Free Republic

The State Department has tossed merit out as a criterion for promotion within America’s diplomatic corps and replaced it with wokeness.With a war in Ukraine and challenges to U.S. leadership around the world, there is no shortage of possibilities for skilled diplomats to pursue America’s interests abroad. So it is particularly disturbing that the Biden administration has just tossed merit out as a criteria for promotion within America’s diplomatic corps and replaced it with wokeness. For decades, the State Department has chosen its diplomats through the Foreign Service Officer Test, a grueling gauntlet that begins with a challenging, objective, written...

Alongside all the hype and chatter about the January 6 anniversary, there was another worthy news story the first week of 2022. On Monday, January 3, a federal jury in California convicted Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes on three counts of wire fraud and one of conspiracy to defraud investors. Holmes, six years removed from being the richest self-made woman in the world, now faces as many as twenty years in prison, though she will likely receive less. While it’s always good to see criminals receive their just desserts, there is another upbeat aspect to the Holmes saga. The conviction of...

The strict lockdown in Israel easing today with home confinement ending for millions of people... "So for your health I ask you-do not come tomorrow" Those words in a video from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asking his supporters to stay away from the court hearing tomorrow as his corruption trial moves into its key phase... Iran and the United States staking out positions on the nuclear issue... More than 100 people missing and at least seven dead in the wake of a torrent of water unleashed by the bursting of a glacier... The pipe-laying for the Nord Stream 2...

George P. Shultz, who as secretary of State in the 1980s shaped U.S. foreign policy in the closing phase of the Cold War when a dangerous nuclear-armed stalemate gave way to peaceful — if not quite cordial — relations between the superpowers, died Saturday. He was 100. Shultz’s tenure as President Reagan’s chief diplomat, from 1982 to 1989, came after he served in three Cabinet-level posts in the Nixon administration: Treasury secretary, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Labor secretary. Shultz died at his home on the Stanford University campus, Jeff Marschner, director of media relations at...

WASHINGTON, April 15, 1986 (UPI) -- The blistering U.S. airstrike against Libya was a victory in the global battle against terrorism, President Reagan said Tuesday, warning the United States is ready to repeat its message ''in the only language Khadafy seems to understand.'' As Reagan pledged he will not relent in his campaign to ''eradicate the scourge of terror in the modern world,'' reports from the Libyan capital of Tripoli said that Moammar Khadafy's 15-month-old adopted daughter was killed in the bombing and two of the Libyan leaders's sons were seriously hurt. After night fell in Tripoli Tuesday, the thud...

Former GOP Rep. Ryan Costello (Pa.) is signing on to work for a group pushing a business-backed proposal to fight climate change with a carbon tax. Costello, less than a week out of the House, announced Monday in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that he’s the new managing director of Americans for Carbon Dividends. The group is the advocacy affiliate of the Climate Leadership Council, pushing a plan by former GOP Secretaries of State James Baker and George Shultz to tax carbon dioxide emissions and return the money to individuals and families on a quarterly basis. “I understand the...

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf sounded a dismissive tone Wednesday about warnings from two former secretaries of state about the nuclear agreement negotiated with Iran, saying she saw lots of “big words and big thoughts” in their evaluation but not “a lot of alternatives.” Harf was asked during her daily press briefing about a Wall Street Journal column by Henry Kissinger and George Schultz, which a reporter pointed out “raised a lot of questions about the deal.” “I think their piece was a little more nuanced than that,” Harf said, then also disputed another reporter’s suggestion that the assessment by...

Reagan-era Secretary of State George Shultz blasted President Obama Monday night for his scheduled July 2011 date to begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan. Mr. Shultz, 89, made the unusually blunt remarks at a packed dinner for the International Republican Institute - the GOP-aligned counterpart to the National Democratic Institute - where he was receiving the organization's 2010 Freedom Award. "You're out of your mind," he said at a question-and-answer forum, when asked his opinion of the president's drawdown date. "How can you say that 'if I haven't won by six or nine months from now, I'm leaving'?"

SAN FRANCISCO -- When British Prime Minister Tony Blair attends a reception in his honor at George Shultz's San Francisco home tonight, it will be the only social event of his four-day visit to the Bay Area. From the time he arrived on his British Airways charter at 5:30 Friday evening until the reception with the former secretary of state, Mayor Gavin Newsom and business and community leaders, Blair has been holed up at the Fairmont Hotel, working on his speech to the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles on Tuesday and handling government affairs at long distance. "I know...

Former U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz called Russia “a gold mine” for investment. Schultz was speaking on Thursday, Feb. 17, to a Russian-U.S. symposium on technology, which was held at the Stanford University in Stanford, CA. If you are looking for a gold mine in the sphere of sciences and technologies, pay attention to Russia, the former U.S. official said, quoted by RIA Novosti. Schultz, who was an architect of the detente policy toward the Soviet Union under the Regan administration, gave high marks to the potential and the role of Russia on the global arena. At the...

August 4, 2004 OP-CHART A Record of Recovery By GEORGE P. SCHULTZ Over the course of last week, we heard a lot from the Democrats about their record of economic achievement. So let's take the advice of a Democrat of yesteryear, Al Smith, the former governor of New York. His trademark phrase was, "Let's look at the record." These charts show the rate of change in real gross domestic product and in employment from 1990 to last June. The shaded areas show recessions. The vertical lines show when President Bill Clinton took office and when he left. Because the economy...

The fact that it’s being proposed by Republicans doesn’t make it any more economically palatable. Madness is rare in individuals — but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule — Friedrich Nietzsche ‘Cap and trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way,” Barack Obama declared after Democrats’ disastrous losses in the 2010 midterm elections. That shellacking finally killed off the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill. From it was born the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and the Obama administration’s war on coal, in turn a contributory factor to Donald Trump’s election and Republicans’...

Former United States secretary of state George Shultz says it is time to stop talking about a two-state solution. Interviewed by Maariv, Shultz said, "We must stop talking about a two-state solution and embark on a process in which people learn to live together. There is obviously suspicion, but...

WASHINGTON - Exxon Mobil Corp. and other large oil companies are backing a carbon tax proposal put forward earlier this year by a group of former Republican leaders including James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state and a Houston attorney. The Climate Leadership Coalition, a group that includes Baker, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and former Secretary of State George Shultz, announced a list of "founding members" Tuesday that includes Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell, Total, General Motors and Johnson & Johnson. "We support @TheCLCouncil as a founding member and are working to support its policy development process," Exxon...

Representatives from a coalition of veteran Republican officials — including five who have either served as treasury secretary or as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers — met Wednesday with White House officials to discuss the idea of imposing a national carbon tax, rather than using federal regulations, to address climate change.[snip]Despite the group’s impeccable Republican credentials — Baker, Paulson and Schultz served as treasury secretaries and Feldstein and Mankiw served as CEA chairs under GOP presidents — the proposal faces long odds. Many congressional Republicans are adamantly against a tax increase of any kind, and President Trump repeatedly...

A number of mostly elderly very important persons have been compromised by the global warming hoax. The following wise men signed a tract: “The Conservative Case for Carbon Dividends.” George Shultz - 96James A Baker - 86Martin Feldstein - 77Thomas Stephenson - 74Rob Walton - 72Henry Paulson - 70N. Gregory Mankiw - 59Ted Halstead - 48 The carbon dividend tract was promoted in a Wall Street Journal article published on February 7th and signed by former Secretaries of State, Shultz and Baker. According to Shultz and Baker: “…there is mounting evidence of problems with the atmosphere that are growing too...

But President Trump’s “default position” on climate change is that “most of it is a bunch of bunk” A group of Republican insiders was scheduled to meet at the White House today to push the Trump administration to embrace slapping carbon taxes on the nation’s floundering economy, Sean Moran reports at Breitbart News. On the campaign trail President Trump came out against enacting a carbon tax. “I will not support or endorse a carbon tax!” he tweeted May 13, 2016. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus previously said that Trump’s “default position” on climate change is that “most of...

A group of Republican senior statesmen is pushing for a carbon tax to combat the effects of climate change, and hoping to sell their plan to the White House. Former Secretary of State Jim Baker is leading the effort, which also includes former Secretary of State George Shultz. In an opinion piece published Tuesday night in The Wall Street Journal, they argued “there is mounting evidence of problems with the atmosphere that are growing too compelling to ignore.” […] Carbon taxes are designed to raise the cost of fossil fuels to bring down consumption. Baker and Shultz detailed in the...

A group of Republican senior statesmen are pushing for a carbon tax to combat the effects of climate change, and hoping to sell their plan to the White House. Former Secretary of State Jim Baker is leading the effort, which also includes former Secretary of State George Shultz The group will meet Wednesday with White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, senior adviser Jared Kushner, and Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council. Also supporting Baker's effort are Hank Paulson, treasury secretary for former President George W. Bush; Greg Mankiw, who chaired Bush's Council of Economic Advisers; and...