Free Republic

In 2008 Michael B. Froman, then Citigroup executive, sends John Podesta a list of cabinet members. The email is dated Oct. 6, 2008 and bears the subject line “Lists.” It went to Podesta a month before he was named chairman of President-Elect Obama’s transition team. Froman’s list proved remarkably prescient. As it proposed, Robert Gates, a Bush holdover, became secretary of Defense; Eric Holder became attorney general; Janet Napolitano, secretary of Homeland Security; Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff; Susan Rice, United Nations ambassador; Arne Duncan, secretary of Education; Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services; Peter Orszag,...

<p>Instead of seeing Trump for who he is, his supporters create an imaginary figure who does no wrong.</p> <p>When former FBI Director James Comey's prepared congressional testimony hit the internet on Wednesday, President Donald Trump's supporters rejoiced. In the statement, Comey admitted that he told Trump on three separate occasions that Trump wasn't personally under investigation by the FBI in connection with potential Russian interference in the 2016 election.</p>

On this week’s broadcast of CBS’s “Face the Nation,” former secretary of defense Robert Gates said he was “in agreement” with President Donald Trump’s “disruptive approach.” Partial transcript as follows: DICKERSON: What’s your sense overall of President Trump as an unpredictable leader? GATES: Broadly philosophically, I’m in agreement with his disruptive approach. So in government, I’m a strong believer in the need for reform of government agencies and departments. They have gotten fat and sloppy and they’re not user-friendly. They are inefficient. They cost too much. I also think on the foreign policy side that there is a need for...

Mr. Tillerson emerged as a contender on the strong recommendations of James A. Baker III, the secretary of state under President George Bush, and Robert M. Gates, the former defense secretary, according to a person briefed on the process. Mr. Kushner and Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, advocated strongly for Mr. Tillerson, and the president-elect became intrigued.

President Obama held Gates over from the Bush era probably to tout his bipartisan credentials. Gates was listed as a Republican. He is as much a Republican as is Colin Powell – or as Obama is bipartisan. Obama knew Gates would be a willing ally in fundamentally transforming the military (as part of transforming America) from the ass-kicking outfit he inherited to the girly men can kickers it has become. Obama promised to disarm America to a level acceptable to Islam! He did, and Gates was a willing ally. Gates immediately fell in line with Obama’s anti-military, anti-American, pro-Muslim programs....

A long profile on Hillary Clinton in the Washington Post earlier this week highlights (the 2011 Libyan intervention) as a key indicator of her approach to foreign policy. Clinton claims that the Libyan bombing campaign was an example of “smart power at its best.” If she actually believes that, it raises serious questions about her judgment, as well as about her ability to analyze foreign policy dispassionately and with the best interests of the United States at heart. If Clinton is willing to point to Libya as a “signature moment in her four-year tenure” as secretary of state, as the...

Robert Gates became the Boy Scouts of America’s president facing deep divisions within the organization’s membership over whether to let gays serve openly in its ranks. On Thursday, Gates finished his two-year term by arguing the Scouts had overcome that challenge and were ready to reverse years of membership declines. In a speech to Scouting leaders, the former U.S. secretary of defense defended the compromise last year to allow openly gay adult leaders to serve in the Scouts, but give churches sponsoring troops the right to use sexual orientation as a guideline for selecting leaders. …

For years the Obama administration has been accused of micromanaging the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from inside the White House. Now in an astonishing report from Fox News anchor Bret Baier, three former Obama Defense Secretaries are openly slamming him for his distrust of the military, his failure to lead and they're exposing his inexperienced and closest advisors for second guessing senior field commanders with phone calls to the battlefield. "President Obama, he's one of the youngest presidents we've ever had. One of the most inexperienced presidents we've ever had. He has a staff around him that is very...

Former defense secretary Robert Gates laughed in an excerpted interview Friday while recalling the Obama administration’s inability to understand its military options during the 2011 Libya crisis. Special Report host Bret Baier interviewed Gates as part of a special airing Friday night called Rising Threats, Shrinking Military. Gates, a holdover from the George W. Bush administration who served under Obama from 2009 to 2011, sharply criticized aspects of the Obama White House’s foreign policy in his 2014 memoir Duty. He became particularly upset when he discovered that White House staff members were “talking about military options with the president without...

In a speech in Brussels, outgoing U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that America's military alliance with Europe faces a "dim, if not dismal" future, owing to what he characterized as the United States' disproportionate funding of NATO operations, and of allies "willing and eager for American taxpayers to assume the growing security burden left by reductions in European defense budgets."In decrying the inability of all NATO members to contribute to operations, such as enforcing the no-fly zone over Libya, Gates said, "Frankly, many of those allies sitting on the sidelines do so not because they do not want to...

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who served during the Obama administration, has turned into a harsh critic of the president, saying that Barack Obama always thinks he's the smartest person in the room. Gates also bashed Obama for bringing on advisers who do little else but constantly agree with his proposals, fostering a group-think environment where dissenting opinion essentially does not exist, The Free Beacon reports. In other words, there are no "strong" people around the president. And when there is dissent, Obama tries to crush it. Back in October, Politico reported that Obama's advisers urged him to deal with...

Wow! That was Mika Brzezinski's repeated reaction to Robert Gates' amazingly frank take on the presidential field. Appearing on today's Morning Joe, the former Defense Secretary shot down all contenders mentioned, dumped on two who have not yet entered the race, and retroactively knocked President Obama for always thinking he was the smartest guy in the room. Here was Gates' rap on various candidates: Ted Cruz: people proposing carpet bombing "don't know what they're talking about." Joe Biden: "I don't think so." Donald Trump: "if you have never beeen in government, your ability to make the government work is going...

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said President Obama distrusted the military, and “this was particularly true in Afghanistan” in an interview that was taped earlier in the week and broadcast on Thursday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel. Gates after discussing his doubts that President Obama believed in the mission in Afghanistan, and micromanaging of the military by the Obama administration was asked about the president’s suspicion of the military. He stated, “I think this was particularly true in Afghanistan, and I think there were people in the White House, and I don’t want to name any names, who...

CIA Releases New 'Noah's Ark' Documents Posted Nov. 13, 2002 By Timothy W. Maier Is it the Ark, or just a piece of rock? Two years after Insight filed an appeal charging that the CIA withheld documents and imagery concerning the Mount Ararat anomaly in Turkey, the CIA has released two new documents to Insight that indicate the search for "Noah's Ark" reached the level of the White House under former president George H.W. Bush. The appeal, filed one month after Insight's exclusive story (see "Anomaly or Noah's Ark?"; Nov. 20, 2000), comes on the heels of the CIA's releasing...

The Boy Scouts of America is a venerable institution. I can well remember when, as a Cub Scout in southern Louisiana, I learned the mysteries of initiation into the Scouts. It was exciting to become part of such a universally respected group. There were badges denoting achievement, uniforms indicating rank, handshakes conveying to other boys the hidden riches of membership, and, perhaps best of all, there was an oath.It was a galvanizing promise. One recited the oath while aiming for the heights, straining beyond one’s boyhood to glimpse the upright man that, with God’s help, one hoped to become....

Boy Scouts will now be subject to gay adult leadership if BSA (Boy Scouts of America) president Robert Gates’ advice is taken. Gates, who once held our military’s top position as Secretary of Defense, declared the inevitability of ending the ban on openly gay Scout leaders while addressing the BSA national annual meeting in Atlanta Thursday, May 21, 2015...

I said it was coming. Many of us did. Two years ago this week the Boy Scouts of America voted to welcome into its ranks “open and avowed” homosexuality (boy-on-boy sexual attraction and behavior), thereby disavowing the “morally straight” Scout Oath its members are sworn to uphold. Shortly thereafter I warned, “In so doing, the [Boy Scouts of America (BSA)] effectively waived the only legal defense it once had to preclude openly homosexual Scout leaders and gender-confused girls from its ranks: religious and moral conviction. It’s only a matter of time until the BSA is forced to capitulate to sexual...

The president of the Boy Scouts of America on Thursday called for an end to the group’s blanket ban on gay adult leaders, warning Scout executives that “we must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be,” and that “any other alternative will be the end of us as a national movement.” At the same time, religious organizations that sponsor a majority of local Scout troops, including the Mormons and Roman Catholics, should remain free to set their own policies for leaders, said the president, Robert M. Gates, the former director of the...

The White House has been examining a proposal by James Baker to launch a Middle East peace effort without Israel. The peace effort would begin with a U.S.-organized conference, dubbed Madrid-2, and contain such U.S. adversaries as Iran and Syria. Officials said Madrid-2 would be promoted as a forum to discuss Iraq's future, but actually focus on Arab demands for Israel to withdraw from territories captured in the 1967 war. They said Israel would not be invited to the conference. “As Baker sees this, the conference would provide a unique opportunity for the United States to strike a deal without...

Leon Panetta and Robert Gates, two former directors of the CIA and Defence Department, on Saturday criticised President Barack Obama's micromanagement of the military. “For the past 25 to 30 years, there has been a centralisation of power in the White House,” Panetta said during a panel discussion at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. “Because of that centralisation of authority at the White House, there are too few voices that are being heard.” Without naming the Obama administration, Panetta said that by the time you get to the White House, the staff has already decided what should be done. Panetta...