Free Republic

President Obama believes Congress will lift the embargo against Cuba — under the next president. Obama made the admission ahead of a historic visit to the communist island nation, intended to cement his new policy of openness toward the United States’s former Cold War foe. “My strong prediction is that sometime in the next president's administration, whether they are a Democrat or a Republican, that the embargo in fact will be removed,” he said in an interview with CNN en Español that aired Monday. The president has relied on his executive powers to establish new trade and travel links with...

Ah, the million dollar question. The difference between Bernie Sanders’ brand of socialism and Fidel Castro’s brand of socialism? Not even Bernie Sanders knows the difference. No seriously. They tried to get him to explain. Is this Bernie Sander’s “David Duke” moment? When asked to differentiate his brand of social from the communist leader Fidel Castro, Sanders had little to say. The Univision/CNN/Facebook debate featured video of then Mayor Sanders explaining why he believed the Cuban people had not staged an insurrection against Cuba, and why then President Ronald Reagan was wrong to think that Nicaraguans would do the same...

Near the end of Wednesday's CNN/Univision Democratic debate, Jorge Ramos gave Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders his "Welcome to Miami" question, asking if the candidates supported President Obama's detente with Cuba and considered Raul Castro a president or a dictator. Clinton said that she backs opening relations with Cuba, viewing it as a way to bring democracy to the island nation. She called Raul and Fidel Castro "authoritarian and dictatorial." Maria Elena Salinas tweaked the question for Sanders, noting that in the 1980s he had offered praise for Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega (who is once again leader of Nicaragua) and...

Communist Cuba tells Obama exactly what he will get from his historic visit to Havana: Nothing. Castro's mouthpiece says regime will not 'renounce any of its principles' Cuba said it would welcome President Barack Obama to Havana later this month, but the Communist government had no intention of changing its policies in exchange for normal relations with the United States. In a long editorial on Wednesday in Communist Party newspaper Granma and other official media, Cuba demanded Washington cease meddling in its internal affairs and said Obama could do more to change U.S. policy. The March 20-22 visit from Obama...

Texas Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro, twin brother of rumored Hillary Clinton vice presidential short-lister Julian Castro, claimed on CNN's "State Of The Union" that Clinton has been "cleared" by the Justice Department for her handling of classified material and her secret, private email server. Castro told the roundtable, "It's been settled by the Congress. The Congress has looked into it. The Justice Department has looked into it, and they've cleared her." Host Dana Bash pointed out Clinton has not been cleared, and that the investigation is ongoing. "The Department of Justice is looking into it," Bash said. Radio host Hugh...

Rep. Joaquin Castro, the twin brother of HUD secretary Julian Castro, claimed this morning on CNN that Hillary Clinton had been cleared by the Justice Department:

Penny Starr at CNSNews.com found an appalling example of journalistic fawning over the Castro brothers of communist Cuba on Wednesday’s All Things Considered, the evening newscast of taxpayer-subsidized National Public Radio. Ramon Castro, the older brother of Fidel and Raul Castro, died last week at age 91. NPR reporter Lourdes Garcia-Navarro warmly recalled his sense of humor from going to a party in Havana for American business people (despite the ongoing trade embargo).

Havana, Cuba (CNN)Ramon Castro has died at age 91. The older brother of Fidel, 89, and Raul Castro, 84, knew little renown, as he declined an active role in the struggle that heaved the two, and communism, to power in Cuba in 1959. Ramon Castro wore a long beard and was at times mistaken for leader Fidel Castro, who was about the same height and stature, but he preferred tilling the earth to stirring armed revolution. He was a farmer like his father Angel Castro. Fidel Castro exhales cigar smoke during a March 1985 interview at his presidential palace in...

Ramon Castro, a lifelong rancher and farmer who bore a strong physical resemblance to younger brother Fidel Castro, has died, Cuban state media announced Tuesday. He was 91. Widely known by his nickname "Mongo," the white-bearded Ramon Castro preferred tending crops and livestock to the revolutionary political life embraced by his younger siblings Fidel and Raul, who replaced Fidel as Cuba's president in February 2008. Two years older than Fidel, Ramon was long used to getting double-takes from people who insisted he looked just like his famous brother. At times, Ramon was said to reply that because he was older,...

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said Tuesday that President Obama is pushing to shutter the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility as final gift to the Castros before leaving office. "I believe that President Obama intends to try to give the Guantanamo naval facility to Raul and Fidel Castro as a parting gift," Cruz told a couple hundred voter in Nevada, according to The Washington Post . "Four decades ago, Jimmy Carter gave away the Panama Canal. We built it, we paid for it, and then a feckless left-wing president gave it away to undermine this country. Well, Mr. President, you...

Obama Skips Scalia Funeral–Will Visit Cuba Next Month to Honor the Castro Brothers Humberto Fontova 2/19/2016 Castro’s is the only regime in the history of the Western hemisphere to herd tens of thousands of men and boys into forced labor camps at Soviet bayonet-point for the “crime” of being gay, genuine or suspected. "Work Will Make Men Out of You" read the sign at the Castroite prison-camp’s gate, right over the barbed wire and next to the machine gunners posted on the watchtowers. The initials for these camps were UMAP, not GULAG, but the conditions were quite similar. I ask...

March 22. Seventy-five (75) pro-democracy activists are arrested for "conspiring with the U.S."

<p>San Francisco nudists gathered today at Jane Warner Plaza in celebration of Valentine's Day and to also seek naked justice. The parade took place at noon Saturday and followed a route from the Castro District to City Hall.</p>

Anyone have strong enough stomach and information junkie brain to dare watch with me?

The "They Ain't Stupes", guns, bibles & religion, flyover country people, know well enough without the media megalopoly having to spoon feed them, that Hillary deliberately used private e-mail for ultra-top-secrets to evade democratic-republic controls on her nefarious doings selling out America to Chi-Coms & any & all other bidders paying a high enough price for a night in the Lincoln Bedroom. So why do we need Foggy Bottom to dole out Rodham's e-mails for partisan political delaying, why not evade our hidden enemies in Washington & just go to our overt opposition to tell us what our own government...

At home, Julián Castro's been spending more time reading and watching television in Spanish, trying to get his speaking skills up to speed. On the job as Housing and Urban Development secretary, he's been carefully working the levers in Washington, with coaching from Bill Clinton and a twin brother who's a popular and up-and-coming congressman himself. Starting Saturday, he'll be out on the trail for Hillary Clinton in in Nevada, Iowa and Maine. He's plotted his rise carefully, studying and strategizing with a clear goal in sight. But if Clinton picks him to be her running mate, it'll be more...

Miami-Dade is pursuing a ferry service from PortMiami to Cuba. CBS4 news partner The Miami Herald reports county officials want to transform an empty waterfront property on the port's southwest corner into a terminal for the ferry. This is the same property David Beckham wanted to use for a new soccer stadium. The new terminal would serve passenger and cargo runs to Cuba.

An inert U.S. Hellfire missile sent to Europe for training purposes was wrongly shipped from there to Cuba in 2014, said people familiar with the matter, a loss of sensitive military technology that ranks among the worst-known incidents of its kind. The unintended delivery of the missile to Cuba has confounded investigators and experts who work in a regulatory system designed to prevent precisely such equipment from falling into the wrong hands, said those familiar with the matter.

No doubt you, too, spent the holidays relishing the humiliation of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the overrated and obnoxious Democratic Party hack who, finally, is teetering on the brink of political oblivion. How the former ballet dancer and Sarah Lawrence alumnus parlayed ambition and drive and the ability to scream like a lunatic into high office and a fortune of more than $10 million is one of the remarkable political stories of our time. "Emanuel has succeeded in almost every professional endeavor he has undertaken," Ryan Lizza wrote approvingly in 2009. Spoke too soon. How bad is Rahm Emanuel? He...

Anthony Bryant was once so enamored with Fidel Castro’s revolution that he felt compelled to hijack his way to Cuba. Upon touching down at José Martí International Airport shortly before dawn, Bryant was certain that he was about to enter what he had dubbed "paradise." "Cuba was creating a true democracy - a place where everyone was equal, where violence against blacks, injustice, and racism were things of the past," Bryant would later recall thinking as he was whisked away by soldiers, whom he expected to escort him to a comfortable hotel. "I had come to Cuba to feel freedom...