Free Republic

Radical left-wing icon former California Democratic Rep. Ron Dellums was a hired lobbyist for Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. June 9, 2016, the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group has learned. Dellums, who represented liberal San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., is a long-time darling of left-wing political activists. He served 13 terms in Congress as an African-American firebrand and proudly called himself a socialist. He retired in 1996. The former congressman is one of several high-profile Democratic partisans who was on Veselnitskaya’s payroll, working to defeat a law that is the hated object of...

Since you last filed a VA disability claim, VA has improved the claim process by launching the Decision Ready Claims (DRC) Program. When you file a DRC, you can get a decision on your claim in 30 days or less by working with an accredited Veterans Service Organization (VSO). Your VSO will help you gather and submit all relevant and required evidence so your claim is ready for VA to make a decision when you submit it. You can now file a DRC for the following claim types: Direct Service Connection Claims Presumptive Service Connection Claims Secondary Service Connection Claims...

This week Nikki Haley, our ambassador to the United Nations, visits two countries on the brink of becoming the world’s next failed states: South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Her trip comes as optimism for South Sudan has faded as the six-year-old nation, famously “midwifed” into existence by the Obama administration, has sunk into a civil war between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir, a member of the Dinka ethnic group, and his former vice president, Riek Machar, a Nuer. The conflict has generated the biggest exodus of civilians in the continent since the Rwandan genocide of...

Stone Mountain, Georgia — a city with just over 6,000 residents and a poverty rate well above the national average — has resettled more Syrian refugees than Los Angeles and New York City combined. Since October 1 (the start of the fiscal year), 72 Syrian refugees have been placed in Stone Mountain, State Department data shows. Los Angeles has resettled just 45 Syrian refugees, while NYC has only resettled nine. Syrians aren’t the only refugees placed in Stone Mountain this year. Since October 1, 299 refugees have been resettled in the Georgia town. That’s roughly five percent of Stone Mountain’s...

As the Clinton-led State Department dragged its feet against Boko Haram, Clinton Foundation donors made millions from Nigerian oil fields The attacks on Jan. 20, 2012, began not so much as an explosion but as an earthquake. ....In coordinated bombings at 23 separate locations in the city of Kano, including police headquarters and military barracks, the group left one of Africa’s largest cities in disarray and panic. The January attacks killed more than 185 people—Africa’s worst terrorism since the 1998 al-Qaeda attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. ...Boko Haram often showed up better equipped than the Nigerian military...prominently...

As many of us suspected, the Clinton Foundation "business" was intertwined with Hillary Clinton's official duties at State. Emails made public through FOIA have shown that Hillary Clinton aide Cheryl Mills passed on classified information to the Clinton Foundation: Hillary Clinton's top State Department aide sent internal agency correspondence to Clinton Foundation officials, raising new questions about how her inner circle handled sensitive information. The internal emails, which were obtained by Citizens United through the Freedom of Information Act, have since been classified. They were passed to the Clinton Foundation by Cheryl Mills, Clinton's former chief of staff. In one...

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) -- The U.N. said Monday it had launched a military operation to rescue foreign diplomats inside the besieged home of a Congo presidential candidate.

We've had our moments when power changed hands in the United States. There was Jimmy Carter's cold shoulder to Ronald Reagan, the Bush v. Gore decision and, of course, the removal of the Ws from the keyboards by Clinton staffers when George W. Bush prevailed. But once the election is over, the votes have been counted and, in a few cases, the courts have ruled, the loser steps aside and the winner takes over. The new president's appointees replace those of his predecessor. No one tries to hang on. No one tries to extend the term. It's not that way...

The weapons laden plane seized in Bangkok en route from North Korea at the weekend has been linked to two renowned East European arms traffickers by a respected Swedish think-tank in the latest twist in the mysterious saga. The Ilyushin-76 aircraft, which was found to be carrying 35 tons of weapons including rockets and grenades, was most recently registered under a company called Beibars, linked to Serbian arms dealer Tomislav Dmanjanovic. It had previously been registered with three companies identified by the US Department of the Treasury as firms controlled by the notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, according to...

A member of Hillary Clinton’s staff at the Department of State emailed classified information about the government in Congo to a staffer at the Clinton Foundation in 2012, according to a copy of the correspondence obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s chief of staff at the State Department, sent the email to the Clinton Foundation’s foreign policy director, Amitabh Desai, on July 12, 2012. The message, which was originally obtained by the group Citizens United through a public records request, is partially redacted because it includes “foreign government information” that has been classified as “Confidential” by the...

A private jet owned by a North Texas company has been impounded for the past 2 1/2 weeks and its passengers and crew detained by the Congolese government in central Africa, where officials say it was used to smuggle gold from rebel territories in the nation's eastern provinces. The plane was leased by Southlake Aviation, based in suburban Dallas-Fort Worth, to a subsidiary of CAMAC International, The Dallas Morning News reported in its Sunday editions. CAMAC company is owned by Kase Lawal, a Nigerian-born Houston oil tycoon an appointee of President Barack Obama to the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy...

Uganda's army has accused the Lord's Resistance Army rebels of hacking to death 45 civilians in a Catholic church in the Democratic Republic of Congo.Capt Chris Magezi said the scene was "horrendous... dead bodies of mostly women and children cut in pieces". The attack happened on 26 December. A rebel spokesman has denied responsibility for the killings, which follow a collapse in the peace process. The UN says at least 189 people were killed in several attacks last week. Some reports say more than 100 people were killed in the church alone. The armies of Uganda, South Sudan and DR...

Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) said on Saturday they are heading toward "major breakthroughs" with the Kinshasa government in peace talks in Uganda, possibly within hours. Under Uganda's mediation, "major breakthroughs are about to be obtained in Kampala since the heavy involvement of the international community in the dialogue" between the two sides, the M23 movement said in a statement.

(Reuters) - Eastern Congo's most powerful warlord stands on a hillside, surrounded by heavily armed fighters, and gazes down on the sprawling lakeside city of Goma spread invitingly below him in the distance. ... "The government can't beat us. They have no choice but to negotiate," says the lean, 39-year-old veteran of several revolts in mineral-rich eastern Congo. "We're waiting for the negotiations in Kampala." M23 launched its rebellion in Congo's beautiful but war-torn eastern borderlands more than a year ago. Hundreds of former rebels who had been integrated into the army - veterans, like Makenga, of a previous Tutsi...

Excellent Video: Think of the Katangese as Israel, and Patrice Lumumba and the Central Congolese government as the PLO/PA/HAMAS. The UN, of course, plays the same role as ever...to bring about a world government dominated by socialists and communists. Description: UN troops wage an unprovoked war against anti-communist Katanga in 1960 and 1962. The last bastion of the free market in the Congo was decimated by UN forces in 1963 to bring it under Congolese communist control. If you don't want to watch the entire thing (an early 1960's documentary), fast forward to the end where Katanga's ill-fated and heroic...

Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi is well known now for the abuses he has inflicted on his own people during more than four decades of brutal rule in Libya, but few remember the vast campaign of carnage and terrorism he orchestrated across West Africa and Europe when he was at the height of his powers. Nor are his more recent alliance with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and his long-standing relationship with Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua -- both of whom are busy trampling their constitutions and moving toward dictatorship -- well understood. And the fact that all three governments support the Revolutionary Armed...

(Actor to testify before the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights on the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. Of all the philanthropic endeavors Ben Affleck makes time for, perhaps none are as close to his heart as his work in one of the most troubled places on earth, the Democratic Republic of Congo. “The more I traveled, the more I was struck about it, the more I fell in love with the people, the more I was horrified by what was happening. And the more I did, I started to develop this idea of partnering with the...

The United States has signed a deal with Bhutan giving US citizens in the country immunity from prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the State Department said Tuesday. The deal with Bhutan brings to 34 the number of countries with which the United States has signed so-called "Article 98" agreements exempting US citizens from the court's jurisdiction, said Lynn Cassel, a department spokesman. Bhutan and Bosnia-Herzegovina both agreed to the pacts on May 16 but the deal with Thimphu was not announced until Tuesday. Washington refuses to support the ICC, arguing that it could become a forum for politically...

Note: Photo included. SNIPPET: "Bout and American-born pal Richard Chichakli were accused of creating a new business, Samar Airlines, which they thought was clean of any connection to their own bloody dealings. Starting in the summer of 2007, Samar Airlines started making deals for airplanes and crews to ferry contraband between the United States and Tajikistan, the indictment said." SNIPPET: "The Russian-born Bout is accused of wiring $1.7 million from bank accounts in Kazakhstan, Cyprus, Russia through banks in New York City and Salt Lake City to finance the scheme." SNIPPET: "Bout, who is accused of supplying weapons to real...

In Congo, Hillary Clinton Suggests Government Ownership of Industry Would be a Good Thing Wednesday, August 12, 2009 By Adam Brickley (CNSNews.com) - In a television interview Monday in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested that it would be a good thing for the government to take an ownership interest in industry.