Free Republic

The Cubanization of Venezuela began a long time ago, but it took another large step in early February, when Cuban general Ramiro Valdés arrived in Caracas to serve as a government consultant. Valdés, 77, has been one of the most brutal enforcers of the Castro regime, beginning in the 1960s when he was responsible for crushing popular protests over energy-use restrictions. He established Castro’s ruthless G2 intelligence service and is currently number three in the Cuban hierarchy. According to Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, Valdés and his retinue are there to help the South American country solve its dire electricity crisis....

Reporting from San Francisco - After years of legal wrangling, the federal government agreed Wednesday to remove a fleet of mothballed military ships that has dropped tons of heavy metal pollution into a waterway northeast of San Francisco. As part of a settlement with environmental groups, the U.S. Maritime Administration said it will remove 52 obsolete and decaying vessels -- nicknamed the Ghost Fleet -- from the estuary between the San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Five others have been removed since November. The agency plans to get rid of the 25 worst offenders in less than...

War: A Spanish court has charged Venezuela with collaborating in a terrorist plot to assassinate President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia. That's an attempt on a top U.S. ally, and calls for a hard response. If it's not predator-drone time, it's time to name Venezuela as a state sponsor of terror. What came to light Monday isn't the first time Venezuela's Hugo Chavez has been caught aiding terrorists, but it may well be the most egregious. Spanish Judge Eloy Velasco named a Venezuelan government official as a key link between 12 FARC and ETA terrorists who were indicted in a 2003...

The 11 arrests so far are the tip of iceberg. Many more to follow, many in South Florida.” “The “South American country” where Vicky Pelaez picked up her payments from Russia’s SVR was Venezuela.” “Russia’s SVR, Castro’s DGI (Directorio General de Inteligencia) and Chavez’ SEBIN, (Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia) are all linked. They all share agents and information. Castro-Cubans run Chavez’ intelligence agency practically lock, stock and barrel.” “Vicky Pelaez was frequent traveler to Cuba where she met with Castro’s DGI. Pictures exist of those meetings.”

ARLINGTON, Va. — A small company is offering to the Navy a small, high-speed craft that it says can take on some of the missions of the littoral combat ship (LCS) in regional operations. The Ghost, a small waterplane-area twin-hull (SWATH) craft designed by Juliet Marine Systems Inc. of Portsmouth, N.H., has been tested in prototype form at sea and has been demonstrated to potential customers, including the U.S. Navy, said Greg Sancoff, chief executive officer of Juliet Marine. The Ghost is designed to perform anti-surface (ASUW) and antisubmarine warfare (ASW) and mine countermeasures (MCM), the three intended roles of...

Here is the campaign video of Ubax Gardheere, who emigrated to the United States at the age of 15 around 1996, which makes her something like 40 now. She represents herself as a "proud single mother" of three children, an immigrant, a Muslim, and a person of color. Here is a transcript of the video, which is pretty much a word salad that might have been written by an algorithm. Hi! I'm Ubax Gardheere. I'm a single black immigrant mother and homeowner in the unincorporated area of Renton, and I'm running for King County council in district 9. I came...

It is election season in King County and several seats on the King County Council are up for grabs. This year, riding on the energy that was felt during last year’s election cycle, Black women continue to be at the forefront of politics across the nation and in the State of Washington. Saudia J. Abdullah, Lydia Assefa-Dawson, Shukri Olow and Ubax Gardheere are four Black women looking to bring new and empowering energy to politics in the Pacific Northwest, as all four a vying for seats on the King County Council. Now let’s talk about Ubax Gardheere! This is what...

Here’s how our economy currently works. We raise taxes on working Americans to give the money to Somali non-profits who claim to help kids and who then give the money to a Somali political candidate who threatened to blow up a school bus full of America kids for Somalia. Meet Ubax Gardheere, who was part of a conference on how Americans are racist, who ran as a progressive and who did this. In 2010, Gardheere faced felony charges after she boarded a Highline School District bus making its morning rounds and demanded the driver inform his dispatch “that a national...

"US Accuses Guinea-Bissau Military Officers of Drug Trafficking Two top officers are named as major players in cocaine shipment from Latin America to Guinea-Bissau" SNIPPET: "Na Tchuto denied the allegations on Friday and said that he will cooperate with the United States government. He also said the charges of drug trafficking do not make sense because he was in Portugal on June 29, 2008 when the cocaine shipment from Venezuela arrived. Na Tchuto said he did not return to Guinea-Bissau until July. Na Tchuto also pointed out that he was not arrested by Interpol when he was in Gambia or...

21st Century SocialismThe attempt to destroy democracy in Latin America.  The Obama administration started out on the wrong foot in world affairs. It used techniques better suited for domestic political campaigns — popularity contests — in its foreign policy. In our own hemisphere, the result was confusion for our allies and our enemies alike. The overriding objective of U.S. policy — in Latin America and elsewhere — should be to advance U.S. national interests, not to curry favor with foreign leaders. If we can be liked while advancing our interests, so much the better. But when we try to befriend...

Part of 'Operation Castaway'? Exclusive Special Report by Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea Virginia O’Brien, Special Agent in Charge at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Tampa Field Division, ran a gun-running investigation that was walking guns to Honduras using the techniques and tactics identical to Fast and Furious, it was reported to these correspondents this evening via private correspondence from a proven credible source. On 21 September, 2010, A. Brian Albritton, United States Attorney for the Middle District of Florida issued a press release on Operation Castaway: Part of 'Operation Castaway'? Exclusive Special Report by Mike Vanderboegh...

From 7/7 to Manchester 2025 – the story they refuse to tellAfter the Manchester synagogue attack, I began tracing two decades of Islamic terrorism in Britain – uncovering a disturbing pattern hidden in plain sight. This is not prejudice. It’s record-keeping – and a warning about policies putting us all at risk.ManchesterI didn’t learn about the Manchester synagogue terrorist attack until I opened my phone after Yom Kippur had ended. I had also missed messages from my cousin, who had witnessed the event and been evacuated from her home by the police.By 7:30 the following morning, I had already traced...

Skolkovo, “Russia’s Silicon Valley,” the Putin project to transfer Western technology to Russia was championed and driven by Hillary Clinton Starting in May 2010, The Washington Examiner reported, drawing on emails obtained by Citizens United, “Clinton Foundation staff pushed Hillary Clinton’s State Department to approve a meeting between Bill Clinton and a powerful Russian oligarch as her agency lined up investors for a project under his purview.” His name was Viktor Vekselberg of Renova (a Clinton Foundation donor) and the project under his purview was the Skolkovo Innovation Center, which is being built near Moscow. The following month, Bill Clinton...

SEATTLE -- There are more questions than answers in the case of a suspected international arms dealer caught in Washington state with a stockpile of sniper rifles. Oliver King is an Iranian citizen who, in the past, has been a licensed gun dealer. King appeared in court in Seattle on Wednesday, accused of keeping a stash of guns and ammunition hidden in a storage unit near the U.S.-Canada border. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, King lied to enter the U.S. near Blaine last week. Agents with U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement became suspicious of King when he showed up...

Singer explains Benatar’s antinatalist philosophy, which bases its moral framework by weighing the consequences of existence, in this way: “everyone will suffer to some extent, and if our species continues to reproduce, we can be sure that some future children will suffer severely. Hence continued reproduction will harm some children severely, and benefit none.” Singer then invites readers to engage in a thought experiment: "So why don’t we make ourselves the last generation on earth? If we would all agree to have ourselves sterilized then no sacrifices would be required — we could party our way into extinction!"

North Korea recently threatened to "mercilessly destroy" its foes. That didn't elicit much reaction abroad. After all, the terms were similar to threats uttered countless times during and since the 1950-53 Korean War. "Pundits describing the North Korean threat often downplay it because it appears obvious that North Korea's military - despite its large size - is unlikely to be able to unify the peninsula," said Bruce Bechtol, professor of international relations at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College and an expert on the North Korean military. This time, though, the regime added that it might employ its nuclear...

Seen from the sky, the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in California’s Mojave Desert resembles a futuristic dream. Viewed from the bottom line, however, Ivanpah is anything but. The solar power plant, which features three 459-foot towers and thousands of computer-controlled mirrors known as heliostats, cost some $2.2 billion to build. Construction began in 2010 and was completed in 2014. Now, it’s set to close in 2026 after failing to efficiently generate solar energy. In 2011, the US Department of Energy under former President Barack Obama issued $1.6 billion in three federal loan guarantees for the project and the Secretary of...

The co-founder of Code Pink is married to Neville Roy Singham who provides funding to communist and far-left leftist groups and efforts. Singham reportedly funded the recent anti-ICE protests across the US. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, the chairwoman of the Taskforce on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, called on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to freeze all assets of Neville Singham, the billionaire funder of the communist Code Pink organization, ANSWER Coalition, National Students for Justice in Palestine and several other anti-American leftist organizations. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) posted the news on a...

This week, prosecutors in New York introduced eight documents recovered in Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan as evidence in the trial of a terrorism suspect. The U.S. government accuses Abid Naseer of taking part in al Qaeda’s scheme to attack targets in Europe and New York City. And prosecutors say the documents are essential for understanding the scope of al Qaeda’s plotting. More than 1 million documents and files were captured by the Navy Seals who raided bin Laden’s safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan in May 2011. One year later, in May 2012, the Obama administration released just 17...

A top IRS official considered going public with the agency’s targeting of conservative groups at a hearing just months before the 2012 presidential election but ultimately decided against revealing the bombshell news, according to a new report from a GOP-led House committee. Then-Deputy Commissioner Steven Miller wrote in an email in June 2012, about a month before a House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing, that he was weighing whether to testify to “put a stake” in the “c4” issue -- apparently a reference to allegations about politics playing a role in the agency’s denial of tax-exempt, 501(c)(4) status to conservative-leaning...