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This week there was an exchange of classified and confidential e-mails between Russian leaders and our Administration. Ultimately, if necessary, the Administration will claim executive privilege over the e-mails that were immediately provided to the Internal Revenue Service for safekeeping. The e-mails have been leaked through a source currently resident in Moscow. Russian: Look, we need some help. We are really sorry, and I mean that, but one of our guys thought that the Malaysian airplane was carrying Ukrainian troops. He is an idiot, our idiot, but yes, an idiot and trust me, we won't give him the keys...

Flattus wrote: It's funny to watch Cons attempt to portray this disaster in Iraq as Obama's issue. Sorry, no sale. Thinking Americans know whose war this is. But it's not surprising to see you run from it. From Ron Paul's column today, referring to Necons:"They cannot admit they were wrong about the invasion being a ‘cakewalk’ that would pay for itself, so they want to blame last week's events on the 2011 US withdrawal from Iraq. But the trouble started with the 2003 invasion itself, not the 2011 troop withdrawal. Anyone who understands cause and effect should understand this."-- Welcome...

Poland's Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski called his country's ties with the US "worthless", a Polish news magazine says, giving excerpts of a secretly recorded conversation.

The names of the towns tug me back a decade to when we were on the road to liberating them. Fallujah. Mosul. Tikrit. We learned how to pronounce them as our nation learned what was necessary to rescue them from the hands of terrorists. Iraq was not the source of 9/11, but under the leadership of President Bush, we had chosen to take the war to the most hostile regime in the part of the world that wanted to kill us. Saddam Hussein had slaughtered his own people in addition to launching attacks on U.S. forces in violation of...

Now that Field Marshal Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has won a decisive victory in the Egyptian presidential election (held May 26-28, 2014), the pro-Islamist Western media—such as the BBC and CNN—are downplaying his impressive win. Western media outlets cannot help themselves. They are smitten with their grievance over what they call “the ousting of the first democratically-elected Egyptian president.” Although the election of Mohamed Morsi (Sisi’s predecessor) was full of irregularities, they are wedded to the narrative that their guy was “wronged.” But consider the following: 1. During the 2011 election, Muslim Brotherhood thugs stood at the doors of hundreds, if...

“WHY is it that everybody is so eager to use military force?” America’s cerebral president betrayed a rare flash of frustration on April 28th when dealing with a question in Asia about his country’s “weakness”. Barack Obama said his administration was making steady, if unspectacular, progress. By blundering into wars, his critics would only harm America. Mr Obama has still made a difficult situation worse in two ways. First, he has broken the cardinal rule of superpower deterrence: you must keep your word. In Syria he drew “a red line”: he would punish Bashar Assad if he used chemical weapons....

WASHINGTON, D.C. - With a few strokes of his pen, Vladimir Putin has in recent days both created the Republic of Crimea and annexed that new entity into the Russian Federation, thereby violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine. To hear Putin tell it in his address to the Duma, this action is not only perfectly legal, it also rights a historical wrong in which Russia was “robbed” of its rightful claim to the Crimean peninsula in 1954. President Obama has disputed the legality of these actions, observing that “President Putin seems to have a different set of lawyers making a...

The centenary of World War I is upon us. That Great War began in August, 1914. We can expect a flood of new books and documentaries on what some then called “the war to end all wars.” The rising power of the United States was not fully felt in Europe then. In fact, some German militarists unwisely dismissed the U.S. “They won’t land a single soldier in France,” one of their admirals vainly told his Kaiser. “Our U-boats will sink their troop ships.” One new book on the sudden outbreak of the war is attracting attention and critical praise. Diplomatic...

PARIS -- Remember when you were a kid and packed your bag to run away from home, only to quickly realize that you lacked the requisite means to follow through on your threat? Mom and Dad, after giving you a little time to save face, had to drive down the road and toss your penniless little behind and your Transformers backpack into the backseat. We're now witnessing a similar scenario with the pathetic display of political theater underway between the West and Russia over Ukraine. Those first few hours back home with your parents were pretty awkward, weren't they? Just...

Radio host Michael Savage has trumped Matt Drudge's notorious tweet from last year that Vladimir Putin is the "leader of the free world." Savage on Thursday on WMAL in Washington, D.C. claimed the freedom fighters in Ukraine are neo-Nazis and his guest, former conservative Paul Craig Roberts, alleged that American neo-cons are secret Israelis provoking Russia.

The world never really loved America as much as Americans like to think. In the Eisenhower era, to take one period now seen in rosy hues, Latin mobs pelted Vice President Richard Nixon’s motorcade with stones, shouting, “Out, dog! We won’t forget Guatemala!” Angry Japanese students protested American “imperialism,” forcing President Dwight Eisenhower to cancel a “goodwill” visit to Tokyo, and Ike spent his days wishing he could find a way to get people in other countries “to like us instead of hating us.” In the late 1960s and again in the 1980s, young Europeans took to the streets by...

For the first time, more than half of the United States public said President Obama is not respected by other world leaders, according to a Gallup poll released Monday. The new poll indicates 53 percent said Obama is not respected on the world stage compared to 41 percent who said he is respected. Gallup notes the public’s opinion has shifted significantly in the last year. In 2013, 51 percent said Obama was respected internationally while 43 percent said he wasn’t. The latest results came from Gallup’s World Affairs poll, conducted Feb. 6 to 9. Obama’s perceived respect from other world...

During a live interview with former Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer suggested that criticism of President Obama in Gates's new memoir was endangering American troops overseas: "As this criticism is leveled by you in the book of the commander-in-chief, the acting commander-in-chief, at a time when some 40,000 U.S. troops are in harm's way, do you think that by calling him into question at this stage it is either dangerous or dishonorable?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] After Gates rejected the notion, Lauer insisted: "But you don't think...

She may occupy his old office in the White House, but Susan Rice is no Henry Kissinger, not by a long shot. Rice, who is President Barack Obama's national-security adviser, is known as the person who appeared on five Sunday morning television news shows days after the planned, deadly attack on Americans in Benghazi, to push the lie that the attack was a spontaneous uprising based on a video. It was an attempt by the administration to hide the fact that the attack, which took the lives of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, was a planned Islamist...

Caroline Kennedy is a long way from Syracuse. The soft-spoken presidential scion, who four years ago this month toured upstate New York in a short and ill-fated bid for the U.S. Senate, has swept with force into her newest public role as President Barack Obama’s ambassador in Japan. And if the iconic daughter of American political royalty showed herself to be deeply uncomfortable as a glad-handing pol, she’s on her way to becoming something of a rock star in the more dignified world of diplomacy. She has been swarmed by well-wishers in her public appearances, including Japanese men and women...

As Democrats begin maneuvering for the 2016 presidential race, there isn't one who would think of disparaging John F. Kennedy's stature as a Democratic Party hero. Yet it's a pretty safe bet that none would dream of running on Kennedy's approach to government or embrace his political beliefs. Today's Democratic Party — the home of Barack Obama, John Kerry, and Al Gore — wouldn't give the time of day to a candidate like JFK. The 35th president was an ardent tax-cutter who championed across-the-board, top-to-bottom reductions in personal and corporate tax rates, slashed tariffs to promote free trade, and even...

resident Barack Obama declared in his 2013 inaugural speech that, "a decade of war is receding." However, al-Shabab's seizure of a Nairobi, Kenya shopping mall illustrates, in cold blood, that the terrorists' war on the civilized continues -- its savagery and political calculation undiminished. American soldiers say the enemy always gets a vote. On Sept. 21, al-Shabab, al-Qaida's Somalia branch, voted by staging a militant Islamist terror spectacular, rife with icon targets and domination imagery of the ilk Osama bin Laden exploited. Emulating tactics Pakistani Islamist terrorists employed in their November 2008 Mumbai, India assault, at least 15 heavily-armed terrorists...

About half of Americans disapprove of the way President Obama is handling foreign policy, a new high as he confronts a diplomatic opening with Iran and efforts to remove chemical arms in Syria, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. Forty-nine percent disapproved of Mr. Obama’s foreign policy efforts, up 10 points since early June, and 40 percent approved. The president’s negative rating on foreign policy has grown among Americans of all political stripes, with disapproval up 8 points among Democrats, 10 points among Republicans and 13 points among independents. The poll also found that 52 percent disapproved...

Yes, We Are the World's Policeman In his speech to the nation on Syria last week, the president twice emphasized that America is not the "world's policeman." According to polls, most Americans agree. Unfortunately, however, relinquishing this role assures catastrophe, both for the world and for America.

Also giving Indonesians more college scholarships Budget deficits, spending limits, the sequester and economic headwinds all seem to fall by the wayside for Barack Obama’s overseas spending program. Now that a $305 million U.S. initiative has built and renovated hundreds of Pakistani schools – including private Islamic madrassas in addition to public institutions – the Obama administration is set to infuse $25 million to improve student reading skills in those schools. Using congressionally authorized FY 2010-FY 2012 funds, a pair of U.S. Agency for International Development initiatives will embark upon the literacy phase of the massive educational project, according to...