Free Republic

Former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro characterized the Republican case for ousting President Obama in the upcoming election as “the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been.” “Listening to these apologists for personal greed you’d get the impression that an individual ought to be free to do whatever he wants,” Castro complained. “Where’s their social conscience?” Castro contrasted the “anti-social” GOP field with “President Obama’s appreciation for the collective well-being of the whole. While he may not feel confident to openly admit it, I sense that he is, at heart, a socialist. That American voters might reject him...

[paraphrasing] Wolf Blizter: "What would you do if Raul Castro called you in the White House?" Ron Paul: "I'd ask him what he was calling about." Duh! Was he trying to be funny or was it a senior moment? I laughed out loud.

MIAMI — Former House speaker Newt Gingrich on Wednesday mocked as an “Obama-level fantasy” Mitt Romney’s plan to deal with illegal immigration by encouraging “self-deportation.” Gingrich made the comment as he began a day of outreach to Florida’s Hispanic voters with an extensive interview on Spanish-language television and a speech at Florida International University in which he called for a more a forceful U.S. role in ending communist rule in Cuba, as well as an overhaul of U.S. economic policies toward all of Latin America. In an interview with the Univision network, Gingrich said it was unrealistic for millions of...

WASHINGTON — On Dec. 31, just hours before a New Year's Eve celebration, President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. Section 1245 of the law contains language providing authority to impose economic sanctions on Iran in order to deter the ayatollahs from acquiring nuclear weapons. White House efforts to have the sanctions provision stripped from the bill failed, and the measure became law with a quiet flourish of the presidential pen. Ever since, Washington and Tehran have been waging a war of words. None of this works to the advantage of the American...

..."Romney cree en nosotros," U.S. Rep.Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., tells viewers of a TV ad in South Florida, amid scenes of swaying palm trees, the Miami skyline and smiling Cuban-Americans. "Romney believes in us." ...Despite his hard line on immigration, Romney has rounded up endorsements from Hispanic Republican leaders across Florida, while pollsters and political analysts predict he will draw solid support from Hispanic voters in the primary..... "...I've already gotten three fliers from Romney - in Spanish," said DarioMoreno, a Miamipollster and professor at Florida International University who focuses on Hispanic voters. "CentralFlorida and the TampaBay area are where Newt...

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Friday that his government will close its consulate in Miami after the U.S. government expelled a diplomat. Chavez said he decided the consulate will shut its doors in response to what he called an unfair action by the U.S. State Department...Livia Acosta Noguera, Venezuela’s consul general in Miami, was ordered out of the U.S. last weekend followed an FBI investigation into allegations that she discussed a possible cyber-attack on the U.S. government while she was assigned to the Venezuelan Embassy in Mexico. The allegations were detailed in a documentary aired by the...

When it comes to Cuba, President Obama can do little right in the eyes of exilio politicians. When he eased travel restrictions to the island, for example, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen accused him of undermining democracy on the island. Now she's slamming Obama for his decision to order U.S. inspectors to check a deep-water oil rig that is on its way to Cuba. ... "A state sponsor of terrorism [is] poised to achieve a tremendous economic boon by entering the oil business and endangering U.S. waters to boot," she said. "It is deeply disappointing that the Obama administration appears content to...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defended his country's nuclear program as he began a four-nation tour of Latin America, joining his ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in accusing the U.S. and its allies of using the dispute to unjustly threaten Iran.[snip] Both leaders planned to travel to Nicaragua on Tuesday for the inauguration of newly re-elected President Daniel Ortega, and then Ahmadinejad will also visit Cuba and Ecuador.

The United States has ordered the expulsion of Venezuela’s consul general in Miami, AFP reported on Sunday. The expulsion comes amid reports linking the diplomat to an alleged Iranian plot to target sensitive U.S. facilities with cyber attacks. According to the report, the Venezuelan embassy in Washington was notified on Friday that Livia Acosta Noguera, the consul general in Miami, had been declared persona non grata and had until Tuesday to leave the country...

Cuba's iconic revolutionary Fidel Castro warned that the world was on an "inexorable" march into the abyss this year because of climate change and the threat of nuclear war. In an article published Thursday -- Castro's first since November 2011 -- the 85-year-old retired leader also took aim at the United States and at gas shale "fracking," a new source of fossil fuels condemned by environmentalists. He did not, however, address rumors of his death, which were denied by an official Cuban blogger after they surfaced on Twitter earlier this week. "Many dangers threaten us, but two of them, nuclear...

VATICAN CITY – This week’s 50th anniversary of Pope John XXIII’s excommunication of Cuban leader Fidel Castro coincides with preparations for a visit to the Communist-ruled island by the current pontiff, Benedict XVI. Castro was excommunicated a month and a day after his Dec. 2, 1961, speech proclaiming himself a Marxist-Leninist and announcing his plans to lead Cuba to communism. John XXIII supported that measure in the 1949 decree of Pope Pius XII, which established the penalty of excommunication for anyone spreading communism. The revolution headed by Castro had already proclaimed itself “socialist,” and later the state declared itself to...

Pobre Fidelito. Being a dying dictator was his idea. But now Hugo Chavez has fat cancer, and Kim Jong Il went to ride his giant rabbits in the sky. Nobody's paying attention to the totally dead antics of Fidel Castro. He's like the fourth-grade girl who wore Silly Bandz before it was kewl. Now that everybody's got death, el jefe supremo grande con extra jalapeños just doesn't feel special anymore. But we believe that monitoring Castro's death level is of the utmost importance...

Cuba says it is expanding free-market reforms, opening more of the retail services sector to private business. From 1 January workers including carpenters, locksmiths, photographers and repairmen will be allowed to become self-employed. They will be able to set their own prices, while paying taxes and leasing their premises from the state. The measures are the latest reforms aimed at reviving Cuba's socialist economy by boosting private enterprise. President Raul Castro, who took over from his brother Fidel in 2008, has said the changes represent an effort to update rather than abandon the socialist model. His government plans to have...

Last week’s 60 Minutes featured another in its long line of joint CBS-Castro productions. This time Anderson Cooper and his production crew partnered with the Stalinist regime’s Centro de Investigaciones Marinas for a propaganda piece on the marvels of Cuban coral reef conservation. The co-host of the CBS show and conduit for this fruitful Communist infomercial was Dr. David Guggenheim, senior fellow at the Ocean Foundation in Washington, D.C. who chairs its Cuba Marine Research and Conservation Program. Dr. Guggenheim toasts himself as a “Cubaphile” and toasts Castro’s fiefdom (which he has visited over 40 times in recent years) as...

Jewish American Alan Gross not among thousands to be freed in a sweeping amnesty ahead of papal visit. HAVANA - Cuba will release 2,900 prisoners in the coming days for humanitarian reasons in a sweeping amnesty ahead of a visit next spring by Pope Benedict XVI, the Cuban government said on Friday. Those to be pardoned do not include Jewish American Alan Gross, serving 15 years in prison for setting up Internet equipment on the island under a secretive US program in a case that stalled progress in US-Cuba relations, a government spokesman said. Cuban President Raul Castro said the...

Penn sees red in LAX tirade Sean Penn and Cuban actress Maria Conchita Alonso were once Hollywood co-stars — but they had an angry bust-up at LAX, with Alonso branding Penn a “communist [bleep]hole” after he called her a “pig” in front of a stunned crowd. It started when Alonso picked up her mother from a Miami flight and spotted Penn in an American Airlines lost luggage area Sunday. Alonso, born in Cuba and raised in Venezuela, says her “heart stopped” when she saw the actor, to whom she’d written an open letter last year to say she was “appalled”...

Cuban-born, Venezuelan-raised actress Maria Conchita Alonso and actor Sean Penn had a contentious exchange at Los Angeles International airport recently, in which Alonso called Penn a “communist a**hole“ and Penn called Alonso a ”pig.” Over a year and a half after Alonso penned an open letter to Penn asking him why he supports socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the two met up serendipitously (or not so) at LAX while both were waiting to claim lost luggage. Alonso, who starred alongside Penn in the 1988 film “Colors,” described the exchange to Steve Malzberg on WMAL. “I go ‘Hello,’ and he smiles...

HAVANA (AP) -- The Cuban government has decreed three days of mourning for the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. An official statement read Monday on Cuban state television also said the Communist government had ordered Cuban flags to be flown at half staff at public buildings and military installations.

Excerpt and video of Rubio's speech: "Here's my challenge to the Administration and the State Department: You're not going to change your mind, but at least examine how this is being implemented because this is a charade." Washington, D.C. (Right Side News) – During a Senate floor speech this evening, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio highlighted the rampant abuses that occur under the Obama Administration’s “people-to-people” program. As part of his remarks, Rubio read from several days’ worth of dancing and music appreciation-heavy travel itineraries that are currently licensed under this program. Below is an excerpt of the speech: “There’s this...

Nearly twelve years have passed since he was pulled from a closet by a masked machine gun wielding US agent. Now Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy who survived a perilous raft journey that killed his mother and became a symbol of troubled relations between the United States and Cuba, is an adult. Gonzalez currently studies at a military academy on the island and took part in an 18th birthday celebration Tuesday in his native city of Cardenas alongside his father, according to images broadcast on the nightly news.