Free Republic

FULL TITLE: China Conducts Overnight Raid Against Christians, Detains More Than 100 People, Including A Prominent Pastor Tweet We in the West tend to take our freedom of religion for granted, forgetting that not everyone in the world can enjoy worshiping God freely, out in the open. In fact, in Communist countries like China, being a Christian is a violation of the law and can get you tossed in prison, a reality 100 believers experienced after overnight raids in the nation on Sunday. The raids are said to be part of a crackdown on “unregistered religious organizations.” According to members...

Washington Post writer and frequent MSNBC commentator Jennifer Rubin predicted Sunday that President Trump would resign from office with 10 minutes left in his presidency and accept a pardon from his successor, Mike Pence. “I also don’t think that Trump can pardon himself. And if he tries that, and that’s his only mechanism, he risks being prosecuted after he leaves office,” Jennifer Rubin said. She continued, “For that very reason, I would predict, here on MSNBC, that when Trump leaves office, he will resign the presidency 10 minutes before Mike Pence leaves office, allowing Pence to pardon him, if there...

Tony Shaffer responded to Brennan in one tweet that blasts the former CIA director in a big way: Whenever we see you tweeting like a seditious clown @JohnBrennan we know you are projecting your guilt and corruption in your own vile effort to continue to deceive the American people…you know how much blood you have on your hands and the treason you have committed…tic-toc

Hanukkah celebrates the miracle that oil thought to be enough for only one day burned instead for eight. So the Jewish festival of lights is also, in a way, a celebration of surprise. A temple in Queens got a small dose of surprise on Sunday - the final night of Hanukkah - when Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democrat with a knack for dramatic flourish, told those gathered to light the menorah that her ancestors were Jewish. ‘‘One of the things that we discovered about ourselves is that a very, very long time ago, generations and generations ago, my...

On Saturday, Congress released the 234-page transcript of closed-door testimony from ex-FBI Director James Comey before the House Judiciary and Oversight Committee the day prior. This is a summary of notable moments with page number citations so you can read for yourself. Hillary Clinton probe Comey confirmed that controversial FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page served both on the team investigating Hillary Clinton’s email practices and the team investigating Trump-Russia connections (p. 18). Context: Strzok and Page were pulled from the Special Counsel Robert Mueller probe in summer 2017 after the DOJ Inspector General discovered they had exchanged many,...

James Comey made the surprise revelation in his congressional testimony on Friday that the FBI opened investigations into four Trump associates in late July 2016. It was previously known that four Trump advisers were the focus of the FBI probe, but it was not known that they were targeted at the outset of the investigation. It was previously believed that former Trump aide George Papadopoulos was the catalyst for the investigation, which was dubbed Crossfire Hurricane. The FBI opened counterintelligence investigations into four Trump campaign associates in late July 2016, earlier than previously known, former FBI Director James Comey told...

The United States joined a controversial proposal by Saudi Arabia and Russia this weekend to weaken a reference to a key report on the severity of global warming, sharpening battle lines at the global climate summit in Poland aimed at gaining consensus over how to combat rising temperatures. Arguments erupted Saturday night before a United Nations working group focused on science and technology, where the United States teamed with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to challenge language that would have welcomed the findings of the landmark report, which said that the world has barely 10 years to cut carbon emissions...

Our Troops Rock!  Thank you for all you do!   For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces.   Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today!     ~ Hall of Heroes ~ The Berlin Airlift Part 3:  Operation Little VittlesAll info and photos from this website. Link to Part 1 Link to Part 2             "DER SCHOKOLADEN FLIEGER"   OPERATION LITTLE VITTLES   40K JPEG General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force is shown presenting...

KOCHI: The swirling multicolour LED lights that give dance floors their zing have found a totally different use in Kerala’s Wayanad district. The forest department has deployed .. Read more at: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/67016900.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst ..

Many people I know in law enforcement circles shuddered when James Comey tweeted recently that acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker “may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer.” To them, Comey’s Twitter attack crossed that “blue line” – the one that real cops abide by, to never criticize fellow officers and to always have their backs. I had a different reaction. I found it odd that a man who started his Twitter career by quoting Bible verses about justice might have forgotten one of the golden utterances from Jesus himself: “He that is without sin among you, let him...

BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgian police fired tear gas and water cannons at yellow-vested protesters calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Charles Michel after they tried to breach a riot barricade, as the movement that started in France made its mark Saturday in Belgium and the Netherlands. Protesters in Brussels threw paving stones, road signs, fireworks, flares and other objects at police blocking their entry to an area where Michel’s offices, other government buildings and the parliament are located. Brussels police spokeswoman Ilse Van de Keere said that around 400 protesters were gathered in the area. About 100 were detained,...

Eskom’s warning that the country was threatened by months of rotating blackouts became a reality in less than 24 hours. The state-owned company, which produces most of South Africa’s power, said on Wednesday that controlled blackouts could return and last throughout the year. Even more concerning is that the company expects energy availability of the system will keep declining into early next year and probably only recover to current levels in six months. By Thursday, Eskom announced it was cutting 1GW from the grid. It doubled that amount on Friday in an outage that’s scheduled to last 13 hours. For...

Meng Wanzhou is being held in Canada at U.S. request to be extradited, face allegations she violated sanctions on dealing with Iran BEIJING—China issued an ultimatum to Canada, demanding the immediate release of Huawei Technologies Co.’s finance chief or face unspecified “severe consequences.” Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng summoned Canada’s ambassador to Beijing, John McCallum, on Saturday to deliver the warning, according to a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Three people have come forward with hundreds of pages of evidence of potential wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation, including misappropriation of funds and allegations of quid-pro-quo promises made to donors during Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., told Fox News on Thursday. Meadows, the leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, is also the chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations. The panel is set to hold an investigative hearing next week on the status of the Foundation case. U.S. Attorney John Huber was tasked to investigate the foundation last year by then-Attorney...

        THE PARABLE OF THE FENCE Once upon a time there was a little boy who was talented, creative, handsome, and extremely bright...a natural leader. The kind of person everyone would normally have wanted on their team or project. But he was also self-centered and had a very bad temper. When he got angry, he usually said, and often did, some very hurtful things. In fact, he seemed to have little regard for those around him...even friends. So, naturally, he had few. "But," he told himself, "that just shows how stupid most people are!" As he...

Dallas — Since the Army & Air Force Exchange Service welcomed home all honorably discharged Veterans to ShopMyExchange.com one year ago, more than 62,000 Veterans have used their new benefit to save on low-cost, name-brand merchandise while also saving nearly $3.4 million in sales tax. “In its first year, the Veterans online shopping benefit has brought significant savings to all whoraised their right hand and vowed to defend our Nation,” said Exchange Director/CEO Tom Shull, a Vietnam-era Army Veteran who worked to secure the change in Department of Defense policy to give all honorably discharged Veterans shopping privileges at military...

Former FBI Director James Comey is sitting with the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees behind closed doors on Friday to answer (or not answer) their questions. Congress is investigating how FBI and DOJ handled the Hillary Clinton and Russia probes and, as you can imagine, Comey was one of the top witnesses on their list. It doesn't seem to be going as planned. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) appeared to be most frustrated, explaining to the press that Comey came with two attorneys, one of whom has instructed his client to answer very few questions.

Senior officials for the Venezuelan government have reportedly travelled to London for crunch talks with the Bank of England as they seek to repatriate more than $500 million of gold back to Caracas. **SNIP** Venezuela has in recent years been a major seller of gold, and this year alone it has sold about 26 tons, worth close to $900 million, to Turkey. In the past four years, Venezuela's gold reserves have decreased to about 175 tons from about 400 tons, Reuters reported, citing statistics from the country's central bank. Venezuela has been selling its sizeable gold reserves, built up under...

For non-Chinese journalists, in Africa and elsewhere, working for Chinese state-run media offers generous remuneration and new opportunities. When CCTV launched its Washington headquarters in 2012, no fewer than five former or current BBC correspondents based in Latin America joined the broadcaster. One of them, Daniel Schweimler, who is now at al-Jazeera, said his experience there was fun and relatively trouble-free, though he didn’t think many people actually saw his stories. But foreign journalists working at Xinhua, the state-run news agency, see their stories reaching much larger audiences. Government subsidies cover around 40% of Xinhua’s costs, and it generates income...

The Court ORDERS the parties [State Department, DOJ, Judicial Watch] to meet and confer to plan discovery into (a) whether Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email while Secretary of State was an intentional attempt to evade FOIA; (b) whether the State Department’s attempts to settle this case in late 2014 and early 2015 amounted to bad faith; and (c) whether State has adequately searched for records responsive to Judicial Watch’s requests.