Free Republic

Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has a back-up plan to flee the country should his security forces fail to suppress protests or desert, according to an intelligence report shared with The Times. Khamenei, 86, plans to escape Tehran with a close circle of up to 20 aides and family, should he see that the army and security called on to quell the unrest are deserting, defecting or failing to follow orders. “The ‘plan B’ is for Khamenei and his very close circle of associates and family, including his son and nominated heir apparent, Mojtaba,” an intelligence source told The Times. Beni...

Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, who has been seized by US special forces after more than a decade in power, ruled with an iron fist while seeking to portray himself as a humble man of the people. During months in the crosshairs of US President Donald Trump, who accused him of being a drug trafficker, the 63-year-old former bus driver deflected pressure by dancing to techno music at near-daily rallies, always broadcast live, as he chanted the mantra “No war, yes peace!” — in English. But for many Venezuelans, Maduro was no kindly pacifist. Seven million compatriots emigrated on his watch amid...

Denmark's prime minister has told Donald Trump to "stop the threats" about taking over Greenland. Mette Frederiksen said "it makes absolutely no sense to talk about the need for the United States to take over Greenland", adding: "The US has no right to annex any of the three nations in the Danish kingdom". Her remarks come after Katie Miller - the wife of one of Trump's aides, Stephen Miller - tweeted a map of Greenland in the colours of the American flag alongside the word "SOON". Trump has repeatedly raised the possibility of Greenland becoming an annexed part of the...

Video Transcript Summary In a January 4, 2026, interview on NBC's Meet the Press, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the United States is not at war with Venezuela but is enforcing sanctions and conducting law enforcement operations against drug trafficking organizations, including the seizure of sanctioned oil vessels under court warrants. Rubio emphasized that Nicolás Maduro, recently captured in a U.S. military operation and now in custody facing charges in New York, had cooperated with criminal elements and adversaries, posing direct threats to U.S. national security. He clarified that the U.S. is not directly running Venezuela but...

At the end of World War II, the U.S. and its allies made a compelling case that protecting and promoting human rights is not only the right thing to do; it lays the foundation for a stable international order. Although often honored in the breach, that proposition has stood the test of time. It is now being eviscerated. In a May 2025 speech in Riyadh, President Trump signaled a tectonic shift in the U.S. approach to international human rights. After lavishing praise on his host, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — who U.S. intelligence believes ordered the murder and dismemberment...

Say what you will about the wisdom of Trump’s decision to remove Maduro, but his critics are wrong on the Constitution. The Trump critics are out again, criticizing Trump’s use of the military in Venezuela to depose Nicolás Maduro. The critics cite Congress’s power to declare war under Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution as proof that Trump acted “illegally” and “unconstitutionally.” The critics are wrong and are misreading the Constitution. Article II, Section 2 makes the president the commander in chief of the armed forces. If the president needs congressional approval before using those armed forces,...

On Sunday, SpaceX-owned Starlink announced it is providing free broadband service to the people of Venezuela through February 3, with Elon Musk expressing support. NOTE: Ground News is an aggregator. Pick your source from those presented.

Latin American leaders aligned with the White House’s pro-freedom stance celebrated the arrest and extradition of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro on Saturday morning, extended support to the exiled winner of the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election, Edmundo González. Leftist leaders in the region, meanwhile, expressed alarm....Remaining Venezuelan authorities at press time have stated that they do not know Maduro and Flores’s whereabouts and it is not clear who is acting as head of state in that country. Among the first to react was libertarian Argentine President Javier Milei, who reposted a speech he had delivered recently on the status of the...

Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, who was sworn in on Saturday, is not the country’s legitimate leader, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said. Rubio spoke with Rodriguez — the country’s vice president — after the US conducted a daring military operation to capture the former Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro. However, he suggested the US will not support her staying in power. He called for elections to determine the next leader of the beleaguered South American country. “This is not about the legitimate president. We don’t believe that this regime in place is legitimate via an election,” Rubio told ABC’s “This...

Venezuela's interim leader, Delcy Rodriguez, has hurled threats at Donald Trump after the capture of the country's president, Nicolas Maduro, who is now languishing in a New York federal jail. 'Never again will we be slaves, never again will we be a colony of any empire,' Rodriguez said. 'We're ready to defend Venezuela.'

As the U.S. military carried out a daring operation to capture Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro, a second front opened up within minutes in the United States an information warfare, psychological and propaganda operation run by a hardened cell of self-described Marxist, socialist and communist leaders. For years, this cell has fomented anti-American hate in the U.S. under the cover of "anti-war" protests, rallying activists after the 9/11 attacks to condemn the U.S. response, appropriating "anti-racism" protests after the 2020 killing of George Floyd, marching with Antifa agitators, organizing antisemitic campus encampments after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas...

Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday called for the release of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife from U.S. custody after President Donald Trump announced that they were captured during military strikes on the capital city of Caracas. “We firmly call on the U.S. leadership to reconsider this position and release the lawfully elected president of a sovereign country and his wife,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement, stressing the need to resolve the dramatic confrontation through diplomacy. In a separate message, the ministry said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by phone to Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez...

Pablo Escobar was elected alternate representative to the Congress of the Republic of Colombia in 1982. Upon receiving the news of his victory, he told his wife: “Get ready to be the First Lady . . . the doors of the presidential palace will open for us.” The most notorious drug trafficker in history dreamed of becoming president of his country. To realize that dream, Escobar oversaw a reign of terror that included bombings, assassinations of judges, police, and presidential candidates, and mass kidnappings. The exact number of victims is unknown but estimated to be around 50,000. The Colombian drug...

The leading political opposition voice to Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro is speaking out in the wake of the U.S. capture of the illegitimate president, as RedState reported earlier on Saturday. In December 2025 in Oslo, Norway, while picking up the Nobel Peace Prize alongside the duly elected president of Venezuela, Edmundo González, for their part in leading the opposition to the now-captured Venezuelan dictator Maduro, Maria Corina Machado called for the strongman to be removed and as my colleague Ward Clark wrote at the time, "already giving the Trump administration props for the pressure on Maduro":María Corina Machado said she...

The United States attacked Venezuela and captured its long-serving President Nicolas Maduro and his wife on Saturday (Jan 3), with US President Donald Trump promising to put the country under American control for now, even as Venezuelan officials vowed defiance. As part of a dramatic overnight operation that knocked out electricity in parts ⁠of Caracas, US Special Forces captured Maduro in or near one of his safe houses, Trump said. With Maduro in US custody, Trump said: "We will run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition." "We can't take a chance...

Protests erupted across the United States on Saturday following President Donald Trump’s military attack on Venezuela late Friday. Demonstrations were held throughout the Monterey Bay region, including in Santa Cruz, Salinas and Monterey. Organized by Indivisible Pajaro Valley, protesters waved signs reading “No Blood for Oil,” “No New Wars,” and “Enough Is Enough.” The two-hour protest drew cheers and honking horns from passing motorists. Following airstrikes on civilian and government sites in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, U.S. troops detained President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and transported them to the United States to face criminal charges, according to international...

As the U.S. military escalates its posture around Venezuela—with naval deployments in the Caribbean, B-52 overflights, lethal strikes on alleged drug boats, and confirmed CIA covert operations—advocates of regime change are reviving a dangerous analogy. Many have pointed to the United States’ 1989 invasion of Panama and toppling of dictator Manuel Noriega as proof that swift, surgical operations can get the job done. In private conversations with several current and former U.S. officials, they have nodded toward this parallel. Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who just last month was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, has appealed to the United...

Donald Trump likes to start the new year with a bang – or better yet a series of loud bangs. On January 3, 2020, his first administration ordered the drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force. Exactly six years later, his second administration has carried out a large-scale regime-change operation in Venezuela, blowing several sites to smithereens and capturing the Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife and flying them out of the country. This after a series of military strikes against Venezuelan and cartel targets in recent weeks and months. There...

George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley is not a conservative, but he is an honest and very smart man. Since the news of Maduro’s capture by the U.S. Military under Trump this morning, he has been pointing out that Trump did not need approval from congress to do this, despite what Democrats are claiming now. Turley uses the example of Manuel Noriega, who was removed from Panama by the United States in 1989 under similar circumstances. He refers to the actions of other presidents as well.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 3 (Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council is due to meet on Monday after the U.S. attacked Venezuela and deposed its long-serving autocratic President Nicolas Maduro, a move that U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres views as setting "a dangerous precedent."Colombia, backed by Russia and China, requested the meeting of the 15-member council, diplomats said. The U.N. Security Council has met twice - in October and December - over the escalating tensions between the United States and Venezuela.U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Washington would run Venezuela "until such time as we can do a safe,...