Free Republic

ANNAPOLIS (AP) — Gov. Martin O'Malley said yesterday that if a referendum on slot-machine gambling fails in November, "it'll be back to the drawing board with a lot of unpopular choices, and I don't think any of us wants to go there." Mr. O'Malley said during an interview on WCBC-AM in Cumberland, Md., that the money Maryland would eventually get from slot machines would constitute about 25 percent of what's needed to balance the state's budget in coming years. The rest of the money to handle Maryland's projected deficit comes from about $1.4 billion in tax increases approved last November...

THE NETHERLANDS - Dutch politician Ehsan Jami is closing down his Central Committee for Ex-Muslims. He claims people are scared to join the organisation because of threats from Muslims. Jami sits on the municipal council in Voorburg, formerly for the Labour Party, now as an independent. He presented plans for a committee for former Muslims last year. He was subsequently assaulted in the street and was provided with police protection. Jami was planning to make a cartoon animation on the Prophet Muhammad, which was to feature explicit sexual scenes, but recently agreed to give up the idea in response to...

PHOENIX -- Hispanic leaders are calling for an immediate end to Sheriff Joe Arpaio's illegal immigrants' patrols, claiming they are dividing the community and could lead to violence. "As a community, we see him going out setting up his troops and stopping people at random -- racial profiling," said Hector Yturralde, president of We Are America. "After they find out they can't speak English or they have no identification, then they stop them for immigration." Yturralde added, "He is causing a division within this community that is not good. And that is not his job." He said the sheriff is...

The government of the world's most populous Islamic state says YouTube has two days to take down a Dutch lawmaker's provocative film on the Koran or it will block access to the popular video-sharing Web site. The warning by Indonesia came as the U.N.'s primary human rights watchdog ended a month-long session amid allegations by Western member-states and non-governmental organizations that Islamic nations are working to curtail free speech. Geert Wilder's 16-minute film linking Islam's revered text with terrorism has sparked protests in a number of countries. It also drew criticism from the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic...

A 17-minute documentary on the Quran, juxtaposing images of Islam's holy book with terror attacks and bombings by Muslim extremists, was taken down from a British video-sharing website, LiveLeak,com, after the organization reported "serious" threats to its staff members. The documentary had been posted against the wishes of the government of the Netherlands by Geert Wilders, a Dutch MP and leader of the Freedom Party. His video is called "Fitna," an Arabic word meaning strife. It appeared on the political party's website first, but soon disappeared because of "technical difficulties," reported the London Times. Then it appeared on LiveLeak.com, only...

Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, and some ill informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could directly lead to the harm of some of our staff, Liveleak.com has been left with no other choice but to remove Fitna from our servers. This is a sad day for freedom of speech on the net but we have to place the safety and well being of our staff above all else. We would like to thank the thousands of people, from all backgrounds and religions, who gave us their support. They realised LiveLeak.com is...

An Oklahoma state representative has received thousands of hostile e-mail messages after she said that homosexuality is a bigger threat to national security than terrorism. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation is investigating more than 17,000 mostly hostile e-mails that were sent to State Rep. Sally Kern after parts of a speech she gave to a Republican organization earlier this year were posted on YouTube, said bureau spokeswoman Jessica Brown. Listen to portions of the speech. During the speech, Kern said that "the homosexual agenda is just destroying this nation" and that homosexuality poses a bigger threat to the United...

When it comes to fears about a terrorist attack, people in the United States usually focus on Osama bin Laden and foreign-based radical groups. Yet researchers say domestic extremists who commit violence in the name of their cause - abortion or the environment, for example - account for most of the damage from such incidents in this country. more stories like this These home-grown groups are seven times more likely than overseas groups to commit some kind of violence in the United States, a panel reported yesterday in Boston at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6, 2008 – The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency gave the Senate Intelligence Committee an assessment of military threats confronting the United States during testimony before the panel yesterday. Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples told the committee that several global military trends concern the U.S. armed forces. He then went on to delineate specific threats to the United States, its allies and its interests. General threats include proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, more mobile and accurate ballistic missiles, improvised explosive devices and suicide weapons as weapons of choice for terrorists, and the continued development of...

<p>A suburban Philadelphia teacher has been arrested for making terroristic threats against her own school, including messages promising to kill people at the school.</p> <p>Police said the woman was a teacher at the Longstreth Elementary school in Warminster, Pa.</p> <p>Susan Romanyszyn, a fourth-grade teacher, said nothing as she surrendered at a local district justice office on charges she made 17 terroristic threats against the very school she worked at.</p>

WASHINGTON - It's the government's idea of a really bad day: Washington's Metro trains shut down. Seaport computers in New York go dark. Bloggers reveal locations of railcars with hazardous materials. Airport control towers are disrupted in Philadelphia and Chicago. Overseas, a mysterious liquid is found on London's subway. And that's just for starters. Those incidents were among dozens of detailed, mock disasters confronting officials rapid-fire in the U.S. government's biggest-ever "Cyber Storm" war game, according to hundreds of pages of heavily censored files obtained by The Associated Press. The Homeland Security Department ran the exercise to test the nation's...

In their infinite wisdom, the European Parliament invited the Grand Mufti of Syria, Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun, to deliver a speech. Supposedly, he's the first in a series of 'eminent religious and cultural leaders' to address the Toy Parliament in this, the EUnions 'Year of Intercultural Dialogue'. Naturally, the EP itself was gushing with praise and goodwill towards the Grand Mufti: In a speech to MEPs on Tuesday on the subject of intercultural dialogue, the Grand Mufti of Syria, Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun, stressed the value of culture as a unifying rather than a dividing force. Dr Hassoun was addressing...

Back in January of 2006, I wrote an article titled Democrats are more violent. In fact, there's no comparison. Well, the point just keeps getting reinforced, over and over.The latest is left-wing talk radio host Mike Malloy. It was only a threat, of course, but it was a disgusting, gory threat against Matt Drudge. It was the kind of threat you just don't seem to hear from conservatives. It is the kind of threat that, were a conservative to have delivered it...a) other conservatives would have denounced it—something the left has not done with Malloyb) that conservative would probably subsequently...

Stand up to Hugo Chavez threats, voters told By Martin Arostegui in Caracas, Philip Sherwell in New York and Jeremy McDermott Last Updated: 2:03am GMT 02/12/2007 Hugo Chavez's former defence minister and his strongest foe has urged Venezuelans to defy "psychological warfare tactics" and intimidation when they vote on the president's plan to rule for life. Hugo Chavez during a rally in Caracas. He says he wants to rule until 2050 Gen Raul Baduel, who has accused Mr Chavez of staging a constitutional "coup", tried to rally opponents of proposals to establish a Cuba-style socialist state in today's referendum. His...

In its final and most powerful report, a United Nations panel of scientists meeting here describes the mounting risks of climate change in language that is both more specific and forceful than its previous assessments, according to scientists here. Synthesizing reams of data from its three previous reports, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the first time specifically points out important risks if governments fail to respond: melting ice sheets that could lead to a rapid rise in sea levels and the extinction of large numbers of species brought about by even moderate amounts of warming, on...

AGENTS of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party's presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it.

WASHINGTON — Federal judges are in danger because the U.S. Marshals Service does not work quickly enough to protect them amid growing threats of violence, Justice Department investigators said Wednesday.

OCALA - The Marion County Sheriff's Office today released several postcards that had been mailed to schools last Monday and appeared to threaten a terrorist attack on Sept. 11. "At this point we've worked just about all the leads we have," sheriff's Maj. Terry Bovaird said. Now investigators are looking to the public for help. He hopes someone will recognize the writing or the postcards themselves. The Sheriff's Office also announced a $10,000 reward being offered by the U.S. Postal Service. Seven of nine postcards were released. They had been sent to the School Board office, the Marion Technical Insitute...

Bin Laden Back! A new tape has surfaced reportedly showing Osama Bin Laden taunting the U.S. Although this is the first publicly released tape since 2004 showing Bin Laden, there have been numerous unsubstantuated sightings of the elusive terrorist over the last few years, despite our government's intensive efforts to track him down. Here's just a few:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4, 2007 – The Defense Department receives many attempted cyber attacks each day and has measures in place to aggressively respond to and deter these attacks, a department spokesman said today. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman addressed media reports that a computer system in the Office of the Secretary of Defense was hacked into by the Chinese military earlier this year. Whitman confirmed that an attack did occur in June but declined to identify the origin of the threat. It is often difficult to pinpoint the true origin of an intrusion into computer systems and even more difficult to...

FBI Has 'Pretty Good Leads' in Threats Published: 8/31/07, 4:47 PM EDT By JOE MILICIACLEVELAND (AP) - The FBI is looking overseas for suspects who have phoned bomb threats to more than 24 grocery stores, banks and discount stores in 15 states, including at least six new cases Friday in Ohio. The callers have threatened to set off a bomb unless store employees wire money to an account abroad. At a Dillons grocery store in Hutchinson, Kan., the caller ordered customers and workers to take off their clothes and threatened to force them to cut off a manager's fingers. Store...

Texas Governor Rick Perry is being called to task by an author and investigative journalist for vetoing bills that would have blocked construction of the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor. Dr. Jerome Corsi has been one of the leading voices warning the American public about the consequences of the Trans-Texas Corridor, which will be part of a superhighway -- purported to be four football fields wide -- that will allow Mexican trucks to enter the U.S. and traverse the core of the country all the way to Canada. The best-selling author asserts that Governor Perry cleared the way for construction to begin...

FORT HUACHUCA — This Southern Arizona Army post has again been informed it will be sued if the most recent biological opinion with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is not renegotiated. However, Garrison Commander Col. Melissa Sturgeon said the fort stands by the 2007 opinion as being sound science. Earthjustice, a nonprofit public interest law firm, informed the fort, other military officials and the Fish and Wildlife Service of the intent to file a lawsuit in 60 days from Wednesday unless the post takes action to correct what it considers violations of the Endangered Species Act. If another biological...

Russia’s G5 system of missile defense leaves far behind the S-400 systems that are coming into operation today. It is able to counter space attacks, said Russia’s Air Force Commander-in-Chief Col.-Gen. Alexander Zelin.

There have been a number of threats this summer : some potentially serious, others clearly faked. All tend to distract us from more serious matters.

A search warrant filed in Hennepin County connects a shooting investigation to a possible terror plot. According to court documents, four Somali teenage males were riding in a cab on June 24 the same night a man was shot in the chest around 9:00 p.m. Video surveillance at the Glendale Housing Projects captured the cab fleeing near the scene of the shooting. Police were able to identify the taxicab and located the vehicle at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport four days later. Inside the cab, police found a handwritten note describing acts of terrorism and bombings. Police questioned an 18-year-old relative...

A DRUG gang has threatened to kill foreign journalists who report on the violence between rival cartels and security forces along the US-Mexico border, media and US officials have said. Mexico's cocaine smuggling Gulf Cartel has allegedly planned to hire gunmen to kill foreign journalists working in the crime-torn Mexican city of Nuevo Laredo, on the border with Texas. In response, two Texas-based newspapers have pulled their reporters from the city. The US government condemned the threats and said it would try to protect US journalists working in Mexico. "We will work with authorities in the United States and in...

Maybe it's just me, but I noticed "tonal" similarities in the recent Goldman Sachs threats, and the 2001 Anthrax letters. What do you think ?

JERUSALEM – The thwarted car bombings in London last week and the terror attack this weekend against Scotland's busiest airport were "completely justified" and likely the beginning of many more attacks in Britain, a prominent UK Islamist leader connected to terror supporting groups told WND yesterday. "There is no doubt whatsoever that there will continue to be attacks against the British government, its interests and the home front as long as we see the continued British and American occupation of Muslim land in Iraq and Afghanistan, support for criminal Israel, and draconian measures taken against Muslims in the UK," said...

A British Army officer has been abused by Asian women while on a hospital visit to troops injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. Company Sergeant Major Neil Powell was surrounded and heckled by three young women in the unprovoked verbal attack at Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham. The women, in traditional Asian dress, ranted about the presence of British troops in Muslim countries. The incident took place in a public area of the hospital used by both civilians and military personnel. In recent months the standard of treatment for soldiers at Selly Oak has been widely criticised. Military personnel have called...

HAMMOND, Ind. (AP) — A Purdue University graduate student was convicted of threatening to kill President Bush, vice president Dick Cheney and others in postings on the Internet.Vikram Buddhi, 35, an Indian national who was attending advanced engineering classes at Purdue's West Lafayette campus, was found guilty by a federal jury Thursday on 11 counts of making threats that were posted in a chat room in 2005 and 2006. Buddhi faces up to 35 years in prison when he is sentenced later this year. Buddhi hijacked online identities of other Purdue students to post messages, the federal indictment said. The...

America has two main enemies right now; external terrorism and internal division surrounding the immigration mess. In his characteristically creative style, FSM Contributing Editor Gabriel Garnica compares political hacks who are blindly pushing this travesty, with game show buffoons.

Exclusive: Suicide Bomb Teams Sent to U.S., Europe June 18, 2007 4:45 PM Brian Ross Reports: Large teams of newly trained suicide bombers are being sent to the United States and Europe, according to evidence contained on a new videotape obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com. Teams assigned to carry out attacks in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Germany were introduced at an al Qaeda/Taliban training camp graduation ceremony held June 9. A Pakistani journalist was invited to attend and take pictures as some 300 recruits, including boys as young as 12, were supposedly sent off on their...

Senate conservatives have been warned by Republican leaders that they must either accept a series of largely symbolic floor votes on a handful of amendments to the immigration reform legislation or see themselves shut out of the process altogether when the chamber resumes work on the bill later this year, GOP lawmakers and aides said Tuesday...

CORAL GABLES, Fla. -- Sen. John McCain will deliver a message Monday to the other Republican presidential candidates: opposing an immigration bill for political gain will only make worse the problems of undocumented immigrants and an unsecured border. McCain plans to talk about the bill at an event here Monday, and excerpts of his prepared remarks take aim at other Republicans in the race. "I would hope they wouldn't play politics for their own interests if the cost of their ambition was to make this problem even harder to solve," McCain said in the prepared remarks obtained by The Associated...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- An Islamic group threatened to behead female TV broadcasters if they don't wear strict Islamic dress, frightening reporters and signaling a further shift toward extremism in the Gaza Strip. The threat to "cut throats from vein to vein" was delivered by the Swords of Truth, a fanatical group that has previously claimed responsibility for bombing Internet cafes and music shops. The new threat was the first time the organization targeted a specific group of people. In many parts of the Muslim world, conservative policies keep women out of TV anchor positions or dictate they wear...

"Grayban received two phone calls on Sunday night from a foreigner, threatening his life. "The caller used a hacked phone (or internet line) to disguise the location from which he was calling. (Please see jpeg of record/caller ID attached at bottom of page). "The caller told Scott the precise street on which he lives, that he lives across from an auto shop, that he has a solar panel in his apartment window and the make of the car he drove to the mall on Saturday." As the blogger pointed out, "These aren't details anyone could obtain from Google Earth." Someone...

ISTANBUL, May 15, 2007 (AFP) - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned French president-elect Nicolas Sarkozy Tuesday that hostility towards Turkey's bid to join the European Union would fan anti-Europe sentiments among Turks and damage bilateral ties. "Mr. Sarkozy has to overcome his prejudices.... If we are to unite civilisations within the EU, if we say the EU is not a Christian club, then Mr. Sarkozy should review his opinions," Erdogan said at the annual assembly of the media watchdog International Press Institute in Istanbul. Sarkozy is staunchly opposed to Turkey joining the European bloc, arguing that most of...

A board member for Equality California has come out swinging at the Bible-based Capitol Resource Institute, which works on behalf of family and biblical values in California, especially among its lawmakers. "If you continue your efforts, we will BURY you," said an e-mail from Ben Patrick Johnson, to his "colleagues" at the CRI, according to a statement from the Christian organization. "For a group that purports to expand tolerance and civil rights, Equality California is not practicing what it preaches," CRI said. "This type of language evokes images of Communist leader Nikita Khrushchev pounding his shoe on the podium of...

Death threats. Harassing phone calls. Threatening e-mails. Such was a day in the life of Drew Johnson a few weeks ago. His crime? Johnson is president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, a free-market think tank that broke one of the juiciest stories of 2007. A day after the Academy Awards, on Feb. 26, Johnson’s organization reported details of Al Gore’s enormous utility bill. The former vice president had consumed nearly 221,000 kilowatt hours of electricity in a single year -- more than 20 times the national average. The story skyrocketed to the top headline on the Drudge Report,...

LAWRENCE, Mass. -- A 17-year-old girl is arrested for allegedly posting death threats against 18 classmates around her school as well as on the Internet. Katherine Koontz of Methuen is a junior at Central Catholic High School in Lawrence and got a lesson in the law during her arraignment at Lawrence District Court on Tuesday. The suspect's hit lists were first found on March 28 and 29 inside school bathrooms. The letters said nine boys would be killed and one dismembered. In addition, nine girls were also threatened with impending doom.

Officials prepare for storm threats Tuesday, April 17, 2007By SEBASTIAN KITCHENCapital Bureau MONTGOMERY -- State and federal officials converged here Monday to prepare for the upcoming hurricane season and to simulate a worst-case scenario -- a slow moving Category 5 hurricane smashing into the coast of Mobile County. Possible improvements for the 2007 hurricane season include increasing fuel reserves for relief efforts, housing pets along with evacuees at the state's two-year colleges, ensuring there are enough generators for key locations such as hospitals, and designating people to drive school bus routes to pick up those who do not leave. Hurricane...

The Rev. Al Sharpton says his security has been beefed up after receiving death threats for his role in shock jock Don Imus' firing from CBS in New York. "We have received several threats that we consider serious," he said. "I have been stabbed once, so we don't take anything too lightly." Charlie King of Sharpton's National Action Network said one example was someone called to say he was going to "hunt him down and shoot him like an animal," the New York Daily News reported Sunday. King said he contacted the mayor.

Isn't April 9th supposed to be some sort of important day according to the Islamonazis?

Source: World Wildlife Fund Date: March 21, 2007 Going Nowhere Fast: Top Rivers Face Mounting Threats Science Daily — Rivers on every continent are drying out, threatening severe water shortages, according to a new WWF report. Aerial view of the Mekong River, one of the ten rivers listed in the WWF report as being threatened by pollution and dams. (Credit: WWF-Canon / Elizabeth Kemf) The report, World's Top Rivers at Risk, released ahead of World Water Day (22 March), lists the top ten rivers that are fast dying as a result of climate change, pollution and dams. “All the rivers...

Lawyers and a Muslim group say they will defend at no cost airline passengers caught up in a lawsuit between a group of imams and U.S. Airways if the passengers are named as "John Does" and sued for reporting suspicious behavior that got the Muslim clerics booted from a November flight. The six imams are suing the airline, Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airports Commission, and the unnamed "John Does" to be named later, for discrimination, saying they were removed from the flight for praying in the airport. Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a Phoenix-area physician and director of American Islamic Forum for...

Six imams who are suing an airline and an airport for removing them from a flight also have aimed the lawsuit at passengers who the imams believe reported some of their activities. The suit filed this week in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis names as defendants "John Does" who "contacted US Airways to report the alleged suspicious behavior" of the imams before the Nov. 20 flight -- an inclusion some lawyers, who are not connected to the litigation, say will have a "chilling effect" on airline security. "If such a suit could proceed, it would have a chilling effect on...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 28, 2007 – Terror remains the No. 1 threat to the United States and its interests, the new U.S. director of national intelligence said in congressional testimony yesterday. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Retired Navy Vice Adm. John M. “Mike” McConnell gave a tour of the world from a threat level. Al Qaeda remains the terrorist network that poses the greatest threat to the United States, he said. “While many of al Qaeda's senior leadership have been killed or captured, its core elements are resilient,” he said. “They continue to plot attacks against the...

If America Halts Its War Against Terrorism, Our Enemies Won't Return the Favor In the battle against al-Qaeda and like-minded jihadists, the West is doing a less than satisfactory job of understanding its enemy. There is a line in Sun Tzu’s famous work The Art of War that states: “If you know yourself but not your enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.” Although The Art of War was written in the 6th century BC, its message applies to the battle facing us all today. If the West truly knew its enemy, it might reconsider some...

Less than 24 hours after a gunman killed five people and wounded four others at Trolley Square in Salt Lake City, a man in Salem called the local post office and threatened to open fire on a school Tuesday morning. The Salem post office received the anonymous call just before 8 a.m., Salem police reported. Mt. Loafer, Foothills and Salem elementary schools were placed on lockdown around 9 a.m.. said Nebo School District spokeswoman Lana Hiskey. Salem police reported that the threat may be a hoax but they are taking it "very seriously." Hiskey said that several police officers are...