Free Republic

Where was our news media? Where was our president and congress? Why does the official move from Washington go against American private citizens and their guns, and not an all out war against the drug cartels using fully automatic military weapons, hand grenades, launchers and machine-guns? Why is the president pushing for an international gun law that will bring registration and finally gun control to we American citizens? Who is for free and lawful American citizens? Where are our statesmen? Where are our patriots and where are champions for the Constitution and freedom and safety of American citizens? This is...

The United States imposed sanctions on Wednesday on Russia-based people and entities working to help procure weapons and commodities — including stolen Ukrainian grain — for Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis, the Treasury Department said.

BEHIND THE LINES: The US administration appears to fail to notice the broader alliance taking shape behind these forces, and the interconnectedness of the current assault on the West. The statement by US President Donald Trump that Iran would be held responsible for continued attacks by the Yemeni Houthi movement on shipping in the Red Sea sharply raises the temperature in the ongoing escalation between US forces and the Yemeni Shi’ite Islamist movement in that area. “Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership...

Leland Yee, a San Francisco Democrat and staunch proponent of stiffer gun-control laws was sentenced today in federal court on corruption charges tied to, among other things, a conspiracy to traffic weapons. Although this is off-the-charts hypocritical of Mr. Yee, a wonderfully sensational corrupt politician story ripe for national news, none of the Big Three broadcast evening news programs last night so much as devoted a news brief to the story. [You may also recall that Yee was behind a spurious smear against Rush Limbaugh in 2011. Read about that here.] Adding to the seriousness of the weapons trafficking charge, as the...

"Wen obtained firearms, ammunition, and export-controlled technology with the intention of shipping them to North Korea — a violation of federal law and United States sanctions against that nation," the agency says An illegal immigrant from China was arrested for allegedly shipping "firearms, ammunition and other military items" to North Korea from California, according to a Justice Department indictment released on Tuesday. Shenghua Wen, 41, of Ontario, California, was arrested on Tuesday after hiding the weapons "inside shipping containers bound from Long Beach," the agency said. Wen, who was a Chinese national illegally residing in the United States, was expected...

Multiple 2016 and 2017 emails from Hunter Biden’s longtime business partner Eric Schwerin .. raise new questions about a claim made by Biden's attorney regarding Biden's divestiture in a technology-focused fund. Leaked Treasury Department records obtained as part of the FinCen Files revealed that Hares Youssef, a Ukrainian-Syrian businessman with alleged ties to Russian organized crime, paid mbloom — a now-defunct technology startup fund backed by Hawaii’s Strategic State Development Corporation and Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners (RSTP) — nearly $3 million. ... The transaction was flagged via a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) by the City National Bank in Los Angeles...

Mash’al In Iran: ‘Our Battle Is Your Battle’; ‘Together We Will Liberate Jerusalem’; Iran Will Help Rebuild Gaza; French Leaders ‘Collaborators’ In Zionists’ Gaza Massacres In a speech at the Iranian Majlis, Hamas leader Khaled Mash’al said that Hamas will not stop smuggling weapons, because doing so would be against the armed struggle. He told Iranian MPs: “Our battle is your battle... Your support for the resistance in Palestine is support for yourselves. He called on Europe to adjust its policy vis-à-vis Hamas, and to influence the U.S. to do likewise. He said that Hamas aspires to liberate Jerusalem and...

WASHINGTON -- Now that the festivities are over, it is time for the masters of the media to stop asking inane questions of the new folks in town -- such as, "How do you like your new office?" -- and for the Obama administration to get down to work on a clear and present danger. Notwithstanding the "day one" and "first week" coverage, the most pressing issue confronting the American people isn't closing "Gitmo" or the always ephemeral "Mideast peace process" in the aftermath of Gaza or even "fixing the economy." Item No. 1 ought to be preventing the world's...

Commanders and advisors from Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are on the ground in Yemen and playing a direct role in Houthi rebel attacks on commercial traffic in the Red Sea. The IRGC has stationed missile and drone trainers and operators in Yemen, as well as personnel providing tactical intelligence support to the Houthis, U.S. and Middle East officials told Semafor. The IRGC, through its overseas Qods Force, has also overseen the transfer to the Houthis of the attack drones, cruise missiles, and medium-range ballistic missiles used in a string of strikes on Red Sea and Israeli targets in...

As they were boarding it in rough seas, around 8 p.m. local time, one SEAL got knocked off by high waves and a teammate went in after him. Both are missing. The team boarding the small boat was facing about a dozen crew members. The crew members, who were taken into custody, had no paperwork, which allowed a search of the vessel. The weapons were confiscated, and the boat was sunk, a routine procedure that usually involves blowing open holes in the hull.

...And it has been almost completely cut off from the rest of the world for nearly 17 years, when Hamas seized control, prompting Israel and Egypt to impose a strict siege on the territory, which is ongoing. Israel also maintains an air and naval blockade on Gaza as well as a vast array of surveillance. Which begs the question: How did Hamas amass the sheer amount of weaponry that enabled the group to pull off coordinated attacks that have left more than 1,200 people dead in Israel and thousands more injured – while continuing to rain rocket fire down on...

Evidence suggests some of the weapons used by Hamas in a bloody attack on southern Israel earlier this month likely came from North Korea. While Pyongyang has repeatedly denied supplying the terrorist group with weapons, expert analysis along with a trove of evidence that includes video as well as munitions seized by Israel, suggests otherwise. At the heart of the controversy is the F-7 rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-fired weapon fighters typically use against armored vehicles. An image published by Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack features members of the terrorist organization wielding a rocket-propelled grenade with a distinctive red stripe...

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),...

In the aftermath, the Trump administration signed off on a bump-stock ban that went into effect in 2018. It’s been challenged in the courts. We never got a solid motive for Paddock’s rampage, only a lot of conjecture. Every avenue regarding this investigation wound up being a dead end. For years, we knew nothing about Paddock’s motivations for committing mass murder until now, but skepticism abounds as the new theory is that the casinos were mistreating him. After nearly a decade of investigating, Paddock committed the worst mass shooting by a single person in US history because he felt disrespected...

The killing of two Canadians at a resort on Mexico’s Caribbean coast last week was motivated by debts between international gangs apparently dedicated to drug and weapons trafficking, according to a senior Mexican prosecutor. “The investigations indicate that this attack was motivated by debts that arose from transnational illegal activities that the victims participated in,” said Oscar Montes, the chief prosecutor of the Quintana Roo state, on Tuesday. “The information [is] that they were involved in weapons and drug trafficking, among other crimes.”

Few Americans could fathom the notion that the United States is so indebted to China that one of Beijing’s spies could get away with espionage – especially with an White House in love with espionage prosecutions. But that might be the only reasonable explanation for the Obama administration’s decision to pass on prosecuting a State Department contractor who was allegedly paid thousands of dollars to someone believed to be a Chinese agent seeking information on Americans. According to Fox News, a November 2014 FBI affidavit that was filed in U.S. district court in Maryland indicates that the FBI launched a...

FAISALABAD, Pakistan — The father of Imran Awan — an IT aide to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz who investigators concluded made “unauthorized access” to House servers — transferred a USB drive to a Pakistani senator and former head of a Pakistani intelligence agency, the father’s ex-business partner, Rashid Minhas, alleged. Minhas told The Daily Caller News Foundation that Imran Awan’s father, Haji Ashraf Awan, was giving data to Pakistani official Rehman Malik, and that Imran bragged he had the power to “change the U.S. president.” Asked for how he knew this, he said that on one occasion in 2008 when...

The Department of Justice announced Thursday that it is creating a task force to take a fresh look at drug-trafficking and money-laundering operations linked to Hezbollah after an investigative report last month claimed that the Obama administration turned a blind eye to such activities to preserve the Iran nuclear deal. The task force, dubbed the Hezbollah Financing and Narcoterrorism Team (HFNT), will begin its work by reviewing investigations stemming from Project Cassandra, a campaign led by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) targeting the Lebanese terror group’s actions. According to a Politico report published last month, officials with the Obama Justice...

Did the current administration “collude” with Russia? So far no evidence at all has emerged to support that hypothesis, but Politico’s Josh Meyer digs deep into another curious set of circumstances in the Obama White House and its own operations with a foreign power. Perhaps the media will start asking whether the previous administration colluded with Iran to let terrorists and drug dealers go free in order to score one of the worst deals ever in international relations. Before Barack Obama decided to pursue the nuclear deal with Iran, the DEA had a major operation called Project Cassandra. This operation...

The US Department of Justice will investigate claims that the Obama administration shielded the Lebanon-based Shi’ite terrorist group Hezbollah from criminal prosecution for its drug-trafficking and gun-running operations, as part of an effort to curry favor with Hezbollah’s patron, Iran. Last week, Politico released an investigative report citing Drug Enforcement Administration and former Treasury Department officials who claimed that the previous administration blocked the prosecution of Hezbollah officials known to be involved in the smuggling of illegal narcotics and weapons – including chemical weapons – in an effort to bring Hezbollah’s patron state, Iran, to the negotiating table. In 2015,...