Free Republic

Florida might have its share of Republican presidential candidates but one former presidential candidate who ran twice in the Sunshine State is behind U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Former U.S. Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., who ran twice for the U.S. Senate in Florida, was named as a co-chair of Cruz’s veterans outreach team on Wednesday. Smith joins U.S. Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., and Texas state Sen. Brian Birdwell as co-chairs of “Vets for Ted” while Bill Connor will be national director. Cruz has also named Smith, a Navy veteran, as part of his team in New Hampshire, home of the...

Americans do well with moderation. It is in our national DNA. It is also a by-product of the freedom of expression and allowing different perspectives in the public forum. In foreign policy, non-interventionism is the moderate stance, and it has served Americans well in her four hundred or so years. As British subjects, American colonists were compelled to fight for the British crown, until they felt compelled to defend themselves against the king’s army. After centuries of European conflicts dragging Americans into war, national independence yielded a non-interventionist foreign policy for the infant nation. George Washington advised in his farewell...

Obama’s New Cuban Partners, My Old Jailers The regime was built on the blood of dissidents like those the U.S. now avoids acknowledging. By Armando Valladares Aug. 20, 2015 7: Thousands of Cubans have died fighting for rights that Americans so freely enjoy. The right to build a church and preach without fear of harassment and secret recording by government hooligans. The right to protest without wondering if your friends will be carted off, never to be seen or heard from again. The right to criticize your government leaders in the opinion pages of a newspaper without fear of being...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz on Friday fired back at Jeb Bush, who a day earlier suggested the senator, who was born in Canada to a son of a Cuban immigrant and American-born mother, was the beneficiary of birthright citizenship. “I appreciate Governor Bush’s concern. I would note it seems he’s having a problem and getting confused between legal immigration and illegal immigration”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks to Andres Oppenheimer on Cuba “Obama administration would ask Cuba — a military dictatorship that has not allowed a free election in more than five decades — to help persuade Venezuela to hold free elections and uphold democratic principles sounds preposterous.” http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article31048407.html Miami Herald columnist Andres Oppenheimer speaks to Secretary of State John Kerry in advance of his historic visit to Cuba on Friday. Video by Miami Herald/CNN en Espanol Miami Herald/CNN en Espanol Andes Oppenheimer @MiamiHerald.com August 12, 2015 If you ask me what was the most interesting thing that Secretary of...

America’s government has gradually watered down its economic data over time, thereby painting a rosier picture of conditions on the ground than actually exists. Consulting economist John Williams has dedicated his life in fact to exposing its manipulation of economic data and backing into the real numbers. But you will know when America has really hit full on panic mode when the feds stop printing figures altogether, and the only way to measure price inflation is through tracking the daily price increase of say, cronuts, or some other confection. This is the position sadly but all-too-predictably in which Venezuela finds...

More tourists won’t change Cuba By Ambassador James Cason Miami Herald August 12, 2015 http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article30959136.html On Friday, Secretary John Kerry opens up the new U.S. Embassy in Havana. Unfortunately, he shares many of the misconceptions advanced by former Secretary Hillary Clinton at her recent speech at Florida International University. Her incursion into the debate on U.S. Cuba policy could have been a “teachable moment” had she been mindful of her academic audience and the danger of ignoring the facts when trying to justify an abrupt reversal of U.S. foreign policy. Instead she delivered another polemic on lifting what remains of...

Travel to Cuba could soon be nearly as easy as travel to any other part of the world. The Obama administration plans to unilaterally ease the travel restrictions to Cuba, sources told ABC News. The new measures would bypass limits on travel imposed by Congress by changing regulations at the executive level.

OBAMA EMBRACES CASTRO-COMMUNISM Dqban22 8/16/2015 The Catholic Magazine “Ideal” couldn’t better describe the ceremony of raising the American flag at the U.S. embassy in Havana:“Another unpardonable treason…”“Absent at the ceremony were:” “Thousands murdered by Castro’s firing squads.”“Thousands of political prisoners.”“Thousands drowned at sea.”“Millions of Exiles.”“Millions of divided families.”“Millions of unborn babies.”“Three generations living in material And spiritual poverty.”One of the most used ad nauseam arguments to justify the unconditional surrender of president Obama to the Cuban Stalinist regime is that over 50 years U.S. commercial embargo against the Cuban communist regime did not work and that it damaged the...

Protests are underway in Brazil as hundreds of thousands take to the streets to call for the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff. Here's Bloomberg: An estimated 25,000 protesters in Brasilia marched toward Congress, chanting against Rousseff and corruption, carried a long banner demanding “Impeachment Now.” Rouseff monitored proceedings from her official residence, due to meet with some of her cabinet in the afternoon, said Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo. Protest in #Rio #Brazil: "Military intervention is not a crime" via @tariqpanja UNBELIEVABLE. pic.twitter.com/S8kcJmUJnq— juliana barbassa (@jbarbassa) August 16, 2015 Background: was chairwoman from 2003 to 2010. When the world’s foremost...

What Obama is pursing in Iran and Cuba isn’t peace.....The list of countries designated by the United States as state sponsors of terrorism is a pretty exclusive club, a veritable Legion of Doom populated by the likes of North Korea and Syria. The Obama administration has, for reasons that seem to be mainly political, shown extraordinary solicitude toward two countries that were on the State Department’s list when he became president: Cuba and Iran. Cuba has been removed from the list — “Cuba meets the statutory criteria for rescission” was the State Department’s bloodless explanation — and John Kerry has...

The U.S. Department of Defense is sending a team to military installations in Kansas and South Carolina to investigate the possibility of relocating some Guantanamo Bay prisoners to U.S. soil, media outlets reported on Saturday. Fox News and CNN said the Pentagon on Friday notified the U.S. Congress that the team was already visiting the disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and would then survey the naval brig at Charleston, South Carolina, in the coming weeks. Republicans, who control Congress, swiftly condemned the idea of moving detainees into the United States and close to major military posts, according to Fox...

As Kyle Drennen pointed out yesterday, the major networks almost completely avoided any coverage of dissidents when reporting on the American flag being raised at the newly-reopened U.S. embassy in Havana. However, there was one report at CNN that stood out in sharp contrast to their reticence to criticize the Castro regime. That was the report by Jake Tapper on The Lead in which he provided an in-depth interview with one of the leading Cuban dissidents.

Christianity is booming in communist-ruled Cuba, and one indication of this is the continuing inflow of tens of thousands of Bibles which are distributed to the faithful in the country's more than 1,000 churches. Last month, some 83,000 copies of the Bible poured into the country courtesy of the International Missions Board. The copies of the Bible are distributed by the Baptist Convention in Cuba. The American Bible Society, which claims to have "strong relations with Cuban churches, both Catholic and Protestant," also started its "Million Bible Mission" last year. About 60,000 Bibles were imported and distributed to the faithful...

When Rubio is asked, "are you going to going say that Hillary Clinton is dishonest?" He replied "we don't need any drama in the white house." The Cuban boy has no balls and my do not for list has been updated.

RUSH: What does it say about the Democrat Party bench, folks, that if it isn't Hillary, look at who's thinking about getting in. Biden. Biden hadn't made it past a Democrat primary yet in the two or three times he's tried. Kerry? John Kerry, really? Already lost in 2004. "Yeah, Rush, but that was before the Iran deal." That's my point. "And, Rush, it was before he raised the flag over Cuba." Right. So all this stuff's gonna help him. Right, right. And then Gore, Algore? Another loser. This is the Democrat Party bench? You know what it means? It...

During the ceremony raising the American flag over the newly opened U.S. embassy in Cuba, Secretary of State John Kerry encouraged the Castro brothers and the Cuban people to join the fight against climate change. “After all we are neighbors, and neighbors will always have much to discuss,” Kerry said, pointing to serious, tough, complex issues like protecting the marine environment and the fight against climate change.

RUSH: They are all excited in the Drive-By Media. The American flag was raised today over the American embassy in Havana, Cuba. Such a great day for the Drive-Bys, such a great day for the American left, and such a great day for Fidel Castro. Victory for Fidel Castro is considered victory for the American media. Here is a media montage of how it all went down... MATT LAUER: (b-roll noise) For the first time in 54 years an American flag will be raised at the US Embassy in Havana! SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Now to the historic moment that is set...

Three months before the historic announcement in December that the U.S. would re-establish full diplomatic relations with Cuba, Havana’s Cardinal Jaime Ortega made a trip to the White House and hand delivered a letter from Pope Francis to President Barack Obama. The meeting was sensitive enough to be kept under the radar - the Cuban cardinal’s name did not appear in the White House visitors’ log. The pope’s letter, addressed to Obama, offered to “help in any way possible” in negotiations with Cuba.... A key player, according to the authors: The Trimpa Group, a lobbying business with offices in Denver...

The Department of Defense notified lawmakers Friday that teams will visit two military installations in the United States — Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and the Naval Brig in Charleston, S.C. — to conduct “site surveys” looking into transferring a “limited number” of Guantanamo detainees, Pentagon and Capitol Hill sources told Fox News. The move, coming on the same day Secretary of State John Kerry marked the re-opening of the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, has already triggered a backlash on Capitol Hill. But, despite existing congressional restrictions on moving the detainees to U.S. soil, the notice itself suggests officials are wasting...