Free Republic

Yellow Vests protester Eric Drouet says he attempted to stage a protest in Paris Wednesday night to: "show the French that we are not free"..... In Washington the political change with a new session of Congress Thursday...... Seven are dead and eight injured, some critically, after a fiery accident on I-75 near Gainesville, Florida Thursday..... A legendary Chicago machine politician is under federal indictment for attempted extortion...... A group of 11 men are being tried in Saudi Arabia for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi..... Israel's Attorney General Avechai Mandelblit says: "I an working with the Chief Prosecutor and spend...

Good morning. Today is the last day Republicans control both houses of Congress amidst a failure to pass funding President Trump wants to build a wall on the southern border with Mexico. There is also a partial shutdown involving five federal government departments.... Writing in an opinion piece for the "Washington Post" incoming Republican senator from Utah and former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said this about President Trump among other things: "Trump's words and actions have cause despair throughout the world"...... President Trump tweeted Sunday evening that he looks forward to a meeting with North Korea's ruler Kim Jong-un.......

Netflix rarely finds itself thrust into political debates like other internet giants, but it won't enjoy that luxury in 2019. The streaming service has pulled the second episode of Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj in Saudi Arabia after the country alleged that it violated a cybercrime law barring content that threatens "public order, religious values, public morals, and privacy." The episode is critical of the Saudi government's apparent murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi as well as the war in Yemen, and suggests that both tech companies and the US as a whole should "reassess" their connection to the kingdom.

Netflix has taken down an episode of a satirical comedy show critical of Saudi Arabia in the country after officials from the kingdom complained, sparking criticism from Human Rights Watch, which said the act undermined the streaming service’s “claim to support artistic freedom”. Hasan Minhaj was critical of the Saudi heir in an episode of the standup show Patriot Act, delivering a wide-ranging monologue mocking the Saudis’ evolving account of what happened inside the country’s consulate in Istanbul in October, when the journalist was killed. … Human Rights Watch said artists whose work is broadcast on Netflix should be outraged,...

During a Q&A hosted by the Washington Post, House Speaker Paul Ryan positioned Mitt Romney as John McCain’s moral successor. In one of the last interviews Ryan will have given as House Speaker, he praised his long-time friend, former running mate, and Utah senator-elect. “It’s great that he’s coming,” Ryan said. “Mitt believes there’s a role for him … as a standard-bearer for our party.” McCain was a maverick GOP element in public perception, often resisting his own party’s majority stance on key issues as a matter of principle. Before his death, McCain famously voted against the repeal-and-replace Republican health...

When Donald Trump announced that his first trip abroad as president would take him to Saudi Arabia and to Israel, it was a signal that the new administration had returned America’s traditional alliances in the Middle East to their privileged status. For the prior eight years, the Obama White House had, in contrast, prioritized relations with these countries’ regional adversary in Iran and embraced the Islamic Republic’s regional allies, Turkey and Qatar, as key interlocutors and partners. The Obama administration also supported Islamist movements in the Middle East, principally the Muslim Brotherhood, that threated to topple regimes and instigate more...

Jamal Khashoggi’s op-eds published in the very influential Washington Post certainly qualify as attempts to change U.S. policy against Saudi Arabia and in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Washington Post has caused itself a major scandal since it has come to light they and their martyred “reformer” Jamal Khashoggi were publishing anti-Saudi propaganda for Qatar. They tried to bury this in a pre-Christmas Saturday news dump, but that can’t stop the damage this will do to their reputation.“Text messages between Khashoggi and an executive at Qatar Foundation International show that the executive, Maggie Mitchell Salem, at times shaped the...

Saudi Arabia has now agreed to spend the necessary money needed to help rebuild Syria, instead of the United States. See? Isn’t it nice when immensely wealthy countries help rebuild their neighbors rather than a Great Country, the U.S., that is 5000 miles away. Thanks to Saudi A!

Many observers have asserted that the withdrawal gives victory in Syria to Russia, Iran and the Syrian government. That’s absurd. Bashar al-Assad’s regime already controls about two-thirds of Syria, including all of the major cities. The portion of Syria that U.S. forces control alongside their Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) allies is mostly either desert or drought-prone plains. The oil fields there produce high-sulfur, low-value crude, and production has long been diminishing. Oil revenue made up only about 5 percent of Syrian gross domestic product before the 2011 uprising, according to the International Monetary Fund. In sum, holding northeastern Syria would...

There have been some intriguing developments related to Syria that are now being reported in the wake of President Trump’s announcement of the withdrawal of U.S. troops. To begin with, it appears that the Kurds will be getting support from America’s regional allies. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have sent military forces to areas controlled by the Kurdish YPG group in north-east Syria, Turkey’s Yenisafak newspaper reported. Furthermore, a Jordanian official reports that Russian forces currently in Syria will take action to restrain Hezbollah and Iranian activity there, according to understandings reached by the U.S., Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia...

..."Saudi Arabia and the UAE have sent military forces to areas controlled by the Kurdish YPG group in north-east Syria, Turkey’s Yenisafak newspaper reported. The paper said the forces will be stationed with US-led coalition troops and will support its tasks with huge military enforcements as well as heavy and light weapons. Quoting the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the newspaper reported that a convoy of troops belonging to an Arab Gulf state recently arrived in the contact area between the Kurdish PKK/YPG and Daesh in the Deir Ez-Zor countryside. This comes at a time when Ankara is preparing to...

BEIRUT (AP) — Turkey is massing troops near a town in northern Syria held by a U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led force, a war monitor and Turkish media said Sunday. The buildup comes even though Turkey said it would delay a promised offensive in eastern Syria in the wake of U.S. decisions to withdraw its troops.

With a week to go before Christmas here are some stories from Washington to think about? Who will President Trump pardon?..... Will President Trump get a bill on his desk to let a lot of people out of federal prison? Criminal Justice Reform passed the House and now before the Senate.... For now the President wants to review the case of a former Green Beret charged with murder for shooting a man in Afghanistan in 2010.... No evidence of President Trump colluding with Russia. That's what Ken Starr...... Saudi Arabia has condemned the US Senate for passing resolutions..... North Korea...

Almost everything we know about what actually happened in the Saudi Consulate comes from the Turks. Make that everything we know. And make that what we think we know. One thing is certain at this point. The US-based Saudi journalist Jamal Kashoggi is dead. The rest, down to how long it took for the Saudi executioners to kill him – seven minutes – we have from Turkish sources. Now ask yourself – why are the Turks so determined to be so informative? The regime in Ankara is hardly a champion of human rights for journalists. Hardly a paragon of selfless...

Khashoggi’s murder is only a symptom of a much bigger problem. The biggest mistake the Trump administration made in the Jamal Khashoggi case occurred while Khashoggi was still alive: letting Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, think he could get away with something so heinous — and so heinously stupid. But the bell was rung, as it were, and there is no way to unring it. The Saudis surely made everything worse by lying about it. But the aftermath is such a complicated mess because it illuminates decisions made long before Prince Mohammed’s goons brought a bone saw to...

Nineteen days after Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, the Saudi regime has at last acknowledged the obvious, that Khashoggi is dead. After first insisting that he had left the consulate of his own accord despite video evidence to the contrary, and then slamming the allegations of his murder as “baseless” and threatening oil sanctions against those claiming otherwise, the kingdom has finally settled on its official story: Khashoggi was inadvertently killed inside the consulate during a fistfight that just happened to break out in the midst of an otherwise standard meeting with...

Haspel arrived in Turkey Monday to meet with government officials and listen to the purported recording. The report indicated that she was the first U.S. official to have access to evidence since news leaked that Turkey obtained a recording of the killing.

In a hotel conference room in Denizli, Turkey, about 60 Iranians sing along to songs praising Jesus mixed with Iranian pop music. When the music stops, American pastor Karl Vickery preaches with the help of a Persian translator. "I'm not famous or rich. But I know Jesus. I have Jesus," he says, with a Southern drawl. The Farsi-speaking Christian converts shout "Hallelujah!" and clap.

The terrorist attack suspect in Strasbourg, France shot dead by police Thursday.... The latest polling in France for next May's European Parliament elections shows a lead for the National Rally party of Marine Le Pen.... And getting back to the "yellow vests" two representatives appeared before the media in Versailles France Thursday to announce that Phase 5 of the protest is on for this Saturday.... The Battle of Brexit. The word from the European Union summit in Brussels is that there will be no renegotiation or changes to the Brexit deal agreed to by the EU and Prime Minister Theresa...

Economist Paul Krugman warned of a new “axis of evil” this week that includes Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the U.S. Former President George W. Bush once spoke of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an “axis of evil” due to the actions of dictatorial regimes, long trains of humanitarian abuses and gulags. The new trifecta of evil, Mr. Krugman says, earn the designation for resisting reports on the severity of climate change. “There’s a new axis of evil: Russia, Saudi Arabia — and the United States,” the New York Times columnist tweeted Monday while sharing a piece by The Washington...