Free Republic

Their revolution could soon be coming to an end. January 3, 2026. Caracas. 2:47 AM. The helicopters had come in low over the Caribbean, running dark. The Delta Force operators on board were well-rehearsed. By 3:29 AM, it was over. Thirty-two Cuban bodyguards lay dead in the compound. Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were in flex cuffs, hustled onto a transport aircraft bound for New York. At Mar-a-Lago, President Trump watched the operation unfold in real time with his national security team. It was January 3—exactly 36 years to the day since American forces had extracted military dictator Manuel...

Sanctioned Ilyushin Il-76 follows same flight pattern seen before Maduro's capture in VenezuelaA Russian cargo plane typically used to transfer military equipment landed at a military airfield in Havana Sunday night, echoing flight patterns seen ahead of the capture of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela.The U.S.-sanctioned Ilyushin Il-76, operated by Russian state-linked airline Aviacon Zitotrans, was tracked landing at San Antonio de los Baños Airfield, a Cuban military installation roughly 30 miles south of Havana, according to public flight data.Flight-tracking records show the aircraft stopped in St. Petersburg and Sochi in Russia; Mauritania, Africa; and the Dominican Republic. Each landing would...

Maryland governor Wes Moore (D.) declared he won't waste "a second" of his time finding his missing graduate thesis, which he now claims made him an expert on Hamas. Oxford University, meanwhile, refuses to confirm whether Moore was ever a doctoral candidate in 2006, a representation he made in the résumé he submitted that year to obtain a prestigious White House fellowship that jump-started his political career. "I am not going to spend a second of my time trying to dig up a paper that I wrote 20 some odd years ago because a blog, because a right-wing blog post...

It has been disappointing but not entirely surprising to see the widespread hysteria in Europe in support of the illegitimate Maduro gangster regime in Venezuela, and the new round of anxiety about a possible US military seizure of Greenland. The pedantic fuss-budgetary about the legality of the American action in Venezuela is nonsense. Former President Maduro and his wife were authentically indicted in New York during the Biden administration as drug traffickers intimately involved in illegally bringing into the United States large quantities of lethal narcotics. President Trump is correct in his conclusion that this traffic caused the death of...

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega sent a letter to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, offering his full support for Russia’s actions in Ukraine and recognizing the occupied Ukrainian territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia as part of Russia, as was reported on July 30. -snip- The letter, co-signed by Ortega’s wife and Vice President Rosario Murillo, expressed solidarity with the Russian people and praised the sacrifices of Russian military families. Ortega also reiterated Nicaragua’s support for Russia’s so-called “special military operation,” which the Kremlin claims is being conducted to protect Russian citizens and defend its sovereignty. In the letter, Ortega stated,...

Here is a Latin America map (image), I marked in green the countries already pro US, and even pro Trump: * Argentina. * Chile * Panama (nothing new) * Paraguay * Honduras

Below is a geopolitical map of the Western Hemisphere as I see it today. The principal geopolitical foes of the US in the Western Hemisphere—Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua—are firmly in the China and Russia camp.Other countries can shift depending on the outcome of recent elections.Here’s an overview of some of the most geopolitically important countries in the Western Hemisphere to help frame the broader picture.VenezuelaA military confrontation over Venezuela appears increasingly likely.Since Hugo Chávez’s rise to power in 1999, Caracas has aligned itself with Russia and China. Venezuela’s vast oil and gold reserves make it a geopolitical prize. The country...

Dec. 17 (UPI) -- Latin America's political shift toward conservative governments was reinforced this week when Chileans elected far-right politician Jose Antonio Kast for the 2026-2030 term. It was the largest vote total ever recorded in a presidential election there. Chile's result strengthened a regional trend that is reshaping domestic political balances and points to closer political and economic alignment with the United States. Chile became the latest country in the region to deliver an electoral swing by handing victory to the opposition and rejecting the ruling coalition's candidate backed by President Gabriel Boric, a leftist. The outcome reflects a...

TEL AVIV –The Democrat strategist identified as an architect of the social protests currently rocking Israel previously ran the campaign of Bolivia's former president, who was ushered into office amid escalating social protests in that country.After Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada took power in Bolivia in 1985, he quickly implemented an economic "shock therapy" crafted by Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University professor who sits on the board of an organization literally seeking to reorganize the entire global economic system. That group is the Institute for New Economic Thinking, or INET.Philanthropist George Soros is INET's founding sponsor, with the billionaire having provided...

The Trump administration on Thursday said import taxes on coffee and bananas will be lowered as part of trade deals with four Latin American countries. The agreements with Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador and Ecuador come as US President Donald Trump faces scrutiny over his handling of the economy and concerns about affordability. As part of an initial framework, a reciprocal tariff of 10% will stay on goods from Guatemala, Argentina and El Salvador, as will a 15% rax on imports from Ecuador into the US. But the deals will exempt products that cannot be produced in the US "in sufficient...

Over the past year, Hezbollah has faced a growing existential crisis, intensified by the targeted assassinations of senior figures including Fuad Shukr, Ibrahim Aqil, Jawad Tawil, and particularly Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and his successor, Hashem Safi al-Din. Once Iran’s most formidable proxy and a significant strategic actor in the Middle East, Hezbollah now contends with depleted leadership, military setbacks, and mounting international pressure. Does this signal genuine weakening within the Shiite terrorist organization? According to Lebanese sources, Hezbollah is undertaking drastic measures to ensure its survival, notably relocating the families of hundreds of senior commanders to Latin America. Lebanese journalist...

A report from the USDA last year estimated an outbreak of screwworm could cost Texas at least $1.8 billion due to livestock deaths, labor costs and medication.The first human case of the flesh-eating parasite new world screwworm has been detected in the United States, the Department of Health and Human Services said early Monday. The case, related to a person who had recently traveled to El Salvador, was confirmed to be screwworm by the CDC on Aug. 4, HHS spokesman Andrew G. Nixon confirmed to Reuters, who first reported the story. "The risk to public health in the United States...

Argentine President Javier Milei channels his $1 million Genesis Prize into a groundbreaking alliance, bringing Israel closer to Latin America through the newly launched Isaac Accords. In a bold diplomatic move underscoring his unwavering support for Israel, Argentine President Javier Milei has announced the launch of the Isaac Accords – a visionary initiative aimed at boosting cooperation between Israel and Latin American nations

The famous DataRepublican data analyst dropped damaging information she had gathered about Code Pink's connections to the communist Chinese government after the group threatened legal action against her. The database kernel engineer, whose real name is Jennica Pounds, said Wednesday on social media that the group sent her a message accusing her of libel. "We are writing to formally address and correct the false and defamatory statements made in your recent social media posts regarding CODEPINK," the group reportedly wrote. "These claims — which falsely allege that our organization is funded by China, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), or any...

The most vulnerable nations on Earth are facing a “tidal wave” of debt repayments as a Chinese lending boom starts to be called in, a new report has warned. The analysis, published on Tuesday by Australian foreign policy thinktank the Lowy Institute, said that in 2025 the poorest 75 countries were on the hook for record high debt repayments US$22bn to China. The 75 nations’ debt formed the bulk of the total $35bn calculated by Lowy for 2025. “Now, and for the rest of this decade, China will be more debt collector than banker to the developing world,” the report...

Communist/socialist-inspired groups have been quickly winning converts and taking control of the Democratic Party, at both the national and local levels. Four U.S. communist groups have formed an alliance to take over the Democratic Party at every level. With a combined membership of more than 65,000 and significant financial backing from unions, foundations, and even some churches, the plan is credible and is already well under way. Three of the four groups involved — Communist Party USA (CPUSA), Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS), and Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) — are loyal to Beijing, while the fourth...

José Mujica, a member of a Marxist rebel group that terrorized Uruguay in the 1960s and 1970s who later became a mainstream politician and one of his country’s most venerated presidents, died May 13 at his home in Rincón de Cerro, in the rural outskirts of Montevideo. He was 89. Uruguayan President Yamandú Orsi, a protégé of the former leader, announced the death. Mr. Mujica said in April 2024 that he had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer and that any treatment with chemotherapy and surgery would be complicated by an autoimmune disease he also had. Mr. Mujica, widely known as...

New research from writers and researchers Trevor Loudon and Cliff Kincaid shows that Leon Panetta, the CIA director being considered on Thursday for the position of Secretary of Defense, had a previously undisclosed personal and friendly relationship with Hugh DeLacy, a prominent member of the Communist Party USA. DeLacy visited such countries as China and Nicaragua and was himself a personal contact of identified Soviet spies Solomon Adler and Frank Coe and accused spy John Stewart Service. Panetta spoke at DeLacy’s memorial service, directed a series of letters to him personally as “Dear Hugh,” and placed a tribute to him...

Key names, entities: François Genoud, Shukeiri, Fatah, PLO, PFLP, Yasser Arafat, George Habash [Habbache], Karl van de Put, Johan Schuller, Herald Angelke, [Udo] Otto Albrecht, Karl-Heinz Hoffmann, Gundolf Keller [Köhler], Willi Voss [Pohl], L'oeuvre Francaise, Jean Tireault, Jean Robert Debbaudt, Manfred Roeder [Röder], Volker Heidel. AHMAD SHUKEIRI [SHUKAIRY / SHUQAIRY] AND TACUARA (1962) (his promoting of neo-Nazis at UN, while quoting NYT, which in fact details its Nazism) Recall of Arab Delegate from U.N. is Sought; ‘saluted’ Tacuara December 3, 1962 [PDF] A move for the recall by Saudi Arabia of its permanent representative to the United Nations, Ahmad Shukairy,...

The late Jimmy Carter didn’t come up spontaneously with the idea of giving away the Panama Canal, which America spent blood and gold on and which is an essential part of its national security. Instead, he had Robert A. Pastor, a communist, whispering in his ear. A globalist who desired to merge incrementally the U.S., Mexico, and Canada into a “North American Union” (NAU) along the model of the European Union, Pastor’s intellectual development was rooted in Marxism. Pastor played an instrumental role in the Carter administration’s decision to relinquish control of the Panama Canal. ... In what appears to...