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John Kerry's comments on foreign leaders during 2004 election season resurface amid Trump-Ukraine controversy After former President Bill Clinton’s request for help from a foreign official resurfaced Monday, now it's John Kerry’s turn in the spotlight. On Tuesday’s edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the host flashed back to a 2004 comment from Kerry, then a candidate for president, claiming foreign leaders told him how much they wanted him to oust then-President George W. Bush. “John Kerry has been talking to anyone who will listen about the president’s shocking behavior with Ukraine,” Carlson said on his show Tuesday night, before turning...

Terrorism is a continuation of politics by other means......at least in some corners of this world. He transmitted the false presence of suicide terrorists[Former Interior Minister] Acebes Blames Zapatero for Spreading the “Only Confirmed Lie” of 3/11.The general secretary of the PP has pointed out directly the president of the government as responsible for the “only confirmed lie”, for the time being, of 3/11: the alleged presence of suicide terrorists [on the trains]. “Zapatero himself was the one that spread this information”, Acebes has denounced in COPE [Radio News Channel] on the basis of the revelations of EL MUNDO newspaper,...

The United States President will spend four days of his holiday in the town with his family during August The President of the United States, Barack Obama, his wife Michelle, and their daughters Malia and Sasha, will spend part of their summer holidays in Marbella. In what will be his first visit to Spain as President, he will stay from August 4 – 8 in the luxury Villapadierna Hotel. Before returning to the United States, Obama will travel to the Marivent Palace on Mallorca to meet with King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia. He’s also expected to meet with the...

Just as incoming American presidents are given the atomic “briefcase” by their predecessors, along with the codes for launching a nuclear attack, perhaps Spanish prime ministers will henceforth receive a begging cup and a German phrasebook. It was al Qaeda that made José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of the Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE) Spain’s prime minister; Lehman Brothers and the euro crisis have unmade him, putting his country at the financial mercy of its European neighbors. Zapatero came to power when jihadists bombed several trains in the heart of Madrid on election weekend 2004. The bombs convinced Spaniards they would be...

Mariano Rajoy gains absolute majority with 16 percentage point win over José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's Socialists The conservative People's party (PP) of Mariano Rajoy has swept to a landslide victory in Spain's general election, inheriting sky-high unemployment and one of the shakiest economies in Europe. Rajoy's PP gained an absolute parliamentary majority with a crushing 16 percentage point win over the Socialists of outgoing prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.   The Socialists lost a third of their seats as voters dumped a government that presided over a dramatic economic slump which has left 23% of Spaniards out of work.   With...

Spain's veteran conservative leader, who appears to be on course to be elected as prime minister at his third attempt on Sunday, has expressed hope that financial markets will relax their pressure on Madrid. Mariano Rajoy, leader of the People's party (PP), spoke out as the interest on Spanish debt remained above 6% for a fifth day running, ahead of an election being carefully followed across Europe. "We hope this [pressure] stops and that people realise there's an election here and that the party that wins has the right to a minimum margin," the PP leader told Onda Cero radio...

Spanish voters on Sunday are expected to dismiss the Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and usher in the conservative People's Party (PP) and its leader, Mariano Rajoy. Mr. Zapatero’s Socialist party (PSOE), which has been in power for eight years, has borne the brunt of public blame for Spain’s increasingly perilous economic situation, which has tainted the party’s leadership candidate, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba. Meanwhile, Mr. Rajoy has been coasting toward an expected landslide victory without saying much about how he plans to reverse Spain’s economic course... The situation is bleak for the eurozone’s fourth-largest...

Who says only America has a major political crisis that threatens to destroy the country. Following earlier press reports that Spanish PM Zapatero would dissolve government on September 26 in order to have a new general election on November 20, which were summarily denied by the government immediately, it only took about 20 minutes for Zapatero to make a TV appearance and admit that there will indeed be early elections. And judging by the recent surge in popular protests a government overthrow appears certain, which means that Spain's entire role in the Euro bailout mechanisms will transfer from asset...

(English-language translation) Spanish government President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's [Spanish Workers] Socialist Party [PSOE] may fall in Sunday's regional elections according to polls since the [economic] crisis began, while thousands have taken to the streets for days demanding "real democracy". The closing of the campaign may be marred by the removal by police of those gathered in centric Puerta del Sol [in Madrid] since early this week, following the election authorities' decision on Thursday that no demonstrations will be allowed on Saturday, being the eve of the elections, and Sunday itself. The protests forced the governing party to change the...

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luís Rodríguez Zapatero said he won't run for a third term, in a move calculated to improve his Socialist party's bleak electoral prospects but one that could undermine his authority at a dangerous time.

An unintended but highly illuminating irony of the military intervention in Libya is that it has exposed the duplicity behind European pacifism. Ever since taking office in 2004, Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has worked overtime to craft his own public persona as a “convinced pacifist.” His first official act as pacifist-in-chief was, famously, to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq. That decision was not only wildly popular with Spanish voters, but it also cemented Zapatero’s pacifist credentials on the world stage. Zapatero has also been careful to appoint only pacifists as Spanish ministers of defense. Zapatero’s first defense...

Zapatero's endgame Spain’s prime minister is on the way out. The only question is when CAN things get any worse for José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain’s beleaguered prime minister? Probably not. Austerity measures, labour reform and strikes have taken their toll: opinion polls show support for his Socialist Party plummeting to 29%, while unemployment, at over 20%, remains twice the euro-zone average. Speculation is rife over who will succeed Mr Zapatero as party leader, and whether he will step down before or after the next general election, due in 2012.

NEW YORK — After the epic disaster of , one might imagine the United Nations would tread carefully before launching any new and controversial efforts. Hardly.Still reeling from scandals on many fronts, the U.N. has launched another questionable initiative, called the , which is due to hold its first meeting this weekend in Spain. The program has been widely touted by U.N. Secretary-General as a bridge across cultural and religious divides, but it involves a daisy-chain of dubious associations that casts serious doubt both on the project itself and on the U.N.’s ability to cut loose from the scandals of the past...

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...

Hundreds of people on Saturday staged a protest outside Spain's highest court to demand the suspension of a new more liberal abortion law, two days before it was to take effect. The Socialist government's new abortion reforms -- which notably allow all women to end their pregnancies up until 14 weeks -- take effect on Monday. Last year around 115,000 abortions were carried out in Spain, according to the health ministry. The vast majority took place in private clinics and were justified on the grounds that the pregnancy posed a "psychological risk" for the health of the woman.

Fresh off of giving the opening address at the annual Bilderberg Group's meeting, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose country currently holds the European Union's rotating presidency, is calling for the EU to adopt a "strong, joint EU position" on Gaza and Israel's blockade of it. The following is an excerpt from an EUBusiness.com article on the topic: "Zapatero said his foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, would propose to his EU colleagues at a meeting on Monday that the 27-nation bloc "clearly declare itself in favour of ending the blockade of the Gaza Strip." Moratinos said in a...

Rob Port of Say Anything wins the Grand Rants Calling A Spade A Spade Award with his post: Hypocrite: Obama Calls On Spain To Rein In Government Debt...

MADRID--Spain's unemployment rate breached 20% in the first quarter as the country's ailing economy, reeling from the collapse of a decade-long construction boom, continued to shed jobs, Spain's National Statistics Institute said Friday. The INE said first-quarter unemployment rose to 20.05% from 18.83% in the fourth quarter of last year, confirming leaked data published by a Spanish newspaper earlier this week. Spain's first-quarter unemployment rate is the highest in the developed world, Spain's highest since 1997 and it surpasses the government's predictions, which forecast a 19% unemployment rate at the end of this year.

Dezcallar Endorsed the Information Ana Palacio Gave to the UN on 3/11 A day after the bloody attacks of 3/11, the then Secretary of State [foreign minister Ana Palacio] obtained from the UN a clear condemnation against ETA. According to what reveals this Thursday EL MUNDO newspaper, before and after undertaking this mission, Ana Palacio confirmed in multiple opportunities that information with the director of the CNI, Jorge Dezcallar. In all the calls, the top person in charge of Spanish intelligence assured that the data on the ETA responsibility was truthful. Now, the one who was appointed by Aznar in...

Spain's prime minister was briefly ousted from that country's official website after hackers replaced his likeness with that of bumbling slapstick character Mr. Bean. Representatives for Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero confirmed the defacement of www.eu2010.es but insisted data on the site was never compromised, the BBC reported. Instead, the stunt was done using cross-site scripting attack, which injects unauthorized content and code into vulnerable websites. People who tried to visit the PM's site site were briefly met by an image of Mr. Bean actor Rowan Atkinson. Comparisons between the appearance of Spain's leader and the buffoon have been...