Free Republic

It wasn’t that long ago that Venezuela, which possesses the world’s largest crude oil reserves, was a relatively stable democracy with one of Latin America’s fastest-rising economies. It was a nation so awash in petroleum revenues that the socialist government of the late former President Hugo Chavez spent huge amounts on social programs and, at one point, even provided free heating oil for impoverished Americans. But starting in 2014, the South American nation began suffering a startling collapse. With Venezuela’s gross domestic product plummeting even more than the United States during the Great Depression, many of its nearly 32 million...

It is unclear whether the cause of the syndrome is viral or bacterial – a distinction with implications for treatment – although autopsies have indicated that those who died were suffering from other complications, such as Chikungunya.Venezuelan hemorrhagic fever (VHF) is endemic in the two states of Portuguesa and Barinas, but transmission from person-to-person is uncommon.While samples have been sent to the Venezuelan National Institute of Health, the results have not yet been released publically and there is no suggestion from health officials that VHF is behind this particular outbreak.One doctor, who wishes to remain anonymous, attended a meeting last...

A brief but important follow-up to Ed’s item this morning. You probably don’t recognize the name in the headline; until recently, I didn’t either. In fact, the name of the Khorasan Group itself wasn’t leaked to the media until last week, although James Clapper had alluded months ago to unnamed AQ operatives inside Syria wanting to hit the U.S. from afar.Turns out al-Fadhli has been on U.S. intel’s radar for a loooong time, though. And now he’s dead — maybe. Among the Al Nusrah Front positions targeted in the bombings are locations where members of the so-called “Khorasan group”...

Al Qaeda confirmed that the US killed its military commander for the "Khorasan," or Afghanistan and Pakistan, in a drone strike in Waziristan in early 2014. Sufyan al Maghribi, a Moroccan who served as the group's military chief in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one of many unknown al Qaeda leaders who "work in silence and leave in silence," according to a prominent jihadist who reported his death one year ago. Maghribi was also a contributor to the jihadist group’s Vanguards of Khorasan magazine. Maghribi's death was confirmed in a message released yesterday by al Qaeda that featured Ayman al Zawahiri....

".......Lisandro Barazarte, a photographer with the local newspaper, Notitarde, caught images of several of the men shooting into the crowd while steadying their firearms on their palms. "They were practiced shooters," Barazarte said. "More were armed, but didn't fire." When it was over, two La Isabelica men were dead: a 22-year-old student, Jesus Enrique Acosta, and a little league baseball coach, Guillermo Sanchez. Witnesses told the AP the first was shot in the head, the second in the back. They said neither was at the barricades when he was killed.... ....."They put a pistol in my face and said they...

2008: "Crimea is not disputed territory of Ukraine, and the issues of Russian speakers are internal issues of Ukraine." 2013: "Russia certainly doesn't plan to send troops into Ukraine." 2014: "After the annexation of Crimea, Russia doesn't plan to further divide Ukraine." 2019: "It's nonsense that Russia plans to attack anyone in future." 2022: "Russia's Special Military Operation does not involve the occupation of Ukrainian territories," and "Russia has acquired new territories during the Special Military Operation." 2023: "The conflict in Ukraine is not a territorial conflict—we have plenty of own territories." 2024: "Anyone who wants Russia to give up...

A firm representing House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) solicited Jeffrey Epstein for donations and to get him to attend a dinner with then-President Barack Obama, newly released files revealed. Thousands of pages of documents from Epstein’s estate published by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week included a 2013 email from a representative of Jeffries’ asking Epstein to meet with and give money to the Democrat leader. House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) exposed the email on the House floor during consideration of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which passed 427-1: https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/1990866192358055989 New York City-based firm Dynamic...

Seen from the sky, the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in California’s Mojave Desert resembles a futuristic dream. Viewed from the bottom line, however, Ivanpah is anything but. The solar power plant, which features three 459-foot towers and thousands of computer-controlled mirrors known as heliostats, cost some $2.2 billion to build. Construction began in 2010 and was completed in 2014. Now, it’s set to close in 2026 after failing to efficiently generate solar energy. In 2011, the US Department of Energy under former President Barack Obama issued $1.6 billion in three federal loan guarantees for the project and the Secretary of...

In an ideal world, maybe we could ignore what's happening in Ukraine but we have to see the world as it is, not how we want it to be: Russia is calling and wants its Ukraine back. I generally appreciate Tucker Carlson, but every time he discusses Ukraine and Russia, I bristle — especially when he contends that America has no interest in Ukraine. I know some of you might agree with Carlson, but you can be a solid conservative who is just as war-weary as the next guy and still see a security interest in Ukraine without being a...

A driver shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he ploughed into groups of people in the eastern French city of Dijon on Sunday evening, AFP reports. 11 people were injured, two of them seriously, in the attack, a source close to the investigation said. "The man, born in 1974, is apparently imbalanced and had been in a psychiatric hospital," the source told AFP, adding that "for now his motives are still unclear". The driver was arrested by police after targeting passersby at five different places in the city on Sunday evening, a police source said. "Nine people were lightly injured and two...

But don’t be concerned: Governor Cuomo says there is no “ongoing threat.” In lower Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon, a Muslim named Sayfullo Saipov, screaming “Allah akbar,” drove a rented truck along a bicycle path, killing at least eight people and injuring numerous others. According to Al Arabiya, “New York state governor Andrew Cuomo told media that there is no evidence to suggest wider plot or wider scheme.” And Time.com reported that Cuomo said that there was no “evidence of an ongoing threat or any additional threat.” No evidence to suggest a wider plot or an ongoing threat? Really, Governor? Here’s...

Responsibility for the attack? Sayfullo Saipov, the 29-year-old Uzbekistan-born ISIS operative who killed eight people after driving a truck down a crowded bicycle path in New York City, worshipped at a mosque around the corner from his and his family’s Paterson, New Jersey residence, Masjid Omar bin al-Khattab. The mosque has been associated with a website that advocates committing violence against others. Because of this fact, the mosque itself should be considered a party to Saipov’s horrific crime. On October 31st, Halloween, Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, an Uber driver with known residences in Tampa, Florida and Paterson, New Jersey, drove a...

Here’s the left’s next great idea for bringing down President Trump: another women’s march. Which means another public instance of Trump haters shouting slogans to one another and mistaking it for constructive politics. What progressives need to defeat Trump is outreach, but all they have is outrage. On March 8, organizers seem to be aiming for a different vibe than the librarians-in-pussy-hats element that made the first women’s march after Trump’s inauguration so adorable. Instead of milling around Washington, organizers have in mind a “general strike” called the Day without a Woman. In a manifesto published in The Guardian on...

1.It Was Not a “Lone Wolf” Attack In addition to a potential accomplice that has since been arrested, an image of an ISIS flag on a cellphone near the location of the terrorist attack in NY surfaced two months ago. According to the police complaint against Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, the 29-year-old began planning the attack close to a year ago. The complaint asserts that Saipov watched and was inspired by ISIS videos. One of the two cellphones that were found in the truck had close to 90 violent ISIS propaganda videos on it, some with information on how to make...

Back in 2014 the New York Police Department dropped a program that monitored potential suspects of Islamic extremism. Created in 2005, the program was pretty cut and dry: plain clothed detectives were sent out to mosques and gathering places for Muslims to see if anyone was pushing extremist rhetoric on the community. While it might seem a bit intrusive, this happened in a city of 8.5 million people with as many as 800,000 Muslim residents in the greater metro area, many of whom are foreign born nationals. It's also the same geographic location as the biggest Islamic terror attack in...

University of Pennsylvania, which hosted the Penn Biden Center where classified documents were found in November, received $47.7 million from China in the three years when Biden was affiliated with it. ... The University of Pennsylvania, the Ivy League institution which collected tens of millions of dollars from China while paying Joe Biden and hosting his foreign policy think tank, successfully pressured the Biden Justice Department to end an FBI counterespionage program targeting Beijing's increasing influence within U.S. academia. Attorney General Merrick Garland shut down the FBI's so-called China initiative in February 2022 shortly after more than 160 members of...

Honduras still has a long way to go to dismantle the “narco-state” that grew under ex-president Juan Orlando Hernandez, jailed this week for smuggling a deluge of cocaine into the United States, experts said. Hernandez, 55, spent years in positions of power cozying up to kingpins from some of Latin America’s most notorious cartels, which placed proxies in state institutions while he pocketed millions of dollars in drug money. Extradited to the United States upon leaving office in 2022, Hernandez was sentenced this week to 45 years in jail for his crimes after prosecutors said he had turned his country...

A prominent Ukrainian politician and former parliament speaker has been shot dead in western Ukraine, officials said, as a search was under way to find the attacker. Andriy Parubiy, who also previously served as secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, was killed in the city of Lviv on Saturday.The Prosecutor General’s office said a gunman had fired several shots at Parubiy, killing him “on the spot”. The attacker fled, and a manhunt was launched, it said.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the killing as a “horrendous murder” and offered his condolences to Parubiy’s family and loved ones.“All necessary forces...

Highland Park shooter Bobby Crimo III was left in a hot car by his mom for 27 minutes as a toddler - with his mother later convicted over the incident. The disturbing 2002 incident was one of multiple brushes with the law Crimo's mom Denise Pesina and dad Bob Crimo Jr had with cops prior to Monday's massacre in Chicago that killed seven. It is unclear if the hot car incident left Crimo, now 21, with any physical or mental injuries that may have ultimately led to the horrific shootout. Police were also called to his family's home 10 times,...

KYIV, Ukraine — For Ukraine’s counteroffensive to progress faster, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, the top officer in Ukraine’s armed forces, says he needs more — of every weapon. And he is telling anyone who will listen, including his American counterpart Gen. Mark A. Milley as recently as Wednesday, that he needs those resources now....So it “pisses me off,” Zaluzhny said, when he hears that Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive in the country’s east and south has started slower than expected......“Without being fully supplied, these plans are not feasible at all,” he added. “But they are being carried out. Yes, maybe not as fast...