This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • The Party of “Choice”

    In 1993, the Hillary Clinton secret committee-created healthcare plan hit the street and was unveiled to Congress. It severely restricted everything related to healthcare – it mandated employer participation, it restricted which doctor a patient could see, how much doctors could charge for treatment, it even regulated who could be what type of doctor. Even longtime liberal, the late Pat Moynihan said “anyone who thinks [the Clinton health care plan] can work in the real world as presently written isn’t living in it.” No one had choices anymore.

    Well, the Democrats apparently haven’t learned anything. According to Associated Press, John Edwards even wants to take away your choice to schedule appointments;

    Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said on Sunday that his universal health care proposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventive care.
     
    “It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care,” he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. “If you are going to be in the system, you can’t choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK.”

    Sounds nice doesn’t it? Unfortunately, Edwards doesn’t explain what would happen if you don’t make your scheduled check ups. Having some experience with the government, when they mention “require”, there’s usually negative reinforcement involved. I wonder what Edwards “incentive” would be – probably forfeiture of your healthcare. Then we’d be right back where we started, huh?

    But the best part is the cost and how Edwards plans to pay for it;

    Edwards said his plan would cost up to $120 billion a year, a cost he proposes covering by ending President Bush’s tax cuts to people who make more than $200,000 per year.

    According to the 2005 tax revenues, he’d have to raise revenue 25% from people making over $200k to get an extra $120 bil. Guess that won’t affect the rest of us will it?  And I guess it plays well to small-minded people who think that people who make over $200k should pay for all of our stuff we don’t want to pay for.

    And I don’t know where he gets the $120 billion number – that’s $400 per person. Unless, of course, universal health care isn’t going to be very universal.

  • 5000 new rifles, but no milk in Venezuela

    I read this statement from Venezuela President Hugo Chavez’ Alo! Presidente speech last Sunday as quoted by the Christian Science Monitor in the Washington Post today; 

    “I’m going to buy 5,000 Dragunov rifles from Russia…with telescopic sight, the best in the world, with infrared night-view. We will knock out any imperialist that approaches.”

    I guess we know at which imperialists Chavez wants to aim his Dragunov rifles. Any soldier worth his salt would prefer a Remington to the clunky Dragunov, though – but Hugo isn’t a real soldier anyway – he just pretends to be one in his drama play for the world’s thugs.

    Regardless, his choice of weapons isn’t the subject of this post. It didn’t take me long to find something more worthy of Chavez’ money instead of rifles. Julia, a Venezuelan who blogs on The end of Venezuela as I know it writes about the shortages of staples in Caracas. In Part I there’s sugar;

    “This is flour!” – I said – “No… try it… it’s also sweet… it’s the snow sugar that your mom uses for decorate the cakes…” I thought the sugar shortage was extreme enough when I started to get used to the brown sugar. I was clearly wrong; you never know when it’s extreme enough because my dad couldn’t even find brown sugar that day so decided to buy the two kinds of sugar that remained in the supermarket just to, well, give us the option to decide between the worse of those two.

    In Part II it’s cooking oil and milk;

    Then I make a quick calculus, 1000 ml for six people (without counting my godchild who is three months old) it’s almost nothing and won’t last for long. Besides, the shortage now its just partial, but before we notice it, we are not going to be able to find not even that small package of normal milk in a while…

    But Julia will very happy to learn that Chavez will have 5000 new sniper rifles with which to fight those nebulous imperialists that will never come – irrespective of who owns the rifles.

    I almost choked on my beer while reading this piece of trash from some pencil-necked dork named Steve Lendman who claims that Venezuela is a more perfect form of democracy than the United States. Sorry, I’m not linking it – you can google the retard;

    Chavez wants his new United Socialist Party (PSUV) to drive the revolutionary process and continue his agenda of reform for all Venezuelans. He wants everyone to enjoy the benefits, not just a privileged few like in the past and in the US today. Under his leadership, their future is bright while in America poverty is growing, the middle class is dying, and the darkness of tyranny threatens everyone under George Bush with his agenda likely continuing under a new president in 2009.

    Governance differences exist between these two nations because their constitutional laws are mirror opposite, and America has no one like Hugo Chavez. He’s a rare leader who cares and backs his rhetoric with progressive people-friendly policies. In the US, there’s George Bush, and that pretty much explains the problem. Knowing that, which leader would you choose and under which system of government would you prefer to live?

    Well, Stevie, I don’t see Americans flocking to Venezuela – do you? And I think if you read Julia’s Part II, you’ll get a pretty good idea which Venezuelans prefer;

    I should be able to go protesting everywhere I want to without having the fear of being attack or/ and detained by the police. I should be able to go out and came back home at any time I want or I need to without taking the risk to be mugged or kidnapped or killed. I should be able to say whatever I want to say about the government out loud even in government institutions without being called oligarch, rich or imperialist just because I think different. I should be able to ask any government’ help or support in health, or education or whatever I need or have the right to request as a citizen without being forced to wear a red t-shirt.
    […]
    Sometimes I want to be like other young people are, of course they have troubles and concerns in their political systems but they don’t feel constantly threatened by it. Some people can criticize and oppose to their governments and continue having a normal life. They can go to the beach in their own countries and find some peace. Not halfway peace, but real tranquility. I should be able to go to have some drinks with my friends, concerning only about calling the attention of the guy I like; without saying good bye because they are leaving the country.

    Chavez promises refineries to Nicaragua and Panama, oil to the Caribe Basin, oil to Cuba, pays for his cohorts’ political campaign in other countries. Oh, and this from AP;

    Laid-off Brazilian factory workers have their jobs back, Nicaraguan farmers are getting low-interest loans and Bolivian mayors can afford new health clinics, all thanks to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

    Bolstered by windfall oil profits, Chavez’s government is now offering more direct state funding to Latin America and the Caribbean than the United States. A tally by The Associated Press shows Venezuela has pledged more than $8.8 billion in aid, financing and energy funding so far this year.

    Yet his own people don’t have staples. What a wonderful guy.

    Related; Mary Anastasia O’Grady reviews two new books about Chavez and Venezuela in the Wall Street Journal today.

    Hugo Chávez By Cristina Marcano and Alberto Barrera Tyszka Random House, 327 pages, $27.95

    ¡Hugo! By Bart Jones Steerforth, 570 pages, $30

  • UN – more incompetent boobery

    We discover this week that the only way UN weapons inspector can find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction is if you put in their offices and then clear everything else out;

    Potentially hazardous chemicals mistakenly shipped from an Iraqi chemical weapons plant have been found in a UN building but experts insisted Thursday that they posed no immediate risk.
     
    UN deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said that while winding down their activities, United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) inspectors discovered “gram quantities of certain liquid substances including phosgene (COCl2),” which she described as “potentially hazardous.”

    Yeah, it’s only potentially hazardous – as long as you keep the temperature below 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

    The Wall Street Journal reports that the 2009 UN anti-racism conference is being organized by those champions of human rights, the Libyans;

    The same people who brought us the 2001 Durban antiracism conference, which degenerated into an anti-Semitic hate fest, are working hard to ensure that the follow-up meeting will be more of the same. We are talking about the United Nations, of course, under whose auspices six years ago the professed fight against racism was turned on its head. As if to top that sorry record, on Monday the U.N.’s Human Rights Council put Libya in charge of organizing the next such “antiracism” conference.

    Moammar Gadhafi’s regime, more famous for brutalizing black African migrants than fighting xenophobia, will thus be allowed to shape the agenda of the 2009 gathering. Libya’s only credential would seem to be that it ranks high on the list of human-rights offenders, and has some very recent experience. Until only last month, five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor had been incarcerated in Libya for eight years on false charges of infecting children with HIV.

    Also on the list for the members of the panel is Iran – you know, those guys who are currently shelling Kurds across the border in Iraq. The guys who have vowed to wipe Israel off of the map. yeah, those humanitarians.

  • Reid snatching defeat from victory

    The public’s perception of the war in Iraq slowly shifts closer to reality claims John Ward of the Washington Times;

    The White House believes it has made significant progress over the past month in swaying public and political opinion toward supporting a continued U.S. military effort in Iraq, one of President Bush’s closest advisers said in an interview.

    “The end of the August feels a lot better than the beginning of August when it comes to where we are relative to perceptions of our Iraq policy and what is working,” said Ed Gillespie, counselor to the president.

    Congress returns Tuesday from a monthlong recess that did not go according to plan for Democratic leaders and the antiwar movement, who were looking to September as a time to force Mr. Bush into changing course in Iraq.

    That moment may still come. But August brought numerous reports from regional specialists and even Democratic members of Congress that the president’s surge of 30,000 troops is producing positive results.

    Of course that’s terrible news for the Democrats. They think they won last November’s election on an anti-war platform, so an improved perception of the war bodes ill for the party that wants to abandon national security issues before the next election. The Washington Post reports that Harry “the war is lost” Reid is still trying to attract RINOs to his failures;

    Saying the coming weeks will be “one of the last opportunities” to alter the course of the war, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said he is now willing to compromise with Republicans to find ways to limit troop deployments in Iraq.

    Reid acknowledged that his previous firm demand for a spring withdrawal deadline had become an obstacle for a small but growing number of Republicans who have said they want to end the war but have been unwilling to set a timeline.
     
    “I don’t think we have to think that our way is the only way,” Reid said of specific dates during an interview in his office here. “I’m not saying, ‘Republicans, do what we want to do.’ Just give me something that you think you would like to do, that accomplishes some or all of what I want to do.”

    So now he’s willing to compromise with weak-kneed Republican defeatists in order to make himself look less ridiculous. Even though the administration may begin withdrawing troops before Spring without Congress passing any kind of legislation, according to rumors about the upcoming breifing to Congress by General Petreaus, Reid is trying to pull a “compromise” out of his ass to appear as if he still running things.

    And he has the audacity to disclaim partisanship;

    But looking forward, Reid said he will encourage new coalitions to develop, with a more bipartisan hue. “There is no reason that this be Democrat versus Republican,” he said.

    The whole thing has been Democrats versus Republicans since the airliner hit the ground in Pennsylvania. From that point, Democrats warned that their weakness on national defense shouldn’t be an issue in elections – even though it’s the most important issue that should be facing the federal government. 

    The Post outlines what Reid wants most;

    One measure Reid said he will seek to resurrect would tighten rules on the use of troops by requiring soldiers’ leave times to be at least as long as their most recent deployment. The proposal, offered by Sen. James Webb (D-Va.), would not set withdrawal terms, but it could effectively limit U.S. force levels. A vote of 56 to 41 in favor of the measure on July 11 fell four votes short of the 60 needed to overcome a GOP filibuster, but it had seven Republican supporters.

    That’s just plain stupid – and you’d think whiney-ass Jim Webb would know better, supposedly a combat veteran, but I wonder after reading this. To put restrictions on deployment schedules ties the military’s hands tightly – so tightly that they won’t have the flexibility to react to the situation on the ground. But, i think that’s the whole intent of Webb and Reid – to make it impossible to be at all effective on the ground, and to make it easier for the bad guys to kill our troops.

    And the Jon Ward article in the Times reports this all comes at a time when the war and the Americans’ perception of the war has improved markedly;

    Political reconciliation among Iraqi Shi’ites, Sunnis and Kurds remains problematic, but even there, all three factions reached a still-nebulous power-sharing agreement last weekend, which Mr. Gillespie cited as an improvement.

    “Even [the lack of political reconciliation] has changed since last week. We are seeing progress now,” Mr. Gillespie said. “I do think there is a general view that the surge is having its desired effect.”

    The latest poll by United Press International/Zogby Interactive showed that 54 percent think the war is not lost, with respondents splitting sharply along party lines on that question. 

    So Reid figures he has to hurry up and do something, anything, before we’re successful in Iraq.

    But if you think you’re mad about Reid, the KosKids are madder;

    [They’re] [n]ot Chamberlain Democrats. Chamberlain was arguably trying for peace.  Harry Reid knows the score and knows the consequences of his actions.  And he doesn’t care.

    The only way to turn this around is 10 million people on the streets, engaged in an organized occupation of every Congressional office in the country. 

    And even if that happened, I think Harry would continue to bend over and wait to get spanked by his Daddy.

    And; 

    The only one REALLY publicly insisting that funds be cut off is Dennis Kucinich in the House.  He has resolutions that he’s been begging people to pay attention to!  He’s been saying it all along.  We need to insist that this (these) resolution(s) come to the floor and get the attention they need to help thwart this very issue. 

    These are the people Reid is trying to please.

  • NY Times; punish those Haditha Marines even if they’re innocent

    By way of Republicanpundit of Hang Right Politics, I found this sorry, whining turd of an “opinion” piece from the New York Times today;

    Last December, when the Marine Corps charged four infantrymen with killing Iraqi civilians in Haditha, Iraq, in 2005, the allegation was as dark as it was devastating: after a roadside bomb had killed their buddy, a group of marines rampaged through nearby homes, massacring 24 innocent people.

    In Iraq and in the United States, the killings were viewed as cold-blooded vengeance. After a perfunctory military investigation, Haditha was brushed aside, but once the details were disclosed, the killings became an ugly symbol of a difficult, demoralizing war. After a fuller investigation, the Marines promised to punish the guilty.

    But now, the prosecutions have faltered.

    See that? The prosecutions have faltered – not that the Marines are innocent, it’s those incompetent boobs that can’t prosecute them without evidence. Because we, the editorial board of the New York Times, already declared them guilty – what more evidence do you need?  

    Now their final attempt to get a murder conviction is set to begin, with a military court hearing on Thursday for Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, the last marine still facing that charge. He is accused of killing 18 Iraqis, including several women and children, after the attack on his convoy.

    If the legal problems that have thwarted the prosecutors in other cases are repeated this time, there is a possibility that no marine will be convicted for what happened in Haditha.

    Nor is it yet clear whether officers higher up the chain of command than Sergeant Wuterich will be held responsible for the inadequate initial investigation.

    Translation; maybe those incompetent boobs can get it right this last time, after all we know they’re guilty because public opinion convicted them last year. Can’t the Marines succumb to public pressure and convict them like those Duke lacrosse players? Didn’t the Marines learn how a real justice system is supposed to work?

    On the other hand, some scholars said the spate of dismissals has left them wondering what to think of the young enlisted marines who, illegally or not, clearly killed unarmed people in a combat zone.

    Whether they’re guilty of an actual crime or not doesn’t matter(“illegally or not”), apparently – it’s what we should think about them for killing people in the dark in a combat zone. So even if they get off, it’s OK for us think poorly of these Marines cuz the New York Times editorial weinies said so – after all it’s their commanders’ fault and ultimately the President’s fault for being Republicans…I…er…mean warmongers. Whew, my guilt is assuaged.

    And let’s trot out some “legal experts” who can make inane, general statements that have nothing to do with this case;

    “It certainly erodes that sense that what they did was wrong,” Elizabeth L. Hillman, a legal historian who teaches military law at Rutgers University School of Law at Camden, said of the outcomes so far. “When the story broke, it seemed like we understood what happened; there didn’t seem to be much doubt. But we didn’t know.”

    Walter B. Huffman, a former Army judge advocate general, said it was not uncommon in military criminal proceedings to see charges against troops involved in a single episode to fall away under closer examination of evidence, winnowing culpability to just one or two defendants.

    See? When the story broke, we all knew what the verdict was going to be, we started jumping to conclusions – even though we didn’t know the facts. I just don’t understand how the lack of evidence of any wrong doing can affect the Marines being found guilty. What’s wrong with those Marine lawyers, anyway? Didn’t they watch “A Few Good Men?”

    Regardless of what happened to charges against the other defendants, there is still great public pressure on the Marine Corps to investigate and punish any wrongdoing in a case in which so many civilians died.

    Don’t you mean public pressure to prosecute an uninformed perception of wrongdoing?

    I’d like to see the New York Times get on the side of law and justice for a change instead of their own prejudices. If there’s no evidence, they’re innocent, you half-witted baboons. That’s what our whole system of justice is based upon – you should read the Fifth Amendment sometime.

    “We can’t say those guys didn’t commit a crime,” said Michael F. Noone Jr., a retired Air Force lawyer and law professor at Catholic University of America. “We can only say that after an investigation, there was not sufficient evidence to prosecute.”

    Michael F. Noone, Jr., retired Air Force lawyer and professor at Catholic University of America Columbus Law School in Northeast DC, because you must’ve missed a class in law school, I’ll twig you to this; insufficient evidence to prosecute means these guys didn’t commit a crime. Despite your backstabbing on your fellow servicemembers and scurrying up their fallen bodies so you can get your idiot name in the New York Times, you scum-sucking, back-biting turd lawyer/professor bitch.

    Kathy at Hang Right Politics piles on with “Something Rep. Murtha Needs to Learn”

    But, that’s what this is all about – the NYT is running a screen for Jack Murtha. They’re demanding the heads of “officers higher up” (don’t they realize that generals are part of that entity that we call “the troops” whom we want the anti-US groups to support, too) for failing to investigate this as if it were a crime scene in Las Vegas instead of a war in Iraq. Murtha can now hold up this article and tell us how the Marines botched its investigation, so he’s been right all along.  

    And the NYT is trying to influence the Marines into prosecuting this young Staff Sergeant – just like they influenced the prosecutor in North Carolina to presecute those innocent youngsters at Duke. It’s almost ironic that they should be pushing this morally and factually bankrupt opinion piece the day after Richard Jewel died.

    If you haven’t read Chickenhawk Express’  Four Part series (so far) on the media and their sorry behavior in this Haditha Marines case (I’m sure this NY Times hit piece will be part of the series, too) you’re missing a fantastic wrap up.  

    Part I     Part II      Part III      Part IV

    And while we’re talking media bias, check out Rick Moran at Right Wing Nut House for “Bias? What Media Bias?”

  • Trust; our most valuable commodity

    Ya know what, I’m an old-fashioned kind of guy. In my world, although I surround myself with modern luxuries and gadgets, it’s still the 1950s. My friends are all people who say what they mean – no matter whose feelings are hurt. Our discussions revolve around truthfulness and realities, not around polite niceties. There’s no sugarcoating in my world – things are what they are. If someone lies to me once, I never trust them again. If we’re in the middle of a job and a coworker flakes off on me, they never work with me again. That’s the world I grew up in and the way I know things really work successfully.

    So why that paragraph? To illustrate a principle; that being trust. I’ve found that people who lie to someone else, will usually lie to me. People who behave badly, reflect on me when I associate with them.

    The reason I held Bill Clinton in such low esteem was because his family couldn’t count on him to be there – ultimately, the country couldn’t count on him to be there when he was getting gratification from a fat chick while his duties in the Rose Garden suffered.

    I used to like Newt Gingrich alot – before the 1994 Republican Revolution - but his personal exploits while he was Speaker soured me on him – eternally. I’ve crossed the room to avoid him.

    I met Dick Morris socially one time and we talked for a few minutes, but I heard hardly a word he said because that voice in my head kept repeating “Toe sucker! Toe sucker!”

    And now, there’s Larry “Wide Stance” Craig. What he was doing was pretty disgusting all by itself – but the fact that he did it while he was a US Senator makes me question his judgement. He was bold enough to make all of the gestures so common in men’s rooms across the country, that I have to believe that this wasn’t his first time. And he was fairly persistent.

    I don’t care what his politics are, how valuable his occupation of his Senate seat is to Republicans, or even how staunchly he supports every one of my issues – I don’t trust him because he has poor judgement.

    That’s what separates us from the Democrats – they’re willing to continue to put their trust in morally bankrupt, corrupt, murdering, racist, lying, raping thieves (I know my readers can name a Democrat to fit in each category I’ve listed so I won’t) – but we Republicans have principles.

    We need to send a message to all of the other Republicans who might have a wide stance that we don’t tolerate deviant behavior in our party (public bathroom sex is deviant, I don’t care who you’re doing it with). Craig has to go. Now. No discussion, no statements, no apologies. Just. Go.

    Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire reports that Craig has lost his committee positions, but that’s not quite enough – get gone, Lar. Crotchety Old Bastard lists other dastardly deeds committed by Democrats for whom we’re still waiting letters to resign. But it’s only a partial list – trust me.

  • Democrats heading towards defeat

    In today’s Washington Post, Jonathan Weisman reports that Democrats just don’t see why their anti-Bush, anti-US, anti-National Security policies can’t get through the legislative process;

    A growing clamor among rank-and-file Democrats to halt President Bush’s most controversial tactics in the fight against terrorism has exposed deep divisions within the party, with many Democrats angry that they cannot defeat even a weakened president on issues that they believe should be front and center.

    The Democrats’ failure to rein in wiretapping without warrants, close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay or restore basic legal rights such as habeas corpus for terrorism suspects has opened the party’s leaders to fierce criticism from some of their staunchest allies — on Capitol Hill, among liberal bloggers and at interest groups.

    Liberal bloggers and interest groups who are single-minded cattle and don’t have to get re-elected (the same goes for bloggers and interest groups on the Right, by the way) don’t understand why politicians, who do have to get reelected, don’t do their bidding?

    Why would a Congressman in, say, Dakota, listen to what a blogger with a $12/month blog in, say, Washington State? Because the blogger calls him names? Threatens to use the two readers the blogger has in the congessman’s Dakota district withold their vote? Well, it’s the same with even big blogs like Kos or Huffington – yeah, they have a huge readership, but ultimately, whom do they truly influence? There’s a large number of people/voters who don’t even know what a blog is, for pete’s sake.

    But the Democrat Party wants to formulate national security policy around the fickle desires of a few thousand nitwits who happen to have an extra $12 every month?

    The American Civil Liberties Union is running Internet advertisements depicting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) as sheep.

    “Bush wanted more power to eavesdrop on ordinary Americans, and we just followed along. I guess that’s why they call us the Democratic leadersheep,” say the two farm animals in the ad, referring to Congress’s passage of legislation granting Bush a six-month extension and expansion of his warrantless wiretapping program.

    Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.), who leads a newly created House select intelligence oversight panel, lamented, “Democrats have been slow to recognize they are in the majority now and can go back to really examine the fundamentals of what we should be doing to protect democracy.”

    Protect Democracy? We have a responsibility to protect democracy from the actual enemies of Democracy who happen to be those 6th Century clowns who are hanging their men and stoning their women in public. Doesn’t that seem more important than worrying about if some NSA operator is listening to your kissy-face talk with your wife? Besides, no one is listening to your stupid phonesex calls – unless you’re having phone sex with Osama’s bodyguard. 

    Said Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (Va.): “I would’ve thought the administration would have been bereft of credibility by now, but they seem to be able to get what they want from this Congress.”

    So Moran woke up from his drunken stupor long enough to miscalculate the political climate, huh? Maybe, Moran, because you live in the echo chamber of Northern Virginia – inside the Beltway – you missed the fact that most Americans are still concerned about our security. Maybe the President isn’t “bereft of credibility by now” like you think. Maybe inside your echo chamber, but the rest of America knows that the attacks on us aren’t over and we don’t want to have to suffer through the weak-kneed responses to which we’ve grown accustomed with Democrats. The kind of responses which encourage more attacks.

    Despite all of President Bush’s shortcomings, one thing is for sure; there haven’t been any attacks on American soil in nearly six years. Not that there won’t be one, but there haven’t been any recently – and a big reason there hasn’t is because the bad guys know the response won’t be a cruise missile fired at an empty tent.

    Hmm, Bloodthirsty Liberal sees it my way, too in “Wiretapping or Toetapping“.

  • Castro; Clinton/Obama endorsement

    According to Reuters and CNN, Tio Fidel is endorsing a Clinton/Obama ticket for next year;

    Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro is tipping Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to team up and win the U.S. presidential election.Clinton leads Obama in the race to be the Democratic nominee for the November 2008 election, and Castro said they would make a winning combination.

    I guess this will do wonders for them – just like the Osama bin Laden endorsement for Kerry/Edwards in 2004. I’m sure the left is positively giddy about this high-profile endorsement from the docile, harmless Castro.

    It seems he had some other nice to things about our other worthless Democrat Presidents;

    Castro said former President Bill Clinton was “really kind” when he bumped into him and the two men shook hands at a U.N. summit meeting in 2000. He also praised Clinton for sending elite police to “rescue” shipwrecked Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez from the home of his Miami relatives in 2000 to end an international custody battle.

    […]

    He said his favorite U.S. president since 1959 was Jimmy Carter, another Democrat, because he was not an “accomplice” to efforts to violently overthrow the Cuban government.

    See, anyone willing to forget that Castro is a bloodthirsty tyrant with hundreds of prisoners of conscience rotting in jail cells is just fine and dandy.

    Reuters also mentioned that Eisenhower cut off diplomatic relations with Cuba – but they neglect to mention why, I will. The first year after Castro toppled the Batista regime, in 1959, he sent a small ragtag force of his guerilla army to invade the Panama Canal Zone. The small force of about 50 was rounded up as they landed on the beach at Colon, Panama by the Panamanian National Guard under the cover American air power and naval batteries with no casualties and sent packing back to Cuba.

    The intent was to incite the Panamanians to drive the evil gringos from the Canal Zone. So it’s really no wonder that the President cut off relations, since the Cubans tried to invade US territory, is it? And you’d think it’s be worth mentioning.

    Reuters also neglected to mention that during the Carter years, the Soviets stationed 10,000 Soviet combat troops in Cuba in the event that Carter decided to react to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. And Carter allowed Cuban troops to have their run of Africa (Rhodesia, Angola, South Africa, the Congo) and Central America (Columbia, Panama, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nigaragua) inciting armed conflict and terrorizing the populations where ever they could. 

    Is it any wonder he’d endorse a corrupt Presidential candidate with an half-witted idiot for a running mate?

    Stix Blogs wonders why the world’s thugs support Democrats whereas I don’t have to ask.

    Ace of Spades says that fugitive felons also support Clinton. big endorsement week for her, I guess.

    George Moneo at Babalu Blog has a memory like mine.