Free Republic

My country, Venezuela, is on the verge of social and economic collapse. This slow-motion disaster, nearly 15 years in the making, was not initiated by falling oil prices or by mounting debts. It was set in motion by the authoritarian government’s hostility toward human rights and the rule of law and the institutions that protect them. -excerpt- I am writing from a military prison, where I have been held since February as a result of speaking out against the government’s actions. I am one of scores of political prisoners in my country .... -excerpt- ... Venezuela’s road to ruin was...

A loud explosion and sounds of heavy fighting have been reported in Chechnya’s capital of Grozny, according to sources on Twitter and some media outlets in the region. Multiple sources on Twitter are reporting that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s motorcade has been seen pulling into the Kremlin in the middle of the night, around the time the unrest unfolded in Grozny.

The nation’s foreign policy is “a manifest disaster.” Its approach to cutting a deal with Iran on nuclear development is “catastrophically reckless.” Its policy on assisting Ukraine in its conflict with Russia is “incoherent.” This White House is home to the “most hostile administration to Israel in modern times.” That’s Sen. Ted Cruz’s scathing assessment of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, a blistering critique that is positioning him as the most blazingly hawkish Republican to potentially run for president in 2016. He also tellingly dubbed it “the Obama-Clinton foreign policy,” a subtle hint that he’d lob much of the same...

“Remarking on the soaring tensions between Ukraine and Russia, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Eduardo Rodriguez Parrilla voiced support for Moscow and echoed his voice against NATO’s expansion eastward.” (This was way back on Feb. 20, by the way.) Most of us recall the Obama administration's lies and treachery regarding Benghazi. But how many of you know about the Obama administration's lies and treachery against the American families of the Americans ambushed and murdered on the orders of Raul Castro this week in 1996?....... Thought so...Well, please read on: You see, amigos: This week 26 years ago three U.S. citizens and...

Palestinian source says Hamas, Islamic Jihad willing to risk counter-suit should Israel be investigated Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has asked the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel for war crimes allegedly committed during the 50-day war with Hamas and other Gaza terror groups last summer. In the request filed with the Dutch Embassy Thursday morning, Abbas asked the court in The Hague to investigate Israel retroactively for alleged war crimes starting from June 13, 2014 — a day after three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and murdered by a Hamas cell in the West Bank, an unnamed NGO worker told...

The cop who saved lives by taking down an Islamist terrorist almost 10 years ago still can't be identified for legal reasons, and could go to prison if he speaks out about what happened. On December 15-16 2014, Man Horon Monis held 18 hostages in the Lindt Cafe on Martin Place in Sydney in a 16-hour standoff with police. Monis was armed with a pump shotgun, which he used to kill cafe manager Tori Johnson, and said he had a bomb in his backpack. The man who can only be referred to as Officer A, was part of the Tactical...

Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar and his wife were indicted Friday on charges of conspiracy and accepting nearly $600,000 in bribes from foreign entities, the Justice Department announced. Prosecutors allege Cuellar and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, began accepting the roughly $600,000 in bribes beginning as early as December of 2014 from an oil and gas company owned by Azerbaijan's government as well as a bank headquartered in Mexico City. While Cuellar's wife allegedly propped up sham front companies on the promise of providing consulting services to the two companies in order to launder the payments, she "performed little to no...

Reid Hoffman previously gave nearly $700K to Biden's reelection effort ... The Democrat tech billionaire who helped rehab Jeffrey Epstein's image and visited his island has poured thousands in donations into several vulnerable Senate races across the country. ... News of the donations come after the Wall Street Journal reported in May that Hoffman visited Epstein’s private Caribbean island, called Little St. James, part of the U.S. Virgin Islands, ... Hoffman and the now-deceased convicted pedophile were planning to return to the island in November 2014, and then travel to Boston, the report said. It's unclear what the intent was...

WASHINGTON—Eleven pages of State Department documents released on Jan. 7 in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch show that Jonathan Winer, an assistant to then-Secretary of State John Kerry, used his private email address to convey information he received from former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to top U.S. diplomatic officials. “I will send them to her [his assistant, Nina Miller] from my non-State email account, not copying myself,” Winer said in response to a December 2014 email from Paul Jones, principal deputy assistant secretary for European Affairs. Jones wanted Winer to use the State...

Universal African People's Organization leader Zaki Baruti (left) and African People's Socialist Party leader Omali Yeshitela.Activists connected to the Leadership Coalition for Justice (formerly called the Justice for Mike Brown Leadership Coalition) and the African People’s Socialist Party announced Friday that they are convening a symbolic grand jury in January to decide for themselves whether former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson should be charged with a crime for killing Michael Brown. The group organizing the symbolic grand jury is called the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, a group that seeks to liberate and empower people of African descent around the...

It's time to expose the Black Lives Matter [BLM] movement for what it is: a racist, violent hate group that promotes the execution of police officers. The evidence is in their rhetoric and written on their shirts. If you take a look at the Black Lives Matter Twitter feed, you'll find photos of activists wearing shirts that say, "Assata Taught Me."  Looks like it's going down in Cleveland. Follow @FEARLESSnFREE and @LotusLightSage for more details pic.twitter.com/wVe6oKF7jn— Black Lives Matter (@Blklivesmatter) August 27, 2015 They're referring to infamous cop killer Assata Shakur, otherwise known as Joanne Chesimard, who shot and killed a...

In an ironic twist of events, the Pound Cake speech in which Bill Cosby famously (or, perhaps, infamously) criticized the black family and black neighborhood for what he deemed unsavory behavior was used to open the comedian to public scrutiny surrounding sexual assault allegations against him.

A National Pulse review of White House Visitor Logs from November 2014 reveals a meeting in the White House Situation Room, chaired by then-Ebola Czar Ron Klain. The meeting appears to have been coordinated by Dr. Anthony Fauci, and included several high-level U.S. government agency heads. (snip) These details may go some way to helping uncover the truth behind the National Institute for Health (NIH) and its alleged funding of gain-of-function experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The information puts Klain and Obama at the head of the table for the decision to green-light what Fauci has been ferociously...

The Czech Republic said on Monday Russia’s eviction of 20 Czech embassy employees in response to Prague’s expulsion of 18 Russian staff was a stronger than expected reaction and the government would consider further steps. Prague expelled the Russian diplomats on Saturday, saying it suspected that Russian intelligence had been involved in explosions at an ammunition depot in October and December 2014. Moscow has denied any of its agents were involved in the blast, which killed two people, branding the Czech stance a provocation. The row is the biggest between Prague and Moscow since the end of Soviet domination of...

President Obama on Thursday signed an executive order officially creating a “Task Force on 21st Century Policing,” a high-level group that will report directly to the president with recommendations on how to strengthen ties between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Mr. Obama first announced the task earlier this month on the heels of unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City, where the deaths of black men at the hands of police officers further fractured ties between police departments and citizens. The task force will be chaired by Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey and Laurie Robinson, a professor...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed US Secretary of State John Kerry’s upcoming talks in Rome on Sunday, during opening remarks for his weekly Cabinet meeting. “Tomorrow I will leave for Rome to meet with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and US Secretary of State John Kerry,” he said. “I will tell them that Israel, to a large degree, stands as a solitary island against the waves of Islamic extremism that are washing over the entire Middle East.” “Until now, we have successfully withstood and repelled these attacks and now we also stand against the possibility of a diplomatic assault, i.e....

Russia has called on the United States to punish those responsible for the use of “inquisition-style” interrogation methods in the “global war on terror”, as revealed in the US Senate report on torture this week. Konstantin Dolgov, the human rights ombudsman of Russia’s foreign ministry, said the results of the “shocking” report were “the latest confirmation of gross, systemic human rights violations by the American authorities”. .... The Senate report showed that “prisoners in secret torture chambers were subjected to inhuman, humiliating treatment” including waterboarding, sleep deprivation and threats against suspects’ families in order to “beat confessions out of often...

Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch announced Monday it uncovered 422 pages of FBI documents showing evidence of “cover up” discussion related to Hillary Clinton’s private email server with Platte River Networks. The newly uncovered documents also show Charles McCullough, the Intel Community Inspector General forwarding “concerns” about classified information found on then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails. Judicial Watch also obtained Hillary Clinton’s 2009 classified information Non-Disclosure Agreement bearing her signature. Via Judicial Watch: FBI notes of an interview with an unidentified Platte River Networks official in February 2016 (almost a year after the Clinton email network was first revealed)...

Senate Democrats and President Obama have moved up to a whole new level of desperate. On Tuesday, Democrats in the Senate, who will lose control of the chamber in just three weeks, released a report focused on interrogation techniques — during the administration of George W. Bush. Yes, Mr. Obama is all about transparency, as long as it’s not about his administration. Despite warnings from top Obama officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry, that release of the once-classified report would endanger Americans abroad, the president demanded that the United States explain its actions to — terrorists. In some ways,...

Only eight days prior to the horrendous slaughter of children and school staff in Pakistan, Barack Obama released Pakistani Taliban leader, the second in command of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). This is the exact group claiming responsibility for today’s massacre in Peshawar, leaving 141 dead.