Free Republic

They catfished Rayyan using two separate fake online female personas. They tried to get him to agree to kill himself in a suicide bombing, killing innocent people (so they could arrest him before he actually carried out the act). He refused. They finally gave up on their plan and arrested him anyway. The first fake girlfriend was Ghaada. She offered to marry Rayyan, but this was a miscalculation. Soon, Rayyan said he and his father were both going to travel to Cleveland to meet her and fix wedding plans, so she ghosted him right after this. The next fake girlfriend...

Special prosecutor urges court to reject Michael Sussmann’s request for dismissal, says alleged lie to FBI was material to Russia probe.. Former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann engaged in “political deceit” during his contacts with the FBI and deprived agents of critical information that could have influenced the course of the Russia probe, Special Counsel John Durham declared in a new filing asking a court not to dismiss his criminal case. Sussmann recently asked the trial judge to dismiss a charge of lying to the FBI, arguing his alleged false statement to the FBI was not material to the...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke Saturday morning with a bipartisan group of US senators and House members via Zoom to plead for additional American help for his besieged country. “Zelensky thanked the US for assistance, and asked for additional security help,” a Senate source told The Post.

BEIJING (AP) — China on Saturday cut its annual economic growth target to its lowest level in decades as Beijing struggles to reverse a slump at a time when Russia’s war on Ukraine is pushing up oil prices and roiling the global economy. The ruling Communist Party will aim for “around 5.5%” growth this year, down from last year's 8.1% expansion, the country’s No. 2 leader, Premier Li Keqiang, said in a report to an annual meeting of its ceremonial legislature. It noted commodity prices are surging but made no mention of the reason: the attack by Beijing’s friend, Russian...

A federal judge on Friday blocked a legal challenge to Rep. Madison Cawthorn’s (R-N.C.) candidacy filed over allegations he helped spur the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on Capitol Hill. Richard Myers, a Trump-appointed federal judge in the eastern district of North Carolina, approved Cawthorn’s request for a preliminary injunction to the challenge to his reelection bid.

1953 March 05 Joseph Stalin dies Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union since 1924, dies in Moscow. Ioseb Dzhugashvili was born in 1878 in Georgia, then part of the old Russian empire. The son of a drunk who beat him mercilessly and a pious washerwoman mother, Stalin learned Russian, which he spoke with a heavy accent all his life, in an Orthodox Church-run school. While studying to be a priest at Tiflis Theological Seminary, he began secretly reading Karl Marx and other left-wing revolutionary thinkers. In 1900, Stalin became active in revolutionary political activism, taking part in labor demonstrations...

From 2018 Congressional Report: "A Republican staff report by the Senate suggests that Russian funds have been funneled through off-shore corporations and passed on to U.S.- based environmental activist organizations with the intent to effect political change." ...In January 2017, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a report stating there is “clear evidence that the Kremlin is financing and choreographing anti-fracking propaganda in the United States.” ...

Vladimir Putin said today that Western sanctions on Russia are almost a declaration of war and that anyone imposing a no-fly zone on Ukraine would be considered to have entered the conflict. He reiterated that his aims are to defend Russian speaking communities through the 'demilitarisation and de-Nazification' of the country so that it became neutral. Ukraine and Western countries have dismissed this as a baseless pretext for the invasion he launched on February 24 and have imposed a sweeping range of sanctions aimed at isolating Moscow.

Sen. Lindsey Graham joined ‘Hannity’ to defend his comments against Vladimir Putin and discuss a resolution to declare him a war criminal. SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: I've been a military prosecutor, defense attorney, judge for 30 something years. I'm going to introduce a resolution next week—I'll give it to you on your show —declaring that Putin is a war criminal. It's clear to me the world would be better off if the Russian people took Putin out tonight. The war in Ukraine would end

Amid the Russian war on Ukraine and the coronavirus, former President Bill Clinton announced Friday that the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) is resuming full operations after largely shuttering in early 2017."The existential threat of climate change grows every day. Democracy is under assault around the world, most glaringly in Ukraine where Russia has launched an unjustified and unprovoked invasion that has put millions of lives in grave danger."

WASHINGTON — A judge on Friday blocked a shameless Democrat electoral challenge that sought to disqualify Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina from running for re-election by labeling him an insurrectionist.U.S. District Judge Richard E. Myers II, an appointee of President Donald J. Trump, stepped in to squelch an effort by Democrat lawyers in North Carolina who had filed a motion before the state’s Board of Elections declaring Mr. Cawthorn, 26, ineligible for re-election under the Constitution. They had contended that the first-term Republican’s support for Patriots who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, made him an “insurrectionist,” and therefore...

Gruesome photos of dead Russian soldiers are being shared online by Ukrainian officials to combat Kremlin censorship of its deadly invasion — while another video shows weeping Russian fighters admitting to war crimes. The images are being posted on various Telegram channels run by Ukraine’s interior ministry and Security Service as the violence continues to escalate. One grim photo shows the mutilated body of a Russian soldier lying in a field with his flesh and organs alongside him.

Technology has been at the center of national security and global economic concerns for years. U.S. President Joe Biden used his State of the Union address this week to again focus on competition with China and competitiveness in technology manufacturing. But that speech was overwhelmed by the more immediate concern of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and there is another key link in the technology sector that the first land war in Europe since WWII has highlighted: the booming hub of tech workers in Eastern Europe. Ukraine, Belarus and Russia – three countries now intertwined in war – have grown into...

Pundits have more questions than answers at the moment. What does Putin want from his invasion of Ukraine? Does he want to reconstitute the Soviet Union? Will he resort to using nuclear weapons? Is he crazy? Here at home, did President Biden think that sanctions would work, or not? Why does America seem to be leading from behind? Why did we rely on China to ask Putin to not invade? How has our energy policy funded Russia’s invasion? But there is another question that must be asked: What do Americans want in the World? The answer isn’t clear. Twenty years...

With humility, hope and joy, a 17 member body of theologically conservative Methodist clergy and laity, known as the Transitional Leadership Council, is pleased to announce the Global Methodist Church will officially launch on May 1, 2022.

“How did we get to the place where, you know, Putin just decides he’s gonna invade *RUSSIA*? Something like this hasn’t happened since World War 2.” - Joe “Baked Potato” Biden

OLYMPIA, Wash. — The Washington state House passed a ban on high-capacity magazines Friday night.The bill passed 55 to 42. It will now move to Gov. Jay Inslee's desk, who has previously said he would sign it.SB 5078 prohibits the sale of gun magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds, along with the manufacturing, distribution, possession, import or purchase of high-capacity magazines in Washington state.A high-capacity magazine is defined as an ammunition feeding device with the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds of ammunition, or any conversion kit, part or combination of parts that can be assembled...

Russia's Vladimir Putin has criticized a recent European resolution assigning some blame to the Soviet Union in the outbreak of World War II. Putin told soldiers that Allied policies of appeasement before the war broke out, for instance tolerating Germany's annexation of Czechoslovakia in 1938, were also to blame for the conflict and for the communist Soviet Union's decision to seek a deal with fascist Germany. But he reserved particular criticism for Poland, alleging in particular that Poland's ambassador to Germany at the time was a Nazi sympathizer. "Essentially they colluded with Hitler. This is clear from documents, archival documents,"...

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Mike Pence urged Republicans to move on from the 2020 election and declared that "there is no room in this party for apologists for Putin" as he further cemented his break from former President Donald Trump.

Welcome to The Bicycle Thread. A monthly PING List for bicycle enthusiasts to share experiences, information and ideas.