Free Republic

Young bones lay Columbus myth to rest Giles Tremlett in Madrid Wednesday August 11, 2004 The Guardian (UK) A centuries-old historical row over the whereabouts of the body of Christopher Columbus appeared to have been solved yesterday when scientists in Spain conceded that the corpse buried at Seville's gothic Santa Maria cathedral was not that of the famous explorer. Instead, the bones they studied were probably those of his lesser known son, Diego, who was a small and weedy man, unlike his father. Christopher Columbus's body, the experts say, almost certainly lies back in the "new world" he sailed to...

Apart from the recent misquote regarding Mahmoud Abbas (Pope Francis encouraged Abbas to “become an angel of mercy;” he did not say that Abbas ‘is an angel of mercy’), the silence from the Left has been pretty deafening in regard to Pope Francis lately. Perhaps the Left has finally realized that Pope Francis is not the progressive they hoped he was, and that apart from encouraging dialogue he is not going to be changing Catholic Doctrine after all. On March 7 Breitbart noted the shift in the Left’s attitude with an article by Thomas Williams titled, “New York Times Ends...

The Obama administration is expected to announce an agreement with Cuba in early July to reopen embassies and restore diplomatic relations severed more than five decades ago, U.S. sources familiar with the matter said on Friday. The two sides hope to conclude the deal by the first week of next month, clearing the way for Secretary of State John Kerry to visit Havana soon afterwards for a flag-raising ceremony to upgrade the U.S. Interests Section to a full-scale embassy, the sources said. Since a breakthrough between the two former Cold War rivals announced in December, negotiators have settled all but...

Hundreds of Cuban criminals are released onto the streets of the U.S. every year because that nation won’t take them back — even though the Obama administration is trying to broker a more open relationship with the communist island nation. It’s a quirk of immigration law known as “Zadvydas cases,” after a 2001 Supreme Court ruling that said the government cannot detain immigrants indefinitely if their home countries won’t take them back. Cuba, China and Vietnam regularly top the list, but even some countries that are supposed to be closer partners, such as Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, are refusing...

If a Republican wins the White House, the military prison at Guantanamo Bay will almost surely be kept open for the foreseeable future. That is, unless Rand Paul nabs the GOP nomination. Yet again, the senator from Kentucky has scouted out a position on a national-security issue that makes him an outlier, at least among senators running for president. That was clear Monday after Marco Rubio introduced two amendments that would extend the use of the prison: one to prohibit funding to programs that would help close the facility, and another that sets a series of tough ground rules before...

Now that the United States has "normalized" relations with Cuba, which was taken off of the State Department terror sponsor list this week, journalism professors from American universities are starting to train students inside the communist country. Despite the liberal leanings of the professors embarking on this task, this is a very good thing. Press freedom and holding government accountable through the sunlight of reporters are two fundamental principles of a free society. Because of this, despite "normalization" and a "new era," the Castro regime still counts practicing journalism as a crime. It's not just that they are studying journalism...

According to an inside source, the military collaborations between Iran's Revolutionary Guards and the Gaddafi government date back to 2006.In an interview today on the Al Arabyia news network, an informed source within the Revolutionary Guards Corps revealed that Iran has several military bases in Libya. The source, who requested anonymity due to his sensitive position within the Guards, elaborated further that the Iranian military bases are located mostly along Libya’s borders with the African countries of Chad and Niger. From there, he said, the Guards actively smuggle arms and supply logistical assistance to rebellious groups in the African countries.According...

Documents made available to Pajamas Media prove that the Venezuelan strongman has been selling reformate to Iran Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez has again frustrated the worldÂ’s attempt to derail IranÂ’s nuclear weapons program. Evidence now clearly shows that heÂ’s been sending gasoline to Iran in defiance of U.S. sanctions that sought to deprive the regime of that commodity and bring them back to the negotiation table.On July 1, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (CISADA). The act was a consequence of IranÂ’s continued defiance in the face of international pressure to...

From the BBC: 1545: Libyan TV says in an "urgent" screen caption the state news agency is under "piracy" attack, and gives a new web address: "Website of [state] al-Jamahiriyah News Agency (JANA) subjected to suspicious piracy operation." 1528: And AFP has just reported that there are violent clashes between demonstrators and government forces taking place in central Tunis. 1525: In Tunisia, where it all started, hundreds of journalists and technicians from the state-run TV broadcaster have gone on strike over what they say is continued government censorship of their dispatches, Reuters reports. State TV news bulletins have stopped. One...

Cut through the niceties couching the rhetoric of Democrat House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) 7% on Friday’s MSNBC Live, and it’s hard to interpret otherwise than Pelosi saying Republican Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) 81% and any other Catholics who might not endorse gay marriage are hateful homophobes out of step with so called “mainstream” Catholics like herself. Naturally, it’s of no surprise that an MSNBC host conveniently set her up for the opportunity to denounce Rubio, as well as define Catholicism for everyone. I thoroughly disagree (with Rubio’s opposition to gay marriage), being raised in a Catholic family,...

'True, football, or soccer as it is known here, is not as central to American as it is to European, African or South and Central American life. Nowhere near. Up until recently, the game has been unloved by the major US television networks, which have long bemoaned the lack of breaks in play, the paucity of goals and the glut of draws. Absent from the US game are big-name male stars and big-name clubs. The New York Red Bulls will never rival the New York Yankees. Real Salt Lake pales, rather risibly, alongside Real Madrid. However, football is no longer...

And that means that Marco Rubio will block any nominee for the position. In a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, who is coming home after breaking his leg while bicycling, Rubio pledges not just to oppose any nominee but “to block the Administration’s efforts to pursue diplomatic relations with Cuba and name an Ambassador to Havana” until Barack Obama and Kerry work to wring concessions from the Castros. In particular, Rubio wants American fugitives extradited to face long-delayed justice in the US: Secondly, I urge you to make central to the current talks the repatriation of known...

THE TRAIL OF BLOOD AND SUFFERING LEFT BY THE CASTRO BROTHERS TERROR NETWORKThe Castro brothers, mass murderer tyrants who terrorized a whole Island for over 56 years who killed, imprisoned, and tortured more Cubans per capita than Stalin during his reign of terror and founded and headed the most lethal international terror network is honored, embrace and rewarded by comrades Obama and Pope Francis.The trail of blood and suffering left by Castro’s exploits, especially throughout Africa and Latin America, has had no bearing on the Pope and on the American sycophants support for the longest lasting and most brutal regime...

Today President Obama further opened the financial floodgates from the U.S. to the world’s most notorious deadbeat nation—who is also a “State Sponsor of Terrorism.” Quotation marks are now required around the term “State-Sponsor of Terrorism” when referring to Cuba because just this morning, as the 45 day notification period to Congress expired, President Obama officially removed Cuba from the State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, where President Reagan had placed it in 1982. “Laughing all the way to the bank,” hardly does justice to what the multi-billionaire Castro family must be doing this week. The $7 billion...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) RINDGE, N.H. — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz laughed off his starring role as a “Capitulating Canadian,” dressed up in fighting clothes, in the first attack ad of the 2016 presidential campaign launched by a U.S. Sen. Rand Paul super PAC — and vowed not to retaliate against his Kentucky rival. “Well, I have to say I chuckled. I’ve never seen myself portrayed as a World Wrestling Federation person, even though I guess it was one that I was not supposed to win,” Cruz told the Herald after a town hall event at Franklin Pierce University last night. “It’s politics....

Politics: President Obama removed Cuba as a state sponsor of terror Friday, forgetting the dictatorship's long record of killing, smuggling and, yes, terror. If this is the new standard, why not just scrap the list entirely? The lifting of Cuba from the list of nations that support terrorism was a farce that may well come back to the haunt the United States. After all, the ruling Castro regime that benefits from it in the name of normal relations with the U.S. and new access to World Bank loans is the same regime that once tried the first 9/11, aligning itself...

The United States took another step toward normalization of relations with Cuba on Friday, officially removing its onetime Communist foe from its official list of state sponsors of terror. The White House initiated a 45-day congressional review of Cuba’s status on April 14, so Friday’s announcement is not a surprise. But it’s an important symbolic step as President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro try to thaw more than five decades of frozen diplomatic ties. Republicans long ago conceded Cuba would be removed from the list and vowed not to fight it. “We can’t undo it,” Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen...

The U.S. has taken Cuba off its list of state sponsors of terrorism. Secretary of State John Kerry has signed an order removing Cuba from the U.S. terrorism blacklist as part of the process of normalizing relations between the Cold War foes.

Letter to Cogressman Tom McClintock, California 4th District Please raise Congressman McClintock's concern regarding the issue of sex tourism to Cuba with his colleagues on committees concerned with suppression of international sex tourism from the US.Please see the search string "Daniel Greenfield Cuba Sex Tourism" for evidence of concern to Federal agencies charged with enforcement against organized international pedophilia. At The Death of the Left it is possible to read: "The embargo didn’t turn Cuba into a hellhole whose main tourism industry is inviting progressive Canadian pedophiles to rape its children. Castro did that with help from the dead guy...

Washington (CNN)A federal appeals court on Tuesday denied a request from Justice Department lawyers to allow President Barack Obama's controversial immigration actions to go into effect pending appeal. The decision is a victory for Texas and 25 other states that are challenging the Obama administration's actions, which were blocked by a District Court judge in February. Tuesday's decision means that while the issue is appealed, eligible undocumented immigrants will be unable to apply for the programs aimed at easing deportation threats. "Because the government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its appeal of the injunction, we deny the...