Free Republic

The rumored announcement has emboldened Amazon’s army of critics. Did the world’s smartest company really need 13 months, and applications from 238 cities, to reach the striking conclusion that it should invest in New York and D.C.? The former is America’s heart of capital, and the latter is America’s literal capital, where chief executive Jeff Bezos already owns a house and a newspaper. Was this national auction nothing more than a scripted drama to raise the value of the inevitable winning bid? And did the retailer miss an opportunity to revitalize a midwestern city by choosing to enrich the already-rich...

Amazon laid out its plans for two of the biggest economic development projects in the country on Tuesday, announcing that it will put major corporate outposts in New York City and Arlington, Va. The two locations, in Long Island City in Queens and Crystal City in Arlington, just outside of Washington, will eventually house at least 25,000 employees each, the company said in a statement. It also said the new sites would require $5 billion in construction and other investments.

While Brennan’s recklessness is obviously of no interest to the media, it is provoking increasing concern among government investigators, who are looking at a range of his abuses — from leaks to perjury to the outsourcing of spying on Trump to foreigners under the guise of “intelligence-sharing.” A member of the intelligence community tells TAS that he was approached by FBI investigators inquiring about Brennan’s improprieties at the CIA. He was startled to hear them venting aloud about Brennan’s practice of using British intelligence officials to spy on the Trump campaign, including American contractors hired by the British who were...

Leaders of Iraq's interim Governing Council joined U.S. officials and Middle Eastern immigrants at a memorial service in Northern Virginia last night that reflected rising demands by Iraqis for a quicker turnover of power by U.S. occupation authorities. "We need to build our own security and our own government. We will work with the coalition . . . but they need to hurry," said the council's temporary president, Ahmed Chalabi, speaking in Arabic to an audience that included Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz. His comments were translated into English for a reporter. The service was in honor of Ayatollah...