Free Republic

There has always been a rule – an overriding rule in the common law, in the criminal justice system and in the insurance industry – that society must not allow you to profit from a crime you committed. For example, if you file an insurance claim on your house, and it’s proven that you burned it down yourself, you get imprisoned for arson and the insurance company gets all the money back. Or if you file for the life insurance on your parent or spouse, and it’s proven that you murdered him or her for the insurance money, you get...

According to first unconfirmed reports, central Tehran was hit Sunday night with massive blasts leaving many hundreds of people dead. Witnesses report heavy Revolutionary Guards and Basij forces speeding to the area. Thee are also reports of explosions in the southern Iranian town of Isfahan - also unconfirmed.

Day after Obama urges Iran to seize ‘historic opportunity,’ supreme leader says US seeks to create insecurity. Iran’s Supreme leader Ali Khamenei called for “Death to America” on Saturday, a day after President Barack Obama appealed to Iran to seize a “historic opportunity” for a nuclear deal and a better future, and as US Secretary of State John Kerry claimed substantial progress toward an accord. Khamenei told a crowd in Tehran that Iran would not capitulate to Western demands. When the crowd started shouting, “Death to America,” the ayatollah responded: “Of course yes, death to America, because America is the...

Jon Voight supports Netanyahu in new ad, says Obama abandoning Israel so he can buddy up to her ENEMIES VIDEO Posted by The Right Scoop on Mar 15, 2015 in Foreign Policy By The Right Scoop Legendary actor Jon Voight has created a new ad with an urgent message to Israel, explaining that Obama wants Bibi Netanyahu to lose and is NO friend of Israel. He points out that Obama wants to control Israel because his agenda is to be friends with Israel’s enemies.

President Barack Obama is nominating a major fundraiser for his presidential campaign to be the next U.S. ambassador to Sweden. The White House says Azita Raji is Obama’s pick for the job. She’s a former investment banker who served as national vice-chair of finance for Obama’s 2012 campaign. She helped raise more than $500,000 for Obama’s campaign as a “bundler” in 2012. …

On Tuesday morning, a plane owned in trust by the Bank of Utah showed up in a very visible area of the Mehrabad Airport in Tehran, the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran. What was it doing there exactly? Nobody knows, reports The New York Times. Under President Barack Obama, the United States has eased some of the long-standing punitive economic sanctions against Iran. Still, very little American — or European — economic activity is allowed inside the religious theocracy. The Bank of Utah is certainly no Wells Fargo. The Ogden-based community bank has all of 13 branches including...

President Obama isn't ruling out the possibility the U.S. could one day reopen an embassy in Iran. Obama was asked in an NPR interview whether he could envision opening an embassy there during his final two years in office. Obama replied, "I never say never," but said ties must be restored in steps. Obama says Iran is different from Cuba, where the U.S. plans to open an embassy. He says Cuba is small and poses no major threat to the U.S., while Iran is large, has sponsored terrorism and has sought nuclear capabilities. Still, Obama says he hopes the U.S....

Dem think tank secret email: ‘All hands on deck’ to sell Iran deal to public By Adam Kredo Published November 12, 2014 Washington Free Beacon A leading liberal think tank in Washington, D.C., has begun enlisting its associates in an “all-hands-on-deck effort to support” the Obama administration as it seeks to ink a nuclear deal with Iran by the end of the month, according to emails obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The Truman National Security Project, a nonprofit think tank with ties to the administration, is assembling a “crack team of writers” to flood national and local media outlets...

Thousands of Iranians chanted “Down with America” at a major anti-U.S. rally on Tuesday marking the anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, just days ahead of a key meeting between the two nations’ top diplomats over Iran’s controversial nuclear program. The gathering outside the former embassy compound in Tehran, which has become the annual venue for rallies commemorating the embassy attack and other American-bashing protests, was smaller compared to last year’s event, which drew tens of thousands – a sign of improved Iran-U.S. relations since moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani took office last year. But...

HOUSTON - A Jordanian-born man facing state charges for the shooting death of an Iranian student and women's rights activist has been ordered held without bond on federal fraud charges for what authorities say was his involvement in a benefits scheme. ...Nadia Irsan, her father, Ali Irsan, and his wife were arrested last week at their home in Conroe on charges of conspiracy to defraud the U.S., theft of public money and benefits fraud. ...Ali Irsan, 56, also has been indicted in Houston for the slaying of Gelareh Bagherzadeh. Investigators say Ali Irsan shot and killed Bagherzadeh outside her Galleria-area...

(Ayad) Allawi, the son of a Shiite businessman, joined the nationalist Baath party when he was a medical student, but in the 1970s, became an opponent of Saddam, who had already begun using brutal methods to steer the country. Today, 11 years after Saddam’s fall, violence, corruption and abuses of power still dominate daily life in Baghdad. Allawi blames Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for this chaos. […] “I have nothing against the Iranian leadership. In fact, I accommodated it often enough during my time as premier. But I am no proponent of a theocracy. I am a secularist. I wanted...

<p>MILAN (AP) — Foreign ministry officials in Rome and Vienna confirm that names of two nationals listed on the manifest of the missing Malaysian airlines flight match passports reported stolen in Thailand.</p> <p>Italy's Foreign Ministry said Saturday that an Italian man whose name was listed as being aboard is traveling in Thailand and was not aboard the plane.</p>

Israel’s “peace partner” will be invited to visit the country whose leaders refer to Israel as “the rabid dog of the region,” the Chinese Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday, citing an Arabic language newspaper in London. According to the report, Iran intends to invite Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to visit Tehran soon. The Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper reported that Abbas’s visit to Tehran aims at rehabilitating the Iranian-PA official ties that have been frigid for years due to Iran’s support to Hamas, longtime rival to Abbas’s Fatah movement. …

Report: Obama Arranging Tehran Visit for Next Year Daniel Halper December 2, 2013 10:46 AM The Kuwaiti news outlet Al-Jarida reports that President Obama is seeking to arrange a trip to Tehran, Iran next year. The headline of the article reads, "Obama would like to visit Tehran, official invitation after details resolved." "Al-Jarida has learned from a U.S. diplomat that President Barack Obama is seeking to visit Tehran in the middle of next year," the report reads, based on a translation using Google Translate. "The source said that the desire to visit is shared, and that Tehran and Washington are...

So America IS trading with Iran ... US sent nearly $2m worth of bull semen to Muslim state last year Strict trade sanctions have been in place between the U.S. and Iran since the Carter administration Bovine sperm side-steps the usual sanctions since it qualifies as humanitarian aid Iran has made it a goal to become self-sufficient in meat production by the year 2016 Altogether the U.S. sent $45.7million in humanitarian aid to Iran last April. While the number seems like a lot, it's nothing compared to the $26.2billion sent to our biggest trading partner - Canada. Bovine sperm side-steps...

The Obama administration says the agreement will degrade Iran’s nuclear capacity, halt its current progress, and lay the groundwork for a final deal, in exchange for discrete concessions on sanctions. But this “freeze” is incomplete and as reversible as the term suggests, and the effect of the loosening of the sanctions will be far-reaching. Reminiscent of his claim that a strike on Syria to deter future chemical-weapons use would be “unbelievable small,” Secretary Kerry said that the deal’s concessions translate into “very little sanctions relief.” This is an odd description for measures that take up a full page of the...

Secretary of State John Kerry has told US lawmakers any new sanctions against Iran would risk ruining talks over Tehran's nuclear programme. He told a Senate banking committee that the US might lose negotiating partners if it imposed economic penalties. The panel has been considering a fresh package but legislators are divided on the measure. Mr Kerry has told the BBC that Iran and world powers had come "extremely close" to a deal at the weekend. Before Wednesday's closed-door meeting with senators, Washington's top diplomat told reporters: "What we're asking everybody to do is calm down, look hard at what...

(Reuters) - Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei controls a business empire worth around $95 billion - a sum exceeding the value of his oil-rich nation's current annual petroleum exports - a six-month Reuters investigation shows. The little-known organization, called Setad, is one of the keys to the Iranian leader's enduring power and now holds stakes in nearly every sector of Iranian industry, including finance, oil, telecommunications, the production of birth-control pills and even ostrich farming. Setad has built its empire on the systematic seizure of thousands of properties belonging to ordinary Iranians - members of religious minorities, Shi'ite Muslims,...

Antony Piazza is stopped at Pierre Trudeau Airport during security screening early Sunday morning. Piazza was stopped at Pierre Trudeau Airport during security screening early Sunday morning when bomb components -- but no actual explosives -- were found in his carry-on luggage, and his duplex in the Montreal suburb of La Salle was searched, according to media reports from Montreal. Antony Piazza, who changed his name from Houshang Nazemi in 1986, ... A native of Tehran, Iran, Piazza moved to Canada in 1979. In 1985, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for drug trafficking, according to CBC News...

The Iranian parliamentary delegation visiting Damascus Sunday, Sept. 1, advised Bashar Assad to move his chemical stockpile out of Syria and deposit it in Tehran under Iranian and Russian military supervision, to save himself from an American military strike, debkafile’s exclusive military and Iranian sources reveal. Chairman of the Majlis Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ala-Eddin Borujerdi, who headed the delegation, explained that Presidents Hassan Rouhani and Vladimir Putin had discussed the stockpile’s removal ad hoc, as the basis of a Iranian-Russian plan for presenting to US President Barack Obama at the G-20 summit meeting in St. Petersburg later this week....