Tag Archives: Secretary of State Marco Rubio

Change Has Come To South America

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On Sunday, PJ Media posted an article about a run-off election in the country of Columbia.

The article reports:

As I’ve been reporting, Colombia had presidential elections last month, and on Sunday, there was a run-off between the Donald Trump-like right-winger, Abelardo de la Espriella (aka El Tigre), and current president Gustavo Petro’s hand-picked socialist successor, Iván Cepeda.  

Well, we can say that another country in Latin America has taken a swing to the right because El Tigre won narrowly, though I’m willing to bet Petro and his folks were up to some funny business. I just don’t buy that nearly half the country voted for the commie… or, at least, half of the 63.6% of people who showed up to the polls in Colombia and beyond. 

For what it’s worth, Colombian expats who live in North America and Europe overwhelmingly voted for de la Espriella. I’m seeing Colombian journalists on social media proclaiming that they are ready to return to their country.  

According to my sources, El Tigre got about 49.66% of the vote, while Cepeda got about 48.70%. Petro is already throwing a fit on social media, demanding a recount, but the momentum is in full swing. President-elect de la Espriella posted “Thank you, Colombia” on social media, and the mood where he is watching the polls is pretty celebratory. 

The article notes:

What I think is important to note is that major players in the region are already congratulating El Tigre on the win, including our own Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and Argentine President Javier Milei. These guys, especially Rubio, don’t usually send out their congratulations so quickly after votes are counted, but I suspect this is an effort to keep the momentum rolling — and to remind them that the eyes of the world are upon them — before Petro and his leftist, criminal cronies can do something to screw things up. Petro’s already denying the results and calling for recounts and more scrutiny without much credible evidence that it’s needed. 

Rubio actually called President-Elect de la Espriella personally to congratulate him and said that Colombia’s best days are ahead. 

The article concludes:

Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, has been cracking down on the cartels and organized criminal groups that operate at the border the two countries share. The U.S. and Venezuela, as led by the Trump administration, are cracking down on crime on that side of Colombia. Having a cooperative leader who promises Nayib Bukele-like treatment of Colombia’s criminal organizations in power will be a game-changer for the entire Western Hemisphere when it comes to drugs, mass migration, and crime.

Now we just need to flip Brazil, which has elections in October, and get its little dictator, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, out of there. Right now, it’s entirely possible that will happen. I’ll keep you posted.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful for South America to be a great place to live!

Negotiating With The People Who Want Peace

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Just as Iran has become a county led by tyrants that do not represent the population, Lebanon in many ways has been taken over by Hezbollah. With the funding of Hezbollah by Iran at least temporarily cut off, this is the time to free Lebanon from their terrorist grip.

On Friday, Ed Morrissey posted an article at Hot Air about the negotiations for peace between Israel and Lebanon. Hezbollah was not included in those negotiations.

The article reports:

The Wall Street Journal raises the question of the Rabid Dog That Was Not Allowed to Bark In DC in its analysis of the ceasefire brokered by Marco Rubio between Israel and Lebanon. Reporters Omar Abdel-Baqui and Dov Lieber concede that the pact engineered by the Secretary of State comes as a “historic step” between the two countries, especially since Lebanon has never recognized Israel’s status as a state. However, they wonder just how these negotiations can take place in the absence of “one of the main belligerents”:

The article quotes The Wall Street Journal:

Without Hezbollah at the negotiating table, the cease-fire and the possibility of a successful Israel-Lebanon peace agreement would be on shaky ground.

…In 1983, the countries signed a peace agreement, which fell apart after Hezbollah and other factions opposed it. Another U.S.-backed peace effort in 1993 broke down, owing to opposition from Syria, which then dominated Lebanon, and the impossibility of security guarantees with Hezbollah. A November 2024 deal was supposed to lead to the Lebanese government’s demilitarizing Hezbollah, and Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon and halting strikes on Lebanon. None of those objectives were achieved.

…Meeting a group of Lebanese lawmakers, Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun endorses continued direct negotiations with Israel and says that his country is working to secure the withdrawal of Israeli forces, to bring back Lebanese citizens held by Israel and to solve border disputes.

Aoun says “direct negotiations are crucial… and the gateway to advancing the negotiations” with Israel.

The Lebanese Armed Forces “will play a fundamental role after the withdrawal of Israeli forces,” Aoun says, promising they will deploy to the Israeli border and will reassure residents of southern Lebanon, “after their return to their villages and towns, that there will be no armed forces other than the army and the legitimate security forces.”

The article at Hot Air concludes:

That’s why Hezbollah was not invited to participate in the talks. It’s also why Israel is not constrained by the ceasefire if Hezbollah violates it. Hezbollah did not get a seat at the table because Iran doesn’t get to dictate terms in Lebanon any longer. The IRGC regime may not get to dictate terms in Iran for much longer, for that matter. So why invite its terror proxies to discuss their own destruction?

I think the Lebanese are tired of living in a country held hostage by a terrorist organization.

Moving Forward To Secure America

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On Tuesday, The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about the Muslim Brotherhood.

The article reports:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced the first official set of Muslim Brotherhood chapters that are designated as “global terrorist” organizations. The first set will not come as a big surprise: Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon.

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood were chased out of the country by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi over a decade ago. The Jordanian chapter is similarly aligned and was previously targeted by King Abdullah. The Lebanese faction is not as well known, but their support for Hamas is well understood.

The article quotes the Secretary of State website:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio – Today, as a first step in support of President Trump’s commitment to eliminate the capabilities and operations of Muslim Brotherhood chapters that pose a threat to the United States as described in Executive Order 14362, the United States is imposing terrorist designations against the Lebanese, Jordanian, and Egyptian chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Department of State is designating the Lebanese Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT), and the group’s leader Muhammad Fawzi Taqqosh as an SDGT. Concurrently, the Department of the Treasury is designating the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood as SDGTs for providing material support to Hamas.

These designations reflect the opening actions of an ongoing, sustained effort to thwart Muslim Brotherhood chapters’ violence and destabilization wherever it occurs. The United States will use all available tools to deprive these Muslim Brotherhood chapters of the resources to engage in or support terrorism.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was responsible for the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. President Sadat had signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. His assassination was the Muslim Brotherhood’s response to his signing of that treaty.

The Muslim Brotherhood has been active in America for at least 35 years. Their plan for America was revealed in An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America a document which was part of the government exhibits during the Holy Land Foundation Trial. Please use the search engine on this site for further details. All chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood (and their unindicted co-conspirators named in the Holy Land Foundation trial) operating in America need to be declared as terrorist organizations.

Bringing Common Sense To Foreign Aid

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On Friday, PJ Media posted an article about changing the American foreign aid model so that it is more efficient and helps the people who need help.

The article reports:

The truth is that our foreign aid had become a joke — a way to line pockets and spread wacko leftist ideology more than anything. Rubio told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos — who tried to do that whole “Trump is killing people by cutting aid” thing — back in September that “We’re gonna do more than anyone in the world, again, this year, but we’re gonna do it the right way. We’re gonna do it holistically. We’re gonna do it as part of an integrated foreign policy.”

During that interview, Rubio pointed out that the reason why people die is much more nuanced than what the media wants to print. In some regions, wars prevent aid from reaching its target, or gangs steal it before it can reach its intended recipients. In some places, the middlemen, the distributors, simply don’t handle it well, etc. The world is not a one-size-fits-all situation, George.

The article includes Secretary of State Rubio’s statement about his plan:

The United States has spent billions of dollars over the years in helping with health strategies all across the world.  What we learned over time and especially after coming here, is that oftentimes – and I’m oversimplifying it, but this is an accurate description – what would happen is we would go to a country and say we’re going to help you with your health care needs. Then we would drive over to western – northern Virginia somewhere, find an NGO, one of these organizations, give them all the money, tell them, “go to this country and do their health care program for them.” That NGO would then take about – some percentage of that money for their overhead and administrative costs, and by the time it got down to it, the host country had very little influence, it was sort of imposed on them, and only a percentage of the overall money ever actually reached the patients and the people on the ground that we were trying to help because of these costs.

This makes no sense. So why are we hiring American and international NGOs to go into other countries and run health care systems that are parallel and sometimes in conflict with the health care systems of the host country? If we’re trying to help countries, help the country, don’t help the NGO to go in and find a new line of business. And so, that’s the model that we’re breaking. We’re not doing this anymore. We are not going to spend billions of dollars funding the NGO industrial complex, while close and important partners like Kenya either have no role to play or have very little influence over how health care money is being spent. Bottom line is, if you want to help a country, work with that country, not work with a third party that imposes things on that country. 

When you eliminate the middle man, more money can go toward solving the problem.

About Those Chickens–The Ones That Are Coming Home To Roost

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It is becoming obvious why the Democrats were willing to go to the lengths they went to in 2020 to keep President Trump out of the White House. It is also becoming obvious  why the Democrats were willing to use unprecedented lawfare to make sure he would not be re-elected in 2024. The did not want anyone looking into the political and financial scandals of the last fifteen years.

There is a lot of information currently bubbling beneath the surface about violations of the Constitution in areas of surveillance, but also about some of the financial shenanigans involving NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) and some charities, including the Clinton Foundation. Without President Trump encouraging investigations of political wrongdoing within the government, very few of these investigations would actually result in any action actually taken. It remains to be seen if anyone will actually face consequences for their corruption, but without President Trump, we probably wouldn’t even be aware of the corruption. There is a danger in leaving the violations of the Constitution and the financial shenanigans unpunished. If left alone, it will continue to flourish. As I write this, there are some grand jury referrals that we need to watch carefully. What happens in the cases headed toward various grand juries will be an indication of what is to come. I can only hope we have enough uncorrupt people, judges, and leaders left in America to follow through on the evidence we now have.

The fight is not over, and the corruption is still with us. We can only hope that if a Republican becomes the next president, he will be willing to continue the fight. There is one potential candidate, currently below the radar who, if elected, would be part of the problem–not part of the solution. I am not ready to name names, but I would wholeheartedly support a Vance/Rubio ticket in 2028.

Bringing Americans Home

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On Friday, Fox News reported that ten Americans have been released from custody in Venezuela and are headed home to America.

The article reports:

Ten Americans are returning to the U.S. after being released from custody in Venezuela, the Secretary of State said on Friday. 

“Thanks to President [Donald] Trump’s leadership and commitment to the American people, the United States welcomes home ten Americans who were detained in Venezuela,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement. “Until today, more Americans were wrongfully held in Venezuela than any other country in the world. It is unacceptable that Venezuelan regime representatives arrested and jailed U.S. nationals under highly questionable circumstances and without proper due process. Every wrongfully detained American in Venezuela is now free and back in our homeland.”

Rubio also thanked the State Department, inter-agency partners, and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele.

The article continues:

He (Secretary of State Marco Rubio) said the U.S. also welcomes the “release of Venezuelan political prisoners and detainees that were also released from Venezuelan prisons. The Trump Administration continues to support the restoration of democracy in Venezuela. The regime’s use of unjust detention as a tool of political repression must end. We reiterate our call for the unconditional release of remaining unjustly and arbitrarily detained political prisoners and foreign nationals.”

The release is part of a prisoner swap in which Bukele agreed to release hundreds of Venezuelans being held in a maximum-security prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, in return for Salvadoran prisoners being held in Venezuela. 

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele was elected as President of El Salvador in 2019. He has transformed the country–drastically reducing the crime rate and the homicide rate. His cooperation with President Trump has helped make America safer and his own country safer.

The Latest Fake Sob Story

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On Sunday, Red State posted an article about the latest sob story currently making the rounds about deporting illegal aliens. Responding to the crocodile tears being shed about a two-year old being deported, Secretary of State Marco Rubio decided to share the story of a similar incident.

The article reports:

Democrats seem to think the way to go after the Trump administration is to attack their moves regarding illegal aliens. But that’s one of the areas where he has the most approval. Instead, it’s Democrats attaching themselves to 80/20 issues on the 20 side, as they’re doing in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and the arrest of the judge in Wisconsin for allegedly helping an illegal alien evade ICE agents.

Now there’s another case that’s making the media rounds. You may have seen the headlines blaring about a two-year-old American citizen being deported. The judge in the case raised questions about “due process” — seemingly, the leftist word of the month.

But of course, as with all these stories, there’s more to it than that. Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed that and a similar case involving a four-year-old and a seven-year-old. Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, he nuked the misleading framing:

“Three U.S. citizens ages 4, 7, and 2 were not deported — their mothers, who were illegally in this country, were deported. The children went with their mothers!” Rubio declared. Nothing is preventing the children from coming back into the country, he explained. 

Are these the same Democrats that on April 22, 2000, arrested six-year-old Elian Gonzalez at gunpoint at his uncle’s home where he was hiding in a closet? We have all seen the picture:

Spare me your crocodile tears!

The article concludes:

The children can come back, the family can work out whatever arrangements they want for them; if they have family here, that’s up to the families.

The judge has scheduled a hearing for May 16 to address any questions in the case of the two-year-old, so that will ultimately be determined. I imagine there will be further process in the other case as well, to investigate if there were any issues.

But the media, of course, was skipping over the context, yet again.

The Flak Is Always Thickest Over The Target

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The first two weeks of the Trump administration have been a whirlwind. That is probably because the President realizes that he needs to act quickly to prevent a major crash of the American economy. The best way to cut taxes is to cut government spending, and that is happening at breakneck speed. Not everyone is happy.

On Tuesday, Hot Air posted an article about the hill the Democrats are prepared to die on.

The article reports:

Of all the things Donald Trump is doing to upend the old order in Washington, it turns out that closing USAID, even temporarily, is the one thing that all Democrats can agree is egregious enough to go to war over.

Here are a few X screenshots from the article:

The article concludes:

Democrats are making it clear that they will fight like cornered rats to keep control of USAID and its massive funding stream.

We all know why, which is why Trump needs to win this battle one way or another.

This is a major step toward cutting government spending and lowering taxes for the American people.