Free Republic

In the spring of 2014, senior Iranian Foreign Ministry officials initiated a quiet effort to bolster Tehran’s image and positions on global security issues — particularly its nuclear program — by building ties with a network of influential overseas academics and researchers. They called it the Iran Experts Initiative. The scope and scale of the IEI project has emerged in a large cache of Iranian government correspondence and emails reported for the first time by Semafor and Iran International. The officials, working under the moderate President Hassan Rouhani, congratulated themselves on the impact of the initiative: At least three of...

New Orleans’ LaToya Cantrell is running away with the competition.irst, for those of you who haven’t read all of the previous columns in this space, a definition. What is Weaponized Governmental Failure?Simply put, it’s the process by which urban socialist Democrats intentionally muck up the basic tasks of municipal governance and create such soul-crushing environments that middle-class taxpayers and voters decamp for the suburbs, thus leaving an electorate incapable of throwing off the political machine.My theory is that Weaponized Governmental Failure, or WGF for short, was arrived upon serendipitously. At some point in the 1990s, Democrats noticed that some of...

The people openly calling for the harassment and killing of Supreme Court Justices are politically LEFT wing, communists, and socialists – democrats. The mass shootings in America perpetrated by non-jihadis are primarily done by politically LEFT wing, communists, and socialists – democrats.Yet, despite all of the evidence and facts on the table, Joe Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland and other government officials publicly state white supremacists and “MAGA” people are the greatest threat to America.As examples, watch UTT’s video of Joe Biden’s statements HERE, and read and article of AG Garlands statements HERE.Other solid examples include: Congressman Nadler stating the...

After the leaked release of a draft of a Supreme Court decision on the topic of abortion, the threat of violence from left-wing extremists has once again become front and center. That threat is now playing out through vandalism and targeted disruptions specifically targeting America’ Christian churches.

While the latest Homeland Threat Assessment from the Department of Homeland Security describes white supremacists as the “most persistent and lethal threat,” not a single one of the FBI’s most wanted domestic terrorists is linked to a white supremacist or right-wing group.Adding to the confusion over the perceived threats was a bulletin issued by DHS in the last week in January warning about the threat from what it termed “domestic violent extremists.” Once again, the bulletin warns of violent extremism, but makes no mention of Antifa, despite the group once attacking an ICE facility in Portland recently. Given Antifa’s record...

The U.S. Navy is considering removing conformal fuel tanks, or CFTs, from the Block III upgrade package for its F/A-18E/F Super Hornets after discovering various issues with them during testing. Deciding not to pursue these tanks, which are designed to extend the Super Hornet's range even without it having to carry drop tanks in place of other underwing stores, could have significant ramifications for the service's future tactical aviation plans.

You’ll see lots of items this week and for the next several weeks talking about how the Republican Party is in the wilderness and where does it go from here, etc. The fact is, most of this is overblown and a large chunk of it is, essentially, concern-trolling from the Bush Republican crowd who are trying to angle for a return to some sort of leadership within the GOP.The prospect of that is pretty minimal, frankly. Donald Trump leaves office, per Rasmussen, with a 51 percent approval rating. If Trump takes a six month vacation from making public statements while...

On August 4, 2020, Center expert Kyle Shideler testified before the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, chaired by Senator Ted Cruz. The hearing was titled “The Right of the People to Peaceably Assemble: Protecting Speech by Stopping Anarchist Violence.” Other witnesses included Acting Deputy DHS Secretary Ken Cuccinelli, journalist Andy Ngo and George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley, among others. Shideler, the Director of Homeland Security and Counterterrorism at the Center, testified about the structure and origin of Antifa. “Antifa is an anarcho-communist movement, whose goal is to use physical violence and intimidation to terrorize American citizens into disengaging...

• It is possible to despise the actions of the police officer in Minneapolis who killed George Floyd and at the same time despise the actions of the rioters, looters and, particularly, the criminal Antifa element. • It should be abundantly clear to anyone who is paying close attention that the unrest we are seeing in numerous cities across America is not a spontaneous, genuine response to the killing of George Floyd, but rather a planned, organized insurrection prepared by Marxist-anarchist organizations. These groups have commandeered the frustration and outrage felt by many Americans and have literally hijacked that anger...

As Americans continue to suffer under a public health lockdown due to the Wuhan coronavirus, many of them have turned to video-streaming services to pass the time. But few probably expected to scroll through their Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google Play Movies & TV, or Vudu and be exposed to blatant anti-American Chinese military propaganda. Yet that is exactly what audiences of “Operation Red Sea,” by screenwriter Feng Ji, producer Yu Dong and director Dante Lam are being unknowingly exposed to.

All official Chinese government propaganda is the official voice of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). By following the propaganda lines with regime actions in chronological order, we can trace how the Xi Jinping regime responded to the coronavirus outbreak and weaponized it to attack the United States and divide its leaders. We can then push back against Chinese propaganda, break through the regime’s disinformation and censorship inside China and here at home, and devise ways to hold the Communist Party responsible for the pandemic. The following timeline by Dr J Michael Waller, our Senior Analyst for Strategy, is a...

Breathless reporting that neo-Nazis and white supremacists intend to use coronavirus as a weapon is spreading through the corporate media faster than the virus itself. Yet the media practiced its own “social distancing” from a similar story a few weeks earlier, about a New York-based Muslim Brotherhood member who videotaped himself urging people to infect police and military members with the virus.

Watching CNN and MSNBC these days is painful with their unending commentaries blaming President Trump for the spread of coronavirus in the United States. I believe history will show that all Western countries made mistakes in the way they initially reacted to this pandemic. It is clear there were systemic problems in all Western health systems to deal with this kind of health threat. Such problems in the United States at the federal, state and local levels predate President Trump — his administration did not cause them. At the same time, the mainstream media and Democratic politicians do not want...

Criminal justice reform has received a great deal of attention lately. There has been bipartisan applause for some aspects of this movement, but other aspects are very controversial and have come under heavy criticism in law enforcement circles.

The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has commissioned into service its first Type 055 Renhai-class large guided missile destroyer during ceremonies held at the Xiaokouzi Naval Base in Qingdao on 12 January 2020. The ship, named Nanchang (101) is currently the largest and most advanced destroyer in the PLAN until its sisterships are commissioned, and is even larger than the US Navy’s Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers.

Tulsi Gabbard, one of the minor candidates from the 20-strong field of Democrat presidential hopefuls, has been getting a considerable amount of attention due to Hillary Clinton’s deranged allegations that she is a “Russian asset.” While it is true that Kremlin-backed web sites have published numerous articles about Gabbard, no sober person really believes she is a “Russian asset.” In my opinion the Russians like her because of her positions on U.S. national security, which, if they ever became policy, would essentially open great opportunities for Vladimir Putin to assert Russian influence in the world at America’s expense. What warrants...

Two months ago, President Trump opined that perhaps the violent Leftist group Antifa should be designated a terrorist organization. Senator Ted Cruz called for the U.S. Justice Department to use RICO statutes to prosecute members of the organization. These calls followed numerous instances of Antifa violence, notably a firebomb attack on an ICE facility. Despite these violent acts, the Democratic party has failed to condemn Antifa and its violence. Some of the denials would be almost comical if the situation wasn’t so serious.

The Trump administration is planning to provide the identity of a Saudi official who allegedly helped the 9/11 hijackers to family members of victims of the terror attacks that occurred 18 years ago. The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday. The victims' family members have been pressuring the Trump administration to release the information. In a recent letter to President Trump, they called on him to "instruct Attorney General Barr not to invoke privileges and to give us the FBI documents so that we can finally learn the full truth and obtain justice from Saudi...

French President Emmanuel Macron has floated the concept of essentially giving Iran $15 billion to comply with the infamous multilateral nuclear deal that the Ayatollahs have already violated. Some observers see Macron’s proposal as a statesman-like proposal to preserve peace and avoid war. Others believe that the Macron is making an effort to rehabilitate his own image domestically in France, since that nation has been beleaguered with riots and unrest virtually since the day Macron entered office. A third possibility exists: greed.

The mechanic glued a hard foam material inside a tube leading to the plane's air-data module, which measures air speed, pitch, and other crucial flight information. The mechanic, named Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani, according to a criminal complaint filed in a Miami federal court and obtained by Business Insider, is accused with tampering with an aircraft's air-data module.