Free Republic

The head of Iran's nuclear program is in Moscow for talks with senior Russian officials, amid continuing international concern that Tehran is secretly trying to develop atomic weapons. Iranian nuclear energy chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov are expected to meet Monday to discuss bilateral cooperation. Russia is helping Iran build a nuclear power plant in the port city of Bushehr, despite pressure from the United States to end the effort. Moscow also has been urging Iran to cooperate more closely with U.N. nuclear inspectors, to ease concerns about Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Iran insists its nuclear program...

After years of Russiagate conspiracy theories about how the Russians had somehow rigged the 2016 presidential election using Facebook ads, the Senate Intelligence report awkwardly revealed that the Russian operation had focused most of its attention on black nationalists. The Senate report revealed that "most of the videos" put out by the Russian IRA troll factory on YouTube "pertained to police brutality and the activist efforts of the Black Lives Matter organization" and found that "no single group of Americans was targeted... more than African-Americans" around "race and related issues". But that was an understatement. The Russians had created their...

Universal African People's Organization leader Zaki Baruti (left) and African People's Socialist Party leader Omali Yeshitela.Activists connected to the Leadership Coalition for Justice (formerly called the Justice for Mike Brown Leadership Coalition) and the African People’s Socialist Party announced Friday that they are convening a symbolic grand jury in January to decide for themselves whether former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson should be charged with a crime for killing Michael Brown. The group organizing the symbolic grand jury is called the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, a group that seeks to liberate and empower people of African descent around the...

Louis J. Marinelli is a man on a quixotic mission: to help California secede from the United States and become an independent country. Surprisingly, this quest has been going relatively well of late. Marinelli's group, Yes California, is attempting to collect 585,000 signatures necessary to place a secessionist question on the 2018 ballot. Buoyed by California's already tense relationship with President Donald Trump, the campaign has received a large amount of press coverage and support over the past few months. But for the 30-year-old Yes California president, there remains one annoying problem: People keep asking him why he lives in...

A colossal waste of time, money, and the public's attention span is underway in the golden state. Casey Tolan of the Mercury-News reports: For the first time since before the Civil War, voters across California will decide in November on a proposal to split up the Golden State – potentially remaking it into three new states. An initiative dividing California, pushed by Silicon Valley venture capital investor Tim Draper, received enough signatures to qualify it for the November ballot, the Secretary of State's office confirmed Tuesday afternoon. Supporters of the radical plan submitted more than 600,000 signatures, and a random sample projected that...

California gained an embassy in Russia last weekend, at least in the eyes of those who have promised to seek a statewide vote on secession, nicknamed "Calexit," in 2018. Louis Marinelli, a San Diego resident who is the leader of the group promoting an effort to turn the state into an independent country , organized the Moscow event that was publicized on social media. "We want to start laying the groundwork for a dialogue about an independent California joining the United Nations now," he said in an email Monday.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Trial began Tuesday in Florida for four activists accused of illegally acting as Russian agents to help the Kremlin sow political discord and interfere in U.S. elections. All four are or were affiliated with the African People’s Socialist Party and Uhuru Movement, which has locations in St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis... In his opening statement, Justice Department attorney Menno Goedman said the group’s members acted under Russian direction to stage protests in 2016 claiming Black people have been victims of genocide in the U.S. and took other actions for the following six years that would...

After years of Russiagate conspiracy theories about how the Russians had somehow rigged the 2016 presidential election using Facebook ads, the Senate Intelligence report awkwardly revealed that the Russian operation had focused most of its attention on black nationalists. The Senate report revealed that "most of the videos" put out by the Russian IRA troll factory on YouTube "pertained to police brutality and the activist efforts of the Black Lives Matter organization" and found that "no single group of Americans was targeted... more than African-Americans" around "race and related issues". But that was an understatement. The Russians had created their...