Free Republic

Two Russian jets flew within metres of the ship on Monday, US officials said. Russia´s defence ministry said the Su-24 fighter jets "turned away in observance of all safety measures" after observing the USS Donald Cook. Mr Kerry criticised the gesture and said contact had been made with Moscow. "We condemn this kind of behaviour," he told the Miami Herald and CNN Espanol in a joint interview. "It is reckless. It is provocative. It is dangerous. And under the rules of engagement, that could have been a shoot-down." He added that the US "is not going to be intimidated on

GOP Sen. John McCain  said Tuesday the situation on the U.S.-Mexico border is so dire the military needs to be deployed to patrol the region as soon as possible. In a letter sent to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson, McCain asked Johnson why he hasn’t requested help from the Department of Defense to combat drug traffickers piercing Arizona’s border. DHS has been unable to prevent the flow of heroin and other narcotics flooding in from Mexico.

The director of the CIA says his spy agency will not engage in waterboarding or other so-called enhanced interrogation techniques even if ordered to by a future president. CIA chief John Brennan tells NBC News that he will not agree to carry out such techniques because “this institution needs to endure.” President Barack Obama banned waterboarding shortly after taking office in 2009. Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have suggested they would not continue Obama’s ban. Trump has gone as far as to say that he would bring back waterboarding and “worse” tactics to get information.

HIROSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) - John Kerry will not offer an apology for the United States' use of the atomic bomb against Japan when he becomes the first U.S. secretary of state to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum on Monday, a senior U.S. official said. Kerry is visiting the city, which was obliterated by a U.S. atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945, to attend gathering of foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies that Japan opened on Sunday with a call to end nuclear weapons.

Iran's defense minister on Saturday blasted Secretary of State John Kerry's for what he called his “foolish” accusations that Tehran is "destabilizing" the Middle East, AFP reports. If the United States seeks "stability" it should "leave the region and stop supporting terrorists," Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said, quoted by the website of state television. "If John Kerry thought about these subjects, he would no longer utter nonsense and foolish words," added the Iranian minister. The comments came after Kerry, speaking on a visit to Bahrain on Thursday, condemned "the destabilizing actions of Iran," noting that the United States was taking...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived for an unannounced visit to Baghdad on Friday, as the country's political crisis threatens the fight against ISIS. The top U.S. diplomat's visit, which was not made public until Kerry arrived, is part of an effort to shore up an embattled Prime Minister fighting to stay in office. Kerry will meet with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Council of Representatives Speaker Saleem al-Jabouri. State Department spokesman John Kirby said Kerry will underscore the strong U.S. support for the Iraqi government as it addresses significant security, economic and political challenges,...

The Women of Courage award has always been terrible. This time though one of the worst awardees isn't in the Muslim world, but in Slovakia. As Director of the Human Rights League (HRL) – Slovakia’s premier NGO providing legal and other assistance to foreigners –attorney Zuzana Stevulova has emerged as the country’s most prominent advocate for refugee and migrant rights. In a country where the majority of asylum applications are rejected, she has won numerous cases at Slovakia’s Supreme Court on behalf of clients in expulsion and asylum proceedings. Since the start of Europe’s migration crisis, Ms. Stevulova has been...

President Obama pronounced the Iranian nuclear deal a “success” Friday as he met with leaders of the world’s major nuclear powers in Washington, amid bipartisan concern in Congress that the administration will allow Tehran to use the dollar in business transactions. “This deal has achieved a substantial success, and focused on the dangers of nuclear proliferation in an effective way,” Mr. Obama said. “This is a success of diplomacy that hopefully we’ll be able to copy in the future.” Critics of the agreement, including Republican lawmakers, presidential candidates and the government of Israel, say the pact allows Iran too much...

Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey is returning to Pennsylvania's airwaves for the first time since last summer, advancing a pro-law enforcement and pro-gun control message as Democrats step up attacks on him. The ads, starting Tuesday, tout Toomey's support for undoing Obama administration restrictions on police access to U.S. military gear and Toomey's push to expand background checks on firearms purchases. Toomey's re-election bid is expected to be expensive and hotly contested, and the seat in closely divided Pennsylvania is viewed as crucial to control of the Senate.

Stop by your local post office and you might just see a poster of Rodrigo “Timochenko” Londono hanging next to the Most Wanted posters of bank robbers and fugitives. The State Department is offering a $5 million reward for information about the Communist terrorist leader. But all the State Department had to do was ask Secretary of State Kerry. Obama did the wave with the Cuban dictator and Kerry met with Timochenko , the leader of FARC, a Marxist terrorist organization that appears on his own department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations a little above Al Qaeda. Timochenko is a...

John Kerry has defended Barack Obama´s decision to stay in Cuba and stick to his diplomatic schedule after the Brussels attacks. The Secretary of State addressed the issue on CBS´s Face The Nation on Saturday. Host John Dickerson asked Kerry how he would respond to those who criticized Obama for attending a baseball game in Cuba on the day of the attacks and dancing the tango in Argentina the following day. Kerry responded by quoting conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, saying the President´s schedule was ´not set by terrorists´. The President of the US has major diplomatic responsibilities,´ Kerry said. ´He

Washington (AFP) - Secretary of State John Kerry warned that the Republican presidential campaign has descended into "an embarrassment" that raises awkward questions abroad about the reliability of the United States. Kerry said that everywhere he goes, every leader he meets asks about what is happening in America. "They cannot believe it. I think it is fair to say that they're shocked. They don't know where it's taking the United States of America," Kerry said in an interview on the Sunday CBS news show "Face The Nation." "It upsets people's sense of equilibrium about our steadiness, about our reliability,...

Bill Kristol, founder and editor of The Weekly Standard, tells Newsmax TV he hopes a third-party candidate will emerge if Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are anointed the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees. "I just don't think [Trump] has the character or temperament to be president of the United States ... [and] we're certainly not going to vote for Hillary," Kristol said Friday to J.D. Hayworth on "Newsmax Prime." "There are a lot of fine Republicans and conservatives in the country, some of them are retired generals, some of them are businessmen, some of them are civic leaders, some of...

President Obama was in Argentina on Thursday and made one of his patented 'American apologies' for actions that the Central Intelligence Agency took during Argentina's "dirty war." In the 1970s, Soviet communism and socialism was spreading rapidly throughout South America and the CIA created Operation Condor to help local right-wing groups such as the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance repel the Russian influence. Politics aside, trying combat the spread of communism has never been easy and CIA agents did what was necessary to protect the United States. But rest assured, Obama, who swept in to save the day, gave a most...

Vladimir Putin is worried about how America is doing. The Russian president on Thursday teased Secretary of State John Kerry, who was visiting in Moscow, for carrying his own luggage, asking whether it was a sign that the U.S. is somehow struggling. Story Continued Below "On the one hand, it’s quite a democratic way of conduct, but on the other hand, I thought probably the situation in the United States is not that good and there is no one to assist the secretary of state in carrying his luggage," said Putin, whose own country's economy has been hurting due to...

Then I thought there was something in that briefcase of yours you couldn’t trust anyone else with. Probably you brought some money to haggle with on key matters”. John Kerry said he would reveal the secret of his briefcase’s contents later, promising that it would be a surprise. “When we have a private moment, I’ll show you what’s in that briefcase. And I think you’ll be surprised. Pleasantly.” Kerry arrived in Moscow on Thursday and has been holding negotiations with Russia’s President and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The negotiations are said to concern a number of issues, such as the...

As he looks back at his presidency in his final year, President Obama said Wednesday he has nothing to be “ashamed” of. “I feel pretty good about the fact that I can look back and say that I operated with honesty and integrity and don’t feel as if I said things I didn’t believe, or acted in ways that would make me ashamed,” Mr. Obama told reporters in Argentina. “That, I think, counts for something.” At a joint press conference with Argentinian President Mauricio Macri, Mr. Obama was asked by a Buenos Aires resident on Facebook if he had achieved...

Secretary of State John Kerry got upset that Obama was stealing the treason spotlight from him on the Cuban getaway. So he decided to pull a Sean Penn and meet with a Marxist terror group that is on his own State Department's list of Terror organizations.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—All three of the remaining presidential candidates got the prime speaking slots Monday night at the annual AIPAC policy conference, to which we were not invited, alas, although that seems to have been somewhat epidemic. But any chance we get to hear Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin, talk about foreign policy, the area in which Joe Biden literally laughed him out of the campaign in 2012, is one that we never should pass up. (Remember when Ryan explained to us that, in Afghanistan, it snows during the winter? Gravitas!) Of all the barefaced...

Obama Poses in Front of Che Guevara Image in Cuba’s Revolution Square