Free Republic

BEIJING continues to beef up its military capabilities in and around the South China Sea, as it seeks to assert its complete control over the disputed waters. Besides the new aircraft deployments, the Chinese military appears to be pushing ahead with the construction of a dry dock at its Yulin naval complex east of Sanya. The dimensions of the new dock would suggest that it will be capable of housing China's aircraft carriers as well as destroyer and cruiser fleets. The naval base is already home to the Chinese navy's conventional and nuclear powered submarines. All these measures significantly increase...

In the first sign of confirmation that the current COVID resurgence taking place in northeastern China might be more widespread than the Chinese state (and its attendant party-controlled press organs) have been letting on, the city of Hong Kong on Friday just announced its first-ever lockdown, a measure that is reminiscent of the harsher measures used to combat the outbreak of SARs, which hammered the tiny (formally) autonomous city state nearly 20 years ago.According to the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong will lock down around 150 residential buildings in coronavirus-hit Yau Tsim Mong district. To enforce the measure, the...

The Biden Regency has assumed power over the United States. Trump exits with a whimper while the Biden Regency unveils multiple first-day executive orders that undermine America’s sovereignty. With Joe Biden’s obvious dementia and malleable policy proposals, there is clear reason to believe that Joe Biden will not actually be the one running the United States of America, despite having title. CCP propaganda outlets vocalized their celebration of Trump’s exit.Good Riddance, Donald Trump! https://t.co/kYNQ0jTCfH pic.twitter.com/UoDm8RIT6V— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) January 20, 2021Every Presidential candidate, in this era, has a slew of day-one promises. Joe Biden appears to have set the...

Bill Burns – Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Central Intelligence Agency – serves as the President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace which has over a decade-long relationship with the China-United States Exchange Foundation and other Chinese Communist Party-linked groups. Burns has served as President of the think tank since 2014, overseeing its involvement with the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) which dates back to at least 2009. CUSEF – part of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front effort that seeks to “co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition” and encourage foreign actors to “adopt positions supportive of...

On Wednesday of last week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that residents age 65 and above were now eligible to schedule appointments to receive either Pfizer or Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine. Just one problem: The state does not have final say over who gets vaccinated when. That power rests with individual counties and health care providers. “We’re not done with our health care workers,” Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said when explaining why her county is not ready to expand eligibility. “We haven’t heard back from the state about vaccine availability and how it would be distributed.” Dr....

Financial records from The Lincoln Project – the anti-Trump group lauded by the establishment media – appear to reveal that the group funneled over $10,000,000 to enrich its own founders personally through their communications and consulting firms, The National Pulse can reveal.The news comes days after co-founder John Weaver admitted sending sexually inappropriate messages to young men.Launched in 2019 by a cohort of establishment, so-called “Republicans” dedicated to “defeating President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box,” the group has routinely funneled the millions it raises to its founders and advisors, Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show.Co-founder Reed Gallen’s Summit...

... With its sandy beaches and year-round sunshine, Los Angeles conjures up images of celebrities and tanned residents comfortably scattered in a sprawl of roomy single-family homes. But the popular images of L.A. belie the reality for millions of residents, many of whom are considered essential and live in dense or multigenerational housing at a time when public health officials recommend working from home and maintaining social distance. Death rates among Latinos in L.A. are twice as high as in the rest of the population, according to public health officials. And Latinos, who are about half of all county residents,...

A former Congressman from Tennessee set off an internet firestorm when he appeared on Fox News remotely Thursday, with a portrait of former Chairman of the People’s Republic of China and founder of the Chinese Communist Party Mao Zedong in the background. Harold Ford Jr., a Democrat, represented Tennessee’s Ninth Congressional District for a decade, from 1997 to 2007. Now, he provides commentary frequently on Fox News. Fox News viewers noticed some strange background decor during Ford’s appearance on “Special Report” with Bret Baier Thursday. “Wow, [Harold Ford Jr.] rockin’ the Warhol Mao over the fireplace. I liked the Muhammad...

Joe Biden continues to get the old Obama band back together while assembling his cabinet and White House staff. (Seriously… are there no new people in the Democratic Party?) His latest addition, however, should raise some eyebrows even in his own party. Anita Dunn is having her career resurrected by Uncle Joe, signing on to be one of his senior advisors in the Oval Office. (She’s actually been working on Biden’s campaign since 2019, though primarily in the background.) If that name sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because she served as Barack Obama’s communications director briefly at the beginning...

“ These people are sick! Former Tennessee Democrat Congressman Harold Ford Jr was interviewed on FOX this past week. It was quite an interview as WIBC.com reports:”

Health Secretary Alex Azar on Thursday reminded Americans of how Beijing, about a year ago, had held back the truth about the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus outbreak, allowing it to turn into a global crisis.Azar, during a speech at conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, said the early U.S. response to the CCP virus was particularly difficult because the virus emerged in China, which, given the nature of the communist regime, “severely limited” outside access to information about it.“Let’s consider when and how the United States became aware of the virus,” the nation’s health chief said. “We learned about an...

Oath Keepers is a non-partisan association of current and formerly serving military, police, and first responders, who pledge to fulfill the oath all military and police take to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” That oath, mandated by Article VI of the Constitution itself, is to the Constitution, not to the politicians, and Oath Keepers declare that they will not obey unconstitutional orders, such as orders to disarm the American people, to conduct warrantless searches, or to detain Americans as “enemy combatants” in violation of their ancient right to jury trial. The Oath Keepers motto is “not...

BEIJING - President Xi Jinping is asking former CEO Howard Schultz of Starbucks to help repair U.S.-Chinese relations that have plunged to their lowest level in decades amid a tariff war and tension over technology and security. A letter from Xi to Schultz reported Friday by the official Xinhua News Agency was a rare direct communication from China’s paramount leader to a foreign business figure. Schultz opened Starbucks’ first China outlet in 1999 and is a frequent visitor. Xinhua gave no indication whether the letter reflected an initiative to ask American corporate leaders to help change policy after President-elect Joe...

LONDON - People across the world are generally likely to say yes to getting a COVID-19 vaccine, but would be more distrustful of shots made in China or Russia than those developed in Germany or the United States, an international poll showed on Friday. The survey, conducted by the polling company YouGov and shared exclusively with Reuters, found Britons and Danes were the most willing to take the COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available to them, while the French and Poles were more likely to be hesitant. The poll was based on questions put to almost 19,000 people. Friday’s YouGov...

A senior NASA scientist pleaded guilty on Jan. 13 to lying about his ties to a Chinese-backed program designed to harvest talents from the West and transfer intellectual property to China, the Justice Department announced. Meyya Meyyappan, 66, joined NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) in 1996 and has been the chief scientist for exploration technology at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley since 2006. He was charged with one count of making false statements and could face a maximum five-year prison sentence and up to $250,000 fine if convicted, according to a Justice Department press release. The...

In the wake of the suspicious Christmas morning bombing of an AT&T network sites located about a block away from the telecom giant’s regional offices in downtown Nashville, both the perpetrators and their motives remain unknown. Regardless of what comes to pass, there is a link between AT&T, Dominion Voting Systems, and Chinese Communist Party that is worth taking a closer look at. This possible connection centers on AT&T Chairman William E. Kennard. Kennard, who also sits on the Board of Directors for Ford Motor Company, MetLife, Duke Energy, and Staple Street Capital, the private equity firm that is the...

The coronavirus vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech has been found to be 50.4 percent effective in a late-stage Brazilian trial—falling far below the 78 percent level that was initially announced. While the percentage barely met the 50-percent threshold required for regulatory approval, the finding has only raised more concerns about the veracity of vaccine data put forth by Chinese companies.

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and researcher who has received almost $20 million from the Department of Energy was arrested Thursday after he allegedly failed to disclose ties to the People’s Republic of China. Mechanical engineering professor Gang Chen faces charges of wire fraud, failing to file a foreign bank account report, and making a false statement in a tax return, the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston revealed Thursday.

Hong Kong (AFP) - A Hong Kong internet provider said Thursday it had blocked access to a website following a police order, the first confirmed takedown using a new national security law imposed by Beijing last year. Unlike mainland China, Hong Kong has open internet access, but critics of Beijing fear powers given to the police under the new law could herald the end of that freedom. Internet users noticed the website HKChronicles was unreachable from some Hong Kong-based devices last week, and its owner put out a statement saying she believed authorities were blocking access. HKChronicles, which is still...

Dear Madam Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:) Pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, I hereby report that I have issued an Executive Order taking further steps to deal with the threat posed by the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) increasing exploitation of United States capital to resource and to enable the development and modernization of its military, intelligence, and other security apparatuses which continue to allow the PRC to directly threaten the United States homeland...