Free Republic

Customers rejected Smartmatic for reasons unrelated to Fox. For example, the filing said, Smartmatic’s equipment was not certified.. Both Fox News and Smartmatic, the voting software company, filed lengthy briefs Thursday arguing about Smartmatic’s past and predicted financial health. Fox’s filing reveals how Smartmatic was massively losing business long before Fox began reporting on it in 2020. Smartmatic’s filing, which includes many fully redacted pages, says that before the 2020 election, Smartmatic’s CEO believed the company to be “strategically positioned for multi-billion-dollar growth, given its global footprint, its track record,” and its breaking into the U.S. market with a contract...

New research from writers and researchers Trevor Loudon and Cliff Kincaid shows that Leon Panetta, the CIA director being considered on Thursday for the position of Secretary of Defense, had a previously undisclosed personal and friendly relationship with Hugh DeLacy, a prominent member of the Communist Party USA. DeLacy visited such countries as China and Nicaragua and was himself a personal contact of identified Soviet spies Solomon Adler and Frank Coe and accused spy John Stewart Service. Panetta spoke at DeLacy’s memorial service, directed a series of letters to him personally as “Dear Hugh,” and placed a tribute to him...

The Miami Herald is reporting Hugo Chávez early demise was recognized long before the rest of the world was privvy to the details of a late diagnosed and lethal cancer. With the help of Cuban brothers Fidel and Raúl, and Chávez' hand-picked successor Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan presidential election was moved from December 2012 to October 2012, two months that the report says were crucial. In October Chávez could still stand before his supporters to applaud his re-election, but there was no certainty that he could do so in December. He returned to Cuba for a fourth round of cancer treatments in early...

The Venezuelan Human Rights Education-Action Program reported that the regime of dictator Nicolás Maduro's kidnapped Freddy Superlano, leader of the Voluntad Popular party founded by Leopoldo López. "These detainments can lead to forced disappearances and cruel and inhumane treatment to force the victims to make statements, as has been denounced in the past by the UN Mission on Venezuela," Provea wrote on its account on the social network X. The organization published a video on social networks showing how several hooded men put Superlano in a van. According to the information, three other opposition leaders were also kidnapped. Meanwhile, Voluntad...

Roberto Micheletti, interrim President of Honduras, steps down today to allow for the peaceful transition of power to the newly elected president of the tiny nation, Porfirio Lobo Sosa. You may recall that Micheletti was appointed after former President Zelaya attempted to overturn the country’s election process (with the assistance of President Obama’s favorite thug, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela) and was promptly, unceremoniously, and constitutionally removed from office... And where is the United States while all this is happening in a tiny democracy well within our sphere of influence? Why isn’t Joe Biden one of the dignitaries congratulating Micheletti for...

Gunmen ambushed a convoy carrying Honduras' top prosecutor, but neither he nor his bodyguards were harmed, police said Sunday. Police spokesman Orlin Cerrato said Attorney General Luis Alberto Rubi was riding on a northern highway when assailants opened fire Saturday night. Cerrato said no one was hurt. One car was damaged. He did not give a motive for the attack or say whether it was related to Honduras' four-month political crisis. But he speculated the attack could be an attempt to "provoke unease in the country." After the June coup, it was Rubi who filed criminal charges against ousted President...

Venezuela’s Tarek El-Aissami The Americas Report | Oct 03, 2008  By Nicole Ferrand [...] Mr. El - Aissami is a Venezuelan national of Syrian descent who, before becoming Minster of Interior and Justice, occupied the position of Deputy Interior Minister for Public Security. His father, Carlos Aissami, is the head of the Venezuelan branch of the Iraqi Baath political party. Before the invasion of Iraq, he held a press conference in which he described himself as a Taliban and called Osama Bin Laden, "the great Mujahedeen, Sheik Osama bin Laden." Tarek's great-uncle Shibli el-Aissami was a prominent ideologist and...

BEJUMA, Venezuela - In this deceptively tranquil farming village, people still talk about the ''Bejuma massacre'' in a whisper, partly because one man who spoke out is in a grave, partly because the killers were allegedly policemen. But the source of the fear can be summed up in a single word: drug trafficking, on the kind of massive level and involving corrupt government officials that has long been a profound problem in neighboring Colombia. Drug seizures in Venezuela doubled in the past four years. There are mounting allegations of drug-fueled corruption at the highest levels of the security forces, accompanied...

There's a persistent truism out there that while Jimmy Carter was an execrable president, he was nevertheless a great ex-president. It's balderdash. He may have done some worthy deeds around the eradication of disease and the building of homes for the homeless. But he was every bit as bad an ex-president as he was a sitting president. It wasn't just his nasty, irritable personality, as described by newsman and AT contributor Peter Chowka here, and former U.S. diplomat Lewis Amselem from firsthand experience as bystanders in random events. It was in his meddling political involvement abroad. Amselem described in his...

Republican Senators should vote this nomination down. A co-sponsor of the Pro-Act as Labor Secretary? Absolutely not. ... The PRO Act makes it illegal to be an independent contractor. Democrats want a union between every American worker and the government so it can inflict things like DEI on every single business/contractor. ... The PRO act is one of the worst pieces of legislation ever conceived. It is anti-opportunity. It would significantly drive up cost. ... The only questions will be (a) when she walks it badk and (b) how far she walks it back and (c) whether enough GOP Senators...

BETHLEHEM, West Bank: Venezuelan flags and portraits of President Hugo Chavez have been flying high during protests in the West Bank against Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip. The Venezuelan president’s decision on January 6 to expel Israel’s ambassador from Caracas – the only country apart from Mauritania to take such a step – has made the left-wing South American leader a hero to Palestinians. Hamas has welcomed Chavez’s “courageous decision,” while Hassan Nasrallah, head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, urged Arab states to follow the Venezuelan president’s example. Chavez on Saturday accused Israel of being the “murder arm” of the...

The “Bolivarian Revolution” of Venezuela is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its rise to power. On February 2, 1999 — 25 years ago — I was a naive 11-year-old, devoid of any political thought. Today, just as the socialists celebrate a quarter of a century in power, I am barely starting anew, having been finally able to flee from socialism with my brother, who is under my care due to his mental condition. As they celebrate, cheer, rejoice — I am here, having left everything behind: my home, remaining family, neighbors, and friends, carrying nothing but three pieces of luggage;...

The president of voting machine company Smartmatic, Roger Piñate, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on bribery and money-laundering charges in order to get election contracts in the Philippines. Smartmatic was founded in 2000, and its voting machines have been used in elections in Venezuela and the Philippines. According to the Miami Herald, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez chose Smartmatic to replace the country’s previous machines in 2004.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) marked César Chávez Day on Easter Sunday, though California state government offices will only observe the holiday on Monday, April 1. Pelosi issued a tweet honoring the late farmworker union organizer and civil rights leader on Sunday, shortly after posting a message of Easter greetings to Christians nationwide. Chavez was born on March 31, 1927 in Yuma, Arizona. He built his legacy in California, where his family were migrant farm workers, and where he became a labor organizer. His birthday is an annual state public holiday, though it is typically observed on Monday, April 1, when...

Attorney John Thaler joined Brannon Howse with former Arizona State Representative Mark Finchem Friday night on Lindell TV to explain the alleged phony mortgage and real estate transaction scam used by the Sinaloa Cartel to bribe elected officials and control the state of Arizona. The Sinaloa Cartels and the treasonous Americans who work with them are destroying our country by flooding Arizona with dangerous drugs and crime. The Gateway Pundit reported that Tempe Police seized over 30 million lethal doses of fentanyl. In 2022, the DEA nationwide seized over 50.6 million deadly fentanyl-laced fake prescription pills and over 10,000 pounds...

Hakeem Jeffries says quiet part out loud. Hugo Chavez is his hero.

The crime wave sweeping across the country is the direct result of a years-long campaign by George Soros to bankroll the election of far-left district attorneys committed to undermining law and order. Over the past six years or so, Soros has poured tens of millions of dollars into the campaigns of DA candidates... ... Soros can circumvent individual contribution limits by funneling money through the PACs he has set up for this purpose, which generally go by the ironic name of “Safety and Justice.” ... Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner received $1,700,000 from Soros. Chicago DA Kim Foxx, who treated Jussie...

Abdala Rada Ramel has close ties to Salman Raouf Salman, who has been also accused of an important role in the AMIA bombing attack The "clans" consist of groups of Lebanese origin who exert control over given territories in South America - and enable Hezbollah All three clans are strategically positioned close to the most important ports of Venezuela, from which they doubtless oversee the trade and handling of goods that in turn allows Hezbollah to profit Assad Ahmad Barakat is accused of having been involved in the AMIA bomb attack and operating call centers and shell companies on behalf...

FARC, whose leaders are going on trial, is one of the many murderous offshoots of that ‘real socialism’ the Left insists ‘has never been tried.’A special court has been convened in Colombia to try eight leaders of the Marxist-Leninist terrorist outfit known as FARC — Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia — on war crimes and crimes against humanity charges. Perhaps justice will be done upon these eight — will it ever be done for their enablers in the United States and elsewhere?FARC is one of the many murderous offshoots of that “real socialism” that our leftist friends always insist “has...