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Russia and Israel seem to have a growing affinity for each other. A few weeks ago, Israel abstained from a vote in the UN censuring Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported [link at URL] that this is a sore spot for the White House and a diplomatic novum on the world scene. A senior Israeli official said that Israel's absence from the United Nations vote was viewed around the world as an extremely irregular measure, a departure from a long-standing Israeli policy of voting with the United States in the UN. While the Americans viewed...

1. Paul’s intellectual mentor Murray Rothbard was the founder of anarcho-capitalism and opposed the legitimacy of all nation-states, including ours. 2. Paul openly proclaims himself a revival of the Old Right, the movement which opposed our entry in World War II. He and his followers proudly reject the New Right tradition established by William F. Buckley Jr., Ronald Reagan, and Barry Goldwater.  “When I was deciding whether or not to run for President as a Republican, I re-read Justin Raimondo’s Reclaiming the American Right and it gave me hope—that the anti-interventionist, pro-liberty Old Right, which had once dominated the party, could and...

This is a bad morning. I was greeted by a headline in the New York Times that said Defense Secretary “Chuck Mullet” Hagel was planning to submit a budget to Congress to cut the size of the military to a level not seen since 1940, before the U.S. entered World War II. The article went on to say that the Pentagon realized that this would be an inadequate force for even very small wars and certainly would not allow the U.S. to police the world and keep control of contingencies like a North Korean attack on the South or a...

As Luke Skywalker said when he got his first look at the Death Star, “I’ve got a very bad feeling about this.” AFP reports on plans to take the U.S. Army back to pre-World War II levels – which, as you may recall, turned out to be a problem when World War II rolled around. The Pentagon plans to scale back the US Army by more than an eighth to its lowest level since before World War II, signaling a shift after more than a decade of ground wars. Saying it was time to “reset” for a new era, Defense...

As a hard-partying teenager, Patrick Kennedy met President Reagan at a fundraiser for the JFK Library, a meeting captured in a photograph that the former Rhode Island congressman now hangs in his home office. He used to think of it as a funny episode, a collision of Camelot’s cocaine kid and America’s foremost opponent of illegal drug use. But Kennedy took his last hit of anything in 2009, and he’s since honed an anti-drug message that sounds a bit like Reagan with a Boston brogue. Kennedy believes there is "an epidemic in this country of epic dimensions when it comes...

Secretary of State John Kerry continues to assert, misleadingly, that the signing of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement will immediately usher in peaceful relations between the Jewish state and the world’s Islamic nations. He has made the statement several times in public since launching the drive last July for a “final status” Israeli-Palestinian agreement. Citing the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative (API), he says, if Israelis and Palestinians agree to a negotiated settlement then all 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) will normalize ties with Israel. He has said moreover that this would happen “instantaneously”—“the minute” that an Israeli-Palestinian...

"If these negotiations [with Iran] fail, there are two grim alternatives," said Sen. Richard Durbin, "a nuclear Iran, or war, or perhaps both." Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham returned from the Munich security conference saying that even John Kerry agrees that President Obama's Syrian policy has failed. They are urging another look at air strikes. North Korea is warning that should the annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises go forward in March, it could mean war, possibly nuclear war. Philippines President Benigno Aquino III this week compared his country's situation to Czechoslovakia in 1938, and the disputed islets off his...

KABUL, Afghanistan — Advocates say that women’s rights and security in Afghanistan are under mounting assault from all sides — the Taliban insurgency and the government alike — putting at risk 12 years of hard-won gains for women here. The country’s Parliament is about to approve legislation that would strip away crucial legal protections. The insurgents have mounted a string of violent attacks on female officials. And advocates for women are deeply worried by the news that President Hamid Karzai has been negotiating secretly with the Taliban, who enforced hard-line, fundamentalist restrictions on women during their years in power. And...

Expanding his attack on the administration's nuclear deal with Iran, Sen. Ted Cruz Thursday said that President Obama should end talks, demand Tehran give up its nuclear program immediately and use military force if the terrorist nation doesn't give in. A "responsible president," the Texas Republican told a conference on Iran's grab for a nuclear weapon, "would stand up and say unequivocally, in terms that allow no confusion, 'Under no circumstances will the nation of Iran be allowed to acquire nuclear weapon capability, and they will either halt now or we will use every step necessary including direct military force...

It was sad last week to wake up to news of the passing of former New York Democratic congressman Otis G. Pike. During the fierce debates of 1975, known as the “Year of Intelligence” (because the controversies of the day led to the first significant investigations of the actions of U.S. intelligence agencies) Representative Pike held to a steady course in the face of a concerted effort by the Ford administration -- and the CIA, NSA, and FBI of the day -- to head off any public inquiry. Sound familiar? Like the current controversy, ignited by leaks from NSA contract...

The Persian Triangle Clifford D. May On November 24, 2013, a “Joint Plan of Action” was concluded in Geneva by Iran and the permanent members of the UN Security Council—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China—as well as Germany. “We have halted the progress of the Iranian nuclear program,” President Obama exulted. This agreement, added Secretary of State John Kerry, will ensure that Iran “cannot build a nuclear weapon.” Their confidence was not universally shared. “This deal appears to provide the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism with billions of dollars in exchange for cosmetic concessions that...

A recent conversation with a veteran of GOP presidential campaigns raised this question: Which, if any, of the recent battleground states are likely to become more Republican by 2016? The consensus: very few. That reality highlights one problem Republicans face as they seek to regain the White House after six years under President Obama. Lots of factors affect elections: the quality of the candidates, the state of the economy, the effectiveness of the campaigns. But in a country whose demographics continue to change, Republicans will begin this campaign with one significant disadvantage. Over the past three decades, the political leanings...

PARK CITY -- The Sundance premiere for Ryan White and Ben Cotner's Proposition 8 documentary The Case Against 8 at Temple Theatre on Saturday afternoon drew one of the most enthusiastic audience responses of the festival to date. OUR EDITOR RECOMMENDS Sundance: Zach Braff Was Warned 'People Will Go Apes--t' Over Kickstarter Campaign Sundance: Kristen Stewart on 'Camp X-Ray's' Haunted Set, Meeting Robert Redford (Video) Daily Warm Up: Aaron Paul Talks Sundance Drama 'Hellion,' 'Breaking Bad' Spinoff Sundance at 30: Vintage Photos of Park City's Biggest Stars Lawyers Ted Olson and David Boies, who successfully fought to overturn California's Proposition...

After nearly three years of fighting in Syria and persistent calls for a new caretaker government there, U.S. policy toward the country’s grinding civil war is tacitly acknowledging what has long been obvious: President Bashar al-Assad will remain in power, at least for a while. The Obama administration has narrowed its policy to two main efforts: the eradication of Syria’s chemical weapons and the staging of a peace conference scheduled for this week. Both need Assad’s cooperation to succeed. Although the official U.S. line is that Assad “must go,” the focus on striking even short-term bargains with his regime is...

Cruz Statement on The Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013 December 20, 2013 By Steve Oglesby Leave a Comment Press Release: U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, released the following statement on S. 1881, The Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013: “The single most important thing Congress can do to defend the national security interests of the United States is send a clear and unequivocal message that we will not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran that would pose an existential threat to our nation, the state of Israel, and our Gulf allies in the region. The United States must lead...

The US fought for years to free Anbar province from the grip of al-Qaeda during the Iraq War. Fallujah and Ramadi turned into pitched battlefronts, and later “the surge” convinced local Sunni tribes to join the US effort to dispel AQ from the region. More than two years after the US pulled all of its forces out of Iraq, AQ is back — and Ramadi and Fallujah appear to have fallen once again: CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO The city center of Iraq’s Fallujah has fallen completely into the hands of fighters from the al-Qaida-linked Islamic State in Iraq...

In the past few days, much has been written and said about the budget deal worked out between Paul Ryan and Patty Murray. That budget deal passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 332-94. The vote came after a fairly harsh push-back against outside conservative groups like Heritage Action, Club for Growth, Americans for Prosperity, and Freedom Works. Speaker John Boehner made his displeasure for these groups plain for all to see and hear, saying they had lost all credibility, that he didn't care what they did.  Clearly, he is tired of the thorn in his flesh and...

..[B]y the time the Bush era was winding down, the whole administration, including the president, was stewed in terrible, Cheney-level disapproval ratings. And now, almost no one who played a significant role in that administration is anywhere to be found in electoral politics, beyond the tertiary orbits of Punch-and-Judy cable news and the remains of what used to be the conservative "think tank" circuit... Unlike the Reagan administration, the first Bush administration and the Clinton administration, the George W. Bush presidency elevated precisely no one to the ranks of national leadership who wasn't there before. The 2008 Republican presidential primaries...

Why is Iran working on Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles? There is no possible peaceful purpose for ballistic missiles. Iran may claim that their nuclear program is peaceful, but they cannot possibly make that claim when it comes to ballistic missiles. The only reason to have ballistic missiles is to target enemies with high explosives and WMD. Iran’s Shehab-3 Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles have sufficient range to hit Israel, Saudi Arabia and US bases in Afghanistan, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait and Turkey. Why are the Iranians working with the North Koreans on multi-stage Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs)? Who might the Iranians be...

Two years ago, Gayne C. Young, a Texas-based writer and blogger for Outdoor Life, scored the interview of a lifetime. As a beat writer, Young had enjoyed the outdoor exploits of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been documented shooting a gray whale with a crossbow, tranquilizing a tiger attacking a news crew, hunting shirtless, fishing shirtless, and riding horseback shirtless. On a personal level, Young liked the rugged brand of masculinity that seemed a throwback to Teddy Roosevelt. "Although you have Clinton shooting ducks, you never see it. Although Rick Perry says he enjoys hunting, you don't see it....