Free Republic

Debates are high-pressure, high-risk events, and they often offer low rewards. A candidate's first goal is not to win the debate, but rather not to lose -- to do no harm to the campaign. A simple misstep can change the course of an election. The first debate was a clear win for former Gov. Romney, who appeared more interested and engaged than President Obama, who appeared aloof, disinterested and arrogant. The difference in their performances -- each standing at a lectern -- enabled Romney to gain momentum in the polls. In their second meeting, they prowled around stage, often circling...

For those angry about Mitt's performance (and for those who understood it) - this confirms the strategy, and the Romney campaign outlook on Benghazi. ******************************************* ...ForeignPolicy.com...snip... "That's a big fundamental problem that the administration has to deal with, that they did mislead people for a period of time, and what's even scarier, they misled themselves." ...snip... *******************************************

The Obama re-election campaign has accepted at least one foreign donation in violation of the law — and does nothing to check on the provenance of millions of dollars in other contributions, a watchdog group alleges. Chris Walker, a British citizen who lives outside London, told The Post he was able to make two $5 donations to President Obama’s campaign this month through its Web site while a similar attempt to give Mitt Romney cash was rejected. It is illegal to knowingly solicit or accept money from foreign citizens. Walker said he used his actual street address in England but...

Democrats have accused the GOP ticket of politicizing the Benghazi attacks. Now, 9/11 Truther Van Jones has figured out why Romney and Ryan are doing so. ”President Obama is a towering figure on foreign policy,” he told panelists this morning on ABC’s This Week, “you’ve got somebody with a Nobel Peace Prize and he killed Bin Laden.” He went on to urge us to “think about what it means to have to be a towering figure.” If only the President’s fellow Nobel Laureates Yasser Arafat and Le Duc Tho were around to shed light on the issue…

I first wrote about Barack Obama’s “Dubious donations” for the New York Post just before the 2008 election. We returned to the subject earlier this month in a series of posts upon the publication of the Government Accountability Institute report documenting this fact: Same as it ever was. Today the New York Post arrives on the scene at just about the same point in the campaign that I did four years ago with an exclusive report that provides a case study:

The Obama re-election campaign has accepted at least one foreign donation in violation of the law — and does nothing to check on the provenance of millions of dollars in other contributions, a watchdog group alleges. Chris Walker, a British citizen who lives outside London, told The Post he was able to make two $5 donations to President Obama’s campaign this month through its Web site while a similar attempt to give Mitt Romney cash was rejected. It is illegal to knowingly solicit or accept money from foreign citizens. Walker said he used his actual street address in England but...

Before the bailout of General Motors, it was well understood that the world’s largest automaker was losing huge amounts of money in the US and was staying afloat thanks to stronger performance in overseas markets. Since the bailout, however, that dynamic has been turned on its head. Thanks to a leaner manufacturing footprint, debt eliminations and steadily recovering sales, GM’s US operations have generated the lion’s share of the company’s profit since the bailout. And now, as the rest of the world economy slows, GM is spending more and more of its taxpayer-enhanced cash pile to shore up its faltering...

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Thursday demanding an investigation into online campaign contributions to the president's reelection campaign. "[T]he President's campaign committee does not use the industry standard practices to guard against receiving fraudulent or excessive contributions via the internet," Priebus alleges in the letter. "As a result, the President's campaign committee is vulnerable to the receipt of prohibited contributions. Their failure to adhere to the industry standard has caused these questions regarding whether the campaign is deliberately inviting prohibited contributions." The Priebus letter is based on a report the...

Even CBS News is now calling it Foreign-Donor-Gate. As Obama’s coffers approach the 1 billion dollar mark, the Government Accountability Institute released a report that finally alarmed the mainstream media. They consider the foreign donor funds to be untraceable and unknowable. However, our experts in the credit card industry have shown us how to make these suspicious transactions traceable. Imagine the power of knowing the country, the bank and the details of how the numbers were generated. The stakes could not be higher.

Over the last few days, the internet has been abuzz with the possibility that the Obama campaign was about to be nailed with a major foreign donor scandal, with some even speculating that the President was so distracted by the pending story, that it contributed to his horrible debate performance. Paul Bedard of the Washington Examiner wrote: President Obama's reelection campaign, rattled by his Wednesday night debate performance, could be in for even worse news. According to knowledgeable sources, a national magazine and a national web site are preparing a blockbuster donor scandal story. The campaign tried desperately to block...

WASHINGTON—If Mitt Romney becomes president, he might need a crash course in Diplomacy 101. He irritated Britons and Palestinians during a summer tour abroad and has declared Russia to be America's No. 1 geopolitical foe. Just last week, the Republican candidate, who plans a foreign policy speech Monday, raised eyebrows in Spain by holding it up as a prime example of government spending run amok. That left Spaniards confused, and threatened to reinforce Romney's perceived handicap in international affairs, precisely at a time when lingering questions over the Sept. 11 attacks against the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, has President...

BELGRADE - The Islamic Community of Serbia joined the request of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Movement "Dveri" to ban the photo exhibition "ECCE homo" because, as assessed, is defiling the image of Jesus Christ and insult the Christian believers. "Starting from the premise that Koran believers believe in all of God's messengers and make no distinction between them, Jesus - Jesus, the peace of God with him, God's darling - the anointed, the holy Muslim believers and Christians," the statement said the Islamic Community of Serbia in Belgrade. Riyasat considered role models that believers must not and can...

The foreign-policy results of the new Bloomberg National Poll haven't gotten much attention yet, but the survey contains some bad news for the Obama campaign. According to the poll, Mitt Romney has a 48-42 advantage over Barack Obama on the question of which candidate would be tougher on terrorism. Romney, in other words, has encroached on one of Obama's signature strengths. What makes this result so surprising is that the president has consistently trounced Romney when it comes to counterterrorism. A Fox News poll earlier this month found that 49 percent of respondents trusted Obama to do a better job...

Dear Friend, In this video commentary, I discuss how Obama’s naiveté is on display throughout the Middle East and it is costing him politically. Tune in!

As we have seen through news media and eye witness accounts, foreign troops are on US soil training with US armed forces in tactical operations, urban warfare drills, and counter-terrorist exercises to combat the expected threat posed by those who will not willingly go along with the lockdown of America. It is estimated that anywhere between 200 to 400 thousand foreign troops have entered through US borders.

The last four years have witnessed a decline in the image of the United States around the world, and President Obama’s approval rating has also taken a hit in some regions abroad, according to a series of polls this year. The survey results call into question the assertion, touted by administration officials and echoed in much media reporting, that Obama’s foreign policy has been an unqualified success and that his “engagement” with the international community, especially through the United Nations, has boosted America’s image significantly. Particularly striking in some of the polls is the negative trend in key Islamic countries,...

Here are a couple of facts: On June 4 the White House confirmed that the US had killed Abu Yahya Al-Libi - OBL's Libyan lietenant who had moved into Al Qaeda's #2 spot after Ayman Zahawiri after the Navy SEALs whacked OBL. On Tuesday 9/11, a tape was released of Zawahiri announcing that Libi had been killed earlier this year by a US drone attack. The Zawahiri tape was made during Ramadan which ended in the middle of last month. Zawahiri called for his terrorist underlings to avenge Libi's death and especially exhorted Libyans to take revenge. The attack in...

If you get your information from mainstream media you more then likely take what is happening with a grain of salt. What I seen televised here in the St.Louis MO area was that they were all peaceful protest. That my friends is not the case.

The assault on US consulates/embassies in Cairo, Egypt and in Benghazi, Libya recently puts the lie to the claims that Islamic nations can exist as democratic nations that contribute something to the rest of the world -- something other than war and bloodshed. The whole thing smacks of Jimmy Carter and the US embassy take over in Tehran. I had one flashback after the other as I watched the stories flooding out of Libya. And why not? The causation is the same -- incompetence by the then -- and current -- presidential administration of the United States. Obama looked and...

Obama's Foreign Policy Failure Less anyone doubt the fact that President Obama's weak wristed foreign policy is panning out to be an unmitigated disaster a quick perusal of recent headlines should serve as a clarion call for November: Cairo protesters scale U.S. Embassy wall, remove flag Romney calls Obama administration response to Libya attacks ‘disgraceful’ U.S. ambassador to Libya killed in Benghazi attack US and Israel in open feud over Iran White House declines Netanyahu request to meet with Obama The Cairo-Tehran Express Egyptian-Iranian intelligence meeting prompts fears of a new Middle East terror axis Senkaku islands dispute escalates as...