Free Republic

Have you heard the one about the governor and the missed punch line? Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s office said on Thursday that the governor was just kidding when he offered a disparaging assessment of Anthony D. Weiner’s campaign for mayor of New York City — -snip- Asked about Mr. Weiner at an appearance in New Paltz on Thursday afternoon, after the remark in Syracuse had been made public, Mr. Cuomo was diplomatic. “I don’t have an official position on the mayor’s race,” he said, “and I’m going to leave it at that.”

When Chelsea Clinton wanted to make a low-key visit to the hurricane-stricken Rockaways last fall, she arranged to take a trip with her close friend Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton. -snip- But the reality, it turns out, is just the opposite: Those close to the couple say that Ms. Abedin, a seasoned operative well versed in the politics of redemption, has been a main architect of her husband’s rehabilitative journey, shaping his calculated comeback and drawing on her close ties with one of the country’s most powerful families to lay the groundwork for his return. A...

Gov. Cuomo says it would be shameful if Anthony Weiner is elected mayor. Cuomo, during an appearance before the Syracuse Post-Standard's editoral board Wednesday, stayed neutral when asked his thoughts on Weiner entering the race. "He runs? He runs," the paper quotes him as saying in a transcript But asked how he would feel if Weiner (self-pictured at right) were to be elected, Cuomo was blunt. "Shame on us," he replied. Cuomo, a Democrat, has said he has no plans to get involved in the mayor's race. He gave a less definitive answer hours before he spoke to the Syracuse...

Anothny Weiner, NYC's muppet former congressman, and as we reported yesterday, the man who following his disgraceful fall from grace announced his mayoral campaign on YouTube, continues to be the gift that keeps on giving... if mostly naked pictures of his anatomy to various women. As the WaPo reports, "Former congressman and newly announced New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner (D) said in an interview Thursday morning with WNYC-FM that there could be women coming forward with more e-mails or photos from the inappropriate digital conversations that led to his resignation in 2011." In other words, where there was one...

The online video that launched former U.S. Rep Anthony Weiner's New York City mayoral campaign Wednesday featured someone who until now had played a limited public role in his political life: his wife, Huma Abedin. Ms. Abedin opens the video in a shot that shows her and Mr. Weiner feeding breakfast to their son, and she closes it sitting beside the candidate on the stoop of a brownstone. "We love this city, and no one will work harder to make it better than Anthony," Ms. Abedin says to the camera. As a longtime aide to former U.S. Secretary of State...

Anthony Weiner’s run for redemption is officially on. The ex-congressman whose career imploded in a rash of raunchy tweets two years ago said in a YouTube video announcement late Tuesday that he’s in the New York City mayoral race. He’d said last month he was considering it. … The Democrat is jumping into a crowded field for September’s primary. He’s arriving with some significant advantages, including a $4.8 million campaign war chest, the possibility of more than $1 million more in public matching money, polls showing him ahead of all but one other Democrat—and no end of name recognition. …

Huma Abedin, former Secretary of State Hillary’s Clinton’s long time aide with extensive ties to Muslim Brotherhood groups, was granted an arrangement by the State Department to do outside consulting work, even as she remained a top advisor in the Department. Abedin did not disclose either the arrangement, or how much she earned from it, on her financial report, despite a requirement that public officials must disclose significant sources of income. Clinton advisor Philippe Reines contended she was under no obligation to do so. Abedin, who has served Clinton for 15 years, became a “special government employee” when she returned...

"The State Department says, “Eligibility for access to classified information, commonly known as a security clearance, is granted only to those for whom an appropriate personnel security background investigation has been completed."

..It seems Ms. Abedin, accurately described by the New York Times as Hillary Rodham Clinton’s ”longtime aide and confidante,” spent her last months at the State Department not really at the State Department... … This story is getting some attention — sure to be fleeting — ...But that has more to do with a potential Weiner political campaign than with the tangled web of government policy-making and Clinton cronies (like the Saudis and Qataris — multi-million dollar donors to the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation who do mega-business with the State Department). There has to date been scant media interest in...

Huma Abedin — Hillary Clinton’s longtime aide and the wife of all-but-declared New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner — spent her final months at the State Department working as a part-time consultant with the agency who at the same time was allowed to represent outside clients, POLITICO has confirmed. Abedin, a fixture at the Clintons’ side for at least 15 years — from Iowa to Indonesia — shifted to her new role after maternity leave in the early summer of 2012, according to a source familiar with the arrangement. The new status made her a “special government employee,” which was...

The title of a New York Times article by Raymond Hernandez reads, “Weiner’s Wife Didn’t Disclose Consulting Work She Did While Serving in State Dept.”. However, the headline for another story pops up in the eighth paragraph when a potentially very interesting claim is made. Take note of when Abedin allegedly stepped down as Deputy Chief of Staff for Hillary. Via NYT: "Ms. Abedin reached her new working arrangement in June 2012, when she returned from maternity leave, quietly leaving her position as deputy chief of staff and becoming a special government employee, which is essentially a consultant. A State...

The State Department, under Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, created an arrangement for her longtime aide and confidante Huma Abedin to work for private clients as a consultant while serving as a top adviser in the department. Connect with NYTMetro Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook for news and conversation. Ms. Abedin did not disclose the arrangement — or how much income she earned — on her financial report. It requires officials to make public any significant sources of income. The disclosure of the agreement that Ms. Abedin made with the State Department comes as her husband, former...

The State Department, under Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, created an arrangement for her longtime aide and confidante Huma Abedin to work for private clients as a consultant while serving as a top adviser in the department. Ms. Abedin did not disclose the arrangement — or how much income she earned — on her financial report. It requires officials to make public any significant sources of income. The disclosure of the agreement that Ms. Abedin made with the State Department comes as her husband, former Representative Anthony D. Weiner, a Democrat, prepares for a mayoral run in New York City. Politico...

On MSNBC Saturday morning, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said that she, too, wants to find out what happened in Benghazi, but that Republicans are taking political advantage of the investigation to distract from other, more important issues. “The obsession that some of my Republican colleagues have in the House doesn’t look like it’s on the path to really finding a solution, but just to keeping an issue alive,” she said. …“We certainly have to give the full attention Benghazi deserves, but we cannot let it soak up all of the congressional attention,” Pelosi said. “What would be the purpose...

One of the mysteries in the Benghazi scandal has been the role of David Petraeus, who was then the Director of the CIA but was forced to resign in a personal scandal shortly thereafter. While the White House and State Department tried to cobble together talking points to explain away the terrorist attack that took four American lives, what did Petraeus do? According to new information reported for the first time by Jonathan Karl on ABC News’ This Week earlier this morning, Petraeus rejected the final version as “useless” —

Vid at link

Sen. Dianne Feinstein says the talking points used on the Sunday news shows following the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, were wrong, adding that the administration should have been quicker in calling it a terrorist act. “I think the talking points were wrong,” the California Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Sunday on NBC´s “Meet the Press.” “I think the talking points should not be written by the intelligence community.” “Unfortunately," she added, "the word extremist was used which isn’t not as crystal clear as terrorist.”

Sen. John McCain continued his criticism of the White House's handling of the Sept. 11 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, calling for a select committee to investigate what he called the Obama administration's "cover-up." "Now, what you’ve got to look at this in the context of the times there," McCain told Martha Raddatz in an interview that aired on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. "We are in the midst of a presidential campaign. The narrative by the Obama campaign is that bin Laden is dead, that al Qaeda is on the run, not to worry about anything, and her comes this...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Sunday that the latest congressional hearing on Benghazi was really a way for Republicans to discredit former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) paid a visit to Morning Joe to discuss this week’s news surrounding Benghazi — which included the hearing and this morning’s story about the edited talking points. Amid the panel discussion, Cummings spoke specifically about one of the witnesses, alleging that Republicans tried to change his story in a way that contradicted his sworn testimony. Asked what’s next, Cummings (who, you may recall, criticized GOP Rep. Darrell Issa for “politicizing” Benghazi during Wednesday’s hearing) said it was “a search for the truth.” Referring to one of the witnesses who testified at this week’s hearing, Cummings said,...

Did the Obama administration's politically expedient story cost American lives? The Benghazi story until now has been a jumble of factoids that didn't quite cohere, didn't produce a story that people could absorb and hold in their minds. This week that changed. Three State Department officials testifying under oath to a House committee changed it, by adding information that gave form to a growing picture. Gregory Hicks, Mark Thompson and Eric Nordstrom were authoritative and credible. You knew you were hearing the truth as they saw and experienced it. Not one of them seemed political. You had no sense of...

Former CIA Director David Petraeus stoked the controversy over the Obama administration's handling of the Libya terror attack, testifying Friday that references to "Al Qaeda involvement" were stripped from his agency's original talking points -- while other intelligence officials were unable to say who changed the memo, according to a top lawmaker who was briefed.  Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., told Fox News that intelligence officials who testified in a closed-door hearing a day earlier, including Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Acting CIA Director Mike Morell, said they did not know who changed the talking points. He said they...

Talk about cutting right to the core. Pat Smith wishes Hillary Clinton a Happy Mothers day, noting that Hillary’s got her kid but “I dont have mine – because of her.” Watch:

With each new revelation, what has always been obvious becomes more pronounced: the State Department’s self-proclaimed final word on the Benghazi Massacre, the risibly named “Accountability Review Board” investigation, is a fraud. Yet, like the rest of the Obama administration’s obstructive wagon-circling, the ARB’s report continues serving its intended purpose: to thwart efforts to hold administration officials accountable. Even on Fox News, which has been admirably dogged covering a scandal the Obamedia has done its best to bury, the refrain is heard: How could the ARB report be a whitewash when its investigation was run by such Washington eminences as...

House Republicans have concluded that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was responsible for cutting security at the consulate in Benghazi ahead of last year’s attack there, and that the administration lied about why it downplayed terrorism as the cause of the assault. A new report — the result of months of investigation by five different House committees — says there was plenty of intelligence that presaged the attack, but the State Department and President Obama failed to heed the warnings or give the Defense Department the authority to respond to such an attack. The report exonerates the Pentagon itself,...

Anthony Weiner is on a roll. A week after floating his name as a possible mayoral candidate, the disgraced former congressman finishes second when he’s included in the field of Democrats, a new poll reveals. Weiner — who resigned from office in 2011 after getting caught in a sexting scandal — said he’s mulling a political comeback by running for mayor.

Times piece has sex details, not wife's Muslim Brotherhood connections. More than 5,000 words into the New York Times Magazine report on everything ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., and his wife, Huma Abedin, want you to know about Weiner’s “sexting” scandal that led him to resign from Congress in 2011, reporter Jonathan Van Meter pauses the story. Van Meter, a contributing editor at Vogue and New York Magazine, had worked diligently on this New York Times Sunday Magazine cover story – multiple interviews with Weiner and Abedin, both as a couple and separately. On some level, the prurient banality of what...

There is just no escape from the Weiner jokes. Apparently former congressman Anthony Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin, granted the New York Times Magazine a long interview with the intent of preparing the public for a new post-tweet exposure scandal campaign for public office, most likely for New York mayor. However, if Weiner  thought he could put the scandal, and the jokes, behind him he would be wrong. Although the extended profile of over 8300 words written by Jonathan Van Meter was mostly sympathetic, it just couldn't resist repeating an absolutely hilarious Weiner joke as told by former DNC...

Former Rep. Anthony Weiner is laying the groundwork for a political comeback, possibly as a startling addition to this year’s mayoral race, sources said yesterday. Political insiders were abuzz at news that Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin, had granted a lengthy magazine interview for the first time since his resignation in an embarrassing sexting scandal in 2011. “The magazine piece is step one of a two-step process for him to run citywide this year,” said one Democratic Party source. “He’s looking at public advocate and comptroller, but he really thinks he can use this to get back in and...

According to contemporary reports, as here and here, Egyptian protesters who pelted the motorcade of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with tomatoes during her visit to Egypt last July were chanting "Monica! Monica!" So who did Al Sharpton, on his MSNBC show this evening, blame for the tomato pelting? Why, Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann, of course! According to the Reverend Al, it was the raising by Beck and Bachmann of the possible connection of Hillary's top aide, Huma Abedin, to the Muslim Brotherhood that outraged the Egyptian horde. Sharpton says "there is absolutely nothing" to back the claims...

Huma Abedin drew worried glances at a fund-raiser for Terry McAuliffe, who is running for governor of Virginia, by wearing bandages on both forearms. Abedin was joined by husband Anthony Weiner at the event, thrown by billionaire hedge-fund manager and longtime Clinton backer Marc Lasry and his wife, Cathy, at his Manhattan town house. Sources tell us Abedin was injured during a cooking accident. She burned her arms taking something out of the oven.

Weiner may not be roasted just yet. Disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner spent $106,500 this month on two polls, apparently to test the possibility of staging what would be a stunning political comeback, according to campaign filings yesterday. “When you spend $50,000 on a poll, that’s the real thing,” said one political insider. “You’re getting everything you can find out from voters. This guy spent a hundred grand.”

Former President Bill Clinton, who in 1996 signed into law an act defining marriage as between a man and woman, said on Thursday the measure was unconstitutional and should be overturned by the Supreme Court. … Noting that the Supreme Court will hear arguments on March 27 challenging the constitutionality of DOMA, Clinton wrote the justices “must decide whether it is consistent with the principles of a nation that honors freedom, equality and justice above all, and is therefore constitutional. As the president who signed the act into law, I have come to believe that DOMA is contrary to those...

Last November the American people sold their freedom for free stuff and traded their birthright for trinkets. The"messiah" stood before the unknowing masses and with lies and deception promised the people he would care for them, that while others sought to oppress them, he like Moses would lead the downtrodden to the promised land. With the self-assured manner of a snake-oil salesman promising to cure all ills with his magic tonic, Barack Hussein Obama gave the people what they wanted...hope! But the hope he gave them was not based in reality, but on lies and deception, on a promise he...

Huma Abedin has gone from breakneck pace to break time. The beautiful wife of randy former Rep. Anthony Weiner is off the State Department payroll and plotting her next moves while her disgraced hubby sorts out his future, The Post has learned. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told The Post, “Abedin resigned effective Friday, February 1 — Secretary [Hillary Rodham] Clinton’s last day.”

During Hillary Clinton's farewell speech before all employees of the State Department today, it was impossible not to notice the 'burqa lady' employee deliberately positioned behind her:

Will Huma Adedin lose her security clearence as soon as Hillary steps down from SOS? Huma Mahmood Abedin (born 1976) is an American deputy chief of staff and aide to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Ties to Muslim Brotherhood: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/312211/huma-abedin-s-muslim-brotherhood-ties-andrew-c-mccarthy#

The terrorists who attacked the In Amenas gas complex in eastern Algeria appear to have been of several nationalities, and may have trained in jihadist camps across the border in southern Libya, according to sources familiar with the situation there. Algerian security sources told Reuters late Thursday that the militants whose bodies had been recovered from the complex so far included three Egyptians, two Tunisians, two Libyans, a Malian and a French citizen. -snip- A U.S. official told CNN Wednesday that the hostage-takers appeared to have crossed the Libyan border -- some 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the gas complex...

The basic condition for Sharia is an islamic state, or . This condition is mostly absent in the West, and is even lacking throughout the wider Muslim world, except in places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, provinces of Afghanistan and Pakistan. A Caliphate has not ruled in the Muslim world since at least the demise of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924. The project of the Muslim Brotherhood is to reinstate a Caliphate. Al-Qaradawi is the undisputed leader of the Global Muslim Brotherhood, the movement's uber-authority. Based in Qatar, his ultimate, avowed goal is to have the islamic law (Sharia) enforced...

The Egyptian revolution took another bad turn Thursday, as President Mohamed Morsi gave himself dictatorial powers over the legislature and courts. The world has feared that the Muslim Brotherhood would favor one-man, one-vote, once, and the Morsi coup is an ominous sign. "The people wanted me to be the guardian of these steps in this phase," Reuters quoted Mr. Morsi as saying on Friday. "I don't like and don't want—and there is no need—to use exceptional measures. But those who are trying to gnaw the bones of the nation" must be "held accountable." Mr. Morsi says his diktat will merely...

While campaigning in Florida with the Veterans for Romney, Senator John McCain was interviewed by Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers. One of the questions had to do with why he defended Huma Abedin and railed against Rep. Michele Bachmann on the Senate floor. Not only was his answer disgraceful but it was demonstrably false (that means it was a lie). Via TCPalm: Q: You spoke on the Senate floor against a letter from Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., that asked for an investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence in the federal government. The letter, also signed by Tequesta Republican U.S. Rep. Tom...

As some readers will recall, a few months ago, in the spirit of columnist-bites-editor, I "spiked" the Washington Examiner after editorial page editor David Freddoso refused to run my column "Outing the Muslim Brotherhood." The column reported on a written request, then making gigantic media waves, from Rep. Michele Bachmann and four House colleagues to inspectors general at five government agencies asking them simply to investigate alarming evidence of Muslim Brotherhood penetration of US government decision-making. One of the members' exhibits was SecState Clinton's top aide Huma Abedin, whose family members, in a nutshell, have been tightly, deeply and demonstrably...

NEW YORK – As a student at Harvard Law School, then-bachelor Barack Obama’s practice of wearing a gold band on his wedding-ring finger puzzled his colleagues. Now, newly published photographs of Obama from the 1980s show that the ring Obama wore on his wedding-ring finger as an unmarried student is the same ring Michelle Robinson put on his finger at the couple’s wedding ceremony in 1992. Moreover, according to Arabic-language and Islamic experts, the ring Obama has been wearing for more than 30 years is adorned with the first part of the Islamic declaration of faith, the Shahada: “There is...

Two Coptic Christian children, aged 10 and 9, have been arrested for insulting religion in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Beni Suef, Ahram Online reported on Wednesday. According to the report, the two children were arrested on Tuesday after the imam of their local mosque filed a complaint against them. By order of the prosecution the two boys, Nabil Nagy Rizk and Mina Nady Farag, are now being held in the Beni Suef juvenile detention pending further investigation on Sunday, said the report. Ibrahim Mohamed Ali, the village imam, has accused the children of tearing up pages of the Koran....

The Obama administration has released details of a plan to infuse another $300 million into West Bank and Gaza construction projects, spending it deems critical toward attaining the “success of a future Palestinian state.” Despite combined U.S. and international donor-community efforts, a significant portion of the public infrastructure currently under Palestinian Authority control remains in need of expansion or repair, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development, the USAID. Obama, through USAID, is stepping in to meet the need as a successful Palestinian state “depends upon an infrastructure system capable of providing basic services to a growing population,” the...

US Secretary of State Clinton on Friday pledged $45 million in new aid to the Syrian opposition and its allies, as they seek to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Clinton announced that the Obama administration would provide the political opposition with $15 million in non-lethal aid and $30 million in humanitarian support, according to the Associated Press. To date, the US has provided more than $130 million in humanitarian aid and $45 million in non-lethal aid, the AP noted. Clinton made the announcement at a meeting of the Friends of Syria. Nine activists who have worked with pro-opposition local coordination...

Another day, another step in the Obama administration's narrative collapse. Last night, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton became the highest-ranking administration official to admit that the fairy tale of a "spontaneous" protest that "spun out of control" in Benghazi was untrue. Instead, Clinton went so far as to suggest that al-Qaeda had succeeded in striking an American diplomatic mission for the first time since the twin embassy bombings in 1998, while her husband was President: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday suggested there was a link between the Qaeda franchise in North Africa and the attack at the...

Here are two quotes from two world leaders. See if you can guess the speakers. Leader #1: "Any action that is provocative [and] offends the religious thoughts and feelings of any people, we condemn. Likewise, we condemn any type of extremism. Of course, what took place was ugly; offending the Holy Prophet is quite ugly." Leader #2: "The future must not belong to those who target Coptic Christians in Egypt ... The future must not belong to those who bully women ... The future must not belong to those corrupt few who steal a country's resources ... The future must...

As the reincarnation of Meyer Lansky once said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Well, wadda ya know, the Duplicitous Despot just happens to be a man badly in need of a serious crisis, and the Middle East just happens to be on fire. But surely Obama couldn’t have created the turmoil in Arab countries all by himself, could he? No, but he certainly has done everything within his power to fan the flames of discontent throughout the region, such as playing up the infamous, anti-Muslim YouTube video as the cause of the “spontaneous” Islamic protests....

ANN ARBOR, MI – U.S. Army Lieutenant General (Ret.) William "Jerry" Boykin, in a recent World Net Daily radio interview, confirmed that people with high security clearances connected to the Muslim Brotherhood hold important positions in every major federal agency including the Pentagon and the Department of Defense. The Muslim Brotherhood is a radical Islamist organization that has vowed the destruction of America from within".