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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?

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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

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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?

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

Cuban President Fidel Castro holds a Cuban flag at the beginning of his speech in this Saturday July 26, 2003 file photo in Santiago de Cuba, eastern Cuba. Castro is in ‘very grave’ condition after three failed operations and complications from an intestinal infection, a Spanish newspaper said Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2007.

AP: Castro reportedly in grave condition

Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro is in “very grave” condition after three failed operations and complications from an intestinal infection, a Spanish newspaper said Tuesday.

The newspaper El Pais cited two unnamed sources from the Gregorio Maranon hospital in the Spanish capital of Madrid. The facility employs surgeon Jose Luis Garcia Sabrido, who flew to Cuba in December to treat the 80-year-old Castro.
In a report published on its Web site, El Pais said: “A grave infection in the large intestine, at least three failed operations and various complications have left the Cuban dictator, Fidel Castro, laid up with a very grave prognosis.”

Flap thinks the 80 year old dictator is done…….

Stay tuned…….

A woman holding a sign in Spanish that translates to ‘Liberty for Cuba,’ joins revelers as they cruise the streets of Hialeah, Fla., in this Aug. 1, 2006, file photo, after hearing the news about Fidel Castro’s health.

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Cuba Watch: Cuba Awaits Verdict on Castro’s Health

Cuba Watch: Is Fidel Castro Dead?

U.S. peace activist Cindy Sheehan stands before a banner demanding the closure of the Guantanamo U.S. naval base in Havana January 9, 2007. Sheehan and a group of other peace activists plan to march to the gates of the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo, Cuba on January 11 to protest against abuses at the prison camp for terrorism suspects.

New York Sun: Sheehan Dismisses Appeal From Cuban Dissidents’ Wives

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan is ignoring an appeal by wives and mothers of imprisoned Cuban political dissidents for her to visit Cuban prisons during her trip this week to protest the treatment of suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay.

The Damas de Blanco, or Ladies in White, who march silently through the streets of Havana every Sunday in protest at the incarceration of political prisoners of the Castro regime, wrote a letter to Ms. Sheehan inviting her to visit Cuban prisons.

The Damas drew Ms. Sheehan’s attention to the poor state of Cuban prisons, which they say lack clean drinking water and adequate food and where their relatives are imprisoned solely for speaking out against Fidel Castro’s government.

The leader of Ms. Sheehan’s trip, Medea Benjamin, said the American activists had not seen the letter and that they would be focusing solely on Guantanamo.

Cindy Sheehan could care LESS about Cuban political prisoners and the squalor in which THEY live. Sheehan and Code Pinko cohort, Medea Benjamin rather focus on those poor Al Qaeda bastards, like Omar Deghayes in Guantanamo.

U.S. peace activist Cindy Sheehan (L) hugs Zohra Zewahi, mother of the Guantanamo detainee Omar Deghayes, during a news conference in Havana January 9, 2007.

“It just so happens that this is where the [ Guantanamo] prisoners are,” Ms. Benjamin said. That the group is visiting Cuba, where prisons define daily life for many, is “very incidental,” she added.

The Sheehan trip has angered some who believe she should also address Cuba’s imprisonment of political dissidents during her visit, not just those held in the American military prison.

“The fact that there’s so many Cubans in prison simply for expressing their political beliefs — nobody seems to pay attention to that,” the director of government relations at the anti-Castro Cuban-American National Foundation, Camila Ruiz Gallardo, said.

Cindy is running with the Socialist Worker/radical Islam crowd and would no more anger Fidel Castro’s government than kiss President Bush.

But, she would kiss Socialist Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

The Socialists Workers probably paid Sheehan’s expenses or did she use more of her son’s life insurance money?

Stay tuned…..

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Hot Air

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (L) greets U.S activist Cindy Sheehan as he arrives at the meeting with World Social Forum Organizations in Caracas, Venezuela January 27, 2006.
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