Free Republic

The sound bite went viral -- the president of the United States asking the Russian president to carry a message to Putin for "space" in dealing with contentious missile defense issues until after the election so the American president would have "more flexibility."  The photos went viral as well: President Obama's hand on Medvedev's knee, the smiling president with his arm around Medvedev's shoulder, the two of them sipping tea.It is bad, of course, on many levels, but historically consistent.  The president is notoriously hostile to missile defense, as are the Russians.  The Russians are particularly hostile to U.S. missile...

Democrats are crying foul over GOP suggestions that President Obama has a “secret deal” on missile defense with Russia. The fight began in March, when a hot mic at a summit caught Obama telling then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he’d have more “flexibility” on the issue after the election. Medvedev famously responded that he would transmit that information to Vladimir Putin, who is now Russia's president. Republicans immediately attacked Obama for making a secret deal, and they used this week’s floor debate on the Defense authorization bill to highlight their argument. No one in Congress has been more vocal about...

...Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin said they would sign an agreement on securing and destroying nuclear material to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, replacing a 1992 deal that expired on Monday.

The Fiscal 2013 Defense spending bill that passed the House 326 to 90 with bipartisan support Thursday evening included an amendment that would prohibit President Barack Obama from making good on a deal with Russia that he appeared to hint at earlier this year. Introduced by Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), the amendment bars the administration from sharing classified missile defense information with Russia. In late March, an inadvertent hot-mic moment caught Obama asking Russian president Dmitri Medvedev for “space” until after the election, saying he would then have more “flexibility” to

The 2012 U.S. presidential election presents a contrast to the 2008 election in terms of their perceptions by the Russian elite. In 2008, then-President Dmitry Medvedev expressed a desire to work with a "modern" U.S. leader rather than one "whose eyes are turned back to the past." He was referring to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. But influential Russian elites voiced their support for the Republican candidate, John McCain, despite McCain calling President Vladimir Putin a KGB spy who has no soul and calling to expel Russia from the Group of Eight leading industrial nations. Even though McCain was more...

Wouldn’t you like to have been in the White House Situation Room when the president decided to take out Osama bin Laden? Thrilling, right? You’d have been part of history and have stories to tell your grandchildren. Well, you can’t. Not even if you donate a million dollars to the Obama re-election campaign. Sorry, Bill Mocker, you’ll have to wait for the movie. It’s Top Secret. Nor can you listen in when the President is at one of his G-8 Summits (or is it G-20 by now?) It would doubtless be interesting to learn what the Big Wigs are deciding...

Medvedev: Working with comrade Obama has been the ‘best three years’ for U.S.-Russian relations in a long time posted at 7:45 pm on April 1, 2012 by Morgen Richmond Throughout the 2008 campaign Barack Obama promised that if elected he would ‘restore our standing’ in the world. I’m not sure all of our allies feel the same way, but as far as Russia is concerned: mission accomplished. My colleague Barack Obama and I have once again had a constructive discussion of the various issues on the international agenda and on bilateral cooperation between the Russian Federation and the United States....

Despite a bipartisan federal law prohibiting financial contracts with the Russian government-owned arms giant Rosoboronexport, the Obama administration announced that it would be purchasing another $680 million worth of military helicopters from the state company for the Afghan regime of Hamid Karzai. The contract comes after the Pentagon already spent $411 million with the supplier since May of 2011, bringing the estimated amount of U.S. taxpayer funds funneled to the state-owned behemoth to about $1 billion in recent years. The latest deal, however, drew furious outrage from across the political spectrum. Critics and lawmakers complained that the controversial scheme would...

It remains to be seen how the media will cover the explosive revelation from ABC's Jake Tapper that Barack Obama asked Russian president Dmitri Medvedev to get Vladimir Putin to give him some "space" on missile defense so that he could be more "flexible" with the Russians in a second term. So far, the tepid coverage from National Journal and the Washington Post suggests that the media doesn't consider a request to another nation to pipe down so an American President can win a second term and deliver more favorable policy to a potential antagonist more than a "gaffe". They...

National security and foreign policy have received short shrift in the 2012 presidential-election campaign. Mitt Romney made a quick swing through Britain, Israel, and Poland to suggest he would repair strained relations with America’s closest allies. President Obama has repeatedly reminded voters that he gave the order to kill Osama bin Laden. That’s about it. For the most part, each campaign has sung a single note: Romney has tried to convince voters he can fix the broken economy. Obama has tried to convince voters that Romney is a heartless, plutocratic tax cheat and, possibly, a murderer to boot. Consequential international...

<p>The Pentagon is canceling the planned fourth phase of an anti-missile system that had been scheduled for deployment in Poland in 2022. The SM3 IIb missile was significant for two reasons: It was the only interceptor planned for the Europe-based system that could have defended the United States against an attack from Iran; and it was the component of the system most decried by Russia, which claimed that it could be used against its intercontinental missiles.</p>

The conservative super-PAC American Crossroads mocks President Obama as "President Flexible" in a spoof of Hollywood spy movies released Friday. The Karl Rove-linked outside spending group takes Obama to task in the video, titled "Operation Hot Mic," for telling Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday that he will have “more flexibility” to deal with missile defense after the presidential election. The private conversation was caught by live microphones. "Your mission is simple, Mr. Obama: Win one last election to gain unchecked flexibility, weaken our defenses and fundamentally transform. Dmitry will transmit the information," says a female narrator in the video....

Last Monday, President Obama was overheard whispering to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev about plans to pursue another round of reductions of our stockpiles of nuclear weapons and the halt of a European missile defense shield. At the end of the meeting the two leaders’ conversation were caught on a hot mike. It seems that our “teleprompter President” hasn’t learned very much about the equipment used to spread his propaganda. Obama: (Referring to Vladimir Putin) “On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved, but it’s important for him to give me space.” Medvedev: “Yeah, I understand....

President Vladimir Putin said Russia had confidence in the euro and had made the right decision to keep much of its reserves in the European currency. "I would like to say it outright: yes, we trust the euro," Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript of an interview with German public broadcaster ARD before a trip to Germany and the Netherlands. Putin said Moscow and the European Union have disagreements, but that the leading euro zone countries were moving in the right direction in handling the current crisis. "That gives us confidence that we have made the right move to...

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s off-air comments that Russian Presidents are given a secret file about extraterrestrials living among us created much media interest. Most news reports claimed that Medvedev was simply joking. His apparent reference to the Men In Black movie as a source of information on a super secret agency that monitors extraterrestrials on Earth was commonly cited as key evidence that he was in fact joking. The reasoning is that no political leader would refer reporters to a comedy to clarify national policy. It has now emerged that Medvedev was not referring to the Men in Black comedy...

AFP - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was expected in Moscow on Wednesday for talks with Russian leaders on his first major foreign visit since the killing of Osama bin Laden by US forces. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will host Zardari for talks on Thursday at the Kremlin where officials from the two countries were also expected to sign agreements on cooperation in agriculture, aviation and energy, a spokesman for the Pakistan Embassy in Moscow told AFP. "Economics will be the focus of the visit," said the spokesman, Raja Abdul Qayyum. The three-day visit to Russia will be Zardari's first...

President Obama’s hot mic moment defined his trip to South Korea and may very well define his reelection bid. The reason his uncensored remark resonates is that it supports a pre-existing narrative that President Obama’s promises are not to be trusted. Before he backed off the campaign trail, no one made this argument more frequently than Newt Gingrich. After his second place finish in Florida, he said, “If he [President Obama] can have a record this bad, unemployment this bad, deficits this bad, policies this bad, gasoline prices this high, and still get re-elected, you can’t imagine how radical he’ll...

Vladimir Putin: 'We Have Won. Glory to Russia' Putin claims resounding election win as opposition activists allege widespread fraud 4 March 2012 Vladimir Putin, with Dmitry Medvedev, sheds a tear as he addresses supporters. Putin has claimed a resounding election victory. Photograph: Mikhail Voskresensky /Reuters Vladimir Putin has claimed a resounding victory in Russia's presidential election, provoking a furious response from opposition activists who alleged that the vote was marred by widespread fraud. At a rally in front of the Kremlin an emotional Putin, with tears running down his face and flanked by the outgoing president, Dmitry Medvedev, said: "I...

Russia’s national parliament, the Federal Assembly, has voted to restrict abortion for the first time in decades, in the face of a demographic decline that has reduced the population by 2.9% since 1992. The new law, which is expected to be signed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, prohibits abortions beyond the 12th week of pregnancy, and imposes a mandatory waiting period of between two and seven days. Exceptions are permitted for economic hardship, which allows abortions up to the point 22 weeks of gestation. Join a Facebook page to end abortion here. Legislators discarded proposals by the Orthodox Church to...

Memo to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev: next time you plunge into a crowd, don't forget to park your car first. Medvedev took his "Forward, Russia!" motto a bit too far in an incident captured on video, stepping from the driver's seat of an SUV and then frantically trying to hold the vehicle back as it kept moving towards a group of people waiting to greet him.