Free Republic

Turkey's geo-political maneuvers may urge reconsideration of its NATO membership. While the threat from Daesh grows, Ankara is more focused on the continuing fight with the Kurds. The Erdoğan government is undermining the core values of what NATO stands for, and its anti-Kurdish policy spells problems for its role in the region. NATO has to make a statement and also work behind the scenes to engage Erdoğan to prioritize the war against Daesh. Under the pretext of an anti-Daesh (ISIS) campaign, Turkey's government since late July 2015 is harshly repressing the Kurds, playing the ‘anti-terrorism' card towards NATO. But the...

When a U.S. citizen going by the name “Abu Abdullah al-Amriki” blew himself up in a suicide attack in Baiji, Iraq, this month, he was the most recent example of a troubling trend: the roughly 200 Americans who have traveled or attempted to travel to Iraq and Syria to fight for the Islamic State.Not all of the foreigners have left for the region looking to fight for the Islamic State, however. Instead, growing numbers of Americans are heading there to fight against the extremists. The American fighters — mostly military veterans, with a strangely disproportionate share of Texans — are...

LAS VEGAS — There are the people on his side on the Iran deal, President Barack Obama said Monday evening. Then there are “the crazies.” Back from a notably uneventful and restful two-week vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, Obama was immediately on the road for a short trip here, first to speak at a green energy conference hosted by retiring Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, then to raise money for his preferred successor, former Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto. Ruddy from the sun, Obama described himself as “refreshed, renewed, recharged — a little feisty.” And he delivered, recounting the ride...

If a senior US senator can so quickly become the target of a widespread campaign of anti-Semitism from both the Right and the Left, we should all increase our vigilance. The social media site Twitter offers an extraordinary form of communication. But perhaps because of its scope and anonymity, it is also a hotbed of racism, bigotry and anti-Semitism. This has never been clearer than in the wake of Senator Chuck Schumer’s announcement that he will oppose President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. In doing so, Schumer became guilty of heresy in the eyes of many on the progressive...

While New York Senator Chuck Schumer came under withering, anti-Semitic attack as soon as he informed President Barack Obama that he would vote to reject the president’s nuclear deal with Iran, his New York colleague, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, has been largely immune from criticism of any kind. Gillibrand announced her support for Obama’s deal on August 6, the same day Schumer announced his opposition. Her decision has been a critical asset for the administration’s campaign to secure the support of other Democratic lawmakers torn between their duty to their constituents and their loyalty to Obama. Gillibrand is a young senator...

Former Indiana Senator Richard G. Lugar became the first high profile Republican this week to endorse President Obama’s hugely controversial nuclear deal with Iran’s revolutionary Islamic government. If Congress is unable to override an expected presidential veto, in addition to $150 billion in immediate sanctions relief, the deal will guarantee the same radical Iranian regime that openly calls for the annihilation of an entire nation state both the legal right and practical ability to develop an industrial scale nuclear weapons infrastructure along with the intercontinental ballistic missile systems necessary to deliver nuclear payloads anywhere on earth. Speaking on MSNBC, the...

President Obama’s July 31 phone call organized by the anti-Israel group J Street and other progressive Jewish groups could be summed up in one sentence: Please help because, those rich people are helping those warmongering Jews to fight this wonderful Iran deal because they don’t like me and they want war just like they did in Iraq. In the 20 minute call Obama said that opponents of the Iran deal come from the same “array of forces that got us into the Iraq war” and that a “bunch of billionaires who happily finance super PACs” are “putting the squeeze on...

Last week during the most-watched primary debate in history, a U.S. senator fired a cogently argued objection at his party’s leader, drawing a contemptuous and insulting personal attack. No, it wasn’t Sen. Rand Paul, who chastised Donald Trump for being “on every side of every issue,” criticism for which Trump poked Paul for “having a bad night.” It was Sen. Chuck Schumer who, after taking a month to Think Again about the Iranian nuclear agreement, announced his carefully considered rationale for opposing President Barack Obama’s controversial foreign-policy objective — an accord that reverses America’s long-standing policy to prevent an Iranian...

  NY Sen. Chuck Schumer (D) announced that he will oppose Barack Obama's capitulation to Iran. “I will vote to disapprove the agreement, not because I believe war is a viable or desirable option, nor to challenge the path of diplomacy. It is because I believe Iran will not change, and under this agreement it will be able to achieve its dual goals of eliminating sanctions while ultimately retaining its nuclear and non-nuclear power,” Schumer wrote in a lengthy statement issued Thursday night detailing his decision. “Better to keep U.S. sanctions in place, strengthen them, enforce secondary sanctions on other...

Well, she did stop short of saying Chuck Schumer was worried about losing donations from co-religionist contributors . . . But on today's Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinksi repeatedly accused Schumer of acting out of politics in his opposition to the Iran deal. Battling with Bill Kristol, an unusually animated Brzezinski broke out the over-the-top adjectives, branding opposition to the deal "ludicrous," "crazy" and "calamitous." What explains Mika's exceptionally emotional outburst on this subject? View the video here.

Obama administration allies lobbying in favor of a recently signed nuclear deal with Iran are smearing Jewish lawmakers and opponents of the accord with allegations of dual loyalty to Israel, rhetoric many view as anti-Semitic, according to allegations leveled by these individuals and groups.Organizations close to the White House, including the pro-Tehran lobbying shop National Iranian American Council (NIAC), the liberal fringe group J Street, and the anti-war organization MoveOn, have come out to question the motivation of Jewish individuals who oppose the nuclear deal, which will provide Iran with billions of dollars in sanctions relief and lift longstanding restrictions...

The Obama administration estimates that Iranian-supplied bombs killed "hundreds" of American troops in Iraq during the war, and the president himself has explicitly acknowledged that the deal's generous sanctions relief provisions will allow the regime to enhance its world-leading financing of international terrorism. An organization called Veterans Against the Deal has something to say about that: Sgt. Bartlett calls on Senators to reject the Iran deal "I was blown up by an Iranian bomb…that's who we're making a deal with. Every politician who's involved in this will be held accountable…A vote for this deal means more money for Iranian terrorism. What do...

Tablet Magazine is not exactly a bastion of conservative thought among Jewish American publications. In fact, the editors didn’t appear impressed with Senator Chuck Schumer’s decision to oppose the deal with Iran that Barack Obama and John Kerry insist that Congress refrain from rejecting, calling it “calculations” geared toward Schumer’s “self-interest.” But they have been even less impressed with the rhetoric coming from the White House and the Left in demanding support for the deal, calling it “Jew-baiting” and worse. The editors blasted Obama for using the kind of rhetoric they would expect from white supremacists, not a President with...

Schumer feels the wrath. Ever since the White House leaked Thursday night that Sen. Chuck Schumer would be coming out against the Iran deal, the progressive movement has foamed at the mouth with vitriol directed Schumer’s way.Much of it is just the plain old progressive vitriol of the MoveOn.org, Daily Kos and netroots types. Schumer is a warmonger, wants war, loves war, and so on.Obama set up that argument when he claimed that Republicans were making common cause with hardline Iranians — even though Obama clinched the deal with hardline Iranians who are laughing all the way to the...

So just to be clear, Secretary of State Kerry and the Obama administration have cut a deal in which Iran will be subjected to no inspections, no disclosures, no verification and no sanctions, that will equip the world’s leading state sponsor of terror with billions of dollars, and requires that the U.S. help protect its nuclear infrastructure, among many other travesties, but Secretary of State Kerry believes that critical Israelis in particular and Jews in general are responding “emotionally,” as opposed to rationally with fear and loathing? Contrast the reaction of Jews, Christians and others who comprise the majority of...

As a young Barack Obama once said at the 2004 Democratic convention: There are no “blue states” and “red states,” there are only blue states and states that make “common cause” with anti-American fanatics.The White House should pick a smear and settle on it. Are critics of his terrible nuclear deal warmongering nutcases like the worst elements in Iran or are they treacherous Jews secretly loyal to Israel? “What I said is absolutely true factually. The truth of the matter is, inside of Iran, the people most opposed to the deal are the Revolutionary Guard, the Quds force, hard-liners...

A "progressive" advocacy group in the US has pledged to withhold millions of dollars in campaign contributions to Sen. Chuck Schumer as well as other Democrats should they vote in Congress against the nuclear deal with Iran. Close to 18,000 people have signed a petition on MoveOn's website, called "No money for war hawks," the group told the Huffington Post on Friday. MoveOn, which touts itself as a "community of more than 8 million Americans...lead[ing] campaigns for progressive change," has committed in this latest petition to withhold $8.3 million that it would have otherwise donated to the Democratic Party. The...

Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the second-ranking Democrat in the House, said the tone was counterproductive. ‘Not Comfortable’ “Characterizing people who may be in opposition to the agreement as wanting to go to war as an alternative, I’m not comfortable with that, and I wish the White House wouldn’t do that,” Hoyer, who is leading a visit of 22 Democratic House members to Israel this week, said in an interview in Jerusalem on Thursday. “I don’t think the alternatives are going to war, and I’ve indicated that” to the White House. White House press secretary Josh Earnest dismissed complaints about...

Liberals are livid at Sen. Charles Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) decision to oppose the White House’s nuclear deal with Iran, and have threatened to launch a full-scale war as retribution. Activists and former top officials within the Obama administration are openly contemplating whether Schumer’s stance disqualifies him from serving as the next Senate Democratic leader — which he is primed to do — and seeking to temporarily cut off money to Democrats in the upper chamber. It’s unclear whether Schumer’s announcement will have a devastating effect on the White House’s efforts to prevent Democrats from killing the deal when it comes up...

After stating that he plans to vote against the Iran nuclear deal, Sen. Chuck Schumer is receiving criticism from liberals who claim he is "unfit" to be the next Democratic leader, The Hill reports. Schumer is the first Democratic senator to go on record saying he opposes the Iran nuclear deal, but The Hill notes that, with roughly half of Senate Democrats still publicly undecided, his decision to oppose the deal could sway some colleagues who are still on the fence. "After deep study, careful thought and considerable soul-searching, I have decided I must oppose the agreement and will vote...