Free Republic

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia—For Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, his high-profile meeting with President Biden was an immediate victory, signaling that his isolation on the world stage is over. But the American president will have to wait weeks, perhaps months, before the world knows if his sojourn to the Middle East paid off for the U.S. On Saturday, Mr. Biden left Saudi Arabia, the second and final stop on a four-day Middle East tour that also took him to Israel. His aim was to reaffirm U.S. ties with an oil-rich region, following a rift with Saudi leaders after Mr. Biden...

Joe Biden is at the G7 Summit. Soundbites of the world leaders mocking Russia were picked up. With the Supreme Court news about Roe v. Wade being overturned and gun rights expanded, the Left is in meltdown mode. So, this devastating update probably got lost in the ether. Biden’s energy plan is toast. It got blown up. It shows Biden being outmaneuvered by our allies. The way it was done also shows that Europe knows this presidency needs to be pushed along—a lot. It was the clearest sign of the weakness exhibited by Biden. The gross incompetence is pervasive. Within...

President Biden will attend the Gulf Cooperation Council meeting in Saudi Arabia next month, with the explicit goal of convincing the GCC — that is, the Saudis — to increase production of crude oil as a tool with which reduce gasoline prices in the U.S. From a recent press conference: Q: And my question on Saudi Arabia: Why not have the President go there and just not meet with the Crown Prince? MR. KIRBY: The President is going to Saudi for the GCC — the GCC+3, to be honest. It’s nine states in the region. There’s a big agenda there,...

After the United States Supreme Court officially overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey on Friday, California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis appeared on MSNBC to discuss the ruling. She touted California's plans to become an abortion sanctuary for out-of-state travelers seeking abortions, and also took aim at Justice Clarence Thomas, comparing him to an individual from a country with restrictive laws governing women's behavior. "Sadly I think that this decision is delegitimizing the Supreme Court," she said. "Who is Clarence Thomas? Is he my Saudi Arabian father who's going to tell me what I can and cannot do...

Dustin Johnson — Masters champion, veteran still very much in his prime, ranked No. 13 in the world — has joined the about-to-debut LIV Golf tour. With one move, the LIV tour vaulted from irrelevance to curiosity. Next up: threat. The Saudi-backed venture is planning on hosting eight 48-player tournaments this season in a range of locations around the world, including the United States. LIV’s primary draw for players is money — vast, generational sums of money — supplied by Saudi Arabia’s ambitious Public Investment Fund. Thanks to a $2 billion investment, LIV plans to begin with a handful of...

Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America 02/28/22 If my energy policy had remained in place, where we were energy independent, and would have soon been bigger in production than Saudi Arabia and Russia combined, the world would have had no problems whatsoever. This war should never have started in the first place. If the Election wasn’t Rigged, America would right now continue to have record-low gas prices, as it was under my Administration, and we would be supplying the world with oil and gas. Also, Russia would not have attacked Ukraine. Instead, we...

President Joe Biden has signed an executive order directing the FBI to release long-awaited classified documents regarding Saudi Arabia’s connection to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, a source close to the Biden administration told Newsmax on Friday.Biden’s decision to move on the executive order this week comes after 9/11 victims’ families on Thursday asked an inspector general in the Department of Justice to investigate their claims.The families allege that the FBI lied about or destroyed evidence tying Saudi Arabian officials to the team of al-Qaida hijackers.

George W. Bush congratulated Joe Biden on his election victory Sunday - and delivered an unmistakable message to Donald Trump that he must now concede.

United States officials believe Saudi Arabia’s government “almost certainly” helps its citizens escape justice by fleeing the country once they are accused of serious offenses, The Oregonian newspaper reported Friday, Anadolu Agency reports. It said it obtained a newly declassified document from the FBI that said Riyadh’s assistance to suspects was “undermining the US judicial process.” (excerpt_ The newspaper described an FBI intelligence bulletin in August that was released Friday, that said the US must take action to stop Riyadh from helping Saudi wrongdoers escape overseas. The heavily-redacted document said Riyadh helps citizens escape to avoid embarrassment, but does not...

Out of twenty-one local Saudi aviation students investigated in connection with the Dec 2019 Pensacola terrorist attack, fifteen had child pornography on their computers. That’s a rate of seven out of ten (70%). What’s wrong with these people? Supposedly the Saudis send the best of the best for this training. If the perversion rate of this elite group is 7/10, how much higher is it for the lesser beings over there? Experts on the psychology behind child pornography believe this activity stems from a deep sense of sexual inadequacy or from traumatic early childhood sexual experiences. Considering the Muslim culture...

The Saudi student who fatally shot three people at a Florida naval base Friday has hosted a dinner party the night before to watch videos of mass shootings, a U.S. official said Saturday.

The Air Force trainee who killed three and injured eight when he opened fire at a naval base in Florida assailed the United States as 'a nation of evil' before he went on his shooting rampage, AFP reports. The man, first identified by NBC News as Saudi national Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, opened fire inside a classroom at Naval Air Station in Pensacola early Friday morning. Police quickly responded to the scene and he was shot dead. US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said the suspect was a second lieutenant attending the aviation school...

* Shooting took place on base early Friday morning, sparking a lockdown. * Sources identified the suspected gunman as Saudi Air Force aviation student Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani. * As of Friday evening, six Saudi nationals have been detained for questioning.* It's reported that three of them filmed the shooting as it happened. * Rep Matt Gaetz, a Republican representing Pensacola, called the shooting 'an act of terrorism'. * President Trump tweeted that King Salman told him 'the Saudi people are greatly angered by the barbaric actions of the shooter...'. * Three other people were shot and killed during incident inside...

Key members of Donald Trump's inner circle will attend the Saudi economic forum known as "Davos in the Desert" one year after shunning it in the aftermath of Jamal Khashoggi's murder. US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner will fly to Riyadh for the Future Investment Initiative (FII,) Quartz reported Monday. In October 2018, Mnuchin abandoned plans to attend the conference after talks with Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He never specified why he didn't attend, but the conference took place just weeks after Khashoggi's killing. The conference in Riyadh, which takes place from October...

(Moderator, if I can't excerpt the BBC, please note) Drone attacks have set alight two major oil facilities run by the state-owned company Aramco in Saudi Arabia, state media say. Footage showed a huge blaze at Abqaiq, site of Aramco's largest oil processing plant, while a second drone attack started fires in the Khurais oilfield. The fires are now under control at both facilities, state media said. A spokesman for the Iran-aligned Houthi group in Yemen said it had deployed 10 drones in the attacks. The military spokesman, Yahya Sarea, told al-Masirah TV, which is owned by the Houthi movement...

The Senate voted to block the sale of billions of dollars of munitions to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, in a sharp and bipartisan rebuke of the Trump administration’s attempt to circumvent Congress to allow the exports by declaring an emergency over Iran. In three back-to-back votes, Republicans joined Democrats to register their growing anger with the administration’s use of emergency power to cut lawmakers out of national security decisions, as well as the White House’s unflagging support for the Saudis despite congressional pressure to punish Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after the killing in October...

Arab leaders are pressuring the Palestinian Authority to accept the peace plan drawn up by the Trump administration, which is expected to be released this June, a source within the Palestinian Authority claims. According to a report over the weekend by the Qatari Alkhaleej Online outlet, a member of the Central Committee of PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ ruling Fatah party said that Arab leaders are applying “political and financial pressure” on the Palestinian Authority to accept the so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ – a framework for a final status agreement between Israel and the PA drawn up by the White...

No thank you, Mr. Pecker Something unusual happened to me yesterday. Actually, for me it wasn’t just unusual — it was a first. I was made an offer I couldn’t refuse. Or at least that’s what the top people at the National Enquirer thought. I’m glad they thought that, because it emboldened them to put it all in writing. Rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail, I’ve decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten.

Defying President Trump, senators sent a strong signal Wednesday they want to punish Saudi Arabia for its role in the slaying of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Senate voted 63 to 37 to move forward with legislation calling for an end to U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The vote was a rebuke not only to Saudi Arabia but to the Trump administration, which has been clear it does not want to torpedo the long-standing U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia over the killing.

But Democrats view it as yet another expression of the prime minister’s overzealous backing for a despised U.S. president The Mossad’s Kidon unit, which foreign media describe as Israel’s official assassination squad, must be worried sick over the fallout from the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Alongside its many successful hits, some of which are surely still unknown, Kidon’s men (and presumably women) have also known notorious failures, including the mistaken 1970 killing of Moroccan waiter Ahmed Bouchiki in Lillehammer, Norway, the failed 1997 assassination of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal in Jordan and...