Free Republic

Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992 by running as a different kind of Democrat from previous nominees. Hillary Clinton, Anne Gearan of The Washington Post reports, is hoping to win the presidency in 2016 by running as the same kind of Democrat as the current incumbent. There's a certain logic in that. President Obama did win twice, while the five pre-Clinton Democratic nominees lost five of the six previous elections. But maybe it's too logical. There's also magic to presidential elections, something no arithmetic formula can capture. It's not clear that a 69-year-old Hillary Clinton in 2016 can inspire...

Judicial Watch announced today that it "obtained more than 100 pages of previously classified "Secret" documents from the Department of Defense (DOD)and the Department of State, revealing that DOD almost immediately reported that the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was committed by the al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood-linked "Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman" (BCOAR), and had been planned at least 10 days in advance." Judicial Watch added what has been proven and obvious for years—that "Benghazi attack" was "not about a response to an anti-Muhammad video" or was it "the protests at the U.S. Embassy in...

Hundreds of Hillary Clinton‘s emails were released today, something Clinton herself said she wants, but Charles Krauthammer doesn’t really buy this is some great victory for transparency and disclosure. “There isn’t a shred of evidence,” he said, “because she shredded the evidence. This whole release is a farce.” He pointed out that it’s not like every little email Clinton ever sent will be released to the public, only the ones ‘scrubbed and cleansed and decided upon, chosen by her own people, acting in her own interest.” And, Krauthammer added, it’s working, because the media is eagerly looking through “pre-scrubbed material”...

The German Defense Ministry announced its plans for the "Leo 3" (as it's likely to be nicknamed in Germany) in a report on Friday to the Bundestag, which was obtained by multiple media outlets. "Technologies and concepts will be investigated between 2015 and 2018 in joint studies also involving German industry," Markus Grübel, a deputy minister in the German Defense Ministry told his parliamentary colleagues. He cited the Leopard 2's long years of service as the reason that a new battle tank was required. The Leopard 2's 50-year service life is set to expire in 2030. The tank, which came...

ISLAMIC State (ISIS) are poised to buy its first nuclear bomb "within a year", the terror group claimed tonight.The jihadists are looking to get hold of an atomic weapon or thousands of tonnes of ammonium nitrate explosive. The merciless organisation says it hopes to purchase a nuclear device “through weapons dealers with links to corrupt officials” in Pakistan. But it admits that obtaining the deadly weapon may be a challenge and says it would settle for a “few thousand tons of ammonium nitrate explosive”. The chilling boast was made in the latest edition of its propaganda ‘magazine’ circulated to publicise...

WASHINGTON – Internal State Department emails in the aftermath of the Benghazi terror attack show then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton received detailed information indicating the strike was planned by well-trained fighters, yet her office continued to push the narrative days later that it began "spontaneously." The messages were among 296 emails released Friday by the State Department, in the first batch of emails to be made public from Clinton's tenure as secretary of state. Totaling 896 pages, the emails show a series of Libya dispatches Clinton received from a confidant, as well as the barrage of messages among her and...

The State Department has released 296 emails from Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state, in the first batch of emails to be made public. The emails, just a fraction of what the department has in its custody, show internal communications before and after the Benghazi terror attack in 2012. One email to Clinton, regarding one of then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's TV appearances the Sunday after the attack, appeared to praise her for reflecting their "view" that the attack started "spontaneously." Despite this email,other guidance has emerged showing Clinton and others were warned shortly after the attack that it may...

Feb 28, 2002 -- (BBC Monitoring) Text of report by Russian news agency Ekho Moskvy. [No dateline as received] Russia is using Belarus as a "channel" for selling arms to such countries as Iraq, Iran and Libya, the former chairman of the Belarusian parliament, the leader of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party, Stanistaw Shushkevich, has said in an interview for Ekho Moskvy radio. He added: "Russia is a major country and cannot break UN sanctions, but it is of course very convenient for it to have such an obliging leader by its side." "I am practically sure that it is ...

The State Department and some lawmakers are waxing indignant about newspaper disclosures of a secret 1995 deal between Vice President Al Gore and then-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. After the newspaper reports were published, the State Department acknowledged this week that Mr. Gore assured Russia that the United States would not sanction the Kremlin for Russian arm sales to Iran, if they stopped by 1999. But rather than acknowledge the adverse impact this underhanded arrangement could have on national security, the State Department and legislators have lashed out at the newspapers that disclosed the Gore-Chernomyrdin arrangement. "I hope this is...

U.S. protests against Russian arms sales to Iraq WASHINGTON, March 23 (Reuters) - The United States said on Sunday it had protested to Moscow about reports that Russian firms have sold Iraq antitank missiles, night vision goggles and jamming gear. A State Department spokeswoman said Moscow's response had not been satisfactory. U.S. and British forces are fighting Iraq in an effort to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and to find and destroy Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction. Iraq has denied it has such weapons. The Washington Post reported on Sunday that the United States recently delivered a protest to...

They say the Cold War is over, but Russia and the U.S. remain the leading supplier of weapons to countries around the world and are the two biggest military powers. Lately, tensions have been pretty high, too. The U.S. supplies much of NATO and Middle Eastern allies like Turkey, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. Russia supplies many BRIC nations, as well as Iran, much of Southeast Asia, and North Africa.

Russian may sell $5 billion worth of weapons to Venezuela, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Monday after a visit to the South American nation. Putin met Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Caracas on Friday to discuss oil, defense and nuclear energy cooperation, although no new no arms agreements were signed. The United States expressed concern about possible arms proliferation following such a deal with Venezuela, one its most prominent foes in the region. Chavez says his growing arsenal is aimed at countering a planned increase in the U.S. military forces in neighboring Colombia, Washington's closest ally in Latin America....

Mother Russia is also turning out to be the mother of all arms sellers. The former Cold War superpower, where crusading journalists and anti-corruption bankers are regularly bumped off gangland style and the rule of law has become a joke, has just been designated the leading exporter of arms in 2005 to developing countries by a report issued by the Congressional Research Service, a branch of the US Congress. According to the report, China, India and Iran are Russia’s best customers for its booming arms industry which took in $1.6 billion more than 2004 to reach $7 billion in sales...

WASHINGTON — THE fall of the Iraqi city of Ramadi on Sunday, and of the Syrian city of Palmyra on Wednesday, is a big gain for the Islamic State, but not an utter disaster, as many observers fear. Rather than inducing panic in Western capitals, it should lead to a realistic assessment of the Islamic State’s strengths and weaknesses. One setback in a long war must not trigger hasty strategic shifts that lead to foreign countries’ becoming mired in Iraq once more. Palmyra has economic and cultural significance, as it sits among gas fields and is home to renowned ruins....

Palestinian rhetoric and behavior reflect their honest intentions: their official organs and most of their leaders seek Israel’s destruction. State of Palestine A Palestinian supporter wears Palestinian and Union Jack flags outside the Parliament in London during October's vote on recognizing a state of Palestine. (photo credit:REUTERS) dShare on Facebook hShare on Twitter With the Palestinians taking Israel to the International Criminal Court and trying to kick Israel out of the international soccer league, FIFA, while still boycotting normal, constructive, personal, economic or cultural ties with Israel, their war against the Jews continues. Even if Pope Francis – whom I...

The National Security Agency planned to infiltrate the Google and Samsung app stores to plant spying software on smartphones, according to new documents published from files leaked by Edward Snowden. The Intercept and CBC News jointly published the documents Thursday, which outline the snooping efforts designed by the U.S. and its “Five Eyes” alliance: Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. The intelligence agencies came up with the strategy as a potential way to hack smartphones. The pilot project was code-named “IRRITANT HORN.” Essentially, the agents sussed out smartphone Internet traffic by browsing through its Web traffic database created...

Russia’s media watchdog has written to Google, Twitter and Facebook warning them against violating Russian Internet laws and a spokesman said on Thursday they risk being blocked if they do not comply with the rules. Roskomnadzor said it had sent letters this week to the three U.S.-based Internet firms asking them to comply with Internet laws which critics of President Vladimir Putin have decried as censorship. “In our letters, we regularly remind (companies) of the consequences of violating the legislation,” said Roskomnadzor spokesman Vadim Ampelonsky. He added that, because of the encryption technology used by the three firms, Russia had...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is ready to supply weapons to Iraq, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday, as the country struggles to halt advances by Islamic State militants. Speaking ahead of talks in Moscow between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi, Lavrov told reporters Moscow would make every effort to help the Baghdad government push back the militants. Islamic State insurgents overran the Iraqi city of Ramadi last weekend in the most significant setback for the Baghdad government in a year, exposing the weakness of Iraq's army and the limitations of U.S. air strikes. On...

On Monday, the Right Honorable David Cameron, prime minister of Great Britain, gave his first major speech after being reelected to his high office — once held by Pitt, Gladstone, Disraeli, Lloyd George, Churchill and Thatcher. Confronting a world of challenges — including Greece’s possible exit from the euro, a massive migration crisis on Europe’s shores, Ukraine’s perilous state, Russia’s continued intransigence, the advance of the Islamic State and the continuing chaos in the Middle East — Cameron chose to talk about . . . a plan to ensure that hospitals in the United Kingdom will be better staffed on weekends. Okay,...

The Clinton Foundation reported Thursday that it has received as much as $26.4 million in previously undisclosed payments from major corporations, universities, foreign sources and other groups. The disclosure came as the foundation faced questions over whether it fully complied with a 2008 ethics agreement to reveal its donors and whether any of its funding sources present conflicts of interest for Hillary Rodham Clinton as she begins her presidential campaign.