Free Republic

On Thursday, reflecting on the 13th anniversary of September 11, I found myself in rare agreement with David Frum, who noted that 9/11 was just one of the many ways in which the past 15 years have been disappointing. David Frum @davidfrum From the dot-com bust through 9/11 itself, Iraq war, the subprime bubble, financial crisis, feeble recovery, prolonged income stagnation ... David Frum @davidfrum there is no period in recent US history that has seen such a record of policy failure & disappointment, foreign and domestic, as 2000-2014. 9:02 AM - 11 Sep 2014 70 Retweets 34 favorites I...

U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens was among four Americans killed in an attack by Muslim protesters on the U.S. consulate compound in Benghazi the previous evening. President Obama said he had ordered heightened security at all U.S. diplomatic offices around the world in the wake of the attack in Benghazi and a similar but less violent incident in Cairo on Tuesday. Both incidents were sparked by hardline Muslims protesting a film made in the U.S. which insults the Muslim prophet Muhammad. "Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the...

It seems like a lifetime ago that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s favorability ratings were something that would inspire fits of jealousy in any politician. In fact, Clinton’s monumental popularity was not a feature of the distant past. As recently as January, a Gallup poll showed that the former secretary had a net favorability rating with the public of 19 points. Not even a year later, that public esteem for Clinton has disappeared. The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that the public is essentially split on whether Clinton is “likeable enough.” 43 percent of respondents said...

The more Hillary Clinton looks like a candidate, the less invincible she appears. The former first lady and New York senator enjoyed sky-high approval ratings during her tenure as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state, but her numbers have returned to earth since she traded her perch as the nation’s top diplomat for her current role as the Democrats’ top presidential prospect in 2016. The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found 43% of registered voters view Ms. Clinton positively, compared with the 41% who harbor negative views. That’s a steep drop from February 2009 when 59% viewed the newly...

In her memoir, "Hard Choices," former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton included a chapter on the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012. But she failed to specifically explain why Amb. Chris Stevens was there that day. "U.S. ambassadors are not required to consult or seek approval from Washington, when traveling within their countries, and rarely do," she wrote. "Like all chiefs of mission, Chris made decisions about his movements based on the security assessments of his team on the ground, as well as his own judgment," she said. "After all, no one had...

Scandal: Despite the administration's claim, the CIA operatives who fought for their lives and others' from a rooftop say that a stand-down order may have cost four Americans their lives while their ignoring it saved others. Kris Paronto, Mark Geist and John Tiegen, three CIA contractors who on the night of Sept. 11, 2012, battled with terrorists from the roof of the CIA's Benghazi annex building, would beg to differ with the Obama administration, the CIA and several congressional committees. They say there was an order to stand down that delayed their response and possibly cost the lives of Ambassador...

George W. Bush was known – and often criticized – for being insular during his eight years in the White House, but he made regular calls to a surprising adviser during his second term: his predecessor. Bill Clinton revealed on Monday that the second President Bush picked his brain twice a year for 30-45 minutes, in wide-ranging conversations that no doubt set the stage for the surprising, "brother-from-another-mother" relationship that the two ex-presidents now share. Bush would call Clinton "just to talk," during his last four years in the White House, the Democrat said in a joint event at the...

I saw the author last weekend on CSPAN 2. CSPAN 2 becomes BookTV on the weekend and specialize in non-fiction politics and history. Schedule at: http://www.booktv.org/Schedule.aspx?gclid=Cj0KEQjwhLCgBRCf0fPH043IlJwBEiQAf8P8U08Dmi_4PUYw0tcoaL3zdXYr36G75i-wEWwEsQE2CkMaAt8W8P8HAQ He describes how Iran was behind the consulate attack having paid off the brigade we had hired to protect the consulate. He says that Iranian Revolutionary Guard actually went into the buildings and did the dirty work. Lays the initiation of the video demonstration cover-up on Clinton and then Obama for running with the story. Obama AWOL during the incident. Author lists all of the attacks on US assets and embassies laid at the...

Tale of the six Annex Security Team: 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi “Five minutes, we’re ready. It was thumbs up, thumbs up, we’re ready to go.” Kris “Tanto” Paronto, member of the six man Annex Security Team in Benghazi on 9/11/12 After a delay of nearly 30 minutes, the security team headed to the besieged consulate without orders. They asked their CIA superiors to call for armed air support, which never came. Now, looking back, the security team said they believed that if they had not been delayed for nearly half an hour, or...

 US Senate to Protect the Media Monopoly's Exclusive License to Corrupt Presidential Elections    Amateurs Not Allowed to Speak  An apocryphal story from the good old 1960s tells of $3 million found under the bed of a deceased congressman, with the question automatically asked, at that time, “how does an honest, $50,000 per year congressman accumulate that kind of money?” These days, newspapers don’t blink at the President’s $10 net worth—chump change compared with the $100s millions accumulated by the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, remuneration for—speaker’s fees.   Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, slumming at only $3 million to $10...

The rest of the media continues to ignore the revelations on Benghazi being uncovered by Fox News, but the scandal will not die. The official narrative has been a pack of lies from the start, beginning with the cooked-up video excuse. Now, thanks to CIA contractors who were there, we know that they were indeed instructed to stand-down, despite official denials, and that as a result Ambassador Stevens and 3 others were denied potential life-saving assistance. Fox News will broadcast a special today at 7 PM and 10 PM EDT, but here is brief summary from Fox:

US Senate to Protect the Media Monopoly's Right to Corrupt Presidential Elections   An apocryphal story from the good old 1960s tells of $3 million found under the bed of a deceased congressman, with the question automatically asked, at that time, “how does an honest, $50,000 per year congressman accumulate that kind of money?” These days, newspapers don’t blink at the President’s $10 net worth—chump change compared with the $100s millions accumulated by the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, remuneration for—speaker’s fees.   Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, slumming at only $3 million to $10 million, made hay clamoring for public...

Senate Joint Resolution 19 'intended to limit free speech'  US Senate to Protect the Media Monopoly's Right to Corrupt Presidential Elections    An apocryphal story from the good old 1960s tells of $3 million found under the bed of a deceased congressman, with the question automatically asked, at that time, “how does an honest, $50,000 per year congressman accumulate that kind of money?” These days, newspapers don’t blink at the President’s $10 net worth—chump change compared with the $100s millions accumulated by the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, remuneration for—speaker’s fees.   Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, slumming at only $3...

He mocked President Barack Obama over the controversies that have plagued his second term. “It’s sorta like the Old MacDonald’s farm of scandals. Here a scandal, there a scandal, everywhere a scandal,” Paul jabbed, adding of Obama’s ISIS strategy “If the president has no strategy, maybe it’s time for a new president.” But Paul saved special scorn for Clinton, the prospective frontrunner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, specifically highlighting her role in the events surrounding the deadly 2012 attacks on American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. “If she wants to be commander in chief and she cannot protect our embassies,...

Some have called it the worst summer ever. This may or may not include the summer when an asteroid crashed near the Yucatan peninsula, almost extinguishing life on earth. But, with Labor Day past and the kids going back to school, it's time to reflect on the summer of 2014.

The amount of money political candidates in the state of California can collect for campaigns is tightly governed, but for legal defense funds, donors are permitted to donate much more, according to KPCC. In March, the state senate, voted to suspend three members who were charged or who were convicted of felonies. The legal bills for senators Ron Calderon and Rod Wright are being paid for by a mix of politicians, political action committees and even corporations. Senator Leland Yee has a committee to college legal defense donations working for him as well. None of the legal defense funds setup...

Some time ago I contrasted the reaction a conservative would get if he were in the same room with the two most consequential politicians of the 1990s, Bill Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. If you were in a room with Bill Clinton, he would discover the one issue out of 100 on which you agreed; he would probe you with questions, comments, suggestions; and he would tell you that you enabled him to understand it far better than he ever had before. If you were in a room with Rudy Giuliani, he would discover the one issue out of 100 on...

Chelsea Clinton says she's stepping out of her correspondent job as she looks forward to taking on mom duties After not quite three years as a special correspondent for NBC News – and with just a little while until she and husband Marc Mezvinsky are expected to become parents – the former first daughter is now leaving that position, she tells PEOPLE in a statement, "to continue focusing on my work at the Clinton Foundation and as Marc and I look forward to welcoming our first child."

Hillary Clinton addressed the events in Ferguson, Mo., on Thursday for the first time since the killing of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer, calling for a "thorough and speedy investigation." "We don't want to see our streets look like a war zone. Not in America. We are better than that," she said at a technology conference in San Francisco, responding to images broadcast across the country of police in helmets and armored vehicles deploying tear gas. She also praised "decent and respectful law enforcement officers, who showed what quality law enforcement looked like." "We cannot ignore...

Among 400 Massachusetts Democrats polled, 55 percent said they would vote for Clinton while just 17.25 percent would pick Warren. Vice President Biden, who also has an eye on the 2016 race, would get just 7.75 percent of the vote.