Free Republic

Why did so many Americans receive strange packages they didn’t think they’d ordered?Sid miller, the Texas agriculture commissioner, sat atop his stallion Smokey and faced the camera. It was Saturday, August 1, 2020. Miller had a message to share. “Good morning, patriots,” Miller began, raising the coiled lasso in his right hand by way of greeting. “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of all these surprises coming out of China. First it was the Chinese virus, then we had the murder hornets, then we had to close the embassy in Houston because of espionage … Now we’ve...

I have become increasing skeptical of much of what is transpiring in our government. AT writers and readers inspire me to question everything. Some recent events have caused me to pause and ask some questions about "why now?" When something was forbidden to even talk or write about for years, and suddenly some agencies are all in on discussing it, I am often left to ask: is this really the thing, or is it perhaps a distraction? For nearly three years, Dr. Fauci and company have destroyed any and all who dared to say COVID leaked from the Wuhan Institute...

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates as more information becomes available. A package containing the deadly poison ricin addressed to President Donald Trump was intercepted by law enforcement sometime this week, before it was delivered to the president, two law enforcement officials told CNN on Saturday. Two law enforcement officials also told CNBC about the ricin package that was addressed to Trump. According to CNN, two tests were performed on the package, to confirm the presence of the deadly ricin poison, and the FBI, U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Postal Inspection Service are investigating the...

Dr. Gal Luft, the Israeli whistleblower who has been on the run since April, detailed his bribery allegations against the Biden family in an extraordinary new video obtained by the New York Post. As American Greatness previously reported, Luft was arrested on weapon trafficking and other charges in Cyprus last February and disappeared after he was let out on bail. After his arrest, the former Israeli army officer tweeted that the Biden administration was out to “bury” him.The Biden Department of Justice had Luft, the founder and executive director of the Washington-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS),...

Two top Republican senators have demanded the Justice Department and FBI launch a full investigation into Hunter Biden's laptop, including the revelation unearthed on Hunter Biden’s laptop by the Washington Examiner that President Joe Biden apparently unwittingly financed his son’s participation in an escort ring tied to Russia. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) sent the Thursday letter citing the Washington Examiner’s reporting to Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss, who is handling the criminal investigation... The Republicans asked Garland and Wray to answer whether “the FBI investigating...

...A grand jury in Brownsville, Texas, on Monday handed up sixteen counts against Pascale Ferrier, court records show. The 53-year-old resident of the Montreal area is in federal custody in Washington, D.C. on similar charges, prosecutors said Tuesday. ...In September, Ferrier pleaded not guilty to making threats against President Donald Trump by mailing a package containing ricin to the White House after she was arrested at the U.S.-Canada border. A federal judge in New York denied her release on bail. Ferrier is also alleged to have sent ricin to six detention centers and law enforcement agencies in the Rio Grande...

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said at the G7 summit that Italy is reassessing China’s investments in the country “carefully,” shifting away from the pro-Beijing policies of the previous government. Draghi expressed concern about the Chinese Communist regime. “It’s an autocracy that does not adhere to multilateral rules and does not share the same vision of the world that the democracies have,” he said at a press conference of the Group of Seven (G7) summit on Sunday. While the newcomer of the G7 admitted the importance of economic cooperation, Draghi noted the difference between the Chinese regime and the West....

Rudolph W. Giuliani says that the FBI secretly spied on his Apple iCloud account beginning in late 2019 when he was having regular messaging conversations with his client, President Trump, during House impeachment proceedings. Mr. Giuliani said the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan on Thursday informed his attorney, Robert Costello, that covert wiretapping took place. Mr. Giuliani, once the mob-fighting top prosecutor in New York and then the city’s mayor, said an assistant U.S. attorney made the disclosure because the operation will have to be detailed in court. The penetration happened under the Trump administration and then-Attorney General William P....

For years security professionals and election integrity activists have been pushing voting machine vendors to build more secure and verifiable election systems, so voters and candidates can be assured election outcomes haven’t been manipulated. Now they might finally get this thanks to a new $10 million contract the Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched to design and build a secure voting system that it hopes will be impervious to hacking. The first-of-its-kind system will be designed by an Oregon-based firm called Galois, a longtime government contractor with experience in designing secure and verifiable systems. The system...

The Justice Department has decided not to charge Julian Assange for his role in exposing some of the CIA’s most secret spying tools, according to a U.S. official and two other people familiar with the case. It’s a move that has surprised national security experts and some former officials, given prosecutors’ recent decision to aggressively go after the WikiLeaks founder on more controversial Espionage Act charges that some legal experts said would not hold up in court. The decision also means that Assange will not face punishment for publishing one of the CIA’s most potent arsenals of digital code used...

A man said by federal prosecutors to have been a top leader of New York's notorious Gambino crime family was shot and killed Wednesday on Staten Island. Francesco "Franky Boy" Cali, 53, was found with multiple gunshot wounds to his body at his home in the borough's Todt Hill section just after 9 p.m.

ENTEBBE, Uganda—The government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is selling off his country’s gold reserves. Some of it has passed through a secretive operation in East Africa, a gambit that evades U.S. sanctions. On two early-March flights, at least 7.4 tons of gold with a market value over $300 million moved from Venezuela to a refinery in Uganda, say officials in Venezuela and Uganda, a foreign diplomat and Venezuelan opposition lawmakers, who have concluded Mr. Maduro’s government exported the ingots. The gold arrived on a Russian charter jetliner in two shipments at the international airport in Entebbe, says Ugandan national-police...

The Trump administration simulated the ability of the United States to handle a flulike pandemic months before the coronavirus turned the scenario into a reality. The Health and Human Services Department led the exercise, known as the "Crimson Contagion," last year in conjunction with dozens of states and federal agencies, according to the New York Times. HHS also invited charitable groups, insurance companies, and major hospitals to take part in the effort. Former Air Force physician Robert Kadlec, who has studied biodefense issues for decades, led the exercise, which imagined a contagious disease that originated in China and spread globally...

by Joe Callen In a stunning, unexpected ruling, a judge on Wednesday tossed out New York State charges of mortgage fraud against Paul Manafort because of ‘double jeopardy’ laws. This is a huge victory for Paul Manafort, who remains in custody on federal charges, because this opens a way for Trump to issue him a presidential pardon. And not just for Manafort: this ruling throws a legal hand grenade into the entire Democrat strategy of punishing former Trump aides and supporters with state charges to bypass his pardon powers. Manafort, 70, is currently serving a seven and half year prison sentence...

Nursultan Nazarbayev announces shock resignation in televised address, hands over power to speaker of upper house. Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev has abruptly announced his resignation, 29 years after taking office. In a televised address on Tuesday, the 78-year-old said he has taken the "difficult" decision to terminate his authority as president, but did not give a specific reason for the shock decision. "I have decided to end my duties as president," Nazarbayev said, before signing a decree terminating his powers from March 30. "This year I will have held the highest post for 30 years," he said. "As the founder...

Donald Trump cannot win the 2020 election, but the Democrats sure as hell can lose it. That’s why the Democrats have two options for the 2020 presidental race: Make the race a referendum on Trump and Trumpism, or lose. It’s just that simple. So please, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, Joe Biden, if you’re running, and the other dozen people stuffed into the growing field, heed my prayer: Check yourselves before you wreck yourselves, because at the rate you’re going, rushing to the left with reckless abandon, Trump’s reelection is looking more and more likely....

From The New York Post: Former head of the CIA John Brennan admitted on Monday that he may have relied on “bad information” for his relentless attacks on President Trump. Brennan — who once warned that “our Nation’s future is at stake” — told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that he may have been misled on the extent of Trump’s connections to Russia. “Well, I don’t know if I received bad information but I think I suspected there was more than there actually was,” Brennan said. “I am relieved that it’s been determined there was not a criminal conspiracy with the Russian...

Full Title: Former vice president Cheney challenges Pence at private retreat, compares Trump’s foreign policy to Obama’s approach A chummy discussion between Vice President Pence and former vice president Richard B. Cheney quickly turned into a vigorous back-and-forth over President Trump’s foreign policy at a private gathering Saturday, with Cheney comparing the president’s instincts to those of his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, according to a transcript obtained by The Washington Post. Cheney’s questions for Pence — which prompted Pence to joke about the lack of “softball” topics — provide a revealing glimpse into the churning and often strained debates inside...

WASHINGTON - The International Monetary Fund on Monday approved a $4.2-billion, three-year loan for Ecuador, part of a broader aid package to help support the government's economic reform program. The Washington-based lender agreed to the terms of the financing late last month, and the final approval of the IMF board on Monday releases the first installment of $652-million. READ: IMF won't bail out South Africa: Lagarde IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the aid will support the government's efforts to shore up its finances, including a wage "realignment," gradual lowering of fuel subsidies, and reduction of public debt. "The savings...

Former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning has been jailed for refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating Wikileaks. U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton ordered Manning to jail Friday after a brief hearing in which Manning confirmed she has no intention of testifying. She told the judge she 'will accept whatever you bring upon me.' She was booked into the Alexandria Detention Center in Virginia, which houses about 400 inmates.