Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Latin American countries Friday to "think twice" about fostering ties with Iran because of its alleged support for terrorism. "I think if people want to flirt with Iran, they should take a look at what the consequences might well be for them. And we hope that they will think twice and we will support them if they do," the chief US diplomat said. During a question-and-answer session at the State Department's public policy forum on Latin America, Clinton said it was a "very bad idea for the countries involved" to...

Here is one of the MANY commercials we all had to see on switching from ANALOG to DIGITAL TV. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LjItFkWdgI Greta's show last night was asking why the government was paying for this. Does anyone know why? Why was a political flunkie given 6 million dollars in the stimulus 1 package to produce these commercials? I have found no answers but one and that is the online youtube video that claims that the new digital boxes are big brother watching equipped with mini-cameras and a microphone. Cameras in Digital Convert Boxes! BEWARE!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ4iIM8Eljc As nuts as the above sounds. As...

According to its October 2009 quarterly finance report, the Hillary Clinton for President campaign has one outstanding debt: $995,500 owed to Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, LLC, which is run by Democratic pollster Mark Penn. According to The Hill today, the same firm received a $2.8 million stimulus subcontract "for media services and outreach to help prepare 'unready' households for the DTV transition" -- a contract that Republican Senators contend was "pure waste." Thanks to Mark Penn, a handful of people avoided the inconvenience of losing a few days' television service. And thanks to the stimulus, Penn is not being...

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stands with Vice President Joe Biden in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Monday, Dec. 7, 2009, as Barack Obama met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The latest campaign-finance reports show that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign owes about $2.5 million to the firm of Mark J. Penn, who quit as chief strategist after embarrassing the campaign and left a leadership shake-up in his wake. The debt persisted on the campaign's ledger for February, according to reports filed for the March 20 deadline, despite payments of more than $3 million to Mr. Penn's polling firm that month, according to the most recent campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. Mr. Penn, who has long been a source of internal strife at the campaign, stepped...

Mark Penn, who worked as Hillary Clinton's pollster during her 2008 presidential run, reportedly received $5.97 million from the $787 billion stimulus package so he could preserve three jobs at his public relations firm.

A top priority of DOI Secretary Ken Salazar was to settle the 13-year old Indian Trust lawsuit. That goal was just met and announced. The settlement says the Federal Government will: o Establish a $1.4 billion fund to settle historic trust mismanagement and accounting claims. o Create a $2 billion fund that DOI will use to buy back fractionated Indian lands to ensure the problems raised by Cobell do not occur again. To provide an additional incentive for account holders to sell their interests in fractionated lands, Interior will direct up to 5 percent of the value of fractionated land...

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she hasn't had a chance to look into the case of the American college student in Italy who was found guilty of murdering her British roommate.

Wedding bells for Hillary's daughter 6 Dec 2009, 0431 hrs IST, ET Bureau Days after her daughter Chelsea got engaged to investment banker Marc Mezvinsky, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she is very excited about their marriage next summer which would be a private affair. “I am officially an MOTB, a mother of the bride. I’m very excited about it,” Clinton said. “It’s, for me particularly, an extraordinary moment to see how happy my daughter is and to have such a wonderful young man who will become my son-in-law,” she said. At the same time, Clinton acknowledged that...

This week, President Barack Obama reaffirmed the commitment of the United States to our core goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and prevent their return to either country. The US is sending an additional 30,000 personnel to Afghanistan, significantly increasing our civilian aid to the Afghan people, and broadening our partnership with Pakistan. Today in Brussels, I will discuss the way forward with our allies. And I will thank those nations that have pledged additional troops. This is a crucial test for Nato. After September 11, the alliance invoked Article 5 of its charter for...

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gestures and yawns while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Afghanistan on Capitol Hill in Washington, December 2, 2009. REUTERS/Larry Downing/Jason Reed (UNITED STATES POLITICS)

Chelsea Clinton is Methodist. Her new fiancé is Jewish. From Ivanka Trump to Ed Koch, Jewish Americans talk to The Daily Beast’s Samuel P. Jacobs about the question every mother-in-law wants answered. “The great thing about America is everyone wants to marry a Jewish boy.” —Harvard professor of Yiddish literature Ruth Wisse All summer long, Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky were dogged by rumors of an engagement. A Martha’s Vineyard wedding was in the works—and then it wasn’t. Over Thanksgiving, the couple at last made it official. So now that the former first daughter has finally announced her plans to...

Until recently, this political epitaph might have been written for Dick Morris: An amoral, but brilliant consultant, strategist, and analyst -- the man who kept Bill Clinton in, and Hillary Clinton out, of the White House. By selling the strategy of triangulation to Bill Clinton, Morris successfully neutered the Gingrich revolution of 1994. But he also neutered the worst political impulses of Bill Clinton (Morris couldn't do anything about the sexual ones) and forced Clinton to work with the Republican congress to balance budgets and reform welfare. But Dick Morris is doing his best work now in his crusade against...

Luis Gutierrez is sounding like a human kazoo, demonstrating what he calls the "evilbuster breath." As the speaker's hands tent his nose and he exhales in a loud hum, few of the two dozen freshmen at Overfelt High in San Jose are smirking or rolling their eyes. After the students try this newest yoga technique and report vibrations in their noses, throats and brains, Gutierrez explains the breathing will help calm their nerves

Another Goldman employee marries into the power-borg The former First Daughter and her investment banker boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky became engaged before Thanksgiving, ABC News' Jake Tapper reports. Via Tapper's "Political Punch" blog: The two sent out an email the morning of Friday November 27 saying: "We're sorry for the mass email but we wanted to wish everyone a belated Happy Thanksgiving! We also wanted to share that we are engaged! We didn't get married this past summer despite the stories to the contrary, but we are looking toward next summer and hope you all will be there to celebrate with...

NEW YORK -- Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton has become engaged to her longtime boyfriend. Matt McKenna, a spokesman for former President Bill Clinton, confirmed that 29-year old Chelsea and investment banker Marc Mezvinsky got engaged on Thanksgiving and announced it in an e-mail to friends.

Governor Palin's interview with Gretchen Carlson aired this morning on Fox & Friends.

Only a year after he had helped Barack Obama get elected by eviscerating his close friend, Clinton White House colleague and Yale Law School classmate, Hillary Clinton, Craig was himself eviscerated by the Obama inner circle. Writing in Politico, Elizabeth Drew called it “the shabbiest episode of his presidency,” saying that it had caused people who had helped Obama rise to question whether he would behave in as classy and non-Clintonian a fashion as they had hoped. It is especially puzzling given that Obama faces tough midterms and a less-than-certain re-election — and given that we all now know someone...

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) has been mailing out fundraising letters on behalf of Bill Clinton accusing the GOP of lying and "playing politics with our lives." Oh my goodness! A politician lying? or a whole political group? Is that even possible? Maybe it is. It's kind of sad and pathetic, but isn't that what we kind of know and suspect from all politicians? And even though it's a sin, isn't that the pot calling the kettle black? Bill Clinton accusing someone else of being a liar? It would almost be laughable if it weren't so hypocritical. For those...

Secretary Clinton won’t be in Washington to meet Polish foreign minister Posted on November 3rd, 2009 Due to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s decision to prolong her stay in the Middle East, her scheduled meeting in Washington with visiting Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski has been cancelled. The announcement of the cancellation was made Tuesday by the State Department spokesman Ian Kelly. The cancellation of the meeting is another diplomatic setback for Poland in her relations with the Obama administration. President Obama declined the Polish government’s invitation to attend the official observances in Gdansk of the 70th anniversary of the...

According to POLITICO, Obama’s fans in the Beltway are shocked, shocked that he and his White House minions scapegoat White House General Counsel Greg Craig for Obama’s failed promise to close Guantanamo in one year. The closing of Guantanamo – as Obama’s critics have long predicted – ain’t gonna happen, because there’s no place else to put the hardcore terrorists currently housed there. When Obama announced his dubious executive order closing Guantanamo by January 2010, the Kool-Aid drinkers were ecstatic. “See?” they said, “This is why we elected him. We were so right.” No, they were so wrong. It was...

Barack Obama’s special envoys have hardly blazed a trail on the international stage have they? George Mitchell has had as much success in the Middle East as Ireland had in qualifying for the World Cup. Richard Holbrooke, the AfPak envoy, is no Akhund of Swat. In fact, he is rarely seen in either Afghanistan or Pakistan. So who is it that will enforce the will of the West on the dastardly and corrupt Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan? Why, Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, of course. The New York Times says she has struck an “unlikely rapport” with the cuddly Afghan...

The US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates has appointed a special board to investigate the mass shooting of US soldiers at Fort Hood by a US Army Major two weeks ago. But look more closely at the details. The investigation is to be led by two retired senior officials, both Bill Clinton appointees, who made pushing “affirmative action” and special status for minority groups in the US military a central part of their careers. With former Army Secretary Togo West and former Navy Chief of Operations Admiral Vernon Clark at the helm of this investigation, no one should expect any...

We knew it was true all along. Bill Clinton loves Muslims–or any other force that undermines America. This is the liberal position. The historical betrayal. One of the greatest disgraces in modern American history: Bill Clinton is honored by the thieving Muslims of Albania, whose robbery of Serbia was aided and praised by Bill Clinton. The thieving Muslim masses of Kosovo have honored Clinton for his perceived loyalty to them, by naming a boulevard after him, and now hoisting an eleven-foot statue of him in downtown Pristina, capital of the Kosovo province. The American government leaders since Clinton, have all...

(IsraelNN.com) White House officials told the New Republic magazine this week that the Obama administration has been embarrassed at least twice by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for revealing in public information and policies that the State Department was supposed to keep private between Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and the U.S. According to the sources, Clinton was not supposed to reveal publicly the U.S. demand that Israel institute a total building freeze in Judea and Samaria, fearing that it would lead to a confrontation with Israel – which it did, after U.S. President Barack Obama publicly backed Clinton. The second...

Oleg Volk photo Related Articles * Ft. Hood: When our defenders are defenseless * Fort Hood: Austin American-Statesman promotes gun control * Gun foes exploit Fort Hood tragedy to subvert vets' rights, Sen. Burr responds * Questions about Fort Hood shooter you won't hear from 'mainstream' press * Lessons from Fort Hood shooting Reason Magazine's Jacob Sullum recently wrote a scathing criticism of the policy that rendered the victims of the Ft. Hood atrocity defensless against their cowardly attacker. Neither Smith nor the other victims of Hasan’s assault had guns because soldiers on military bases within the United States generally...

Both Allahpundit and I referenced this blast from the past at the time Barack Obama bowed to Abdullah earlier this year. It’s worth posting again, not just because Obama pulled another boneheaded protocol violation and bowed to an emperor, but in this case bowed to the same emperor with whom Bill Clinton almost committed the same protocol violation. Douglas Jehr, in a 1994 New York Times report, made it clear that had Clinton actually executed a full bow, it would have destroyed a precedent dating to the founding of the Republic:

The United States has no long-term stake in Afghanistan and its primary aim is to defeat Al-Qaeda there, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Sunday. "We're not interested in staying in Afghanistan. We have no long-term stake there. We want that to be made very clear," she told ABC news. "We agree that our goal here is to defeat Al-Qaeda. That has been a clear goal and a mission from the president ever since he made his commitment of additional troops back in the spring." "And we understand that the Afghans themselves need help in order to defend...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she's never met the one-time Republican vice presidential hopeful and former Alaska governor and thinks it would be very interesting to sit down and talk with her. WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says she would be happy to talk to Sarah Palin over coffee. In an interview for broadcast Sunday on NBC television's "Meet the Press," Clinton says she's never met the one-time Republican vice presidential hopeful and former Alaska governor and thinks it would be very interesting to sit down and talk with her. Clinton was responding to a question...

Joel Brinkley is a former foreign correspondent for the New York Times and now a professor of journalism at Stanford University Now we can say, with no real doubt, that the Obama administration has suffered its first major foreign-policy failure, and it's hard to see a way to recover. In fact, the administration's Mideast strategy has been nothing short of a debacle, borne of inexplicable naivete. Couldn't they see that presidents going back more than two decades had asked Israeli and Arab leaders to make exactly the same "gestures" - and none of those presidents had succeeded? Certainly it is...

"IF I see another king, I think I shall bite him," Teddy Roosevelt once growled. Offered that opportunity with the Japanese equivalent last week, Bill Clinton turned out to have had quite something else in mind. It wasn't a bow, exactly. But Mr. Clinton came close. He inclined his head and shoulders forward, he pressed his hands together. It lasted no longer than a snapshot, but the image on the South Lawn was indelible: an obsequent President, and the Emperor of Japan. Canadians still bow to England's Queen; so do Australians. Americans shake hands. If not to stand eye-to-eye with...

Shouldn't an army base be the last place where a terrorist should be able to shoot at people uninterrupted for 10 minutes? After all, an army base is filled with soldiers who carry guns, right? Unfortunately, that is not the case. Beginning in March 1993, under the Clinton administration, the army forbids military personnel from carrying their own personal firearms and mandates that "a credible and specific threat against [Department of the Army] personnel [exist] in that region" before military personnel "may be authorized to carry firearms for personal protection." Indeed, most military bases have relatively few military police as...

MANILA, Philippines — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton drew loud applause at a town hall meeting with students Friday in the Philippines by giving the right answer to the most pressing question: Is Manny Pacquiao going to win this weekend? The most popular Filipino will be back in the boxing ring in Las Vegas on Saturday to take on Miguel Cotto of Puerto Rico in a 145-pound (66-kilogram) fight that will be closely watched back home. "Of course the Pacman's going to win. I mean, is there any doubt?" Clinton said at the University of Santo Tomas in...

MANILA - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday that she is optimistic a peace pact between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) will happen before President Arroyo steps down in 2010. Clinton said she believes Mrs. Arroyo is ready to make "difficult decisions" regarding the peace talks with the MILF before the end of her term.

“Gold Finger - A New Take On Operation Grand Slam With A Tungsten Twist” I’ve already reported on irregular physical gold settlements which occurred in London, England back in the first week of October, 2009. Specifically, these settlements involved the intermediation of at least one Central Bank [The Bank of England] to resolve allocated settlements on behalf of J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank – who DID NOT have the gold bullion that they had sold short and were contracted to deliver. At the same time I reported on two other unusual occurrences: 1] - irregularities in the publication of the...

As bright sunlight now pushes the mighty midget craft to DC, I continue my counseling of the PJ’d Prez. Somewhere along the trip, I have an epiphany. I decide the situation was hopeless. It’s time to accept the facts as they were and deal with their hideous reality. I no longer hold any hope that Barack Hussein Obama is capable of change. The evidence of his hatred for the USA is overwhelming. Read more at www.daveweinbaum.com

Power is draining from Obama. If he can’t get his Bill through he will be at best another Clinton, at worst another Carter A funny thing happened in Ida Grove, Iowa, last Saturday. Funny and a bit sad. Steve King missed his son’s wedding. The weather was perfect. The traffic was light. Steve really loves his son, Mick, and has no problem with his new wife, Stephanie. He wanted to be there and could have been, but instead he was in Washington voting against a healthcare reform Bill in the House of Representatives. Despite his vote, the Bill passed. What...

For those who are wondering why an army base of all places is, effectively, a gun-free zone.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has given new ammunition to gun rights advocates with his astonishing suggestion that the Fort Hood massacre was made possible because “America loves guns.” Daley had been touring a school project on Monday of this week that expands the city’s Arabic language program when reporters asked whether the thought the Fort Hood incident would spark a backlash against Muslims. His reaction, captured on video, has been raising eyebrows since it flashed across the Internet, and it reaffirms what Mark Twain once observed: “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are...

It is hard to believe that we don't trust soldiers with guns on an army base when we trust these very same men in Iraq and Afghanistan. Shouldn't an army base be the last place where a terrorist should be able to shoot at people uninterrupted for 10 minutes? After all, an army base is filled with soldiers who carry guns, right? Unfortunately, that is not the case. Beginning in March 1993, under the Clinton administration, the army forbids military personnel from carrying their own personal firearms and mandates that "a credible and specific threat against [Department of the Army]...

What caused the US department of state to change their mind on the Honduran elections after months of saying that they would not recognize the Honduran election process leaving everyone in the world aghast at how the US could not recognize a free election...read on you will enjoy learning how DeMint became a hero and beat Hillary at her own political hardball.

Former President Bill Clinton told a room full of Democratic senators Tuesday that passing health care reform — which he failed to do 15 years ago — is not only a moral issue but also “an economic imperative.” Clinton argued that even “the most cold-hearted person” ought to support health care reform simply from an economic standpoint. He reminded Democrats of the political momentum their failure to pass reform in 1993 delivered the House of Representatives to the Republicans the following year… Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said Clinton described the ongoing tea party protests against the Democratic agenda as a...

During his appearance at the Senate Democrats' weekly lunch Tuesday, former President Bill Clinton told members of his party not to back down when they're winning the health care debate. A source close to Clinton said the former president had a simple message for Democrats: Make sure to pass something. "The point I want to make is, just pass the bill, even if it's not exactly what you want," Clinton said, according to the source. "When you try and fail, the other guys write history." Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said Clinton described the ongoing tea party protests against the Democratic...

...Plans had been put in place years ago to steal the nomination. Delegates in Texas over allocated to black districts and under allocated to Latino districts? Check. ACORN hired to rig the caucuses? Check. Nancy Pelosi agreed to Chair the Convention and sign the bogus Certifications of Nomination swearing to state election officials he is Constitutionally eligible for the job so they would print his name next to the D on the general election ballot? Check. Now, if everything went according to plan, she would drop out after Super Tuesday. Six (6) months later, he would be swept into nomination...

It’s bad enough that President Obama could not be bothered to attend the celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. But Hillary Clinton’s refusal to even acknowledge the role played by Ronald Reagan in the Wall’s demise as well as the downfall of Communism was highly insulting towards one of the greatest figures of our time, and reeked of petty and partisan mean-spiritedness. The Secretary of State’s remarks yesterday in Berlin completely erased from history the huge contribution played not only by President Reagan but also by the United States in confronting the Soviet Empire....

Democrat Bill Clinton held up to the Republican tide and beat Tracy Barusevicius 328 to 228 to hold his 1st District seat on Upper Providence Council, Delaware County, Pa.

ISLAMABAD - Abdullah Abdullah, who this week withdrew from the presidential election runoff in Afghanistan, thereby handing victory to the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, did so under pressure from the United States, Asia Times Online has learned. In exchange for the pullout of the non-Pashtun Abdullah, Pakistan's military has agreed to actively mediate between Washington and the Taliban over a reconciliation plan that will allow the US to exit from Afghanistan, as it is doing in Iraq, with a semblance of success. A senior Pakistani diplomat involved in backchannel negotiations on Pakistan, Afghanistan and US relations told Asia Times Online on...

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle (R) introduces his partner Michael Mronz (L) to his U.S. counterpart Hillary Clinton during the Atlantic Council Awards ceremony at the Adlon hotel in Berlin, November 8, 2009, one day ahead of the celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach (GERMANY ANNIVERSARY POLITICS)

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll plotz.

Hillary Clinton's retreat from the previous US demand for a settlement freeze leaves the administration's strategy for Israeli-Palestinian peace in limbo. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stepped from the frying pan into the fire this weekend, when she sparked a controversy regarding U.S. policy toward Israeli settlements right after some tough days of public and private diplomacy in Pakistan. But was the controversy as serious as it seemed? And what does it means for the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts? Here, a fact check on some settlement myths and misconceptions. 1. What is the significance of Clinton's linguistic acrobatics? Standing next...