Free Republic

Democrat super-lobbyist Tony Podesta was paid $170,000 over a six-month period last year to represent Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, seeking to end one of the Obama administration’s economic sanctions against that country, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group has learned. Podesta, founder and chairman of the Podesta Group, is listed as a key lobbyist on behalf of Sberbank, according to Senate lobbying disclosure forms. His firm received more than $24 million in fees in 2016, much of it coming from foreign governments, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

A look at the Sunrise Movement and its socialist dreams. The Sunrise Movement (SM) is a 501(c)(4) environmental advocacy organization that, while denying that it is loyal to either “the right or left” side of the political spectrum, in fact throws its full support behind left-wing Democratic Party candidates and agendas. Most notably, SM endorses the enactment of a “Green New Deal,” environmental legislation whose multifaceted mission is to eliminate all fossil-fuel use from the U.S. economy (in favor of renewables like wind and solar energy) by the year 2030; create a “basic income program” and a federal jobs guarantee...

The Environmental Protection Agency has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations that U.S. environmental groups have received covert funding from China and Russia. EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler made the request after Rep. Lance Gooden (R., Texas) alleged that left-wing environmental groups—including the Sea Change Foundation, Sunrise Movement, and Sierra Club—have functioned as conduits for "foreign influence, financial involvement, and election interference." Wheeler noted that it is not against the law for a nonprofit to take contributions from foreign entities but nonetheless asked the DOJ to look into whether the groups should register as foreign agents. "Given heightened concerns that...

Brooke Shields considered former President George H.W. Bush such a close "confidant" that she would ask him just about anything. Shields, 59, admitted that she considered the late politician her substitute grandfather during an event to support the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy's New York Celebration of Reading event at the Lotos Club. The actress and author, who will soon publish her new book, "Brooke Shields is Not Allowed to Get Old," even had a nickname for the 41st president of the United States. "I call him Papa Bush. I was dating somebody [whose father] was an ambassador in...

Hurricane Ernesto is closing in on the strongest strike on Bermuda in almost four years, then could brush parts of Newfoundland, Canada, early next week after its flooding rain and damaging winds hammered Puerto Rico and the Lesser Antilles. Ernesto will remain well off the U.S. East Coast, but beachgoers will need to be aware of its swells generating a threat of dangerous rip currents. C​urrent status: Category 2 Hurricane Ernesto is centered just over 200 miles south-southwest of Bermuda and is moving north-northeast. Ernesto's scope of strong winds continues to grow. Hurricane-force winds now extending up to 75 miles...

Jeb Bush wasted no time expressing his gratitude to Bermuda and its reinsurance market during the 62nd General Assembly & Annual Meeting of the World Federation of Exchanges at the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club. [cut] The remarks were made during a wideranging and freewheeling “fireside chat” with the former governor, his son George P. Bush and Thomas Gallagher, chairman and CEO of Miami International Holdings, which owns the Bermuda Stock Exchange. [cut] “I am worried about his [President Biden] age. We have a problem in our country. We have a lot of people who are past their prime who...

The U.K.'s Privy Council, which serves as the final appeals court for several Caribbean islands, ruled that both islands' bans on gay marriage were constitutional, according to the Associated Press. The decision deals a heavy blow to the islands' LGBTQ communities, which had hoped for a more favorable opinion from the court.

Liberty Daily posted a Climate Depot article about a congressional report in 2018 detailing “Russian attempts to influence” and fund environmental groups to oppose fracking in Europe and the U.S. The reason is obvious since Russia relies on oil and gas exports for its very survival. There is more to this story. George Soros gives to the same groups surreptitiously. We reported this in 2018 after The Daily Signal summarized the involvement of Russia and George Soros, who now has operatives employed in the White House. Russia funneled money to a corporation that funds radical environmental groups that are vehemently...

At 2:10 p.m., five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo-bombers comprising Flight 19 take off from the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station in Florida on a routine three-hour training mission. Flight 19 was scheduled to take them due east for 120 miles, north for 73 miles, and then back over a final 120-mile leg that would return them to the naval base. They never returned. Two hours after the flight began, the leader of the squadron, who had been flying in the area for more than six months, reported that his compass and back-up compass had failed and that his position was...

On this date in 1977, Black Berets Larry Tacklyn and Erskine “Buck” Burrows were hanged in Bermuda for assassinating the islands’ police chief and governor. “During the 1970s, a black power organization in Bermuda conspired to bring about social change ‘by any means necessary,’ including assassination. This is the first full account of the murders and the Black Beret Cadre, the revolutionary group whose activities resulted in mayhem throughout the island.” –Book’s advance publicity A revolutionary black nationalist organization, the Black Beret cadre took its name from that Che Guevara photograph and its model from the Black Panthers. The cadres’...

When Hayden Ludwig and a colleague showed up at the Civic Participation Action Fund’s (CPAF) Washington, D.C., office in 2019 seeking copies of the group’s most recent tax returns, they were greeted by an angry Stephen McConnell. McConnell, then-CPAF’s president, demanded to know who paid his inquisitors’ salaries. Ludwig identified himself as an investigative researcher for the Capital Research Center (CRC), and his colleague as an intern there. [snip] “They’re not used to being in the limelight,” Ludwig laconically told The Epoch Times on Oct. 22. Indeed, throughout its carefully planned five-year lifespan, CPAF flew under the radar even as...

Allegedly Used Secret Swiss and Bermudian Bank Accounts in Scheme to Conceal Approximately Two Billion Dollars of Capital Gains Income A federal grand jury in San Francisco, California, returned a 39 count indictment charging Robert T. Brockman, the Chief Executive Officer of an Ohio-based software company, with tax evasion, wire fraud, money laundering, and other offenses, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman of the Tax Division, U.S. Attorney David L. Anderson for the Northern District of California, and Chief of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Investigation Jim Lee. The charges stem from an alleged decades-long scheme...

House lawmakers want the Trump administration to investigate reports that a wealthy foundation used an offshore shell company to give millions of dollars to environmental activists opposed to U.S. energy development. “If you connect the dots, it is clear that Russia is funding U.S. environmental groups in an effort to suppress our domestic oil and gas industry, specifically hydraulic fracking,” Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith said Friday. Smith and Texas Republican Rep. Randy Weber asked Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to investigate whether or not environmentalists were funneling money to U.S. environmental groups through a Bermuda-based shell company. Republicans are pitching...

Plane has landed in Bermuda. No word as to why it was diverted. It's Sept. 11th, so heightened alert. JetBlue flight 1347.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a far-left nonprofit known for its "hate group" designations, has surpassed a half billion dollars in total assets and now has $121 million parked offshore, according to the group's most recent financial statements. The SPLC, which is based in Montgomery, Ala., has not publicly posted its most recent financial statements on its website. However, the organization applied for renewal in the state of California days ago and submitted a number of documents pertaining to its financial standing including its most recent audited statement and tax forms for calendar year 2018, which covers Nov. 1,...

I would like people's comments on Bermuda as a vacation spot: if you went, where did you stay, how long, what did you do? How expensive was it relative to other islands (if you can compare)? General recommendations---yes, no, stay away unless we bring voodoo dolls?

In 1619, a hurricane sank the English merchant ship Warwick in Bermuda's Castle Harbor. The struggling settlers of Jamestown, Virginia, were desperately awaiting the shipload of fresh supplies, and keenly felt the loss. Almost 400 years later, artifacts from the wreck are helping archaeologist Grace Tsai uncover if unrefrigerated food and drink remained edible and nutritious during long sea voyages. Since 2012, Tsai, a doctoral candidate in nautical archaeology at Texas A&M University, has been studying archaeological records of provisions from three different shipwrecks from the 16th and 17th centuries and analyzing shipboard diets based on modern nutritional guidelines. Now,...

For the 3rd straight Winter Games, cross-country skier Tucker Murphy is Bermuda's only athlete. No matter the season, Bermuda athletes usually wear their trademark shorts during Opening Ceremonies.

Less than a year after legalizing same-sex marriage, Bermuda is reversing course, implementing a law that says same-sex couples can enter domestic partnerships but not marry. The British territory is believed to be the first jurisdiction in the world to reverse course on same-sex marriage after permitting it

After Bermuda's House of Assembly and Senate voted to reverse so-called same-sex marriage in December, the governor signed it into the law on Wednesday, making Bermuda the first country in the world to roll back gay marriage. Bermuda's governor, John Rankin, signed the measure into law after last year's Bermuda Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage. Walton Brown, minister of home affairs, said the legislation reflects the resistance to same-sex marriage from the socially conservative island, while complying with European court rulings that recognize and protect same-sex partners in the territory.  "The act is intended to strike a fair balance between two...