Free Republic

Former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul claimed Sunday that the U.S. and European Union may share responsibility for the downing of a Malaysia Airlines plane over Ukraine last week. “While western media outlets rush to repeat government propaganda on the event, there are a few things they will not report,” Paul, a former Republican congressman from Texas, wrote on his website. “They will not report that the crisis in Ukraine started late last year, when the EU and U.S. overthrew the elected Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych. Without U.S.-sponsored ‘regime change,’ it is unlikely that hundreds would have been killed in...

Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Richard Stengel gave a peculiar apology to outraged Twitter users on Sunday after he tweeted #UnitedForGaza to his 15,000 followers. In a tweet directed to the State Department, Mr. Stengel said, “Critical for a full, credible and unimpeded intl investigation of crash. Urge Russia to honor it’s [sic] commitment,” Twitchy first reported. After receiving swift backlash, the tweet was deleted, and Mr. Stengel sent out a terse explanation. “Earlier tweet with wrong hashtag was a mistake. My bad,” he said. (Snip) Twitter users weren’t buying Mr. Stengel’s apology.

The account for U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Rick Stengel published a tweet with a pro-Gaza hashtag, which was captured by the following screenshot.

<p>The White House allowed the parents of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl to take part in a series of secure video conferences with State Department and intelligence officials and senior military commanders, according to a published report.</p>

A senior White House aide said Thursday he had seen “no evidence” to confirm a report that rescued Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl converted to Islam, fraternized with the Taliban, and declared jihad during nearly five years of captivity. “We have seen no evidence of that,” deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken told CNN when asked about a Fox News report about Bergdahl’s conduct while imprisoned by the Taliban.

The United States on Tuesday rejected Israel’s expressions of disappointment over its statements that Washington was planning to cooperate with the new Palestinian Authority (PA) unity government. Deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said, in fact, that the new government does not include any members of the Hamas terrorist group. “It is not a government backed by Hamas. There are no members of Hamas in the government,” Harf told reporters. She added that the new unity government is a transitional one that is made up of individuals who are not politically associated with any party. “Hamas is a designated terror...

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki tentatively approved of Palestine’s new unity government Monday, saying “Based on what we know now, we intend to work with this government.” [....] Asked if this means that the U.S. will continue to provide aid to the Palestinian government, she replied “It does. But we will continue to evaluate the composition and policies of the new government and calibrate our approach accordingly.” Abbas swore in new government ministers Monday, and promised to support several peace principles, including recognizing Israel. This position is in conflict with the official stance in Jerusalem, which outright rejects the new...

"I really believe, having read it, that it is the smoking gun warning here. You've got this emergency meeting in Benghazi, less than a month before the attack. At that briefing, the people are told that there are ten, ten, Islamic militias and al-Qaeda groups in Benghazi. The consulate can not sustain a coordinated attack and they need extra help. This information goes directly to the office of the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. So, again, you have the culpability of the State Department. This is a very specific warning that they're in trouble, they need help and they see...

May 29, 2014 Reporters Openly Mocked the U.S. State Department’s Spokeswoman Today Bryan Preston Whatever US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki is trying to sell, she’ll have no buyers among the Washington press corps. Psaki tried arguing that President Obama “doesn’t give himself enough credit” for his foreign policy triumphs.Reporters asked a sensible question in response: What on earth are you talking about? When does this president not give himself enough credit?One reporter even asked Psaki how much credit she would give the president. Answer: A lot.As the conversation devolves into farce, this exchange happened. Q: I mean — I...

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki was openly mocked by the assembled press corps Thursday after saying President Obama “doesn’t give himself enough credit for what he’s done around the world.” Associated Press reporter Matt Lee asked sarcastically whether he deserved 200 percent credit, while another one wondered for what “accomplishments” Psaki meant he deserves more praise. “For engagement initiatives like Iran, what we’ve done on Ukraine, efforts to dive in and engage around the world,” she said. “I mean, Russia has still annexed Crimea,” another reporter asked. “I mean, Iran — there’s ongoing negotiations, but is that the success here...

The State Department misplaced and lost some $6 billion due to the improper filing of contracts during the past six years, mainly during the tenure of former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, according to a newly released Inspector General report. The $6 billion in unaccounted funds poses a “significant financial risk and demonstrates a lack of internal control over the Department’s contract actions,” according to the report. The alert, originally sent on March 20 and just released this week, warns that the missing contracting funds“could expose the department to substantial financial losses.” The report centered on State Department contracts worth...

Bureau boss overseeing shipments has Benghazi connectionsThe State Department bureau tasked with secretly sending to embassies plastic and liquid explosives operates under the guidance of Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick F. Kennedy, whom a congressional panel last year separately found to be largely responsible for security lapses in Benghazi, WND has learned. A series of WND articles recently exposed the purchase and international transport of many hundreds of pounds of plastic, sheet and linear explosives along with thousands of containers of high-energy liquid explosives. Weeks after a State official laughed in response to WND’s inquiry, the department belatedly...

Washington (AFP) - The US State Department recommended Americans in Libya "depart immediately," in its latest travel warning on Tuesday.

The State Department’s Counter Terrorism (CT) Bureau apologized on Tuesday for promoting a controversial Muslim scholar whose organization has reportedly backed Hamas and endorsed a fatwa authorizing the murder of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. The apology came on the heels of a Friday Washington Free Beacon report detailing the CT Bureau’s promotion of Sheik Abdallah Bin Bayyah, the vice president of a radical Muslim scholars group that was founded by a radical Muslim Brotherhood leader who has called “for the death of Jews and Americans.” Bin Bayyah himself is one of several clerics who endorsed a 2004 fatwa, or religious...

The State Department’s Counter Terrorism (CT) Bureau apologized on Tuesday for promoting a controversial Muslim scholar whose organization has reportedly backed Hamas and endorsed a fatwa authorizing the murder of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. The apology came on the heels of a Friday Washington Free Beacon report detailing the CT Bureau’s promotion of Sheik Abdallah Bin Bayyah, the vice president of a radical Muslim scholars group that was founded by a radical Muslim Brotherhood leader who has called “for the death of Jews and Americans.” Bin Bayyah himself is one of several clerics who endorsed a 2004 fatwa, or religious...

The State Department’s Counter Terrorism (CT) Bureau promoted on Friday a controversial Muslim scholar whose organization has reportedly backed Hamas and endorsed a fatwa authorizing the murder of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. The CT bureau on Friday tweeted out a link to the official website of Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah, the vice president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), a controversial organization founded by a Muslim Brotherhood leader “who has called for the death of Jews and Americans and himself is banned from visiting the U.S.,” according to Fox News. Bin Bayyah is reported to have been one...

THE NECESSITY OF TESTIMONY FROM SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY TO EXPLAIN HIS DEPARTMENT'S FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH A CONGRESSIONAL SUBPOENA (Extensions of Remarks - May 21, 2014) Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Extensions of Remarks] [Page E797] THE NECESSITY OF TESTIMONY FROM SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY TO EXPLAIN HIS DEPARTMENT'S FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH A CONGRESSIONAL SUBPOENA _____ HON. DARRELL E. ISSA of california in the house of representatives Wednesday, May 21, 2014 Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, as the House's Select Committee on Benghazi stands up and takes ownership of an investigation that has been...

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. State Department on Monday declined to say if Martin Wani, a 20-month-old Christian boy imprisoned by the Islamist Sudanese government, is a U.S. citizen. “You don’t know whether that little boy in prison is a U.S. citizen?” CNSNews.com asked State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki at the department’s Monday press briefing. “I don’t have any more details to share,” Psaki said. The State Department also would not say if the boy’s father, Daniel Wani, is a U.S. citizen and if, as the father has reportedly said, the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum asked the father to secure DNA...

A State Department official told a Senate hearing on terrorism in Nigeria this morning that “Boko Haram is trying to portray its philosophy as being a Muslim philosophy, and that’s just not accurate.” Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs Chairman Chris Coons (D-Del.) referenced a hearing that he held two years ago, in which lawmakers learned that Boko Haram was training with Al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in an area the size of Texas. “The hearing that we conducted two years ago could almost literally be repeated today in terms of ongoing structural challenges that have led...

Hillary Clinton wasn’t the only Obama administration official who went to bat for Boko Haram over the past few years. Soon after John Kerry took over as Secretary of State, the U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, Terence P. McCulley, accused the Nigerian government of butchery during a confrontation with Boko Haram terrorists in Baga, a Nigerian town on the shores of Lake Chad, and in May 2013 threatened to withdraw U.S. military aid from the West African nation.