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WASHINGTON — Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday that starting to trade with Cuba "is probably a good idea" and that the lengthy economic embargo against the communist island "just hasn't worked." Paul became the first potential Republican presidential candidate to offer some support for President Barack Obama's decision to try to normalize U.S. relations with Cuba. The president's surprise announcement on Wednesday was slammed by several potential GOP candidates, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who said it amounted to appeasing the Castro regime. Paul said in a radio interview with Tom Roten of...

Sen. Rand Paul broke with the field of Republicans considering a 2016 presidential run on Thursday, calling President Barack Obama's decision to normalize relations with Cuba a "good idea" since the American embargo against Cuba "just hasn't worked." Paul, a likely presidential candidate, made the remarks in an interview with News Talk 800 WVHU's Tom Roten, just a day after his potential competitors for the Republican nomination -- former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz -- slammed the decision to normalize relations as a dangerous move. Rubio and Cruz are sons of Cuban immigrants. Paul...

Rand Paul Breaks With Rubio and Bush Over Cuba Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is the latest potential presidential candidate to weigh in on policy changes to Cuba and the libertarian leaning Republican's position splits from other Republicans who are also considering a presidential run. Paul told Tom Roten of News Talk 800 in West Virginia that the 50-year embargo "just hasn't worked" and normalizing relations with the island nation is "probably a good idea." "If the goal is regime change, it sure doesn't seem to be working and probably it punishes the people more than the regime because the regime...

House Speaker John Boehner has denounced any potential White House effort to close the Guantanamo Bay prison facility, saying that such a move is "dangerous," could result in terrorists being relocated into the United States and that overriding Congress is another example of the Obama administration’s “legacy of lawlessness.” Boehner made the statement Friday, following a Wall Street Journal story stating the White House is “drafting options” that would allow Obama to close the detention facility in Cuba by overriding congressional restrictions on bringing detainees into the U.S. The White House has responded to the story, reportedly based on information...

Here we go. It looks like Barack Obama is getting ready to double cross us again. According to a report on the site militarycorruption.com Obama is waiting until after the mid-term election to declare the traitor Bowe Bergdahl a Prisoner of War. This designation would change him from a traitor who should be executed to a “hero” POW who is eligible for back pay, a promotion and an honorable discharge which will entitle Bergdahl to a variety of benefits that have been designed for genuine heroes. In spite of the mountain of evidence proving he is a deserter, Militarycorruption.com has...

The White House is drafting options that would allow President Barack Obama to close the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by overriding a congressional ban on bringing detainees to the U.S., senior administration officials said. Such a move would be the latest and potentially most dramatic use of executive power by the president in his second term. It would likely provoke a sharp reaction from lawmakers, who have repeatedly barred the transfer of detainees to the U.S.

Only hours after appearing at a press conference to give thanks for the freeing of his POW son in exchange for five top Taliban leaders, Bob Bergdahl returned to Twitter to promote a Guardian video in which family members lobby for the release of five Tunisians held at Guantanamo Bay. Earlier, Bergdahl had apparently deleted a tweet reading, “I am still working to free all Guantanamo prisoners.”

A federal judge in Washington has temporarily banned U.S. military officials from force-feeding a terror prisoner at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, at least until she can review his medical records and screen videotapes of authorities forcing him to eat during his ongoing hunger strike there. If U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler permanently bars the military from forcing all hunger strikers to eat, the Pentagon would have to come up with a new way to secure the health and safety of many of the 150 detainees who are on hunger strikes.

Responding to President Obama’s latest reaffirmation of his 2008 campaign pledge to close the military prison now housing 164 terror suspects at the Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, veteran Republican Congressman Frank Wolf (R-Va.) vowed that the House will block any administration efforts to transfer prisoners to the U.S. mainland. “The House’s position is firm. You’re not going to transfer prisoners at Guantanamo Bay to the U.S. Period,” Wolf said in a statement to CNSNews.com. …

Guards were preparing to serve the first in a series of special meals Wednesday to prisoners at Guantánamo Bay to mark the end of the Muslim holy period of Ramadan, which this year brought a lull in a long-running hunger strike. The military planned to serve lamb, bread, dates and honey as the last daylight fasting period of Ramadan ends, followed by three traditional holiday dinners on Thursday, said a spokesman for the prison, Navy Capt. Robert Durand. There will also be a special hour-long prayer for the holiday known as Eid al-Fitr in addition to the five daily prayers....

The Yemen-based branch of al-Qaida confirmed on Wednesday that the group's No. 2 figure, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, was killed in a U.S. drone strike.

You can argue that Republicans have blocked President Obama from doing just about anything. You can argue that he's had bad luck. You can argue that he isn't always the greatest orator. But you can't argue away that the Department of Justice took the unprecedented step of seizing phone records from the Associated Press. Or the flimsy rationale justifying drone attacks abroad and at home. Or the bizarre step the Pentagon has taken to expand the ability of the military to intervene in state and local matters. Or the fact that Guantanamo Bay is still open years after Obama vowed...

“I now agree that it’s fruitless to give the benefit of the doubt to people who are so obviously corrupt, so clearly malevolent, so bent on hurting innocent people for their own sick gain,” Aurora Sentinel editor Dave Perry wrote in an April 25 editorial. “No more due process in the clear-cut case of insidious terrorism. “When the facts are so clearly before all Americans, for the whole world to see, why bother with this country’s odious and cumbersome system of justice?” he asked. “Send the guilty monsters directly to Guantanamo Bay for all eternity and let them rot in...

The U.S. military says just over half of the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay are on hunger strike. … Army Lt. Col. Samuel House says 16 of the 84 prisoners are being force-fed and five have been hospitalized. He says none of the hospitalized men have life-threatening conditions. …

The U.S. military says guards have clashed with prisoners amid a hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay, leading officers to move detainees from communal to single cells at Camp 6.

In a report for Thursday's NBC Today, investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff reported on plans for a $150 million renovation of the Guantanamo Bay prison still housing 166 terror detainees and sympathetically described how "despite improvements in recent years" of the facility, "the detainees' hopes of getting released were crushed when President Obama stopped talking about closing it." Isikoff noted that some of the detainees were "engaged in a hunger strike...as an attempt to regain attention." A sound bite played of new the commanding general of the prison expressing his frustration with President Obama: "Nothing in the inauguration speech about closing...

The arraignment of accused Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four top Al Qaeda lieutenants opened Saturday in a heavily guarded island courtroom with the so-called “Gitmo 5” launching a silent protest, refusing to cooperate, listen to translations or even answer fundamental questions about a process that could end their lives. The long-awaited trial began with defense lawyers speaking for the alleged terrorists and arguing that the protest was over their clients’ anger about alleged CIA torture and mistreatment at the prison on the southern rim of Cuba. … (Updated at 10:14 a.m., May 5:) Three hours into the...

The retired CIA officer who oversaw the tough terrorist interrogation program using waterboarding and other techniques says his methods saved lives by thwarting plots against the United States. During an interview Sunday night on “60 Minutes”—just days before the first anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death at the hands of Navy SEALs—Jose Rodriguez also lashed out at President Barack Obama for calling waterboarding torture and criticizing its use, and at congressional Democrats like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for dodging responsibility over the issues. … … The highly charged interview came in the same week Republicans harshly criticized the administration...

The Supreme Court has cleared the way for the United States to return to Algeria two Guantanamo Bay prisoners who asked to remain at the prison camp because of fear they might be tortured at home. Justices on Saturday declined to hear the appeal of Aziz Abdul Naji, held at Guantanamo since 2002 after being captured in Pakistan. That ruling follows the high court's decision late Friday that allowed the U.S. government to proceed in sending another Algerian detainee home. The detainees had argued they would be harmed by the Algerian government or unaffiliated armed Islamic militants if they were...

WASHINGTON — President Obama signed executive orders Thursday directing the Central Intelligence Agency to shut what remains of its network of secret prisons and ordering the closing of the Guantánamo detention camp within a year, government officials said.The orders, which are the first steps in undoing detention policies of former President George W. Bush, rewrite American rules for the detention of terrorism suspects. They require an immediate review of the 245 detainees still held at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to determine if they should be transferred, released or prosecuted. ...snip...The order on Guantánamo says that the camp,...