Free Republic

The president’s mental decline was like a dark family secret for many elite supporters. President Joe Biden walked before a row of flags and took his place at a lectern stamped with the presidential seal. A few feet in front of him, thin panes of teleprompter glass, programmed with prewritten remarks, were positioned to meet his stare as he spoke into a microphone that would carry his voice through a soundsystem. His White House press secretary looked on. So did several senior White House officials. Anxiety clung to the humid summer air. What the president was about to say might...

Joe Biden looked lost at a Waffle House after his bad debate with Trump on June 27, 2024. A man in a beige suit signaled Jill Biden and helped get Joe out fast. That man was Anthony Bernal, 52 years old. He works closely with Jill Biden as her top helper and also helps the president. People now wonder if he had more power than anyone knew, especially as Joe's health got worse. A former Biden aide said Bernal had “the most power inside the White House.” A book named Original Sin said Bernal was rude, strict, and tried hard...

PASSPORT NUMBER ALSO REVEALED, ZUMUNTA ASSOCIATION USA CONDEMNS ACT Lagos (THEWILL)- THEWILL has continued to investigate the attempted terrorist attack in the United States by a Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab. The Director General of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Dr Harold Demuren told journalists on Boxing Day that Umar bought his ticket at the airport office of KLM Airlines in Accra, Ghana without leaving any contact details then returned to Nigeria. "The ticket information revealed that the ticket was purchased in Accra, for $2, 831, with original routing for Lagos - Amsterdam- Detroit- Amsterdam- Accra, but was later re-issued...

Every August, the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Georgia is accompanied by familiar reflections about missed warning signs, intelligence failures, and a supposedly unexpected turning point in European security. The language has become so standardized that it obscures a far more uncomfortable reality. Georgia did not reveal a new Russia. It exposed a Russia that had been behaving consistently for nearly two decades while much of the West continued searching for evidence that Moscow had fundamentally changed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Describing the failure to recognize this trajectory as a collection of mistakes understates what actually occurred....

For over two decades, Venezuela has served as a critical outpost for Hezbollah in the Western Hemisphere, with reports detailing the group's entrenchment on Margarita Island and ties to the former regimes of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. U.S. intelligence assessments and media investigations describe this presence as evolving from fundraising networks among the Lebanese diaspora in the 1980s to sophisticated operations involving training, smuggling, and financial schemes by the 2000s. Margarita Island, once a bustling tourist spot, has been highlighted as a primary hub, surpassing even the Tri-Border Area in Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay for Hezbollah's regional activities. Training...

Colombia has officially announced the death of Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda, the commander of Latin America's largest armed group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc). David Moreno, an admiral in the Colombian navy, confirmed in Bogota on Saturday previous statements by senior officials suggesting that Marulanda was no longer alive. Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia's defence minister, had told Semana magazine that Marulanda, Farc's leader for four decades and believed to be about 80 years old, may have died on March 26, citing "a source who has never failed us". He said quoting "guerrillas" that Marulanda died of a heart attack,...

Guest post by Robert Bowes Will Too Late Jay Powell allow an illegitimate Fed meeting September 16-17, 2025? Cook’s false occupancy statements on mortgage applications are confirmed by her numerous errors and omissions in her signed U.S. Office of Government Ethics financial filings. But wait, there’s more. Did Cook exploit regulatory lapses at a free-wheeling DC credit union where they ignored risks and gave her two low-interest rate mortgages? Cook likely could not have tricked the underwriting systems at major banks, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, but was approved for two first mortgages from Bank-Fund Staff Federal Credit Union (“BFSFCU”),...

On 16 June, Gazprom’s Board of Directors finally agreed on the mechanism of buyout of the 10.74% of its shares necessary for the state to become the controlling shareholder in this monopolist company (until that time, the state had controlled 39% of shares in Gazprom). The decision is an element of the consistently implemented plan of strengthening the state’s position in economy. At the same time, it ends a subsequent stage of the battle between Kremlin-based coteries for control of the strategic assets in the energy sector. This battle has laid bare the divisions and conflicting interests among influential Kremlin...

A list of the national security and foreign policy advisers to the leading presidential candidates from both parties. DEMOCRATS Barack Obama Robert Malley, President Clinton’s Middle East envoy and now International Crisis Group’s Middle East and North Africa program director, national security adviser

Many people are wondering how Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old socialist Muslim who wants to defund the police, globalize the intifada, and destroy capitalism, has emerged as the Democratic Party's nominee for New York City mayor, with leaders like former President Bill Clinton fawning over him. To understand Mamdani’s political ascent, you have to trace the red-green-blue spider’s web that brought him here. This isn’t a complete map — I've written a book, "Woke Army: The Red-Green Alliance That Is Undermining America’s Freedom," to document that story — but it is a snapshot of key turning points over two decades of...

Petraeus Patience By the Editors If Gen. David Petraeus wasn’t denounced as a traitor upon his arrival on Capitol Hill Tuesday, his testimony was the occasion for the same dreary willful obtuseness on the part of congressional Democrats as in September. Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker again were cautious and understated, perhaps to a fault. Without over-promising, they explained how we have built on the tentative security gains that Democrats were so skeptical of six months ago, and that there has begun to be political movement. The progress we have won is “fragile and reversible” as they repeatedly said, dependent...

Agency says getting all people, legal and illegal, to safety is its top priority The U.S. Border Patrol said today it is not checking the documents of individuals who are fleeing Hurricane Dolly, and it has no intention of using natural disasters as a pretext for rounding up and deporting illegal immigrants, 1200 WOAI news reports. Officials in the Rio Grande Valley have been worried about Border Patrol actions ever since a reporter spotted a Border Patrol official conducting a document check during a hurricane evacuation drill in McAllen in May. Some officials had expressed concern that Rio Grande Valley...

Evidence in the trial against HLF showed that Ghassan Elashi, the treasurer of the charity, became the founding board member of CAIR’s Texas chapter and that HLF transferred funds to CAIR for “consulting services.” The prosecution also presented evidence that Hamas provided “seed money” for CAIR, according to a congressional hearing. “The history is very clear,” said Lorenzo Vidino, director of the Program on Extremism at GWU. “CAIR was created by this core group of Hamas leaders in the US in the early 1990s. There are FBI wiretaps of a workshop given by the group’s leaders on how to deal...

Abstract: North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il's faltering health has raised concerns about regime stability. Succession rumors have been swirling for years, with Kim's third son, Jong-eun, currently rumored to be Kim's favored choice. But regardless of whether leadership stays in the family or is wrested away by a challenger, a new North Korean leader is likely to keep in place the same belligerent policies--toward South Korea, toward China and Japan, and toward the U.S. If succession does not go smoothly, and if the North Korean regime were to collapse, the ensuing chaos would require immediate action by the U.S. and...

If wasn't clear before it should be now: the Bush administration can't afford to attack Iran. With gas already at $4 a gallon and rising almost every day, Iran figuratively and literally has the United States over a barrel. As much as the administration is tempted, it is not about to test Iran's promise to "explode" the Middle East if it is attacked.

April 03, 2009, 2:00 p.m. Imperial Judiciary Goes GlobalBy the Editors In 2004, the Supreme Court sowed the seeds for a national-security upheaval when it ruled, in Rasul v. Bush, that war prisoners held outside the United States had a right to challenge their detentions in federal court. Last year, in Boumediene v. Bush, the justices continued the seismic shift, holding that the right they had invented in Rasul — a right extended to aliens whose only connection to the United States is in waging war against it — was somehow rooted in our Constitution. Thursday, the inevitable earthquake...

May 15, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: United States Transfers Lakhdar Boumediene to France Lakhdar Boumediene, an Algerian national who had been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility since 2002, has been transferred to France. As directed by the President’s Jan. 22, 2009, Executive Order, the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of Boumediene’s case. As a result of that review, Boumediene was approved for transfer to France, which was carried out today pursuant to an arrangement between the United States and France. Boumediene was involved in the Supreme Court case, Boumediene v....

In 1955, Algeria had over 1 million Catholics and 140,000 Jews. Today, as Pope Leo visits Algeria, there are some 8,000 Catholics in Algeria and there are fewer than 200 Jews.99% of the population of what was one of the old territories of Christianity are Sunni Muslims.Was Islam so popular that all the Christians and Jews decided to convert? Not at all. They were persecuted, murdered, tortured and driven out by Islamic violence that occurred in our lifetimes.Christians and Jews had lived in Algeria since Roman times. Now they’re gone.This Christian genocide was endorsed by major world powers, aided and...

Seth Klarman: We've Been Feeding On The Government's "Hostess Twinkie Market" And We're About To Starve Courtney Comstock May 24, 2010, 8:48 AM At the CFA institutes's annual conference, Seth Klarman spoke to the audience about how we've been living off a "Hostess Twinkie Market" since 2008. Marketfolly has the full notes from his speech from the conference, in which he explains: Hostess Twinkies make childhood happier with totally artificial ingredients. The market has been made happier by government manipulation. 0% interest rates, Mortgage Lending Programs, Cash for Clunkers, TARP, etc...I'm worried to this day about what would happen if...

The empty desks appearing across Colorado today are the delayed consequence of decisions made years ago by politicians, educators, and cultural elites. Colorado colleges are bracing for what education experts call an “enrollment cliff.” Fewer high school graduates mean fewer college applicants, shrinking tuition revenue, budget cuts, mergers, and even campus closures. The same phenomenon is unfolding nationwide. After years of warnings, the demographic reckoning has arrived. According to recent Colorado education data, public school enrollment fell by more than 10,000 students this year, the state’s largest decline since the pandemic. State officials point to a simple explanation: there are...