Free Republic

Ever since he won the Florida U.S. Senate seat, folks have been talking up Marco Rubio's vice-presidential credentials. But Condoleezza Rice, who has been in the news a lot lately, is a better bet to be the No. 2 candidate for a Mitt Romney or Rick Perry candidacy. Here's why.

John Podesta will step down as president of the Center for American Progress, an official at the organization said today. Podesta, who served as Bill Clinton’s last chief of staff from 1998 to 2001, founded the center in 2003 with a core of wealthy liberal supporters and transformed it into the Democratic Party’s key policy and politics shop.Podesta, 62, will remain the center’s chairman, and will also serve Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as a day-a-week volunteer, the CAP official said, but is not immediately expected to take on any other public role....Podesta will serve as an "expert consultant" to...

A year ago, Tunisia was a moderate pro-Western nation. Fast forward to this week — The Islamist Party is expected to win the Tunisian elections today. Thanks Barack.

“You’ve got to give it to Ron Paul," Palin said. "Whether you agree with everything he says or not, at least he is one there in Congress trying to make our President stick to the law and understand that Congress does have a role to play in these foreign policy decisions that are made and Ron Paul, I think hit the nail on the head, when he came out and said Obama had better be careful when he interjects himself and our country in other nations’ business.”

An Oakland children's museum, citing pressure from the community, canceled a planned exhibit of artwork by Palestinian youth that depicted the Israeli assault during the 2008-2009 Gaza conflict. The Museum of Children's Art was scheduled to display the art from Sept. 24 to Nov. 13. The exhibit had been in the works for several months, with an opening reception to feature poetry and special art activities for children. The drawings in the exhibit were created by children ranging in age from about 9 to 11 and included bombs dropping, tanks and people getting shot. "They are pictures of what these...

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators interrupt Israeli orchestra's London performance. BBC Radio forced to suspend broadcast. UK minister tweets: Demonstrators turned entire audience pro-Israel Anti-Israel protesters disrupted a live BBC broadcast of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra playing in London's Royal Albert Hall. The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was participating in the BBC Proms summer classical music festival. BBC Radio 3, which carried a live broadcast of Thursday's concert, was forced to suspend the broadcast several times, over the protesters shouting and heckling.

In May Barack Obama urged Israel to hand over half of Jerusalem, the Wailing Wall, The Temple Mount, Old Jerusalem, and the tomb of Jesus Christ to the Hamas-Fatah terrorist alliance. Of course, his radical position was very unpopular with a most Americans. Apparently, American Jews finally caught on that Obama does not have Israel’s best interests at heart. Today Dick Morris reported on a new poll that shows American Jews are turning against Obama in record numbers. According to Morris 80% of Jewish American voters oppose his insane proposal to hand Holy Land over to Hamas-Fatah alliance. Morris also...

After showing an image of the sign "To Gaza with Love" from one of the boats of a flotilla planning to challenge the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, Saturday’s CBS Evening News showed a report highlighting the allegedly nonviolent intentions of American activists on board one of the ships - named "The Audacity of Hope" - without noting that, during last year’s anti-Israel flotilla trip, some activists attacked Israeli troops as they attempted to board. CBS correspondent Barry Peterson merely recounted that Israeli troops killed some of the activists without explaining why: Last year, boats ran the blockade. Israeli...

The anti-Israel propagandists who faked the “Amina Arraf” Gay Girl blog Cross-Post, June 13th 2011, 12:00 pm This is a cross post by Judy of AdloyadaThe worst and most irresponsible internet hoax for some considerable time– the Amina Arraf hoax–has now been exposed.The supposed “Gay Girl in Damascus blogger”, who was supposed to have been arrested and abducted by the Syrian regime, has turned out to be an invention of a couple of extreme anti-Israel activists, Tom MacMaster and his partner Britta Froelicher.MacMaster, who  is presently studying and working in Scotland, and is very active in Edinburgh University’s Students for Justice in...

Protestors for hire? Demonstrators along the Syria-Israel border were paid thousands of dollars by President Bashar Assad's regime to take part in Sunday's riots, Syrian opposition activists charge. Israeli officials later reinforced the claims, accusing the Syrian regime of encouraging protests along the northern border. Sunday’s riots were an attempt "to divert attention away from the massacre in Syria,” one official charged. "The Syrians will be held accountable for these events.” (Snip) Opposition activists noted that such tactics were previously used by Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein when the Ba'ath Party leader offered a $25,000 reward to the families of Palestinians

Note: On May 3rd, Daniel Gordis addressed the “J-Street Leadership Mission to Israel and Palestine.” The following column is based on his remarks that day.] Good morning and welcome to Jerusalem. It’s a pleasure to meet with this Leadership Mission; I understand that there are some first time visitors to Israel among you, so a particular welcome to those of you who’ve never been here before. Before we got seated, one member of your group conveyed a message from the Israeli Consul General in his home community. The message was that I shouldn’t speak to you. As you can imagine,...

The citizens of the United States elected a President who attended a strict Muslim madrassa (parochial school) for two years. Our current Commander-in Chief, while an impressionable young boy between 6 and 10 years old, bowed down toward Mecca five times a day while praying to Allah. He studied the Koran, including Sura 7:166, Sura 2:65, and Sura 5:60 and its repeated calls for the transformation of Jews into apes and swine. Barry Soetoro was indoctrinated, as were millions of young Muslim boys, in the same anti-Semitism that has always been taught in the Muslim madrassa's for the past thousand...

Is Obama a Muslim? Does Obama hate Israel? Will Israel be attacked again? Will Iran nuke Israel? Has Maghreb and Middle Eastern turmoil flummoxed the White House? Why did Obama bow to Saudi Arabia’s king? Questions, questions, questions? Watching President Barack Hussein Obama try to pick winners and losers in the Middle East would be amusing if it were not so deadly serious. Not a word about Syria’s slaughter of its protestors. A demand that Libya’s Gadhafi step aside and a quick retreat behind NATO’s skirts. Throwing Egypt’s Mubarack under the bus when saying nothing would have sufficed. And then...

President Obama and the first family attended Easter services at the Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.  As the mainstream press made sure to point out, this church was founded in 1863 by freed slaves. MSNBC proclaimed: Obama attends Easter service at historic church: The first family enters Shiloh Baptist Church to a round of applause It would be such a heart-warming picture of religious devotion except that the mainstream press neglected to mention a couple of things about the church which Obama chose for his Easter worship. The Shiloh Baptist Church hosted an anti-Israel hate fest in 2009 at the...

In December, the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign (SeaMAC) launched an anti-Israel bus-ad campaign accusing Israel of war crimes. That campaign was approved by the city, but after public outcry was eventually canned. Now, the SeaMAC has decided to enlarge its Israeli hate. The group has now paid for billboards that will trumpet its message. “We always planned to follow our bus ad campaign with additional messages in other venues. We had this Equal Rights banner designed before we launched our ‘Israeli War Crimes’ campaign in December,” Mark Eichinger-Wiese, recent chair of the SeaMAC steering committee, said in a press release....

J-Street suffered a humiliating defeat yesterday on Capitol Hill – which means Israel scored an important victory. The George Soros-funded “pro-Israel” group inexplicably mobilized its machinery to oppose a bipartisan letter that merely called on President Obama to pressure the Palestinian Authority to end its longstanding practice of inciting its people to commit terrorism against the Jewish state. Even in a town where tin-eared stupidity is commonplace, essentially protecting the PA’s ability to encourage violence against its Jewish neighbors is jaw-dropping. The straightforward letter, authored by Reps. Steve Rothman (D-NJ) and Steve Austria (R-OH), asks Obama to pressure PA President...

TEL AVIV – A staunch denier of the Holocaust who long served as the deputy of late PLO leader Yasser Arafat served on the committee that invented the military doctrine used by President Obama as the main justification for U.S. and international airstrikes against Libya. As WND first reported, billionaire philanthropist George Soros is a primary funder and key proponent of the Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect, the world's leading organization pushing the military doctrine. Several of the doctrine's main founders sit on multiple boards with Soros. The doctrine and its founders, as WND reported, have been deeply tied...

In message delivered by his assistant at Uruguay conference Ban Ki-moon says occupation is morally and politically unsustainable and must therefore end. 'A way must be found for Jerusalem to emerge as a capital of two States,' he adds. WASHINGTON – United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon slammed Israel's policy and called for the division of Jerusalem on Tuesday. In a message delivered by his assistant at a UN regional meeting in Uruguay, Ban said: "The target date for completing the Palestinian Authority’s two-year State-building program is fast-approaching." The occupation that started in 1967 is morally and politically unsustainable, and must...

Obama doesn’t tell you what he’s thinking. He keeps his motives to himself. Cherished long-term ideological goals are advanced as pragmatic fixes to concrete problems in the present. Now we’re seeing the familiar domestic pattern in foreign policy as well. Few Americans realize that Obama has had a longstanding interest in multilateral efforts to combat war crimes and genocide. Obama would like to see a more constraining international legal regime on war crimes, even at the cost of national sovereignty, not to mention the blood and treasure of the countries doing the enforcing. In general, Obama has said little about...

Whose Voice Shall Speak for Israel? by Norma Zager and Ari Bussel “There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.” James Russell Lowell In our last postcard (“Jews Speaking Civilly to One Another?”) I bemoaned the fact Jewish people cannot agree, even about those things that speak to their own survival. I even sought wisdom from my Rabbi, and while he saw clearly through to the crux of the issue, sadly, he could offer no definitive solution to the dilemma. One reader of the article...