Free Republic

Jair Bolsonaro, a 63-year-old seven-term congressman who built his campaign around pledges to crush corruption and crime, secured over 55 percent of the vote, an 11 percent lead over his far-left rival Fernando Haddad. “We cannot continue flirting with socialism, communism, populism and leftist extremism … We are going to change the destiny of Brazil,” said Bolsonaro in his late Sunday night acceptance speech broadcast from his home in Rio Highly divisive among Jewish voters, the Conservative lawmaker — whose middle name, Messias, literally means “messiah” — won the ballot after a drama-filled election that looks set to radically reforge...

President Trump on Sunday evening called Brazilian president-elect Jair Bolsonaro to congratulate him on his win. Trump and Bolsonaro told one another that they are looking forward to working "side-by-side" as "regional leaders of the Americas," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. Bolsonaro, the controversial right-wing populist who has been nicknamed "Trump of the Tropics," won 55.1 percent of the vote with 99 percent voting by Sunday evening in the U.S.

President Trump visited Pittsburgh Tuesday to offer condolences following Saturday's massacre at a synagogue... If the polling data is any indicator and if one assumes its a bit biased towards the Democrats, the Republicans will certainly improve their majority in the US Senate in the mid-term elections with some losses in the House likely. Convicted Boston crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger was found dead in a federal prison in West Virginia beaten "nearly beyond recognition"..... Word today that the United States is pressuring Saudi Arabia to agree to a cease fire in Yemen's civil war... The "Sunday Express" in the...

Chinese authorities are livid over the theft of a thumb from a 2,000-year-old terracotta warrior on loan to a US museum, calling for the perpetrator to be "severely" punished. The ancient statue is valued at $4.5 million and considered a "priceless part of China's cultural heritage." It was on display at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute when the vandalism took place. "We call on the United States to severely punish those who have done [this]," Shaanxi Provincial Cultural Relic Exchange Center's director told the Beijing Youth Daily, a state-run Chinese newspaper. The warrior statues date back to 209 B.C., when the...

The great Chinese growth slowdown has been proceeding in stages for the past two years. The reason is simple. Much of China’s “growth” (about 25% of the total) has consisted of wasted infrastructure investment in ghost cities and white elephant transportation infrastructure. That investment was financed with debt that now cannot be repaid. This was fine for creating short-term jobs and providing business to cement, glass and steel vendors, but it was not a sustainable model since the infrastructure either was not used at all or did not generate sufficient revenue. China’s future success depends on high-value-added technology and increased...

The Justice Department on Tuesday unsealed charges against a group of Chinese intelligence officers, alleging that they hacked into a series of private companies’ computer systems in the U.S. and abroad as part of an effort to steal sensitive commercial aviation data. Zha Rong, Chai Meng and seven other co-conspirators worked to steal intellectual property and other sensitive data from over a dozen companies so that China could develop a turbofan engine "without incurring substantial research and development expenses," according to the to the indictment. "Members of the conspiracy targeted, among other things, companies in the aerospace and other high-technology...

China’s state-run Global Times panicked over the election of Jair Bolsonaro as president of Brazil, penning a Monday editorial sternly lecturing the new Brazilian leader that shifting trade away from China to the United States would be “unthinkable...On the other hand, Reuters found Chinese officials and senior executives eyeing Bolsonaro with “varying degrees of concern,” particularly when he talks about tightening Brasilia’s grip on the supremely valuable niobium industry. Bolsonaro has been critical of China’s efforts to dominate Brazilian mines, but might be obliged to mute his criticism because China has become such an important customer for Brazilian iron and...

In announcing his decision to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, President Trump cited Russia’s repeated violations and the fact that the treaty does not bind China, which is engaged in the world’s most ambitious ballistic missile development program. But Trump’s withdrawal may also be designed for another purpose. It sends a subtle but unmistakable message to North Korea: If you refuse to denuclearize, we can now surround your country with short- and medium-range missiles that will allow us to strike your regime without warning. At the moment, the Trump administration appears to be making little progress...

China’s President Xi Jinping ordered the military region responsible for monitoring the South China Sea and Taiwan to “assess the situation it is facing and boost its capabilities so it can handle any emergency” as tensions continue to mount over the future of the South China Sea and Taiwan, while diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing hit rock bottom. The Southern Theatre Command has had to bear a “heavy military responsibility” in recent years, state broadcaster CCTV quoted Xi as saying during an inspection tour made on Thursday as part of his visit to Guangdong province. “It’s necessary to strengthen...

A brief history lesson about American immigration, the hypocrisy of open borders advocates, and a call to stand up for the United States and a patriotic immigration system.

Many experts are panicking about Trump's economic punishments against China.  They fear an economic downturn, a global depression, or even the worst case of open war.  For the libertarians, it's depriving entrepreneurs of the world's largest market.  For so-called realist and globalist foreign policy experts, it is irrational nationalism that unnecessarily endangers global prosperity and is best dealt with by trying to integrate China into the international system.  These cries of panic are crescendoing now that tariffs are coming into effect, CFIUS is being expanded, and Trump is increasing security controls throughout the economy. Now these pro-China critics are trying to actively undermine...

You are so precious to Me I wait in The Garden for you excited at the first glimpse of our friendship about to be renewed afresh for you have captured My Heart and I am swooned and overtaken by your love for me each and every time we meet and you understand that I even come to you in the form of others dressed in My Righteousness ; True worshippers , God chasers, My True Beloved ones for all they desire is more of me however I decide to appear. So now as you receive me in this way I...

The Chinese Government has rounded-up an estimated 1 million Muslim people and sent them to "concentration camps" in China's western Xinjiang region, according to reports. Human rights campaigners report that, so far, 1,000,000 Muslims have to sent to prison camps for "re-education" with detainees being forced into the centers to try to bring them into line with the Communist Party's way of thinking.

Federal authorities are probing the devices sent to people who are prominent Democrats or supporters of Democrats.... CIA Director Gina Haspel has had a face to face meeting with President Trump after hearing the audio recording of the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi during her visit to Turkey. Russia's Deputy Defense Minister says the United States coordinated an attack by 13 drones on a Russian airbase in Syria last January..... An Afghan Taliban leader has been freed from prison in Afghanistan....... At least fourteen children were injured in a knife attack in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing..... The Egyptian...

Four years ago, Tim Cook became the first CEO of a major company to come out as gay. He says he's happy about that distinction — and his decision. "I'm very proud of it," the Apple (AAPL) CEO told Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday in an exclusive interview for her program on CNN International and PBS. Being gay is "God's greatest gift to me," he said. Cook came out on October 30, 2014. His sexual orientation had been widely rumored beforehand though he had not confirmed it publicly. "I was public because I started to receive stories from kids who read...

The money trail behind the Honduran caravan may in part lead to China.  Not only has Vice President Mike Pence fingered Venezuela as bankrolling the Honduran migrant caravan, he has also implicated China.  In his speech October 4th speech at the Hudson Institute, Pence laid out the Trump administration’s new China policy -- aimed at pushing back against, “an arsenal of policies inconsistent with free and fair trade, including tariffs, quotas, currency manipulation, forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and industrial subsidies that are handed out like candy to foreign investment.”  He then targeted specific regions and nations. Within our...

Bloomberg link only.

U.S. spy agencies have determined that Russia and China are eavesdropping on President Trump's phone calls in order to gain information that they can use to influence American policy, according to a New York Times report. Although Trump's aides have repeatedly warned him that his three personal iPhones are not secure, the president refuses to give them up, the Times reported. He continues to use them to chat with friends and confidantes. China has reportedly been keeping track of the people who Trump speaks to the most, compiling them into a list of figures to target with pro-Chinese messaging. While...

Vice President Pence on Tuesday declined to rule out the idea of deploying nuclear weapons in space, saying that the current ban on their use is “in the interest of every nation” but that the issue should be decided on “the principle that peace comes through strength.” The new positioning comes as the Trump administration moves to potentially exit a major nuclear weapons pact with Russia and possibly bolster U.S. military operations in the heavens by forming a “Space Force.” Pence argued that the Space Force is critical for U.S. national security as China and Russia expand their presence in...

Guess who is winning the tariff war. China? The U.S.? Neither? Well, one way to look at the results since President Donald Trump fired the first salvo in March is to compare the performance of the rivals’ stock markets since that day. Using the Dow Jones Industrial Average and China’s Shanghai Composite Index, here are the results. The Dow is up about 370 points, a rise of about 1.5 percent. Subtract a half a year’s worth of inflation, and it’s up about 1 percent. What about China’s Shanghai index? Hmm. Down a whopping 30 percent, adjusting for inflation. Of course,...