Free Republic

(CNN) -- As violence raged in Syria, U.S. officials made clear Tuesday that the United States has lost patience with President Bashar al-Assad. "Your days are numbered," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said in comments directed at the Syrian leader. "It is time and past time for you to transfer power responsibly and peacefully." Her remarks came as two senior administration officials told CNN that, while the U.S. focus remains on exerting diplomatic and economic pressure on Damascus, the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command have begun a preliminary internal review of U.S. military capabilities in order to...

Compare and contrast: Biden in Israel and Susan Rice in Sudan Joe Biden was in Israel and a few housing permits were issued for East Jerusalem, resulting in an uproar at the White House. Condemnations and recriminations followed. There was a tongue-lashing over a minor issue. Susan Rice was in Sudan to celebrate the coming independence of Southern Sudan. Sudan, headed by a genocidal dictator (Omar al-Bashir) whose case has been referred to the International Criminal Court, invades a disputed town between the borders of the nation-to-be and Sudan while Susan Rice and other representatives of the UN Security Council...

[This post originally published Jan. 2008-but the establishment is floating Condi for VP again.--No thanks!]If anything, the Secretary of State should resign!Aside from the fact that Condi Rice is somewhat liberal on abortion, she most certainly has not been a real supporter of our ally Israel. In fact, she does her level best to undermine Israel. Always presurring Israel to make concessions on this or that . Frank Gaffney is right. Condoleezza Rice behaves like a zealot. I go it one further and say she behaves like a pro-islamic palestinian zealot. She and President Bush have been busy spending $millions in...

"America’s first black female secretary of state is quietly positioning herself to be the top choice of the eventual Republican presidential nominee, ready to deliver bona fide foreign-policy credentials lacking among the candidates. The 56-year-old has recently raised her profile, releasing her memoir in November and embarking on a monthlong book tour."

Candy Crowley, host of CNN’s “State of the Union,” interviewed former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice before the 2011 Women Working for Change Conference about her new book “No Higher Honor,” the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and politics at National Harbor near Washington, D.C. on Friday. Between questions about history and policy Rice had some advice for those attempting to find their path to success. According to the former secretary of state, people should first find what they love to do and dedicate themselves to it. Rice recalled how her parents, when she was growing up in segregated Alabama,...

November 17, 2011, 1:09 PM JST Staple Scare: Radioactive Rice in Fukushima While Japan has battled a series of food scares in the wake of the nuclear crisis, the latest revelation hits at the heart of the country’s proud national staple: Radioactive cesium exceeding the government limit was detected for the first time in rice harvested in Fukushima prefecture. About 630 becquerels of cesium per kilogram were found in a rice sample taken from a farm in Fukushima City, the prefectural government said Wednesday night. The levels measure above the government-mandated limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram of harvested rice,...

It was just a few weeks after September 11, 2001 when Condoleezza Rice accompanied the president on a trip to China for the APEC summit. In Shanghai Vice President Cheney appeared on a secure video conference line and delivered President George W. Bush this message: “The Vice President came on the screen and said that the White House detectors have detected botulinum toxin, and we were all– those of who exposed were going to die,” Rice told me. He said that? “Yes, he said that. And I remember everybody just sort of freezing, and the President saying, ‘What was that?...

Rice Climbs by Daily Limit on Thai Flood Damage BY TOM POLANSEK CHICAGO—U.S. rice futures surged on expectations that severe flooding will cause significant crop losses in Thailand, the world's top exporter of the grain. Rough rice futures climbed the maximum amount allowed on the Chicago Board of Trade, with the nearby November contract ending half a cent, or 3%, higher at 16.905 cents a pound, its highest settlement price in a month. The contract ...

Two new books just out you're going to hear a lot about in coming days. Both go inside the little-known lives of two public personalities: First, Condoleeza Rice's "No Higher Honor," the long-awaited memoir of her years in Washington working for President George W. Bush, whose administration has generated a mini-industry of book publishing the last year or so. "Decision Points." Second, "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson. It's an authorized biography rushed into print following the Oct. 5 cancer death of the icon inventor. Rice is talking about the book on her new Twitter account here. And Newsweek/The Daily Beast...

Col Gaddafi killed: Condoleezza Rice recounts his 'eerie obsession' with her Colonel Muammar Gaddafi had a "slightly eerie obsession" with Condoleezza Rice, describing her as his "African Princess," the ex-US secretary of state said in an excerpt from her memoirs published on Thursday. 12:53AM BST 21 Oct 2011 The late Libyan leader met Ms Rice in the oil-rich north African country in September 2008, a historic meeting that signalled the once pariah state's return to the diplomatic table after decades of isolation. Ms Rice, unlike ex-British prime minister Tony Blair, declined to meet Gaddafi in his infamous tent, opting instead...

I like to brush up on vocab and also feel like a do-gooder.

Now it's starting to get real serious: Though initially skeptical that top Iranian regime figures were behind a plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington, U.S. government officials became convinced by the operation's money trail and now consider it likely that Iran's supreme leader was aware of the plan. "This is the kind of operation — the assassination of a diplomat on foreign soil — that would have been vetted at the highest levels of the Iranian government," said a senior U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about...

Fukushima finds cesium in Nihonmatsu rice, to hold more tests before shipment decision The Fukushima Prefectural Government said on Sept. 23 that it had detected 500 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram -- the government-set allowable limit -- in a sample of "Hitomebore" rice collected in Nihonmatsu's Obama district. It will greatly increase the number of testing locations there for a second test to decide whether to allow shipments of rice from the city. After discovering radioactive cesium in the rice crop from the city, Nihonmatsu became the first area to be designated a "priority test area," which means the...

The rogues' gallery of the far left is enormously spacious, and it doesn't take much to be eligible for inclusion; any conservative worth his or her salt automatically qualifies. But with the possible exception of that eternal bogeyman, Richard Nixon, nobody is hated by the left with such abandon; nobody is more vilified; nobody is targeted with such volcanic eruptions of insane hatred and vitriol as former Vice President Dick Cheney.But why? What did Cheney do to deserve such vicious scorn?

You've no doubt by now heard about the report from... wait for this one... the National Inquirer quoting an upcoming unauthorized biography of Sarah Palin (Deadspin.com brought it to mainstream knowledge). The Inquirer reported that Rice confirmed a sexual encounter with Palin in 1987. We haven't covered it since Rice hasn't been in the league since 2004 and this has nothing to do with basketball. But since if it's anything about anything, Charles Barkley will talk about it, and since, let's be honest, Charles Barkley is never lacking in entertainment value, we thought we'd pass along Barkley's comments about the...

He acts like he is America. But America didn’t like Dick Cheney. - Maureen Dowd"I didn't change. The world changed" - Henninger's interview of Dick Cheney Ready to promote the release of his new autobiography, former Vice President Darth Cheney is deeply unapologetic over his time spent in serving in the Bush White House and can still give a rat's ass about popularity over making the hard, adult decisions and doing the right thing: "It's important to have people at the helm who are prepared to be unpopular, to take the criticism and the hits that go with implementing policies.”...

(Reuters) - Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday she resented what she viewed as an attack on her integrity by former Vice President Dick Cheney in his just-published memoir. Speaking in an interview with Reuters, Rice rejected Cheney's contention that she misled President George W. Bush about nuclear diplomacy with North Korea.

Full Title: Radioactive Rice to Come? Rice Growing in a Rice Paddy with 35,000 Becquerels/kg of Radioactive Cesium? No wonder the first trading of rice futures in Osaka fetched 40% premium over the exchange-suggested contract price. If this number is correct, the harvest season in Japan will be indeed "chaos". From the tweet of Ryuichi Kino, who has attended and reported on almost all TEPCO/government press conferences regarding the Fukushima accident since March, reporting on the TEPCO/government joint press conference on August 8: SNIP (Japanese text) Germany's ZDF Television is here. Said 35,000 becquerels/kg [of radioactive cesium, most likely] has...

Rice futures trading suspended after price soars on nuclear fears Business Aug. 09, 2011 - 06:12AM JST ( 17 ) TOKYO — Japan started trading rice futures Monday but suspended the market after the price of the staple grain soared on fears that radioactive contamination from the Fukushima disaster will restrict supply. The nuclear plant, hit by the powerful March 11 quake and tsunami, has spewed radiation into the environment for nearly five months, tainting farm produce, including beef after cattle were fed radioactive rice straw. Consumer fears have grown that rice will be contaminated too and many families have...

Last year's rice being hoarded over radiation contamination worries TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Consumers are beginning to hoard last year's rice as their dietary staple over concerns that freshly harvested rice may be contaminated with radioactive materials released from the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, retailers said Friday. The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry is working to establish a system for ensuring the safety of rice ahead of the harvest season in autumn, with plans to inspect the crop in two stages. The buying spree, however, indicates deep public distrust of the government's handling of food safety issues in the...

The most recent issue of ESPN the Magazine, the bi-weekly publication of the 24-hours cable sports network ESPN, gave current and former pro athletes their own segment to “sound off” on various subjects, including news of the day. [INSERT LINK TO ARTICLE] While most athletes discussed rule changes to their respective sports or things they’d like to accomplish after sports, former San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Jerry Rice took a different. Instead, he offered readers some thoughts on President Barack Obama’s performance. Shorter version – it’s George Bush’s fault: "I think with President Obama, everyone is criticizing him for taking...

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice this week issued a blistering rebuke of Russia, China and other countries that blocked the Security Council from adopting a statement linking the threat of climate change to international peace and security. During the Security Council’s first formal debate in four years on the environment Wednesday, Russia was not swayed by Western nations led by Germany, this month's council president, insisting that the 15-nation panel needs to respond to the effects that climate change has had on Sudan's Darfur region and in Somalia, where the United Nations say famine had struck two...

Fellow lawmen were fighting Monday to help a Rice University police officer get his job back after he was fired for responding to an off-campus "officer down" call. Officer David Sedmak’s trouble began when he heard a radio call on May 7 about a shooting at a downtown Houston Greyhound station. After learning that an officer had been shot, Sedmak left the campus – two minutes away from the scene – and rushed to the scene to help. Two HPD officers were wounded by the gunman outside the Greyhound station. Other officers took cover behind the Rice officer’s car, so...

Fatah/Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades unity?The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is a recognized foreign terrorist organization.They are also the official military wing of Fatah.Fatah, the main faction of the PLO, runs the Palestinian Authority [PA].Excerpt from the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006 signed into law by President Bush in Nov. 2006:["Under the "Limitations of Asistance to the Palestinian Authority", [Section 620K], of the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006, in order for the PA to receive U.S. financial aid, the POTUS must certify to Congress that no foreign terrorist organization, or members of a foreign terrorist organization serve in any capacity or instrumentality of the PA".] There can be no...

This is why you don’t debate with talking points with a person of Condi Rice’s intellect. Some have called this a spanking. I call it a a lesson in bad interviewing. If this were one of Condi’s classes, Lawrence O’Donnell would be clapping erasers after class. IF you watch nothing else today, please watch this, and listen, and enjoy. Allahpundit at Hot Air gives O’Donnell props just for having Rice on. But I don’t think if you call yourself a journalist, you pat yourself on the back just because you take on an opponent face-to-face.

I’m tempted to accuse O’D of trying to build Olby-esque cred with MSNBC’s viewers by being so confrontational with one of Bush’s lieutenants, but that would be unfair. The hallmark of “Countdown” was avoiding confrontation; only the three cameras arrayed around Olby’s desk knew what it was like to receive the “sir” treatment face to face. Credit to O’Donnell for being willing to sit down with her, at least. It was a, er, gutsy call. If you’re thinking you’d rather pass on the umpteen-thousandth Iraq war debate in which neither party has a remote chance of convincing the other, think...

At least three White House advisers and officials, including President Obama's regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, have ties to an effort funded by billionaire George Soros to push for a new, "progressive" U.S. Constitution WND first reported last week that Sunstein's wife, Samantha Power, has been a champion of a Soros-funded doctrine, entitled "responsibility to protect," which was used by Obama to justify engaging in an international military alliance to bomb Libya. As the National Security Council special adviser to Obama on human rights, Power reportedly influenced Obama in his decision. Now it has emerged that Sunstein has maintained extensive ties...

Rice Gone from Tokyo Area Supermarkets Tokyo, March 16 (Jiji Press)--Rice has sold out at supermarkets in the Tokyo metropolitan area due to the disruption of transportation networks in the Tohoku northeastern Japan region hit by the massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake Friday. Given the emergency situation, Ito-Yokado supermarkets, operated by Seven & i Holdings Co. <3382>, held special sales events in the Tokyo metropolitan area Wednesday, and customers stood in long lines in front of the stores well ahead of their opening. "Now that school lunches have been suspended, I need more rice than usual," a housewife in her 40s from...

There's been a lot of discussion in certain circles on the topic of President Obama's "eligibility." (Incidentally, Dr. William Oddie cogently argues in a recent commentary that Obama is an enemy of the Catholic Church. Click here to read it.) Charles E. Rice, professor emeritus at Notre Dame Law School — and author of the book What Happened to Notre Dame? — argues that it's time for a new approach on the eligibility issue. His commentary is reprinted below.

Ugh. Hong Kong's English daily South China Morning Post has a distinctly unsavory dispatch from the Chinese media this morning: Government scientists have released research that millions of acres of Chinese agricultural land and over 12 million tons of Chinese grain are contaminated by toxic metal pollution, according to this week's edition of the China Economic Weekly, a state-run magazine. Last week, a separate article reported that 10% of Chinese rice contained excess cadmium, a heavy metal known to cause cancer.

The UN Security Council convened an emergency session yesterday to draft sanctions against Libyan mad- dog Moammar Khadafy. But as the UN struggled to put out the fires in the Mideast, America's top UN rep was nowhere to be found. In fact, US Ambassador Susan Rice was 8,000 miles away from UN headquarters, taking tea in South Africa with fellow diplonuts. South Africa? What the hell? Rice flew to sunny Cape Town this week for a "global sustainability" conference to discuss carbon emissions and green economies in the Third World. There were plenty of carbon emissions over Tripoli and Benghazi...

TAIPEI -- The Taiwan High Prosecutors Office vowed yesterday to harshly crack down on anyone caught hoarding food staples as part of the government's efforts to stabilize food prices amid a string of price hikes following the Lunar New Year. The office said it has started collecting evidence by monitoring prices of major consumer products. Anyone found to have engaged in hoarding will be severely punished to the fullest extent of the law, it said. Those guilty of illegal activities such as hoarding daily necessities, manipulating food supplies or product prices could be sentenced to jail terms of up to...

Susan Rice, President Barack Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, will argue in a major address Friday evening that the U.S. should “strengthen” — not “starve” — the world body. The address is the first in a series of speeches — to continue this spring – making the case to the American people about why the U.N. matters to national security, and how it is being improved. Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/49319.html#ixzz1DfApXFvV

NEW YORK: As a girl, she vowed that she would marry an American footballer, but she has ended up helping to run the country instead. Now there is speculation that Condoleezza Rice may fulfil both ambitions after she invited a handsome sportsman not once but twice to the White House as her date. The gossip began when Gene Washington, a former player with the San Francisco 49ers, turned up at a formal dinner for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the Philippines just over a week ago. Noticeably, Rice, the US national security adviser, had also invited him to dine with the...

And so the tide rising all commodities keeps coming: rough rice has just passed its December 2009 high and is now at its highest since October 2008. When we predicted on Monday morning that "rice is next", little did we think that it would be up by 11% in 4 days. And with this important resistance level broken, it is smooth sailing to the next two resistance levels of $20 and $24. Of course, Bangladesh will be in flames long before any of those are hit. But a speculator has to eat, right. After all, none of this is Gen...

Condi's speech in Cairo 2005 is an American Classic! Compare this to zer-O's Cairo speech. http://www.verumserum.com/?p=20976

Here is former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demonstrating what real moral clarity sounds like at a speech at the American University in Cairo in June 2005. Watch:

My Gloom By Daniel Pipes FrontPageMagazine.com | December 20, 2005 Unlike most Americans, 9/11 made me feel more secure. Finally, the country was focused on issues that had long worried me. “The FBI is engaged in the largest operation in its history,” I wrote in late 2001, “armed marshals will again be flying on US aircraft, and the immigration service has placed foreign students under increased scrutiny. I feel safer when Islamist organizations are exposed, illicit money channels closed down, and immigration regulations reviewed. The amassing of American forces near Iraq and Afghanistan cheers me. The newfound alarm is healthy,...

World food prices continued to rise sharply in December, bringing them close to the crisis levels that provoked shortages and riots in poor countries three years ago, according to newly released United Nations data. Prices are expected to remain high this year, prompting concern that the world may be approaching another crisis, although economists cautioned that many factors, like adequate stockpiles of key grains, could prevent a serious problem. The food price index of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization rose 32 percent from June to December, according to the report published Wednesday. In December, the index was slightly...

U.S. customs officials said on Wednesday they had found a beetle considered one of the world's most dangerous agricultural pests in a shipment of rice arriving at Los Angeles International Airport. Agricultural specialists with U.S. Customs and Border Protection found an adult khapra beetle, eight larvae and a shed skin in a shipment of Indian rice from Saudi Arabia ... Earlier this year, border protection officials in Detroit found a khapra beetle in a shipment of tile from China.

(CBS) PALO ALTO, Calif -- If you saw Stanford beat Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl last night, you couldn't help but notice the kid wearing number 48 for the Cardinal. He was in just about every play.

An Indiana grandmother who married a suspected German jihadist and converted to the Muslim religion is under investigation for possible ties to terrorists, according to FoxNews.com . Kathie Smith, 46, is a U.S. citizen and lives in Indianapolis.

Former Presidential advisor Condoleezza Rice in perhaps one of the finest explained answers regarding the decision to go to war with Iraq takes a farcical Katie Couric question on the subject of, what the Bush administration would have done if they knew then what we know now. Rice’s professorial response uncovered Couric’s obtuseness without Couric realizing it. I say this principally because she ventured the question again indicating that she didn’t understand that she had be revealed. (see 6:21 video)

On December 3, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave CBS's Katie Couric a much-needed lesson on why America invaded Iraq. When Couric said to her guest during an "HBO History Makers Series" interview, "Documentaries have been made about how intelligence was incorrectly analyzed and cherry-picked to build an argument for war, and memos from that time do suggest that officials knew there was a small chance of actually finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," Rice stopped the host dead in her tracks (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The question on everyone’s mind: Why didn’t the United States do more to prevent the progress of North Korea’s uranium-enrichment program? Regrettably, the answer to this question is even more disconcerting than the disclosure itself. Intelligence amassed over the course of nearly two decades on North Korea’s uranium-enrichment program has been an inconvenient truth for most U.S. officials involved in North Korea policy through consecutive U.S. political administrations — but nowhere was this delusion in more abundance than in the latter years of the George W. Bush administration, in which I served as the director for counterproliferation strategy, covering North...

Watch The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson Condoleezza Rice, Joe Theismann S06E186 online stream. Will be shown on CBS at Mon, October 25, 2010 12:35 AM.

Not many authors on a book tour manage to snag a visit with the president of the United States. But Condoleezza Rice is no ordinary book author. The former secretary of state and onetime national security adviser met one-on-one with President Obama at the White House on Friday afternoon, after a week of television appearances promoting "Extraordinary, Ordinary People," her memoir about her parents. The White House said Obama wanted to discuss a range of foreign policy issues with her.

Not many authors on a book tour manage to snag a visit with the president of the United States. But Condoleezza Rice is no ordinary book author. The former secretary of state and onetime national security adviser met one-on-one with President Obama at the White House on Friday afternoon, after a week of television appearances promoting "Extraordinary, Ordinary People," her memoir about her parents. The White House said Obama wanted to discuss a range of foreign policy issues with her.

The South Korean Red Cross sent 5,000 tons of rice in emergency aid to North Korea in September, a humanitarian gesture that came after months of silence between the two Koreas since the warship sinking. Unification Minister Hyun In-taek, earlier this month, North Korea’s military has saved up to 1 million tons of rice for its officials and soldiers

"Despite the fact there are changes and tussles, there is still a foreign policy community that believes that foreign policy ought to be bipartisan," she said. "It was really great that he reached out in that way."