Free Republic

The lengths Democrats and the media will go to to discredit the Hunter Biden scandal continue to astound. Douglas Wise, former Defense Intelligence Agency deputy director, admitted this week that when he saw the Hunter laptop story, he knew “a significant portion of the content had to be real.” Yet he still signed a letter, along with 49 other officials, casting doubt on the laptop just before the 2020 election because there “could” have been disinformation inserted by the Russians. Wise defends the letter, noting the experts said they had no proof it was a Russian plot. But these deep...

Yesterday the New York Post reported that a former top intelligence official who had previously signed the letter that claimed the Post’s exposé on Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation is now conceding that he knew a “significant portion” of the recovered files “had to be real”The man in question is Douglas WiseWise is a former Defense Intelligence Agency deputy director and was among the 51 former intelligence officials who signed a public letter on Oct. 19, 2020, claiming the Post’s series of reports on Hunter’s shady overseas business dealing, had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”Among...

Over the last few years, there has been much written about the destruction of American democracy. Frequently the threat has been of alleged interference in U.S. elections by Russia, China or other state actors. Government agencies, the name of election integrity, were assigned to identify and disrupt these foreign intrusions. As more and more information is revealed about these agencies, it seems that America's Intelligence Community participated in these activities domestically, and in a way that poses a grave threat to both election integrity and American democracy.Just last week it was revealed that the FBI again withheld pertinent information from...

Florian Hartung and Dirk Pohlmann have reconstructed a previously unknown dimension of the collaboration between Nazis and the CIA in the Cold War. Drawing upon recently released documents, the film exposes for the first time a perfidious, worldwide net that reaches deep into the power structures of the Federal Republic of Germany. Lending their authority to the fact-finders’ mission are high-ranking statesmen, journalists and historians.

“Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”–Sen. Charles Schumer, January 2017Chuck Schumer said the above quote shortly after President-elect Donald Trump criticized and mocked his “intelligence” briefers for being unprepared and for delaying a scheduled briefing on Russia for several days.Given the FBI and CIA social media shenanigans that have recently come to light through the Twitter files that new owner Elon Musk has allowed to be released, it appears that Trump’s instincts regarding the “intelligence community” were correct.Schumer’s statement has also proved to be prophetic,...

Point of order: Didn’t we learn that in 2013 when James Clapper perjured himself before Congress? And didn’t we learn that the American media enthusiastically facilitated that disinformation potential by hiring Clapper and former FBI executive Andrew McCabe after getting fired for lying to investigators? Among dozens of others?We did indeed, but the editors of the Wall Street Journal want to underscore that point in the release of Twitter’s files on the Hunter Biden laptop story. They also note the media’s complicity in promoting this “disinformation,” even in the face of independent corroboration:Recall that former Democratic intelligence officials James Clapper...

"Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake." Carlo Cipolla In the 1970s, an economic historian called Carlo Cipolla wrote a provocative article titled "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity". This week's episode is about his theory of the destructiveness of stupid behaviour and why it is so underestimated and misunderstood.

Bureaucrats' fears of "stigmatizing" groups obstruct the search for valuable knowledge. James Lee, writing in City Journal, describes an outrageous limitation on scientific research being imposed by anonymous bureaucrats at the National Institutes of Health, which is receiving $45 billion in taxpayer funding this year. Apparently, some researchers whose work might lead to results that could “stigmatize” certain groups, or which otherwise would challenge the personal values of the bureaucrats, are being denied access to a key database that taxpayers have paid to assemble. A policy of deliberate ignorance has corrupted top scientific institutions in the West. It’s been an...

The only thing I can do is research and write about it. With an even stronger degree of certainty than originally expressed, and with all of the subsequent data points falling into alignment with the initial suspicions, the background of Jack’s Magic Coffee shop remains unchanged. {Go Deep}Six weeks ago, the Twitter security ‘whistleblower’ came forward to congress. The whistleblower is a former technology expert who came from within the research farm of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, is a well-known cybersecurity expert who left government work, entered the public world, and eventually became the...

Joy Behar told her co-hosts Wednesday on ABC’s “The View” that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) might be lacking in “emotional intelligence” for his stance on climate change. Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin said, “This is a moment I think for DeSantis to show he’s a leader of all Floridians. that it’s not about politics. I would encourage him don’t even call your political team for the next week. Focus on helping the people of Florida, the Democrats, the counties who will never vote for you. He’s smarter than Trump. I think we all recognize this. I actually expect to see competent...

President Biden on Friday made two new appointments to the President's Intelligence Advisory Board and one of them is among the 51 former intelligence officials who signed on to a letter suggesting the Hunter Biden laptop was a product of Russian disinformation. Jeremy Bash, the former chief of staff at the Pentagon and the CIA under President Obama, will now sit on a 16-seat board that serves to give the president advice on matters related to national intelligence. Bash became an outspoken national security pundit for MSNBC during the Trump years. The other appointment was Blair Effron, cofounder of Centerview...

Andrew Bustamante is a former CIA covert intelligence officer. Check out his work and podcast at ...

Former British Army Intelligence Officer and Chief Executive of McKenzie Intelligence, Forbes McKenzie takes us through what's happening in the east of Ukraine and Russia's tactics.

If you can spot the hidden message in this image then you’re smarter than most. The visual puzzle challenges you to find the “hidden tiger” in the jungle scene – and it’s harder than you think. That’s because the artwork contains not one but two big cats, with one much easier to identify than the other. Alongside the fairly obvious striped predator in the middle, rather than a second tiger, the image contains the text “the hidden tiger”. It’s this text that you’re tasked with finding in order to solve the fiendishly difficult puzzle.

US officials said of the approximately 12 Russian generals killed by Ukrainian forces, 'many' had been targeted with the help of intelligence provided by US Washington provided Ukraine with battlefield information on Russian troops Ukraine combined those details with its own intelligence to conduct strikes

Hunter Biden just paid over $1 million in back taxes for income he never claimed, but which was found in his emails — the ones from his laptop that had been dismissed by the mainstream media as Russian disinformation. The FBI is conducting an ongoing criminal investigation into Hunter’s business activities based on the contents of the laptop. It was only the Bureau’s use of the laptop as evidence that finally forced the New York Times this month to admit that what it said last year was false. See, as the New York Post broke the story that a laptop...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado—The U.S. intelligence community asked certain commercial satellite companies for help in the earliest days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and their imagery remains vital to countering Russia’s false claims, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said Tuesday. But the partnership raises new questions about what protections those firms might be owed if their actions make them a target. “Early on, we also asked a few commercial companies….and those of you who helped know who you are, helped us to rapidly make available imagery like the buildup that was happening around Ukraine’s borders to...

Russian intelligence chief Sergey Beseda and his deputy, Anatoly Bolyukh, were placed under house arrest on March 9. Beseda and Bolyukh oversaw the foreign intelligence branch of the FSB, which is the Russian security service. They were allegedly the main proponents of the assumption that Ukraine would swiftly collapse, which has proved deeply flawed. But, as has become increasingly clear over many years, Vladimir Putin has become intolerant of opinions that contradict his preferred course of action. So although the intelligence was flawed, Beseda’s claims likely manipulated facts to fit what the Russian president wanted to believe. Having led the...

Rep. Chris Stewart called out the Biden administration Friday on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" for turning the intelligence community against American citizens, rather than their intended purpose of focusing on foreign threats. "[Intelligence agencies were] never, ever intended to look at U.S. persons until this [Biden] administration comes along and says, you know, those other threats are important, but the real threat we're worried about is domestic violent extremism; White supremacy," Stewart said. "And because this White supremacy threat is so great – which by the way, is nonsense – now we need to use the power… we give the National...

When the New York Post brought to light Hunter Biden’s laptop in October 2020 just before the presidential election, 51 top intelligence experts all discredited the story that has now been verified by The New York Times and they steadfastly refuse to apologize for it. These are current and former spies and high-ranking military officials who are supposed to ensure the safety of the United States. Instead, they ostensibly provided cover for President Joe Biden to get elected, claiming the laptop story “has the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” in what many consider a Deep State operation designed...