Free Republic

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-VW) released a statement Thursday shortly after news broke that Gov. Jim Justice (R) filed paperwork to run for his Senate seat, claiming he “will win any race” he enters. “I am laser focused on doing the job West Virginians elected me to do – lowering healthcare costs, protecting Social Security and Medicare, shoring up American energy security and getting our fiscal house in order,” Manchin said. “But make no mistake, I will win any race I enter,” he added.

Just days after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border by climbing a wall, a Chicago priest says what he did was wrong and urged parishioners in his Southwest Side church to apologize if they had done the same. "And by recognizing you did something wrong, you can't keep it doing it," said the Rev. Gary Graf of St. Gall Roman Catholic Church in Chicago's Gage Park neighborhood. "I'm begging the people to take a different tactic." --SNIP-- Graf paid for the trip but took about $3,000 from a church collection to pay coyotes, or people who smuggle others into the U.S. for...

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and his House Oversight committee did not waste any time getting down to business when their “Gun Walker” hearings resumed yesterday. Within a matter of hours, they had Special Agent in Charge William Newell, of the Phoenix ATF office, sizzling nicely on the Oversight hibachi, and this astonishing exchange occurred: So now we’ve got the Internal Revenue Service, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and ICE connected with Operation Fast and Furious. We already know the FBI was involved, because some of their paid confidential informants starred in ATF’s favorite closed-circuit TV shows. Who’s left to implicate? Ah,...

The Tories Will Lose The Next Election If They Enter Into A Coalition With The Tainted Lib Dems Norman Tebbit May 8th, 2010 What a mess! What an unholy mess! The unloseable election against the worst government in British history finishes in talks to establish the terms on which the losers’ party with only 23 per cent of the votes and only 57 seats might graciously allow the party with 36 per cent of the votes and 307 seats to form a government. This was the election in which the poisonous legacy of Blair’s NuLab plan for the irreversible change...

A Chinese national who is believed to have manipulated her fingerprints to slip past Japan's fingerprint identification system has been arrested for violating the Immigration Control Law, the Metropolitan Police Department's Organized Crime Control Bureau announced on Monday.

Three Tijuana police officers suspected of ties to organized crime were detained this week by U.S. authorities as they tried to cross into the United States. The officers, two of whom were assistant chiefs, were taken into custody at the Otay Mesa and San Ysidro ports of entry, said Lauren Mack, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego. The officers worked for the municipal police department and were turned over to the Mexican military. The first two were detained Monday and are among the 20 municipal officers being held for questioning in Mexico City by the federal...

Britons could lose the privilege of visiting the U.S. without a visa because of fears over the terrorist threat from within the British Pakistani community. U.S. security officials are deeply concerned at the ease with which young Britons who have trained in Pakistani terror camps can enter America under the visa-waiver programme. Their concerns were heightened this week when five men, most of whom were Britons of Pakistani descent, were jailed for life for terrorism offences. Omar Khyam, jailed for his part in the fertiliser bomb plot, could easily have entered America after training in Pakistan

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 19, 2006 – Afghan and coalition forces reasserted authority in two villages reported to be under Taliban control in the Helmand province of southern Afghanistan, military officials reported. The combined forces moved into the village of Narwa in the Nawa Barakzayee district yesterday, meeting no resistance and finding no Taliban extremists. There were no indications of damage or violence as the village was secured. Although media sources had reported the Taliban was in control of Narwa, village elders said a group of Taliban had been in the village, but had since left the area well before Afghan...

Thousands of illegal immigrants cross the U.S-Mexico border into Arizona every day. “To better yourself, for your family, and for a better life,” says Alfonso Miramontez, who’s from Los Mochis, Sinaloa, a town that's about an 8-hour bus ride from Nogales. Miramontez says, once he heard the U.S. might be sending National Guard troops to the border, he immediately headed north, and was planning to illegally cross into Arizona Monday night. “It’ll now be much harder to cross through the desert," says Miramontez, ”but the Army (National Guard) on the border won’t stop me.” Like Miramontez, Eduardo Reyes, an immigrant...

NEW YORK (AP) - A federal judge said he is troubled by government delays in deciding whether a Muslim scholar can enter the United States and may order authorities to make a decision. A lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union accuses the government of manipulating the Patriot Act to try to silence Tariq Ramadan, who has been invited to speak in the United States later this month and twice later this year. U.S. District Judge Paul A. Crotty said the State Department seemed to be taking a long time to act on a request by Ramadan last August...

NEW YORK - The American Civil Liberties Union sued the U.S. government Wednesday for preventing a Muslim scholar from entering the country, arguing that the government was using anti-terrorism laws as "instruments of censorship." The lawsuit asks the court to find a provision of the Patriot Act unconstitutional and seeks clearance for Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss intellectual and Muslim scholar, to accept invitations to speak in the United States. Ramadan was blocked from accepting a tenured teaching position at the University of Notre Dame when his visa was revoked in August 2004 because of a provision of the Patriot Act,...

Process for Reserve, Guard to enter regular Army has been streamlined By Lisa Burgess, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Saturday, June 25, 2005 Brig. Gen. Sean Byrne, the Army’s director of personnel management, right, swears in Sgt. Maj. Terry Grezlik, the first soldier to make the reserve-to-active switch under the Army’s new policy. ARLINGTON, Va. — Army National Guard and Reserve soldiers who have been mobilized for the war on terror can use a new streamlined entry process into the regular Army. On June 17, Army officials announced that they are eliminating the long-standing practice of having mobilized reserves...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

BREAKING NEWS: al-Sadr to Disband Militia, Leave Imam Ali Mosque By Andrew L. Jaffee, August 18, 2004 Home   Search   Forum   Terms Threatened with an imminent raid of the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf by Iraqi forces, radical Islamist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has agreed to disband his militia, vacate the mosque, and "enter into the mainstream political process." Pressure has been building against al-Sadr for quite some time now. The power-hungry cleric has been stirring up trouble in Najaf, Karbala, and Baghdad since early April. On May 21, over 2,000 Iraqis held a demonstration in the city of Karbala insisting that al-Sadr and...

<p>NEW YORK — Ah, Hollywood. A place synonymous with glamour, decadence, fame … and Republican actors running for office.</p> <p>In a population usually stereotyped as left wing and liberal, most entertainers-turned-candidates stand squarely on the political right.</p> <p>Take film star Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Terminator is running for California governor as a Republican in the election to recall Democratic Gov. Gray Davis. A look back in time shows he's just the latest in a long line of celebrity candidates.</p>

Britons arrested trying to enter Gaza Strip The Israeli army has raided the West Bank offices of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement. Soldiers confiscated computers and documents, and arrested an American and an Australian. Earlier in the day, Israeli security forces arrested two British members of the group, who were trying to enter the Gaza Strip. Alice Coy and Nick Durie were taken for questioning at the border crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, said the ISM. About 22 army jeeps surrounded the group's offices in the village of Beit Sahour, said George Rishmawi - a Palestinian close to...

US moves toward Tikrit, more troops enter from Kuwait AS-SALIYAH, Qatar (AFP) - US commanders said a large number of Marines were heading north of Baghdad toward Tikrit, a traditional stronghold of Saddam Hussein and the last major bastion of his troops. The push came as forward elements of the 4th Infantry Division crossed from Kuwait into Iraq, according to the US Central Command. "Tikrit is one of the areas where we still have concerns that there may be presence of regime forces and we have been relentless in our efforts focused at the Tikrit area," Brigadier General Vincent Brooks...

US soldiers 'are using Jordan to enter Iraq' By Justin Huggler in Maan, Jordan 28 March 2003 This dusty, impoverished corner of Jordan is making the country's authorities nervous. For one thing, there is the protest against the war in Iraq that the people of Maan plan to hold today – a protest they call the "march of the coffins". Then there is the military base at Jafr, 50 miles away in the desert, where locals say they have seen hundreds of US soldiers arrive in the last few months, plus trucks carrying tanks and armoured vehicles. It encapsulates Jordan's...

Israeli troops enter West Bank city of Hebron Israeli troops have entered the West Bank city of Hebron from three directions, according to Palestinian security officials. The officials said the Israelis moved into the city in three tanks, about 20 armoured personnel carriers and some 20 jeeps. They surrounded several houses. They said the Israeli operation appeared aimed at making arrests and did not look like an attempt to gain control of the whole city. The Israeli military had no immediate comment. Since the end of a full-scale Israeli incursion into the West Bank that ended earlier this month, Israeli...