Free Republic

The Rev. Ernesto Cardenal, one of Latin America’s most admired poets and priests, who defied the Roman Catholic Church in the 1980s by serving in the revolutionary Sandinista government of Nicaragua, died on Sunday in Managua, Nicaragua. He was 95. His personal assistant, Luz Marina Acosta, confirmed his death to The Associated Press. Born to a wealthy Nicaraguan family, Father Cardenal became a prominent intellectual voice of the Nicaraguan revolution and an ardent proponent of liberation theology, a Christian movement rooted in Marxist principles and committed to social justice and uplifting the poor. He was appointed Nicaragua’s first minister of...

Secretary of State John Kerry says he’s in “utter disbelief” over the letter to Iranian leaders led by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and signed by 46 other Republican senators, warning any Iranian nuclear deal reached with the U.S. could be revoked by the next president or modified by Congress. “This letter ignores more than two centuries of precedent in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy,” Kerry said Wednesday at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. “This risks undermining the confidence that foreign governments in thousands of important agreements commit to with the United States.” In his 29 years as...

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago -- President Obama endured a 50-minute diatribe from socialist Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega that lashed out at a century of what he called terroristic U.S. aggression in Central America and included a rambling denunciation of the U.S.-imposed isolation of Cuba's Communist government. Obama sat mostly unmoved during the speech but at times jotted notes. The speech was part of the opening ceremonies at the fifth Summit of the Americas here. Later, at a photo opportunity with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Obama held his tongue when asked what he thought about Ortega's speech. "It was 50...

Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega charged Saturday that the opposition was "openly conspiring" with US help to overthrow his government, and threatened to unleash "weapons of war" if they did not stop. Thousands of Nicaraguans marched against Ortega last month after the Electoral Tribunal disqualified two political parties from the November municipal and the 2011 general elections. "We want peace, but we're also prepared to raise the steel weapons of war if they try to overthrow the people's government, the power of ordinary citizens," Ortega said on the 29th anniversary of the rebel uprising that overthrew the Anastasio Somoza dictatorship. The...

Question of the Day: John McCain Supposedly Roughed Up . . . By Debbie Schlussel . . . an associate of Communist Sandinista Dictator Daniel "Gucci Glasses" Ortega of Nicaragua, and this is a "bad thing" because . . .? Sorry, but if true--and he's now denying it--this enhances my respect for John McCain a gazillion-fold and makes me happier to vote for him in November. It probably is true because the John McCain of 1987 was a true conservative, a lot different than the one of today. A brief refresher: Daniel Ortega was (and remains) a Communist thug. He...

President Daniel Ortega, who led the 1979 revolution in Nicaragua, says Barack Obama’s presidential bid is a “revolutionary” phenomenon in the United States. “It’s not to say that there is already a revolution under way in the U.S. … but yes, they are laying the foundations for a revolutionary change,” the Sandinista leader said Wednesday night as he accepted an honorary doctorate from an engineering university. Ortega led a Soviet-backed government that battled U.S.-supported Contra rebels before he lost power in a 1990 election. He returned to office last year via the ballot box. In statements broadcast on Sandinista Radio...

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — The government billboards and graffiti in this sultry city tell a visitor a lot about the ideological battle racking Nicaragua. President Daniel Ortega Saavedra beams from the billboards, promising “Citizens Power” as a solution to Nicaragua’s endemic poverty. “The world’s poor arise!” the signs say. But beneath the billboards, on walls and benches all over town, others have scrawled “No to CPC. No to dictatorship.” The graffiti alludes to Citizens Power Councils — or C.P.C.’s. In December, Mr. Ortega established the neighborhood committees, which are controlled by his left-wing Sandinista party and administer antipoverty programs, despite a...

MIAMI - At the end of Nicaragua's civil war, Juan Gregorio Rodriguez traded his life as a Contra rebel for that of auto mechanic in Florida. He kept in touch with other rebels and supported their political efforts, but mostly from afar. That changed in 2006, when the Contras' nemesis, Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, was elected president, 16 years after his Soviet-backed government lost power in a vote that ended the guerrilla conflict in which some 30,000 people died.

ITHACA NY--The first soldier jailed for not returning to fight in Iraq discussed his struggle to participate in a war he did not believe in yesterday. Camilo Mejia spoke out against serving in a war he calls "a corporate war for oil." Mejia said it is extremely difficult for soldiers to say they disagree with war on moral grounds, as this is perceived as unpatriotic. "No one wants to make the unpopular decision and say 'This is not a good war'," he said. "Out of fear of challenging U.S. leadership, people just go along." A soldier's sense of right and...

Now for the bad news. Two weeks ago, the mainstream media were chasing after Secretary of State Condolleeza Rice on her whirlwind debutante tour of Europe, commenting on her elegant ensembles and disarming smile. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez was accusing the United States of trying to assassinate him. This week, the potentates of the press mused over President Bush's efforts to melt the iciest of "Old European" hearts. But within four hours of Florida, Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega -- still the head of the communist-inspired Sandinista Party -- was endorsing Chavez' call for the creation of a...

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) - A U.S. government delegation worked Tuesday to convince Nicaragua to destroy about 1,000 surface-to-air missiles left over from the 1980s Contra war. In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher confirmed that a U.S. team was in the Nicaraguan capital to renew efforts to have the portable SAM-7 missiles destroyed. The team's leader, Rose Likins, the acting assistant secretary for political and military affairs, did not comment as she arrived in Nicaragua. U.S. officials have been trying to convince Nicaragua to give up the missiles, which were supplied by the Soviet Union when the former Sandinista government...

John F. Kerry has a long history of opposing the use of American military force to defend our vital interests. But the presidential campaign has so far virtually ignored his shameful behavior in the 1980s, when President Reagan was defeating Communism not only in Europe, but also much closer to home. President Reagan took office in January, 1981. The release of the American hostages by Iran resolved only one of the many problems he inherited from the Carter Administration. Soviet troops had invaded Afghanistan. Marxist rebels had seized the nation of Angola in Africa. In Central America, Marxist guerrillas were...

Kerry knew in 2002 when he was preparing his "search committee" that, if his Senate record became an issue or was even talked about on talk radio, they would start at the beginning: 1985. If they did, he knew he was done-for. So he had to come up with some way of distracting conservative talk radio. I guess he rolled the dice and figured he would rather weather the storm over his post-Vietnam activites than have anyone talk about his first four years as a Senator. He probably figured his military record was enough to pull a few pro-military/anti-Bush conservatives...

I just found out on an interview on CNBC that Kerry supported communists in Nicaragua in the 80's, against Reagan's policy. Kind of like what he did with Vietnam. ----------------- Sen. John Kerry wants to be president of the United States so he can promote a brand of multi-nationalism as the solution to the world's problems. In fact, his views on that subject haven't changed that much since he came back from Vietnam in 1970, urging the United Nations take over command of the U.S. military forces. In April 1985, Kerry, along with Sen. Tom Harkin, ventured to Nicaragua to...

Anyone make sense of this? http://www.midiasemmascara.org/