Free Republic

President Trump is planning to leave Washington DC next Wednesday morning... Federal prosecutors are now claiming their belief that people who entered the US Capitol on January 6th intended to capture and kill... Was Qanon really linked to the FBI?... Up to 25-thousand troops now authorized to be in Washington DC for Joe Biden's inauguration next Wednesday... Virginia officials already closing some bridge access to Washington DC with all bridges into Washington DC from Virginia closing for 48 hours... Joe Biden planning to spend 1.9 trillion dollars more to deal with the coronavirus... Governors and local officials in the US...

Iran’s state media has alleged that in addition to the United States, several countries, including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Germany and Britain, had played a role in the assassination of its senior military leader Qassem Soleimani. Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike on January 3, 2020, while visiting Baghdad. According to DEFA Press, more countries would be added to the list once the investigation into Soleimani’s killing is completed. “We must learn from this experience, which came at a great price, and we must make every effort to preserve national unity and cohesion that was achieved...

The protest will go on as planned tomorrow against the coronavirus restrictions endorsed by the incoming Governor of Utah Republican Spencer Cox. The protest to be held as Cox's motorcade heads to an ampitheater in southern Utah for his inauguration... Court hearings for two Washington restaurants opened in spite of COVID-19 restrictions imposed by Democrat Governor Jay Inslee set for Tuesday... The British police crackdown on protests opposing the coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions in the country continued this weekend... British Prime Minister Boris Johnson pushing tighter controls and restrictions in the coming weeks... Restrictions that have been imposed in the...

Police used flash bang rounds and tear gas on a "right-wing" group in Salem, Oregon today as the group faced off with left-wing protesters. A rally involving some 200 people held at Oregon's State Capitol and the home of Oregon's governor. ' Speeches from the protesters opposing coronavirus restrictions and lockdowns in Oregon and shouts of "USA, USA, USA" from them... An Oregon health care worker hospitalized with a severe reaction to the Moderna coronavirus vaccine... Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said today there will be a tougher response to those who have been involved in two nights of vandalism in...

BY JAMES TARANTO Friday, April 30, 2004 4:11 p.m. EDT Joe Says It Was So Remember Joe Wilson, the loudmouthed former ambassador who stirred up a kerfuffle last year by claiming that BUSH LIED!!!! when he purportedly said Saddam Hussein's Iraq had sought to buy uranium in Niger? Now Wilson has a book out, and it seems he's changing his story. The Washington Post reports: It was Saddam Hussein's information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf, often referred to in the Western press as "Baghdad Bob," who approached an official of the African nation of Niger in 1999 to discuss trade--an overture...

"I am frightened. You can feel the threat. At any time, someone will hit the door of my house and shoot five bullets," Ali says. "One bullet for me, one bullet for my wife and three bullets for my three daughters." Ali (not his real name) is terrified that Iraqi militiamen will target him and his family because he worked for the British army as an interpreter. He knew it would be dangerous work, but he says he was happy to do it out of a sense of patriotism. But when the US assassinated top Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani,...

President-elect Joe Biden has made clear in his staffing plans and public remarks that he intends to return America to many of the foreign policy positions championed by his former boss, President Barack Obama. While American mainstream media has largely cheered this – and glowered at President Donald Trump for defending his achievements by making regression more difficult under Biden – many of America’s allies, and some of its foes, around the world are making moves suggesting they expect a full return to the state of global affairs in 2016. The Obama administration’s foreign policy was defined by the tension...

On December 22, President Trump issued 15 pardons. Among those pardoned were Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, and Dustin Heard. If the names are unfamiliar, you might recognize them collectively as the Blackwater private contractors. In September 2007, these former veterans ended up in a shootout in Nisour Square, Baghdad, that left 17 Iraqis dead and 20 wounded. Slatten got life in prison; the other men each got 30 years. The left would like to see them continue to rot in jail, but President Trump made the right decision to let them go. I have to admit that, for...

The FBI believes Iran was behind a website which incited violence against officials who discredited election fraud allegations by team Trump, sources said Tuesday. Director of the bureau Christopher Wray and former head of DHS's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Chris Krebs were two of those singled out. Their pictures and addresses were posted to the 'Enemies of the People' site with targets placed over images. Others say they have received death threats.

A street sweeper died of his wounds in Baghdad yesterday hours after finding a bomb in a bag placed outside a liquor store in the Iraqi capital. Issa Khamis "was doing his job and wanted to remove the bag and clean the street", activists said on social media. This is the latest attack on venues that serve alcohol in the city, with three separate simultaneous bombs exploding in the west of the city on 15 December causing material damages, the Iraqi security media cell said. According to local media, security officials believe "the bombings are no longer the same as...

Trump Tweets Surprise Threat To Iran After Latest Attack On Baghdad Embassy President Trump in a surprise late Wednesday tweet has directly blamed Iran for the Sunday rocket attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad, which according to prior reports involved eight ground-fired rockets targeting the compound. It comes as the USS Georgia nuclear submarine is currently deployed to the Strait of Hormuz in very open signaling that the Pentagon is prepared to react to any possible escalation form the Islamic Republic. Trump cited intelligence chatter in his latest statement on Twitter, saying, “Our embassy in Baghdad got hit Sunday...

When news broke that Mohammed Kinani's son’s killers, Blackwater private military contractors hired by the U.S. government in Baghdad, were pardoned Wednesday by President Trump, Kinani said it was like losing his 9-year-old boy all over again. "I don't know what I did to Blackwater,” Kinani told ABC News. "Did I know Blackwater before? No. Why did this happen to me?" President Donald Trump pardoned four private military contractors who were found guilty for murdering 17 Iraqi citizens, including two children, in an attack that also left over 20 injured. The decision was praised by the contractors' lawyers but has...

President Donald Trump has pardoned four Blackwater security guards who were given lengthy prison sentences for killing 14 civilians in Baghdad in 2007, a massacre that caused international uproar over the use of private contractors in war zones. The four – Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard and Nicholas Slatten – were part of an armoured convoy that opened fire indiscriminately with machine-guns and grenade launchers on a crowd of unarmed people in the Iraqi capital. Known as the Nisour Square massacre, the slaughter was seen as a low point in the conflict in Iraq. In 2014, Slough, Liberty and...

Secretary General. Joined by 34 other countries, the document enshrines the Trump administration’s pro-life diplomacy on the official record of the General Assembly. “The United States strongly supports the dignity of all human beings and protecting life from the moment of conception throughout the lifespan,” Ambassador Kelly Craft wrote to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres transmitting the Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women’s Health and Strengthening the Family. Following the letter, the declaration was issued as an official document of the United Nations last week and circulated on December 11, after having been translated into all six official UN languages....

Baghdad (Agenzia Fides) - From this year, Christmas becomes a public holiday throughout Iraqi territory. This is what the members of the Iraqi Parliament decided, expressing unanimously their agreement to the proposal made in recent months and made public during a meeting between the Iraqi President, Barham Salih, and Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako. The measure takes on particular importance in view of the apostolic visit that Pope Francis has planned to make in Iraq from March 5 to 8, 2021. The Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon, Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, immediately after hearing the news of this unanimous decision of...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least eight Katyusha rockets landed in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone in an attack targeting the U.S. Embassy, causing some minor damage on the compound on Sunday, the Iraqi military and the embassy said on Sunday. The Iraqi military said an “outlaw group” fired eight rockets. Most of the missiles hit a residential complex and a security checkpoint inside the zone, damaging buildings and cars and wounding one Iraqi soldier, a military statement said. Sirens blared from the embassy compound inside the zone, which houses government buildings and foreign missions. An anti-rocket system diverted one of...

China has sailed an aircraft carrier and accompanying warships through the Taiwan Strait in a show of strength one day after a US warship passed through it... Rockets landed in Baghdad's Green Zone today in an attempt to hit the US Embassy... A mass exodus of humanity from major cities in the northern and southern hemispheres in the face of Christmas coronavirus lockdowns... Prime Minister Boris Johnson's snap 4 pm Saturday announcement of a lockdown starting at midnight caused a sudden rush out of London.... Thousands fleeing Sydney Australia where one part of the city is already under lockdown with...

Escalating attacks on the Iraqi capital's few liquor stores have terrified shop-owners who fear hardline Islamists are flexing their muscle against alcohol consumption. But there may be a bigger story behind the Baghdad booze bombings, as some suspect turf wars for control of the lucrative niche trade in the Muslim majority country. Over the past two months, at least 14 alcohol shops across the city have been firebombed in the middle of the night or just before dawn, with three simultaneous attacks in different districts Monday night alone. Most businesses are run by Christians or Yazidis, minorities who for decades...

The Supreme Court rejects the Texas election lawsuit but first... The Christmas Coronavirus Crackdown picking up steam with indoor dining banned in New York City... A 10 pm curfew for restaurants and bars in Delaware... Here in Pennsylvania restaurants and gyms in the Harrisburg area vowing to stay open in defiance... In Boise, Idaho Central District Health is set to vote on a Christmas Coronavirus Crackdown... You will still have to wear a muzzle (mask) after you get the coronavirus vaccine. That is what an immunologist at Stanford University is saying... US Attorney General William Barr was aware of federal...

American B-52s, the massive strategic bombers, arrived in the Middle East on Saturday. They are part of the Fifth Bomb Wing at Minot AFB in North Dakota. These veteran, giant aircraft were last deployed in the region in May 2019 and the US Central Command says they are here to “deter aggression and reassure US partners and allies.” The B-52s have been sent to the region as the US appears to be drawing down forces in Iraq. The Pentagon has said that hundreds of troops are leaving Iraq and Afghanistan. As the US seeks to end twenty years of involvement...