Free Republic

More troubles for former Twitter employees continue to surface as now one has been convicted of a serious crime and sentenced on Wednesday in San Francisco, California to 3.5 years in prison, U.S. prosecutors said.All it took for ex-Twitter manager Ahmad Abouammo to abuse his position at the top social media company was a $42,000 watch and a pair of $100,000 wire transfers, to put innocent American at major risk. Now that Elon Musk is in charge and has cleaned house, the company and the country are in a far better position than before, as is becoming evident with each...

The Justice Department has charged two former Twitter employees with spying for Saudi Arabia, The Washington Post reports. U.S. citizen Ahmad Abouammo on Tuesday was arrested for allegedly spying on the accounts of three users on behalf of the kingdom. Ali Alzabarah, a Saudi citizen, was charged on Wednesday with accessing the personal information of more than 6,000 Twitter accounts in 2015 on behalf of Riyadh. One of the accounts Alzabarah allegedly hacked belonged to Omar Abdulaziz, a known critic of Saudi Arabia, who later became friends with Jamal Khashoggi, The Washington Post columnist that was killed by the Saudi...

President Trump on Monday denied Iran’s claim that it dismantled an elaborate U.S. spy ring tasked with monitoring key military sites, dismissing the reports as a “totally false story” amid rising tensions between Tehran and the West. Iran said that its intelligence forces identified and arrested 17 Iranians suspected of spying for the CIA and that some of them have been sentenced to death. The announcement adds to concerns about Tehran’s nuclear program and its efforts to impede shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

DUBAI —A British warship tried but failed to prevent Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from seizing a British tanker in the Strait of Hormuz last week, intercepted radio communications show, fueling a wave of recriminations in London on Sunday over who was to blame for the incident last week. In recordings obtained by the shipping consultancy Dryad Global and posted on its website Sunday, a member of the Revolutionary Guard is heard ordering the British-flagged Stena Impero tanker to divert course toward Iran. “Alter your course,” the man says. “If you obey you will be safe.” A British naval officer...

A British-flagged oil tanker was seized by Iran on Friday night and was heading towards a Revolutionary Guard base, in a major escalation of tensions along one of the world's most vital oil shipping routes. The Stena Impero had been en route to Saudi Arabia but made an abrupt change of course and began moving towards the Iranian island of Qeshm, according to data relayed by maritime tracking services. The ship “went dark”, meaning its identification system was turned off, at 16:29 UK time and nothing has been heard from her or her 23 crew since. Northern Marine, a Clyde-based...

A car bomb killed a senior Russian defense official outside Moscow early Tuesday, June 9. Around 5:30 a.m., a BMW X3 exploded near Koldunova Street in Balashikha’s Aviatorov neighborhood as the driver pulled out of a parking space. Bystanders reached the driver while he was still alive, but he died at the scene. The Russian federal Investigative Committee and the prosecutor’s office for the Moscow region confirmed an explosion had taken place in Balashikha but did not name the victim. The Investigative Committee said a criminal case had been opened but did not disclose the charge. VIDEO AT LINK............. Several...

A known anti-Trump, Democrat mega-donor financed a lawsuit built on allegations from decades earlier to assassinate the character of a sitting president.The Department of Justice purportedly launched a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, according to a CNN exclusive published Wednesday, and corporate media rushed to decry the supposed “weaponization” of justice against the writer who accused President Donald Trump of sexual assault. Though the exact nature of the investigation remains uncertain, it’s well worth revisiting the facts that undermine Carroll’s half-baked anti-Trump hit job.CNN reported that the investigation is centered on whether Carroll committed perjury. Prosecutors, CNN said, are...

HOUSTON/GEORGETOWN, May 30 (Reuters) - Guyana was already the world’s fastest growing economy before the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran drove up oil prices. Now, the tiny Caribbean nation of nearly 1 million people will reap an even bigger bonanza as the conflict reshapes global energy markets. The war that caused one of the largest energy disruptions in history highlights the growing importance of countries including Guyana that offer political stability and geographically unrestricted access to their estimated ​11 billion barrels of oil reserves. This growing windfall from crude brings pressure from business owners and locals on the government to use...

Kim Jong-un speaks saying "the world will witness a new strategic weapon' from North Korea 'in the near future' more later on.... Part of the alert brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division deploying to Kuwait tonight, some 750 US soldiers. More to follow in the coming days..... This after thousands of protesters in Iraq attacking and some entering the US Embassy grounds in Baghdad forcing US forces to disperse them with tear gas today. The protesters angered by the US air strikes in Iraq and Syria Sunday against an Iranian backed militia group.... Chelsea Manning, who gave Wikileaks documents on...

The treatment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is facing the threat of extradition from Britain to the US on espionage charges, is putting his life "at risk", according to an independent UN rights expert. "Unless the UK urgently changes course and alleviates his inhumane situation, Mr Assange's continued exposure to arbitrariness and abuse may soon end up costing his life," the UN special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, Nils Melzer, said in a statement. Mr Melzer, who visited the 48-year-old Australian in a London prison on May 9, nearly a month after his arrest...

Days after Israeli strikes killed Iran’s supreme leader and other officials in the opening salvos of the war, Trump mused publicly it would be best if “someone from within” Iran took over the country. It turns out that the US and Israel went into the conflict with a particular and surprising someone in mind: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former Iranian president known for his hard-line, anti-Israel and anti-American views. But the plan, developed by the Israelis and which Ahmadinejad had been consulted about, quickly went awry, according to the U.S. officials who were briefed on it. Ahmadinejad was injured on...

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has hit out at United States senator Josh Hawley for his “irresponsible” remark that Hong Kong is becoming a police state. Hawley, the youngest sitting senator in the US, arrived in the city on Sunday to observe the anti-government protests, which have raged for more than four months. At the end of the visit, he urged demonstrators in Hong Kong to shun violence, but he blamed Hong Kong police for aggravating the crisis, accusing them of ramping up their use of force. He also said the city is in “danger of sliding into...

History shows totalitarian regimes fall when brave people rise up. As the future of Hong Kong, time is on the side of Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow, and Ivan Lam.Three prominent leaders of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement were sentenced to prison this week for leading a protest last year. Joshua Wong received 13 and a half months; Agnes Chow, 10 months; and Ivan Lam, seven months. Wong has already been in prison a few times as the result of his activism.They are young. Lam is 26. Wong is 24. Chow turned 24 this past Dec. 3, the day after she received...

It's no secret in Hong Kong that I was with my boss (Jimmy Lai, the owner of Apple Daily) and a few others recently walking the halls of government in Washington D.C. Saw Speaker Pelosi and other leaders in the House and Senate. Visited the State Department. Met some folks from administration, the think tanks, and of course always see the very switched on human rights groups. This week I shot down to D.C. and saw a few folks in a follow-up. All staffs and officials. Working level folks have best info. Both trips to D.C. were in regard to...

Catholic philanthropist Jimmy Lai arrested in Hong Kong Arrest of media tycoon under new security law is ominous for press freedom in the city One of Hong Kong’s leading Catholic philanthropists, media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, has been arrested along with members of his family and company management as Beijing continues its swift implementation of the brutal new national security law (NSL). Lai, 72, has donated millions of dollars to Catholic causes and has been retired Cardinal Joseph Zen’s biggest financial backer. This has raised fears in some quarters that the prelate, who like Lai is a trenchant critic of...

Hong Kong police arrested 14 veteran activists Sunday — including two prominent politicians and a millionaire media mogul — in the biggest crackdown on the city’s pro-democracy movement since mass protests began last year. Among those detained were Martin Lee, 81, founder of the Democratic Party founder and a senior barrister; publishing tycoon Jimmy Lai, 71; and former legislator and barrister Margaret Ng, 72, the Associated Press reported.

Tucker Carlson's latest exposé is sending shockwaves through MAGA circles after the former Fox News host suggested that Trump's failed assassin, Thomas Crooks, may be connected to a foreign terror group.Carlson's investigative team released a 34-minute video diving into the online history of Crooks, the 20-year-old would-be assassin who shot Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania in July 2024. Crooks' bullet came within less than an inch of penetrating Trump's skull.More than a year after the assassination attempt, the FBI has yet to release a clear motive for why Crooks tried to shoot Trump or whether he acted...

Dr. Li Meng Yan was on the Joe Hoft Show at 93.3 on Friday. At the end of the interview, Dr. Yan made a HUGE statement. President Trump was destroying China’s plans of world domination and China’s economy. We saw this back in early 2020. The US economy was setting records for the greatest economy in history, it had nearly doubled China’s. If there ever was a reason for China to drop a bioweapon, the fact that China’s economy was imploding and Trump’s economy was the greatest ever, was enough reason for China to drop the COVID-19 bioweapon intentionally. On...

Barack Obama will headline a fundraiser for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC) at Alex Soros’s New York City home on Monday evening. Also expected to attend the event are the group’s founder and chairman, Eric Holder, and former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe. Founded in 2016, the NDRC is a super PAC aimed at positioning Democrats favorably in the round of redistricting after the 2020 census. Earlier this year, Obama’s political advocacy group, Organizing for Action (OFA), folded itself into Holder’s group and launched a campaign called “All On The Line” aimed at promoting redistricting reform. In August, the group...

The “All On The Line” campaign - which will also work to protect the Affordable Care Act, reduce gun violence, and expand voting rights – is part of a push in recent years by high-profile Democrats to curtail the use of gerrymandering across the country.