Free Republic

The way people in his administration have been abandoning President Barack Obama, don't be surprised if Joe Biden is the next to go. Only in Biden's case -- unlike the situation of William Daley of Chicago, Obama's third chief of staff in three years, who abruptly announced his resignation a week ago after only months on the job -- Biden could be pushed out the door to make room for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to take his job and run as Obama's vice-presidential running mate in 2012. Don't scoff. Obama is in for a tough fight for re-election, and...

Hillary Clinton kept the heat on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a speech Monday night, declaring that his "days are numbered." The secretary of state mentioned Syria a handful of times in a broader speech to the National Democracy Institute on U.S. Middle East policy, indicating that both Syria and Yemen are next in line for democratic revolutions. Clinton told the audience that Assad had "systematically violated each of [the] basic requirements" of the Arab League's peace plan laid out last week in Cairo, which included directives to release captives and pull military resources from the streets. The league has...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shared a laugh with a television news reporter moments after hearing deposed Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi had been killed. "We came, we saw, he died," she joked when told of news reports of Qaddafi's death by an aide in between formal interviews. Clinton was in Tripoli earlier this week for talks with leaders of Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC). The reporter asked if Qaddafi's death had anything to do with her surprise visit to show support for the Libyan people. "No," she replied, before rolling her eyes and saying "I'm sure it did" with a...

Saudi Women for Driving have a message for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “Where are you?” The women fighting for the right to drive in the Sharia-compliant nation have been surprised by the radio silence coming from Clinton, a leader of female empowerment in America. On June 17th, women in Saudi Arabia staged a mass drive-in, during which they risked bodily harm by ignoring the laws banning women from driving. On June 3rd the group, which came together after the arrest of Manal al-Sharif (a Saudi mother jailed for driving her own car), wrote a letter begging Clinton for a...

Brooklyn-based Hasidic newspaper Der Zeitung has apologized for publishing an iconic photograph of President Obama and his national security team with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and National Security team member Audrey Tomason photoshopped out. The Jewish Week subsequently suggested the photograph had been altered because including women in photographs "could be considered sexually suggestive."

If you don’t want it to get even harder for a U.S. citizen to get a passport — now required for travel even to Canada or Mexico — you only have until Monday to let the State Department know. The U.S. Department of State is proposing a new Biographical Questionnaire for some passport applicants: The proposed new Form DS-5513 asks for all addresses since birth; lifetime employment history including employers’ and supervisors names, addresses, and telephone numbers; personal details of all siblings; mother’s address one year prior to your birth; any “religious ceremony” around the time of birth; and a...

Hillary Clinton now most popular figure in Obama administration By Brad Knickerbocker Sat Apr 2, 5:03 pm ET As war rages on several fronts and much of the Middle East and northern Africa is in turmoil, the most popular figure in the Obama administration is Hillary Clinton – an activist Secretary of State who seems to be all over the world, participating in if not directing every aspect of US foreign and military policy. Secretary Clinton has been a chief spokesman for President Obama’s position on Egypt and Libya as well as a behind-the-scenes force in getting the United States...

SNIP Of course, most people know that almost no Roman emperor left the throne without getting murked. One of the few exceptions, Septimius Severus, was also one of the assorted African-born Roman emperors. That’s ironic when I think that now, a man one generation removed from African soil, is probably being betrayed in the worst way since Caesar by somebody he should have known enough not to trust from the door. Oddsmakers are already putting a line on Hillary Clinton making her own Presidential run in 2012. Clinton has already stated that she’s finished as Secretary of State if Obama...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is fed up with President Obama and his refusal to back a no-fly zone over Libya, according to an exclusive report in The Daily. “She’s trying to do what she can to keep things from imploding,” a Clinton insider told the online newspaper. “If you take a look at what’s on her plate as compared with what’s on the plates of previous secretary of states – there’s more going on now at this particular moment, and it’s like playing sports with a bunch of amateurs.

(Reuters) - The U.S. military did not provide any coolant for a Japanese nuclear plant affected by a massive earthquake on Friday, U.S. officials said. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier had said that U.S. Air Force "assets" had delivered "some really important coolant" to a Japanese nuclear power plant.

The United States has transported coolant to a Japanese nuclear plant affected by a massive earthquake and will continue to assist Japan, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday. "We just had our Air Force assets in Japan transport some really important coolant to one of the nuclear plants," Clinton said at a meeting of the President's Export Council.

Obama 'Furious' With Hillary State Department Over EgyptBy Newsmax Wires Sunday, 13 Feb 2011 05:42 PM Is a civil war brewing between the Obama White House and Hillary Clinton's State Department? A New York Times story published this weekend suggests one may have erupted already. On Saturday, the Times, quoting numerous White House sources, sought to explain the Obama administration's erratic policy statements during the Egyptian crisis. The paper reported that Obama was "seething" over State Department officials's statement suggesting that the administration did not want a quick transition of power in Egypt, with President Hosni Mubarak stepping down from...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is convening an unprecedented mass meeting of U.S. ambassadors.</p>

Per Fox: Richardson is replacing Hillary as SECSTATE. Let the 2012 primary circus begin!

JERUSALEM – The U.S. State Department directed its staff to "engage" and help to "empower" France's Muslim minorities, according to classified documents released by WikiLeaks and reviewed by WND. The cables reveal U.S. government staff were instructed to use the French media to educate that country's public on minority issues and to improve the lot of French Arabs and Muslims. The process called for "considerable discretion, sensitivity and tact." A cable dated January 2007 and directed to various U.S. missions in France outlined that the U.S. government must show it "takes seriously the threat of disenfranchised and disadvantaged minorities around...

With little attention from mainstream media, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with the foreign ministers of Canada and Mexico in a North American Foreign Ministers Meeting in Quebec, Canada. The Dec. 13 meeting is a prelude to the next North American Summit Leaders meeting in 2011, a yet unscheduled trilateral summit that is the continuation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. Under the low-key format, the continental meetings have been carried out with little fanfare and outside of congressional oversight.

ABC News has learned that Richard Holbrooke, the US Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has died. On Friday, Holbrooke was rushed to the hospital with a torn aorta. He went through more than 20 hours of surgery. Earlier this evening, speaking at the US State Department, President Obama sang Holbrooke's praises and called him "a tough son of a gun." Holbrooke, 69, was a former ambassador to the United Nations and served as chief negotiator at the Dayton Peace Accords, which ended the war in Bosnia. The New Yorker's George Packer wrote a nice story about Holbrooke last year,...

WASHINGTON – The State Department severed its computer files from the government's classified network, officials said Tuesday, as U.S. and world leaders tried to clean up from the embarrassing leak that spilled America's sensitive documents onto screens around the globe.

TIME Exclusive: WikiLeaks founder tells Richard Stengel SecState should resign "if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering U.S. diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations, in violation of the international covenants to which the U.S. has signed up."

Should Hillary Clinton resign as secretary of state due to the WikiLeaks revelations? My friend Jack Shafer at Slate makes a good case. His reason: Clinton, like predecessor Condoleezza Rice, signed orders instructing U.S. foreign service officers to spy on the diplomats of other nations. Cables went out under her name telling State Department officials overseas to collect the fingerprints, facial images, DNA, and iris scans of African leaders, to obtain passwords, credit card numbers, and frequent flyer accounts used by foreign diplomats, and to gather private information on United Nations officials, including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

It was childishly easy, according to the published chatlog of a conversation Manning had with a fellow-hacker. "I would come in with music on a CD-RW labelled with something like 'Lady Gaga' … erase the music … then write a compressed split file. No one suspected a thing ... [I] listened and lip-synched to Lady Gaga's Telephone while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history." He said that he "had unprecedented access to classified networks 14 hours a day 7 days a week for 8+ months".

The US is clearly listening to what Middle Eastern leaders have to say about Iran - now what are they going to do about it? Talkbacks (13) Based on the trove of diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks on Sunday, the United States is clearly listening to and recording what Middle Eastern leaders have to say about Iran. The question left unanswered is what the US is willing to do about it. For years now, top Israeli political and defense leaders have warned the world that a nuclear Iran is not just a threat to the Jewish state but is a...

A 2009 cable sent from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to American U.N. missions and embassies around the world ostensibly directed American diplomats to engage in intelligence-gathering. The 8,358 word National Humint Collection Directive (Humint being Human Intelligence) "reflects the results of a recent Washington review of reporting and collection needs focused on the United Nations," according to the document made public by the whistle-blower website Wikileaks Sunday. The information Clinton directed the diplomats she oversees to ascertain ranged from basic biographical data such as diplomats' names and addresses to their frequent flyer and credit card numbers, to even "biometric...

CNN) -- A computer hacker who calls himself "The Jester" claimed responsibility for the cyber attack which took down the WikiLeaks site Sunday, shortly before it started posting hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. diplomatic cables. The Jester, who describes himself as a "hacktivist for good," said he took the controversial site down "for attempting to endanger the lives of our troops, 'other assets' & foreign relations."

Some of the diplomatic papers stolen from the State Department and leaked Sunday by Wikileaks show more than just potentially embarrassing revelations about U.S. views of allies but disturbing developments among alleged friends as well as foes and competitive states. The details from the cables being released -- among 250,000 illegally taken from secret State Department records -- include discussions on the U.S. being unable to stop Syrian arms to Hezbollah, its disappointment in Qatar to stop funding terrorism and hacking by the Chinese government of U.S. computers Samples of some of the thousands of documents that were to be...

It is time for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to step up to the plate and investigate Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf, who is currently touring the Middle East at the expense of American Taxpayers as an envoy of her Department of State. Claudia Rossett, one of America's premier journalists, today reveals several disturbing facts that more than warrant an official investigation: ...what's going on with the web site of his Cordoba Initiative? Last week, after someone in his Malaysia office referred all questions back to his office in New York, the phone number and address of his office in Malaysia...

Anyone else hear this? Large explosion????/

The State Department warns employees about new website highlighting Top Secret facilities The State Department is bracing for a potentially explosive new feature on the Washington Post website that would publish the names and locations of agencies and firms conducting Top Secret work on behalf of the U.S. government, according to the copy of an email obtained by The Cable.

Friday, 6/11/10 NOTE: The recent deaths of two Mexican citizens, one at the San Ysidro, CA, Port of Entry, the other between El Paso, TX, and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, have resulted in ongoing investigations and ample coverage by the media on both sides of the border. The M3 Report will not repeat the fast moving and abundant claims and counter claims, and obviously biased and critical articles and opinion columns. A Mexican congressman, Ricardo Lopez Pescador, is now demanding that the “homicidal agents of the Border Patrol” must be extradited to Mexico and put in the hands of Mexican judges....

>>While you were watching the oil spill, and other critical crises, Hillary Clinton signed the small arms treaty with the UN. OBAMA FINDS LEGAL WAY AROUND THE 2ND AMENDMENT AND USES IT. IF THIS PASSES, THERE COULD BE WAR On Wednesday Obama Took the First Major Step in a Plan to Ban All Firearms in the United States The Obama administration intends to force gun control and a complete ban on all weapons for US citizens through the signing of international treaties with foreign nations. Once the US Government signs these international treaties, all US citizens will be subject to...

WASHINGTON: In a blistering attack on Pakistan’s long and covert association with terrorism, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has accused some government officials there of harboring Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, and warned that the US ''cannot tolerate'' attacks emanating from that country. Clinton’s stunning accusation against Washington’s ally came in course of a CBS 60 Minutes profile of the Secretary of State, and constituted the most direct charge of supporting terrorism against Pakistan by Washington to date. Clinton appeared to be pointing to Pakistan’s military and intelligence officials while absolving the current civilian leadership. ''I am not...

Mass New York Rally Protest Against Obama Threatening Existence Of Israel By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Jerusalem ---- April 23, 2010 ... Thousands of American Jews and Christians are expected to gather this Sunday at 1 PM outside of the Israel Consulate, located at 800 Second Avenue (42nd Street & 2nd Avenue) to protest US President Barack Obama scapegoating of Israel and his increasingly hostile anti - Israel proposals and actions. Numerous rabbis and heads of Jewish and Christian organizations will also be present. “We are outraged that President Obama is scapegoating Israel and wants to expel Jews from...

<p>It is, of course, a really silly thing to even think about, given the clout of the Chicago Machine boys currently occupying the White House.</p> <p>But, just say, the Real Great Talker continues his spiraling descent in the polls over the next 12-18 months; already the Democrat is barely tied with Any Republican in opinion polls looking toward 2012.</p>

White House kills Hillary SCOTUS buzz The White House moved quickly today to squelch the widening speculation that Hillary Clinton could be nominated to the Supreme Court, as Senator Orrin Hatch suggested this morning. "The President thinks Secretary Clinton is doing an excellent job as Secretary of State and wants her to remain in that position," said White House spokesman Tommy Vietor. Clinton's spokesman had said she was flattered by Hatch's flotation, though happy in her current posts, and others in Clinton's circle had quietly responded warmly to the notion. But Veitor's comment is aimed at putting an end to...

Terrorists including al-Qaeda pose a serious threat to world security as they attempt to obtain atomic weapons material, Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, declared on the eve of a global summit in Washington to prevent a nuclear terror attack. President Obama will call on the leaders of 47 nations today — the biggest gathering of heads of state by a US leader since the founding of the UN in 1945 — to introduce tougher safeguards to prevent nuclear material ending up in the hands of terrorists. As far back as 1998, Osama bin Laden stated that it was...

Supporters of Israel were probably not surprised at the scolding Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shortly after Vice President Joseph Biden's March visit to Israel. Media reports said that Clinton chewed Netanyahu out over the decision to build new homes in the area that the Palestinians claim belongs to them and their future state, and she stressed that American officials saw this as "a major insult." A State Department spokesman related that Clinton told Netanyahu "she could not understand how this could happen, particularly in light of the United States' strong commitment to Israel's security."...

“Obama to Impose Terms on Israel” is the headline you didn’t read on David Ignatius’s column in the Washington Post today. The story ran under the title “Obama’s Mideast Plan,” which Ignatius describes as “proposing an American peace plan to resolve the Palestinian conflict.” But the substance is clear: It is a threat against Israel by the Obama administration and particularly by National Security Advisor James Jones. (The give-away is this line: “The fact that Obama is weighing the peace plan marks his growing confidence in Jones.” Now who do you think was Ignatius’s source for that gem?) Apparently Obama...

The United States on Tuesday announced a new nuclear weapons policy that gives top priority to fighting terrorism and proliferation, rather than deterring or responding to a nuclear attack by a foreign country. The policy promises not to use atomic weapons against non-nuclear states, but issues a stern warning for countries that ignore global non-proliferation rules. Initial reaction among experts and members of Congress has been mixed. The policy document called the Nuclear Posture Review specifically says the United States will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in the nation's security strategy. It lays out a plan to expand conventional...

Canadians hosted hundreds of American air passengers whose planes were grounded on 9/11. They opened their hearts and their homes to us. During the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-81, fearless Canadian diplomats in Tehran helped smuggle out of that maddened country endangered Americans. None of that seemed to matter this week. Not content with putting an end to America’s historic “special relationship” with Britain, nor with bullying the U.S.’ only reliable ally in the Mideast, Israel, the Obama administration has launched an attack on our Northern neighbor, Canada. Their unguided missile landed squarely on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. It was...

(IsraelNN.com) More than 75 percent of Congressmen in the U.S.House of Representatives have signed a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing support for Israel and demanding an end to the highly-publicized state of tensions with Israel. Signed by 327 Representatives, out of 435, the letter calls on Clinton and the Obama Administration to settle its disputes with Israel in a non-public and friendly fashion. The current tensions “will not advance the interests the U.S. and Israel share,” the letter states, as “above all, we must remain focused on the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear weapons program...

Secretary of State Clinton delivered a speech yesterday that threw down a gauntlet at the feet of Israel. She perfectly outlined the administrations position on the Middle East, which is everything is Israels fault. Ignoring Netanyahu’s support for a two-state solution, his easing of West Bank freedom of access and his facilitation of major projects to improve the West Bank economy her claim is, a willing Palestinian leadership’s desire for viable peace terms through the expansion of Jewish neighborhoods in Judea, Samaria and east Jerusalem. She also forgot to mention that before the Administration began to harp on the the...

Delivering an unexpectedly robust address to America's most powerful pro-Israel lobby, the US secretary of state sent a strong signal that the Obama administration would not back down in its two-week stand-off with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, ordered Benjamin Netanyahu to reverse a decision to build 1,600 homes for Israeli settlers Speaking as Mr Netanyahu arrived in Washington for high-level talks, Mrs Clinton cautioned that Israel's refusal to halt construction in the territories it occupied after the 1967 Six-Day was emboldening its enemies. She also hinted for the first time that...

United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday that the Obama administration's decision to ramp up pressure on Israel over construction of Jewish homes in East Jerusalem was bringing results. In an interview with BBC television, Clinton was asked whether escalating the tone with Israel had paid off. She said: "I think we're going to see the resumption of the negotiation track and that means that it is paying off because that's our goal." Advertisement Over the past two weeks Israel has sought to cool American ire over plans for 1,600 new homes in Ramat Shlomo, a Jewish...

"Clinton State Department Working With 'Advocacy Groups' to Prepare 'Human Rights' Report on U.S. to Give to U.N." Friday, March 12, 2010 By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer SNIPPET: "(CNSNews.com) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday that the State Department is soliciting comments from citizens, advocacy groups and other non-governmental organizations on the human rights record of the United States. “Human rights are universal, but their experience is local. This is why we are committed to holding everyone to the same standard, including ourselves,” Clinton told a press briefing at the State Department, where she unveiled the...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel's relationship with the United States, a defining feature of the troubled Middle East, was under severe strain as diplomats scrambled on Saturday to save newborn U.S.-brokered peace talks with the Palestinians. A senior U.S. official predicted "a dicey period here in the next couple days to a couple of weeks" as Palestinians demanded the reversal of a new Israeli settlement plan and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, which includes pro-settler parties, reacts to unusually blunt criticism from Washington. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Israel's behavior "insulting" after it approved 1,600 new homes last week...

WASHINGTON - US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday urged all the parties in Nigeria to show restraint in response to the killings of some 500 people in the recent sectarian violence. "We continue to urge all parties to exercise restraint ... The Nigerian government should ensure that the perpetrators of acts of violence are brought to justice under the rule of law and that human rights are respected as order is restored," said Clinton at a joint press conference with Gabon President Ali Bongo. At least 500 Christians, mostly women and children, were reportedly killed in a...

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela's President Hugo mocked U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday as a "blond" version of her predecessor, and said a row with Spain over alleged links with rebel groups was over. Visiting Latin America this week, Clinton said the Obama administration's policies towards the region were helping blunt the criticism of the United States by leftist leaders like Chavez. "To me, she's like Condoleezza Rice ... a blond Condoleezza," said the Venezuelan, referring to former U.S. president George W. Bush's secretary of state, with whom he exchanged frequent harsh words at long-distance. Citing comments by...

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said the Obama administration will seek to block a controversial bill describing as genocide the World War I killing of Armenians by Turks. A congressional panel on Thursday approved the resolution, paving the way for a possible vote by the House.

Argentina was celebrating a diplomatic coup yesterday in its attempt to force Britain to accept talks on the future of the Falkland Islands, after a two-hour meeting in Buenos Aires between Hillary Clinton and President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Responding to a request from Mrs Kirchner for “friendly mediation” between Britain and Argentina, Mrs Clinton, the US Secretary of State, said she agreed that talks were a sensible way forward and offered “to encourage both countries to sit down”. Her intervention defied Britain’s longstanding position that there should be no negotiations unless the islands’ 3,000 inhabitants asked for them. It...