Free Republic

The bizarre story of the refusal of British royals to visit Israel, while they are constantly in the Arab world, continues. I wrote about this phenomenon here, last February, when Prince Charles visited Saudi Arabia. As I noted then, the Queen has never set foot in Israel and Prince Charles set foot there briefly only once, for the Rabin funeral. By contrast, in just the month of November 2014 we found Prince Andrew and Prince Harry at what the Foreign Office must have considered a diplomatic necessity: the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Prince Andrew also visited Saudi Arabia (at the...

Iran and Venezuela have grown closer in recent years, as both countries seek to counter the intense pressure campaign that the US has mounted against them. US officials have said that Iran's military presence in Venezuela is growing and that if Iranian missiles start to arrive in the South American country, then the US could step in. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. US officials have watched warming ties between Iran and Venezuela with concern, expressing alarm over what they say are Iran's military presence in and arms sales to the South American country.The Trump administration's special representative for...

An emergency summit meeting of governors from six northeastern states this weekend to coordinate coronavirus restriction.... Bars and restaurants restricted to take out only, gyms closed, indoor and outdoor social gatherings limited to no more than six people from two households, churches limited to 25 people for indoor services, customers at grocery stores and pharmacies limited in numbers. All those measures in effect for at least two weeks in Oregon... When the mayor of St. George, Utah cancelled the Veterans Parade this year... Philadelphia looking at imposing new coronavirus restrictions... A highly contentious issue voted on in Montgomery County Pennsylvania......

The border crisis appears to have inched the Democratic Party towards another episode of internal strife. Civil war? Well, I’m not so sure about that, but it’s been getting pretty nasty. The House passed a $4.6 billion border package that included strings attached, aimed at curbing immigration enforcement. This was pie-in-the-sky. Trump would never sign it, though he did sign the Senate bill into law, which provided the same funding but without the trash provisions against enforcing the law. It was also overwhelmingly bipartisan. Moderate House Democrats and Pelosi signed off on the Senate bill, which infuriated the far left....

A raging Nicolas Maduro calling on his supporters to come out after two days of massive protest across Venezuela for Interim President Juan Guaido.... Two French prison guards stabbed during a conjugal visit to a jihadist and seriously wounded. Authorities calling it a "terrorist attack"...... Police in London investigating three packages said to contain explosives. They arrived at Heathrow Airport, London City Airport and Waterloo Station..... And the big story in the mainstream media this morning is vague and indefinite information regarding satellite imagery from North Korea. Pictures of a rocket testing facility where construction is said to be underway,...

President Trump came out Friday afternoon announcing a deal in relation to the dispute over border security funding. The legislation was passed by Congress and signed by the President Friday evening..... "At the crack of dawn 29 FBI agents arrived at my home with 17 vehicles with lights flashing. They terrorized my wife and my dogs" That's Roger Stone's public response to the pre-dawn raid on his home in Florida in connection with Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's investigation..... Today is the third anniversary of a deadly FBI operation that killed Arizona rancher LaVoy Finicum, spokesman for the Oregon Standoff protest........

CARY, N.C. - The 20-year-old son of a North Carolina Court of Appeals judge threatened to damage a synagogue Saturday night and burned a cross in a town park last month, according to Cary police. William Josephus Warden of Cary was arrested about 11 p.m. Saturday at the apartment complex where he lives on Preston Grove Avenue. He is the son of Judge Lucy Inman, who said in a statement that the arrest can be attributed to long-standing mental illness for which her son has sought treatment. "Our observations and our communications with law enforcement lead us to believe that...

There's a lot about Ted Cruz that should worry constitutionalists considering voting for the senator in the presidential election of 2016.Recently, Infogram published brief but illuminating biographies of several of Cruz's key foreign policy advisors. The information disclosed in these revelations could trouble many constitutionalists otherwise keen on the senator and who rely on him to restore the rule of law to the White House.The first person highlighted in the article is the chairman of Cruz's foreign policy team, Chad Sweet.Sweet's professional and political background betrays Cruz's claims of being someone who promises "not to continue going in the same...

What, if anything, do "we" now stand for and why?An article published on April 9th by the Gatestone Institute International Policy Council is titled U.S.: The Great Problem that Needs to be Solved. Written by Elliot Abrams, it contends that the problem has at its center the world view of President Obama. His world view is based primarily on ideology rather than reality; its bases are evident in all that He and His minions do and fail to do. The problem also impacts domestic policy, implemented by Executive Decree when He "won't wait." If the Democrats control neither house of the Congress following the November elections, there...

It feels strange visiting a country like Morocco and listening to people extol the virtues of a political system my country waged a revolution against. Morocco has a king, and he’s a real one too, not some kind of a figurehead. But I went there, I listened, and after almost ten years of visiting Middle Eastern countries wracked by tyranny, terrorism, botched revolutions, and wars, I was perhaps a bit more willing to hear what they had to say than I might have been a decade ago. A monarchy is a tough sell for Americans. The founders of our country...

‘If you’re not going to act against the reactor, then we are,’ PM told president, says advisor Elliot Abrams. Then, as now on Iran, the US favored Ehud Olmert ordered the 2007 strike on a Syrian nuclear reactor immediately after former US president George W. Bush informed him that the Americans would not attack the facility, according to a Channel 10 report aired on Sunday evening. Bush’s deputy national security adviser Elliot Abrams was present when the president called Olmert on September 6, 2007 and made clear that the US would not take action, and that then-secretary of state Condoleezza...

Newt Gingrich’s Contribution to Reagan’s Strategy of Peace through StrengthBy GoldenEaglesWe know that Reagan's basic strategy of Peace through Strength, was made workable, only because the U.S. Congress gave strong and visible expression to Reagan’s Anti-Communist principles. The stronger we became, through the defense buildup, which only Congress could approve, and the stronger we became, through implementation of the Strategic Defense Initiative, again, which only Congress could approve, the better Reagan’s strategy would work. Newt Gingrich’s Special Order of March 21, 1986, went exactly to this point, expressing a strong voice in Congress, that there was a strong desire in...

Drudge versus history Posted by William A. Jacobson    Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 9:31am Politico’s homepage top headline is The right drops a bomb on Newt featuring photos of Ann Coulter, Tom DeLay, Elliot Abrams and Matt Drudge.Just like in December, the rise of Newt has caused panic in Republican circles.In December the charge was led by National Review, and now it’s being led by Matt Drudge, as reflected in this image from Marooned in Marin:  For several days Drudge has been running almost around-the-clock negative banners against Newt, hyping negatives and burying news which contradicts the Romney campaign narrative that Newt was anti-Reagan.Against...

COMMENTARY | The latest attack against Newt Gingrich accuses him of the worst thing a Republican can be. Apparently, despite his assertion that he was a loyal lieutenant to President Ronald Reagan, Gingrich was "insulting" to Reagan on a number of occasions. Leading the charge on the theme of "Gingrich was an enemy of Reagan" is Elliott Abrams, who was an assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration. .. To be sure, the speech seems off-putting considering subsequent events, such as the fall of the Soviet Empire. But was Gingrich really an enemy of Reagan? William Jacobson at Legal...

After enduring tons of lies and half-truths from Romney's spin maching, Newt Gingrich finally cleared the air this week to establish himself as the heir of Ronald Reagan's Conservative Principles and Actions. The coup de grace was Nancy Reagan's direct quote saying that Ronald Reagan passed the Torch of Conservatism to Newt Gingrich. Also, Rush Limbaugh clearly stated that Newt was a Central Figure in the Reagan Revolution. Sarah Palin said the Newt was being crucified unfairly by the press and others. She means that the American people are being saturated with lies and half truths about Newt by the...

Jeffrey Lord, a political insider in the Reagan White House, railed against Newt Gingrich critic Elliott Abrams today for “grossly misrepresenting” Gingrich’s speeches on the floor of the House of Representatives in the 1980s as anti-Reagan when Gingrich was in fact lauding Reagan for his fight against Communist insurgents in Central America. Romney -- any good to try and say that Newt Gingrich, as loyal a friend and ally to Ronald Reagan as could be found in the day -- was somehow some crazed anti-Reaganite who got the Cold War wrong. Not only is this not true, its laughably untrue,”...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I mentioned his name yesterday -- Jeffrey Lord was in the political office of the White House during the first term of Reagan, maybe both terms. Jeffrey Lord now writes at the American Spectator. Jeffrey Lord, like me, didn't understand all this stuff at Newt yesterday. AP has a story referring to me now as "conservative radio titan." And they describe me as trying to defend Newt on this yesterday, and in the process, nevertheless, recounting all of the things that Newt had said. I wasn't trying to defend Newt, as AP said. All I was saying...

Holy cow. Powerful start to Rush's show today. - Disclaimer: this information is provided as an imprecise, recollection second-hand of statements on Rush Limbaugh's broadcast this morning. No claim of accuracy is made, do your own due diligence please. - Yesterday, one of the most damning statements (as far as Newt's perspective would be) Rush made, as he was attempting on-air to make sense of the blizzard of Newt-hate yesterday from Drudge et al, was his thoughts about a rather nasty article by Elliot Abrams. The article claimed Newt Gingrich opposed Reagan's foreign policy toward the evil empire. Rush clearly...

There must be very few times in American history when a foreign government is accused of killing American troops, and absolutely nothing is done about it. -excerpt- Our forces are not killing Iranians, but Iran has been killing Americans–in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also through involvement in terrorist attacks such as the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996–for decades, and it has paid no price. This is the probable explanation why continuing American promises, or threats if you like, that “it is unacceptable for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons” don’t appear to rattle Tehran. What credibility can we possibly have when...

Push to blame the Iraq war on "Jewish influence" sounds a familiar theme http://www.jewishworldreview.com | A few months ago, a great deal of tut-tutting and dignified outrage emanated from much of the civilized world over the broadcast of a series on Egyptian television which sought to dramatize the "truth" of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But, as the debate over President Bush's rightful determination to pursue war against the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein heats up, it looks like the dimwitted propagandists who write scripts for Egyptian potboilers have been sharing sources with prominent Washington pundits, leftist anti-war...