Free Republic

It's easy of late to be disheartened.  Trump, who has a unique style that some find off-putting (I don't), nevertheless managed in three years to bring America to an impressively strong position, whether in terms of national security, economic well-being, or constitutional rights.  Overseas, he's forced other nations to abide by their obligations, pushed back against China's unnerving expansion, and may even have succeeded in bringing lasting peace to the Middle East. Trump ought to be a shoo-in for the election, but the Democrats weaponized the Wuhan virus to destroy the economy, piggybacked on an ex-felon's death from an overdose or...

Shakira wrote her first poem when she was 4 years old, however, Einstein did not learn to speak until he was 4.Even if an IQ test above 130 does not reveal how successful a person will be, this is the case just for only 2.5% of the population. Among them, some are renowned artists who have not succeeded academically, but who’ve totally won on the stage or the catwalk. Here at Bright Side, we love smart people who share their wit with the world, so we want to show you this VIP group of brilliant celebrities, regardless of whether they’ve...

'We've had a pandemic of information being leaked out of the intelligence community,' Ratcliffe says Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe defended his decision to scale back in-person election security briefings to Congress in favor of written reports and accused members of Congress of leaking information "within minutes" of briefings.

Martin Luther King gave us an excellent example as to how to fight the tyranny of injustice. The Protestors that are invading our cities and calling for lawlessness can be over come. The way to do it is with non violent resistance, just as Martin Luther King did. When we see a protest of 40 or 50 of the "brownsirts" that the Liberal Democrats have organized to Dox someone in the middle of the night by creating a disturbance, it is possible to counter that noise with the heavenly sounds of Gospel music. I don't know how to do it,...

Watch nearly the entire corporate media establishment run wild with claims from completely anonymous sources in the intelligence community this week. Much of the case for the Iraq War was based on the Bush administration’s claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. When the United States declared an end to the war late in 2011, more than 4,400 American military members had been killed and nearly 32,000 wounded. No weapons of mass destruction had been found. It’s one of the most significant and catastrophic intelligence errors in U.S. history. A bipartisan commission found that U.S. intelligence “seriously misjudged”...

High school-educated, working-class parents aren’t capable of overseeing their own child’s education, a state lawmaker said last week. New Hampshire state Sen. Jeanne Dietsch, D-Peterborough, made the comment at a committee hearing last Tuesday while promoting a bill that would stop the state Board of Education from creating a new way of allocating high school graduation credits. “This idea of parental choice, that’s great if the parent is well-educated. There are some families that’s perfect for. But to make it available to everyone? No. I think you’re asking for a huge amount of trouble,” Dietsch said. Dietsch’s remarks represent a...

A group of African American content creators has launched a putative class action against YouTube and its Alphabet parent company for allegedly violating various laws intended to prevent racial discrimination. The lawsuit represents the latest courtroom attack on the increasingly controversial immunities afforded digital services under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The complaint filed on Tuesday in California federal court objects to the way in which YouTube is employing artificial intelligence, algorithms, and other filtering tools. The social video site uses these tools to help viewers screen out potentially mature content, but the plaintiffs here say that by...

Dramatic spikes in auto traffic around major hospitals in Wuhan last fall suggest the novel coronavirus may have been present and spreading through central China long before the outbreak was first reported to the world, according to a new Harvard Medical School study. Using techniques similar to those employed by intelligence agencies, the research team behind the study analyzed commercial satellite imagery and "observed a dramatic increase in hospital traffic outside five major Wuhan hospitals beginning late summer and early fall 2019," according to Dr. John Brownstein, the Harvard Medical professor who led the research. Brownstein, an ABC News contributor,...

**SNIP** Nearly two decades after 9/11, and seven years after Mueller left the FBI, the investigation code-named “Crossfire Hurricane” - the investigation of Donald Trump’s campaign and its supposed collusion with Russia - has exposed some flaws in Mueller’s dream of an intelligence-led FBI. When the FBI became intelligence-driven, it didn’t have to stop being fact-driven. Exhibit A is Christopher Steele, who was never a collector of facts - he was a former foreign intelligence officer, and there’s a huge difference: A spy’s singular mission is to break the laws of the countries to which they are assigned and get...

Susan Rice's bizarre Inauguration Day email about that meeting helps explain the campaign of leaks, lies, and obstruction that followed. Information released in the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the case it brought against Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn confirms the significance of a January 5, 2017, meeting at the Obama White House. It was at this meeting that Obama gave guidance to key officials who would be tasked with protecting his administration’s utilization of secretly funded Clinton campaign research, which alleged Trump was involved in a treasonous plot to collude with Russia, from being discovered or stopped by the incoming...

“Travesty” is not a nice word. It usually is applied to gross perversions of justice, and that apparently is the context Attorney General William Barr desired when he dropped it into an interview answer the other day in the breezy courtyard of the Department of Justice (DOJ). His composed, understated delivery almost disguised the weighty magnitude of that disturbing word and the loaded adjective that preceded it. “I think what happened to him,” he said, referring to the president and the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into his campaign, “was one of the greatest travesties in American history.” Okay, it’s important to...

The Trump administration is set to pare desk jobs at the top of the intelligence community, invoking the argument that its staffs are too large and duplicative, knowledgeable sources say. One of the first targets is the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), where Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany and a favorite of President Trump, arrived as acting director in February. Mr. Grenell has brought in Kash Patel, once a close aide to Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican. Mr. Patel principally wrote the 2018 Nunes memo that exposed the FBI’s reliance on the discredited Christopher Steele...

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is breaking with President Trump's decision to fire Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community, saying his removal was "not warranted." "While I recognize that the President has the authority to appoint and remove Inspectors General, I believe Inspector General Atkinson served the intelligence community and the American people well, and his removal was not warranted," she said in a statement over the weekend. Collins noted that by giving the heads of the House and Senate Intelligence committees a 30-day notification that he was removing Atkinson, Trump...

This is like finding out that U.S. intelligence has formally concluded that China is maintaining concentration camps for Uighurs.We all already know. But it’s gratifying to see them call a lie a lie. Next they’re going to tell us that Russia and Iran are hiding the scope of the outbreak within their own borders.It seemed beyond belief that a country with 80,000+ official cases of a highly infectious novel virus somehow brought the number down to zero new cases in the span of about 10 weeks. Even the most draconian lockdown can achieve only so much. Confirmed: It’s beyond...

Google is using AI to design chips that will accelerate AI A new reinforcement-learning algorithm has learned to optimize the placement of components on a computer chip to make it more efficient and less power-hungry. 3D Tetris: Chip placement, also known as chip floor planning, is a complex three-dimensional design problem. It requires the careful configuration of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of components across multiple layers in a constrained area. Traditionally, engineers will manually design configurations that minimize the amount of wire used between components as a proxy for efficiency. They then use electronic design automation software to simulate and verify...

Google is creating AI-powered robots that navigate without human intervention—a prerequisite to being useful in the real world. ====================================================================== Within 10 minutes of its birth, a baby fawn is able to stand. Within seven hours, it is able to walk. Between those two milestones, it engages in a highly adorable, highly frenetic flailing of limbs to figure it all out. That’s the idea behind AI-powered robotics. While autonomous robots, like self-driving cars, are already a familiar concept, autonomously learning robots are still just an aspiration. Existing reinforcement-learning algorithms that allow robots to learn movements through trial and error still rely...

President Donald Trump (I still never tire of typing those three glorious words) loves to make history. He’s really good at it – better than anyone, in fact. Last night, the President decided to make another piece of history that all of his predecessors in office, from the most conservative Republican to the most leftist Democrat, have taken a pass on doing: Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump I am pleased to announce that our highly respected Ambassador to Germany, @RichardGrenell, will become the Acting Director of National Intelligence. Rick has represented our Country exceedingly well and I look forward to...

Washington - A counter-terrorism analyst at the US Defense Intelligence Agency pleaded guilty on Thursday to leaking secret information to journalists, including details about foreign countries' weapons systems. Henry Kyle Frese, 31, who was arrested in October, faces a maximum of 10 years in prison when he is sentenced in June, the Department of Justice said in a statement. It detailed how Frese had leaked information to two unnamed journalists, one of whom he lived with, in 2018 and 2019. The journalists involved appeared to work for CNBC and NBC News, according to US media. CNBC, citing "sources with direct...

The aftermath of the Soleimani strike is filled with unhappy subplots but a rare enjoyable one will be watching Fox’s 8 p.m. guy tussle with, well, pretty much everyone else on the network over whether aggression towards Iran is a good or bad thing.Tucker is clear and consistent. He doesn’t trust America’s hawkish national security establishment, be it in the context of Saddam’s WMDs, the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia, or the supposedly “imminent” threat posed by Qassem Soleimani. Especially the latter, as he’s been an outspoken critic of belligerence towards Iran throughout Trump’s presidency. He was the...

Togo - Official Trailer | Disney+ | Streaming Dec. 20 An Original Movie starring Willem Dafoe and Julianne Nicholson, “Togo” is the untold true story set in the winter of 1925 that treks across the treacherous terrain of the Alaskan tundra for an exhilarating and uplifting adventure that will test the strength, courage and determination of one man, Leonhard Seppala, and his lead sled dog, Togo. The poignant and emotional adventure debuts on Disney+ on Dec. 20, 2019.