Free Republic

Ukraine’s new president, a comedian before he turned to statecraft, made a dramatic entrance to the political stage Monday by disbanding parliament minutes after his inauguration. Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who won 73% of the vote last month, justified his contentious decision on the grounds that the legislature, controlled by allies of the man he defeated, is riddled with self-enrichment. Elections to the Supreme Rada were scheduled for Oct. 27, which raised the prospect of Zelenskiy struggling to enact his agenda in the face of a hostile parliament over his first few months in power.

The Australian stock market has soared to an 11-year high on the back of the Coalition's shock election win. Investors reacted positively to Prime Minister Scott Morrison remaining in office, with the S&P/ASX 200 index rising by 97 points to 6,462.3 points during early trade on Monday. This was the highest point since December 14, 2007, before the the global financial crisis worsened and a month after Kevin Rudd was elected Labor PM. ... Investors appeared to be buoyed at voters rejecting Labor's plan to deprive share-owning retirees, who don't pay income tax, from receiving franking credits. They also rejoiced...

President Trump has directed former White House Counsel Don McGahn to skip a House Judiciary Committee hearing scheduled for Tuesday, citing a Justice Department opinion that he cannot be compelled to testify about his official duties. In a statement released Monday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders blasted Democrats for continuing to pursue Trump investigations, saying they want a "wasteful and unnecessary do-over" in the wake of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe -- and describing the subpoena for McGahn as part of that. "The House Judiciary Committee has issued a subpoena to try and force Mr. McGahn to testify...

Democratic leaders in Congress proved the perils of “jumping the shark” this month. The phrase comes from the 1977 episode of the television comedy “Happy Days” in which one of its leading characters, the “Fonz,” jumped over a shark in a water skiing stunt in swim trunks along with his signature leather jacket. That moment was viewed as a desperate ratings stunt by a dying television series struggling to keep viewers engaged. Today, the phrase has come to define similar instances of desperation. With the many overhyped political moments of the last two years, it is not clear when the...

A joint American soldiers and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) armored convoy came under attack by a suicide bomber this evening in east Syria. According to reports, a joint US-led coalition and SDF convoy was struck by a SVBIED attack on Hasakeh-Deir al-Zour highway just south of the city of Shaddadi in east Syria. ISIS claimed the responsibility for the suicide attack saying they managed to kill and injure 8 US coalition fighters including American soldiers, also they added that the attack destroyed a vehicle and damaged couple others. No comment yet from the US-led coalition regarding the attack. More details...

Today’s Campaign Update, Part II (Because The Campaign Never Ends) A couple of Fox News interviews Sunday and Monday morning serve to emphasize how important it is for President Donald Trump to declassify documents thus far withheld by the Mueller Investigation and the FBI under its “sources and methods” catch-all used to hide up embarrassing evidence from the public. The evidence discussed in these clips is transcripts of tapes made of FBI/CIA efforts to entrap Trump campaign operative George Papadopoulous in 2016. The first clip is of Trey Gowdy being interviewed Sunday morning by Maria Bartiromo. Here are some of...

Spain led the Holy League to defeat the Ottoman Turkish Navy at the Battle of Lepanto near Corinth, Greece, in 1571. Hilaire Belloc wrote in The Great Heresies (1938): "This violent Mohammedan pressure on Christendom from the East made a bid for success by sea as well as by land. ... The last great Turkish organization working now from the conquered capital of Constantinople, proposed to cross the Adriatic, to attack Italy by sea and ultimately to recover all that had been lost in the Western Mediterranean. ... There was one critical moment when it looked as though the scheme...

In September 2016 the FBI used a longtime informant, Stefan Halper, to make contact with George Papadopoulos, pay him $3k and fly him to London for consulting work and a policy paper on Mediterranean energy issues. As part of the spy operation the FBI sent a female intelligence operative (a spy) under the alias Azra Turk to pose as Halper’s assistant and engage Papdopoulos. A month later the FBI used Papadopoulos as a supplemental basis for a FISA warrant against Carter Page. Former Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Trey Gowdy, tells Maria Bartiromo that he has seen transcripts of...

In a referendum held on Sunday, Swiss voters agreed to new gun regulations. Gun rights activists lobbied against tighter rules and pushed the vote in an attempt to oppose new agreements between Switzerland and the European Union. The reform of the European Union's firearms directive would place more restrictions on gun owners and centralize surveillance...

Chick-Fil-A to Become Third-Largest Fast Food Chain in U.S. FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: As the biggest fast-food chains have expanded menus to attract new customers, Chick-fil-A Inc. has gained ground with a different strategy: its focus on chicken sandwiches. Since its founding in Atlanta in 1967 by entrepreneur Truett Cathy, Chick-fil-A’s signature item has been its breaded chicken-breast sandwich served with pickles on a buttered toasted bun. The company sells breakfast and salads, too, but its relatively simple menu stands out, compared with its fast-food rivals. Now five decades later, the closely held company this year is poised to...

During an appearance on Mike Huckabee’s Saturday night program on the TNT network, former CBS News ace investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson discussed how she was spied upon by the Obama regime and how deep state espionage against the Trump campaign was based on abject fear of what the president-to-be was promising. Initially, Attkisson — who exposed this in her blockbuster book, “Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington” — talked about how she, with the help of cyber-forensic allies, discovered while working for CBS that all of her computers and devices...

Dozens of students and faculty members at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana walked out of a graduation ceremony ahead of Vice President Mike Pence’s commencement address on Saturday, according to a report. The Indianapolis Star reports the planned protest came after intense debate over the “appropriateness” of the vice president’s speech before the nondenominational Christian liberal arts school. A vast majority Taylor’s graduating class stayed in their seats as Pence took the stage. He received a standing ovation following the walk-out. In his remarks, Pence urged students and faculty to stand tall against increasing hostility against Christians. “Throughout most of...

Russia legalized abortion in 1955 and has the second-highest abortion rate in the world after China. While Russia’s anti-abortion movement has largely failed to change the law, it has gained momentum in recent years, spurred by the rise of the Orthodox Church as a powerful political force. The head of Russia’s Orthodox Church has proposed a national ban on abortion to boost the country's lagging population numbers. “We must first of all remove the topic of abortion to the extent that it exists,” Patriarch Kirill was quoted as saying at a pro-life event in Moscow on Sunday by Interfax. With...

There is something Kafkaesque about the current round of investigating possible FBI, CIA, National Security Agency, Justice Department, and National Security Council wrongdoing during the 2016 election, Trump transition, and early presidency. Special Counsel Robert Mueller had been permitted to range well beyond his mandate of “Russian collusion.” He outsourced much of the selection of his “dream team” and “all-star” staff of attorneys to his deputy, Andrew Weissman. In turn, Weissman—who commiserated with Hillary Clinton at her ill-fated “victory” party on the evening of her defeat—stocked the team with Trump-haters, liberals and progressives, Clinton donors, a few who had previously...

Bjorn Fehrm, a Swedish pilot and aerospace engineer who is an analyst for Bainbridge Island-based Leeham.net, said the report assumes the accidents could have been avoided by “a really proficient pilot … on a good day.” But he said Boeing and Airbus cannot rely on the roughly 300,000 pilots flying worldwide having a good day and being perfectly trained for every emergency. The veteran U.S. airline captain said that the American aviation community needs to avoid getting “too cocky about U.S. pilots being immune from mistakes.” He said he’s spent a lot of time flying with local pilots in western...

White House letter refusing McGahn's testimony to Congress White House counsel Pat Cipollone wrote a letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) released by the White House

On Sunday, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, arrived in Iran for talks on the nuclear agreement, as part of what appears to be an attempt by the UN nuclear watchdog to evaluate whether Iran ran a military nuclear program in the past. Amano is expected to meet with various Iranian nuclear scientists for answers on this very subject. On December 15, ahead of the lifting of crippling economic sanctions on Tehran, he is slated to present the world with definitive answers that will determine whether Iran complied with the terms of a nuclear deal signed...

HOUSTON (AP) — The U.S. government says a 16-year-old Guatemalan died Monday at a Border Patrol station in South Texas, the fifth death of a migrant child apprehended by border agents since December. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that Border Patrol apprehended the teenager in South Texas' Rio Grande Valley on May 13. The agency says the teenager was found unresponsive Monday morning during a welfare check at the agency's Weslaco, Texas, station. The teenager's cause of death is unknown.

Retired Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army Allen West (Screenshot) “Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.” —Perth, Scotland, 28 May 1948, in Churchill, Europe Unite: Speeches 1947 & 1948 (London: Cassell, 1950), 347. “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” —House of Commons, 22 October 1945. Above are two respective quotes of Sir Winston Churchill regarding that collectivist economic model of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels we call socialism. Just last week, Fox Business...

Over the weekend, Iranian proxy forces fired a rocket near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. A week ago, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo order all non-essential State Department personnel out of Iraq after Iran was seen loading missiles onto ships and positioning them toward U.S. targets. For months, the Trump administration has been increasing economic pressure on Iran. Two weeks ago, the State Department announced it was eliminating waivers to countries still purchasing oil from the terrorist regime, subjecting them to sanctions. Now, a new report in the Washington Post shows the pressure campaign is working and is suffocating Iran's...