Free Republic

An Illinois artist was left baffled after a man paid him to paint a mural of “Sesame Street’s” Cookie Monster on the side of a building — that he didn’t actually own. Joshua Hawkins said he recently got an angry phone call from the actual owner of the Peoria building, “asking why the hell I painted this ‘crazy ****’ on his building.” “Evidently the guy that hired me to paint the mural was NOT really the owner of the building!,” Hawkins wrote on Facebook. The artist said a man he knew only as “Nate” called him the day after Thanksgiving...

Russian oligarch Elena Baturina wired $3.5 million in February 2014 to a Hunter Biden-linked firm.

The CIA wrote a highly classified three-page memo to FBI Director James B. Comey and agent Peter Strzok telling them that 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had approved a plan to blame Russian computer hacking on rival Donald Trump. The Washington Times obtained a copy of the heavily redacted memo sent to the FBI on Sept. 7, 2016, weeks after Mr. Strzok had opened the Crossfire Hurricane probe into the Trump campaign on suspicion of conspiring with the Kremlin.Then-CIA Director John O. Brennan wrote in notes that Mrs. Clinton allegedly approved the plan, one declassified document shows.Director of National...

PORTLAND, OR—Local 5-year-old progressive child Hunter Gaiden was caught with his hand in the cookie jar today. There were clearly crumbs all over his face, as well as a trail of crumbs leading right to the cookie jar. But Gaiden employed a brilliant defense, claiming all the hard evidence that he had participated in illicit household activity was actually part of a Russian disinformation campaign. "This is clearly part of a Russian disinformation campaign," he said as his parents caught him eating a cookie. "If you spread this information, you're spreading Russian disinfo. They're trying to influence this household! They're...

Pollster Frank Luntz made headlines Tuesday for calling President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign “the worst campaign I’ve ever seen.” However, he said the same thing in 2016, before Trump went on to win the election.

  It’s time to shut down the FBI and chain the doors.  The FBI is investigating the damning Hunter Biden emails — not for the myriad of crimes they expose but to see if they are a “Russian disinformation operation.”** The Hunter Biden emails expose a multi-million dollar pay-for-play scandal involving Joe and Hunter Biden.** The emails came from Hunter Biden’s computer.** Already, at least one person in the exposed email chains has corroborated the content of the emails.** FBI Director Chris Wray hid this information from Congress and the executive branch during the Trump impeachment hoax. The information would have absolved President Trump...

Turkey has “activated” a Russian-made S-400 anti-aircraft defense system to track F-16 fighter jets flown by several other NATO members, U.S. lawmakers and analysts suspect. “The whole problem with having the S-400 integrated is in order to do that, you have to betray some of the codes and some of the, basically, NATO technology to the Russians,” the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin said. “And it appears that that's what they've done.” Western officials have eyed Turkey’s turn to Russian arms dealers with alarm in recent years, but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan defied the threat of U.S. sanctions to...

Since the devastating explosion of a store of ammonium nitrate in Beirut’s port on August 4, Lebanese citizens have taken to the streets in shock, outrage, and grief. Above all, they have demanded answers: Where did the nearly 3,000 tons of explosive chemicals come from, and who owned it? Why did the rickety ship that brought the hazardous material to Lebanon end up stranded in the city’s port in late 2013? And how could the impounded chemicals sit for over half a decade in an unsafe warehouse before tragedy finally struck? In Lebanon itself, the causes of the disaster appear...

The official said that the injuries occurred when one of the Russian vehicles apparently deliberately collided with the American vehicle causing the crew to suffer “concussion-like injuries.” Initial reports indicate as many as four Americans may have been injured. The officials said a Russian military helicopter flew low and fast over the area in a tactic that is often used by military forces to try to disperse personnel on the ground. Despite US military leadership at the highest levels being aware of the incident within a short time of it occurring, the Pentagon has still not publicly acknowledged that Americans...

Federal prosecutors have accused Green Beret, a former Army living in Northern Virginia, of espionage activity dating back to Russia until 1996. According to the prosecution, 45-year-old Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins of Gainesville, Russia used to meet Russian intelligence from time to time and was also given a code name by Russian intelligence agents in 1997, stating that he would serve Russia. “When service members collide to provide classified information to our foreign associates, they are said to be in the office of the office of the U.S. Attorney G. Zachary Terwilliger of the Eastern District of Virginia, whose case...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham told "Hannity" Wednesday that he wants a key memo from the Russia investigation made public because it will likely indict the character of several individuals. The memo in question, according to Graham, concerns a January 2017 FBI interview of a Russian "sub-source" who provided material for the now-infamous Steele dossier, which was compiled by former MI6 spy Christopher Steele prior of the 2016 election and detailed various salacious, unconfirmed allegations against Trump. "The Russian was on Christopher Steele's payroll, he wasn't a contractor," Graham said. "After you talk to the guy who put the...

Here's how a Russian cop handled a very arrogant high strung transgender(?) ANTIFA thug. Gotta love those Ruuskie cops. How Russian cops handle their ANTIFA thugs. Gotta love our Russkie friends in Russia.

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), President Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence (DNI), refused to say Tuesday whether he agreed with the Intelligence Community’s (IC) assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections to help the president. Both the IC and the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections to favor Trump. The House Intelligence Committee’s Republican majority concluded in 2018 that Russia interfered in the elections, but did not conclude this was to favor Trump, an analysis Democratic members of the committee disagreed with. When asked about his thoughts on these conclusions by Senate Intelligence...

Senate Republicans are marching forward with probes into the origins of the FBI's Russia investigation and the surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser. The developments come as the Senate is in the middle of a five-week break sparked by the rapid spread of the coronavirus, which has devastated the economy and resulted in more than 30,000 deaths in the United States. But top GOP chairmen are unveiling details of their controversial probes, or requesting more information, signaling they have no intention of slowing down even as senators aren’t expected to reconvene until at least May 4, the Senate’s tentative...

The FBI was warned sections of the controversial Steele dossier could have been part of a "Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations," according to newly declassified footnotes from a government watchdog report.... Footnote 350 in the IG report addresses the FBI's knowledge of Russian contacts with Steele and the potential for disinformation. Steele had "frequent contacts with representatives for multiple Russian oligarchs, we identified reporting the Crossfire Hurricane team received from (redacted) indicating the potential for Russian disinformation influencing Steele's election reporting." The footnote also indicates that warnings to the FBI's Russia probe became more pronounced over time.......

The story of the coronavirus ahead but first.... The Pentagon says that two aircraft carrier battle groups will be in the Persian Gulf region to counter the threat to US forces in Iraq...... Iran rejecting the United States assertion of Iranian involvement in the attack on a US base in Iraq this week that killed two Americans and a Briton... The US announced air strikes yesterday on targets related to an Iraqi militia group with ties to Iran.... The US airstrikes condemned by the Iraqi military..... Russia's Reconciliation Center in Syria says that in the 24 hours ending Friday there...

The US Navy said a Russian navy ship "aggressively approached" its destroyer in the Arabian Sea on Thursday while it was conducting routine operations.

On September 23, 2019, President Trump delivered an unprecedented speech before the United Nations General Assembly on religious freedom. It was a watershed moment for his presidency.  He said words never spoken by a United States president on the world stage: “Today, with one clear voice, the United States of America calls upon the nations of the world to end religious persecution….To stop the crimes against people of faith, release prisoners of conscience, repeal laws restricting freedom of religion and belief, protect the vulnerable, the defenseless, and the oppressed, America stands with believers in every country who ask only for...

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, December 5, 2019 Russian National Charged with Decade-Long Series of Hacking and Bank Fraud Offenses Resulting in Tens of Millions in Losses and Second Russian National Charged with Involvement in Deployment of “Bugat” Malware Reward of up to $5 Million Offered for Information Leading to Arrest or Conviction The United States of America, through its Departments of Justice and State, and the United Kingdom, through its National Crime Agency (NCA), today announced the unsealing of criminal charges in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Lincoln, Nebraska, against Maksim V. Yakubets, aka...

Monday on his MSNBC show “Morning Joe,” Joe Scarborough addressed Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) “parroting Russian propaganda points” by suggesting Ukraine and Russia both interfered with the 2016 presidential election. Scarborough said that by repeating talking points that have been “discredited,” GOP lawmakers are turning themselves into “Russian assets.”