Free Republic

First, an admission: I have seriously underestimated Donald Trump. After spending more than three years tracking the construct of the GOPe strategy to elect Jeb Bush, and having lost the most single important battle in May 2014 to stop it, I was deflated and disenfranchised. Few were willing to accept the road-map and sheer level of Machiavellian strategy deployed by the professional political class. Every single prediction (tripwire) which stems from understanding the construct was triggered in the exact sequence. We resigned ourselves to the outlook that Tom Donohue, Mitch McConnell and their team were going to pull it off....

As Americans learn the dangerous details of President Obama’s deal with Iran, Republican leaders should admit their mistake in passing Sen. Bob Corker’s (R-TN) bill that reversed the process for treaty ratification. Instead of a treaty requiring approval from two-thirds of the Senate, the Corker bill allows the Iran deal to be disapproved by a simple majority in both houses—subject to a certain presidential veto, which requires two-thirds of both houses to override. Under the Corker procedure, Obama can make a nuclear arms treaty involving Iran with the concurrence of just one-third of each house of Congress, instead of two-thirds...

Unless the US Congress votes in opposition, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal with Iran with go through. What really happened and why did it happen the way it did? What happened is gradually becoming clear. It is revealed daily just how horrendous the deal really is. On every point — enrichment, centrifuges, stocks of fissile material, inspections, sanctions on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps members and businesses, "snapback," etc. — the Obama administration caved completely. Concessions on ballistic missiles and arms sales were thrown in at the last minute; the administration lied about it all, while Iran...

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Tuesday said it will no longer require incoming U.S. citizens to pledge that they will "bear arms on behalf of the United States" or "perform noncombatant service" in the Armed Forces as part of the naturalization process. Those lines are in the Oath of Allegiance that people recite as they become U.S. citizens. But USCIS said people "may" be able to exclude those phrases for reasons related to religion or if they have a conscientious objection. USCIS said people with certain religious training or with a "deeply held moral or ethical code" may not...

John McCain's betrayals Exposed By Vietnam Vets And POWs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hr37eE0nO8&feature=youtu.be

Carnival Corp. is steering a course toward Cuba. The world’s largest cruise ship company announced Tuesday that it had received approval from the U.S. government to operate cruises to the island nation as a provider of cultural exchange programs.

Paul Ryan, Boehner, McConnell et al. Over the weekend an anniversary was marked with little fanfare — the second anniversary of the implementation of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement passed with the usual fanfare, supported by the usual suspects. Barack Obama hailed the agreement’s implementation on March 15, 2012. In the middle of his re-election campaign, he cheerfully promised the agreement would increase American exports to South Korea by $10 billion and would create 70,000 U.S. jobs. One of Barack Obama’s signature efforts for his second term is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal...

On Friday, there will likely be a vote on fast-tracking President Obama's most progressive trade deal(s) in history. Here is why the House should vote no on granting the president what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called "an enormous grant of power." 1. Obama is a terrible negotiator, so he needs full oversight. Remember the Iranian nuclear deal, the China climate deal, the Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl release deal? These are just three examples that prove a simple fact: Obama is not a very good negotiator when it comes to representing U.S. interests. Fast-track trade authority denies Congress the...

ANALYSIS/OPINION: The civility chorus may at last be getting what it wants, a shutdown of debate in the name of piety and good manners. Honest debate frightens the chorus, whose sopranos and tenors forget that debate, sometimes gentle and sometimes loud and robust, is what Congress is meant to be about. Rep. Paul Ryan, once the tough numbers cruncher for the Republicans, has been the eager point man for President Obama in the campaign to give him authority to make unilateral trade deals that include far more than mere trade. Mr. Ryan is having trouble dealing with partisan stress on...

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republican leaders pushed a new plan for raising taxes through the Kansas House early Friday morning, hours after top aides to GOP Gov. Sam Brownback warned them that failing to erase a budget deficit risked funding for universities and invited a downgrading of the state's bond ratings.

Traitor is strong language, but in the aftermath of Tuesday’s vote on a bill that was supposed to reaffirm the Senate’s constitutional power to consent to President Obama’s as yet still undefined and undisclosed nuclear treaty with Iran there is no other way to describe the actions of Senator Bob Corker, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations The bill Corker rammed through the Foreign Relations Committee is worse than no bill at all. What Corker’s bill does is, in its post-markup form, require the president to submit for congressional review the final nuclear agreement reached between Iran, the...

In a development that has largely been missed by mainstream media, the Pentagon early last month quietly declassified a Department of Defense top-secret document detailing Israel's nuclear program, a highly covert topic that Israel has never formally announced to avoid a regional nuclear arms race, and which the US until now has respected by remaining silent. But by publishing the declassified document from 1987, the US reportedly breached the silent agreement to keep quiet on Israel's nuclear powers for the first time ever, detailing the nuclear program in great depth. The timing of the revelation is highly suspect, given that...

In 2014, the Establishment went all out to defeat its foes not just on the electoral battlefield, but in the battlefield of the mind as well. They wanted to teach the upstarts a lesson: You have not only lost, but you will always lose; you will not be permitted to win, ever. The entire Party will rise up to crush you should you signal any intention of bucking our Rule. I warned them about something then: A hopeless soldier is a soldier who will desert the field. Yes, Establishment GOP, you can teach us that you will always lie to...

Hillary Can’t Delete This As Secretary of State, Clinton says she stopped at nothing to get a blind dissident out of China. That’s not what he remembers. By DAVID FEITH March 15, 2015 This book won’t help Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president. Its author, Chen Guangcheng, is the blind Chinese human-rights lawyer who in April 2012 escaped rural house arrest and sought refuge at the U.S. embassy in Beijing. The ensuing diplomatic tussle over his fate was a high drama that Mrs. Clinton touts as an accomplishment of her tenure as secretary of state. It reminded her of the “responsibility...

Barbary Glory, Barbary Shame By Barr Seitz Two hundred years ago, seven U.S. Marines at the head of a ragtag army of European and Arab mercenaries set out on an extraordinary mission to free 300 U.S. hostages and end America's first foreign war. To do that, they first had to march almost 600 miles across the Barbary deserts of North Africa to what is the eastern part of modern-day Libya. Those were long odds for an untested Christian-Muslim army whose soldiers were as likely to kill each other as the enemy. Tripolitan War The desert expedition was a quixotic chapter...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A secret decision apparently has been made by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and even Iran to let the strategic Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani on the Turkish-Syrian border fall to ISIS fighters, jeopardizing the lives of some 160,000 Syrian Kurds, WND has been told by a well-placed Middle East expert. In letting Kobani fall to ISIS, the source said, there was agreement “to deal with ISIS later.” The apparent decision aims to diminish the influence of the Kurds in Syria and weaken the prospect of creating a sovereign Kurdistan, which is sought by the Kurds...

Loudon and Beck — Together Again on TheBlaze TV — Exposing The Enemies Within and WithoutAnti-Communist and Best-Selling Author, Trevor Loudon will return to Primetime, TheBlaze TV, March 9th, 5:00 pm ET, hosted by Glenn Beck. Loudon, a New Zealand researcher and investigative journalist, has been touring America as a modern-day Paul Revere to warn America that “The Enemies Within: Communists, Socialists and Progressives in the U.S. Congress” are here and that they are endangering America and all she stands for. The book is published by Pacific Freedom Foundation. “The Enemies Within” profiles fourteen Senators and more than fifty...

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf says leaks on the Iran nuke talks by Israel would “betray” the US’s trust. “We’ve continuously provided detailed classified briefings to Israeli officials to keep them updated and to provide context for how we are approaching getting to a good deal,” she told reporters in Washington. “Any release of any kind of information like that would, of course, betray that trust.”

They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. -- Jeremiah 6:14Gentlemen may cry peace, peace—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! --...

......, the Obama administration went, well, nuclear. One “senior American official” threatened Netanyahu, telling the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that “Netanyahu ought to remember that President Obama has a year and a half left to his presidency, and that there will be a price.” Meanwhile a “source close to [Secretary of State John] Kerry” told The Post that the “secretary’s patience is not infinite” and that “playing politics with that relationship could blunt Secretary Kerry’s enthusiasm for being Israel’s primary defender.” .. No wonder Netanyahu is going around these people to Congress for support. Is Kerry defending Israel as a favor...