Free Republic

Donald Trump is holding a gun to the head of Volodymyr Zelensky, demanding huge reparations payments and laying claim to half of Ukraine’s oil, gas, and hydrocarbon resources as well as almost all its metals and much of its infrastructure. The latest version of his “minerals deal”, obtained by The Telegraph, is unprecedented in the history of modern diplomacy and state relations. “It is an expropriation document,” said Alan Riley, an expert on energy law at the Atlantic Council. “There are no guarantees, no defence clauses, the US puts up nothing. “The Americans can walk away, the Ukrainians can’t. I’ve...

Alliance of Democracies Summit: The Glass House Where the Power Elite Gather to Throw Stones WRITTEN BY: ALAN MACLEOD PUBLISHED ON: MAY 15, 2021 The lineup of presidents, generals and CEOs makes it clear that what was stated is effectively the collective view of the world’s elite and a window into their thinking and the debates they are having. What they decide will affect all of us, whether we realize it or not. COPENHAGEN, DENMARK — The United States is the nation that most threatens democracy worldwide, far more than Russia or even China. That is the headline finding from...

Ric Grenell, President Trump's former ambassador to Germany, and Director of National Intelligence, knows a thing or two about Jack Smith, having lived in Europe when Smith was active in prosecuting war crimes in The Hague. Now that Smith has been caught tampering with evidence in his case against President Trump, Grenell's put out a devastating series of tweets about Smith's history of dishonest behavior. Let’s be clear: Jack Smith is accused of tampering with evidence, manufacturing witnesses, bribery and corruption… And that’s in the investigation of the President of Kosovo 3 years ago when Jack Smith worked at The...

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., has emerged into the spotlight amid a new ethics complaint due to his voting in favor of laws that ultimately funded millions in grants to a nonprofit climate group that pays his wife's consulting firm. But who is his wife, Sandra Whitehouse? Whitehouse earned her bachelor's degree at Yale University, similar to her now-senator husband, according to her LinkedIn page. After that, she earned her master's degree at the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, studying there from 1986 to 1994. She and Sheldon Whitehouse married in 1986 at the St. George's...

flow of military intelligence to Ukraine this week has aided the Russian advance along a critical part of the front, weakening the negotiating position of President Volodymyr Zelensky and killing many Ukrainian soldiers in recent days, according to five senior Western and Ukrainian officials and military officers familiar with the situation.

Evelyn Farkas, Arizona State University McCain Institute Executive Director, discusses whether or not she sees President Trump and President Zelenskiy meeting again to get things back on track, and signals agreeing on the Minerals Deal could potentially put the heated exchanges behind them. Farkas also shares her thoughts on if the Minerals Deal is enough of a security guarantee for Ukraine, and if President Zelenskiy disrespected the Oval Office. She speaks with Kailey Leinz and Joe Mathieu on Bloomberg's "Balance of Power." --------

In a move likely to cause considerable offense in the White House, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has compared US President Donald Trump’s “America First” concept to Nazi propaganda. This provocative statement from Russia’s top diplomat offers an indication of the mood in Moscow as the United States and Russia engage in preliminary talks over a possible deal to end the invasion of Ukraine. In an article published on February 4 by the Russia in Global Affairs journal, Lavrov accused the US of undermining the international order with “cowboy attacks,” and claimed that the rhetoric of the Trump administration was...

Rachel Vindman, wife of former National Security Council member and outspoken President Donald Trump critic retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, expressed “betrayal” and “hurt” over her family not being pardoned by outgoing President Joe Biden. “Whatever happens to my family, know this: No pardons were offered or discussed,” Vindman wrote in a post on Bluesky. Vindman also stated that she “cannot begin to describe the level of betrayal and hurt” that she feels. Vindman’s social media post comes after Biden announced on Monday that he was pardoning Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley, members of the Jan. 6 committee and...

<p>BOSTON -- For more than 20 years, FBI headquarters in Washington knew that its agents in Boston were using professional killers and mob leaders as informants and shielding them from prosecution for serious crimes including murder, the Associated Press has learned.</p>

The only man to lead both the FBI and the CIA urged caution to senators who might vote to confirm former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence and Kash Patel to lead the FBI, according to a letter sent to senators this week. "I am deeply concerned about the potential nominations of Mr. Kash Patel to lead the FBI and the inclusion of Former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard as DNI in intelligence roles," William Webster, who led the FBI during the Carter and Reagan administrations and the CIA after that, said in a letter to senators on Thursday. Webster...

American mediator Amos Hochstein, who helped broker the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah that went into effect last week, accused Israel of violating the terms of the ceasefire in its attempts to prevent the Hezbollah terrorist organization from rearming and reestablishing itself in southern Lebanon, Ynet reported on Monday. Hochstein's accusations against Israel, which he made to officials in Jerusalem, join similar accusations made by France. However, America;s concerns appear to concern the use of surveillance drones in Beirut rather than the strikes on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, as France has complained about. American officials told Ynet that “restraint...

President-elect Donald Trump’s victory bodes well for US-Morocco relations. As King Mohamed VI recalled in his statement congratulating Trump on his election win, during his first term, Trump recognized Rabat’s full sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara. Trump made this recognition with a presidential proclamation on December 10, 2020, in exchange for Morocco reestablishing diplomatic relations with Israel. In his statement, Mohammed VI went on to say that “the Moroccan people will forever be grateful” for this recognition, calling Washington “our longstanding friend and ally.” While Morocco hopes to pick up where it left off in negotiations with...

Russia’s future will be characterized by a smaller population. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war has virtually guaranteed that for generations to come, Russia’s population will be not only smaller, but also older, more fragile, and less well-educated. It will almost certainly be ethnically less Russian and more religiously diverse. While some might view diversity as a strength, many Russians do not see it this way. In a world with hordes of people on the move to escape war, persecution, poverty, and the increasing impact of climate change, xenophobic political rhetoric sells well. Putin has spoken frequently about Russia’s demographic problems,...

French authorities arrested Russian-born dual UAE-French citizen Pavel Durov last weekend as he disembarked his private plane in Paris. Durov, who is the CEO and founder of popular messaging app Telegram, faces a number of serious charges from French authorities ranging from drug offenses to child sexual exploitation offenses.Of course, none of these charges have anything to do with Durov directly but rather refer to activity that allegedly occurred on Telegram, Durov’s privacy-focused messaging app that boasts nearly 1 billion active users. It is unclear from the charging documents what exactly the French authorities’ argument is regarding Durov’s culpability, and...

ransomnote: I posted Matt Taibbi's introduction to the article below. Follow the link for the core of the article.Susan Schmidt, Andrew Lowenthal, Tom Wyatt and 5 others provide a well organized overview to their extensive research. They describe 30 main players in the Censorship-Industrial Complex (CIC), and another 20 in the 'honorable mentions' catagory. I will put a hyperlinked table of contents in post #1. Illustration by mrmooremedia.comIntroduction by Matt TaibbiOn January 17, 1961, outgoing President and former Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower gave one of the most consequential speeches in American history. Eisenhower for eight years had been...

On XApr 17, 2024 TRANSCRIPT:Katherine Maher: The number one challenge here that we see is, of course, the First Amendment in the United States... is a fairly robust protection of rights, and that is a protection of rights, both for platforms, which I actually think is very important. The platforms have those rights to regulate what kind of content they want on their sites, but it also means it is a little bit tricky to really address some of the real challenges of 'where does bad information come from?' and some of the influence peddlers who have made a real...

Terror group appears to pour cold water on mediators’ latest offer after Qatari PM says ‘good progress’ made; Israel said open to lengthy truce but refuses to end war Hamas on Monday evening appeared to reject a new framework for a hostage deal that had been agreed to by Israel, saying it would not accept any agreement that did not include an end to the war and the withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Gaza. The terror group issued a statement alongside a smaller terror group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, insisting Israel must halt its “aggression”...

Former NSA and CIA chief Michael Hayden, who has fashioned a post-government career attacking and censoring conservatives, is spending his Thanksgiving week smearing patriotic American Christians who own firearms, claiming they are “no different” from Hamas terrorists. On Wednesday, Michael Hayden responded to a post on X that juxtaposed two photos: one of a woman holding an American flag, Bible, and handgun; the other of Palestinian terrorist Reem Riyashi, who killed herself along with four Israelis in a 2004 suicide bombing that was claimed by Hamas and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

The Department of Homeland Security partnered with Stanford University and other colleges to create a 'disinformation group' to censor speech leading up to the 2020 election, new emails reveal. The Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) was created in July 2020, and consisted of members from the Stanford Internet Observatory, the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, Graphika, and the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, according to a new report from the House Judiciary Committee and released Monday evening. '[T]he federal government and universities pressured social media companies to censor true information, jokes, and political opinions,' the report said...

Before his removal in a military coup, Gabon’s hopelessly corrupt President Ali Bongo was courted by Obama and feted from Washington to Davos. The US war on Libya which destabilized the region may not have succeeded without him. When a military junta arrested President Ali Bongo Ondimba on August 30, Gabon became the ninth African nation to depose its government through a military coup. As citizens of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali did before them, crowds of Gabonese poured into the streets to celebrate the removal of a Western-backed leader whose family flaunted its lavish lifestyle while more than a...