Free Republic

""Reporter says John Kerry answered ‘Allah willing’ – in Arabic- when asked if nuke deal would happen"" Secretary of State John Kerry allegedly responded in a most unusual way to a reporter’s question Friday whether a nuclear arms deal could be reached with Iran before the March 31 deadline. “Allah willing,” Kerry replied — in Arabic, according to Laura Rozen, a reporter covering the Iran nuclear talks in Lausanne, Switzerland, for the Washington, D.C.-based online publication, Al-Monitor. As news reached the public Friday that a deal may be forthcoming, Rozen tweeted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQA4ww_AnQw

A former Google officer is the president’s chief technology adviser. Google employees contributed more to President Obama’s re-election than did employees of any other company except Microsoft. Google lobbyists met with Obama White House officials 230 times. By comparison, lobbyists from rival Comcast have been admitted to the inner sanctum a mere 20 or so times in the same period. Obama lieutenant David Plouffe boasts: “On Election Night [Schmidt] was in our boiler room in Chicago,” he told Bloomberg News, in a story that revealed that for the campaign Schmidt “helped recruit talent, choose technology and coach the campaign manager,...

Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s announcement Monday that he will run for president has Donald Trump, the ladies on “The View,” and others in the birther crowd questioning Cruz’s eligibility to be president.Born in Alberta, Canada in 1970, Cruz is the son of an American mother and Cuban father. Anticipating these questions, Cruz released his birth certificate in 2013 and officially renounced his dual Canadian citizenship in 2014.This isn’t the first time a candidate’s eligibility has been questioned—the issue dogged President Obama in 2008, George Romney in 1967, and President Chester Arthur in 1880. But is there any merit in...

After the Senate gave approval to its budget plan early Friday morning, Sens. Rob Portman, Ohio Republican, and Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire Democrat, got a version of their energy efficiency legislation passed by voice vote. The measure, passed when only Mr. Portman and Ms. Shaheen were on the floor, includes provisions exempting certain water heaters from pending Department of Energy regulations, and requires federal agencies to develop an implementation strategy for employing more energy-efficient technology, among other items. Mr. Portman said the bill has garnered widespread support and is part of an energy plan for the country “that can help...

Dan has been following the 2016 rumblings being made by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. He’s reportedly “frustrated” with the Senate, and doesn’t plan to run for re-election. Polling shows the young Republican can be a formidable force next year. He’s also been courting Romney and his donor network, which–if successful–could shift things in his direction. Now, the Freedom Tower in Miami has been reserved for an event on April 13, which could be where Sen. Rubio makes his 2016 intentions official (via Tampa Bay Times): A Rubio adviser stressed nothing has been nailed down for any kind of announcement, but the timing makes sense: Likely...

Big Wall Street banks are so upset with U.S. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren's call for them to be broken up that some have discussed withholding campaign donations to Senate Democrats in symbolic protest, sources familiar with the discussions said. Representatives from Citigroup, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, have met to discuss ways to urge Democrats, including Warren and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, to soften their party's tone toward Wall Street, sources familiar with the discussions said this week.

Questions are being raised over two U.S. foundations that have poured more than three million dollars into abortion rights, LGBT activist, and legal groups to push the message that exemptions based on religious beliefs are “un-American” and an abuse of liberty. The Arcus Foundation and the Ford Foundation have spent over $3 million in combined spending against religious liberty exemptions since 2013, according to a CNA review of tax forms and grant listings.

WASHINGTON - Senator Ted Cruz of Texas kicked off in recent days what is likely to be the longest, most expensive and perhaps most contentious Republican Party presidential battle in history. Cruz has been lagging in the national polls and hoped that his early announcement would give him some momentum as conservative activists around the country begin to focus on the fight for the Republican Party's presidential nomination in 2016. Cruz hopes to build on his support among Tea Party supporters and expand his appeal to evangelical Christian voters, hence his decision to announce on the campus of the nation's...

In the year that the Magna Carta turns 800, Senator Ted Cruz began his bid for the presidency with an appropriately active, as opposed to passive, choice of words that “[i]t is a time to reclaim the Constitution of the United States.” Conservatives frequently use the phrase “restoring the Constitution.” It is a sad enough commentary that we must restore what Founder and America’s Fourth U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall referred to in Marbury v. Madison as our “fundamental and paramount law.” Cruz’s virtuoso first act at Liberty University -- sans teleprompter -- amply demonstrated that he is...

Congressional races often serve as a leading indicator of what the future holds at the top of the ticket. And already, there are several primaries that would pit the Democratic Party's pragmatic liberal wing against the true-blue progressives. Democrats may not end up with significantly more contested primaries than in the past, but the ideological stakes will be higher. The battles are shaping up to be over core issues splitting the party: entitlements, support for Israel, national security, and others. The intraparty divisions that President Obama has suppressed and Hillary Clinton has avoided will be litigated down the ballot, and...

Harry Reid's favored candidate to keep his Senate seat in the Democratic column is in many ways a stark contrast with himself: a Latina prosecutor who has only run one competitive political race in her career. Yet Democrats are abuzz about former Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, who Reid essentially endorsed Friday. She won both of her campaigns for attorney general—including one in 2010 that she rendered basically uncompetitive—by more than 15 percentage points and has family lineage in state politics. Reid worked during his Senate career to promote change within his state party as its electorate grew more...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is leading a congressional delegation to several Asian nations, including two that are part of a controversial trade agreement the Obama administration is negotiating. The trip includes stops in Cambodia, Myanmar, Korea, Vietnam and Japan, the latter two of which are among the dozen nations in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks. “We arrive at an important moment for the United States’ relationship with these countries, and find ourselves presented with fresh opportunities and familiar challenges in the region," Pelosi said in a statement Saturday. “Members are particularly interested in gaining further understanding of how...

Despite what he wants you to think, Ted Cruz is not the great anti-politician of our time. In fact, he may be our most potent symbol of everything that is wrong with modern politics. This would be hard to believe if you’ve been listening to him, of course. He desperately wants to be thought of as the one principled man in Washington—at least if your values hew closely to those of the Tea Party—but that posturing has alienated much of the party establishment. Ted Cruz attributes that development to them being “squishes,” while the rest of the world suspects it’s...

MERRIMACK, N.H. — Sen. Ted Cruz hit the campaign trail as a presidential candidate for the first time Friday, proclaiming himself an optimistic, maverick outsider who will shake up Washington.Cruz (R-Tex.), speaking at a rally at a VFW hall here and later at a dinner of young conservatives in Nashua, reprised one of the themes of his speech announcing his run Monday -- "reigniting the promise of America" -- and said the way to do that is by bringing back jobs after six years of stagnation."I am amazingly, powerfully, profoundly optimistic," he said. "I'm optimistic because of each of you,...

GREENLAND, N.H. – Sen. Ted Cruz continued his two-day presidential campaign swing through New Hampshire on Saturday morning with a speech to the Seacoast Republican Women.. . .Before entering the room, Cruz expanded on an allegation he aired Friday, that GOP leaders had cut off his access to campaign donations as retribution for his role in the 16-day government shutdown in October 2013.“In 2013 we got quite a bit of money from DC PACs, and when the defund fight happened that dropped to almost zero,” Cruz said, asked to clarify the allegation he aired Friday.Who does he blame?“It was leadership,”...

Well, Oregonians, are you ready to lose your ability to privately transfer guns? A senate bill under consideration would require you to appear before a gun dealer and go through a background check. How fun would that be? It probably won’t be cheap and it certainly won’t be private. Here’s an email blast we received from the Oregon Firearms Federation:

Using the “March Madness” model from the annual NCAA basketball tournament, the pro-gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety released its “NRA Madness” bracket to highlight 16 states where the National Rifle Association (NRA) is advocating for legislation that would allow guns to be carried on college campuses.

Don’t you wish that once – just once — someone would actually stand up and say something that everybody knows to be true: that Harry Reid, who apparently has been talked into retirement by a couple of thugs — excuse me! an exercise machine! — is a no-account, corrupt, nasty, petty, lying scumbag who enabled Barry Hussein to impose his anti-constitutional agenda on a big-hearted but soft-headed American public? But no: The Senate majority leader had kind words for his Democratic counterpart, who announced Friday he would be retiring in 2016. ”Nothing has ever come easily to this son of...

One unfortunate day in the future, America will again have a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate. And when that day happens, conservatives had better start digging foxholes, because their worst nightmare will be the majority leader. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, the former hyper-partisan majority leader (and present minority leader) announced yesterday that he will retire at the end of his term in 2017. He named Chuck Schumer, D-New York, as his heir apparent. As a Westerner from a blue state that could flip to red at any time, Reid was forced to take account of libertarian views. Nevada is,...