Free Republic

Chuck Hagel’s unceremonious dismissal as secretary of defense has refocused attention, once again, on the insularity of President Obama’s inner circle, its suspicion of outside voices, and its distaste for dissent. But it has changed in one way: this time, the concerns about secrecy, enforced groupthink, and high school clique behavior don’t center on Valerie Jarrett. Instead, the name that keeps surfacing is that of National Security Advisor Susan Rice. It’s true that this isn’t the first time we’re hearing of the toxic atmosphere and mismanagement at Rice’s National Security Council. But it’s striking how clearly the battle lines appear...

Last week, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Jonathan Gruber, one of prominent architects of Obamacare, was exposed as little more than an elitist fraud. Gruber was caught on videotape expressing the haughty attitude that drove the Affordable Care Act, deriding the "stupidity" of Americans as a way to justify misleading them. Gruber apparently thinks such deception is OK because yokel voters could not handle the truth about the looming chaos he helped to engineer in their health coverage. Unfortunately, Gruber's disdain for the proverbial masses -- he was paid nearly $400,000 in consulting fees -- is thematic of the last...

When mentioning the most polarizing figure in the Democratic party outside of the president himself, that one person who creates a visceral reaction every time he or she speaks, one of the following contestants is invariably in the running for top prize: A) Eric Holder B) Susan Rice C) Charlie Rangel D) Debbie Wasserman Schultz But with Holder on the way out, Rice (thankfully) muted lately after a series of unintentionally comical Sunday talk show appearances, and Rangel stuck somewhere between stupid and 1866, first prize falls to the DNC Chairwoman — who may be forced to update her LinkedIn...

NEW YORK (CNN) – President Obama spoke Wednesday at the U.N. General Assembly as he tackles a range of thorny international issues with his counterparts. Obama said Iran and North Korea “must be held accountable” if they continue to ignore international nuclear weapons treaties. Iran recently reiterated its unwillingness to give up its nuclear program, which the United States and other Western nations fear is being used to develop nuclear weapons. Iran insists its program is strictly for civilian power. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said she didn’t expect a direct meeting between Obama and Iran’s president, Mahmoud...

President Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, has long been an advocate for weakening American sovereignty in order to benefit the UN and its anti-American agenda. It is a policy known as “engagement,” where the United States subsumes its own vital interests, abandons its traditional role of leadership in the world community, and, as Anne Bayefsky writes, pushes the process of “subcontracting American national security” to the UN. Time Magazine refers to this policy — without a hint of irony — as “leading from the back.” And while Washington was busy this past week exchanging blows over the...

This week marks the one year anniversary of Susan Rice’s confirmation by the United States Senate to represent the American people at the United Nations. Over the past 12 months, the U.S. has faced some serious foreign policy challenges such as Iran’s nuclear ambitions, North Korea’s ongoing nuclear weapons’ tests, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, freezing terrorists’ assets world-wide and now the on-going disaster in Haiti. But while the UN struggles to find common ground on these and other important issues, Susan Rice has chosen to spend several days of the work week over the last year in Washington, DC hanging out...

White House national security adviser Susan Rice clarified on Monday that any U.S. military action against the Syrian regime is in part aimed to send a message to its ally Iran over its nuclear operation, Al-Arabiya reported. Rice’s remarks at the New America Foundation think tank are part of a public effort by the White House to build support in order for Congress to authorize President Barack Obama to use military action against Syria. Rice also said that the U.S. is morally bound to respond to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against its own people since it...

Rice told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that the Iranian delegation approached the Obama administration about a phone call between President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. The request came after indicating earlier in the week that a direct meeting at the UN General Assembly would not be possible due to Iran’s internal political reality.

U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice ridiculed Israel’s Ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, for spending time with Republican casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, The Washington Free Beacon reported on Monday. According to the report, Rice was asked in a recent meeting with a top American Jewish leader why she had not held meetings with Dermer. She responded, “He never asked to meet me.” “Besides, I understood that he’s too busy traveling to Sheldon Adelson’s events in Las Vegas,” she added, referring to the major Jewish philanthropist who also owns Israeli daily Israel Hayom. Haaretz reported that Rice was referring to Dermer’s...

Top military leaders in the Pentagon and in the field are growing increasingly frustrated by the tight constraints the White House has placed on the plans to fight ISIS and train a new Syrian rebel army. As the American-led battle against ISIS stretches into its fourth month, the generals and Pentagon officials leading the air campaign and preparing to train Syrian rebels are working under strict White House orders to keep the war contained within policy limits. The National Security Council has given precise instructions on which rebels can be engaged, who can be trained, and what exactly those fighters...

"My family is more important to me than my party," declared  Senator Zell Miller, a Georgia Democrat, as he spoke from the podium of the Republican National Convention on September 1. "There is but one man to whom I am willing to entrust their future and that man's name is George Bush." [1] Many Democrats howled in outrage at Miller's "betrayal" - former President Jimmy Carter in particular. In an angry personal letter to the Georgia senator, Carter accused Miller of "unprecedented disloyalty" and declared, "You have betrayed our trust. [I]t's quite possible that your rabid speech damaged our party..." [2] But...

Speaking from the White House Friday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said new Ebola Czar Ron Klain will report to former U.N. ambassador and current National Security Advisor Susan Rice. "Mr. Klain will ultimately however report to Ms. Monoco [Homeland Security] and to National Security Advisor Susan Rice in this effort," Earnest said. As a reminder, Susan Rice is the woman who went on five Sunday talk shows to lie about a YouTube video being responsible for the 9/11 attack in Benghazi. She is also the same person who said alleged Army deserter and Taliban sympathizer Bowe Bergdahl...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Ron Klain, the former chief of staff to Vice Presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden, will be named Ebola czar, according to a report on CNN.

The White HouseÂ’s dubious fixer of first resort, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, has stepped in it again. While she may not have intentionally misled the nation in yet another infamous appearance on a Sunday news program, this was the effect of her announcement that the United States had made a diplomatic breakthrough in talks with reluctant NATO ally Turkey. On Sunday, the Pentagon revealed that an agreement had been reached with officials in Ankara to allow American warplanes to use Turkish bases as part of the air campaign over Syria. Turkey also reportedly agreed to provide some rebels...

Leadership: Obama surrogate Susan Rice is again on TV, this time falsely claiming that the military never recommended ground troops against the Islamic State. Do Americans really swallow misinformation this easily? Less than a month ago, we and others pointed out the disturbing rift between a commander in chief who places politics before security and the commanders to whom he won't listen. We noted Gen. Ray Odierno, chief of staff of the U.S. Army and former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said reinforcements to U.S. troops recently deployed in Iraq may be needed. We cited Joint Chiefs chairman Gen....

White House National Security Advisor Susan Rice says other countries “haven’t done enough” to help stop the deadly disease Ebola from spreading. “We are pushing very hard for everybody to do more. This is going to take all hands on deck,” she told NBC’s Chuck Todd, in an interview set to air Sunday on “Meet the Press.” Ebola has killed more than 4,000 people, mostly centralized to three countries in Western Africa. The outbreak has caused skepticism of international health workers in some of those communities, who fear the workers could be spreading the disease instead of helping cure it....

The National Security Advisor of the United States did something astonishing yesterday. In the middle of a reporter’s questioning, she bolted from the podium of the White House pressroom, saying, “Nice to see you,” fleeing a situation she evidently was unable to cope with. The question that caused Ms. Rice to flee was a fairly simple one: whether or not the president has authorized the bombing of targets in Syria. Rice responded multiple times that the timing of strikes would not be released, but that was not the question at hand, and reporters pressed her on whether her boss had...

Washington (AFP) - Training and equipping moderate Syrian rebels to fight Islamic State extremists will take months, the White House warned Friday a day after Congress approved the plan. "We will move out as rapidly as can be done, in partnership with the countries that will host the training facilities," said Susan Rice, national security advisor to President Barack Obama. "This will be a process that takes months," she said, adding it will not "happen overnight." "This is a serious training program, and we are serious about vetting those that we will be training and equipping," Rice emphasized. "It is...

Via Breitbart, another dim attempt by the White House to keep this new Iraq intervention in Americans’ rhetorical comfort zone. “Wars” are long, involve vast numbers of fighters on both sides, and absorb much blood and treasure; our “victories” in war lately tend to be unsatisfying and ephemeral too. “Counterterrorism,” though, is lightning fast, typically involves a small number of military assets, and is usually decisive. (It also conveniently doesn’t require a new AUMF.) The Bin Laden raid is the supreme example. By the White House’s own reckoning, rolling back ISIS will take three years at least, already involves a...

The Obama administration said for the first time Friday that the United States is “at war” with ISIS militants. Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, used the language at least three times during his daily briefing with reporters. “The U.S. is at war with ISIL in the same way the U.S. is at war with al Qaeda,” he said, using an alternate acronym for the group. Minutes earlier, a Pentagon spokesman, Rear Adm. John Kirby, used similar terminology. “This is not the Iraq war of 2002,” he told reporters. “But, make no mistake, we know we are at war...