Free Republic

Mike Pence will skip the country as soon as he formally confirms Joe Biden's victory on January 6 with week-long foreign tour to avoid face-to-face confrontation with Donald Trump and angry supporters. Vice President Mike Pence is expected to leave the country on a week-long world tour, directly after he formally confirms President-elect Joe Biden's victory on the House floor on January 6. Politico reported Thursday that Pence is eyeing a trip abroad that week that would take him to Bahrain, Israel and Poland, though the trip hasn't been officially confirmed. 'I suspect the timing is anything but coincidental,' a...

Former national security adviser John Bolton didn't offer any praise of President Donald Trump in remarks at a private event Wednesday, but instead took aim at his former boss' policies on the world stage, according to an attendee. Bolton, who Trump fired earlier this month, made comments at an event hosted by the Gatestone Institute in New York that the attendee characterized to CNN as scathing in their criticism of Trump's approach to Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan. Politico was first to report on Bolton's remarks. "Bolton didn't have anything positive to say about Trump," the attendee said.

In any White House, discretion is a prized value in staffers, and perhaps even more so in the Donald Trump era. As Trump’s personal assistant in the Oval Office, Madeleine Westerhout should have known that better than most. Yet Westerhout has been shown the door, as multiple news organizations reported overnight, for sharing personal information about the First Family with reporters: President Trump’s personal assistant Madeleine Westerhout resigned from her job abruptly, a White House official and another person familiar with the situation told NBC News late Thursday night.One of the sources said that Westerhout left the job because...

<p>6:15 p.m.</p> <p>A French judicial police official said investigators think an electrical short-circuit most likely caused Notre Dame Cathedral fire.</p> <p>The official, who spoke anonymously about the ongoing investigation, said investigators still don’t have the green light to work in the cathedral and search in the rubble for safety reasons.</p>

Day 2 of the Clown Show proceeded as anticipated,h/t Victory Girlscomplete with a passel of Sideshow Bobs/Bobbies chastising Judge Kavanaugh for being “no truth handler”, Bart: We want the truth!Bob: You want the truth? You can't handle the truth. No truth-handler, you. Bah! I deride your truth-handling abilities.Judge: Will you get to the point?Bob: Only I could have executed such a masterpiece of electoral fraud. And I have the records to prove it! Here, just look at these, each one a work of Machiavellian art. – Gentlemen of Leisure And then there were the other sideshows taking place in the...

In short, this (anonymous) person said, the Republican Party had been a stool supported by three legs: national defense, free-market economics, and social values. But the person said that thanks mostly to President George W. Bush, the party has failed on the first two legs. The country has shifted significantly on the last one, and there's nothing a Republican candidate can do to change it. As a result the Republican Party is in disarray, and Trump is taking advantage.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest got an earful from reporters after he criticized anonymous sources for this story in the Washington Post. “The lead of that story is hooked entirely to anonymous sources,“ Earnest said, adding that such sources deserve “a little less weight.” The Post story claims Obama aides were “warned of brewing border crisis” nearly a year ago, but Earnest chose to hone in on the fact that the story cited anonymous administration officials. “You criticize anonymous sources, but we have anonymous sources from you all every day,” said reporter Anita Kumar. “In fact, I think we...

While billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson may have rescued Newt Gingrich’s campaign in its early days, today, he may have just buried it. Bloomberg News reports that Adelson, who has donated $11 million to Gingrich’s Super PAC, does not plan to send any more money Gingrich’s way. Bloomberg is citing an anonymous source “familiar with their deliberations,” though an Adelson spokesman declined to comment. The move seems to be weeks in the making. After poor showings by Gingrich in the last several races and the re-resurgence of Rick Santorum, the former House speaker has once again been pushed to the...

DALLAS, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- George W. Bush has avoided politics since leaving the Oval Office, but he privately scorns Sarah Palin and is critical of Barack Obama, friends say. The former president has told friends Palin is unqualified for his old office and Sen. John McCain never should have put her on the ticket, the New York Daily News reported Friday. "Naming Palin makes Bush think less of McCain as a man," a Republican with knowledge of his thinking told the Daily News. "He thinks McCain ran a lousy campaign with an unqualified running mate and destroyed any chance...

The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear sites. Earlier this year Meir Dagan, Mossad’s director since 2002, held secret talks with Saudi officials to discuss the possibility. The Israeli press has already carried unconfirmed reports that high-ranking officials, including Ehud Olmert, the former prime minister, held meetings with Saudi colleagues. The reports were denied by Saudi officials. “The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israeli air force flying through their...

WASHINGTON - U.S. military investigators believe the killing of an Iraqi civilian on April 26 was planned by a small group of Marines who shot the man and then planted a shovel and an AK-47 rifle at the scene, a senior Pentagon official said Tuesday. The AK-47 and the shovel, which were taken from another home before the shooting, were meant to make it look like the man had been digging a hole for a roadside bomb and was killed in an exchange of gunfire, the official said. Seven Marines and a Navy corpsman are being investigated in this case,...

KYE headline alert. Developing...

In Monday’s edition, Newsweek Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Richard Smith wrote a letter in which he apologized for the report and said the magazine will raise standards for anonymous sourcing. "We got an important story wrong, and honor requires us to admit our mistake and redouble our efforts to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again," he wrote. Two of the magazine's top editors will be assigned sole responsibility for approving the use of anonymous sources, and the magazine will stop using the phrase "sources said" to attribute information in stories, Smith said. My question is "What has changed?"...