links for 2009-04-08

Key members of the Congressional Black Caucus are calling for an end to U.S. prohibition on travel to Cuba, just hours after a meeting with former Cuban president Fidel Castro in Havana.

“The fifty-year embargo just hasn’t worked,” CBC Chairwoman Barbara Lee (D-Ca.) told reporters this evening at a Capitol press conference after returning from a congressional delegation visit to Cuba. “The bottom line is that we believe its time to open dialogue with Cuba.”

Lee and others heaped praise on Castro, calling him warm and receptive during their discussion. But the lawmakers disputed Castro's later statement that members of the congressional delegation said American society is still racist.

"It was quite a moment to behold," Lee said, recalling her moments with Castro.

“It was almost like listening to an old friend,” said Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Il.), adding that he found Castro’s home to be modest and Castro’s wife to be particularly hospitable.

The aging, ailing, cigar-smoking icon Fidel Castro had three members of Congress visit with him today in Havana, which resulted in the bearded one asking, "How can we help President Obama?" In an effort to improve the relationship between Cuba and the U.S., Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) and Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.) were the first U.S. officials to meet with the 82-year-old former dictator since his intestinal surgery in July 2006.

Greg Adams of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana confirmed that the three members of the Congressional Black Caucus met with Castro, who handed the communist torch to his brother Raul in early 2007. Cuban state television is expected to release more details of the meeting tonight, Adams said.

Six members of the caucus met with Raul Castro on Monday for more than four hours. That meeting was also a first, as he had not yet met with any U.S. officials since he became the Cuban in charge.

Chuck DeVore, a Republican candidate for Senate in 2010, wanted to have some fun, putting up a parody of Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer" entitled "After the Hope of November Is Gone", poking fun at President Obama.

Obama overload, Obama overreach

We feel it everywhere, trillions in the breach

Empty bank, empty street

Dollar goes down alone

Pelosi's in the House so now we must all atone

Silly stuff, right? Well, it appears Don Henley filed a copyright claim.

Vice President Biden says that his predecessor Dick Cheney is "dead wrong" in his claim that the Obama Administration's foreign policies have made the U.S. less safe and said the nation is safer now than at any time in the last eight years.

"I don't think he is out of line, but he is dead wrong," Biden said to CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Gloria Borger. "The last administration left us in a weaker posture than we've been any time since World War II: less regarded in the world, stretched more thinly than we ever have been in the past, two wars under way, virtually no respect in entire parts of the world."

Attorney General Jerry Brown, who is widely expected to seek the California governorship in 2010, turns 71 today.

Brown's long history (and old-guard age) are already at issue in the 2010 campaign.

Last week, the Steve Poizner for governor campaign sent out a sarcastic congratulations to Brown for his 40th anniversary in elective office.

"As Brown seeks his third term as Governor, the last forty years have changed California dramatically. But it seems Jerry hasn't. Professional politician Jerry Brown is always campaigning for another office," Team Poizner wrote.

Today, Garry South, a strategist for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's campaign, wrote on Facebook that he "wants to wish Jerry Brown a very happy 71st birthday today! Imagine being born when FDR was president!"

It’s not unusual for the Gray Lady to cook the numbers, either, to make sure their poll shows that support. This is the breakout in their demographics on page 23:

* Democrats – 39%
* Republicans – 23%
* Independents – 30%

In February, just a month earlier, they had Democrats at 36% and Republicans at 26% — still too low for the GOP, but only a ten-point gap. Now they want to argue that Democrats have pushed the partisan gap to 16 points in a single month? Not hardly, says Rasmussen:

In a general election trial heat against Republicans, Corzine continues to trail former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie by nine points, 33%-42%. Just 58% of Democrats line up behind Corzine while 78% of Republicans prefer Christie. Christie’s name recognition continues to climb, to 62% from 57% a month ago; and 31% have a favorable opinion of the former U.S. Attorney for New Jersey while 12% have an unfavorable view.

Corzine runs even with former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan 37%-36%. Lonegan’s name recognition rose to 41% from 33% in the past month. Meanwhile, Christie leads Lonegan among Republican voters by two-to-one, 43%-21%, with 32% unsure. Assemblyman Rick Merkt and Franklin Township Mayor Brian Levine each get 2%.

In January, this poll had Corzine up by 7 percentage points.

So says Dean Steacy, one of Canada's Human Rights Commissioners, whose idea of defending human rights is to hollow out and destroy them. This is just one among many gems, and cutting insights, offered by the Canadian poet and essayist David Solway in "The Jihad of the Word" (published yesterday at Pajamas Media). Included are the travails of Ezra Levant and our Mark Steyn — and a plug for Ezra's important new book, Shakedown: How Our Government Is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights.

The AMA said yesterday that it’s laying off 100 people as part of budget cuts to offset falling revenue.

“This is a tremendously difficult decision for the AMA,” the group’s CEO said in a statement. “Associations like ours, however, are not immune to the economic realities that many other companies are facing.”

While the U.S. health care sector as a whole has continued to add jobs through the recession, plenty of institutions have felt the pinch.

The Veterans Affairs Department is investigating whether there's a link between a patient's positive HIV test and unsterilized equipment that may have exposed thousands of veterans to infectious diseases.

The positive test was the first reported since the department warned veterans treated at three clinics that they might be at risk.

The VA previously reported that hepatitis was found in 16 patients, but the agency cautioned there was no way to prove that the patients contracted the illnesses because of treatment at their facilities.

In an e-mail late Friday, the agency said it was investigating "the possibility of such a relationship."

The VA earlier this year warned more than 10,000 veterans to get blood tests because they could have been exposed to contamination while getting colonoscopies in Murfreesboro, Tenn., and Miami.

I am listening to the John and Ken Show on KFI radio. Congressman Tom McClintock has just pledged $5,000 in "matching funds" against donations made by show listeners to the Committee to Recall Anthony Adams.

Right now listeners are responding to former CRP Chairman Mike Schroeder's SECOND $5,000 matching grant. Last Thursday Schroeder made that offer and it was matched by listeners THAT DAY.

It looks like the Recall Adams Committee is on course to raise well over $50k in donations from John and Ken listeners alone — in advance of their target date of this Wednesday. Recall supporters have said that they plan on attempting to serve Adams with a notice of recall at his gourmet fundraising reception with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday night in Glendora.

I was down in Los Angeles recently talking with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Apparently there was a statewide poll of Democratic voters taken when I was in Paris that showed only a four-point difference between Villaraigosa and Attorney General Jerry Brown – at least that's what Villaraigosa told me.

The poll also showed that Latinos are ready to back him the way blacks backed Obama. That means he can pretty much bank on them and concentrate on whites and other minorities.

Villaraigosa also said the poll showed an incredible absence of name recognition for Brown among new and younger voters. The memory bank isn't there.

That's good news for both Villaraigosa and Gavin Newsom.

It also explains why Newsom is banking so much on Facebook and Twitter to get attention.

Responding to the missile test by North Korea, Governor Sarah Palin today reaffirmed Alaska’s commitment to protecting America from rogue nation missile attacks.

“I am deeply concerned with North Korea’s development and testing program which has clear potential of impacting Alaska, a sovereign state of the United States, with a potentially nuclear armed warhead,” Governor Palin said. “I can’t emphasize enough how important it is that we continue to develop and perfect the global missile defense network. Alaska’s strategic location and the system in place here have proven invaluable in defending the nation.”

The Manhattan district attorney's office has smashed a sinister plot to smuggle nuclear weapons materials to Iran through unwitting New York banks, the Daily News has learned.

Officials plan to unseal a 118-count indictment Tuesday accusing a Chinese national of setting up a handful of fake companies to hide that he was selling millions of dollars in potential nuclear materials to Tehran.

"This case will cut off a major source of supply to Iran and it shows how they are going ahead full steam to get a nuclear bomb. Long-range missiles they pretty much have already," a law enforcement source close to the case said.

"We think it is one of the largest suppliers of weapons of mass destruction to Iran."