Free Republic

Democratic presidential contender Julian Castro joined a march to a McDonald’s restaurant in North Carolina on Thursday to draw attention to workers’ efforts to raise the minimum wage and secure other protections. Nearly all the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have expressed support for the idea that the federal minimum wage should be more than doubled, to $15 an hour, and several were joining actions around the country Thursday. The McDonald’s annual shareholder meeting is also Thursday in Dallas. Striking cooks and cashiers planned to travel to the shareholder meeting, where they’ll attend a video town hall hosted by Sen. Bernie...

The Cuban government announced Friday that it is launching widespread rationing of chicken, eggs, rice, beans, soap and other basic products in the face of a grave economic crisis. Commerce Minister Betsy Díaz Velázquez told the state-run Cuban News Agency that various forms of rationing would be employed in order to deal with shortages of staple foods. She blamed the hardening of the U.S. trade embargo by the Trump administration. Economists give equal or greater blame to a plunge in aid from Venezuela, where the collapse of the state-run oil company has led to a nearly two-thirds cut in shipments...

The Trump administration on Wednesday opened the door for lawsuits against foreign firms operating on properties Cuba seized from Americans after the 1959 revolution. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he won’t renew a bar on litigation that has been in place for two decades, meaning that lawsuits can be filed starting on May 2 when the current suspension expires. The decision could affect dozens of Canadian and European companies to the tune of tens of billions of dollars in compensation and interests. “Any person or company doing business in Cuba should heed this announcement,” Pompeo said. Pompeo said the...

Washington (CNN)A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted Greg Craig, a prominent Democratic attorney who worked for two presidents, charging him with false statements and concealing material information in connection with work he performed for Ukraine. An indictment in the case against Craig, which originated in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, has been expected for several weeks, with Craig's own lawyers saying Wednesday they anticipated such an outcome. Craig, 74, is the highest-profile Democrat to be indicted in a matter stemming from Mueller's work, which resulted in charges against numerous Republicans connected to President Donald Trump. The case is being...

“Top Obama-linked lawyer (Gregory B. Craig) on Mueller chopping block, could be first Dem indicted under probe." (BizPac Review, March 19)“Oh well, ho hum,” say many bemused Cuba-watchers, “better late than never.”Because you see, amigos: Gregory Craig’s shenanigans with Manafort and Yanukoych seem like mild mischief compared to his shenanigans on behalf of Bill Clinton, Dan Rather and  Fidel Castro. At the time of these later-named shenanigans, the aforementioned president of the U.S. (Clinton) and the megastar of the U.S. media (Rather) were dutifully and cravenly fulfilling the express wishes of the mass-murdering, terror-sponsoring dictator whose lifelong craving was to nuke...

“I'm gonna actually have you participate with me in repeating some words from a leader by the name of Assata Shakur!”  (NAACP V.P. Jamal Watkins opening the We The People conference this week.) “(The conference speakers) included 2020 Democratic White House contenders Cory Booker, Julián Castro, Beto O'Rourke, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Jay Inslee and Kirsten Gillibrand.”Now regarding that “leader” whose words seemed worthy of opening a conference showcasing the entire roster of the Democrat Party’s Most-Likely-to-Succeed”: In May 2013 the FBI announced a $1 million reward for "information leading to the apprehension" of Joanne Chesimard (also known as Assata...

WASHINGTON/CARACAS (Reuters) - The United States on Monday accused Russia of “reckless escalation” of the situation in Venezuela by deploying military planes and personnel to the crisis-stricken South American nation that Washington has hit with crippling sanctions. The Russian planes and military personnel arrived outside the Venezuelan capital Caracas on Saturday, according to local media reports, two months after the Trump administration disavowed President Nicolas Maduro. Washington has recognised opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s legitimate president and demands that Maduro leave power, which Russia has described as a U.S.-backed coup against the socialist government.

Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro on Sunday hit Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) over his 2020 rival's position on reparations. "What he said ... the other day was he didn’t think the best way to address this was for the United States to write a check." Castro said during an interview on CNN's "State of the Union." "However, it’s interesting to me that when it comes to 'Medicare for all,' health care, you know, the response there has been, ‘We need to write a big check.’ That when it comes to tuition-free or debt-free college, the answer has been that we...

The State Department on Monday announced it would allow lawsuits to be brought against Cuba companies and individuals by people whose property was seized by the communist government during and after Fidel Castro's revolution in the late 1950s. In the United States' latest move to punish Cuba and encourage democracy in the communist nation, the State Department announced it would suspend for 30 days part of the 1996 Libertad Act, also known as the Helms-Burton Act, and allow some lawsuits to be brought against companies using properties confiscated by the Cuban government after its 1959 revolution. "Even under a new president in Cuba,...

A group of conservative street artists hijacked a billboard in Hollywood on Friday morning and took aim at CNN, which so happened to be across the street. Known as The Faction, their latest project slammed CNN and its president Jeff Zucker for its coverage of this week’s summit in Hanoi, Vietnam between President Donald Trump and North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un. The billboard, which referred to CNN as “Communist News Network,” dawned the phrase “Keep Korea divided” with an asterisk that read “because OrangeManBad.” It also featured an image of Jeff Zucker, whose title was “CEO, CNNPC,” a reference...

“I remember… being very excited when Fidel Castro made the revolution in Cuba.. It just seemed right and appropriate that poor people were rising up against the rich ugly people….In 1959 everybody was totally convinced that Fidel Castro was the worst guy in the world and all of the Cuban people were going to rise up in rebellion against Fidel Castro…They forgot that he educated their kids, gave their kids healthcare, totally transformed the society…..So they expected this tremendous uprising in Cuba, but it never came.” (Bernie Sanders.) So a prominent Democrat sings the praises Fidel Castro and Che Guevara’s...

Ocasio-Cortez: Latinos Can’t Be Illegals Because They’re ‘Descendants of Native People’ BY: Cameron Cawthorne Follow @@Cam_Cawthorne February 7, 2019 4:31 pm Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) on Thursday criticized U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and argued in support of undocumented Latinos in the United States, saying the latter cannot be "criminalized" on "Native" U.S. land because they are "descendants of Native people." The self-described Democratic socialist spoke on Thursday alongside several liberal groups, including MoveOn and United We Dream, a pro-immigration group that calls for ICE to be abolished. She repeatedly slammed ICE, claiming it "repeatedly and systematically violates human...

That Castroite Cubans not only influence the relevant power centers in socialist-destroyed Venezuela (i.e. military & secret police,) but staff and control these power centers, must be old- hat to Townhall readers by now.It’s been the catastrophic state of affairs for years by now: “Venezuela today is a country that is practically occupied by the henchmen of two international criminals, Cuba's Castro brothers,” declared Luis Miquilena who served as Hugo Chavez’s Minister of Justice for three years before finally resigning in disgust. “They (the Cubans) have introduced in Venezuela a true army of occupation. The Cubans run the maritime ports,...

Democratic presidential contender Julian Castro launched his campaign by pledging support for “Medicare for All,” free universal preschool, a large public investment in renewable energy and two years of free college for all Americans. That wasn’t enough for some of his party’s most liberal members. […] Welcome to the 2020 presidential primary. Almost no policy is too liberal for Democrats fighting to win over their party’s base, which is demanding a presidential nominee dedicated to pursuing bold action on America’s most pressing challenges. Among two dozen possible candidates, virtually all have embraced universal health care in one form or another....

“This is a very, very big deal,” the Florida Republican and Cuban-American said...“I think really good things are coming from this. And so, you can't minimize the impact..... ”President Trump is getting ready to place an unprecedented amount of economic pressure on Cuba’s communism regime and some of the non-U.S. companies that have invested there, according to a leading Republican lawmaker. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has signaled that Americans who decades ago had property stolen by Fidel Castro’s regime and sold to other foreign companies may soon be able to sue those companies to recoup their losses. That will...

Julián Castro, the former housing secretary and former mayor of San Antonio, announced on Saturday that he would run for president, one of the most high-profile Latino Democrats ever to seek the party’s nomination. His first campaign stop will be in Puerto Rico, where he will speak on Monday at the Latino Victory Fund’s annual summit and meet with residents still struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria. Later in the week, his campaign said, he will go to New Hampshire. Mr. Castro, in prepared remarks that he was set to deliver in San Antonio on Saturday, said, “When my grandmother...

Fidel Castro's grandson has been on the receiving end of negative comments after photos surfaced of the young man flaunting the family's wealth on social media. Various South Florida-based media outlets covering the Cuban community came across Tony Castro's snaps just days before the Communist island celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, led by his grandfather who would later rule for five decades before dying in 2016. The lives of the former Cuban leader's immediate family members have always been somewhat of a secret to the outside world.   Tony Castro, who is in his 20s, managed to keep a...

****** How that struggle is resolved will determine the nation’s future... It is increasingly clear that Cuban society is no longer — if it ever was — a homogeneous bloc of revolutionary workers willing to simply applaud or fall silent at the decisions of their leaders. In a possible sign of change, Cubans will vote next month on a new Constitution to replace the country’s Cold War-era charter. Several hundred changes were made to the draft to incorporate the views of Cubans who were consulted on proposed reforms... There was also public pushback against a draft law prohibiting the accumulation...

Likely 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro agrees with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that tax rates on some of the wealthiest Americans should skyrocket. "Oh, I can support folks at the top paying their fair share," Castro told ABC News' "This Week" on Sunday when asked directly whether he could endorse the high-profile New York Democrat's idea. The Obama-era Housing and Urban Development secretary, who is expected to officially announce he's running for the White House this week, made the comments after Ocasio-Cortez caught flak for suggesting people earning more than $10 million could be taxed between "60 or 70 percent."...

Yoenis Cespedes, one of numerous Cuban-origin players who made it to the Show the hardest ways. Now MLB wants to play ball with the Cuban tyranny for Cuban talent—in a kind of protection racket.Contrary to the supposition of Joe and Jane Fan and the aphorism of Hall of Famer Willie Stargell (“The umpire doesn’t say, ‘Work ball!’)” playing baseball professionally requires work, and lots of it, to play competently. Unfortunately, for some players, the work includes things not customarily required at the ballpark or in the gymnasium. Players hailing from Cuba, for example. The work they must do just...