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Michael Ramirez on Fidel Castro

Former Cuban President Dictator Fidel Castro has criticized Senator and presumptive Democrat Presidential nominee Barack Obama’s Cuba policy. Note, Castro is 81 years old and has not been seen publicly since July 2006 because of illness.

In a column published Monday by government-run newspapers, Castro said Obama was “the most-advanced candidate in the presidential race,” but noted that he has not dared to call for altering U.S. policy toward Cuba.

“Obama’s speech can be translated as a formula for hunger for the country,” Castro wrote, referring to Obama’s remarks last week to the influential Cuban American National Foundation in Miami.

Obama said he would maintain the nearly fifty-year-old trade sanctions against Cuba as leverage to push for democratic change on the island. But he also vowed to ease restrictions on Cuban Americans traveling to Cuba and sending money to relatives.

He repeated his willingness to meet with Raul Castro, who in February succeeded his elder brother Fidel to become the nation’s first new leader in 49 years.

Castro said Obama’s proposals for letting well-off Cuban Americans help poorer relatives on the island amounted to “propaganda for consumerism and a way of life that is unsustainable.”

He complained that Obama’s description of Cuba as “undemocratic” and “lacking in respect for liberty and human rights” was the same argument previous U.S. administrations “have used to justify their crimes against our homeland.”

Obama’s Cuban policy is nothing but a PANDER BEAR anyway, attempting to siphon off Cuban American votes in Florida. McCain will own Florida and voters will NOT hear anymore of the mild appeasement towards Cuban families. But, Obama and the Democrats have tried to WEASEL their way to Florida Cuban votes albeit unsuccessfully.

The Cuban dictatorial government is teetering on complete failure. A few more years of the embargo, the Cuban people will throw out Raul Castro and Cuba will become free.

The government has had to crack down on dissidents even today.

A free Cuba is a matter of time.

Cuba’s President Fidel Castro is seen sitting in Havana October 28, 2006. Castro chose to avoid a colostomy and opted for riskier intestinal surgery that led to serious complications, the Spanish newspaper El Pais said in its Wednesday edition.

Castro today resigned his Cuban Presidency dictatorship and has retired.

An ailing Fidel Castro resigned as Cuba’s president Tuesday after nearly a half-century in power, saying he was retiring and will not accept a new term when the new parliament meets Sunday.

“I will not aspire to nor accept - I repeat, I will not aspire to nor accept - the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief,” read a letter signed by Castro published early Tuesday in the online edition of the Communist Party daily Granma.

The announcement effectively ends the rule of the 81-year-old Castro after almost 50 years, positioning his 76-year-old brother Raul for permanent succession to the presidency. Fidel Castro temporarily ceded his powers to his brother on July 31, 2006, when he announced that he had undergone intestinal surgery.

When does the revolution for democracy begin?

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Michael Ramirez on Castro’s Socialized Medicine

Cuba Watch: Fidel Castro - Decided to Avoid Colostomy?

Cuba Watch: Fidel Castro - Gravely Ill - Is He Done?

Cuba Watch: Cuba Awaits Verdict on Castro’s Health

Cuba Watch: Is Fidel Castro Dead?

Filmmaker Michael Moore marches with nurses from the California Nurses Association (CNA) to a special screening of his new documentary ‘SiCKO’ at the State Capitol in Sacramento June 12, 2007. Cuba’s Communist government joined the debate surrounding Moore’s documentary on Friday, saying the film will allow the world to get a glimpse of the humaneness of its health system.

Cuba says Moore’s “SiCKO” highlights its humanism

Cuba’s Communist government joined the debate surrounding Michael Moore’s new documentary “SiCKO” on Friday, saying the film will allow the world to get a glimpse of the humaneness of its health system.

The film, due to open in the United States on June 29, indicts the U.S. health-care system as putting the profits of insurance and pharmaceutical companies ahead of public health concerns.
To make his point, Moore traveled to Cuba in March with three volunteers who worked in the ruins of New York’s World Trade Center after the September 11 attacks. He said the three are now suffering health problems tied to that work and are struggling to get appropriate treatment in the United States.

In Cuba, the film says, they received exemplary treatment at virtually no cost.

Yeah, right.

Let’s examine the Cuban health care system:

Universal health care has long given the Cuban regime bragging rights, though there is growing concern about the future. In the decades that Cuba drew financial and military support from the Soviet Union, Mr. Castro poured resources into medical education, creating the largest medical school in Latin America and turning out thousands of doctors to practice around the world.

But that changed after the collapse of the Soviets, according to Cuban defectors like Dr. Leonel Cordova. By the time Dr. Cordova started practicing in 1992, equipment and drugs were already becoming scarce. He said he was assigned to a four-block neighborhood in Havana Province where he was supposed to care for about 600 people.

“But even if I diagnosed something simple like bronchitis,” he said, “I couldn’t write a prescription for antibiotics, because there were none.”

He defected in 2000 while on a medical mission in Zimbabwe and made his way to the United States. He is now an urgent-care physician at Baptist Hospital in Miami.

Having practiced medicine in both Cuba and the United States, Dr. Cordova has an unusual perspective for comparison.

“Actually there are three systems,” Dr. Cordova said, because Cuba has two: one is for party officials and foreigners like those Mr. Moore brought to Havana. “It is as good as this one here, with all the resources, the best doctors, the best medicines, and nobody pays a cent,” he said.

But for the 11 million ordinary Cubans, hospitals are often ill equipped and patients “have to bring their own food, soap, sheets — they have to bring everything.” And up to 20,000 Cuban doctors may be working in Venezuela, creating a shortage in Cuba.

A little different story, no?

Michael Moore is creating BUZZ for his movie that he hopes makes him a few more $ millions.

Does anyone REALLY think Moore gives a shit about the American health care system?

More on Cuba’s healthcare system here and here.

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Michael Ramirez on Michael Moore’s SICKO

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Cuba Watch: Fidel Castro - Decided to Avoid Colostomy?

Cuban leader Fidel Castro chose to avoid a colostomy and opted for riskier intestinal surgery that led to serious complications, the Spanish newspaper El Pais said in its Wednesday edition.

The shortcut involved sewing the colon to the rectum but did not heal properly and broke apart, releasing gastric fluid with feces that caused serious infection, El Pais said on its Web site.

The newspaper reported a day earlier that Castro’s prognosis was “very serious” and that he is being fed intravenously after three failed operations for diverticulitis, or pouch-like bulges in the large intestine that get infected.

El Pais cited medical sources at the same Madrid hospital where a surgeon who examined Castro in late December works.

And ask the Canadians who travel to the United States to see a doctor or get a test since their universal care (socialized) system imposes rationing of care.

NOTE WELL:

Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton support government run universal single payor health care.

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The Michael Rimerez Files

Readers: Please Vote in Flap’s January 2008 GOP Presidential Poll

Cuba’s President Fidel Castro is seen sitting in Havana October 28, 2006. Castro chose to avoid a colostomy and opted for riskier intestinal surgery that led to serious complications, the Spanish newspaper El Pais said in its Wednesday edition.

Reuters: Castro decided to avoid colostomy: newspaper

Cuban leader Fidel Castro chose to avoid a colostomy and opted for riskier intestinal surgery that led to serious complications, the Spanish newspaper El Pais said in its Wednesday edition.

The shortcut involved sewing the colon to the rectum but did not heal properly and broke apart, releasing gastric fluid with feces that caused serious infection, El Pais said on its Web site.

The newspaper reported a day earlier that Castro’s prognosis was “very serious” and that he is being fed intravenously after three failed operations for diverticulitis, or pouch-like bulges in the large intestine that get infected.

El Pais cited medical sources at the same Madrid hospital where a surgeon who examined Castro in late December works.

Spin Spin Spin………

Cuba government transition plans are in the works.

Ailing Cuban President Fidel Castro meeting with international leaders in recent months mainly from Latin America have raised speculations that he may moving towards a transition of power in a bid to protect his four-decade old government.

US National Intelligence Director John Negroponte while reviewing global threats last week said that Castro and his brother Raul, who has taken over as Cuba’s interim leader, are trying to create a “soft landing” leading to a transfer of power.

“From the point of the United States policy, we don’t want to see that happen,” Negroponte said. “We want to see the prospects for freedom in that country enhanced as a result of the transition” from Fidel Castro. Negroponte also said Castro’s days “seem to be numbered.”

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez and Cuba’s President Fidel Castro in a September 15, 2006 television grab. Castro’s recovery from surgery is slow and has risks, his close ally Chavez said on Tuesday, but he denied reports Castro’s condition was serious.

Castro is 80 years old. He is not coming back to the presidency.

PUT A FORK IN FIDEL - HE’S DONE!

Stay tuned…….

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Cuba Watch: Fidel Castro - Gravely Ill - Is He Done?

Cuba Watch: Cuba Awaits Verdict on Castro’s Health

Cuba Watch: Is Fidel Castro Dead?