Free Republic

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday signaled his intention to establish a Russian military air base in neighboring Belarus—a move sure to unnerve Poland and the Baltic nations. Belarus has made clear it would not welcome a Russian base, but the former Soviet republic remains dependent on Moscow for credit and energy. […] Belarus is a desirable location for Russia because it borders Ukraine and three members of the European Union and NATO: Lithuania, Latvia and Poland. …

Why exactly does Obama want the “Strong Cities Network”? The Obama administration plans to create a global police force that counters “violent extremism” in the United States and elsewhere. The problem is that in Obama-speak “violent extremism” refers not only to jihadists wishing to harm Americans but also to conservatives and Tea Party activists. Just ask all the law-abiding right-of-center nonprofit groups targeted by Lois Lerner’s IRS during the Obama presidency. Ominously, President Obama and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch unveiled the Strong Cities Network last week at the United Nations. America’s chief executive, who speaks in hushed and reverent...

excerpt: "Cities are vital partners in international efforts to build social cohesion and resilience to violent extremism. Local communities and authorities are the most credible and persuasive voices to challenge violent extremism in all of its forms and manifestations in their local contexts. While many cities and local authorities are developing innovative responses to address this challenge, no systematic efforts are in place to share experiences, pool resources and build a community of cities to inspire local action on a global scale. “The Strong Cities Network will serve as a vital tool to strengthen capacity-building and improve collaboration,” said Attorney...

Walid Phares, one of US President-Elect Donald Trump's foreign policy advisers, has confirmed that the upcoming administration plans on creating a coalition with the GCC, Jordan and Egypt in counter-terrorism efforts. Phares also confirmed during an interview with the BBC that Trump will plan on recalling the Iran nuclear deal and re-discussing it in congress before resubmitting it to EU partners, clarifying that the next US administration will demand key changes to agreement. During the campaign, Trump said the Iran deal was one of the worst agreements ever negotiated. In a USA Today op-ed in September of 2015 Trump said,...

HIRSCHFELD, GERMANY - Scientists in Germany have come up with a method for extracting the precious element germanium from plants. The element is a semi-conductor and was used to develop the first transistor because it is able to transport electrical charges extremely quickly. Nowadays, silicon-germanium alloy is indispensable to modern life, crucial in making computers, smartphones and fiber-optic cables. Transparent in infra-red light, germanium is also used in intelligent steering systems and parking sensors for vehicles. Yet although germanium is present in soil all over the world, it is difficult to extract, and most supplies currently come from China. Now...

If anyone were in Nunes’s position, he or she might doubt that the new Trump administration could fully trust Director Comey or others in the intelligence agencies to provide disinterested appraisals of such information, given that a number of intelligence officials may themselves, in theory, have been involved in the intercepts and their dissemination. He might advise that any possible sources connected even remotely to the White House should have disclosed the existence of such information to his boss. Nor would he necessarily believe that Representative Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) would be a reliable partner on the intelligence committee. Would...

The Obama administration is declining to inform Congress about the number of American citizens and troops killed by Iran and its terror proxies, according to a document provided to Congress and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The administration was repeatedly asked by Congress to release figures describing how many Americans and Israelis have been killed by Iran’s military and terror activities since the country’s 1979 revolution. In a series of on-the-record responses obtained exclusively by the Free Beacon, and provided in written form to Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), Kerry sidestepped the questions on all of the three separate...

Former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson caused “embarrassment” to a company he consulted for by lobbying then-Sec. of State Hillary Clinton in an email he sent through her longtime friend and ally, Sidney Blumenthal, according to court documents obtained by The Daily Caller. The company, Symbion Power, made the claim in response to a lawsuit filed in New Mexico last week by Wilson, who served as ambassador to Gabon and São Tomé and Príncipe during the Bill Clinton administration. Wilson claims that Symbion and its co-founders, Paul Hinks and Lord Richard Westbury, engaged in fraud, breach of contract and civil conspiracy...

David Brock’s war against the New York Times just went nuclear — and the paper is responding with equal fury. Brock, the former right-wing journalist-turned-pro-Clinton crusader, takes aim at a top New York Times editor in a soon-to-be released book obtained by POLITICO. In the book, titled "Killing the Messenger: The Right-Wing Plot to Derail Hillary Clinton and Hijack Your Government,” Brock accuses senior politics editor and former Washington bureau chief Carolyn Ryan of helping to turn the paper into a “megaphone for conservative propaganda” by unfairly targeting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The founder of liberal watchdog groups...

Republican presidential contender Ted Cruz blamed President Barack Obama on Thursday for a climate of violence against police, contending the president and his administration have long vilified law enforcement. […] “There are unfortunate, tragic consequences when the president of the United States repeatedly vilifies law enforcement and when that rhetoric is amplified by the Department of Justice, when it’s amplified by politicians across this country,” Cruz said in the interview (with AP). […] The Texas senator said police have been demonized throughout Obama’s presidency. “If you look at our law enforcement, they’ve had six and a half years of vilification,...

Within the Inspector General report into how the DOJ and FBI handled the Clinton email investigation, on Page #164, footnote #124 the outline is laid bare for all to witness. The Clinton classified email investigation was structured to deliver a predetermined outcome. John Spiropoulos delivers the first video in a series of reports on the Department of Justice Inspector General’s review into the investigation of Hillary Clinton. This segment focuses on DOJ’s legal interpretation that virtually assured Clinton would not be prosecuted. And that, as the IG reports states, the FBI and DOJ knew that “by September 2015″…

Records Show Obama Hired Behavioral Experts to Expand Use of Govt. Programs - Judicial Watch http://www.judicialwatch.org/the-blog/records-show-obama-hired-behavioral-experts-expand-use-govt-programs/ Records Show Obama Hired Behavioral Experts to Expand Use of Govt. Programs SEPTEMBER 08, 2016 The Obama administration quietly hired 20 social and behavioral research experts to help expand the use of government programs at dozens of agencies by, among other things, simplifying federal forms, according to records obtained by Judicial Watch. The controversial group of experts is collectively known as the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (SBST) and it functions under the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). In 2015...

On September 15, 2015, Barack Obama signed an Executive Order with the intent on implementing “Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the American People.” The Executive Order (EO) is based on a “growing body of evidence demonstrating that behavioral science insights — research findings from fields such as behavioral economics and psychology about how people make decisions and act on them — can be used to design government policies to better serve the American people.” Furthermore, the EO continues, “Where Federal policies have been designed to reflect behavioral science insights, they have substantially improved outcomes for the individuals, families, communities,...

Kabul needs Russian help in the fight against terrorist group "Islamic state". This was announced by the first Vice-President of Afghanistan General Abdul Rashid Dostum following the meeting with the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov. "Dostum said that ISIS is trying to make its foothold in Afghanistan. To prevent this threat Kabul needs Russian support, as in Syria. We are confident that the Russian leadership will make a positive decision in this matter," — wrote Kadyrov on his social network page. He also said that economic, trade and cultural cooperation was discussed at the meeting. On September 30th, Russian air...

A former senior Peace Corps official agreed to cooperate with any law enforcement investigations surrounding a scheme that funneled millions of Department of State dollars to a nonprofit founded and run by former Secretary of State John Kerry’s daughter, recently published court documents show. Warren “Buck” Buckingham agreed to cooperate as a condition of an agreement with the Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney’s Office that would keep him from facing prosecution for a related illegal lobbying charge, court documents filed Thursday and made public Tuesday show. (RELATED: Former Peace Corps Official Who Steered Contracts To John Kerry’s Daughter May Avoid Prosecution)...

"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." - Obama, July 2, 2008 What objectives? Who set them? This may begin to answer those questions, raise other questions, and perhaps point toward things needing further research. Organization of Islamic Cooperation - Criminalization of "Islamophobia" In 1990 the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) issued their “Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam” (http://www.oic-oci.org/english/article/human.htm). It’s Article 22 states: “Everyone shall...

Illustrating how government hides information from the American public, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch used a fake name to conduct official Department of Justice (DOJ) business in agency emails obtained by Judicial Watch. As the nation’s chief law enforcement officer Lynch, Barack Obama’s second attorney general, skirted public-records laws by using the alias Elizabeth Carlisle in emails she sent from her official DOJ account. In the records provided to Judicial Watch, the DOJ explains it as necessary to “protect her security and privacy and enable her to conduct Department business efficiently via email.” This begs the question of how many...

The Pentagon's top official dealing with Russia has just resigned, according to Politico. Evelyn Farkas, deputy assistant secretary of defence for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, will leave at the end of October, a senior defence official told Politico. Ms Farkas's responsibilities included dealing with Russia on Syria and Ukraine.

audio 11:08 Fusion GPS was hired by Democrats in 2012 to do opposition research on Mitt Romney. Some of the work that received the most media attention was focused on investigating the marriage records of a large donor to the Romney presidential campaign, Frank VanderSloot.[2][3] Planned Parenthood[edit] In August 2015, Planned Parenthood retained Fusion GPS to defensively investigate the veracity of a series of undercover videos released by pro-life activists that they claim showed Planned Parenthood officials agreeing to sell fetal tissues obtained through abortions to medical researchers.[2] Fusion GPS hired video and transcription experts to analyze the videos and...

The United Nations body that oversees greenhouse gas reductions is reeling from another cap-and-trade scandal that may have put 600 million tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere — roughly speaking, the annual CO2 output of Canada or Britain — while the emissions were ostensibly suppressed, according to an independent study. In the process, the fraudsters, largely in Russia and Ukraine, were likely able to transfer credits for more than 400 million tons of their apparently bogus greenhouse savings by April 2015 into Europe's commercial carbon trading system — the largest in the world — thereby undermining that continent's ambitious...