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...

Demonstrators in Paraguay have set fire to the country's Congress amid violent protests against a bill that would let the president seek re-election. Protestors stormed the legislature, breaking windows and fences. The countries 1992 constitution, introduced after 35 years of dictatorship, strictly limits the president to a single five-year term. But sitting President Horactio Cartes is attempting to remove the restriction and run for re-election. Protestors were photographed smashing in windows of the congress building in Asuncion on Friday night and setting fire to the interior.

McMahon and his accomplice Zhu Yong conducted surveillance to harass and intimidate Americans on behalf of China

Attorney General Jeff Sessions says the MS-13 gang could be designated as a terrorist organization. Asked by Fox News's Tucker Carlson on Tuesday whether he thinks the designation would be helpful, Sessions replied, “I think so, perhaps. I believe it could qualify for that." "There are rules that I guess the State Department does to establish that," he added. El Salvador's government has already designated MS-13 a terrorist group. Sessions called the gang "one of the most violent gangs in the history of our country." “We can devastate this gang. We’re going after them," he said. "We’re not going to...

Priscilla Villarreal, also known as "Lagordiloca," has sparked a debate about free speech and who, exactly, is a journalist.A journalist asked the police a few questions and was arrested by that same agency for publishing the answers. That this happened not in China or Russia but in the U.S. may raise some eyebrows. Yet that's the conduct a federal court greenlit last week when it ruled that law enforcement in Laredo, Texas, did not obviously violate the Constitution when officers allegedly misled a magistrate judge and arrested Priscilla Villarreal for doing basic reporting, adding another twist to a case that...

'They slaughtered, raped and buried us alive': Syrians praise blows to Hezbollah.

Today, law enforcement officials shared findings to date of the investigation into the shooting that occurred at the Eugene Simpson Stadium Park on Wednesday, June 14, 2017. Analysis of Hodgkinson’s laptop computers show online activity the night before the shooting; however, no Internet searches were discovered the morning of the shooting. The Internet searches Hodgkinson performed the night before the shooting included a Google map search from Alexandria to his home in Belleville and a Google search of the “2017 Republican Convention.” While online, he also accessed a financial account and one of his Facebook accounts, where he visited a...

Businessman Erik Prince says he has not been contacted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller about a January meeting in the Seychelles between himself and a Russian reportedly close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Prince added that whoever leaked to the press should be questioned instead. The Washington Post reported in April on what it called a "secret meeting" in the Indian Ocean country, citing "officials, who did not identify the Russian." The Post wrote that the Jan. 11 meeting was "part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump, according to...

The Witch Hunt continues against Trump supporters. Now, it’s the US Army targeting General Michael Flynn over the phony “emoluments” clause. The Washington Post reported: The Defense Department’s internal watchdog has concluded a long-delayed investigation into Michael Flynn, defense officials said Friday, sending its findings to the Army in a case that could bring tens of thousands of dollars in financial penalties for President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser. The investigation focuses on Flynn’s acceptance of money from Russian and Turkish interests before joining the Trump administration, a potential violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause. With few exceptions, U.S....

Nancy Pelosi’s mission on Tuesday was to give a brief speech and not renew questions about her health. She couldn’t do it. During Pelosi’s brief 7-minute speech to Refugees International, the House Democratic Leader garbled names, other words and even mispronounced countries.

From Jan. 8, 2018 (Bandy's made a career of this) In a bid to have President Donald Trump removed from office, the left is pushing the “diagnosis” of a Yale psychiatrist who has ruled him “unfit” to be president. However, Dr. Bandy X Lee’s own dirty little secret has just been exposed — and it’s bad news for her career. Yale Psychiatrist who 'Diagnosed' Trump Unfit Has Dirty Secret That's Just Been Exposed After giving her professional psychiatric diagnosis of President Donald Trump, rendering him mentally unfit for office, Yale psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X Lee’s prestigious career is in hot...

In January of 2017 California Senator Dianne Feinstein abdicated her position as Vice-Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI). Upon the initiation of a new congress, and two weeks before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, Virginia Senator Mark Warner took the SSCI Vice-Chair seat…. and that’s how things get started. Amid a concerted effort to resist the incoming administration the Russia Collusion Conspiracy was launched. Politicians, the U.S. intelligence apparatus and DC beltway media united in common purpose to push a Trump-Russia narrative. Within the early days of that effort, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence initiated...

Millennial Millie does an expose on who is behind the riot insurrections, the connection with the Green New Deal, the group that recruits school children as young as middle schoolers as foot soldiers in the ranks of Antifa and BLM, and who have gotten 16 of the 30 Democrat candidates they promoted elected in 2018 including Cortez, Omar, Talib and Presley. A must see.

The president of Uzbekistan on Wednesday offered his country's assistance in investigating the deadly terror attack in the lower Manhattan area of New York City. The suspect in the attack was identified as an Uzbek national, Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov. Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev expressed his condolences to the families of the victims, but the country has been linked to at least three other terrorist incidents over the last year. In April, Uzbek national Rakhmat Akilov drove a truck into pedestrians in Stockholm, Sweden, killing five people. Earlier that same month, Akbarzhon Jalilov, a Russian citizen who was born in Kyrgyzstan...

A carefully redacted footnote within a report by FISA Court Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer has always appeared to be a clue to a domestic surveillance program. Now details behind the redactions tell a concerning story. A brief refresher is needed for those new to the story. In April 2017 Judge Collyer wrote a highly critical FISA Court opinion following discoveries by Director Admiral Rogers of government contractors accessing the NSA database, and extracting illegal search results from the electronic records of every American. The scale of abuse was incredible [SEE HERE] and the surveillance issues had been covered up for...

Military force cannot resolve tension over North Korea, China said on Thursday, while an influential Chinese newspaper urged the North to halt its nuclear program in exchange for Chinese protection. Concerns have been growing that North Korea could soon conduct a sixth nuclear test or more missile launches in defiance of U.N. sanctions and stark warnings from the United States that a policy of patience was over. With a U.S. aircraft carrier group steaming to the area in a show of force and tensions rising, fears of a confrontation have been rising. China, North Korea's sole major ally and neighbor,...

Chinese drone maker DJI is offering up to one million yuan (£112,000) for information about drones that disrupted scores of flights at a Chinese airport. On four days this month - 14, 17, 18 and 21 - drones were blamed for stranding thousands of passengers at Chengdu Shuangliu International. Chinese reports said they caused 60 flight interruptions on 21 April alone. The bounty was a sign that the firm was taking the potential impact on its reputation seriously, suggested Prof David Dunn at the University of Birmingham. "Clearly they're concerned about their brand image, given how much they dominate the...

A new report could prove that President Trump was right when he tweeted about a so-called "Pakistani mystery man" who kept Democratic National Committee documents and servers out of the hands of investigators. The report, by The Daily Caller's Luke Rosiak, says that Imran Awan -- the IT aide of former DNC chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) -- took a laptop with him in 2017 after being banned from the House computer network for “unauthorized access to data.” The report also says that Awan left the laptop, which had the username "RepDWS," "in a phone booth with a letter...

Deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland dodged on Sunday when asked whether President Trump plans to name her as the U.S. ambassador to Singapore, saying only that “there are changes coming.” McFarland’s status in the Trump administration has been in question following the resignation of national security adviser Michael Flynn, who reportedly chose her for the job. Flynn resigned in February after misleading Vice President Pence and the public about his conversations with a Russian diplomat. “The president and I have had a number of conversations over the last two months, really, about what my role would continue to be...

There are several dozen critical issues that stem from revelations about the DOJ and FBI conduct in/around the Carter Page FISA application (2017) and Steele Dossier writ large; but DOJ official Bruce Ohr still being employed isn’t one of them, and here’s why. (further down) -- Bruce Ohr wasn’t the only non FBI person back-channeling information from corrupt source Christopher Steele into the FBI and Mueller team in 2017. SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner was doing exactly the same thing. Senator Warner was having secret contacts, “would rather not have a paper trail”, with Steele through liaison Adam Waldman, and then...