Free Republic

(Reuters) - An undocumented immigrant from El Salvador is suing San Francisco alleging police violated the city's sanctuary city policy by turning him over to U.S. immigration authorities after he reported his car stolen. The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday on behalf of Pedro Figueroa Zarceno, 32, in federal court in San Francisco against the city and its police chief for violating his right to due process and breaking an ordinance barring municipal employees from cooperating with federal immigration authorities seeking to deport a person. Figueroa walked into a police station in November 2015 to report his car stolen, according...

A former child sex slave sold into a Belgian aristocratic paedophile ring where boys and girls were raped, tortured and murdered has revealed the horrors of her five years of abuse. Anneke Lucas, 53, was sold into the murderous paedophile network in Belgium when she was just six years old in 1969. Recalling her sickening abuse, she said: 'I was raped many, many, many times. I don't have any scars to show how many times I was raped. 'Usually it was a full night and weekend and so I gathered I was raped for about six hours a week -...

Breaking ranks with 70 other nations, London laments that confab held without Israelis and Palestinians, ‘just days before transition to new US president’ Dramatically breaking ranks with participants from 70 other countries, the United Kingdom criticized Sunday’s Middle East peace conference in Paris, arguing that it might harden Palestinian negotiating positions and refusing to sign a joint statement issued after the summit that called for a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A Foreign Office spokesman said London had “particular reservations” about the Paris meeting taking place without Israeli or Palestinian representatives, especially since a new US administration is...

Moscow, Russia – During a press conference in Moscow, on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin weighed in on the ongoing power struggle taking place in the U.S. in the lead up to the transition of power in Washington, D.C. on January 20 – going so far as to call it a “soft coup.” (Watch Putin warning video at link) Putin was direct in his interpretation of events that are currently transpiring in the U.S., noting that he sees the same forces currently at work in America, as were behind the 2014 soft coup in Ukraine. That coup began under the...

XI JINPING took a stab at seizing the mantle of global economic leadership on Tuesday, delivering a lengthy defense of free trade and globalization at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. To some extent, it worked: Many in the elite crowd of business leaders, government ministers and journalists seemed thrilled to hear the Chinese president, in his first appearance at the swishy forum, proclaim that there was “no point in blaming economic globalization for the world’s problems” — particularly as he spoke on a day when British Prime Minister Theresa May was outlining a “hard exit” from the...

Many of China’s space capabilities are designed to counter U.S. military advantages. In the highly “informatized” and technologically advanced battles that characterize the 21st century, outer space will play a dominant role. Space assets direct military operations and help in making crucial battleground decisions. In this regard, attempts to weaponize space and command this sphere are to be expected from great powers. The United States and USSR started weaponizing space in the in the 1950s and 1960s respectively, and China is now following suit. What Is the “Weaponization” of Space? The weaponization of space includes placing weapons in outer space...

As president, Barack Obama was too cool for the special relationship. The romantic bond between the United States and Great Britain, which always makes Churchill fans go all soggy-eyed, left him cold. Obama was more interested in globalism, ‘pivoting’ to Asia and the European Union. Donald J. Trump is a very different creature. The new US President seems to cherish Great Britain, whereas the EU annoys him. Brexit is beautiful, he believes — and the EU is falling apart. Trump may or may not know the name of the British Prime Minister but, as he told Michael Gove this week,...

Taiwan delegation to Trump inauguration arrives in U.S. 2017/01/17 New York, Jan. 16 (CNA) Former Premier Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃) arrived in New York on Monday night at the head of the Taiwanese delegation to attend the inauguration ceremony of United States President-elect Donal Trump scheduled for Friday in Washington, D.C. On arriving, Yu said he planned to convey his congratulations to the president-elect, as well as the desire of Taiwan's people and government for increased cooperation and exchanges with the United States. Yu said he believed the Taiwanese government would seek greater engagement with the new U.S. administration through various...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz introduced a bill on Tuesday that would declassify information about the terrorist activities of detainees at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba who have been released or transferred since Election Day. The move came after a report that the Obama administration recently struck a deal with Oman to transfer 10 detainees from Gitmo. The move brings the total number of detainees down to less than 50. Cruz and other Republicans have been heavily critical of Obama’s transfers and of his promise to close the facility before leaving office. Republicans point to a statistic that 30 percent...

The Army says former private Chelsea Manning will lose her military healthcare benefits despite President Obama’s commutation of her prison sentence. “If Pvt. Manning is discharged with a dishonorable discharge, she will lose her entitlement to [military] benefits, including gender-transition care at [military] medical treatment facilities,” Army spokeswoman Cynthia Smith told USA Today Wednesday. Smith said Manning’s dishonorable discharge was included in the terms of the 35-year prison sentence imposed on her in 2013. Manning was convicted of leaking classified information about U.S. national security activities that were later publicly disclosed by WikiLeaks. Smith said Manning could appeal her discharge...

For the last time, Obama took reporters’ questions in the White House briefing room on Wednesday. It was his last official event before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Friday. On international issues, Obama admitted he continued to be “worried about the Israeli-Palestinian issue. The status quo is unsustainable.” He said it was bad for the Palestinians, the region and for national security. In his final news briefing, he expressed concern that the “moment may be passing” for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He added, “I don’t want to predict today what could end up happening,” in an...

President-elect Donald Trump could soon face resistance within his own party over his tariff threats. A staffer for Republican Senator Mike Lee told trade experts at a lunch in Washington this week that he is looking into ways to curtail the president's wide-ranging powers to impose tariffs, according to one of Lee's aides. The aide said a bill could be introduced as early as next week, and it may require Trump to go through Congress to use tariffs. Lee, who represents Utah, declined to comment for this story. Trump's spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. The aide...

Having listened stoically for the past two months to accusations without evidence that Moscow "hacked the US election", and that Hillary's loss was indirectly due to Putin's alleged meddling, which resulted in Obama's expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats, on Wednesday Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov finally snapped, and lashed out at the ongoing US election scapegoating fiasco, saying that leaders and top officials from the UK, Germany, and France have “grossly interfered” in US internal affairs, “campaigned” for Hillary Clinton, and openly “demonized” Donald Trump.

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to be UN ambassador, questioned Wednesday at her Senate confirmation hearing whether the US's funding of the world body is worth it. And she diverged sharply from many of the foreign policy views Trump has expressed, telling senators that she expected the President-elect's views to evolve under the counsel of his national security team. Haley rapped the UN for its treatment of Israel and indicated that she thinks the US should reconsider its contribution of 22% of the annual budget. "Are we getting what we pay for?" she asked. Haley...

President Obama’s last week in office has brought with it a flood of breaking news. The biggest story, of course, is his commutation of Chelsea Manning’s 35 year prison sentence. My own impression is that his decision is designed as a cynical bit of legacy-building, with the added benefit of perhaps inducing Julian Assange to leave the Ecuadorian embassy. Although that prospect appears increasingly remote, it very well might have factored into his judgement. Overlooked in news coverage of the Manning commutation is the grant of clemency to Oscar Lopez Rivera, a leader of the Marxist-Leninist Puerto Rican terror group...

After recently witnessing that hideous effort by John Oliver (who IS he anyway?), I bring before you a much more accurate and less scatalogical effort. Enjoy.

see link in post below

Retired Marine Gen. James Mattis was approved on Wednesday by the Senate Committee on Armed Services to serve as secretary of defense in Donald Trump’s administration. Mattis sailed through the committee, which voted 26-1 for him to lead the Pentagon. Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) was the only member of the Senate panel to vote against the retired four-star general, who enjoys bipartisan support to head the Defense Department under President-elect Trump. Gillibrand has previously said she would oppose confirming Mattis because he only retired from the Marine Corps in 2013, while federal law requires a seven-year break between military...

The White House said Wednesday that President Obama granted clemency for transgender military secrets leaker Chelsea Manning “in pursuit of justice,” and accused congressional Republicans of hypocrisy for criticizing the commutation. “Chelsea Manning was convicted of serious crimes,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest. “She also took responsibility for those crimes. She expressed remorse for those crimes.” He said Manning’s 35-year prison term was “much longer than the sentence that was handed down to people who committed similar crimes that got much less attention.”

EUROPE’S right-wing parties are set to meet up in Germany amid an apparent rift in Germany’s populist movement over how close to get to France’s Marine Le Pen. ___ Leaders of eurosceptic movements from France, Germany and Italy will come together in the city of Koblenz to discuss a possible political pact which could hand them more influence within the EU. Symbolically, they will get together on January 21 - the first day of billionaire tycoon Donald Trump's stint as US President and a day after his inauguration. The meeting will bring together Ms Le Pen, the French presidential candidate...