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Special counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly investigating Dick Cheney's former top national security aide, according to the Daily Beast. John Hannah, who worked on Trump's State Department transition team, has not been accused of any wrongdoing at this point, but he is affiliated with two men who are already being questioned by Mueller.

In the wake of the 2012 election, one point on which practically all Republicans seemed to agree was that their party's presidential-nomination process was broken. Supporters of the GOP's eventual nominee, Mitt Romney, believed that the nature of the process weakened him for the general election. The party's base of conservative activists, meanwhile, believed that the process favored the candidates with the most money, and therefore the views of (often less conservative) wealthy donors. More moderate Republicans thought the process elevated a parade of unserious firebrands who were never real contenders, thereby damaging the party's image with swing voters. And...

The administration hard-sells reactor exports while shrugging off proliferation concerns.In Washington, learning comes hard. Officials may know when to back off when they’ve crossed wires with Congress, but in most cases, and in less time than you’d think, they’re back at it again. Take the State Department’s rush three years ago to seal a civilian nuclear deal with Vietnam. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the U.S. had initialed a draft agreement in July of 2010. It featured nuclear-nonproliferation provisions far looser than what Congress wanted. When the Hill found out, it threw a fit, the White House withdrew...

Generally it means that even the severely reduced number of warheads deployed in our arsenal would not -- if they were needed in a crisis -- be available for use. If that in fact took place -- with countries hostile to the US having arsenals in excess of the US force -- it would probably be in irresistible invitation to them to attack. Former Senator Chuck Hagel, nominated to be Secretary of Defense, is also a signatory of what is known as the "Global Zero" plan. It calls for the United States and Russia to begin comprehensive nuclear arms negotiations...

Senate Democrats have decided the way to muster public support for President Obama’s START treaty with the Russians is to present the issue as a choice between rational, experienced, calm foreign policy heads . . . and an airhead. Specifically Sarah Palin, or at least the Saturday Night Live cartoon version of Sarah Palin. On their web site, Senate Democrats pose the question thusly: In supporting ratification of the New START Treaty, Democrats are siding with the cross-party consensus view of virtually the entire foreign policy establishment – including former President George H.W. Bush, Secretary of Defense Gates, Secretary of...

And you thought all those Tea Party rallies and Town Hall protests were about Obamacare, exploding federal spending, earmark corruption, and saddling our children and grand children with a staggering national debt. Well, let me set you straight on that one. Actually, Vice President Joe Biden did so earlier today on NBC's "Meet the Press," delivering this startling observation for moderator David Gregory: "The key to turning things around is that having everyone understand the message of that election. We understand that the message is the American public wants us to cooperate -- wants us to work together. That's why...

The full staggering scale and cost of the European Union’s new global diplomatic corps can be revealed today. The so-called European External Action Service (EEAS) will have an annual budget of £5.8 billion and an army of ambassadors across 137 embassies, with up to 7,000 Eurocrats trained to pursue the EU’s foreign policy. It will be run by Baroness Ashton, the obscure Labour quangocrat and Blair-appointed peer who last year was surprisingly nominated by Gordon Brown to be the EU’s foreign secretary – even though she has never been elected by British or European voters. The former treasurer of the...

Realpolitik: At the start of the Nuclear Security Summit, we see an all-too-familiar gesture from our president. Is it a matter of courtesy, an idiosyncrasy or the administration's acceptance of a new world order? If there ever was an iconic tribute to the idea of U.S. exceptionalism, it was the fact that the American flag was never dipped during the parade of athletes at the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games. We never dipped or bowed to anybody, with the possible exception of figurehead royalty.

“Go ahead, punch me in the face and I'm not going to retaliate ...” – said Sarah Palin on Hannity and the whole country immediately understood the new Obama policy on nuclear engagement. Like the “death panels” remark got the attention of the seniors to the health care reform, the “punch me!” line made the crowd curious about the new Obama activity involving nuclear arms negotiations. With the “death panels” Palin made Obama defend himself that he will not pull the plug on Granma. With the “I will not retaliate” line the famous now FOX News contributor made the...

Later today, the Obama administration will release the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) which will set the framework for decisions on U.S. nuclear policy for the next five to 10 years. Coupled with the follow-on Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II) to be signed in Prague this Thursday, these documents begin to implement the “road to zero” nuclear dream President Barack Obama outlined in Czech Republic last year. their exclusive interview with President Obama about the NPR, David Sanger and Peter Baker report in The New York Times: Discussing his approach to nuclear security the day before formally releasing his new...

Arms Deal: President Obama signs away U.S. nuclear security and gives the Russians a veto over whether we can defend ourselves. Our nuclear umbrella is in tatters as another piece of paper proclaims peace in our time. Completing a process of disarmament and appeasement that manifested itself in the dismantling and defunding of U.S. military power that began with his inauguration, President Obama signed a new strategic arms limitation treaty with a grinning and very happy Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday in the Czech capital. How fitting this document was signed in Prague, which isn't far from Munich where...

PRAGUE: Barack Obama met Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Prague last night to sign a landmark nuclear disarmament treaty that slashes their nations' atomic arsenals. The two heads of state were expected to sign a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty a year after the US President called for a nuclear-free world in a keynote speech. The new treaty, which must be ratified by the US Senate and Russia's parliament to take effect, also imposes limits on the intercontinental ballistic missiles needed to deliver the warheads. The White House hopes the treaty will help yield warmer relations with...

National Security: Aiming at a world where nuclear weapons are obsolete, the administration's nuclear posture review leaves a world without American nuclear weapons and the backbone to use them. After his stunning bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto lamented that all that had been accomplished was to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve. Under policies announced by the Obama administration, a devastating chemical or biological attack on this country might merely awaken our very own Hamlet and fill him with a terrible sense of angst. We have said before that rather...

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama's plan to begin phasing out nuclear weapons has run up against powerful resistance from officials in the Pentagon and other US agencies, a US newspaper reported late Sunday. Obama laid out his vision of a nuclear-free world in a speech in Prague last April. But citing unnamed officials, the newspaper said the Obama administration is now locked in internal debate over a top-secret policy blueprint for shrinking the US nuclear arsenal and reducing the role of such weapons in country's military strategy. The Pentagon has stressed the importance of continued US deterrence, an objective Obama has...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has gone cold on his US counterpart Barack Obama, the Financial Times (FT) reported Monday. Sarkozy, whose pro-Washington stance has seen him nicknamed "Sarko the American," stressed that France and the US were "the same family" during his first face-to-face meeting with Obama in April since the US elections last year. But the French president has clashed since then with his US counterpart on a series of issues, raising the question of whether Sarkozy is reverting to the anti-US posture of his predecessor, Jacques Chirac. "He has now shifted from a pro-Bush position to an anti-Obama...

BERLIN — Poland, smarting after President Obama announced last month that he would scrap Bush-era plans to deploy an antiballistic missile system in Eastern Europe, will accept an offer to host parts of a new, more mobile missile defense system, Polish officials said Tuesday. The plan for so-called SM-3 missiles, first proposed in Washington last month, will be spelled out in more detail on Wednesday when Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. holds talks with leaders in Warsaw. “The elements of this new missile defense system will be based in Poland,” said Mariusz Handzlik, the chief foreign policy adviser to...

TOKYO – Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the victims of the only atomic bombings in history, are teaming up to try to bring the Olympics to Japan in 2020, the cities' mayors said Sunday. Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba and Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue told a press conference they will establish a joint committee to work on a proposal based on world peace. Both men are founding members of the Mayors for Peace 2020 Vision Campaign, which advocates for a global ban on nuclear arms. In a speech last month in Mexico City, Akiba said he firmly believed the world could abolish nuclear...

From Obama's recent speech in Cairo: "No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons. That is why I strongly reaffirmed America’s commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons." http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Barack-Obama-US-President-Addresses-The-Muslim-World-From-Egypt/Article/200906115295746?lpos=World_News_Carousel_Region_2&lid=ARTICLE_15295746_Barack_Obama%3A_US_President_Addresses_The_Muslim_World_From_Egypt ____________________________________________________________ From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:Profile: Institute For Policy Studies (IPS) IPS’s [Institute For Policy Studies] Washington, DC headquarters quickly became a resource center for national reporters and a place for KGB agents from the nearby Soviet embassy to convene and strategize. Cora Weiss headed one of the IPS's most successful forays -- into Riverside Church in Manhattan. She was invited there in...

Much commentary about Barack Obama’s speech to the United Nations Wednesday has focused on his description of pre-Obama America as a deadbeat, lawless, foot-dragging country that tortures innocent Muslims, or did until his glorious ascension to the right hand of power. The predictable emphasis on the speech’s most offensive aspects overlooks more dangerous points yet: the president placed unilateral nuclear disarmament, the environmentalist agenda, and increased pressure on U.S. allies at the forefront of a globalist agenda, while relegating terrorism to a footnote – one that regards it as a “law enforcement” matter. (Yes, he used those words.) The “I”s...

From "45 Communist Goals": Congressional Record--Appendix, pp. A34-A35 January 10, 1963:1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength. 'Goals' 4-45 can be found here or at many other sites through a web search for "45 goals":http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm ____________________________________________________________ From Obama's recent speech in Cairo: "No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons. That is why I strongly reaffirmed America’s commitment to seek a world in...