Free Republic

The neocons became close to McCain in the 1990s, when they supported American intervention in the Balkans. According to the New Republic’s John Judis, the first sign of neocon influence on McCain came in 1999. McCain delivered a speech at Kansas State University in which he touted “national greatness conservatism,” Since then, McCain has, of course, become the most prominent advocate of ramping up the U.S. effort in Iraq, not to mention Sudan and a variety of other hotspots. If McCain becomes president, the neocons will be in charge.

News Russia claims Syrian rebels planning Idlib chemical weapons attack The Kremlin has claimed that rebels are planning a chemical weapons attack with the intent of blaming it on Syria. Russia also says a British contractor is helping the militants... Russia's Defense Ministry said Saturday that Syrian rebels are planning a chemical weapons attack, with the aim of blaming it on the Syrian government to provoke a military response from the West. The ministry issued a statement quoting unnamed sources claiming that the jihadi group Levant Liberation Committee — also known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — is preparing an attack...

Rick Wilson is a long-time Republican strategist and the architect of all manner of knives-out campaign ads, including one particularly vicious spot from the 2008 presidential campaign that hammered Barack Obama’s connection to the Reverend Jeremiah Wright with the tag: “Barack Obama: Too Radical, Too Risky.” He helped start the Never Trump movement. It cost him friends and all manner of potential political work. It subjected him to the threats and fury of Trump’s troll army. He was labelled a Rino (Republican in name only) and a party traitor. And he didn’t care. Right is right, and Trump was clearly,...

The number of Russians residing and working in the Czech Republic has been steadily growing in recent years. Today Russians are the fourth strongest foreign minority in the country, after Vietnamese, Slovak and Ukrainian nationals. In the last decade their number rose from 23,000 to 37,000. For young Russians, Prague is an attractive city free of the constraints of the Putin regime, and a good place for business and entertainment. The language barrier is easily surmountable due to both nations speaking a Slavic language. However there is one barrier that is harder to cross and that is the stigma of...

Videos at link. On Monday morning the White House officially announced the reinstatement of sanctions on Iran after the U.S. left the nuclear agreement earlier this year. “Our policy is based on a clear-eyed assessment of the Iranian dictatorship, its sponsorship of terrorism, and its continuing aggression in the Middle East and all around the world,” President Trump said in a statement. During an interview with Fox News, National Security Advisor John Bolton detailed the move and called on the regime to end its "belligerent" behavior. "This is an indication of how strongly we feel that the Iranian nuclear weapons...

Bill Kristol, the former editor-in-chief of The Weekly Standard, is considering challenging President Donald Trump in the 2020 Republican primary. Kristol, who is consistently one of the most vocal anti-Trump Republicans, has been considering a run for months, a source familiar with Kristol’s thinking told The Daily Caller News Foundation. Kristol, who remains an editor-at-large for the Standard, said he has no plans to run but declined to rule it out when asked by TheDCNF. “No plans to run. But I’m randomly in Boston today, and happen to have had lunch with someone who does a lot of work in...

Interesting Video

When Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the green light to Russian aerial bombing of rebel-held positions in southwestern Syria two weeks ago, he knew he was asking for trouble. And he appears to be getting plenty of it. Putin knows that in approving the operation, he wasn’t simply enabling Syrian President Bashar Assad and his Syrian military forces to extend the regime’s control to an area that has been controlled by various rebel militia for seven years.The Syrian military is an empty shell. Russia effectively serves as the Syrian Air Force. Iran and Iranian-controlled groups control Syria’s ground forces.Israeli intelligence assesses...

Billionaire conservative icon David Koch is stepping down from the Koch brothers’ network of business and political activities. The 78-year-old New York resident is suffering from deteriorating health, according to a letter that older brother Charles Koch sent to company officials Tuesday morning. Charles Koch wrote that he is “deeply saddened” by his brother’s retirement. “David has always been a fighter and is dealing with this challenge in the same way,” he wrote. […] Democrats have demonized the Koch brothers for their outsized influence in conservative politics over the last decade. Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid regularly attacked Republicans...

There has been a lot of misinformation about both getting out of the so-called Iran deal and getting into a new North Korean agreement. The two situations may be connected, but not in the way we are usually told. Getting out of the Iran deal did not destroy trust in the U.S. government. Our departure from the deal does not mean that North Korea cannot reliably negotiate with America. [snip] Obama got the deal approved by the Iranians in part by paying them ransom for hostages through huge nighttime cash transfers.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a speech on Monday outlining President Trump's new strategy to counter the Islamic Republic of Iran: Intensify the Iranian regime's ongoing liquidity and political crisis to induce fundamental changes in behavior across a range of malign activities. In short, maximum diplomacy backed by maximum pressure. Pompeo's speech today was a reply to the critics of the administration's Iran policy who have argued that Trump had no "Plan B" for the day after his May 8 decision to withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement. That deal gave the Islamic Republic patient pathways to...

Republican Sen. John McCain says former President Obama called to thank him after his dramatic vote against his party’s Obamacare repeal bill last year. In a copy of his forthcoming book, “The Restless Wave,” obtained by the Daily Beast, McCain said he appreciated the call from Obama. The two ran against each other in the 2008 presidential election. “Among the people who called to thank me was President Obama,” McCain writes. “I appreciated the call, but, as I said, my purpose hadn’t been to preserve his signature accomplishment but to insist on a better alternative, and to give the Senate...

Team Obama lives in a world of fiction. As President Trump announced to the world that he would finally put a stake through the heart of the Iran deal -- the signal foreign policy "achievement" of the Obama administration -- Obama's former staffers lamented, rending their sackcloth and smearing their ashes. "I will never forget the dark cloud that hung over the White House in the years Iran was advancing nuclear program & Obama was briefed on all the risks of using military force," former United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power tweeted. "Trump has demolished America's credibility & paved the...

Trump 'Committed' to Iran Regime Change, Giuliani Says Days Before Nuclear Deadline President's lawyer and confidant calls regime change 'only way to achieve Mideast peace and 'more important than an Israeli-Palestinian deal' ■ Rohani warns of 'historic' mistake Amir Tibon (Washington) May 06, 2018 8:31 AM WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trump is "committed" to regime change in Iran, Trump's lawyer and confidant Rudy Giuliani said on Saturday. The unusual statement comes just days before Trump will have to make a dramatic decision on the fate of the nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic. Giuliani, the former New York City...

The report found that U.N. member states only voted with the United States 31 percent of the time last year on resolutions at the U.N. General Assembly – down 10 percent from the prior year. Reacting to the new report, Haley said in a statement that it was not an “acceptable return” on the United States’ investment and suggested this could factor into aid decisions. Haley emphasized that U.S. taxpayers pay for 22 percent of the U.N. budget – more, she said, than the next three highest donor nations combined. Haley noted that the U.S. cares more about “being right...

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sat down on Sunday, April 29 in Tel Aviv to discuss the Iranian threat, a Russian-backed Syrian force struck across the Euphrates to capture a string of US-backed fortified Kurdish SDF villages. This incursion of a key US area of influence region in eastern Syria, if confirmed, would rip up a key element of the US-Russian de-confliction zones accord and provide Iran with a springboard for a leap up to the Iraqi border. Pompeo, on his first Middle East Trip as Secretary of State, reiterated in Tel Aviv –...

Brad Thor, a bestselling author, said last week that he plans to challenge President Trump in 2020, "if no conservative steps up." Thor, a conservative who has voiced criticism of Trump, made the announcement in a series of Tweets. According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings, however, Thor has not filed to run for president.

When the news broke on Tuesday night that CIA Director Mike Pompeo had met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, I was not surprised. Pompeo had long ago established his importance to this administration and his understanding of geopolitics. Pompeo’s skills are precisely why the president nominated him to be the next Secretary of State—and why it’s so absurd that Democrats are reluctant to confirm him.Considering the increasing gridlock in the Senate over President Donald Trump’s nominees, this is a good time to remind our Democratic friends of Pompeo’s many qualifications—qualifications that have only increased since he earned Democratic support to become CIA...

Marc Thiessen: Pompeo is close to confirmation and 11 senators are close to making a colossal mistakeFor the first time in the history of the republic, it appears increasingly likely that a majority of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will vote against the president's nominee for secretary of state. If this happens, it would be a black mark not on Mike Pompeo's record, but on the reputation of this once-storied committee. ~snip~ Last year, all 10 Democrats on the committee voted "no" to Rex Tillerson's nomination, making him the first secretary of state in history to be approved on a...

Mike Pompeo may not be the secretary of state, but he’s already made more history than most people with the title. Earlier this week, the White House made the world’s jaws drop when the president announced that the CIA Director had spent Easter in a secret meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. If Democrats didn’t think the Kansan was capable of diplomacy, they must have second thoughts now. As even the Washington Post admits, it was a groundbreaking moment for the United States. “No CIA director is publicly known to have ever met with North Korea’s leader and...