Free Republic

United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The UN General Assembly on Thursday approved a resolution calling for "international cooperation" and "multilateralism" in the fight against COVID-19, in the first text to come out of the international body since the outbreak began. The resolution, approved by consensus, also stresses "the need for full respect for human rights" and that "there is no place for any form of discrimination, racism and xenophobia in the response to the pandemic." The UN resolution emphasises the central role of the body in the global health and economic crisis. It was submitted by Switzerland, Indonesia, Singapore,...

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...

Former vice president Dick Cheney and his daughter Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., are to appear at a lunch fundraiser Monday in support of President Donald Trump's 2020 reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee, according to an invitation to the event. The luncheon fundraiser in Jackson, Wyoming, will feature White House advisers Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, along with acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney as "special guests," according to the invitation, which was obtained by The Washington Post. The invitation does not list the official titles of Mulvaney and the president's daughter and son-in-law, and it clarifies...

A National Rifle Association leader-turned-critic is meeting with New York investigators...and the NRA wants to be there. The powerful gun lobby asked a New York state judge Friday to let it in the meeting, saying it would be “severely prejudiced” if privileged information is divulged. NRA lawyers said they reviewed 899 pages of documents from North’s lawyers that were prepared for investigators and found several dozen examples of privileged information that had not been redacted. The NRA is facing several legal battles. The attorney general of Washington, D.C., has subpoenaed the group and its related charitable organization in a probe...

You might remember that during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings democrats were constantly finding “new” evidence and last second witnesses. Just when a witness was dealt with and it was time to move on, democrats would magically “discover” another witness, each succeeding one less credible than the last. Julie Swetnick was the classic example. Well, it’s deja vu all over again. We have a new magic act at hand. Back in October we learned that former National Security adviser John Bolton was writing a book about his time in the Trump administration.  Publication was said to occur prior to the 2020 election. It seems that date...

Months before a whistleblower complaint that would spark the Democrat effort for impeachment, a shadowy liberal group founded and staffed by Obama administration alums and former Democrat congressional staffers launched an outside investigation into whether President Trump’s allies were seeking “foreign interference” from Ukraine in the 2020 elections. The group, American Oversight, began investigating the issue in May — more than two months before the “whistleblower” filed a complaint alleging Trump was “using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country to investigate one of the President’s main domestic political rivals.” The group’s purpose is to...

‘So wrong in so many ways” is how Gordon Wood, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of the American Revolution, characterized the New York Times’s “1619 Project.” James McPherson, dean of Civil War historians and another Pulitzer winner, said the Times presented an “unbalanced, one-sided account” that “left most of the history out.” Even more surprising than the criticism from these generally liberal historians was where the interviews appeared: on the World Socialist Web Site, run by the Trotskyist Socialist Equality Party. The “1619 Project” was launched in August with a 100-page spread in the Times’s Sunday magazine. It intends to “reframe...

Yet another staffer for Rep. Adam Schiff served as a fellow for the Atlantic Council, a think tank that is funded by and works in partnership with Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Sean Misko has been described as “close friends” with Eric Ciaramella, whom Real Clear Investigations suggests is the likely so-called whistleblower. Misko reportedly joined Schiff’s staff at the House Intelligence Committee in August – the same month the so-called whistleblower’s complaint was filed after first reportedly interfacing with a staffer for Schiff’s office. Misko in...

Full Title: President Putin says five men killed in huge explosion in northern Russia that caused sudden radiation spike died trying to create a weapon that ‘has no equal in the world’ Russian President Vladimir Putin has told widows of the five scientists who died in a nuclear explosion earlier this year that their husbands were working on 'the most advanced and unmatched technical' weaponry. Putin's comments came during a ceremony of state decorations at the Kremlin today where he awarded the deceased employees of Russia's state nuclear company with the Order of Courage, posthumously.

On Friday, a source told Fox News that a National Security Council (NSC) staffer had spoken about Trump’s July 25th phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “multiple” people outside of the NSC, and had characterized the call as “outrageous.” This occurred before the whistleblower’s complaint had been submitted. This development had been reported to then-senior National Security Council (NSC) leadership. According to Fox: The development comes as Fiona Hill, a former special assistant to the president who worked on European and Russian affairs, is set to give a deposition next week. Fox News has reached out to Hill...

A pair of Russians pretending to be the defense minister of Turkey tricked Sen. Lindsey Graham into two calls where he discussed President Donald Trump and US policy on Turkey, according to reports released Thursday. The call was actually from Alexey Stolyarov and Vladimir Kuznetsov, who made a name for themselves making prank calls to high profile Americans and Europeans according to Politico, which shared recordings of the calls. The pair go by nicknames Lexus and Vovan, and some people suspect they could have ties to the Kremlin and Russian intelligence services, Politico reports. Graham spokesman Kevin Bishop confirmed the...

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., criticized a report by the New York Times that claimed President Trump "pressed" the prime minister of Australia for information to discredit the probe conducted by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller, calling it an "effort" to shut down Attorney General William Barr's investigation. "This New York Times article about Barr talking to Australia is the beginning of an effort to shut down Barr's investigation to find out how this whole thing started," Graham said on "Hannity" Monday. A Justice Department official told Fox News on Monday that Barr asked Trump to make introductions to foreign countries...

Andrew P. Bakaj is the lawyer representing the whistleblower who came forward with information about President Donald Trump and his conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about an investigation into 2020 democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. The whistleblower’s intel, which has now been turned over to Congress confidentially, pushed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to announce a formal impeachment inquiry against Trump on September 24, 2019. Lead counsel on this high-profile case is the 36-year-old Bakaj, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer, who now works as the founding & managing partner of Compass Rose Legal...

Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has announced he will resign after his populist government lost the support of a key coalition member. Mr Conte accused Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing League party, of trying to ruin the ruling coalition for personal and political gain, risking financial instability for Italy.

On Monday, the intelligence community inspector general (ICIG) admitted that it did alter its forms and policies governing whistleblower complaints, and that it did so in response to the anti-Trump complaint filed on Aug. 12, 2019. The Federalist first reported the sudden changes last Friday. While many in the media falsely claimed the ICIG’s stunning admission debunked The Federalist’s report, the admission from the ICIG completely affirmed the reporting on the secretive change to whistleblower rules following the filing of an anti-Trump complaint in August.The ICIG also disclosed for the first time that the anti-Trump complainant filed his complaint...

A staffer for Rep. Adam Schiff’s House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence took a trip to Ukraine last month sponsored and organized by the Atlantic Council think tank. The Atlantic Council is funded by and routinely works in partnership with Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. The Schiff staffer, Thomas Eager, is also currently one of 19 fellows at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Congressional Fellowship, a bipartisan program that says it “educates congressional staff on current events in the Eurasia region.” Eager’s trip to Ukraine last month was...

diGenova said Inspector General Michael Horowitz has determined all four FISA warrants against one-time Trump campaign aide Carter Page were illegally obtained. ... DiGenova said if he were attorney general, any officials involved in obtaining the Page FISA warrants who are still in the department would be "gone." He singled out Dana Boente, who is the general counsel now under FBI Director Christopher Wray. The April 2017 FISA renewal was approved by Boente and former FBI Director James Comey, ... DiGenova also discussed the two people he wants to hear from after the FISA report is released. He said he...

Among the multitude of migrants waiting in Mexico to get asylum in the United States are thousands of Africans boldly demanding passage into the country. They are far more coordinated than their Central American caravan counterparts and have formed an official organization to spread their message and advocate on their behalf. The group accuses Mexican authorities of discrimination and racism and is ordering Mexico to grant visas that allow them to continue their trek north to seek “protection” in America. For about three months the Africans have been holed up in Tapachula, in the southeast Mexican state of Chiapas bordering...

Roughly one month ago, the White House announced that we were closing in on a safe third country agreement with Guatemala, scoring what was perceived as a major win on immigration for President Trump. At the time, we noted that there were several serious flaws in the plan which might prevent it from coming to fruition. One was the fact that the deal was being cut with a lame-duck president who was on his way out (Jimmy Morales) and we didn’t know who the next leader would be or what their view on the deal might look like. Also,...

The intelligence community secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings, raising questions about the intelligence community’s behavior regarding the August submission of a whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump. The new complaint document no longer requires potential whistleblowers who wish to have their concerns expedited to Congress to have direct, first-hand knowledge of the alleged wrongdoing that they are reporting. The brand new version of the whistleblower complaint form, which was not made public until after the transcript of Trump’s July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and the complaint addressed...