Free Republic

The Biden campaign and its allies are rallying around Vice President Harris, rejecting chatter that President Biden should reconsider his running mate heading into 2024. A series of opinion columns published this week all suggested one way for Biden to juice enthusiasm among Democrats and quell concerns about his age heading into a second term would be to replace Harris on the ticket.

President Joe Biden said Wednesday he continues to suffer from his childhood stutter, telling an audience he has not fully conquered it. “I didn’t really beat my stutter — still occasionally I do,” he said, recalling the struggle he experienced as a child.

ABC's The View host Sunny Hostin believes a fake video of President Trump slaying his political enemies should be illegal for inciting violence. "I think for me, this would be illegal because, you know, wouldn’t that tend to incite violence against these particular politicians?" Hostin said Monday on the show. "Yes!" another host chimed in before Meghan McCain compared the video's potential to incite violence to Republican Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise getting shot at a congressional baseball practice in 2017. "If something happens to one of these people because, and by the way, Steve Scalise was shot by a complete...

Church chatter Respectful silence before Mass might be a thing of the past, but competing factions aren’t the answer Msgr. Charles Pope October 9, 2016 9/28/2016 Question: There has been an attempt in my parish to end the talking before Mass by having the Rosary prayed. However, it starts to drone and sound like a race to finish the decades. Others say it makes it difficult for them to pray quietly. Any thoughts on this practice?— Art Osten, Fox River Grove, Illinois Answer: Though there is a legitimate need for some private preparation for Mass, the church is not, first...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Spanish intelligence has intercepted messages passed between jihadists online discussing the weaponisation of the deadly Ebola virus for use against the West, while a blackmailer in Prague has threatened to unleash the virus unless the Czech Republic pay him one million bitcoin, a volume of online currency worth over £200 million. The national secretary of state for security in giving evidence to the Spanish Senate revealed online jihad propagandists had issued an edict to followers to kill Westerners by any means possible. Some of the methods suggested included “deadly chemical products from laboratories”, “poisonous injections” and “Ebola as a poisonous...

The U.S. intelligence community has observed a “significant increase” in chatter among terrorist organizations as the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks nears. “We’ve noticed a significant increase in chatter among Islamic terrorist organizations overseas both on the Internet and phone lines,” a U.S. government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Blaze. While the intelligence community can not pinpoint whether or not an attack is planned, the official said that agencies “did see this kind of increase in chatter before the September 11 attacks.” Deciphering chatter is more difficult than in previous years because of...

A prominent Japanese politician has raised hackles as Barack Obama visits Tokyo by claiming it's an 'open secret' that he and the first lady are headed for divorce, and that the president has been using Secret Service agents to cover for him as he pursues extramarital affairs. Kazuyuki Hamada, who sits in the upper house of Japan's parliament, earned his PhD a half-mile from the White House at George Washington University, and emerged as a shrill commentator on America's economy and foreign policy.

August 5, 2013 Terror Threat Intelligence Not New Agencies knew of threat to embassies, officials for months Bill Gertz Intelligence regarding al Qaeda plans to attack U.S. embassies, officials, and interests last Sunday was known for months by U.S. intelligence agencies but was used only recently to trigger the closure of embassies and issuance of public warnings of impending attacks. Al Qaeda “chatter” about coming terrorist operations, mainly against 22 U.S. embassies and consulates, and threats to attack or bomb officials in the Middle East and elsewhere was widely reported in classified intelligence reports over several months. The report said...

The so-called “chatter” about a terror plot that led the Obama administration to close 22 U.S. embassies and consulates Sunday across the Muslim world goes beyond anything heard before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee and Fox News sources. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, of Georgia, said Sunday the so-called “chatter” detected by U.S. intelligence agencies that led the Obama administration to order the closures and issue a global travel warning to Americans is "very reminiscent of what we saw pre-9/11." [snip] A Mideast diplomat says al-Zawahiri “pressuring” Al Qaeda in the Arabian...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said there is "a lot of chatter" around the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but there is no information about a specific threat. Napolitano told reporters Thursday that "in the intel world there is lots of chatter and we are taking it very seriously."

Fresh warnings of possible terror attacks in Europe issued by the US were not sparked any new intelligence, counter-terrorism, security and intelligence officials said. There seems no doubt there has been "chatter", or intercepted communications, between suspected jihadists and al-Qaida sympathisers plotting in the tribal areas of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan. The suggestion, first reported in the US press, was that they were planning a series of "commando-style" attacks, something European security agencies have feared since the co-ordinated killings in Mumbai two years ago in which 174 people died. [Snip] European officials again made it clear yesterday they were "irritated" with...

TORONTO -- SNIPPET: "The so-called Toronto 18 eventually split into two groups after the leaders had a falling out. One thing the groups still had in common was a misdirected paranoia. They worried they were being watched by the authorities, but little did they know two of their trusted confidants were police agents. At one meeting one of the plotters instructed a man who was actually an RCMP agent to take the battery out of his cellphone so their conversation couldn't be intercepted. Another plotter gave an agent a test to see if he was a spy. He passed." SNIPPET:...

Extremist Internet forums discussed blowing up planes three weeks before the Detroit attempt -- and have also discussed ways of using deadly biological agents onboard planes. A private Israeli intelligence company told ABC News Monday there was a surge of online discussions in extremist Islamic forums about blowing up planes three weeks before Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's attempt to bring down Northwest Flight 253. The discussions recommended using "improvised detonation chain" devices, exactly like the one used onboard the Detroit-bound flight. The company has also tracked specific -- and in its view -- credible plans to attack planes using deadly biological...

"The Twitter Opera" will join 140-character Twitter messages into a libretto set to familiar opera tunes and new music by composer Helen Porter. The two singers, an experienced baritone and a soprano both in their mid 30s, will be announced next week. The Royal Opera House is inviting contributions to the plot on its #youropera Twitter page. Contributions are being published on the Royal Opera House blog. The story begins: "One morning, very early, a man and a woman were standing, arm-in-arm, in London’s Covent Garden. The man turned to the woman and he sang…" Act One, Scene One has...

Any one heard of threats for oct 7. HomelandSecurityUS is reporting on chatter. Internet searches have a few other blogs discussing it.

BERLIN (Reuters) - German authorities called on Friday for increased vigilance against possible terror attacks and said the kind of threat detected before the September 11, 2001 suicide hijackings in the United States had resurfaced. Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the threat was "serious" and suicide attacks were possible on German soil. The present situation recalled the summer of 2001 "when obscure threats surfaced which, as we know, became reality", said Deputy Interior Minister August Hanning. "We are seeing evidence that some action is planned in (the Afghanistan and Pakistan region) but also further afield, in Europe and in the...

Britain's MI-5 intelligence service and Scotland Yard had been tracking the plot for several months, but only in the past two weeks had the plotters' planning begun to crystallize, senior U.S. officials tell TIME. In the two or three days before the arrests, the cell was going operational, and authorities were pressed into action. MI5 and Scotland Yard agents tracked the plotters from the ground, while a knowledgeable American official says U.S. intelligence provided London authorities with intercepts of the group's communications

WASHINGTON – There is a high likelihood of a major terrorist attack next Sunday, say international terror analysts and intelligence sources. The warning is made on the basis of several factors, according to Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin: * There is increased "chatter" in the terrorist world about a major new attack in the West – a sign often leading to an impending strike; * The date Feb. 5 has been specifically referenced in some of this chatter; * The date is significant to Osama bin Laden; * Much of the western world will be watching television that day; * The...

The FBI's backlog of untranslated audio recordings from terrorism and espionage investigations grew markedly in the past year, the Justice Department's internal watchdog said Wednesday. The FBI is capturing and reviewing more conversations than ever in languages associated with terrorists, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said in a report. "The FBI's collection of audio material continues to outpace its ability to review and translate all that material," Fine said. His findings were similar in a July 2004 audit, except that he said the FBI now does a better job prioritizing its translation work. Fine released his report at an FBI...

(Washington-AP, Jan. 6, 2005 4:03 PM) _ U.S. intelligence monitors are picking up less terror threat talk than a year ago, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Thursday. A variety of factors could be contributing to the lull, Ridge said, and he warned that terrorists "are strategic actors and long-range planners" who could be merely lying low before striking again. "There certainly is a diminution, reduction in the amount of intelligence, and the decibel level is lower," Ridge told reporters, comparing information picked up over the past several months to the similar period a year ago. Ridge offered no single...