Free Republic

Nebraska Jews Recall Senator Chuck Hagel as “Unfriendly” and “Unmovable” on Israel, “Didn’t Give a Damn About the Jewish Community” Former U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel speaks at a forum for the Law of the Sea Convention in Washington, D.C. Photo: Wikipedia. While former Nebraska Senator and likely Secretary of Defense nominee, Chuck Hagel, has drawn criticism in recent days over his foreign policy positions, and specifically his hostility to Israel, members of Nebraska’s Jewish community spoke to The Algemeiner about their experiences with him during his time in office. Former editor of the Omaha Jewish Press, Carol Katzman, who was...

WASHINGTON, July 27 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., Sunday defended presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama from recent political attacks. Hagel said during an appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation" that U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the likely GOP nominee, was pushing the ethical envelope by questioning the Illinois senator's motivations for opposing the Iraq war. "I think John is treading on some very thin ground here when he impugns motives, when we start to get into, 'You're less patriotic than me' and 'I'm more patriotic.' I admire and respect John McCain; we talk often. John's better than...

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, Chuck Hagel, who has made the decision to retire from the United States Senate, a Republican Senator from Nebraska, has taken on the leader of the conservative movement. HAGEL: Every country out there has their know-nothing party. And of course we're much educated by the great entertainers like Rush Limbaugh and others. I wish those people would run for office. They have so much to contribute and so much leadership, and they have an answer for everything, and they'd be elected overwhelmingly if Rush would run for anything or any of those people. They love just...

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GOP senator criticizes White House torture stance Bill would ban inhumane treatment of detainees Sunday, November 6, 2005; Posted: 2:17 p.m. EST (19:17 GMT) WASHINGTON (AP) -- A leading Republican senator said Sunday that the Bush administration is making "a terrible mistake" in opposing a congressional ban on torture and other inhuman treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody. Sen. Chuck Hagel, considered a potential presidential candidate in 2008, said many Republican senators support the ban proposed by Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. The ban was approved by a 90-9 vote last month in...

WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats working with a well-known Republican war critic are developing a resolution declaring that President Bush's troop build up in Iraq "is not in the national interest," said people familiar with the document. The resolution also would put the Senate on record as saying the U.S. commitment in Iraq "can only be sustained" with popular support among the American public and in Congress, according to officials who are knowledgeable about the draft. These officials would speak only on grounds of anonymity because the drafting is still under way. Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record), a Nebraska...

A key Senate Republican is calling on the Bush administration to work for an immediate cease-fire in the conflict between Israeli forces and the Lebanese-based Hezbollah militants. Senator Chuck Hagel Senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is calling on President Bush to appoint a special envoy to the Middle East. He suggested former secretaries of state Colin Powell and James Baker would be good candidates for the post. In a speech on the Senate floor Monday, Hagel urged the Bush administration to do something it has so far refused: engage Syria and...

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel is strongly criticizing Congress, saying it gave President Bush too much latitude in conducting foreign policy following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Hagel, of Nebraska, voiced his disapproval Monday in a speech at the Gallup Organization World Conference in Omaha. ``When the security of this nation is threatened, Congress and the American people give the president great latitude,'' he said. ``We probably have given this president more flexibility, more latitude, more range, unquestioned, than any president since Franklin Roosevelt -- probably too much. The Congress, in my opinion, really abrogated much of...

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) strongly criticized yesterday the White House's new line of attack against critics of its Iraq policy, saying that "the Bush administration must understand that each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and should not be demonized for disagreeing with them." With President Bush leading the charge, administration officials have lashed out at Democrats who have accused the administration of manipulating intelligence to justify the war in Iraq. Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran and a potential presidential candidate in 2008, countered in a speech to the Council of Foreign Relations that the Vietnam...

Republican (in name only) Senator Chuck Hagel, darling and hero of the leftist media, appeared on 'This Week' yesterday. It was there that he used the "I" word....impeachment. Hagel's all upset about the war and says some see impeachment of the president as an option to stop said war. Of course, Hagel is running for president...and whenever he criticizes George Bush the media considers him the most important, solid, hard-core Republican ever. This is all despite the fact that 99% of Americans outside of Nebraska have never heard of Chuck Hagel and couldn't pick him out of a lineup. The...

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has just a 26 percent approval rating among individuals currently serving within the national security community, according to findings from a new survey commissioned by Defense One. The findings come as scrutiny on the Obama administration’s handling of the war in Iraq and Syria grows. At the same time, a variety of media reports hint that President Barack Obama, himself trailing in the polls after a poor showing for the Democrats in Tuesday’s election, is considering a shake-up of his national security staff. That could include Hagel. The “Defense One National Security Survey” released Friday found...

The Pentagon will offer medical examinations and long-term health monitoring to servicemembers and veterans exposed to chemical warfare agents in Iraq as part of a review of how the military handled encounters with chemical munitions during the American occupation, The New York Times reported Wednesday. An Oct. 15 Times story found that while the United States had gone to war looking for an active weapons of mass destruction program, troops instead quietly found and suffered from the remnants of the long abandoned arsenal. Since that article, which detailed instances of exposure that the military kept secret in some cases for...

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced a new Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap at the Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas in Peru today, saying the Pentagon has “nearly completed a baseline survey to assess the vulnerability” due to global warming of more than 7,000 bases, installations, and other facilities.The 20-page document details three “broad adaptation goals”: “Identify and assess the effects of climate change on the Deparment,” “integrate climate change considerations across the Department and manage associated risks,” and “collaborate with internal and external stakeholders on climate change challenges.”“Initial analysis indicates that four primary climate change phenomena are likely...

You may have thought you’d heard the last of Chelsea Manning, given that he’s currently doing the long haul in the Big House, but apparently you’d be wrong. (For the record, we are now referring to the prisoner as “Chelsea” because the guy has done the paperwork and had his name legally changed. This does not, however, mean that I’m obliged to change pronouns.) There is no change in his status as a semi-permanent resident of Fort Leavenworth, but he still wants hormone treatments for gender dysphoria and his legal team is willing to sue Chuck Hagel to get...

"Congress must now vote to support the first steps of what will be a long march toward victory," said Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Following this clarion call, 71 House Republicans bolted to join 85 Democrats in voting no to U.S. funds to train and arm Syrian rebels. Why the hesitation? Because our strategy in Syria is to rely on a Free Syrian Army that has been the least effective force in that civil war, and untrustworthy to boot. Units of the FSA have handed their U.S. weapons over to ISIS. Yet these "feckless" rebels, says Sen. Bob Corker, constitute "our...

The clearest expression of a foreign policy doctrine President Obama has articulated came in 2012 when he announced that the "tide of war in Afghanistan" had "turned" and that this was lucky because it was "now time to focus on nation building here at home." Al-Qaida, defined so narrowly as to exclude everyone save Osama bin Laden and his closest friends, was declared "defeated," and a satisfied commander in chief confidently turned to domestic matters. Obama's assumption that a vigorous foreign policy and a successful domestic agenda are in conflict is wrong. The U.S. experienced high rates of economic growth...

Considering the social conflict between cops and protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, the terrorist group commonly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is using the strategic moment in American history to recruit African-Americans to join the Islamic State's jihadist movement. Those fighting alongside ISIS, a globally growing terrorist group in which U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said was "as sophisticated and well-funded as any terrorist we have ever seen", have made no secret that they have vowed to bring turmoil to America. ISIS members promised to "divide America in two", while their spokesman Abu Mosa promised...

The US military has yet to offer Pte First Class Chelsea Manning sex change treatment despite medical recommendations, her lawyer has said. Defence secretary Chuck Hagel approved treatment for a condition known as gender dysphoria in July. But lawyer David Coombs says her requests for hormone therapy and other accommodations have been "ignored". The soldier formerly known as Bradley Manning is serving a 35-year sentence for leaking secret files to Wikileaks. "This time last year I publicly asked that I be provided with a treatment plan, to bring my body more in line with my gender identity," Pte Manning said...

Fresh off a trip to India and Australia, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel addressed a group of Marines in San Diego, California Tuesday, and may have delivered a line that will show up in Republican campaign ads this election cycle. After updating the troops on some issues in the Pacific region and the Middle East, Hagel took questions from some of the Marines and gave a stark assessment of the global security situation: "The world is exploding all over." The remark came in response to a question about the Obama administration's realignment of the military towards the Asia-Pacific theater: