Free Republic

I should've known that something interesting was coming on CNN when I saw that the violent-nihilistic movie, "V for Vendetta" was advertising itself earlier today on "CNN Sunday Night." You might remember that film; audiences were supposed to cheer terrorists as they blow up Big Ben in London. Happily, audiences shunned the film--Hollywood seems to have overestmated the public appetite for terror-philic films. And that was just the commercial. Host Carol Lin didn't let me down, either--even as she ran down the USA....

The waters in the Caribbean and around Latin America for a long time have provided a path for illicit drugs to flow into the United States, but the U.S. Navy has increased its patrols in the region now looking for something else – Hezbollah terrorists, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin. The Navy, in trolling for mini-submarines sometimes used to transport drugs, has discovered that some of them apparently are being operated by Hezbollah. The mini-subs are small semi-submersibles, made of fiberglass and capable of carrying up to four people plus a payload. They are popular with...

Caruana Galizia had been investigating alleged corruption within the government. Her family and protesters have accused Muscat of trying to shield members of his inner circle from the ongoing investigation into her death. Her journalism-- including her research into Maltese citizens implicated in the Panama Papers -- had made her some very powerful enemies. The Panama Papers are the name for the leak of millions of files from the database of a Panama law firm called Mossack Fonseca in 2016. The journalist had suffered intimidation over the years -- her dog's throat was cut, and in 2006 her house was...

NEWS ANALYSIS: Ostensibly his resignation was a consequence of the leaking of the names of five suspended Vatican officials, but sources tell the Register it was actually triggered by other issues.VATICAN CITY — The resignation of Vatican police commander Domenico Giani on Monday had been long expected, but the background to his removal remains shrouded in intrigue and mystery. The Vatican announced Giani’s replacement today, Gianluca Gauzzi Broccoletti, who has served in the Vatican police corps since 1995 and was appointed Giani’s deputy last year. A former officer in both Italy’s finance police, the Guardia di Finanza, and Italy’s Secret...

Six years ago, in Haditha, Iraq, in the wake of a deadly insurgent attack on their convoy, a Marine quick reaction force raided several houses from which they were taking fire. At the conclusion of the action it became clear that a number of Iraqi civilians had been killed, which was duly reported up the Marine Corps chain of command. The command determined that while the deaths were unfortunate, the engaged Marines had not violated the laws of war. Then, early in 2006, a reporter from Time Magazine got wind of the incident, and all hell broke loose. An...

A ninth woman has come forward to allege she was groped by former Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), according to The Cut. The woman, who asked for her name not to be used, is now a senior staffer at an unnamed progressive organization, and said the incident occurred in 2006 shortly after she graduated from college and was working for Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). While being photographed with Franken, who was then still exploring his eventual 2008 run for Senate, the woman said he placed his hand on her buttocks. “He’s telling the photographer, ‘Take another one. I think I blinked....

Shortened title. Full title: ike Cernovich: “Comey & Muller Knew” About Pulse Massacre, “The Media Is Ignoring It, This Is The Biggest Story Today!" It was just revealed that Seddique Mateen, father of the gunman who slaughtered 49 people in the Pulse nightclub attack, was an FBI informant for 11 years. On Saturday, Assistant US Attorney Sara Sweeney sent the defense an email stating Seddique Mateen was a confidential FBI informant from 2005 through 2016; the email also revealed the elder Mateen is currently being investigated for transferring sums of money to Turkey and Afghanistan. These transfers came just a...

Researchers at University of Toronto plan to introduce a software tool on Friday that aims to help people in countries that censor the World Wide Web. Psiphon (pronounced sigh-fawn), a web-based utility, lets individuals in a country that censors the internet sign on to a server that gives them secure access to web pages anywhere, bypassing government restrictions. Its creators plan to launch the software at the Protect The Net conference at the university's Munk Centre for International Studies, where psiphon emerged as a project of Citizenlab. Researchers at the facility examine the relationship between digital media and politics around...

Former DIA Officer Who Spied for China Hated Trump Court documents reveal Chinese intelligence targets BY: Bill Gertz A former Defense Intelligence Agency officer who spied for China worked secretly as a Beijing agent for five years and revealed in an intercepted phone call he was motivated in part by hatred for President Trump. Ron Rockwell Hansen, a DIA operations officer until 2006, was arrested June 5 and pleaded guilty on Friday in Utah to attempting to sell national defense secrets to China. He faces 15 years in prison under a plea deal. Sentencing is set for Sept. 24. Court...

When you're the source for "breaking news" but it turns out to be "faking news," you're in trouble. ABC News "chief investigative correspondent" Brian Ross reported on retired Army Gen. Michael Flynn's plea deal with special counsel Robert Mueller by claiming that Flynn is "prepared to testify that President Trump, as a candidate, Donald Trump, ordered him, directed him to make contact with the Russians which contradicts all that Donald Trump has said to this point." It was a nuclear explosion. Within minutes, the stock market plunged 350 points. It quickly became clear that was flat-out wrong. Later, ABC News...

Hillary Clinton's lawyer may have allowed hackers to obtain all of the former secretary of state's emails by reviewing the contents of her private server on a laptop tied to Chinese cyberspies, a House Republican charged on Friday. Heather Samuelson was one of the Clinton aides who sifted through the private email server used during Clinton's tenure at the State Department, and helped decide which would be designated as personal messages and which were work-related. That's when the potential Chinese hacks may have taken place, because she used two laptops made by Lenovo, a company with ties to the Chinese...

Questions that need to be asked about Islam were asked by Pope Benedict nearly ten years ago.On a plane ride between Sri Lanka and the Philippines this week, Pope Francis made headlines while talking with reporters about the moral limits to free expression. The issue came up, of course, in the wake of the attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in France, which Pope Francis has strongly condemned. The attacks in Paris — including one at a kosher deli — along with the slaughter that Boko Haram inflicts in Nigeria, the terrorist attack in the Lindt café in Sydney...

In 2012, a year before his retirement, the University of Notre Dame had already published a commemorative volume of essays on Ratzinger’s impressive theology and writings. Two years before that, following his successful visit to the United Kingdom, new Catholic youth movements began springing up, followed by an unexpected increase in men and women pursuing religious vocations. After his retirement, an online initiative titled “Generation Benedict” emerged, inviting young people to describe how Joseph Ratzinger had changed their lives. And this year, the Vatican’s publishing house, in cooperation with the Benedict XVI Foundation, released a new tribute, titled Cooperatores Veritatis...

I agree with President Obama 100%! pic.twitter.com/PI3aW1Zh5Q— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 23, 2018

On Wednesday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller filed a large cache of evidence against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and a former chief strategist for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was all over it. Tad Devine, Sanders' chief strategist, appears from exhibit 5 onward. Mueller listed a memo from 2006 involving Manafort, Devine, and former Ukrainian President Viktor Vanukovych, Russian President Vladimir Putin's puppet in Ukraine. Mueller's evidence lists email after email between Devine and Manafort, connecting them both to Konstantin Kilimnik, a Putin-connected operative whom Manafort described as "my Russian brain." Devine's name appears a total of 21 times in...

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee communicated through phone calls and text messages last spring with a lobbyist for a Russian oligarch in order to gain access to Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the salacious and unverified anti-Trump dossier. Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) texted back and forth with lobbyist Adam Waldman, who runs the Endeavor Group -- which has ties to (surprise!) Hillary Clinton -- while leading the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into President Trump's alleged ties to Russia with his Republican colleague North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr.In one text to the lobbyist, the senator expressed a desire...

It can often be useful for elections analysts to find a previous election to cite as a model for the current one. For example, Brendan Nyhan was fond of referring to 2012 as “Bizarro 2004,” where the Democratic campaign ran roughly on the same trajectory as the Republican campaign of just eight years earlier (and even concluded with a similar margin). There are a number of potential analogues for this year’s midterms, but my mind keeps wandering back to 2006. Here’s the interesting thing: A year like 2006 might not be enough for the Democrats to take the House. The...

WASHINGTON - Liberal evangelicals, weary of a Republican-centric image, launched a campaign Monday to promote Christian values beyond the issues of abortion and same-sex marriage. Red Letter Christians, a project of Sojurners/Call to Renewal, announced plans to establish a grass-roots network of 7,000 moderate and progressive clergy members. "A debate on moral issues should be central to American politics, but how should we define religious values?" said Jim Wallis, an activist and executive director of the Christian ministry, which also publishes the liberal Sojourners Magazine. The project's name comes from the color of some Bible's type, with words directly attributed...

The origin of the Obama administration’s investigation of imaginary Trump-Russia collusion remains murky, but this much is clear: John Brennan, Obama’s Trump-hating CIA director, stands at the center of it. Brennan pushed for a multi-agency investigation of the Trump campaign, using as his pretext alleged intelligence from an unnamed Baltic state. That “intelligence” was supplied at the very moment Baltic officials had their own political motivation to smear Trump. “Last April, the CIA director was shown intelligence that worried him. It was – allegedly – a tape recording of a conversation about money from the Kremlin going into the US...

Border guards seized a British lorry on its way to make a delivery to the Iranian military - after discovering it was packed with radioactive material that could be used to build a dirty bomb. The lorry set off from Kent on its way to Tehran but was stopped by officials at a checkpoint on Bulgaria's northernborder with Romania after a scanner indicated radiation levels 200 times above normal. The lorry was impounded and the Bulgarian Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NPA) was called out. On board they found ten lead-lined boxes addressed to the Iranian Ministry of Defence. Inside each box...