Free Republic

Englishtown, New Jersey, councilman and former mafia hitman John Alite is being accused of threatening to hit a man with a baseball bat, following his arrest last Friday on charges of loan sharking and extortion. Alite, a former hitman for the Gambino crime family, has been “charged with multiple counts of theft by extortion (second degree), corporate misconduct (second degree), usury (second degree), and terroristic threats,” according to a statement from the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office. CBS News reported in 2015 that Alite killed as many as 15 people. “He also says he shot 30 to 40 people and...

This whole thing with China goes well beyond trade issues. We have known (or, at least, suspected) for years that China has been making cyber-incursions into American networks and systems. Now, in an exclusive Wall Street Journal report from Cybersecurity and Intelligence reporter Dustin Volz, we learn that in December, China made a tacit admission of being behind a series of attacks on American infrastructure.Chinese officials acknowledged in a secret December meeting that Beijing was behind a widespread series of alarming cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure, according to people familiar with the matter, underscoring how hostilities between the two superpowers are...

Almost all media commentators seem convinced that Donald Trump’s foreign policy in his second term is a disaster. He is bogged down in Iran, snookered in Ukraine, his tariff agenda has failed and he has alienated his NATO allies. But this consensus has been too hastily formed. Looking at the bigger global picture, Trump’s foreign policy has been a spectacular success. Take the western hemisphere. We have the so-called “Donroe Doctrine,” the updated version of the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine. In 1822, president James Monroe, having welcomed South America’s overthrow of Spanish and Portuguese imperial rule, stated that Latin American nations...

I wrote about Jimmy Kimmel's monologue earlier but that was just the first fruits of a bumper crop of left-wing hate. Everyone on the left is now offering Elon advice on how to spend his money (money which he literally can't spend) and quite a few people are just demonizing him as evil for being rich. I anticipated all of this yesterday but I might as well document some of it for posterity here. Rep. Jayapal called the news "total bulls**t" and called for a wealth tax. Imagine if Elon Musk did something to benefit others with his trillion.— Amy...

The C.I.A.’s concerns were not unwarranted. In 2019, the Russians undertook an elaborate operation to find Mr. Poteyev, forcing a scientist from Oaxaca, Mexico, to help. The scientist, Hector Alejandro Cabrera Fuentes, was an unlikely spy. He studied microbiology in Kazan, Russia, and later earned a doctorate in the subject from the University of Giessen in Germany. He was a source of pride for his family, with a history of charitable work and no criminal past. But the Russians used Mr. Fuentes’s partner as leverage. He had two wives: a Russian living in Germany and another in Mexico. In 2019,...

The India-based gang behind Canada’s extortion crisis sent a letter to a B.C. police station last year boasting that it had 1,000 foot soldiers willing to carry out shootings, a police officer revealed on Thursday. Testifying at a deportation hearing, the extortion investigator described the letter from the Lawrence Bishnoi gang that was delivered to a police station in Abbotsford, B.C., on Aug. 13, 2025. “Police actually received a letter addressed from the Lawrence Bishnoi gang that was sent to a police station,” Const. Kevin St. Louis told the Immigration and Refugee Board. “This specific letter outlined essentially their criminal...

When a state starts floating an exit tax, it is telling you something more important than any campaign slogan: the people running the place know their model is not working. They may not say it that way. They will call it fairness, responsibility, or making the wealthy “pay what they owe.” But the meaning is the same. If families, entrepreneurs, and investors are leaving, the state can either ask why its policies are pushing them out, or it can try to tax them for escaping. An exit tax chooses punishment over reform. I understand why these proposals resonate with some...

Strong intelligence has begun to emerge that US President Jimmy Carter attempted to demand financial favors for his political friends from the Shah of Iran. The rejection of this demand by the Shah could well have led to Pres. Carter’s resolve to remove the Iranian Emperor from office. 1 GIS. The linkage between the destruction of the Shah’s Government — directly attributable to Carter’s actions — and the Iran-Iraq war which cost millions of dead and injured on both sides, and to the subsequent rise of radical Islamist terrorism makes the new information of considerable significance. Pres. Carter’s anti-Shah feelings...

Susan Rice offers a taste of what’s coming should the left retake power — promises Democrats will punish corporations and other institutions who have “taken a knee to Trump.” “It’s not going to end well for them." “If these corporations think that the Democrats, when they come back in power, are going to play by the old rules…they’ve got another thing coming." “There will be an accountability agenda." “This is not going to be an instance of forgive and forget."

A 21-year-old man with German-Iranian citizenship has been charged in Germany with allegedly targeting dozens of children and teenagers online over several years, encouraging them to harm themselves and, in some cases, to take their own lives. The charges relate to actions said to have taken place between 2021 and 2023. Prosecutors allege that the suspect, identified as Shehriar J. under German privacy regulations, contacted more than 30 minors, most of them between the ages of 11 and 15. Using the online alias “the White Tiger," he is accused of hiding his true identity while building relationships with the young...

WASHINGTON — The powerful House Oversight Committee is investigating a sadistic, nihilistic terror cult known as “764” that preys on minors and coerces them into sex acts, self-harm, animal torture, and other vile actions. Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and Subcommittee on Federal and Government Reform Law Enforcement Chair Clay Higgins (R-La.) demanded Tuesday that the FBI give lawmakers a briefing on its efforts to undermine 764. “Reporting indicates the FBI has opened more than 250 investigations tied to the group, which preys on children and teenagers on popular online platforms,” Commer and Higgins told FBI Director Kash Patel...

Anti-ICE protesters have descended on the Virginia mansion owned by the Hilton Hotels CEO, accusing the hospitality company of aiding the work of immigration agents by renting rooms to officials. The franchise has faced mounting pressure from far-left activists to sever its ties to President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, with demonstrations storming outside hotels across the nation in recent weeks. On Thursday, protesters took their movement to the $5.2 million mansion owned by the Hilton Hotels CEO Christopher Nassetta in Arlington, Virginia. The group waved banners reading 'HILTON HOUSES ICE' while calling Nassetta out by name and blaring loud music,...

The Minneapolis City Council, in an 8-5 vote, refused to renew liquor licenses for two hotels accused of housing ICE agents, delaying action to seek greater ‘public input’ in the process. A public hearing for residents to complain about the hotels is scheduled for February 17. The hotels have been targets of protests because federal immigration officers were believed to be staying there during the immigration enforcement surge that brought 3,000 federal agents to Minnesota, when an agent killed Renee Good. Even the city’s attorney told the council that (1) the hotels complied with liquor licensing laws, (2) are eligible...

A newly proposed bill would bar ICE employees who worked for the agency under the Trump administration from becoming teachers or police officers in California as hostility toward immigration agents continues to simmer. Assembly Bill 1627, introduced this week by Democratic Assemblymember Anamarie Ávila Farias, would permanently disqualify anyone currently working for the agency from holding any position as a law enforcement officer for state or local police agencies statewide, KTVU first reported. If passed, it would also prohibit current ICE employees from virtually any role in education in the state, including educators or administrators, from kindergarten all the way...

Bill Gates slept with Russian girls, got a sexually-transmitted disease and asked for antibiotics to slip to his then-wife Melinda, extraordinary new Jeffrey Epstein files from the Department of Justice allege. The late pedophile financier made the astonishing claims about the Microsoft billionaire in emails he sent to himself on July 18, 2013, at 11:49am. The lengthy message lashed out at Gates for ending their friendship and says: 'TO add insult to the injury you them (sic) implore me to please delete the emails regarding your std, your request that I provide you antibiotics that you can surreptitiously give to...

Youtube and its parent company Google deserves to be sued. For the past three weeks YouTube has been hosting a video that is a calculated lie, falsely accusing me of taking money from Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. It refused to remove the video. It is, of course, a ludicrous accusation, but paid trolls are daily spreading this lie across the internet. This untruth is essentially an accusation of treason, which then leads the internet mob to call for my death. Advocating for liability for Google is no small step for me. I have long defended the private-property rights of internet companies...

Five decapitated heads were strung up and put on display at a popular tourist beach in Ecuador on Sunday — in what appeared to be a gruesome warning to gangs. The heads were suspended between two wooden poles and tied to a length of green rope on a beach in the Pacific resort of Puerto Lopez, the Ecuadorian outlet Primicias reported. A sign was found alongside the decapitated heads with a warning to gangs about extorting local fishermen, the outlet reported. “The town belongs to us. Keep going out to rob the fishermen. And keep asking for vaccine cards, because...

San Francisco is ringing in the New Year by pushing for reparations for the city's black residents, to the tune of $5 million per person.How will they pay for it? Well, the ordinance creates a fund of both private and public monies to cover the payments. Mayor Daniel Lurie signed the ordinance into law on December 23. The bill was unanimously passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in early December.Supervisor Shamann Walton, who authored the bill, said the ordinance will "provide restitution, compensation, and rehabilitation to individuals who are black and/or descendents of a chattel enslaved person and...

President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday designated four European left-wing groups as terrorist organizations, following through on his vow to crack down on leftists after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The networks targeted by Trump’s Republican administration all appear to be based in Europe, with no operations in the United States. They are an Italian anarchist front that sent explosive packages to the then-president of the European Commission in 2003, two Greek networks believed to have planted bombs outside riot police and labor department buildings in Athens, and an anti-fascist group whose members were prosecuted by German authorities...

In 2000, a landmark study claimed to set the record straight on glyphosate, a contentious weedkiller used on hundreds of millions of acres of farmland. The paper found that the chemical, the active ingredient in Roundup, wasn’t a human health risk despite evidence of a cancer link. Last month, the study was retracted by the scientific journal that published it a quarter century ago, setting off a crisis of confidence in the science behind a weedkiller that has become the backbone of American food production. - snip - The 2000 paper, a scientific review conducted by three independent scientists, was...