Free Republic

America loses its greatest scholar of Russia and communism. The most respected academic authority on the Russian Revolution, 20thcentury communism, and the Cold War has died. He was Richard Pipes, longtime professor of Russian history at Harvard, and a remarkable man. Where to start with an adequate tribute to Professor Pipes? I’ll start with some biographical observations and then finish with personal reflections. Richard Pipes was born in Poland on July 11, 1923. As a 16-year-old Jew at the time of Hitler’s invasion, Pipes mercifully escaped, thanks to a clever and shrewd father. He credited not only his father but...

Revelations that an FBI informant insinuated himself into the Trump campaign have led some congressional investigators to rethink their theories on how and why former President Barack Obama's Justice Department began investigating the 2016 Trump presidential effort. Most reporting has focused on the July 31, 2016, creation of a document formally marking the beginning of the FBI counterintelligence probe targeting the Trump campaign. The document, known as the electronic communication, or EC, is said to have focused on the case of George Papadopoulos, the peripheral Trump adviser who has pleaded guilty to lying to special counsel Robert Mueller about his...

Sen. John McCain dives deep into conspiracy theories regarding the salacious so-called Steele dossier in his new book, "The Restless Wave," defending his decision to turn over the documents to former FBI Director James Comey. "Conspiracy theories have grown around what I did and why," McCain wrote, saying those included that he's a "double agent for Russia" and that he "acted out of jealousy" that Donald Trump won a presidential election when he didn't. But the Arizona Republican said he felt he had an obligation "to bring to the attention of appropriate officials unproven accusations I could not assess myself"...

Trump to China: Lock down your border with North Korea until after I cut a nuclear deal with Kim Jong-Un China's help could make or break Trump's plans for a nuclear deal, for which the president wants a Nobel Peace Prize Trump needs China to pile the economic pressure on Kim Jong-Un to get the North Korean president to the negotiating table The border demand could be Trump's way of taking Beijing's temperature on how much help they're provide in pressuring North Korea Doubts remain about the June 12 summit in Singapore amid reports Trump may withdraw due to concerns...

Ratcheting up pressure on the Russia investigation, the White House announced Monday that top FBI and Justice Department officials have agreed to meet with congressional leaders and “review” highly classified information the lawmakers have been seeking on the handling of the probe. The agreement came after President Donald Trump made an extraordinary demand that the Justice Department investigate whether the FBI infiltrated his presidential campaign. It’s unclear exactly what the members will be allowed to review or if the Justice Department will be providing any documents to Congress.

‘What’s unprecedented here is the fuzziness of the accusation of Russian collusion,’ Penn says. In January 1998, longtime Democratic pollster and strategist Mark Penn hunkered down with President Bill Clinton, intending to help the administration ride out the storm of a pending independent-counsel investigation. These days, Penn, still a leading voice on the left, is speaking out against the special-counsel investigation into President Donald Trump and Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 election — opposing it for much the same reason that he opposed Ken Starr’s investigation in 1998. “I worked with President Clinton through impeachment,” Penn tells National Review...

President Trump is correct. If an FBI -- or any “Deep State” -- informant was embedded within his campaign for the express purpose of spying on it, that would be a scandal “Bigger than Watergate.” Bigger and much more chilling. Over the course of the last two years, I have communicated with current and former government employees who told me that a number of operatives at various three-letter agencies have been actively working to undermine first the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump, and then his presidency. Most of them are Obama appointees. All of them doing so for political...

Colonel Richard Kemp: UN Encourages Terrorism Against Israel By Joel Leyden Israel News AgencyJerusalem, Israel — May 21, 2018 … Speech made by Colonel Richard Kemp at the emergency session of the United Nations Human Rights Council on the deteriorating situation in Gaza on 18 May 2018. Col. Kemp, decorated for his bravery with the UN Protection Force in Bosnia, tells the United Nations Human Rights Council: “Your failure to admit Hamas is responsible for every drop of blood spilt encourages their violence and use of human shields, makes you complicit in further bloodshed.” VIDEO CAN BE VIEWED AT: http://israelnewsagency.com/un-terrorism-gaza-hamas-iran-jihad-human-rights-israel-idf/...

Democrats face a political minefield ahead of President Donald Trump’s historic North Korea meeting: how to root for success for a president they usually want to see flounder. Trump is reportedly reevaluating the prospects for a significant denuclearization commitment from Kim Jong Un, but if he manages to land a foreign policy coup that has eluded past presidents, it couldn’t come at a worse time for Democrats. The party is planning to center its midterm campaign message around the numerous scandals engulfing the administration. A successful meeting with Kim, however, would give Trump and the GOP — already encouraged by...

It was pure fantasy to think that North Korea was going to turn over its nuclear arsenal within months of the planned June 12 Trump-Kim summit. Yet, apparently, National Security Adviser John Bolton has an active imagination. So it’s a good thing that Pyongyang has rejected Bolton’s ridiculous Libya plan; Trump can now focus on realistic ways to get the denuclearization we all want. Bolton has been aggressively touting his plan to apply the “Libya model” to North Korea. By this he means that, as Libya did in 2003, North Korea should turn over its nuclear program to the United...

Parents of students at an elite New York city public school are outraged over a student's request over the school's PA system for a moment of silence to remember Hamas members killed in an attack on Israel's border last week

Paraguay opened its Israel embassy in Jerusalem on Monday, the second country to follow the United States in making the politically sensitive move from Tel Aviv.

Throughout history, the excuses to attack Israel keep changing. For 8 years under the Obama administration, the Palestinians had portrayed themselves, and been treated as, the deserving underdog -- the "good guys." Now, a foreign government is actually holding the Palestinians accountable and calling them out for activities they had taken for granted, such as incitement to riot and murder, or funding terrorists and their families. The Palestinians do not like it one bit. The Palestinians hate the Trump administration not because of the decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, but because it speaks truth to them and...

All is not well among the miscreants wreaking havoc in Syria. Heshmat Alavi, an Iranian human rights campaigner and blogger, spotted an incident broadcast on Turkish television that reveals mutual contempt between Russia's dictatorial leader, Putin, and Turkey's dictatorial leader, ErdoÄŸan, at a public ceremony that also included Iran's dictatorial leader, Rouhani. Watch closely in the first seconds of the video embedded in the tweet, as Putin unmistakably responded to a body language insult by ErdoÄŸan (failing to rise fully to shake his hand) by quickly and casually flipping ErdoÄŸan's chair over and walking away to greet Rouhani as a...

These PLO lies should have been shredded decades ago. They have proved to be the greatest obstacle to peace between Israel and the PLO The historic opening of the American Embassy in Jerusalem has provided opportunities for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to totally discredit the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and President Trump to review the PLO as a suitable Arab interlocutor to negotiate with Israel on ending the Jewish-Arab conflict. Addressing the large gathering of American dignitaries and Israeli public figures – Netanyahu declared:

FULL TITLE: Here’s Why Devin Nunes and Trey Gowdy Ignored Invitation to Meet With Leaky DOJ and Rosenstein on FridayAs previously reported, Chairman of the House Intel Committee Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Trey Gowdy (R-SC) were invited to meet with Rosenstein, Wray and Senior Intel staff Friday morning. A senior DOJ official told Fox News that Nunes and Gowdy had not responded to their invite as of Thursday evening. On Thursday, Fox News producer, Jake Gibson reported a DOJ official claimed Nunes and Gowdy had not responded to the invitation extended to them for...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Yale University’s graduating class she’s “still not over” losing to President Donald Trump in the 2016 election. What a turn off. Giving a commencement speech and then just whine about losing the election. Those students should have been pissed off. What an egotistical conceited witch 'It's all about me' political mob boss. I can only shudder when I think what it would have been if she had won. There are more choice quotes further on and a video. tn;dw: Too nauseating; didn't watch.

The New York Times released an explosive article on Tuesday detailing how hundreds, if not thousands, of online “trolls” are paid to post pro-Kremlin propaganda across the Internet. One of their targeted sites, according to the report? TheBlaze.com. The trolls are organized by a group called the Internet Research Agency, and one former employee said she worked 12-hour days and had explicit instructions to create five political posts, 10 nonpolitical posts and 150 to 200 comments on the posts of those she worked with each shift. If you were to click on her accounts, she would appear like a normal...

Jewish-American historian Bernard Lewis, one of the most famous and influential Middle East scholars in the world who warned of a "clash of civilizations" between Islam and the West, died Saturday at the age of 101 in New Jersey. Lewis was a consultant to both Israeli leaders and two U.S. presidents. Generations of students, intelligence personnel and diplomats learned about the history of Islam through his writings. His research, which dealt with the history of the Middle East, brought him fame, but also many critics and enemies around the world. One of his strongest critics was the Palestinian-born intellectual Edward...

Militants from the Islamic State (IS) group have been evacuated from an enclave in the southern suburbs of the Syrian capital Damascus, activists say. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a temporary ceasefire had come into effect following heavy bombardment by the Syrian military. ...army operations in the area were nearing their end and insurgent lines were collapsing. Al-Ikhbariya TV said a new plan is underway to storm IS-held areas in Hajar al-Aswad, near Yarmouk. The channel’s area correspondent said the coming hours would be “decisive” for restoring government control in Hajar al-Aswad, but didn’t mention Yarmouk. President...