Free Republic

Potential jurors for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s court-martial in October may be forced to tell lawyers if they voted for President Trump. Comments made by Mr. Trump during his 2016 Republican campaign for the White House have influenced one of the most high-profile, court-martial cases in U.S. Army history. Lawyers for Sgt. Bergdahl, the soldier who left his post in Afghanistan in June 2009, have a private 41-question survey for a Fort Bragg judge to consider. One of 17 questions objected to by prosecutors involves support for Mr. Trump’s campaign. “The principal issue has to do with ensuring we are...

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain in 2012 turned over nearly $9 million in unspent funds from his failed 2008 presidential campaign to a new foundation bearing his name, the McCain Institute for International Leadership. The institute is intended to serve as a “legacy” for McCain and “is dedicated to advancing human rights, dignity, democracy and freedom.” It is a tax-exempt non-profit foundation with assets valued at $8.1 million and associated with Arizona State University. Conservative and liberal critics, however, believe the institute constitutes a major conflict of interest for McCain, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group has learned. McCain,...

It’s no secret that Donald Trump has scores of enemies on the left, but now another critic is speaking out from within the Republican Party. John McCain has just revealed that he believes “American leadership” was better under Barack Obama than President Trump. The elderly senator made that remark after being asked by The Guardian about how Trump dealt with the recent London terrorist attack, and foreign policy in general.

The online news outlet that unwittingly outed the Georgia woman who has since admitted to providing them with classified National Security Agency documents may not be the dumbest entity in this story. Reality Winner, 25, whose top-secret clearance gave her access to the now-leaked NSA information, has been coaching family members via jailhouse phone calls, which are monitored, on how to manipulate investigators and the press, according to prosecutors. Her plan, they said, is to portray herself as some sort of scared, doe-eyed neophyte.

The woman accused of leaking classified information once wrote she wanted "to burn the White House Down...find somewhere in Kurdistan to live," prompting prosecutors on Thursday to argue she would flee the country if she was released on bond. They added that Winner wrote in her notebook alleged plans to set the White House on fire, travel to Afghanistan and pledge her allegiance to the Taliban, WSB-TV reported.

BERLIN – Edward Snowden is increasingly unhappy with the situation in Russia, where he has lived for more than three years. President Vladimir Putin once welcomed the National Security Agency contractor for his propaganda value, but he may be wondering if it’s all been worth it. Snowden arrived in Moscow in June 2013. That was almost a year before the Crimea annexation, and Russia could still try to sell itself to radical leftists who admired Snowden as the lesser evil, compared with the Big Brother United States. Putin talked a lot about Snowden, showing obvious delight for thumbing his nose...

Former Secretary of State John Kerry defended the Iran nuclear deal on Monday evening at a gala dinner in San Francisco for the Ploughshares Fund, a George Soros-backed group that was part of President Barack Obama’s “echo chamber” to sell the agreement to the public. Kerry called the Iran deal’s monitoring processes a “system that’s working,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle, and criticized President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress for pushing for new sanctions against the Iranian regime. “It doesn’t make sense, folks, to risk a step that gets us nothing,” Kerry said of proposed new sanctions on Iran’s ballistic...

On today’s Meet the Press, John Kerry compared President Trump’s explanation of pulling out of the Paris climate accord to O.J. Simpson wanting to find the ‘real killer’ of Nicole Simpson Brown: “When Donald Trump says to the world, well, we’re going to negotiate a better [climate] deal. I mean, you know, he’s going to go out and find a better deal? That’s like — I mean that’s like O.J. Simpson saying he’s going to go out and find the real killer. Everybody knows he’s not going doing to do that because he doesn’t believe in it. Because if he...

As I watch another passive-aggressive hit on Trump by McCain, his latest being his remarks about the Kushner-Russian back channel fake news story, I see a shrinking and increasingly butt-hurt man. A man who was once a hero and has since been corrupted and minimized by the swamp in which he now comfortably resides. But all you have to do to know John McCain is to consider something. As one of the most powerful Veterans and senators in Washington, it was under his watch, spanning several different administrations, that the VA crumbled into one of the most shameful and embarrassing...

Zbigniew Brzezinski, the hawkish strategic theorist who was national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter in the tumultuous years of the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1970s, died on Friday at a hospital in Virginia. He was 89. His death, at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, was announced on Friday by his daughter, Mika Brzezinski, a co-host of the MSNBC program “Morning Joe.” Like his predecessor Henry A. Kissinger, Mr. Brzezinski was a foreign-born scholar (he in Poland, Mr. Kissinger in Germany) with considerable influence in global affairs, both before and long...

Hillary Clinton struggled to speak shortly after beginning her speech at the Wellesley College commencement ceremony Friday. A college official rushed to deliver her a lozenge and water bottle as she choked on her words. She credited her croaky delivery to allergies rather than emotions, which drew cheers and laughs from the crowd.

Amid negotiations between the Holy See and China’s Communist government over the appointment of bishops, Pope Francis has asked the nation’s Catholics to remain “open to encounter and dialogue.” On May 24, which Pope Benedict declared a day of prayer for China’s Catholics, “we will all be united spiritually to the Catholic faithful of China, on the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary Help of Christians, venerated at the Sheshan Shrine at Shanghai,” Pope Francis said to the faithful following his May 21 Regina Coeli address. “To Chinese Catholics I say: let us raise our gaze to Mary Our Mother,...

Chelsea Manning posted the first photo of her new look as a woman, just one day after she was released from military prison. The photo was posted on her Twitter and Instagram accounts @xychelsea87.

Former Army soldier Chelsea Manning will be released from prison next week, her attorneys announced Tuesday. Former President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s prison sentence in January, cutting short a sentence that would have originally ended in 2045. Obama said that Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst, had served a “very disproportionate” prison sentence for leaking military secrets. “For the first time, I can see a future for myself as Chelsea,” Manning said in a written statement. “I can imagine surviving and living as the person who I am and finally be in the outside world.” “Now, freedom is something that...

...AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about this comment that you made that the Republican Party, you said, is the most dangerous organization in world history. Can you explain? NOAM CHOMSKY: I also said that it’s an extremely outrageous statement. But the question is whether it’s true. I mean, has there ever been an organization in human history that is dedicated, with such commitment, to the destruction of organized human life on Earth? Not that I’m aware of. Is the Republican organization—I hesitate to call it a party—committed to that? Overwhelmingly. There isn’t even any question about it...

Megyn Kelly is ready to get back on TV. Page Six has exclusively learned that Kelly will officially start at NBC next month. “She will start in May, and her Sunday show will premiere in June,” a network insider told us. Kelly had been expected to start in July after her Fox contract expired, but she was just released from her Fox deal two weeks ago. She will join Kate Snow as part of NBC News’ Sunday night programming. NBC News vet and former “Dateline” executive producer David Corvo will executive produce Kelly’s Sunday show with another longtime NBC producer,...

Sen. Lindsey Graham gets emotional when reflecting on his friendship with Sen. John McCain during a CNN town hall with the two senators.

Arizona Sen. John McCain won’t rule out running again in 2022. McCain, 80, told The Arizona Republic he won’t be making any decisions on a potential seventh Senate campaign for at least three years, leaving the door open for another run. First elected in 1986, McCain is one of the most senior members of the Senate, and as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, he still wields a significant amount of power and influence.

Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice's appearance in Rochester has been cancelled. Rice was set to speak at the "Women Helping Girls Conference 2017" on Saturday at the Theatre on the Ridge. Officials cite a ticketing error. "GRAB of AAUW was very much looking forward to hosting Ambassador Susan E. Rice in Rochester to inspire young women who are soon to embark on their chosen careers. Unfortunately, we regret that we must cancel the conference originally scheduled for Saturday, April 8, due to a ticketing error," said Dr. Cheryl McKeiver in a release. "We apologize to the many young people...

Washington, D.C. ­– U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) released the following statement today on the Senate’s vote to eliminate the 60-vote threshold on Supreme Court nominations: “Today’s vote to eliminate the 60-vote threshold on Supreme Court nominations represents a regrettable setback for the institution of the United States Senate. I fear today’s action will irreparably damage the uniqueness of the Senate, and along with it, any hope of restoring meaningful bipartisanship.“When then-Majority Leader Harry Reid changed the Senate rules in 2013, there was no one more critical of his actions than me. I fought hard to convince my colleagues of...