinners for these gatherings have each featured a guest. Rahm Emanuel, Sec. of the Treasury Tim Geithner, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke have all recently had their chance to schmooze the press and guide them with the spin desired by the White House. So, not only does Obama’s Chief of...

New York, NY (AHN) - A New York woman is suing her bank after they told her husband that she had $800,000 in an account under her own name. The woman, a Long Island dentist, is suing Chase bank to recover the $150,000 she says she had to give her husband after a bank employee slipped up and told her hubby about the account balance, the New York Post reported. Nazita Aminpour, says in legal papers, that the Chase bank branch in Kew Gardens, Queens violated federal privacy laws when they disclosed the account to her husband. She maintains she...

"The Obama administration suffered a bit of a legal setback this afternoon: a federal judge in California rejected the administration's assertion of the state secrets privilege in the civil suit brought by an Islamic charity that was allegedly subjected to illegal NSA surveillance." Case of Al-Haramain v. Bush

Bird Flu - from the Power Hour Here: http://media.abovetopsecret.com/media/1612/Threa_454216_Birdflu_distribution_by_DOHS/ The Power hour's web site: http://www.thepowerhour.com/

Just walked up to the Tea Party in Lafayette Park, and was surprised to see that police tape was up, the park was cleared, and police were patrolling the borders.

Dramatic daylight terror raids on a university may have been linked to a plot to blow up a shopping centre or nightclub, police fear. Students at Liverpool John Moores University watched in shock yesterday as two men were hauled outside and forced to the ground by armed police.  Witnesses said the duo  -  students at the university's Business School  -  were wearing combat trousers and hiking jackets, and claimed there were rumours of 'a bomb' on the premises.  (edit) The raid was one of a series carried out simultaneously across the North-West in which 12 suspects believed to be...

BRITAIN’S nuclear defence HQ could be under threat from terrorists using Google Earth. Close-up aerial views of the top-secret Naval base are on the computer program — available for free over the internet. It even reveals the longitude and latitude of the facility in Faslane, Scotland — home to the UK’s Trident-armed nuclear submarine force. And pictures clearly show two vast Vanguard Class submarines — each capable of carrying 16 nuclear missiles. Military experts warn that would make it easy for terrorists to launch accurate mortar or rocket attacks. One told The Sun: "A strike on our nuclear capability would...

There are some things science needs to survive, and to thrive: eager, hardworking scientists; a grasp of reality and a desire to understand it; and an open and clear atmosphere to communicate and discuss results. That last bit there seems to be having a problem. Communication is key to science; without it you are some nerd tinkering in your basement. With it, the world can learn about your work and build on it. Recently, government-sponsored agencies like NIH have moved toward open access of scientific findings. That is, the results are published where anyone can see them, and in fact...

David Axelrod has long been known for his political magic. Through his AKP&D Message & Media consultancy, the campaign veteran has advised a succession of Democratic candidates since 1985, and he's now chief strategist for Senator Barack Obama's bid for President. But on the down low, Axelrod moonlights in the private sector.

Holder to Gitmo, Rights Groups Uneasy Attorney General Goes to Guantanamo, Human Rights Groups Question Trip's Intent By ARIANE de VOGUEFeb. 23, 2009 As Attorney General Holder travels to Cuba today as apart of a review of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, some civil libertarians and human rights groups have been feeling uneasy that they are receiving mixed signals regarding President Obama's commitment to dramatically alter terrorism policies of the Bush administration. Although most of the groups were initially thrilled with the administration's promise to close the detention center, lately they have been worried that President Obama will not...

Surprise and even shock were among the reactions to my recent column about how elite members of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, were considering a proposal for a new global television network to usher in a state of "global governance." It sounded authoritarian, even totalitarian, to some. Here are more of the troubling details. The media proposal, which was included in "The Global Agenda 2009" report, is to create "a new global network" with "the capacity to connect the world, bridging cultures and peoples, and telling us who we are and what we mean to each...

Why does President Obama use a 'secret press list' when taking questions at a press conference? Is he afraid of the questions he might be asked? Is this an attempt to punish news organizations that are not obsequious enough? Perhaps, both reasons are in play. No other President has used a screened list at press conferences to my knowledge. There were allegations that the Obama campaign blacklisted certain news organizations during the election. Presidential Candidate Obama kicked several longtime corespondents off his campaign plane in a move to reward news outlets he liked and punish those he did not like....

For anyone who is hungry or eating poorly, I have a secret to share. Here is some advice for those who are hungry: My partner and I don't have enough money to eat well and neither do our friends. But we have a little secret I'd like to share with you--on one condition--you have to share the food you find with others and also use good judgment. This works best if you live in a suburb or a small city. (Those in NYC and LA might want to ignore this advice.) I live in a city of about a million...

Secret FISA Court Approves Specific Application of Expired Law For Warrantless Wiretapping The FISA Court of Review (FISCR) today released a public version of an opinion concerning warrantless wiretapping. An unnamed telecommunications carrier stood up for its customers' privacy by fighting the case through an initial decision by a FISA court and the appeal to the FISCR. The Court approved the specific application of the expired Protect America Act (PAA) and expressly rejected arguments that the law was unconstitutionally applied in the case before it. What does that mean for cases in the public, nonsecret courts challenging dragnet surveillance? Legally:...

Rush has been called away to a super-secret meeting in Washington.

Watch out when sipping the Obama kool-aid, The truth comes out!

I reckon this is safe to print. It was on the internet. I would have gone with Remus for Obama. It seems like a natural fit. Remus was a black man who was always spinning the obvious. The Secret Service code names for the First Family-elect are another odd assortment of seemingly random words, all starting with the letter R. John McCain may have been a self styled Maverick, but Barack Obama's Secret Service code name is Renegade. Michelle Obama, a woman of wide interests, is Renaissance (which sounds like the beginning of a perfume campaign). Malia Obama did not...

WASHINGTON: The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials. These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed in the spring of 2004 with the approval of President George W. Bush, the officials said. The secret order gave the military new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct...

NYT MONDAY: SECRET ORDER LETS U.S. RAID AL-QAIDA IN MANY COUNTRIES... Dozen previously undisclosed attacks against al-Qaida and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere...Developing...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Barack Obama's aunt, a Kenyan woman who has been quietly living in public housing in Boston, is in the United States illegally after an immigration judge rejected her request for asylum four years ago, The Associated Press has learned. Zeituni Onyango, 56, referred to as "Aunti Zeituni" in Obama's memoir, was instructed to leave the United States by a U.S. immigration judge who denied her asylum request, a person familiar with the matter told the AP late Friday. This person spoke on condition of anonymity because no one was authorized to discuss Onyango's case.

SARANAC LAKE - Powerful generals and admirals from some of the most powerful nations on Earth are reportedly meeting somewhere in the local area this weekend after flying into the Adirondack Regional Airport in Lake Clear on Friday. Among the passengers of a large Boeing 757 airplane with "United States of America" printed on its fuselage were top members of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and their counterparts from France, Germany and another country, possibly Great Britain, according to Barry DeFuria, a town of Harrietstown councilman and Airport Committee member who was there when the plane landed. A top...

The lowest-ranking enlisted persons in the Armed Forces of the United States who are expected to handle sensitive matters in the scores of jobs involving classified equipment or written material must be investigated before obtaining their security clearance. Could Barack Obama gain such a clearance? To begin, the clearance applicant would have to complete a detailed personal history form that includes, if necessary, government access to all health and education files. This is the starting point of all security investigations. Top Secret clearance involves a field investigation rather than the Secret version that is usually limited to a "name check"...

The master of "Astroturfing" has a second firm that shapes public opinion for corporations David Axelrod has long been known for his political magic. Through his AKP&D Message & Media consultancy, the campaign veteran has advised a succession of Democratic candidates since 1985, and he's now chief strategist for Senator Barack Obama's bid for President. But on the down low, Axelrod moonlights in the private sector. From the same River North address, Axelrod operates a second business, ASK Public Strategies, that discreetly plots strategy and advertising campaigns for corporate clients to tilt public opinion their way. He and his partners...

Hackers broke into the Yahoo! e-mail account that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin used for official business as Alaska's governor, revealing as evidence a few inconsequential personal messages she has received since John McCain selected her as his running mate. "This is a shocking invasion of the governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them," the McCain campaign said in a statement. The Secret Service contacted The Associated Press on Wednesday and asked for copies of the...

With little or no public input, California lawmakers are expected to vote late today on a closed-door weekend budget deal that depends largely on borrowing billions from taxpayers. A key element of the deal would increase by 10 percent the amount of income taxes withheld from working Californians, and from taxpayers who earn income from investments. The maneuver would generate about $3.8 billion to ease the budget crunch, but the plan calls for providing future refunds to affected taxpayers. Lawmakers were rushing to the Capitol this afternoon to vote on ending the state's 11-week budget standoff with a last-minute deal...

McCain or Obama - Secret Government Still in Control In Chapter One of The Shadows of Power by James Perloff, titled “A Primer on the CFR,” we glean the following details. Sir William Pitt, before the House of Lords in London in 1770, said, “There is something behind the throne greater than the king himself.” This gave birth to the phrase “power behind the throne.” In 1844, Benjamin Disraeli, England’s great statesman, wrote a novel entitled Coningsby in which he wrote: “The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the...

Journalist Bob Woodward discusses "secret operational capabilities" against militia and insurgent leaders in Iraq, and spying on Iraq's prime minister.

In a year of firsts for Presidential candidates, a phenomena that has taken even seasoned political analysts by surprise. A growing grass-roots movement born on the Internet to elect a virtual unknown to the highest office in the country.

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Atom bombs are just the beginning. In the last half-century, the greatest military minds on Earth have developed an arsenal of weapons to make mutually assured destruction seem tame. Whether these masterpieces of destruction come from miles above Earth or millimeters below the skin, they have one thing in common: they're spooky as hell. Can turning animals into cyborgs ever end well? Should lasers really be strapped to planes? Is dispersing humans with the worst smell ever created a better alternative to doing it by burning their skin? You be the judge. Launch our gallery of the world's spookiest weapons—some...

Google 'breaching China's state secrecy laws' By Richard Spencer in Beijing Last Updated: 6:57PM BST 06/05/2008Last week satellite imagery revealed a substantial harbour that could house a score of nuclear ballistic missile submarines According to Min Yiren, vice head of the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, authorities hope to get rid of online maps that wrongly depict China’s borders or that reveal military secrets, the People’s Daily said. No fewer than eight ministries and bureaus are to examine online maps to see whether they breach laws or undermine the country’s “territorial integrity”. Territorial integrity is usually a code word...

The Secret To Long Life May Not Be In The Genes ScienceDaily (May 6, 2008) — A research on the bone health of one of the oldest persons in the world, who recently died at the age of 114, reveals that there were no genetic modifications which could have contributed to this longevity. The research team, directed by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona professor Adolfo Díez Pérez, pointed out a healthy lifestyle, a Mediterranean diet, a temperate climate and regular physical activity as the reasons for his excellent health. The research team studied the bone mass and analysed the genetics of...