Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump granted a full pardon on Tuesday to George Papadopoulos, a former campaign aide who pleaded guilty as part of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.Trump also pardoned Alex van der Zwaan, 36, the Dutch son-in-law of Russian billionaire German Khan. Van der Zwaan was sentenced to 30 days in prison and fined $20,000 for lying to U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators about contacts with an official in Trump’s 2016 campaign.Their names were included in a wave of pre-Christmas pardons announced by the White House. Trump granted full pardons to...

NAIROBI, Kenya (Morning Star News) – Muslim extremists in Sudan who have burned down a church’s worship structure five times threatened to kill them if they put up another tent and continue worshipping, sources said. Police this month arrested nine of the 14 radical Muslims who burned down the temporary worship structures of the Sudanese Church of Christ (SCOC) in the Dar El-Salam area of Omdurman, across the Nile River from Khartoum, said the attorney representing the Christians, Shanbago Awad Mugadam. Saying they didn’t want a Christian presence in the area, the extremists have burned down the structures on Jan....

After 27 years as a global pariah, Sudan has been officially removed from the American State Sponsor of Terrorism list. The U.S. Embassy in Khartoum made the announcement in a Facebook post, saying that the statutory 45 days had lapsed since President Trump gave Congress notice of the administration's intent to delist Sudan, so the declaration could now come into effect. udan was first added to the list in 1993 after the United States said it had provided assistance to terrorist groups. The country gave safe haven to Osama Bin Laden and it was implicated in the twin bombings of...

Just wow! Sneaky little devils. Sounds like they're afraid of this.

Thousands of people have signed up for a New Year’s Day protest in Philadelphia. With the yearly Mummers parade canceled, some 2,600 people plan to go to the Mummers protest march. “Mayor Jim Kenney has tried for years (like every Philly Mayor in the past) to cancel the Philadelphia Mummers Parade, a tradition preceding the birth of our nation. What he can NOT do is cancel our First Amendment right to peacefully protest his erroneous taxes and restrictions on our freedoms and liberties. It should go without saying that everyone will be on 2nd Street New Years Day, strutting their...

Three men who were kicked out of a packed California strip club for refusing to wear face coverings returned with an AK-47 and wounded three people in a drive-by shooting, authorities said. Edgar Nava-Ayala, 34, Daniel Juvenal Ocampo, 22, and Juan Jose Acosta-Soto, 20, were tossed out of the Sahara Theater in Anaheim on Halloween after breaking the jiggle joint’s mask mandate, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said Monday.

“There’s more of a sense of freedom down there,” Paul Teutul Sr. said on a Zoom call from the current Orange County Chopper headquarters in New York state as ice pounded the roof above him. WKRG.com’s Biker Dad Blog broke the news last week that the reality show stars are moving their operations down south. Monday we got a chance to speak with Sr. and Jane Kay of Orange County Choppers about the big move.

Congress swiftly passed a $2.3 trillion COVID-19 relief and government funding bill on Monday that was stuffed with cash for foreign countries and policy pet projects for powerful legislators. Although the bill authorizes $600 stimulus checks for most Americans, a $300 weekly unemployment supplement and $284 billion in small business loans, it also contains other, more obscure provisions. The bill adds two National Mall museums, bans the US Postal Service from delivering e-cigarettes and makes online streaming of copyrighted material punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – Warren County Jailer Stephen Harmon, eight deputy jailers and 101 inmates are COVID-19 positive. There are 92 inmate tests pending and six staff tests pending. “Thanks to the steadfast jail management and sanitation efforts, Warren County Regional Jail has been among the only few county jails with no COVID positive inmates, until now... The majority of COVID positive inmates are asymptomatic. None of the inmates are hospitalized or experiencing severe symptoms.

Ok. Newsmax today says that if, at the reading of the Electors, for each one, a Senator AND a House Member objects, then, AT THAT TIME the houses are divided and each one conducts debate amongst themselves for two hours. If, and only if, this debate goes on until Jan 18th, then the election GOES TO THE HOUSE where each State GETS ONE VOTE. So my question is do we have enough support to sustain this effort? Are there enough senators and house members to carry on a 12 day debate? Does anyone think this can be done?

Nineteen counties in Ohio have exceeded or equaled records for the most overdoses in a year as the nation continues to see a spike in drug overdoses during the coronavirus pandemic. Harm Reduction Ohio, a drug policy advocacy group which says it is the largest distributor of naloxone in the state, says the biggest increases in death caused by overdoses have occurred in central and east Ohio. There have been more than 3,700 overdose deaths in the state, a number likely to rise by the end of the year, Harm Reduction Ohio said. May saw a record-breaking 557 deaths. The...

“This was not a politically motivated investigation. There is no deep state,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) last December, as she accused Attorney General William Barr of “unsupported attacks” on the FBI. Contrary to the California Democrat, there is a deep state and it does more than conduct covert operations like the Midyear Exam and Crossfire Hurricane. The central agency of the deep state is not the FBI but the SES, the Senior Executive Service, hiding in plain sight. “The SES insignia or emblem represents a keystone—the center stone that holds all the stones of an arch in place,” the...

As details continue to come to light about Hunter Biden’s suspicious dealings with China, Senator Mitch McConnell has also been coming under fire for conflicts of interest with the communist country. One America’s Richard Pollock spoke with Peter Schweizer and has more from Washington.

RUSH: Grab audio sound bite number 1. I am glad to see that there is an echo out there. Sharyl Attkisson this morning on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal. The host is Pedro Echevarria and he spoke with the host of the syndicated political affairs program Full Measure, Sharyl Attkisson. She’s got a new book. Slanted: How the News Media Taught Us to Love Censorship and Hate Journalism. Now, Echevarria says, “You have written books taking a look at the media. What does this book have apart from the…?” In other words, how is this book different from your others? ATKISSON: The...

..... ....Rumors even swirled that Barron was getting a Goldendoodle puppy named Patton to go along with his new home. However, as of this writing, Patton has yet to arrive. Does Barron Trump have a nanny? In a September 2015 interview with People, Donald and Melania Trump insisted they did not use a nanny to help raise Barron Trump. "I like to be hands-on," Melania told the magazine. "I think it's very important. Barron is 9 years old. He needs somebody as a parent there, so I am with him all the time. As you know my husband is traveling...

The owners of over a dozen New York-area pharmacies were charged in an indictment unsealed today for their roles in a $30 million health care fraud and money laundering scheme, in which they exploited emergency codes and edits in the Medicare system that went into effect due to the COVID-19 pandemic in order to submit fraudulent claims for expensive cancer drugs that were never provided, ordered, or authorized by medical professionals. Peter Khaim, 40, and Arkadiy Khaimov, 37, both of Forest Hills, New York, each were charged with one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud,...

A Black defendant’s right to a fair trial would be harmed if the jury heard the case in a courtroom lined with portraits of white jurists, a northern Virginia judge has ruled. The upcoming trial of Terrance Shipp on charges of eluding police will be held in a courtroom that has no portraits on the wall, said Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge David Bernhard. Bernhard noted that his usual courtroom has no portraits. But jury trials that were postponed during the coronavirus pandemics are now being held in larger courtrooms. The walls of those rooms are lined with portraits of...

Many Democrats in Congress acknowledge that National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed vast government surveillance overreach. They demonstrated their concern with their actions: When key provisions of the Patriot Act were up for reauthorization earlier this year, progressive Democrats led the charge to strip the law of language used to justify mass surveillance programs uncovered by Snowden. But now, as President Donald Trump considers whether to pardon Snowden for his alleged crimes, only one Democratic member of Congress has pushed the lame-duck president to do it. The federal government has charged Snowden with three felonies: one count of theft...

Antifa watcher, journalist Andy Ngo, got a look at the Christmas card – not a holiday card, not a solstice card but an actual Christmas card – that one “militant antifa” is sending out this Christmas.

1.Q: Why did the cloud date the fog? A: He was so down to earth. 2.Q: Why are chemists so good at solving problems? A: They’re always working with solutions. 3.Q: What did one tectonic plate say when he bumped into another? A: Sorry! My Fault. 4.Q: What did the infectious disease say when the bartender refused him service? A: Well, you’re not a very good host. 5.Q: How did the thermometer insult the graduated cylinder? A: She said, “You may have graduated, but I have more degrees.” 6.Q: What will never go viral no matter how popular they get?...