Free Republic

Democrats routinely express outrage over claims of collusion with a foreign power to undermine our democracy. So where is the outrage over revelations that former secretary of state John Kerry held not one but three secret meetings with Iran's foreign minister to strategize over how to undermine President Trump's plans to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal? Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed the meetings after the Boston Globe broke the news, declaring,.. "We don't see the U.S. just as Mr. Trump; the United States is not just the current ruling administration." ..Think about what this means. ..Iran is a terrorist...

OH BOY! Iranian Regime Threatens to Release Names of Western Officials Who Took Bribes to Pass Nuke Deal. (Full title). ... Earlier this week President Trump withdrew from the sham Iranian nuclear deal. President Trump knew the deal with the Iranian mullahs was not working. This was despite former Secretary of State John Kerry working against the Trump administration to salvage the weak deal with the Iranian regime. ... Of course, the Iranian regime is very upset with President Trump’s decision. Now this… Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari warned Western officials this week that if they do not...

Trump's renown is rooted in American hero myths. Trump says that women like Carla Bruni lust after him, something that women like Carla Bruni vehemently deny. Trump says he is exorbitantly rich, yet Trump ran himself into the ground with his casinos to the point that he was 295 million dollars in debt in 1990. He was bailed out by the banks and by his father. The greatest myth, though, has to do with Trump's alleged negotiating expertise. This too is nonsense. Trump was never proficient in the art of the deal. As a businessman, he paid far too much...

Leading politicians in Denmark were broadly critical of the announcement on Tuesday by President Donald Trump that the United States would violate the Iran nuclear deal. In a statement at the White House on Tuesday, Trump said the US would “exit the Iran deal” agreed with other major powers in 2015, and warned that “any nation that helps Iran in its quest for nuclear weapons could be strongly sanctioned”. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal, was agreed in 2015 between Iran, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus...

The time has come to part ways with the unhinged Erdoğan. Turkey’s acceptance to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in October 1951 was a boon for the organization. Though its human rights record was far from stellar, it was staunchly anti-Communist, maintained a formidable army, was amenable to the placement of NATO assets in the country, including nuclear-tipped Jupiter ballistic missiles and was strategically located, flanking the Soviet Union on the south and acting as a bridge between Europe and Asia.  Though Turkey was technically a Muslim country, it leaders, following the doctrines espoused by Kamal Ataturk, zealously guarded...

US President Donald Trump’s pullout from the Iran nuclear deal has put Europe under pressure to salvage the 2015 multilateral agreement. But does the EU have what it takes to stand up to US sanctions? The day after Trump announced his long-dreaded decision to withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, EU members were hammering out measures to try to protect European firms doing business in Iran from US sanctions. The JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) – as the Iran deal is formally known – was signed between Iran, the US, Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany and the EU....

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took aim at investors who are selling Turkish lira, saying the currency was under attack as it hit fresh record lows against the dollar. Erdoğan said there was no technical or rational reason why the lira should be losing so much value. Turkey has prepared a “project” that will reverse this trend, he said in a speech on Tuesday. The lira hit a new record as Erdoğan spoke, falling to as low as 4.3 to the U.S. currency. It declined 0.6 percent to 4.2946 at 1:28 p.m. in Istanbul. The currency had traded at 1.15...

Some 2,000 Turkish Jews have applied for Portuguese citizenship after Portugal’s government decided to grant nationality through naturalization to the descendants of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Portugal and Spain in the 15th century, Portuguese Ambassador to Ankara Paula Leal da Silva has said.The ambassador said she believes some 17,000 Sephardic Jews currently live in Turkey. Some of the applicants among the 2,000 have received the citizenship since the law was adopted two years ago, while some others’ acceptance process is still ongoing, da Silva told the Hürriyet Daily News in an interview. “The story is very simple, but...

After a huge electoral victory that saw his party win a two-thirds super-majority, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán has announced tougher immigration rules and his vision of a Hungary built on “Christian democracy”. The Hungarian leader announced his new plans in a radio broadcast on Friday, saying: “We are building a Christian democracy. An old-fashioned Christian democracy whose roots are in the European tradition, where human dignity is essential and where there is a separation of powers,” newspaper Ouest France reports. We will defend the Christian culture and we will not give the country to foreigners,” Orban added, and spoke...

Military analyst Roni Daniel said the intelligence suggested Iran would use Shiite militias already deployed in Syria, along with experts from Hezbollah. Iran is preparing a barrage of missiles to launch against Israeli military positions from Syrian territory, Hebrew media reported Sunday, citing defense officials.

After a large group of migrants aggressively tried to prevent the deportation of a Togolese man this week, right-wing politicians called for mass deportations. But a senior Christian Democrat (CDU) figure said on Friday that deportations can have a bad impact on families. “Deportations often hit the wrong people — families who have lived in Germany for an eternity and who are well integrated,” Daniel Günther, the Minister-President of Schleswig-Holstein told the Funke Media Group. Günther, who is a key figure in Angela Merkel’s CDU made the comments in reaction to calls for more deportations of migrants after ugly scenes...

Amid rising tensions with Russia, the Pentagon has announced the official launch of a new naval command and the reactivation of the US Second Fleet to bolster the US and Nato presence in the Atlantic Ocean. “The return to great power competition and a resurgent Russia demands that Nato refocus on the Atlantic to ensure dedicated reinforcement of the continent and demonstrate a capable and credible deterrence effect,” said Johnny Michael, a Pentagon spokesman. He said the new Nato command “will be the linchpin of trans-Atlantic security”. The decision reflects escalating worries across Europe and within Nato over Russia’s increased...

Theresa May taunted Jeremy Corbyn that he had 'failed' today after the Tories held key London seats in local elections and made gains in other parts of the country. In the biggest test of public opinion since the general election, Labour's efforts to wrest the strongholds of Westminster, Wandsworth and Barnet from the Tories fell flat. In Barnet, where Labour needed just one seat to secure control, the Tories entrenched their position - with defeated councillors launching a furious attack on Mr Corbyn for failing to get a grip on the anti-Semitism crisis. Labour also came up short in crucial...

Newly appointed U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu met on the sidelines of NATO foreign ministers summit in Brussels on Friday.  The U.S. Department of State said Pompeo and Çavuşoğlu discussed the situation in Syria and a range of bilateral issues, including U.S. citizens detained in Turkey.  “The secretary and foreign minister agreed on the value of U.S.-Turkish partnership in the region and of maintaining close communication. Secretary Pompeo conveyed the administration’s concern for U.S, citizens and mission Turkey local staff detained in Turkey. Building upon prior discussions on Manbij, the two reaffirmed...

On Thursday British voters will go the polls in councils and regions across the country to vote in the latest round of UK local elections, in what will be a major test of Theresa May's leadership. Polls will open from 07:00 to 22:00 in 150 English councils, with all of London's 32 boroughs also up for grabs. A total of 4,500 seats will be contested across the country. The prime minister has had a difficult six months, losing four members of her cabinet and suffering a growing number of parliamentary defeats. As a result some commentators predict May's Conservative party...

The United States, the Global Coalition, and local partners, including the Syrian Democratic Forces, are launching operations to liberate the final ISIS strongholds in Syria. The fighting will be difficult, but we and our partners will prevail. We will defend United States, Coalition, and partner forces if attacked. The days of ISIS controlling territory and terrorizing the people of Syria are coming to an end. We will work with our NATO ally Turkey and our partners Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon to secure their borders from ISIS. We will seek further fair share contributions in forces, material, and resources from...

The clean energy transition and other initiatives to decarbonise Europe’s economy will represent 25% of EU spending under a seven-year EU budget plan put forward by the European Commission on Wednesday (2 May). Another key aspect is whether the EU will commit to stop funding fossil fuel projects like gas pipelines, which environmentalists claim risk locking Europe into unnecessary infrastructure. “I’m not sure it’s reached the upper layers of the Commission yet,” Gaventa said. Other parts of the budget could prove controversial, like a proposal to allocate 20% of revenue from carbon trading to the EU budget, as well as...

Far from home: Swedish Air Force Gulfstream S102B (102003) departed from Larnaca, #Cyprus, making surveillance mission over eastern Mediterranean Sea off #Syria, #Lebanon, #Israel and #Egypt coast @BalticWatch After “watching” Kaliningrad for months this Swedish ELINT aircraft has deployed to Cyprus to join ISR efforts off Syria. With all the assets in the area (RC-135, RQ-4, IAF G550s etc) I wonder if the SwAF plane is there because it has sensors/capabilities others lack

As Germany prepares to mark Karl Marx’s 200th birth anniversary, the revolutionary philosopher’s legacy remains divisive more than a quarter century after the fall of the Berlin Wall. With scars from the Cold War still fresh, people from capitalist former West Germany and the once communist East are of two minds about the 19th-century philosopher. Some hail Marx as a visionary scholar who foretold the ills of the market economy, while others revile him for inspiring Stalinist regimes. In the western town of Trier, the icon’s birthplace which is planning 600 events for his bicentenary, it is not lost on...

The vaunted “echo chamber” that President Barack Obama’s aide Ben Rhodes created to sell the Iran deal was quiet on Monday, in the aftermath of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s revelations of new intelligence proving that Iran had lied to the world about its nuclear weapons program. Netanyahu presented a trove of over 100,000 files, both paper and electronic, that he said Israel had obtained from a “vault” where Iran had stored an archive of its nuclear research. The files included diagrams of nuclear detonation devices, nuclear warhead designs, and plans for nuclear testing sites, among other incriminating information.