Free Republic

LATELY I’ve been running into people even more put off by the Clintons than the nefarious operatives in the “vast right wing conspiracy” ever were. They’re called Democrats. I had breakfast with one last week. I’d quote him directly, but The Times doesn’t permit profanity. He’s furious at Hillary and Bill, because they’ve once again created all these ugly, obvious messes that they could and should have avoided. He’s disgusted, because he has come to believe that they’re tainted. He’s also resolute: He’s voting — even rooting — for Hillary. Party loyalty motivates him. On top of which, he’s...

Longtime Hillary Clinton ally Sidney Blumenthal will testify this month before the House Select Committee on Benghazi behind closed doors.The committee subpoenaed him a few weeks ago after a report revealed that he had sent misleading and sometimes inaccurate emails about Libya directly to Clinton while she was Secretary of State.According to Bloomberg, the Benghazi committee will speak to Blumenthal on June 16th in a closed session.The committee will presumably grill Blumenthal on the aforementioned emails, including one that made the inaccurate claim that the Benghazi attack could be sourced back to a YouTube video in an email Clinton...

Rocket alerts sounded in Ashkelon and the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council on Saturday evening. Residents reported hearing at least one explosion. The Israel Defense Forces deployed Iron Dome missile defense batteries in several locations in the south this week following several incidents of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip toward Israeli territory.

Reflections on isolationism and foreign policy, on Decoration Day... When the field is crowded, candidates find a way to differentiate themselves. No surprise there. One way that some candidates have chosen in recent years is to set themselves apart from the “war hawks” of the other party, or even of their own party, by preaching isolationism, and by declaring that isolationism is the true heritage of our Founding Fathers. They will quote Presidents Washington and Jefferson, who warned, on occasion, of the need to “avoid entangling alliances” like those of the Old World. And they will imply that isolationism –...

Early-state Democrats are evenly divided over whether Hillary Clinton’s campaign should be worried about recent polls showing her highest unfavorability ratings in years. Exactly 50 percent say there’s cause for concern while the other 50 percent saw no reason for alarm. [Snip] “Twenty-plus Republicans beating her up, Elizabeth Warren talking about the working man issues that terrify her, a couple of candidates like Bernie [Sanders] and Martin [O’Malley] to fill in her policy blanks and a media that feels stiffed by her lack of access, so all we can focus on is emails and the notorious Clinton Foundation and newly...

President Obama's stunning declaration that the global image of the United States has greatly improved under his administration is another example of his ideology and narcissism's blinding him to his many policy failures. During a White House event with the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative, he managed to turn the subject to himself, saying, "People don't remember -- when I came into office, the United States in world opinion ranked below China and just barely above Russia. And today, once again, the United States is the most respected country on earth." As evidence, the White House cited a Gallup poll,...

Painful truth: The really awful thing about speaking for this State Dept is all the spin one must do on behalf of the govt of Iran Frum wrote that yesterday. More than 24 hours later, Harf’s still shilling for our partners in peace in Tehran. To understand what this is about, re-read yesterday’s post about the growing alarm among western diplomats that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium has been increasing despite their promises to freeze it at a certain level. There may be an innocent-ish explanation for that related to the process of converting uranium into fuel rods; there may...

Following through on a threat, House Republicans on Tuesday proposed cutting the State Department's budget to protest its slow response in producing documents related to the investigation of the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya

There was a ton of bad news for Hillary Clinton in two new polls that put the former Secretary of State’s favorability deeper into negative territory amid harsh voter assessments of her personality – particularly her trustworthiness. When asked by CNN/ORC if Clinton was honest and trustworthy, only 42 percent of respondents said yes while 57 percent said no. That was down from 50/49 percent in March and 56/43 percent in March 2014. Clinton’s favorability ratings are also the lowest in a Washington Post-ABC News poll since April 2008 when she first sought the Democratic presidential nomination. Today, just 41...

State Department spokesperson Marie Harf said she was “perplexed” by a New York Times story Tuesday on Iran’s 20 percent increase in nuclear fuel over the past 18 months. The United States has been in negotiations with Iran for a final deal about their nuclear program. The International Atomic Energy Agency issued a report on Friday that documented an increase of Iran’s nuclear fuel stockpile. A reporter asked Harf if Iran’s increased stockpiles has complicated the current negotiations. “Not at all. Our team read that story this morning and was quite frankly perplexed because the main contentions of it are...

White House spokesman Josh Earnest looks on the bright side. Pressed Tuesday by ABC’s Jonathan Karl about a New York Times report that Iran had increased its nuclear fuel stockpile 20 percent over the last 18 months of negotiations, Earnest reminded reporters the monitoring measures put in place were what allowed the U.S. to see Iran’s brazen behavior in broad daylight. “But you don’t dispute their finding that they have a 20 percent increase in uranium fuel over what they had at the start of these negotiations?” Karl asked. “Uh, no,” Earnest said. “You’re not concerned about that, you don’t...

Lady M summoned the little children to the White House yesterday for her spring garden harvest meal. Staff harvested the garden earlier Wednesday, so all that was left for the first lady and two dozen students to do was to prepare the waiting baskets and bowls of cauliflower, kohlrabi, broccoli, fennel and lettuce. Umm, um um – that sounds yummy. Jefferson Lopez-Martinez demonstrates gang sign for a peanut butter and jelly sandwichShe also told the children that it's important to help bees, butterflies and other creatures that spread the pollen around.Charter members of Future Obama Pollinators of Amerika Some of this year’s...

Iranian nuclear fuel stockpiles grew by a massive 20% over the past 18 months of negotiations between Iran and world powers, a report last month by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has revealed. The report comes just one month ahead of the June 30 deadline set for the P5+1 powers and Iran to finalize a deal over Tehran's nuclear program. News that Iran has been busily expanding its stockpiles contradicts claims by US President Barack Obama that the Islamic Republic had "frozen" its nuclear program during the last year and a half of negotiations. Despite that, western leaders appear...

“We’re certainly not going to coordinate with a brutal dictator who’s massacred so many of his own citizens,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters on Tuesday. “That’s just an absurd proposition. That’s certainly not going to happen.” She was talking about Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “And—look,” Harf continued. “There’s nothing ideological about standing up and saying Bashar al-Assad has no place in the future of Syria. And we are not going to partner with a brutal dictator like that to defeat a terrorist organization.” …

There seems to be some controversy over whether Marie Harf is being promoted or unceremoniously “kicked up stairs.” Butt let’s be honest; not only is Spokes-mouth Barbie not the sharpest knife in the drawer, she makes the butter knife look like a lethal weapon: Harf is a dim bulb and the complete authorized version of the doctrine according to Barry shines none too brightly to begin with. Reduced to talking points and subject to questions, the doctrine is quickly reduced to parody. Thus Marie Harf. – PowerlineThus the “promotion” to  Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications to Secretary of State John...

This week’s top Mis-spoke award goes to Mosel Marie:-Goodness, what a big face you have!Following in the lip prints of Baghdad Bob the ever affable Marie advises us that the Iraqi army is still “holding the line” just outside the city of Ramadi:“Hold that line! Hold that line!” Boy, that high school cheerleading experience sure comes in handy now that Marie is the deputy spokesmouth at the State Department. Marie Harf: Varsity Cheerleader for the Grandville High Blue Aces, 1999And did you know that when Marie was an actual high school cheerleader she nearly died from toxic shock syndrome? True...

Doing her best impression of Baghdad Bob, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf gave the Iraqi army props following the fall of Ramadi. Never mind that Iraqi forces cut and ran, surrendering the city to Islamic State militants. “The Iraqi security forces have held their lines on the outside of the city,” Harf told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Wednesday.

The Obama administration insisted Monday that Saudi Arabia’s King Salman isn’t snubbing President Barack Obama with his decision not to attend a Camp David meeting this week, despite widespread speculation that his absence seems to be a rebuke to Obama’s effort to reach a nuclear deal with Iran. Obama had invited King Salman to meet at the White House and Camp David on May 13 and 14, and the White House had indicated that the two would meet in private before a meeting of other Gulf Cooperation Council states. On Sunday, however, Saudi Arabia said it would instead send the...

ISTANBUL — The mayor of Ankara, the Turkish capital, fired out a slew of sexist, anti-American remarks on Twitter on Wednesday and promoted a photograph that referred to Marie Harf, the State Department spokeswoman, as a “stupid blonde.” Melih Gokcek, Ankara’s combative mayor and close ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, criticized Ms. Harf for her “silence” about the death of a black man who was fatally injured while in police custody in Baltimore after she had heavily criticized Turkey for its disproportionate use of police force during antigovernment protests in 2013. He lashed out at her on Twitter and...

At the tender age of 33, Marie Harf has attained a special kind of immortality, joining a list of luminaries (for instance, Thomas Crapper) whose names have become verbs. The Urban Dictionary has now listed “Harfing” as a verb: Harfing To say or assert something so patently stupid and preposterous as to generate widespread mockery. Named in honor of State Department Spokesperson Marie Harf. The State Department Spokesperson was harfing on about how Islamic State jihadists only needed job opportunities in order to give up their evil ways. And yesterday, Marie gave us another example: