Free Republic

Another Jimmy Carter Foreign Policy Success, Revisited. The foreign policy gifts of Jimmy Carter - which gave us the secular, pluralist, pro-Western Iran we know today - just keep on giving. Recently, thanks to the postings at Theo Spark’s Last of the Few, I've been following the disaster in Zimbabwe and the man who made it so – it’s de-facto dictator, Robert "let-them-eat-nothing" Mugabe. Mugabe is running "unopposed" for another term as president - as he's now forced the one viable opposition candidate out of the race. (The election is today.) In most democracies, candidates win elections by earning people’s...

Residents from the mining town of Kadoma awoke Friday morning to the sound of Zanu PF thugs demanding they pull down their satellite dishes or risk having their homes burnt down. Frightened residents hastily took down their satellite dishes after the Zanu PF mobs moved around the suburbs to enforce their demands. They accused foreign news stations, accessed via satellite, of misinforming Zimbabweans on the political situation in the country. A woman told us that all the men from nearby Venus Mine were forced to join the Zanu PF mobs in ‘a war against the residents of Kadoma.’ Two trucks...

Erroneously first reported to be the mansion of bruta tyrant Robert Mugabe, it is, in fact, the home of his COUSIN! Mugabe's mansion is even MORE opulent -- but has not yet been photographed (or maybe was but the photog wound up as crocodile chum in the nearest river). http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Zimbabwe/Harare/blog-219289.html As you stroll through this beautiful PALACE, be comforted that much of it -- as well as Robert's -- was paid for with YOUR "MONEY," sucked out of your pocket by the scum who run the UNITED NATIONS and the overeducated idiots who vote for and run the US FOREIGN...

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Monday he would impose a windfall profits tax on U.S. oil companies as he sought political gain from Americans' pain over high gasoline prices...

The men who pulled up in three white pickup trucks were looking for Patson Chipiro, head of the Zimbabwean opposition party in Mhondoro district. His wife, Dadirai, told them he was in Harare but would be back later in the day, and the men departed. An hour later they were back. They grabbed Mrs Chipiro and chopped off one of her hands and both her feet. Then they threw her into her hut, locked the door and threw a petrol bomb through the window. The killing last Friday – one of the most grotesque atrocities committed by Robert Mugabe’s regime...

America is the most blessed country and God will never forsake America the greatest and most benevolent nation in history of mankind. John McCain will be the next President of the United States. John McCain is a great leader. When he was down in the polls last year and everybody wrote him off, they asked him if he was down because he supported the war in Iraq. John McCain answered “I will rather lose and election than lose the war”. This is the ultimate proof of great leadership. John McCain will continue the war on terror to defeat the evil...

Over the course of the primary season, Barack Obama has demonstrated an unerring ability to reach out to all Americans, irrespective of ethnic background or social status. He is a black man who was born on the wrong side of the tracks, but his campaign has been refreshingly devoid of the divisive race agenda that characterised the bids of black politicians such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton in the 1980s and 1990s. His simple promise to undertake a radical change in the way the country is run has struck a chord with a nation that has become disillusioned with...

Barack Obama should not pick Hillary Clinton as his vice-presidential nominee, former president Jimmy Carter has told the Guardian. "I think it would be the worst mistake that could be made," said Carter. "That would just accumulate the negative aspects of both candidates." Carter, who formally endorsed the Illinois senator last night, cited opinion polls showing 50% of US voters with a negative view of Clinton. In terms that might discomfort the Obama camp, he said: "If you take that 50% who just don't want to vote for Clinton and add it to whatever element there might be who don't...

A Long Island woman has filed a lawsuit against American Airlines claiming the carrier endangered her 4-year-old son by serving peanuts on her flight, Newsday reported. Tehmina Haque says she was assured several times that peanuts would not be served, but flight attendants changed the plan without notice during her April 18 flight to Los Angeles. Her lawsuit claims she was “tense and fearful .. that her son would have an anaphylactic reaction while imprisoned 35,000 feet in the air,” according to Newsday. An American Airlines spokesman would not comment on the lawsuit. The carrier’s peanut allergy policy reads: “American...

ATLANTA (AP) - Former President Carter says he'll endorse Democrat Barack Obama after the polls close on the final primaries. Carter told The Associated Press on Tuesday: "The fact is the Obama people already know they have my vote when the polls close tonight." Carter spoke to the AP after addressing the Georgia World Congress Center. Carter, a superdelegate, has remained officially neutral in the race but has offered high praise to Obama. Carter has noted that his children, grandchildren and their spouses back the Illinois senator. South Dakota and Montana hold primaries Tuesday.

A year after Jimmy Carter lost his re-election race to Ronald Reagan, Hamilton Jordan, his former White House chief of staff, sat down for a lengthy interview with scholars at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Last week, after hearing the news of Jordan's death, friends at the center sent me a transcript of that 27-year-old interview. As they predicted, it was of intense interest for current politics, and particularly on the challenge facing Barack Obama. The main theme of Jordan's interview was this intriguing observation: "Only because of the fragmentation that had taken place"...

A year after Jimmy Carter lost his re-election race to Ronald Reagan, Hamilton Jordan, his former White House chief of staff, sat down for a lengthy interview with scholars at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Last week, after hearing the news of Jordan's death, friends at the center sent me a transcript of that 27-year-old interview. As they predicted, it was of intense interest for current politics, and particularly on the challenge facing Barack Obama. The main theme of Jordan's interview was this intriguing observation: "Only because of the fragmentation that had taken place"...

OBAMA AND CARTER AND HERE WE GO AGAIN - ALL THE MAJOR ISSUES THEIR POSITIONS ARE IDENTICAL ON This video layouts major issues Carter(circa 1979) and Obama are repeating each others rhetoric on

LONDON — Former President Jimmy Carter caused a stir over the weekend when he claimed that Israel possesses a nuclear arsenal of 150 weapons. While experts have long maintained Israel has a nuclear arsenal, the Jewish state has refused to confirm or deny it. Most estimates, many based on evidence leaked in 1986 by Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, put the number of Israeli nuclear weapons at between 100 and 200. But other experts have said the number is as low as 60 or as high as 400.

Conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg often jokes that Jimmy Carter is history's greatest monster. It's a line that's ha-ha funny because it's absurd on it's face--whether you hate Jimmy Carter or... um, really hate him, he's a generally harmless old podunk fart, right? Well, unfortunately it seems Jimmy is doing his best to live up (down?) to his moniker.

Former US President Jimmy Carter urged Washington to establish friendly ties with Tehran, reiterating the need for his country to resume trade relations with Iran, which he described as a "rational" nation. Speaking at the Hay Festival yesterday, Carter also suggested the US should provide nuclear power technology and fuel to Iran as a show of goodwill. "What happens if, in three years' time, Iran has a nuclear weapon," Carter asked. "I'm not sure that is going to happen, but if it does, what do we do? They are rational people like all of us in this room. Do they...

FORMER US president Jimmy Carter has said Israel holds at least 150 nuclear weapons, the first time a US president has publicly acknowledged the Jewish state's atomic arsenal. Asked at a news conference at Wales' Hay literary festival yesterday how a future US president should deal with the Iranian nuclear threat, Mr Carter put the risk in context by listing atomic weapons held globally. "The US has more than 12,000 nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union (Russia) has about the same, Great Britain and France have several hundred, and Israel has 150 or more. We have a phalanx of enormous weaponry...

The Jimmy Carter TrifectaBeep! Beep! Come on, Jimmy! Time to go! Jimmy Carter continues his brave but losing battle against diarrhea of the mouth. Carter, ex-president, continued his nearly 3-decades-long "Crusade to Be Relevant" by calling for the European Union to break with the U.S. over Jimmy's Kids, the Palestinians. Britain and other European governments should break from the US over the international embargo on Gaza, former US president Jimmy Carter told the Guardian yesterday. Carter, visiting the Welsh border town of Hay for the Guardian literary festival, described the EU's position on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as "supine" and its...

U.S. Wary Of Small Boat Terrorism As boating season approaches, the Bush administration wants to enlist America's 80 million recreational boaters to help reduce the chances that a small boat could deliver a nuclear or radiological bomb somewhere along the 95,000 miles of U.S. coastline and inland waterways. According to an April 23 intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press, "The use of a small boat as a weapon is likely to remain al Qaeda's weapon of choice in the maritime environment, given its ease in arming and deploying, low cost, and record of success." While the United States...

Pump up the Carly Simon. President George W. Bush spoke to the Israeli Knesset on Thursday morning, to mark the nation’s 60th anniversary. The president said: Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along . . . We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is —...

Former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn were in New Orleans Wednesday doing their part to help rebuild the Gulf Coast. Video: Watch the Story Carter was among dozens of volunteers helping Habitat for Humanity rebuild a home in the Upper Ninth Ward. Carter and his wife were in the area last May when the 100th home was built – now they are back to celebrate another milestone: the 25th anniversary of the Carter Work Project.

I do not think the President of the United States should be a liar, and believe that the overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens agree with me. For security reasons, the whole truth cannot always be revealed, but it is quite obvious that lies are seldom made to protect our nation. Almost invariably, the political fortunes of the prevaricator are at stake. During my campaign for the White House in 1976, veracity was a very important issue, because of the known falsehoods having been told during the Vietnam War and the revelations of the Frank Church senatorial investigation that our government...

The world must stop standing idle while the people of Gaza are treated with such cruelty The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world. An entire population is being brutally punished. This gross mistreatment of the Palestinians in Gaza was escalated dramatically by Israel, with United States backing, after political candidates representing Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Authority parliament in 2006. The election was unanimously judged to be honest and fair by all international...

OPINION, May 4 /Christian Newswire/ -- Gary McCullough, director of the Christian Newswire, submits the following for publication and is available for comment: When judging the performance of a president the grid one uses is the most influential factor. For many Americans that grid is national security. With this in mind, which presidents have led our nation to a more secure status? And which presidents have left us more at risk? When viewed through this grid I propose that President Jimmy Carter put America at physical risk more so than any other president. Today on a Sunday talk show, Mr....

Jimmy Carter's descent into useful idiocy is well documented. Yesterday, on Wolf Blitzer's show on CNN, the former President gave us a close look into his thoughts on the situation in the Middle East. It isn't pretty...

... but a sucker like Jimmy Carter comes along only once or twice in a century.

Ex-US president blames Israel for denying Gazans food, water; says Hamas won elections 'fair and square' WASHINGTON – Blaming Israel, again: Former US President Jimmy Carter says that following his meetings with Hamas leaders the group offered a truce in Gaza but Israel rejected the offer. During an interview with NBC, Carter also blamed Israel for denying the citizens of Gaza basic supplies such as water and food. "I think it was productive, because all the things that we asked Hamas to do, they basically agreed to do," Carter said, referring to his recent trip. "One was to have a...

The United States registered an official protest with Israel against its ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, for calling former U.S. President Jimmy Carter an "enemy of Israel" prior to Carter's recent visit to the region. A senior Foreign Ministry source said Saturday that the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv asked that Gillerman be made aware of the U.S. administration's dissatisfaction with the disrespectful comments about the former U.S. President.

Talk about bad pennies always turning up; Jimmy Carter’s at it again. It would be easy to blame the 83-year-old former one-term president’s frequent excursions into irrational behavior on senility were it not for the fact that he appears to have been senile most of his public life.

Here is what the ACLJ (American Center for Law and Justice) web site says: Citizen Outrage: Strip Federal Funding from Carter Center! Former President Jimmy Carter has gone too far. His recent meeting with the anti-Israel, pro-terrorist group Hamas is an abuse of power and misuse of American citizens' hard-earned tax dollars. We will not allow for our federal dollars to support terrorist negotiations! Stand with Members of Congress and the ACLJ in calling for an immediate halt of federal funding to the Carter Center. Please read the form below carefully and declare your membership with the ACLJ by adding...

By MICHELLE MALKIN April 24, 2008 -- So much for Jimmy Carter's triumphal peace mission in the Middle East. Like everything else he has done on foreign policy, the world's biggest tool for jihad propaganda created yet another bloody mess. Quick review: After proclaiming that Hamas terrorists were willing to accept Israel as a "neighbor next door," Carter's Hamas-hug buddies flipped him the bird. They gladly accepted the diplomatic legitimacy his visit conferred on them, while clinging bitterly to their insistence on the Jewish state's destruction.

Recent talks between former president Jimmy Carter and a militant leader failed to make much of a difference in Gaza, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said Wednesday. Carter's meeting with exiled Hamas militant leader Khaled Meshaal, which drew anger from both the U.S. and Israel, did not produce a cease fire or prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel, al-Malki told Agence France-Presse. "The only thing he achieved was permission on the part of Khaled Meshaal of Hamas to deliver a letter from a detained Israeli soldier to his family. Nothing else," al-Malki told AFP. Also on Wednesday, Carter stopped just...

When it came time to judge Jimmy Carter's presidency, Americans voters thundered: Carter, receiving 40% of the popular vote, carrying four states. With sound reasons: The prime rate had soared to 20%, inflation to 12.5% and unemployment to 7.5% More dismal than Carter's domestic failures is the continuing damage his blunders did to international security. Carter would not help Iran's Shah -- a strong ally of the U.S., even if not exactly a Jeffersonian democrat -- withstand Khomeini's revolution. Carter bears responsibility for subjecting Iran to the nightmarish rule of fanatic mullahs. All evils currently instigated by Iran -- e.g.,...

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday accused Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of not telling the truth about warnings she said her department gave Carter not to speak to Hamas before a Middle East trip. The State Department has said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, issued the warning before Carter, a veteran of Middle East diplomacy, went on his trip last week. Rice said in Kuwait on Tuesday: "We counseled President Carter against going to the region and particularly against having contact with Hamas." "President Carter...

Jimmy Carter continually disgraces himself. What can we do about him? Here are some ideas: (1) Congressional Republicans should censure him regarding Hamas. (2) Does the Secret Service protect him when he travels abroad? If so, withdraw that perk. (3) When he dies, the President should have the guts to tell his family to arrange a private funeral and not give his death any official recognition.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel says efforts by former President Jimmy Carter to work out a cease-fire with Gaza's Hamas rulers failed. Senior Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad says that Hamas presented nothing new in its demands for a truce during Carter's recent meetings with officials of the militant group. Gilad told Israel's Army Radio Tuesday that Mashaal had not budged in his demands, and thus the Carter mission failed. Carter called Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Damascus on Monday to get him to agree to a one-month truce without conditions. But Mashaal rejected the idea.

Former president Jimmy Carter's "breakthrough" Hamas truce deal is actually nothing new. The terror group has been floating around the exact plan for two years now and will explain to anyone who asks that their 10-year truce offer is part of a strategy aimed at destroying Israel. Returning from four days of meetings with leaders of Hamas, a triumphant Carter announced today in Jerusalem his mediation efforts were successful – Hamas agreed to a 10-year truce in exchange for Israel withdrawing

Editor of London Arabic Daily on: 'The Controversy Surrounding Carter and Mash'al Meeting' On April 16, 2008, the London Arabic language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat published an editorial by the paper's editor, Tariq Alhomayed, criticizing former U.S. president Jimmy Carter's plan to meet with Hamas leader Khaled Mash'al in Damascus this week to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The following is the editorial, in the original English, as it appeared on the newspaper's website. [1] "Carter's Meeting With Mash'al... Can Only Exacerbate the Crisis in the Region""Huge controversy surrounds former U.S. president Jimmy Carter's meeting with Hamas supremo Khaled Mash'al. Carter has...

KUWAIT CITY — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the Bush administration explicitly warned former President Carter against meeting with members of Hamas, the Palestinian faction that controls the Gaza Strip and which is regarded by the U.S. as a terror group.

Andy Warhol famously opined that everyone would eventually experience their own "15 minutes" of fame. Little did he know that, like a drug, having once experienced 15 minutes of fame, many people would become addicted. And with the growth of 24/7 news cycles, many others would go to desperate lengths to achieve their own 15 minutes of fame, by any means. Take Yale student, Aliza Schvarts, who is currently enjoying her very own 15 minutes, reveling in the controversy sparked by her desperate bid for relevance. She concocted an art project..

In a defining moment of the 1980 US presidential election, incumbent Jimmy Carter - in his only debate with Republican contender Ronald Reagan - accused Reagan of opposing a national health insurance program that would place emphasis on disease prevention, outpatient care, hospital cost containment and cutting down on catastrophic costs. "Governor Reagan, again, typically is against such a proposal," Carter said. Reagan, apparently waiting for that moment, shook his head, cast Carter a condescending smile and then coined a phrase that entered into American political lore: "There you go again." What Reagan packed into those four simple words was...

The U.S. State Department says it sees no policy changes by the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the wake of former President Jimmy Carter's meetings with Hamas leaders. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department the Bush administration counseled Mr. Carter against meeting Hamas. Bush administration officials were irate over Mr. Carter's plans to meet Hamas, arguing it would undermine a political boycott aimed at forcing U.S. designated terrorist organization to accept international terms for Middle East peace talks. Now that the former U.S. president has met key Hamas figures, the State Department is downplaying Mr. Carter's suggestion that...

As former President Jimmy Carter met with Hamas leaders and laid a wreath at the tomb of terrorist Yasser Arafat, Americans were wondering who Carter really is. Carter came into office portraying himself as a man of the people, a peanut farmer who cares about the problems of working class Americans. But Secret Service agents, Air Force One stewards, and White House residence staff saw an entirely different picture.Snip.... If the true measure of a man is how he treats the little people, Carter flunked the test. Inside the White House, Carter treated those who helped and protected him with...

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal says his militant Islamic group will not recognize Israel. Earlier, former President Jimmy Carter said that Hamas is prepared to accept the Jewish state's right to "live as a neighbor next door in peace."

By now everyone's heard about Jimmy Carter's latest spasm of brilliance: declaring Hamas as the last great hope for peace in the Middle East. Many folks smarter than me have already pointed out the obvious lunacy of the biggest presidential failure of the last century still conducting foriegn policy 30 years into his administraition, but I feel the burning need to get something off my chest. I hate Jimmy Carter. And not only that, but I hate his wife and his freakish daughter, too. All things Carter repulse me. I realize hate is a strong word that should not...

Former President Jimmy Carter continued to express his thinly veiled support for Barack Obama over the weekend during a trip to the Middle East. The Nobel laureate discussed what he called strong support for the Democratic hopeful that he discovered in his travels to Africa and Asia. Carter has not formally endorsed either candidate, although he has suggested that he strongly leans towards supporting the Illinois Senator over rival Hillary Clinton. The man who occupied the White House from 1978 to 1982 said that Obama is the clear favorite in Ghana, Nigeria, and Nepal, and added that “world opinion is...

Vladimir Lenin understood the value of what he called “useful idiots” – naïve westerners who bought in to Bolshevik propaganda and presumably created an air of legitimacy for what was, in fact, nothing more than a murderous ideology. You already knew Jimmy Carter was an idiot. I bet you never thought he could be useful to anyone. The leaders of the terrorist group Hamas hope you’re wrong, and they’re using his recent series of meetings with them to argue for their legitimacy as a national liberation movement. “It confirms the failure of the U.S. and European policies of ignoring Hamas,”...

Afghanistan to Ask NATO for Bigger Army Afghan officials will go to the NATO summit in Romania Thursday with a request: pay to increase our national Army by 40 percent. A bigger Army, Afghan officials argue, will allow the US and other coalition members to scale back in the coming years. This appeal comes amid pleas from the US and Canada for other NATO members to commit more to the Afghanistan mission, which many analysts say has floundered over the past year for lack of resources and a coherent strategy. France is expected to contribute another 1,000 forces and...

Carter's comments came after he met with the top Hamas leaders last week in Syria. Carter also says Hamas won't undermine Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' efforts to reach a peace deal with Israel. He says Hamas is ready to accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Carter made the comments during a speech in Jerusalem.

You know Jimmy Carter has gone too far when even Sen. Barack Obama blasts him. Talking to Jewish voters Wednesday, Obama lit into Carter, saying he had a "fundamental disagreement" with the ex-prez regarding his meetings with Hamas. "We must not negotiate with a terrorist group intent on Israel's destruction," the junior senator from Illinois insisted. But what about when Obama was asked if he'd parley with Iran's leaders? Absolutely, he said. And throw in the heads of Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea and Syria, too. "It is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them," he huffed. Hmm. Iran's...