Free Republic

More than any other group in Lebanon, the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah bears responsibility for the conditions that led to the blast. ... Lebanon is a mafia state governed entirely through criminality and institutionalized corruption. The .. Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah. If there’s one group that bears primary responsibility for the state of affairs in Lebanon that led to the explosion in Beirut, it’s Hezbollah. ... Tony Badran.. Hezbollah’s role in governing Lebanon. .. the terrorist group isn’t a parallel structure to the government, it is the government. ... Hezbollah has long used the port for massive commercial scams and...

Did his attempt to curry favor with Iran work? One of the ways Hezbollah earns money — about one billion dollars a year — is by drug trafficking. It controls much of the sale of drugs sent from Colombia and Venezuela to customers in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. For eight years, beginning in 2008, a wide-ranging investigation by the Drug Enforcement Agency known as Project Cassandra uncovered how Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle Eastern political and military organization into an international crime syndicate, but Project Cassandra was shut down by the Obama administration, that...

Documents show concerns about Ebola shipment from National Microbiology Lab, no relation to COVID-19 (according to the CBC) Newly-released access to information documents reveal details about a shipment of deadly pathogens last year from Canada's National Microbiology Lab to China — confirming for the first time who sent them, what exactly was shipped, and where it went. CBC News had already reported about the shipment of Ebola and Henipah viruses but there's now confirmation one of the scientists escorted from the lab in Winnipeg amid an RCMP investigation last July was responsible for exporting the pathogens to the Wuhan Institute...

Inside the infamous Ferrari crash that brought down Ling Jihua Staff Reporter 2015-01-01 13:29 (GMT+8) More stunning details have been revealed about the infamous Ferrari crash that killed the only son of fallen senior Chinese official Ling Jihua and sent his once promising political career into a tailspin. Ling, best known as the "political fixer" of former president Hu Jintao, has been placed under a probe for unspecified "serious discipline violations, according to a statement from the Central Inspection for Discipline Inspection, the country's top anti-graft watchdog. The 58-year-old once appeared destined for a seat on the Communist Party's elite...

Content warning: This story contains references to violence, suicide, child abuse and self-harm. A suicide attempt, depression, substance abuse, insomnia, surveillance, threats. These are just some of the experiences reported by the low-paid moderators tasked with sifting through Facebook and Instagram’s most disturbing images. The tech giant Meta, which owns both platforms, has kept the whereabouts of this operation a closely guarded secret since moving it from Kenya, where the company is facing lawsuits over working conditions and human rights. For months, it has also refused to name the company that won the lucrative contract to provide the content moderators...

Snippet: "Iran and its terrorist proxy groups’ influence in Latin America remains a troubling security threat to the region and world, experts said at a congressional hearing on Tuesday."

Republican members of the New Mexico House’s Epstein-related special subcommittee are blasting the panel’s process after they say a reference to Democrat gubernatorial candidate Deb Haaland’s 2014 flight aboard an Epstein-connected aircraft was removed from the interim report without their knowledge or approval. Reps. Andrea Reeb, R-Clovis, and Bill Hall, R-Farmington, said Monday that they have “grave reservations” about Chair Andrea Romero’s handling of the panel’s first interim report, citing unilateral changes, shifting drafts, lack of notice to Republican members, and the unexplained removal of information they say all four members had agreed to include. The panel has repeatedly been...

The New York Times reporter Fady Hanona is just one of hundreds of Jew-haters associated with the American media. The Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was one of the bitterest critics of Jews and Israel and a defender of Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda. Still, in the eyes of Wash Post and majority of the US media – he is a “hero”. Similarly, NYT found a perfect reporter as Fady Hanona to fill pages of this newspaper with Jew hatred. And most painful fact is – Fady Hanona would continue working for The New York Times unless his nefarious writings...

A prominent lawyer and former basketball star honored by former President Barack Obama for campaigning to stop violence against women on college campuses has been charged for allegedly stalking and beating his girlfriend — then stopping her from reporting him. Cody McDavis, who played basketball at the University of Northern Colorado before studying law at UCLA and becoming an associate at Los Angeles firm Vedder Price, was even profiled in Sports Illustrated for his efforts to have the NCAA ban students with a history of violence from playing sports. But on July 20, McDavis was charged with six felony and...

ONCE AGAIN, the rioters are looting and pillaging Ferguson, Missouri. Ferguson However, we don’t believe the protests and riots that ensued were ever about Michael Brown. The entire movement represents a threat to our Republic. Yes, you read that correctly… Those supporting, funding, supplying and organizing the recent race riots are a clear and present danger to the Republic of the United States. If you were watching the news broadcasts about the protests in New York City, you undoubtedly saw many people carrying signs reflecting their beliefs. But wait. The people holding those signs don’t look even barely capable of...

Swedish researchers have joined Danish colleagues in an attempt to establish Denmark's claims to parts of the Arctic region. The expedition follows the planting of a flag on the underwater Lomonosov Ridge by a Russian expedition last week. The expedition, led by Swedish icebreaker Oden, set off from Norway on Sunday. It is being led jointly by Martin Jakobsson of Stockholm University and Christian Marcussen of the Geological Survey of Denmark. The Danes claim that the ridge is on the same continental shelf as Greenland, which is a Danish territory. They hope that the expedition will prove the country's claim...

Former US President Bill Clinton said that he regrets pressuring Ukraine to give up its nuclear warheads in a high-stakes negotiation in 1994. In an interview with Irish news service RTÉ released on Tuesday, Clinton said that he felt a "personal stake" in Ukraine's fragile territorial integrity. He said he believed that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine in 2014, and in 2022, had the weapons still been in the country — a position that a Soviet historian echoed to Insider. "I feel a personal stake because I got them [Ukraine] to agree to give up their nuclear weapons," Clinton...

While helping Iraqi forces to break the Islamic State's siege of Amerli, the US Air Force supported a deadly Shia militia that is responsible for killing hundreds of US soldiers. The Shia militia, known as Asaib al Haq, or the League of the Righteous, has also captured and executed US soldiers and British citizens in the past. Iraqi forces, supported by "paramilitary forces" such as the League of the Righteous, advanced on Amerli late last week and reached the town by Aug. 31, The Washington Post reported. By Sept. 1, the siege, which lasted for more than two months, was...

A Middle Eastern woman was caught surveilling a U.S. port of entry on the Mexican border holding a sketchbook with Arabic writing and drawings of the facility and its security system, federal law enforcement sources tell Judicial Watch. The woman has been identified as 23-year-old Leila Abdelrazaq, according to a Customs and Border Patrol (CPB) report obtained by JW this week. Abdelrazaq appeared to have two accomplices, a 31-year-old man named Gabriel Schivone and a 28-year-old woman named Leslie Mcafee. CBP agents noticed the trio "observing the facilities" at the Port of Mariposa in Nogales, Arizona on December 2. Schivone...

A number of reports have surfaced in the last few weeks that corroborate a story Judicial Watch broke in mid-April verifying that ISIS is operating in a Mexican border town just eight miles from El Paso, Texas. This includes the startling development over the weekend that the Islamic terrorist group claimed responsibility for a shooting at a “Muhammad Art Exhibit” near Dallas because it was considered to be anti-Islam. JW’s report was based on intelligence from a Mexican Army field grade officer and a Mexican Federal Police inspector and was met with denials from both the U.S. and Mexican government...

The boss of Foxtel - a majority News Corp-owned cable television company in Australia - has "unreservedly" apologised after an image surfaced of him performing a Nazi salute. Patrick Delaney said he believed he was showing "the similarity" between the gesture and one used by some fans of a Western Sydney soccer club when the photo was taken a decade ago. "Regardless of the context, the fact I demonstrated this offensive salute was wrong," he said in an email to staff seen by the BBC. The Jewish Council of Australia condemned Mr Delaney's actions as "deeply concerning". “Equally [concerning] is...

I've been looking into one of the Iranian passengers by the name of Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad or also known as Pouria Nourmohammadi, and I find one of his Facebook comments quite disturbing, possibly code for hijacking a plane.. His comment was: “Because of some problems I will deactivate my account. Friends, seriously, if I’ve done any of you a bad turn, forgive me because maybe…” Might his "bad turn" comment be his way of telling his handlers he's on track to hijack an airplane and change its flight path? Here are some links which discuss Pouria, whose FB account...

Former deep-cover Russian spy Anna Chapman plays a starring role in a new promotional video for President Vladimir Putin's military and it sounds a whole lot like Cold War propaganda. Chapman, you may recall, was the femme fatale rolled up by the FBI in the early summer of 2010 with nine other "illegals" – all working undercover for the SVR, Moscow's foreign intelligence service. Their job was to gather U.S. political and economic secrets for the motherland. But unfortunately for them, they had reportedly been betrayed by one of their own. The FBI had secretly snooped on them for years...

Since 2013, Rubenstein, 72, who co-founded the private equity giant the Carlyle Group, has given millions to entities that repair and upgrade historical monuments and landmarks like the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument as well as Monticello and Montpelier, the homes of US presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. But some say the restoration at the presidential homes has recast the presidents as sinister racists while downplaying their accomplishments... But a quick dive into Rubenstein’s backstory shows he’s not so pure himself. He made his initial fortune in the 1980s by exploiting a tax loophole in Alaska allowing him...

Earlier this month, Senator John McCain indicated that it was time for the United States to consider selling lethal weapons to Vietnam after a 30-year embargo. The recent maritime standoff between Beijing and Hanoi over Chinese oil exploration off the central coast of Vietnam exposed Hanoi’s many strategic weaknesses. Providing Vietnam with coast guard and maritime systems as a first step - and eventually radar, fighter aircraft and spare parts for leftover American military equipment - would bolster Hanoi’s strategic capabilities vis-a-vis China and give substance to the "comprehensive partnership" announced last year between Hanoi and Washington. But more than...