Free Republic

Social media was abuzz Saturday night with claims that President Trump opponents, many of them teenagers and K-Pop fans, guaranteed that hundreds, even thousands of seats for the Tulsa rally remained empty — by bulk “reserving” tickets they had no intention of using.Trump had blamed protests and media-stoked fears of the coronavirus for the large swaths of empty seats.“Actually, you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID,” progressive New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted at...

Imran Awan, a former IT aide for Democratic Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, was indicted Thursday on four counts including bank fraud and making false statements.

"In an interview Tuesday on ABC’s Good Morning America, former Fox News host Andrea Tantaros said Fox “has plenty of money” and suggested that “they’ve bought off a lot of women. What they don’t have is accountability.” In August, Tantaros filed a lawsuit claiming the network “operates like a sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult, steeped in intimidation, indecency, and misogyny.” http://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/andrea-tantaros-on-gma-fox-news-has-bought-off-a-lot-of-women/306506?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=referra  

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), whose hard-line conservative stances on immigration and trade have made him a favorite of the party’s base, endorsed Donald Trump's White House bid during a joint appearance here in his home state Sunday. "Politicians have promised for 30 years to fix illegal immigration. Have they done it? Donald Trump will do it," Sessions said at the Madison City Schools Stadium, where thousands gathered to hear Trump speak. "I've told Donald Trump this isn’t a campaign, this is a movement."

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin joined the Today show to talk about her endorsement of Donald Trump as Iowans go to caucus tonight for the Republican presidential primary. is was probably a tough call for you, between Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)97% and Donald Trump, began Savannah Guthrie during the interview. t wasn’t tough,” Palin interrupted. Really, Guthrie replied. No, it wasn’t tough, she repeated. Palin explained that she was happy to endorse Ted Cruz in his Senate race, because he was a fighter for the American people but that she wanted him to stay in Washington D.C. want to keep...

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is defending his participation in the Gang of Eight’s immigration bill efforts, saying he knows it won’t win him any “parades” among conservatives, but it’s necessary. Speaking Wednesday night with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Rubio said he understands why conservatives are skeptical of immigration reform. “Look, it’s obvious I didn’t do this for political gain. This is not something that’s going to gain me any parades. People are frustrated, and I do understand it. What I hope they understand is that I studied this issue carefully for almost two years and I concluded that what we...

Ah yes, life is so much better under the Obama economy now.

Watching Katie Couric being harassed and shoved by a crowd of angry men in Cairo was especially jarring. Our little Katie? Make no mistake. Perky Katie is also brave Katie.

Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), the final Democratic holdout on health care, was prepared to announce to his caucus Saturday morning that he would support the Senate reform bill, clearing the way for final passage by Christmas. "We're there," said Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), as he headed into a special meeting to announce the deal. Democratic leaders spent days trying to hammer out a deal with Nelson, and worked late Friday night with Nelson on abortion coverage language that had proved the major stumbling block. But Nelson also secured other favors for his home state. Asked if he was prepared to...

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Federal agents seized a Mercedes-Benz from an Army reservist who said the armor-plated, bulletproof luxury car probably belonged to Saddam Hussein. First Sgt. William von Zehle said he bought the car while serving in Iraq. U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement agents said the car, which was also equipped with loudspeakers and hidden microphones, was being treated as a "possible war trophy." "It belonged to the former Iraqi regime," ICE spokesman Dean Boyd said. He said investigators were unsure whether the former Iraqi dictator actually owned it. Von Zehle was quoted in news stories last summer as...

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine: Former Clinton CENTCOM commander, Anthony Zinni — the most prominent of the retired generals attacking Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld — now says that, in the run-up to the war in Iraq, "What bothered me ... [was that] I was hearing a depiction of the intelligence that didn't fit what I knew. There was no solid proof, that I ever saw, that Saddam had WMD." But in early 2000, Zinni told Congress ...

Human bird flu vaccine bought by UK By Fergus Walsh BBC News Medical Correspondent The UK government has bought 2m doses of the vaccine Are you a front-line medical worker like a GP or a hospital nurse? Or maybe a police officer, or even a key worker at a power plant? If so, then a prototype vaccine against H5N1 developed in Vienna could be destined for you. It's an experimental vaccine against bird flu. Two million doses of this prototype vaccine have been sold to the UK government. Dr Noel Barrett, of Baxter Healthcare in Austria, says: "This vaccine formulation...

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy this week ramped up the effort to curtail the influence of lobbyists by proposing a lifetime ban on members from serving as lobbyists after they leave Congress. Currently, members are banned from lobbying for one year. "I think part of the temptations are whatever your possible future life might be," Kennedy, R-Minn., said. "We need to be attracting folks to Congress with real-life experience, with real-life experience to go back to."

Last month, as chilly November winds hinted at the winter to come, Massachusetts received a warm gift from Venezuela via CITGO Petroleum Corporation. It could not have come at a more critical moment as those on fuel assistance faced heating price increases of up to 50 percent. Many low-income families looked ahead to a winter of unbearable options: choosing between heat and food or medication. As a result of the Venezuelan oil program, more than 12 million gallons of heavily discounted heating oil will flow to needy households and social service institutions across the state. Together with local nonprofits Citizens...

CIA bought foreign cooperation against terrorism, says report Julian Borger in Washington Saturday November 19, 2005 The Guardian (UK) The CIA set up a network of secret joint operations centres with two dozen foreign intelligence agencies to hunt down suspected terrorists in the years after September 11 2001, it was reported yesterday. According to the report in the Washington Post, the cooperation of foreign agencies was bought with hi-tech gadgetry to help them conduct wiretaps and other surveillance, shared intelligence, and occasional personal favours. In the case of the Indonesian spy chief, Lieutenant General Abdullah Hendropriyono, the CIA arranged for...

Iran admits to UN it bought designs for nuclear bomb (Filed: 19/11/2005) Iran has admitted obtaining designs that could help it make a nuclear bomb, the United Nations nuclear watchdog said yesterday in a confidential report. After more than two years of investigations, it is the closest that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have come to linking Teheran's electricity generation project with an alleged weapons programme. The discovery will raise tensions before next week's meeting of the IAEA board of governors, which will debate whether to report Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. The IAEA...

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's reformist government alleged that "certain organs" were buying votes in poorer aread of the Islamic republic ahead of this week's presidential run-off election. The government spokesman also said outgoing reformist President Mohammad Khatami was "very worried" ahead of Friday's high-stakes clash between between hardliner Mahmood Ahmadinejad and moderate conservative Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. "The government has receieved reports on the distribution of funds by certain organs in the poorer areas of certain provinces with a specific aim in mind," Abdollah Ramazanzadeh said Wednesday. "Khatami is worried about the future of the country and believes that we need...

VIENNA, Austria - Iran bought blueprints of a nuclear bomb from the same black-market network that gave Libya such diagrams and continues to enrich uranium despite a commitment to suspend the technology that can be used for atomic weapons, an Iranian opposition group said Wednesday. Farid Soleimani, a senior official for the National Council for Resistance in Iran, did not offer evidence for the claims. His group has said in the past that it gets information on Iran's nuclear program from opposition sources within Iran, including some moles who have infiltrated the Islamic Republic's military and security organizations. Mark Gwozdecky,...

Frédéric Desagneaux, consul general of France for San Francisco, is not happy with the light being shown on his country’s involvement with U.N. corruption in Iraq. Poor thing. Yesterday, the independent committee investigating corruption in the U.N.’s “oil-for-food” program for Iraq made public the names of 3,545 companies that sold goods to Saddam. Also published were the names of 248 companies which received Iraqi oil under the program. Through oil-for-food, Saddam stole “$10.1 billion through oil smuggling and kickbacks from suppliers.” Leave it to the U.N. to pull off one of the biggest scandals in world history. Evidence is emerging...

Receipt for girl reveals Roman slave secrets By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent (Filed: 22/03/2003) The first evidence of Roman Britain's slave trade has been unearthed: a receipt for a young French girl bought for the equivalent price of a small sports car today.Faint scratchings on a wooden writing tablet show that a wealthy slave working for the imperial household bought a girl named Fortunata (Lucky), a member of a Celtic tribe living on the borders of Normandy and Brittany. The silver-fir tablet had been preserved in wet London soil for 2,000 years.Although many Roman slaves were forced to work...