Free Republic

There was a great deal of news this past week about President Trump’s audacious disregard for the advice and warnings from his own intelligence community experts. Perhaps there’s good reason for alarm. But I think there’s one shocking aspect — perhaps a larger story — that’s gone virtually unreported. It appears that anonymous intelligence officials are executing an operation against the sitting commander in chief. It might not qualify as all-out mutiny, but it’s also not all that far from one. Right under our noses, while still under investigation for allegedly orchestrating leaks and undermining candidate Trump in 2016, some...

It started with the Washington Post... The story (or narrative) from The Washington Post was about the "successful trade talks" between Donald Trump and Xi Peng in China. WaPo claimed that it wasn't true. They went on to say that the talks were all nonsense and confusion. They went ahead, quoting a former U.S. government official (unnamed, of course, but implied that he was an expert who was said to have been in contact with Chinese officials. This "expert" claimed that Beijing are “puzzled and irritated” by the Trump administration’s behavior, and widespread confusion across media claiming the 'truce' as...

With the embers still raining from blackened skies choked by California’s massive wildfires, the effort turns to rebuilding Paradise — a town of almost 30,000 that was wiped off the map. But experts warn that with megafires the new normal in a warming global climate, housing in the western United States is going to need a revolutionary rethink along the lines of villages dotting Europe’s wooded slopes. “I think people are thinking about if there is a way we can design the new Paradise that can look like more of a European village or a ski town, and not have...

A Lexus mechanic was removing a cylinder head from the engine of a car when he spotted a well-known cardiologist in his shop. The cardiologist was there waiting for the service manager to come and take a look at his car when the mechanic shouted across the garage, "Hey Doc, want to take a look at this?" The cardiologist, a bit surprised walked over to where the mechanic was working. The mechanic straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag and asked, "So Doc, look at this engine. I opened its heart took the valves out, repaired or replaced anything...

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers predicted that if Donald Trump were elected, there would be a protracted recession within 18 months. Heeding its experts, a month before the election, The Washington Post ran an editorial with the headline "A President Trump Could Destroy The World Economy." Steve Rattner, a Democratic financier and former head of the National Economic Council, warned, "If the unlikely event happens and Trump wins, you will see a market crash of historic proportions." When Trump's electoral victory became apparent, Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman warned that the world was "very probably...

Experts say the opposite is happening. Before US immigration authorities detained him and took his son, the Honduran migrant said he spent three days in the hands of armed men who identified themselves as members of the Gulf Cartel. Christian, who did not want his full name used, said he was traveling to the US border with his 7-year-old ..."They told us if we didn't pay that they were going to kill us," recalled Christian, who said he was freed three days later after relatives wired money {snip} . The smugglers prefer migrants with family in the US. They know...

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday morning that President Donald Trump should not engage directly in the details of negotiation with North Korea. “First of all, don’t try to negotiate the details with Kim Jong-un,” Rice told Fox & Friends. “Leave that for people who understand all the nuances of the situation.” Rice noted that she was the last American to negotiate with the North Korean regime, when she was dealing with Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il. “You have to give the [Trump] administration a lot of credit,” she said, for pressuring China to rein in the Kim...

You hit the fast food drive-through a couple times a week, and your grocery cart is regularly filled with cookies, packaged doughnuts, ice cream, chips (and dip). But you’re thin. You run—a lot—and you’re not gaining any weight, so all’s good, right? Well, not exactly. Put down the chocolate cupcake and hear us out. While runners do tend to be much healthier than the general population, with lower rates of diabetes and heart disease, that’s largely due to a healthy diet rather than running regularly, says Sara Mahoney, Ph.D., chair of the department of exercise science at Bellarmine University. In...

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is offering a teaching session later this month that's tied to a timely topic of late: nuclear war. The Jan. 16 event, which the CDC has titled "Public Health Response to a Nuclear Detonation," comes at a time when continued tensions between the U.S. and North Korea over the Hermit Kingdom's nuclear pursuits are running particularly hot. ------------------- Federal, state and local agencies would lead immediate responses to nuclear activity, the CDC says. Yet Stat News reports the session is meant to target public health professionals like doctors, nurses, pharmacists and even...

A group of former U.S. Intelligence officers calling themselves the VIPs have authored an extensive report with forensic evidence that the Democratic National Committee was not hacked by the Russians in July 2016.  The report alleges the DNC suffered an insider leak, which was conducted in the Eastern time zone of the United States by someone with physical access to a DNC computer. This report was shared with the respected left-liberal magazine, THE NATION.  Author of that report is a well respected writer,  Patrick Lawrence https://www.thenation.com/authors/patrick-lawrence/  His credentials are:  Patrick Lawrence is a longtime columnist, essayist, critic, and lecturer. He...

The US military and intelligence community has intercepted communications featuring Syrian military and chemical experts talking about preparations for the sarin attack in Idlib last week, a senior US official tells CNN.

CNN anchor Jake Tapper has now deleted a tweet where he advised his followers to seek expertise on Syria from a 7-year-old living in Turkey https://t.co/koWk7YG0FK

The media widely covered General Allen’s attack on Trump at the DNC and treated him as an apolitical national security expert. It neglected to mention that he works at Brookings or that the president of the Brookings Institution is Strobe Talbott. Talbott is an old friend of the Clintons. He got into government through them and worked for them as Deputy Secretary of State. He owes his current prominence largely to his Clinton connections. When Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, Talbott was one of the few to have close access to her. He is not only a political ally,...

DHS official Kelli Ann Burriesci grilled by House Oversight Committee

There are some important voices that have been starkly absent as President Obama gets ready to issue an executive order that would usurp federal immigration law in the coming days. “We’re all pretty much ticked,” a Border Patrol source told me shortly after details of the president’s plans hit the press last week. Obama has claimed inaction from Congress has given him no choice in issuing executive action on this matter immediately, but the little praise he has given Congress went to the Senate after it passed the Gang of Eight’s comprehensive immigration bill in summer 2013. The problem? That...

90 Percent of Checkout Food Options Unhealthy; 60 Percent of Drink Options Sugar-Sweetened A study of checkout aisles at a wide variety of supermarket and non-food retailers found that 90 percent of food options for sale were for candy, energy bars, chips, cookies, and other junk foods, and 60 percent of the beverage options were for soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages. Researchers at the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public characterized only eight percent of food items as "healthier," and just two percent of foods as actually "healthy," such as nuts and fruit. Their assessment of drinks for sale...

They say I need to figure out what my readers want to read, and write that.  They say I’m supposed to get inside your heads and touch your emotions, hopes and fears.  They. You know, the experts.  People who know.  They say a lot of things.  Trouble is, I don’t listen to them.  Plus, my mind doesn’t work the same way as most people.  Really, it doesn’t. One of my few skills is writing computer programs.  I’ve been coding since I was 13, and that would warm Bill Gates’ heart, since coding is now considered a basic survival skill.  When...

Using data from the CIA Factbook, we labeled every country in the world by its highest valued export, a.k.a. the commodity that makes the country the most money in the global market. Click on any of the maps below to see an enlarged version. Unsurprisingly, much of the world runs on oil, particularly the Middle East and Central Asia. Europe is the world's workshop, where most of the machinery and motor vehicles are made, from optical instruments to BMWs. Latin America brings a blend of food products and oil to the trading table. Asia is the world's manufacturing center, where...

The hollowness at the core of 21st century liberal politics stands out against the backdrop of the big climate change ... would "debate" be the word? Not likely. The air fills with assumptions, generated by the media sources that channel most political assumptions. Among these: The people will believe every word from on high, duly knuckling our foreheads. As President Obama himself put it, referring to a recent National Climate Assessment report: "Earlier this week I issued ... " With characteristic modesty the president corrected himself: "Or we issued a report (showing) that climate change is not some far-off problem...

Thanks for watching that YouTube video! That will be 50 cents, please. Sound unrealistic? It's actually a distinct possibility, after a Federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down an FCC ruling meant to prevent an Internet service provider -- the company you pay for online access -- from prioritizing some website traffic over others. And because that rule was wiped off the books, those ISPs are suddenly able to do just that. With service providers suddenly able to charge based on the type of content you watch or the sites you visit, it's easy to imagine a system like that...