Free Republic

I nominate Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey, as the most inconsistent, mysterious, and therefore most unpredictable major politician on the world stage. His victory in a referendum last Sunday formally bestows him with near-dictatorial powers that leave Turkey, the Middle East, and beyond in a greater state of uncertainty than ever.Here are some of the puzzles:Mystery #1: Holding the referendum. The Turkish electorate voted on April 16 in a remarkable national plebiscite that dealt not with the usual topic – floating a bond or recalling a politician – but with fundamental constitutional changes affecting the very nature of their...

The Miami Herald is reporting Hugo Chávez early demise was recognized long before the rest of the world was privvy to the details of a late diagnosed and lethal cancer. With the help of Cuban brothers Fidel and Raúl, and Chávez' hand-picked successor Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan presidential election was moved from December 2012 to October 2012, two months that the report says were crucial. In October Chávez could still stand before his supporters to applaud his re-election, but there was no certainty that he could do so in December. He returned to Cuba for a fourth round of cancer treatments in early...

The lame duck Biden administration’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a rule in December to curb overdraft penalties in what experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation is an example of government overreach that will ravage low-income Americans. The CFPB — an agency that is considered the brainchild of Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren — finalized the rule just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, with the aim of forcing banks to either cap overdraft fees at $5, far less than the $35 average, or to provide the overdraft as a form of credit rather than a penalty....

Blake worked for USIS, also known as United States Investigations Services, where he rose through the ranks to the position of Director. USIS was a Company contracted by the government to conduct National Security Clearance Background Investigations on prospective and current Federal employees. Blake became a Whistleblower in July of 2011 when he exposed that USIS was billing the U.S. Government for background investigations that allegedly had not been properly reviewed.

BRUSSELS — Responding to the growing threat of a humanitarian crisis in North Korea, the European Union will announce on Monday the release of about $14.5 million in emergency aid to feed as many as 650,000 North Koreans. The bloc’s executive body, the European Commission, said that after its experts witnessed evidence of a developing crisis last month during a mission to North Korea, it negotiated an agreement with the North Koreans about how to monitor the delivery of assistance. “Increasingly desperate and extreme measures are being taken by the hard-hit North Koreans, including the widespread consumption of grass,” the...

A close friend, advisor and confidant of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was allegedly interviewed by the FBI in connection with the controversial dossier that was used ‘in part’ as evidence by the bureau to obtain a warrant to investigate members of President Trump’s campaign team, according to several sources who spoke to this reporter. Sidney Blumenthal, a former journalist and a close friend of Clinton, was interviewed by the FBI in 2016 regarding the dossier that alleged Trump colluded with Russia, the sources stated. Department of Justice officials, however, declined to comment on Blumenthal or the dossier. FBI officials declined...

Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) has found evidence consistent with allegations that the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and Government of Sudan-aligned (GoS) militias have apparently engaged in a campaign of systematic mass killing of civilians in Kadugli, South Kordofan. Under the Rome Statute and other international humanitarian law, the systematic killing of civilians in peace or war by their own government can constitute crimes against humanity. Based on an analysis of DigitalGlobe satellite imagery and eyewitness reports obtained by the Satellite Sentinel Project, SSP has identified a site consistent with mass graves in Kadugli. SSP has found evidence corroborating at least...

Although Sudanese president Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir meets more than all of the requirements that qualified Libya's Muammar Gaddafi for regime change -- the U.S. has shown an alarming amount of empathy for the oppressor and his cabal in Khartoum. In fact, Gaddafi's sins pale in comparison to those of Bashir, whose transgressions were concisely enumerated by Doyle McManus in the L.A. Times on Tuesday. Because of his role as the architect of the Darfur genocide -- a campaign which claimed over 300,000 lives -- Bashir became the first sitting head of state indicted for war crimes by the International...

Who is Brett Kimberlin? Brett Kimberlin, also known as the "Speedway Bomber," is the infamous male who set an Indiana town ablaze with a series of coordinated bombings in 1978. The man behind the madness was also convicted of thirty three additional crimes, including illegal use of a Department of Defense insignia, and the Presidential Seal, both of which were used to procure the hard-to-come-by explosives used in the bombings. As a result, Kimberlin served a 17 year prison sentence, in which time he mastered his skills of persuasion by earning a law degree, which he reportedly uses routinely. A...

....On April 29, 2016, when the DNC became aware its servers had been penetrated, an emergency meeting was held between the Chairwoman of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, DNC’s Chief Executive, Amy Dacey, the DNC’s Technology Director, Andrew Brown, and Michael Sussman, a lawyer for Perkins Coie, a Washington, DC law firm that represented the DNC. Sussman took control of the meeting, setting out the DNC’s agenda when it came to dealing with the cyber attack on its server. The three most important questions, Sussman declared, were what data was accessed, how was it done, and how can it be stopped?...

Judicial Watch today released two batches, 184 pages and 45 pages, of newly uncovered emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from the U.S. Department of State sent and received over her unsecure, non-“state.gov” email system. Five emails contain classified information. Judicial Watch obtained the documents in response to a FOIA lawsuit filed on May 6, 2015, after the State Department failed to respond to a March 4, 2015 FOIA request .. seeking: All emails sent or received by former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in her official capacity as Secretary of State, as well as all emails...

BEIRUT, July 8 (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people rallied in the Syrian city of Hama on Friday, calling for the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad, as Western envoys visited the city to show support for protesters. -Excerpt- Footage on the Internet showed a huge crowd in Hama's Orontes Square, some carrying a Syrian flag tens of meters long and chanting "The people want the downfall of the regime." In a symbolic show of solidarity, U.S. ambassador Robert Ford and French ambassador Eric Chevallier visited Hama to put pressure on Assad not to crush the protest.

BEIRUT (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of Syrians carrying olive branches and shouting for the downfall of President Bashar Assad's regime streamed Friday into the flashpoint city of Hama, where the U.S. and French ambassadors traveled in a strong show of support for the protest movement.

A few weeks ago, Malawi’s Ambassador to the United Nations said privately that the Obama administration had threatened to withhold $350 million in aid unless Malawi’s government struck down its laws on sodomy. Let’s take a look at tiny Malawi. According to the CIA World Fact Book, among Malawi’s roughly 16-million inhabitants, the life expectancy is a paltry 5I.7 years, which turns to be the 211th lowest life expectancy in the world. Malawi has the eleventh highest infant mortality rate in the world. And 44 percent of the population does not have safe sanitation, meaning they very well might be...

The United Nations Security Council wants a global "framework" for censoring the Internet, as well as for using government propaganda to "counter" what its apparatchiks call "online propaganda," "hateful ideologies," and "digital terrorism." To that end, the UN Security Council this week ordered the UN "Counter-Terrorism Committee" — yes, that is a real bureaucracy — to draw up a plan by next year. From the Obama administration to the brutal Communist Chinese regime, everybody agreed that it was time for a UN-led crackdown on freedom of speech and thought online — all under the guise of fighting the transparently bogus...

Here is just ONE example, although its a very good example, of why Hillary should be convicted of failing to secure CONFIDENTIAL government foreign-affairs documents... This one is from Sid Blumenthal to Hillary on April 2, 2010. Clearly from the subject matter, it does not belong on any unsecured computer system. It hints at the upcoming killing by the US, France, and NATO of Mohamar Qadaffi, and it even implys WHY this has to be done: Because Qadaffi is creating a 7-billion dollar fund of gold-backed dinars, which will be the only currency allowed for middle-east oil purchases. The message...

Organizers of the US boat participating in the flotilla to Gaza said Friday afternoon that their boat, The Audacity of Hope, was stopped by Greek authorities 15 to 20 minutes after leaving a Greek port, while still in the country's territorial waters. Minutes earlier, organizers said that the ship's passengers were preparing to "non-violently resist any efforts to stop the boat," saying moments later that the boat "is about to set sail," followed by a message saying that the ship had departed. Through the boat's twitter feed, organizers said that a Greek Coast Guard vessel approached The Audacity of Hope...

The US House of Representatives voted Thursday to forbid the Pentagon from providing military equipment, training, advice or support to Libya's rebels. By a 225-201 margin, lawmakers debating an annual Pentagon spending bill adopted an amendment restricting Washington's ability to help fighters looking to overthrow longtime Libyan strongman Moamer Kadhafi. The House was expected to vote Friday on approving the underlying bill, but the provision on Libya's rebels could face stiff opposition in Senate, which must approve the legislation to send it to Obama to sign into law. Republican Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma introduced the measure at a time...

Back in October I told you that Hillary Clinton’s email troubles were anything but over, and that the scandal over her misuse of communications while she was Secretary of State was sure to get worse. Sure enough, EmailGate continues to be a thorn in the side of Hillary’s presidential campaign and may have just entered a new, potentially explosive phase with grave ramifications, both political and legal. The latest court-ordered dump of her email, just placed online by the State Department, brings more troubles for Team Hillary. This release of over 3,000 pages includes 66 “Unclassified” messages that the State...

A little over two years ago, on July 8 2011, a convoy carrying the then US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford made its way through army checkpoints to the besieged city of Hama, then the center of protests against the rule of the Assad regime. The surprise visit was seen as the first concrete sign of US support for the Syrian opposition. … But these days, the veteran US diplomat is being showered with invective and diatribe—on Twitter. The latest social media campaign against Ford was sparked by media reports over the weekend that US Secretary of State John Kerry...