Free Republic

Professional journalism groups reacted with alarm after Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas released an opinion Tuesday urging the high court to reconsider a landmark freedom of the press decision called New York Times v. Sullivan. The Sullivan ruling generally shields reporters and news platforms from libel or defamation lawsuits provided they were acting in good faith. Though journalists believe that protection is essential, Justice Thomas said the high court was wrong to usurp the role of states in regulating libel. “[Sullivan] and the Court’s decisions extending it were policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law,” Thomas’s opinion reads. “We should not...

Latin American artists from throughout the hemisphere convened in Cúcuta, Colombia, Friday, on the border with Venezuela, for the Richard Branson-sponsored “Venezuela Aid Live” concert to demand dictator Nicolás Maduro allow international aid into the country. The long list of diverse artists — many who have been household names in Latin America for decades — did not shy away from making political statements in support of Venezuela’s legitimate president, Juan Guaidó, and demanding that Maduro step aside. Several artists indulged the audience in what has become a common back-and-forth chant at anti-socialist protests: “Maduro, ¡el coño de tu madre!” or...

. . . The ex-legislator debunked the charges after Fox News asked him about remarks by a Guatemalan government official speaking at the National Press Club on Tuesday who named Fuentes as being the pivotal character in the organization of the tens of thousands of Central Americans and Mexicans who have joined the caravans. Mario Duarte, Guatemala’s head of intelligence, called Fuentes a key coordinator of the caravan, according to published reports. It was the most recent public accusation of Fuentes, a former Honduran lawmaker, of being an organizer of the caravans.

(BREAKING NEWS: Pakistan is saying it shot down two Indian jets in its airspace in Kashmir today. Pakistan says it bombed open ground but did not bomb six military targets it identified in the region. Pakistani Prime Minister Imram Khan says "We shot down two of their Migs. The pilots are with us". Khan has asked for dialogue with India.... A Saudi Arabian man, accused off the hit and run death of a 15-year-old in Oregon, is unlikely to face justice in the US. Abdulrahman Sameer Noorah was bailed out of jail in Oregon and surrendered his passport, but was...

A comedian whose political experience is limited to playing the president on TV vowed to tackle Ukraine's corruption, as he voted Sunday in the first stage of a presidential election he is tipped to win. Actor Volodymyr Zelensky's bid began as a long shot but he has leapfrogged establishment politicians amid public anger over graft and stagnating living standards. "A new life is beginning, a good life, without corruption, without bribes," the 41-year-old told journalists as he voted with his wife at a Kiev polling station. If elected, the entertainer will take the reins of a country fighting Russia-backed separatists...

Former “Never Trump” Koch brothers executive Marc Short, once President Trump’s White House Legislative Affairs Director, is now rejoining the administration as Vice President Mike Pence’s Chief of Staff after a brief stint as a CNN commentator. On social media, Pence confirmed his intention to hire Short as his Chief of Staff: I am pleased to announce that Marc Short will be returning to the White House to serve as my chief of staff. Marc will be joining the Office of the Vice President in March and we look forward to welcoming him to our great @VP Team! — Vice...

Michael Walsh has this excellent piece on the passing of Pat Caddell. I cannot add much more to Walsh’s spot-on comparison of Pat to an Old Testament Jeremiah, but I’ll try. Pat deserves as much applause as he can get. Pat and I spoke at many of the same events. I had the pleasure of dining with his daughter’s family at one back in 2011, and from there, Pat and I struck up an intermittent conversation over the years about election issues and projects. When I was in Charleston, we found a steakhouse somewhere to conspire. The last time...

Most police departments—including Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police—are required to release an officer’s name within days of a fatal shooting. Not the U.S. Capitol Police, which is controlled by Congress and answers only to Congress. It can keep the public in the dark about the identity and investigation of an officer involved in a shooting indefinitely. Which is what happened with the Jan. 6 shooting of Ashli Babbitt, an unarmed protester in the U.S. Capitol riot who was fatally wounded by a plainclothes police lieutenant as she attempted to breach a set of doors inside the building. For the past six...

In broad daylight, masked assailants infiltrated North Korea’s embassy in Madrid, tied up the staff, stole computers and mobile phones, and fled the scene in two luxury vehicles. The group behind the late February operation is known as Cheollima Civil Defense, a secretive dissident organization committed to overthrowing the Kim dynasty, people familiar with the planning and execution of the mission told The Washington Post. The group’s alleged role in the attack has not previously been reported, and officials from the governments of North Korea, the United States and Spain declined to comment on it. The identity of the assailants...

Anti-government protesters in their thousands took to the streets of Belgrade on Saturday night for the tenth weekly demonstration of its kind. The protesters are a mix of citizens movements, opposition parties, from both left and right, academics, students and ordinary people. They are united in the belief that Serbia with president Aleksandar Vucic at the helm is sliding towards autocratic rule and that the country is gripped by political violence and a climate of fear. After more than two months of weekly protests people are still coming out in huge numbers and many political analysts believe the protests are...

A venture capitalist and political fundraiser was sentenced today to 144 months in federal prison for falsifying records to conceal his work as a foreign agent while lobbying high-level U.S. government officials, evading the payment of millions of dollars in taxes, making illegal campaign contributions, and obstructing a federal investigation into the source of donations to a presidential inauguration committee.Imaad Shah Zuberi, 50, of Arcadia, California, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips, who also ordered him to pay $15,705,080 in restitution and a criminal fine of $1.75 million.In November 2019, Zuberi pleaded guilty to a three-count information...

Non-profit humanitarian agency World Vision United States improperly transacted with the Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA) in 2014 with approval from the Obama administration, sending government funds to an organization that had been sanctioned over its ties to terrorism, according to a new report.Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) recently released a report detailing the findings of an investigation his staff began in February 2019 into the relationship between World Vision and ISRA.The probe found that World Vision was not aware that ISRA had been sanctioned by the U.S. since 2004 after funneling roughly $5 million to Maktab al-Khidamat,...

United Nations follows Pope Francis's lead in declaring international dayWith unanimous vote in the General Assembly, February 4 becomes the International Day of Human Fraternity.The United Nations General Assembly voted unanimously to designate February 4 — the anniversary of the signing of the “Document for Human Fraternity” by Pope Francis and Grand Imam Ahmad Al-Tayyeb — as the “International Day of Human Fraternity.”The General Assembly voted Tuesday and invited Member States and the United Nations system to include this celebration in their calendar beginning in 2021.Supported by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Equatorial Guinea, Morocco, Burkina Faso and...

A former United States Air Force counterintelligence agent was charged with espionage after she defected to Iran and helped it target her former colleagues, the authorities said. In an extraordinarily detailed indictment made public on Wednesday, prosecutors disclosed that Monica Elfriede Witt, 39, gave the Iranians the code name and mission of a secret Pentagon program involving American intelligence operations. According to the indictment, she was working with members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The elite paramilitary group is known to carry out terrorist operations around the globe and has been sanctioned by the American government.

A raw series of text messages show Joe Biden offering fatherly comfort as his son, Hunter, lamented from a rehab facility about being a “f–ked up addict who can’t be trusted” and had damaged his dad’s political career. The intimate family exchange took place on February 24, 2019, two months before Joe launched his campaign for the White House. “Good morning my beautiful son. I miss you and love you. Dad,” the elder Biden wrote at 6:57 a.m. Hunter responded with a lengthy diatribe about his ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, and his father’s political advisers, and he also complained bitterly about...

On February 26, 2018, Black Lives Matter cofounder Alicia Garza launched the Black Futures Fund, which discloses on its donations page that “Black Futures Lab is a fiscally sponsored project of the Chinese Progressive Association”. The CPA, active in areas such as San Francisco and Boston, has long and deep ties to Chinese Maoist activity in the United States. Cofounder and board chair emeritus Pam Tau Lee was active during her student days at Cal State Hayward and Berkeley with the I Wor Kuen, a Chinese Maoist counterpart of the Black Panthers which merged with the Red Guard Party, a...

(CARACAS, Venezuela) — The Univision television network said Thursday that it has recovered the video of a contentious interview with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro that was confiscated after he cut it short, angered by critical questions from journalist Jorge Ramos. Ramos said the recovery of the video was “a real triumph against censorship” and that it was returned by “confidential sources” who cannot be named out of concern for their safety. On its website, Spanish-language Univision showed an excerpt of the 17-minute interview in late February in the presidential palace in Caracas. Ramos said the video will be broadcast in...

Venezuelan lawmaker Freddy Superlano, a member of the opposition party, is in serious but stable condition after being poisoned in Colombia, his party says. His cousin has passed away. Voluntad Popular, the party of opposition leader Juan Guaidó, said late on Saturday that Superlano was poisoned at a restaurant in Cúcuta, a city near the border with Venezuela. His assistant and cousin, Carlos Salinas, died.

"The people of Venezuela are standing for freedom and democracy and the United States of America is standing right by their side" President Donald J. Trump Speaks In Miami 2/18/2019 Speaking in Miami Monday afternoon President Donald Trump urged the Venezuelan military to stop its support for Nicolas Maduro and come out in support of Interim President Juan Guaido. Trump noted that Guaido has offered amnesty and also warned that the US knows where the military has any ill gotten gains given to them by Maduro stashed in financial institutions. The President laid out a vision of democracy for Venezuela...

Univision anchor Jorge Ramos and members of his team have been detained in Caracas, Venezuela after dispute President Nicolas Maduro "didn't like the questions" they were asking during an interview, the network tweeted Monday night.