posted August 03, 2006 08:39 PM            

"We will support you in your effort to build a transitional government in Cuba committed to democracy, and we will take note of those, in the current Cuban regime, who obstruct your desire for a free Cuba," Bush said in statement issued by the White House.

His secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said on CNN's "Larry King Live" that a transition in one way or another "appears to be under way" in Cuba.

Bush, who left Washington Thursday for his ranch in Texas, said the United States was actively monitoring the situation in Cuba.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro on Monday transferred temporary control of the country to his brother, Raul, while he had surgery for intestinal bleeding. Neither man has been seen in public since the announcement, though a statement said Fidel Castro was in good spirits and beginning his recovery.

"At this time of uncertainty in Cuba, one thing is clear: The United States is absolutely committed to supporting the Cuban people's aspirations for democracy and freedom," Bush said. He added that he hoped all democratic nations would unite to support the right of the Cuban people to define a future for their country.

In the event of a change in the Cuban government, Bush said the United States would provide humanitarian assistance as needed.

"It has long been the hope of the United States to have a free, independent and democratic Cuba as a close friend and neighbor," Bush said. "In achieving this, the Cuban people can count on the full and unconditional support of the United States."

Rice said the U.S. goal is a new Cuba in which the people are able to choose the people who govern them. CNN provided text of the interview prior to its broadcast Thursday night.

"The time will come when there is going to be a free Cuba," Rice said. "The time will come when we are no longer talking about the only state in the entire Western Hemisphere in which you don't have an elected leader."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060803/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_cuba;_ylt=AlfpoJI_8gSDdso47Nhde39I2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

posted August 03, 2006 08:48 PM              

quote:

---

"The time will come when there is going to be a free Cuba," Rice said. "The time will come when we are no longer talking about the only state in the entire Western Hemisphere in which you don't have an elected leader."

---

like george bush? WHO thinks we actually vote for the a-holes in office anymore? voting is a joke, we dont even elect our presidents anymore...

------------------
"WHATEVER the soul longs for, WILL be attained by the spirit"

"Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation"

posted August 03, 2006 10:39 PM              

He's a modern a day conquistador.

A bad one.

posted August 03, 2006 11:14 PM              

quote:

---

The time will come when we are no longer talking
about the only state in the entire Western Hemisphere in which
you don't have an elected leader."

---

I thought that statement was pretty
funny too...

.....like WE, the United States of America,
have an elected leader, right?

posted August 03, 2006 11:39 PM            

quote:

---

.....like WE, the United States of America,
have an elected leader, right?..Rainbow

---

Nothing can penetrate that leftist fog..can it Rainbow.

I've posted the entire Supreme Court decision in Bush v Gore for you and others and you still don't get it.

I've posted the results of a consortium of newspapers who came to Florida to go through and recount the votes. They spent a lot of time and money attempting to prove Gore won the 2000 election because that was the outcome they wanted. In the end, they had to admit in print that Bush won Florida and the 2000 Presidential election.

You really are disconnected from reality Rainbow.

I've posted the results of complaints filed with the Federal Election Commission where leftists claimed minorities were mistreated and prevented from voting in Florida. At the hearings, not one person came forward to back up that compliant. It was all for show...but there was no go when the chips were down.

You're only making yourself look foolish with your endless allegations Rainbow.

posted August 03, 2006 11:55 PM            

Yeah, the Cuban people just love Castro...or else they get shot or imprisoned. The Cuban people in Florida would have hung Castro long ago if they could have gotten to him.

And who do we find swooning over this goon? Why it's the swooning over every communist dictator leftists...those of the brain dead set...the useful idiots...the Jimmy Carters, Ted Turners, the leftist press and the brain dead Hollywood morons.

Eleanore, I hope the people of Cuba will soon be free and able to form the government of their choice.

Most people don't know this but before Castro...during the bad old Batista days, Cuba had a higher income per capita than any country in south or central America. Had a higher per capita income than all but a couple of European nations. Castro destroyed all that as communists always do.

posted August 04, 2006 12:22 AM            

I worry about the Cubans there now ... many having grown up knowing nothing but communism. But I, for one, am thankful that the Cuban people have the US on their side. Or, at least, they have the support of our government and of many people here who believe in real freedom.

posted August 04, 2006 01:02 AM              

quote:

---

You're only making yourself look foolish with your endless allegations Rainbow.

---

VINCENT BUGLIOSI is the former Los Angeles deputy D.A. who successfully
prosecuted Charles Manson.

His book HELTER SKELTER became a true-crime best seller as was OUTRAGE,
his book on the O.J. Simpson trial.

He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

He has some credentials....

+++++++++++++++

I have a book he wrote, THE BETRAYAL OF AMERICA, which I haven't read yet,
but have taken a look at, and from what I've seen he just out and out tells of how
the election was STOLEN...*sigh*

here are a couple comments on the book....

quote:

---

"It is a pathetic spectacle that Bugliosi beckons us to behold - the high,
hallowed court and its revered majority sold out to power." - GERRY SPENCE

---

quote:

---

"....I am not a lawyer, but I do know that when Bugliosi quotes a Yale law
professor as saying the day of the Bush v. Gore decision was 'like the day of
the Kennedy assassination' for him and many of his colleagues, this
is not an exaggeration." - MOLLY IVINS

---

The following can be found on the back cover of the book....

quote:

---

In the December 12, 2000 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court handing the election to
George W. Bush, the court committed the unpardonable sin of being a knowing surrogate
for the Republican Party instead of being an impartial arbiter of the law.

The Court majority, after knowingly transforming the votes of 50 million Americans into
nothing, and throwing out all of the Florida undervotes, actually wrote that their ruling
was intended to preserve "the fundamental right" to vote.

That an election can be stolen by the highest court in the land under the deliberate
pretext of an inapplicable constitutional provision, has got to be one of the most
frightening and dangerous events ever to have occurred in this country.

With his powerful, brilliant, and courageous expose of crime by the highest court
in the land, Vincent Bugliosi takes his place in the pentheon of patriots who have stood
up and spoken out against injustice.

When an article he wrote on Bush v Gore appeared in The Nation magazine in
February 2001, it drew the largest outpouring of letters and emails in the magazine's
136 history, tapping a deep reservoir of outrage.

Bugliosi's argument is here greatly expanded, amended, and amplified.

---

It would seem to me that I am NOT the only one who thinks the electionwas STOLEN!

posted August 04, 2006 01:31 AM            

As for the OJ Book, so what? So he wrote a book, so what? The District Attorney's Office bungled that case from the beginning and made the unpardonable mistake of setting in motion an event which they didn't know what was going to happen in advance. When the brain dead moron prosecutor asked OJ to put that black blood stained glove on...in full view of millions of TV viewers and the jury...without knowing if it would fit, he screwed the pooch. No one will ever forget that moment when OJ Simpson struggled to pull that glove on and couldn't get it past the heel of his hand...it didn't fit not by a long sight and was a primary piece of evidence in the prosecution's case...having been found at the scene of the murder.

All that aside, I don't give a flying flip what Bugliosi thinks about the Bush v Gore decision. I posted their decision..and their reasoning...and their reasoning was correct.

Different voting districts and different precincts within voting districts were using different methods of determining what constituted a vote for Bush or Gore or no vote at all. That was intolerable and the Supreme Court REMANDED...SENT THE CASE BACK TO THE FLORIDA SUPREME COURT to formulate a uniform method of determining what constituted a vote in the recount. Gore threw in the sponge at that point...I mean, Gore withdrew his challenge.

posted August 04, 2006 08:18 AM              

Such a great man..the chinease president.

posted August 04, 2006 12:28 PM            

HAVANA - Cuba's communist government said it would defend itself against any U.S. attempt to take advantage of Fidel Castro's health crisis as some exiles urged Washington to go further in fostering a democratic transition on the island.

"The people know they have a resource, a weapon, a place to defend the revolution if necessary," Rogelio Polanco, editor of the Communist youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde, said on state television Thursday evening.

"Once again, they shouldn't make a mistake, not to fantasize ... thinking their desires are reality," Polanco said in a public affairs program discussing how exiles celebrated Castro's recent surgery for intestinal bleeding. "They should not mess up and commit the greatest error of all time."

Cuban exiles, meanwhile, welcomed President Bush's rallying of people on the island to push for democracy, but some wanted more.

William Sanchez, an attorney for the Cuban American National Foundation, urged the president to push for an elections timetable and allow Cuban-Americans go to the island by boat to help with a political transition. U.S. policy halts such "flotillas" before they enter Cuban waters.

But there was no sense on the island that anything was going to change.

"The revolution will continue" was the mantra chanted in state media Thursday, three days after Castro temporarily ceded power to his younger brother Raul while recovering from surgery.

The acting president was still nowhere to be seen. Nor was the elder Castro, who turns 80 on Aug. 13. Yet the state news media lined up Cubans to express confidence both in Fidel Castro's ability to recover quickly and in Raul Castro's competence to govern in the meantime.

"Every Cuban trusts Raul, and every one of our leaders," an unnamed woman said on state television's midday broadcast. "We are certain that the revolution will continue."

A U.S. official, however, said Cubans in contact with the American mission in Havana expressed fear and unease as they awaited new developments.

"We are seeing among the Cuban people a real sense that Fidel is never coming back to power — there seems to be a growing consensus in that direction," said Drew Blakeney, U.S. Interests Section spokesman.

There were no new details on the status of Castro's health, or news about where he was convalescing.

Juanita Castro, who lives in Miami and has been estranged from her brother Fidel since 1963, said people in Havana had told her Fidel was released from intensive care Wednesday, but she knew nothing more. "He's very sick, that's it," she said.

Many on the island suspected Fidel Castro was still running the show, an impression supported by the younger Castro's avoidance of the spotlight.

"Initially, I don't think Raul Castro is going to make any decisions on his own without the authorization of his brother," said Eloy Gutierrez-Menoyo, a former exile now living in Cuba as a moderate dissident.

___

Associated Press Writer Andrea Rodriguez in Havana contributed to this report.

******

(Bold is mine.)

posted August 05, 2006 03:01 PM            

Here's Castro, a hard line communist. A communist who imprisons or simply shoots dissenters. A communist who has destroyed the once thriving economy of Cuba but leftists adore Castro.

It doesn't follow however that leftists actually want to live in Castro's communist gulag. One wonders why not. Why not go live in the country whose maximum leader they adore...and suck up to at every opportunity?

August 04, 2006, 0:39 a.m.

Romancing the “Totalitarian Temptation”
The Left’s strange love affair with Uncle Fidel.

By Rich Lowry

Sometime in the 1950s, Fidel Castro earned a free pass from moral responsibility that endures to this day. Decades ago, he cut a romantic figure as an embattled revolutionary in the Cuban mountains, and that has been enough to keep him forever in the esteem of a slice of Hollywood celebrities, Democratic congressmen and the American left.

As Castro’s health fails — creating hopes that it is at least the beginning of the end of his rule — the world contemplates the exit of a man who has proven that it is possible to run a country like a military camp and still be beloved by self-styled liberals and progressives. The same people who decry a budding tyranny in the U.S. because the government now enjoys enhanced surveillance powers against terrorism suspects, celebrate and yuk it up with a ruler who jails anyone who disagrees with him.

Castro has long lived off his cachet as a revolutionary guerrilla. For much of the Left, revolution has become less an idea than an image and a brand — a pistol, fatigues, facial hair, and anti-imperialist rhetoric are the accoutrements of left-wing heroism. This has assured Che Guevara his iconic status, never mind the totalitarian content of his thought or the viciousness of his actions. Castro has tapped into the same brand. He doesn’t have Che’s allure of having died young, but longevity has had its own benefits.

Castro is the last revolutionary still standing. And his was a real revolution. Venezuela’s left-wing strongman Hugo Chavez pales in comparison. He offers only populist economics and an obnoxious travel itinerary. Castro delivered the real thing: the expropriation of all foreign property; an assault on private real estate; the exiling of the Cuban middle class; the militarization of society.

His revolution had the advantage of not being quite as embarrassing as the others. Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot all became indefensible even for the most credulous. ***(I disagree. We have members right here at this site who advocated for...and for all I know did sign a petition by Ramsey Clark...a Stalinist communist...ANSWER...a communist front organization for the Workers World Party...a Stalinist group) At least the transgressions of Castro’s rule can almost be papered over with lies and wishful thinking.

It only adds to his prestige that he has managed it while defying the United States. Part of the American Left is in love with the idea of American weakness, that we are a clumsy colossus whose actions always fail. And there is Castro — survivor of the Bay of Pigs and countless assassination attempts — a living exemplar of American ineffectualness. With a whiff of admiration, news accounts say that he has outlasted eight American presidents — who had the inconvenience, of course, of dealing with free elections.

The common defenses of Castro’s regime, that he has dramatically improved health care and literacy, are propaganda. Cuba already excelled in these areas prior to the revolution in 1959, and since then, all Latin American countries have been gaining, thanks to the diffusion of technology. It is obviously a canard that the way forward for developing nations is dictator-led command economies. Cuba’s economy has been limping ever since Castro took power, and now the country is a 1950s relic that can’t feed itself.

Ultimately, what probably attracts leftists to Castro is sheer power. He represents what the late writer John François-Revel called “the totalitarian temptation” — in this case, socialism with the ability to tell anyone who disagrees to “shut up.” Why else wouldn’t they instead celebrate all the former communists who have become Cuban dissidents? Or a jailed dissenter like Oscar Biscet who takes Martin Luther King Jr. as a model? Or all those men and women who risked so much to flee Cuba and live on the hope of a new birth of freedom in their native land?

posted August 05, 2006 03:28 PM              

The man knows fluent English and went to college in the United States. (His big bad enemy)

*Rolls eyes

posted August 05, 2006 04:46 PM            

Enjoy your delusions. If the people of Cuba could have overthrown Castro, he would have wound up in front of one of the firing squads he's so partial to.

posted August 07, 2006 01:11 AM              

Glover, Medina, and their schoolmates have gotten into and mastered strong academic programs despite their disadvantaged backgrounds. However, half of all applicants to U.S. medical schools are rejected. By the unforgiving standards of the application process, a C in a science class or a so-so MCAT score dooms an applicant. Castro has removed the financial barriers and bet on motivation to overcome any educational liabilities that students bring with them to ELAM.

Which brings us back to Castro's gambit. Why is he reaching out to U.S. students? What an irony that poor Cuba is training doctors for rich America, engaging in affirmative action on our behalf, and - while blockaded by U.S. ships and sanctions - spending its meager treasure to improve the health of U.S. citizens. Whether one considers this a cunning move by one of history's great chess players or an extraordinary gesture of civic generosity - or a bit of both - it should encourage us to reexamine our stalled efforts to achieve greater racial and ethnic parity in American medicine. If Castro can find diamonds in our rough, we can too.

Free Medical Education! - In Cuba?
http://www.redandgreen.org/Information/cuba_medical.htm

posted August 07, 2006 01:33 AM            

You might also ponder why Canadians choose to come to the United States....as opposed to the socialized medical practices of Canada...or Cuba...when they have a medical problem which must be dealt with competently and immediately to save their lives.

Hello, is there any intelligent life out there?