Free Republic

On Thursday, the panel on MSNBCÂ’s Morning Joe dog piled author Michael Wolff for propagating an unfounded rumor that President Trump had been having an affair with his ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley. The confrontation became so heated that the showÂ’s co-anchor Mika Brzezinski eventually cut the interview short and asked Wolff to leave. Michael Wolff became a media fixation in January upon publishing his anti-Trump book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. Following the controversial bookÂ’s release, he appeared on HBOÂ’s Real Time with Bill Maher, where he claimed that President Trump was having an affair....

Imagine this: The author of the most popular book in the country goes on Bill Maher’s show and says the following about President Barack Obama: “There is something in the book that I was absolutely sure of but it was so incendiary that I just didn’t have the ultimate proof,” he says. “I didn’t have the blue dress.” The host pushes the coy writer for a hint. “You just have to read between the lines toward the end of the book,” the writer answers. “When you hit that paragraph you’re going to say, ‘Bingo!’” Within moments, every person with a...

Don Cheadle has shown his real face on Twitter. The actor, one of Hollywood's favorite sons, couldn't help himself when U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley criticized him and his fellow "stars" on Twitter for politicizing the Grammys. [HALEY'S TWEET] Cheadle's response tells us all we need to know about his attitude toward women who dare disagree with his politics: [CHEADLE'S TWEET] Although he undoubtedly thought his followers would appreciate the insults to Haley, the opposite was the case. Many Twitter users accused Cheadle of being a sexist. ...

Some wonder why ‘liberal feminists’ have not come to her defenseMuch of the press coverage of first lady Melania Trump has descended from mere criticism and speculation to downright scandal mongering. The American public is not buying it, if recent poll numbers are a gauge. Since December, Mrs. Trump has garnered very respectable favorability ratings. Gallup found that 54 percent of the nation gave her a thumbs up. CNN reported her positive rating to be 47 percent while an Economist YouGov survey gave her a 48 percent. In the year since she became first lady, Mrs. Trump poll numbers have...

Abbas would do well to study Ambassador Haley's remarks carefully and disregard Kerry's faux diplomacy Former Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly sought to undermine the Trump administration’s current policy in dealing with the nihilist Palestinian leadership. According to an article appearing in Maariv, as quoted by the Jerusalem Post, Kerry met a senior Palestinian leader, Hussein Agha, in London recently and told him to convey a clandestine message to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The message was that Abbas should “play for time” and “not yield to President [Donald] Trump’s demands.” Kerry reportedly predicted that President Trump would not be...

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has vehemently denied a rumor started by “Fire and Fury” author Michael Wolff that she is having an extramarital affair with President Trump, calling the allegations that she slept her way to the top “disgusting” and “highly offensive” to women in power. “It is absolutely not true,” Mrs. Haley told Politico in an interview published Friday. “But it goes to a bigger issue that we need to always be conscious of: At every point in my life, I’ve noticed that if you speak your mind and you’re strong about it and you...

Russia's Putin and Turkey's Erdogan agree on creation of Palestinian state In a phonecall, the two leaders "discussed the situation of Middle East peace talks in the context of the resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly on the status of Jerusalem," the Kremlin said in a statement. They "confirmed the mutual disposition to continue to assist in resolving the Palestine-Israeli conflict on the basis of international norms and realisation of the right of the Palestinian people to create an independent state," it said. US President Donald Trump decided on December 6 to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Trump's move...

“The prospect of regime change is a serious concern. The Kremlin understands that (U.S. President Donald) Trump is unpredictable. They felt more secure with Barack Obama that he would not take any action that would explode the situation, but with Trump they don’t know.” Kortunov, the think-tank chief close to the Russian Foreign Ministry, said he did not think the Kremlin’s defense of Kim Jong Un was based on any personal affection or support for North Korea’s leadership, likening Moscow’s pragmatic backing to that it has given Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. Moscow’s position was motivated by a belief the status...

For decades, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has been touted by American leaders as a moderate man of peace. U.S. leaders from George W. Bush to Barack Obama, and from Condoleezza Rice to John Kerry, all insisted that Abbas is the Palestinian leader who will make an historic deal with Israel. President Donald Trump has met three times with Abbas since taking office. On Sunday night, Abbas showed them what he really thinks. He cursed Trump saying that the U.S. President’s “house should be destroyed.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas launched into a long-winded diatribe last Sunday against President Trump and against Israel’s legitimate right to exist as a Jewish state. Abbas called President Trump’s decision on Jerusalem a “slap in the face” and threatened that the Palestinians “will slap back.” Abbas declared, "Politically, Jerusalem is our capital; in our religion, it is our capital; geographically, it is our capital." As for Israel, Abbas claimed that “Israel is a colonialist project that has nothing to do with Jews. The Jews were used as a tool under the concept of the promised land — call it whatever...

The State Department has turned the page on Turkey for it no longer views Ankara as a reliable US partner. Many argue that Washington will abandon Syria’s Kurds in order to assuage Turkish anger. I doubt this. Washington expects more anti-US actions from Erdogan. Many in DC believe that Turkey’s rising Islamism, hardening dictatorship, and worsening anti-Israel rhetoric will only increase in the future. They do not hold out hope that Washington can reverse this trend.The US is increasingly falling back on support for Israel and Saudi Arabia. Trump has clearly set his course and reversed Obama’s effort to...

The Palestinian president on Wednesday again blasted Donald Trump in a fiery and emotional speech, saying the U.S. leader’s decision to recognize contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was “sinful” and “ill-fated.” Mahmoud Abbas, who has openly cursed Trump over his policies, told a conference in Egypt that the United States has disqualified itself from continuing as a broker in the long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, a role America has had for decades. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday he was certain the U.S. Embassy in Israel would be moved to Jerusalem sometime this year, much sooner than Trump administration...

Despite the “rise and fall of the unipolar concert,” China and Russia’s balancing strategies have backfired: they are not leading to multipolarity, but are actually reinforcing unipolarity. The reason is that China and Russia’s balancing strategies have focused on regional “revisionism,” which has provoked powerful responses in East Asia and Europe to contain them. Russia’s balancing strategy has to a large extent proven to be counter-productive. Instead of preventing the expansion of NATO through a “divide and conquer” strategy, or driving a diplomatic wedge between the United States and Europe, Russian revisionism has united NATO...Perhaps most illustrative of all, a...

Four former senior US officials claimed Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu offered the Obama administration a two-state solution in which Israel annexed the settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria in exchange for land in northern Sinai, next to Gaza, Haaretz reported. According to the officials, Netanyahu told then-US President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State John Kerry that he was sure Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi would agree to to the plan. However, when the US looked into the idea, they received a negative response. Netanyahu's office has denied this report, claiming it "is not accurate." In November 2017, Social...

Palestinian-Arabs in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) are not a very happy bunch these days, and not just because of Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Contrary to western media hype of a potential explosion of violence due to U.S. President Trump’s announcement, protests in the Palestinian territories were relatively subdued. Only a few thousand Palestinians participated in demonstrations at their peak. All considered, it was hardly the new Intifada that the terrorist group Hamas has called for. Palestinians, it seems, have much greater concerns to attend to. Mahmoud Abbas’ (Abu Mazen) less than inspiring leadership, whose...

LONDON — British Prime Minister Theresa May has dismissed concerns about Donald Trump’s mental fitness, saying the U.S. president acts in what he sees as the best interests of his country. A new book by journalist Michael Wolff quotes prominent Trump advisers as questioning the president’s competence. Asked in an interview whether she thought concerns about Trump’s mental state were serious, May said: “No.”

Like anyone else, politicians do get old, and when they do, their age frequently becomes obvious in public. One example is House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, who has repeatedly slurred her speech and spoken gibberish, both of which point to declining mental capabilities. Politicians also get life-threatening illnesses, such as cancer. Whether or not you like John McCain, his brain cancer was the likely culprit for his inability to speak clearly during his questioning of James Comey last month, something most people can look upon with compassion. Then there are politicians who try to hide that there are any health...

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Sunday shot back at a blockbuster new book that claims West Wing staffers worry about President Trump’s intellect and fitness for office, saying she’s never heard anyone question his “stability.” “I know those people in the White House,” Haley said on ABC’s “This Week.” “These people love their country and respect our president. … No one questions the [mental] stability of the president.” She said staffers and advisers are committed to their White House jobs and fully trust and respect the president because “if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be there.” Haley,...

Humanities professors say organization evading moral, professional duties Dozens of humanities scholars cancelled their membership with their field's leading professional academic organization ahead of its annual convention, in retaliation for the group refusing to impose boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel. The defecting professors wrote to the Modern Language Association—published in the days leading up to the conference being held this week in New York City—that they will not be renewing their membership, due to the organization "disgracefully" voting in June against BDS and in favor of a statement denouncing academic boycotts. Timothy Reiss, a professor emeritus of comparative literature...

Calling out the tyrants and dictators who abuse their people while threatening international peace and security U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley issued some stark warnings during a press briefing she held at UN headquarters on January 2nd. Her bluntness and moral clarity are welcome changes from the doublespeak and moral relativism we heard so often from her Obama-era predecessors, Susan Rice and Samantha Power. Demonstrating U.S. support for the Iranian people in their struggle against the regime, for example, Ambassador Haley told reporters that she intended to call for emergency meetings of the UN Security Council and...