Free Republic

It’s not everyday The New York Times undercuts its own Trump-Russia saga by admitting that there’s no evidence President Donald Trump owes money to Russia. In a shocking story headlined “No, There Isn’t Evidence That Trump Owes Money to Russia,” Times Business Investigations Editor David Enrich wrote: “Lately, liberals and other social media accounts have been spreading rumors, presented as fact, that [Trump] owes [money] to the Kremlin or Russian oligarchs.” The rumors, according to Enrich, “don’t hold up.”

Former President Barack Obama said in an interview with on the “Pod Save America” podcast on Wednesday that President Donald Trump didn’t “have the patience and the focus to really substantially change a lot of U.S. foreign policy.” Tommy Vietor asked, “You spent countless hours with Vice President Biden talking about national security. What did you learn about how he thinks about diplomacy and counterterrorism and the use of military force that others would not have seen?”

US intelligence had picked up chatter of an 'October surprise' where Russia would leak stolen emails from Ukrainian energy company Burisma alongside forged materials to damage Joe Biden's election campaign one month before the release of content allegedly taken from Hunter Biden's laptop, according to sources. People familiar with the matter told the New York Times that US intelligence analysts had raised concerns of a Russian hack similar to the one that occurred during the French 2017 election, where a trove of Emmanuel Macron's emails were leaked along with fake emails just two days before the country went to the...

Two weeks ago the NY Times published a look at President Trump’s tax returns which found he owes about $400 million in debt. Immediately this became a talking point among Democrats. Nancy Pelosi went on MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell and claimed Trump’s debt was a national security risk. Pelosi hinted darkly that Trump may personally owe money to Vladimir Putin: Ms Pelosi said the report showed that “this president appears to have over $400m in debt”.“To whom? Different countries? What is the leverage they have?” she asked, adding: “So for me, this is a national security question.”“The fact that...

Amid ongoing conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Armenian Jews urge Israel to end weapons sales to Azerbaijan.

China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Cuba and Pakistan are tipped to finish top of Tuesday’s election for seats on the United Nations Human Rights Council, prompting disbelief from freedom campaigners and exiled dissidents alike. U.N. Watch, a Geneva-based monitoring group, said allowing these countries anywhere near the council “is like making a gang of arsonists into the fire brigade.”

A Pentagon analyst was stripped of his security clearance by Obama holdovers after he complained of suspicious government contracts with Stefan Halper, the FBI informant who spied on the Trump presidential campaign in 2016, the Washington Times reported. The pro-Trump analyst also apparently ruffled feathers when he blew the whistle on an alleged sweetheart deal with a woman Chelsea Clinton referred to as her “best friend.” Adam Lovinger, a senior official of the Defense Department’s Office of Net Assessment (ONA), had his security clearance yanked on May 1, 2017, and has been relegated to performing clerical chores ever since. ONA...

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley is seeking to cut in half the budget for an in-house Pentagon think tank, citing in part dubious contracts awarded to Stefan Halper, the FBI’s main spy in its Trump-Russia probe. Mr. Grassley’s target is the Office of Net Assessment (ONA), which gauges foreign threats and the U.S. military’s ability to defeat them. Mr. Halper, whom the FBI wired and deployed to try to persuade Trump associates to implicate themselves in a Russia conspiracy, has received over $1 million in ONA contracts for various studies on China and Russia. “That office has lost its...

Cuba, China and Russia on Tuesday were elected to the U.N. Human Rights Council -- a move that the U.S. branded a “mockery” of the body's intended purpose and as proof that Washington was right to leave the council in 2018. The three countries, all with a history of authoritarianism and human rights abuses, were elected by the U.N. General Assembly, along with countries including Bolivia, France, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan, Senegal, Uzbekistan and the United Kingdom. Saudi Arabia was on the ballot but failed to drum up enough support to win a seat.

Lebanon and Israel, formally still at war after decades of conflict, launch talks on Wednesday to address a long-running dispute over their maritime border running through potentially gas-rich Mediterranean waters. The U.S.-mediated talks follow three years of intense diplomacy by Washington and were announced less than a month after the United States stepped up pressure on political allies of the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah. They also come after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain agreed to establish full relations with Israel, under U.S.-brokered deals which realign some of Washington’s closest Middle East allies against Iran. Hezbollah, which fought a five-week...

...Among the voters, 46% said FBI officials should be criminally charged over the scandal, while only half that number — 23% — said they shouldn't. Thirty percent were unsure...The results indicate that relatively few voters are aware that former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith earlier this year admitted to falsifying an email used to obtain a wiretap against 2016 Trump campaign aide Carter Page....

DANA THOMPSON, A FORMER LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR AND CHIEF COUNSEL TO REP. MAXINE WATERS, REGISTERED AS A LOBBYIST ON BEHALF A HOST OF CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY-LINKED ENTITIES, THE NATIONAL PULSE CAN REVEAL. Thompson, who also served as Chief of Staff for Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, was a former Principal at lobbying behemoth Podesta Group before co-founding Fulcrum Public Affairs, the “only 100% Black and Latinx-owned government relations firm in Washington, DC.” While at the Podesta Group, the project of Democratic heavyweights John and Tony Podesta, Thompson registered to lobby on behalf of three Chinese Communist Party-linked entities: a controversial telecommunications...

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appeared to shed tears at the weekend as he thanked citizens for their sacrifices, in the most striking demonstration yet of how he is relying on his "man of the people" persona to tackle his country's deepening crises. Though the young leader has consolidated his rule over the isolated nation with ruthless purges, North Korea watchers say he has also sought to portray himself as a more traditional political leader than his eccentric father, Kim Jong Il.

Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, one of the most widely recognized and respected Saudi officials in the world, gave a three-part interview to the government-controlled Al Arabiya news network and proceeded to tear down 70 years of myths about the leadership of the Palestinian national movement. Bandar spent 22 years as a Saudi ambassador to the U.S. and is known to speak for the government. It was an extraordinary series of interviews — a brutal assessment of the numerous self-inflicted wounds by Palestinian leaders going all the way back to the 1930s. It was broadcast in Arabic with English subtitles...

What is the Rasmussen call? This email will be declassified on 08/24/2031. That’s a long time for this to remain classified. So what is the Rasmussen call all about. Another interesting point. The email was “classified” on 01/29/2016. That’s right after President Trump took office. DC was full of pro-Hillary Clinton anti-Trump Obama-legacy swamp rats. Oddly, I found other emails related to Rasmussen and they too are classified until much later. So what gives?

The sources of the Russia investigation should, as a matter of basic accountability, be established and disclosed. But no one who is not already a Trump voter cares about dubious investigatory decisions from four years ago. Nor is anyone as exercised as the president about critical things said about him on cable-TV programs. Trump has waged a low-intensity campaign against masks, for no good reason. By setting himself against them, largely on aesthetic grounds, Trump further opened himself up to charges that he doesn’t take the virus seriously — even before his illness and the White House outbreak.

"All trends are going in the wrong direction" The premier of Canada's most populous province speaking today announcing tightened restrictions in three areas (Toronto, Ottawa, Peel). Doug Ford warning of "an alarming rate" of growth in COVID-19 cases..... "The data speak for themselves, we had a superspreader event in the White House, and it was a situation where people were crowded together and not wearing masks" That's what Dr. Anthony Fauci told CBS News...... The commission on those presidential debates cancelling next Wednesday's planned debate amid disagreement..... The President taking his campaign for re-election onto The Rush Limbaugh Show.... Twitter...

MOSCOW - The Russian and Egyptian Navy are preparing to conduct maneuvers, the first of their kind in the Black Sea. According to the press office of the Russian Southern Military District, representatives of the two armies held a three-day conference in Novorossiysk on the preparation of the joint exercises "Friendship Bridge - 2020", which will be held for the first time in the Black Sea. The Black Sea is an inland sea located between the southeastern part of Europe and Asia Minor. It connects with the Mediterranean Sea through the Bosphorus Strait and the Sea of ​​Marmara, and it...

Many unreleased pieces of evidence have been sought by Congress dating back to 2017. Pesident Trump earlier this week vowed complete and final transparency in the Russia probe, ordering the declassification (without redaction) of all relevant documents that show how the false Russian collusion narrative was created by Hillary Clinton operatives and then investigated for three years by the FBI. With less than four weeks to Election Day 2020, there is little time to complete the mission so that voters can understand the foreign influence, dirty tricks and misconduct that began in the last presidential election and continued for years.....

Since Nixon went to China in 1972, the accepted approach to China has been that we Americans must entice China to abandon communism for a capitalist economy that will bring freedom in its wake.  China, however, opted for a fusion of mercantilism and fascism, floating on a sea of industrial espionage and fraud, money-saving pollution, slave labor, and unfair dealing.  While President Trump has been fighting back, in 2020, America's fully socialist Democrat party, accidentally or on purpose, sided with China against America.  I'm prepared to offer four pieces of evidence to support this assertion. The Wuhan virus is a man-made disease.  In...