Free Republic

Headline Only.

The Daily Beast has unearthed several emails that reveal at least two U.S. government officials screened a rough cut of the Kim Jong-Un assassination comedy The Interview in late June and gave the film—including a final scene that sees the dictator’s head explode—their blessing. The claim that the State Department played an active role in the decision to include the film’s gruesome death scene is likely to cause fury in Pyongyang. Emails between the Sony Entertainment CEO and a security consultant even appear to suggest the U.S. government may support the notion that The Interview would be useful propaganda against...

#BREAKING New message to @Sony top execs from hackers: "very wise" decision to scrap movie from theaters via @CNN @brianstelter #SonyHack

Putin Spokesman Confirms Kim Jong-un Invited to Visit Moscow Reuters Dec. 19 2014 16:21 Last edited 16:23 Russian President Vladimir Putin has invited North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to Moscow next year to mark the 70th anniversary of the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, the Kremlin's spokesman said Friday. It would be Kim's first foreign visit since taking the helm of the reclusive east Asian state in 2011. His personal envoy came to Moscow last month in the framework of efforts by the two Cold War-era allies to improve relations. "Yes, such an invitation was sent,"...

Newt Gingrich Interview: Sony Hack Is An Act Of War

National Review's editorial board, Mitt Romney, and other Republicans seem to be MORE willing to stand for freedom of speech than the Obama administration. Getting pushed around by third world tin pot dictators is modus operandi for Demon Rats.

By gum, he sounds like presidential material to me. Your move, Jeb. .@SonyPictures don’t cave, fight: release @TheInterview free online globally. Ask viewers for voluntary $5 contribution to fight #Ebola.— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) December 18, 2014 More than 13,000 retweets as I write this. Clearly there’s a demand for countermeasures among an American public that doesn’t like the idea of foreigners, especially savages like the Kim cabal, holding veto power over their culture. (Too bad China, Kim’s chief patron, already sort of does.) Am I right, though, in thinking that no major Republican pol aside from Romney has said anything...

Sony Pictures co-chair Amy Pascal, who last week apologized over racially insensitive comments she made in leaked emails posted online, just finished a 90-minute meeting with Rev. Al Sharpton in NYC where the two discussed diversity in Hollywood. Here is Sharpton’s take:

Hollywood star George Clooney said fellow celebrities and industry figures did not want to sign a petition supporting 'The Interview' film featuring the assassination of Kim Jong-un as they were afraid of the consequences. Clooney said he wanted to see the film released on-line to undermine the threats of the hacking gang, who are believed to be supported by North Korean agents. Sony's computer systems were breached following a major hacking attack last month, which saw highly confidential material released as well as a string of embarrassing emails.

Cyberwar: Like a bomb detonating in slow motion, the scale and destructiveness of the Sony hack has only now become fully apparent. Telling Americans to go to the movies doesn't cut it as a government response. At first, it seemed as if Sony was the latest victim of hackers who delight in stealing confidential information and sending it along to WikiLeaks. The hackers called themselves "Guardians of Peace" and claimed, "We want equality. Sony doesn't." Sony initially labeled the event as "an IT matter." For a while, the hack seemed to threaten only the reputations of some Hollywood big shots,...

Five commando units trained for strikes, sabotage North Korea dispatched covert commando teams to the United States in the 1990s to attack nuclear power plants and major cities in a conflict, according to a declassified Defense Intelligence Agency report. The DIA report, dated Sept. 13, 2004, reveals that five units of covert commandos were trained for the attacks inside the country. According to the report, the “Reconnaissance Bureau, North Korea, had agents in place to attack American nuclear power plants.” The document states that the North Korean Ministry of People’s Armed Forces, the ministry in charge of the military, “established...

Yesterday, moments before the North Korea "hacking" tragicomedy escalated into full retard mode with Sony pulling The Interview, or a movie that absent the attention would certainly be a flop, Wired released an article titled: "North Korea Almost Certainly Did Not Hack Sony" (title subsequently changed to the one below as can be seen in the URL alias "http://www.wired.com/2014/12/north-korea-did-not-hack-sony-probs"), which however, and for the better, retains its content as it is quite critical in debunking the latest government "certainty."

Snapchat CEO lashes out after Sony leaks By Cory Bennett - 12/17/14 05:25 PM EST Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel said Wednesday that he was “angry” and “devastated” at the information leaked about his disappearing messaging app as a result of the Sony hack. Good chunks of Snapchat’s business plans were revealed Tuesday when the cyberattackers that hit Sony dumped Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton's email catalogue. Lynton sits on Snapchat’s board of directors and had numerous candid email exchanges with Spiegel about hiring practices, possible acquisitions and potential future products. “I felt like I was going to cry all morning,”...

Sony Hack: Activists to Drop 'Interview' DVDs Over North Korea Via Balloon by Paul Bond 12/16/2014 4:03pm PDT This story also appears in the Jan. 9 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Whether or not North Korea is behind the Sony hack, Kim Jong Un better brace himself because The Interview is headed to his country. Human rights activists are planning to airlift DVDs of the Seth Rogen comedy into the country via hydrogen balloons. Fighters for a Free North Korea, run by Park Sang Hak, a former government propagandist who escaped to South Korea, has for years used balloons...

Sony hacks: Sorkin says media are 'morally treasonous' By Anthony Zurcher Editor, Echo Chambers The messages read like something from a bad Hollywood film about Hollywood. The misbehaviour of egotistical studio executives, petulant stars and dictatorial directors seem almost too cliched to be true. But, apparently, they are. Major media outlets have been sifting through the voluminous trove of Sony Pictures emails made public by an anonymous group of hackers known as the Guardians of Peace for more than a week, picking out the particularly salacious details. The resulting stories have provided a candid look at the sometimes ugly, sometimes...

Sony Frees Theaters to Skip Film ‘The Interview’ Amid Hacker Threat Decision Comes After Threats of Physical Attacks Around Dec. 25 Opening of Seth Rogen Comedy By Ben Fritz, Danny Yadron and Erich Schwartzel Updated Dec. 16, 2014 9:03 p.m. ET Sony Pictures executives will let theater operators decide whether or not to play its forthcoming comedy film “The Interview” after threats of physical attacks surfaced on Tuesday, said a person with knowledge of Sony’s plans. The decision came after the same people purporting to have carried out a devastating cyber attack on the movie studio threatened to escalate to...

A North Korean defector gives a horrible account of how people with mental or physical disabilities are seen as a stain on the nation's image and are therefore used for performing experiments before being deliberately neglected until they die. "Disabled children are being taken away, suffering indescribable things and dying," said Ji Seong-ho, who escaped North Korea in 2006 after losing his left leg above the knee and his left hand at the wrist. Ji, the founder of the organization Now, Action, Unity, Human Rights, or NAUH, who was in London this week to protest outside the North Korean embassy,...

American in North Korea denounces U.S., seeks Venezuela asylum: media Reuters 2:54 a.m. EST, December 14, 2014 A U.S. citizen who illegally entered North Korea delivered a lengthy denunciation of U.S. domestic and foreign policy on Sunday and said he was seeking political asylum in Venezuela, the North's official media said. The man identified himself as Arturo Pierre Martinez, 29, from El Paso, Texas, in video footage of a press conference released by the North's KCNA news agency and said he had taken "a risky journey to reach the (North) so that I could pass along some very valuable and...

Sony Hackers Leak New Data, Threaten ‘Christmas Gift’ To Put Studio In ‘Worst State’ Movies | By Linda Ge on December 13, 2014 @ 2:53 pm Latest data dump, the seventh, related to Sony streaming site Crackle The Sony hacking continues to unfold as the group calling itself the Guardians of Peace have released another bundle of data obtained from the studio’s computer files, and issued another warning. “We are preparing for you a Christmas gift,” reads the message. “The gift will be larger quantities of data. And it will be more interesting. The gift will surely give you much...

Kim Yo-jong grows in clout as brother relapses PYONGYANG ODYSSEY Dec 10,2014 North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is experiencing a relapse of his recent health problems, South Korean government officials said Monday. According to the Ministry of Unification, Kim was limping severely in a video clip recently aired by the state-run Korean Central TV. He was limping particularly painfully at an event with female pilots that took place at the end of last month. The Rodong Shinmun, the Workers’ Party’s newspaper, reported Kim’s visit to the air base on Nov. 28 with photos, but no video was aired until Sunday...