Free Republic

Some French lawmakers want to ban Black Friday, the post-Thanksgiving sales event that has morphed into a global phenomenon. A legislative committee passed an amendment Monday that proposes prohibiting Black Friday since it causes “resource waste” and “overconsumption.” The amendment, put forward by France’s former environment minister Delphine Batho, will be debated in the National Assembly next month.

This is the intro video where the insider introduces himself. My thought was to have a central post for all of today's releases. I'm putting it in breaking news but if it's better suited for Front Page news, the mods are fre to move it. He's the satellite uplink tech for CNN Washington so aside from walking around talking to people, he seems to have had the ability to listen in on Jeff Zucker's phone calls to CNN DC. He was still recording those calls as of 9:00am this morning. Since the videos are being released as of noon EST,...

Of the 31 states that have declared their opposition to taking in Syrian refugees, one state, Kentucky, has a specific reason to be wary of the background check process: previously two Iraqi refugees who settled in Bowling Green turned out to be al Qaeda-linked terrorists with the blood of American soldiers on their hands, an ABC News investigation found. In the wake of the Kentucky case, the U.S. halted the refugee program for Iraqis for six months, a fact the Obama administration did not disclose to Congress at the time, officials told ABC News in the 2013 investigation.

This is an update to to a post from Aug 5, dealing with the local planning commission. We attempted to submit plans (small, <500 sq ft addition in an unused side yard at the back of our house - adding exactly 2 walls) to the building dept in July and were told we were in a 'special study zone' and our plans needed 'extra' scrutiny before we can submit them to the building dept. 95 days and an extra $2000 later, we were given permission to submit our plans (after we had to provided them a paint and roof sample)....

We're attempting to build a master bedroom and move the master bathroom on our 2100 sq/ft house in Campbell. Total addition is ~500 sq/ft. We went to submit the plans on Monday and were told we're in a "special study zone" so a more complete design scrutiny review is required which will take 60 days to complete and requires buy-in from all our neighbors. Besides this giant hiccup, they said we have to replace our energy-saving water heater that was installed in 2011, change our current low-flow toilets from 1.6 to 1.2 gals, redo our drainage for the new downspout...

Leon Panetta and Robert Gates, two former directors of the CIA and Defence Department, on Saturday criticised President Barack Obama's micromanagement of the military. “For the past 25 to 30 years, there has been a centralisation of power in the White House,” Panetta said during a panel discussion at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. “Because of that centralisation of authority at the White House, there are too few voices that are being heard.” Without naming the Obama administration, Panetta said that by the time you get to the White House, the staff has already decided what should be done. Panetta...

Obama's strategy on how to combat ISIS is confusing at best, but one thing is clear: the battle brewing between Obama and America's top generals about how to move forward against the terror army. Earlier this week during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dempsey said there is potential he will recommend ground troops should the coalition with Arab countries against ISIS fail. “My view at this point is that this coalition is the appropriate way forward. I believe that will prove true but if it fails to be true and if there are...

It is becoming difficult to escape the impression that President Barack Obama heads an administration at war with itself over the appropriate strategy to combat the ISIS threat. Speaking at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida on Wednesday, the president made a point of conspicuously noting again that American troops sent to Iraq “do not and will not have a combat mission.” The clarification was not unexpected; it came just one day after Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told members of the U.S. Senate in a public hearing that there were circumstances which would lead...

Politicians from the left, right and even reporters on MSNBC are deriding President Obama’s just-minted strategy to confront the Mideast terrorist army called Islamic State, or ISIS. Coming under particular scrutiny from both left and right has been a key part of Obama’s plan: supporting so-called moderate rebels in Syria. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, appeared to express the bewilderment of many across the political spectrum, saying, “One of the more incoherent aspects of the president’s speech tonight was when he suggested the answer here is to arm rebels in Syria now.” He explained, “For more than a year, the president...

As President Obama continues to openly state U.S. ground troops on Iraq to combat terror army ISIS are not an option, a number of top military commanders have openly criticized or questioned his strategy, both in the press and in congressional testimony. Now we can add former head of the Marine Corps, General James Conway, to a long and growing list. Speaking at the Maverick PAC Conference in Washington D.C. last week, Conway didn't hold back or mince words about how he views current strategy against ISIS. The Daily Caller has the story: “I don’t think the president’s plan has a snowball’s...

Those people who say that President Obama has no clear vision and no clear strategy for dealing with the Islamic State terrorists in the Middle East may be mistaken. It seems to me that he has a very clear and very consistent strategy. And a vision behind that strategy. First, the strategy — which is to get each crisis off the front pages and off television news programs as quickly as he can, in whatever way he can, at the lowest political cost. Calling the Islamic State junior varsity months ago accomplished that goal. Saying before the 2012 elections that...

Obama’s “we-don’t-have-a-strategy” gaffe was so egregious as to distract attention from the fact that he does indeed have a strategy, which has blown up in his face. His strategy is accommodation with Iran at all costs. As I wrote earlier this month, our ISIS problem derives from our Iran problem: Bashar Assad’s ethnic cleansing, which has displaced 4 million Syrians internally and driven 3 million out of the country, was possible because of Iranian backing. The refugee flood in Iraq and Syria gives ISIS an unlimited pool of recruits. Iraqi Sunni support for ISIS, including the participation of some of...

Barack Obama’s emphatic and repeated promise not to deploy new American combat forces in Iraq now appears to have put the president into an extremely awkward and possibly indefensible position. Reports from various news sources show that Obama’s limited air campaign against ISIS has failed to stop the aggressive onslaught by the terror organization. And number of military experts have recently criticized the president’s “no boots on the ground” approach as anemic and ineffective. A senior government official in Iraq is now claiming that up to 10,000 armed fighters for the Islamic State are amassed at the very gates of Baghdad, poised to...

President Obama 'knows' how to handle Putin's 'continuation' - more sanctions (and costs for Europe) - but when it comes to beating the most "barbaric" terrorists known as ISIS, ISIL, or The Islamic State; he had this to offer... "I don't want to put the cart before the horse. We don't have a strategy yet." Rest assured Americans - who have been told that ISIS could be crossing the borders every day and a constant threat, President Obama is 'working on it'. Perhaps most crucially, while we 'joke' that the administration has no strategy, it is noteworthy that Obama stated...

President Barack Obama addressed Americans Wednesday night increasingly concerned about the threat Islamic State militants are posing in the Middle East and about their commander in chief's ability to face it. In his prime time address, the president reminded people of the uniquely brutal character of ISIS. "They execute captured prisoners," he said. "They kill children. They enslave, rape and force women into marriage. They threaten a religious minority with genocide." Despite the militant's name, the president told Americans, "ISIL is not 'Islamic.' No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL's victims have been Muslim."...

Rush said that 2 weeks ago Obama proudly stated, "We don't have a strategy" for defeating ISIS and prior to that they were the JV team, and prior to that Iraq was settled, it was secure and we could get out of there. Now all of a sudden President Obama has a plan to defeat ISIS which he called a cancer. Rush fired back at the open of his show today calling Obama's strategy 'a joke' that was 'purely political'

Via Ace, who notes that this is part of a broader “Morning Joe” narrative lately that imagines Obama as some sort of warrior-poet whose endless golfing and fundraising demonstrates imperturbable resolve in the face of terror. Same with the “we don’t have a strategy” line at yesterday’s press conference. Maybe that was just a Clausewitzian ploy contrived to get ISIS to lower its guard before O rolls out his devastating, multi-point plan to tighten the noose. It’s possible.Also possible: This guy really doesn’t have a strategy. His remarks came after days of heated debate inside the top levels of...

ISIS has released a video in which American journalist Steven Sotloff is beheaded. It appears to be the work of the same individual with the British accent responsible for beheading James Foley last month.

....Obama wants to decide by the end of the week whether or not his war in Iraq against the Islamic State will expand to the group’s haven in eastern Syria. But nearly everything about the potential military campaign is still in flux, administration officials tell The Daily Beast—from the goals of the effort to the intelligence needed to carry it out.....

Q&A during Obama's NATO Press Conference. Guardian Reporter & Obama. Q: Some Democrats want you to delay action on immigration reform until after the elections. Will you do so? Obama says he has been pretty busy this week, focused on Ukraine and Isis. Fairly soon he will consider what the next steps are. What he is sure is that the US needs immigration reform. The House Republicans have sat on legislation, and delayed for more than a year. In the absence of congressional action, he will act. There is a need for more resources at the border. And he wants...