Free Republic

Honduras still has a long way to go to dismantle the “narco-state” that grew under ex-president Juan Orlando Hernandez, jailed this week for smuggling a deluge of cocaine into the United States, experts said. Hernandez, 55, spent years in positions of power cozying up to kingpins from some of Latin America’s most notorious cartels, which placed proxies in state institutions while he pocketed millions of dollars in drug money. Extradited to the United States upon leaving office in 2022, Hernandez was sentenced this week to 45 years in jail for his crimes after prosecutors said he had turned his country...

Highland Park shooter Bobby Crimo III was left in a hot car by his mom for 27 minutes as a toddler - with his mother later convicted over the incident. The disturbing 2002 incident was one of multiple brushes with the law Crimo's mom Denise Pesina and dad Bob Crimo Jr had with cops prior to Monday's massacre in Chicago that killed seven. It is unclear if the hot car incident left Crimo, now 21, with any physical or mental injuries that may have ultimately led to the horrific shootout. Police were also called to his family's home 10 times,...

Drug traffickers are spending $1 million a pop to build boats that look like submarines and can carry 4 tons of cocaine for 2,000 miles without refueling. Nicknamed "narco subs," they're made to sneak loads up from South America to Mexico, where the drugs are offloaded and taken overland into the United States. "It is a semi-submersible coffin," said Jay Bergman, Andean regional director for the Drug Enforcement Administration. "You batten down the hatches and you are doing everything to not be detected sailing in the middle of the ocean." At least 13 of the craft have been stopped and...

Kudos to WFSB-TV. The video is pretty powerful and just adds to the “F Troop” quality of this election. Mayor Jason McCoy has obtained a video that was taken inside a polling place in Bridgeport and shows a poll watcher warning a poll worker not to mix unofficial ballots with official ballots. She ignores him and he is escorted away. There are additional charges: Some voters were given more than one ballot Other voters were not checked off on the registration list Some voters were never asked for IDs Watch. And after you do, ask yourself this? How much of...

In Oregon, a man said his health deteriorated after a glowing blue orb passed through his body. A family in California reported strange lights and a gray figure with spindly legs in their orchard. A werewolf-like creature allegedly prowled around homes in suburban Virginia. All three incidents were probed as part of a secret Pentagon program investigating UFOs. The program, contracted by the Defense Intelligence Agency, plumbed the connection between the flying objects and the paranormal for two years, according to the men who ran it. It was the beginning of a years-long effort by UFO advocates that eventually led...

The U.K. government wants BP to still stand for “British Petroleum.” The Financial Times reported that Downing Street would do all it could to block a takeover of BP. Weakened and shrunken down due to the massive, and still rising, toll stemming from the Deepwater Horizon disaster, BP could become a takeover target from one of the larger oil majors out there. Rumors have been swirling in recent weeks that perhaps ExxonMobil or Chevron could be eyeing the British oil giant, so much so that BP’s CEO Bob Dudley had to publicly dispel any notion that his company is for...

Perks of being a Powerful Foreign Dignitary Zhou Yongkang, a member of China's Politburo Standing Committee and No 9 in power ranking, shaking hands with female traffic cops in Pyongyang on Oct. 10. He led the China's delegation to attend the celebration for the 65th anniversary of N. Korean ruling party's founding.

SNIPPET: "BOGOTA – Colombian authorities detained an Ecuadorian man who crossed the border with 25 kilos (55 pounds) of explosives officials say were meant for the small ELN rebel group. The smuggler, Antonio Peña Perugachi, was arrested in Tuquerres, a village in the southern border province of Nariño. He was carrying 50 packets of pentolite, a high-power explosive, destined for a unit of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, police said in a communique."

SNIPPET: "BOGOTA – Police seized 100 kilos of pentolite and arrested five people, including four Ecuadorians, who were transporting the high explosive on a highway in southwestern Colombia, a police commander said Tuesday. A 17-year-old girl carrying a baby was among the foreigners arrested, the National Police commander in the southern border province of Putumayo, Col. Orlando Polo, said. Officers also seized 6,000 meters (6,565 yards) of detonating cord, Polo told reporters in Mocoa, the capital of Putumayo. The explosives and detonating cord were in a truck apparently headed for Florencia, the capital of neighboring Caqueta province." SNIPPET: "The pentolite...

Strains grow over strategy to rein in Iran By Daniel Dombeyin London andStephen Fidler in Singapore Published: June 4 2007 03:00 | Last updated: June 4 2007 03:00 The international strategy to deal with Iran's nuclear programme is coming under increasing strain, diplomats and officials acknowledge. Consensus is fraying among the big powers that have fashioned the current policy of imposing limited United Nations sanctions to persuade Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment - which can produce both nuclear fuel and weapons grade material - while offering the prospect of better relations if it complies. The Bush administration is caught between...

U.S. officials were acutely aware that Beijing was trying to obtain America's premiere nuclear reactor technology, including through illicit hacking, months before Hunter Biden and his business partners sought to arrange a quiet sale of an iconic U.S. reactor company to a Chinese firm, according to court records and national security experts. Hunter Biden's unsuccessful efforts to help CEFC China Energy acquire Westinghouse, one of America's most famous electricity and appliance brands, and its state-the-art AP1000 nuclear reactor began in early 2016 while Joe Biden was still a sitting vice president, memos published Wednesday by Just the News show. Just...

The Rightosphere is well-acquainted with stories about the mainstream media working against US interests, but even so, this is still a bit much. Less than a week after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited the United States, the Justice Department announced Monday that 10 people were arrested on charges of being Russian agents involved in a long-term mission in the country. Another suspect was still being sought.Five of the arrested suspects appeared in a New York courtroom Monday. Four of the five, including a longtime U.S.-based columnist for the Spanish-language “El Diario” newspaper, were advised of their rights and ordered held...

Charles McGonigal may be the most corrupt FBI official in modern history—and yet somehow, his name has barely made a blip on the radar. This wasn’t some mid-level pencil-pusher. McGonigal was one of the top counterintelligence agents at the FBI’s New York field office. He was directly involved in the bureau’s most sensitive operations, including the infamous “Crossfire Hurricane” probe into (phony) Trump–Russia “collusion.” And after that whole fraudulent mess, it turns out that he was secretly taking money from a Kremlin-linked oligarch and helping shake down Albanian oligarchs on the side. You can’t make this up, right? Now here...

“First, conquer the organs of propaganda,” wrote Karl Marx, who was a genius mob agitator and nothing else. Mob agitators were already a kind of specialty in Prussia, Poland, Russia, and Eastern Europe, but Marx wrote the instruction manual, just as Saul Alinsky did in his Rules for Radicals, which became Barack Obama’s manual for political agitators. SNIP About ten years ago, Tucker Carlson helped to expose a radical propaganda internet list called JournoList, a secret Google group of media influencers who made up the headlines for the next day’s news, in places like the New York Times, the Washington...

Islamabad - Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, an alleged key al-Qaeda operative of Libyan origin, has been killed in a suspected US drone strike in Pakistan's lawless tribal region, security officials said on Saturday. The US had placed a $1m bounty on al-Rahman, who was killed Thursday when a CIA-operated unmanned aircraft fired two missiles on a vehicle in Khushali Jungle area of North Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan. A total of four people died in the strike. "We have received reports that al-Qaeda leader Atiya Abd al-Rahman has been killed in the October 07 drone attack. Together with him another low-ranking al-Qaeda...

Malik Fard Muhammad, 25, and his girlfriend Kristin McGuire traveled from Indianapolis, Ind., to Portland, Ore., to fight with cops. Muhammad will be extending his stay for an extra ten years, compliments of the feds. Muhammad is alleged to have traveled to Portland with his girlfriend from their home in Indianapolis for the specific purpose of violently engaging in civil disorder during recent area riots. On September 5, 2020, during a large civil disturbance in east Portland, demonstrators threw dangerous objects at police, including commercial grade fireworks, Molotov cocktails, and bottles. At least one demonstrator was seriously burned by a...

TERRORIST CONNECTIONS Not only was Mr. Norquist entangled with the criminal dealings of Jack Abramoff, but documentation shows that he has deep ties to supporters of Hamas and other terrorist organizations that are sworn enemies of the United States and our ally Israel. According to Senate lobbying disclosure records of his now defunct lobbying firm, Janus-Merritt Strategies, around the years 2000 and 2001 Mr. Norquist’s firm represented Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was convicted two years later for his role in a terrorist plot and who is presently serving a 23-year sentence in federal prison. Court documents and a October 15, 2004,...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Jack Abramoff, a once-powerful lobbyist who spent time in federal prison for fraud and corruption, has been charged in a San Francisco court in an investor fraud case involving cryptocurrency and lobbying disclosure, federal authorities announced Thursday. U.S. Attorney David Anderson said Abramoff, 61, of Silver Spring, Maryland, has agreed to plead guilty to criminal conspiracy charges and a criminal violation of the Lobbying Disclosure Act in the case involving a cryptocurrency called AML BitCoin. Anderson said the charges were the first brought since Congress in 2007 amended the act to address lobbying abuses and undisclosed...

Iranian general Qassem Soleymani was a master terrorist who orchestrated atrocities around the world that claimed thousands of lives, including hundreds if not thousands of Americans. That was the default position after President Trump took out Soleymani last week. The Democrats’ furious reaction overlooked realities about the Iranian regime in general and Soleymani in particular. Israel had also targeted the Quds Force commander, but according to the Kuwaiti Al-Jarida, the Obama administration tipped off the Tehran regime. Soleymani emerged unscathed and continued to spearhead the Islamic regime’s military and terrorist operations. Those were funded by criminal activity, and on that...

WASHINGTON -- There is no doubt that the terrible earthquake in Haiti -- the worst disaster in the history of the Western Hemisphere -- is a tragedy of profound proportions. The good news is that the "first responders" on-scene were wearing American uniforms. The U.S. Coast Guard -- motto: "Semper Paratus" (Latin for "Always Ready") -- was "firstest with the mostest" and began providing emergency assistance within hours of the Tuesday night quake. The White House quickly ordered reinforcements. A veritable armada -- consisting of U.S. Navy ships and aircraft, Air Force cargo and aeromedical flights, a brigade of the...