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During the campaign, I wrote a piece called "Why Won't Obama Talk About Columbia? — The years he won't discuss may explain the Ayers tie he keeps lying about." So now, nearly six months into the Obama presidency, the mainstream media has finally done a bit of the candidate background reporting it declined to do during the campaign — other than in Wasilla — and whaddya know?  The New York Times unearthed a 1983 article called, "Breaking the War Mentality," that Columbia student Barack Obama wrote for a campus newspaper. The article shows that Obama dreaded American "militarism" and its "military-industrial interests," while effusing enthusiasm...

Congratulations, Hondurans! Many of us wish we could have done what you are doing before the Marxist thugs working for Castro and Chavez enslaved our countries.

Dictators and demagogues can rest easy on President Obama's watch. When thousands of Iranians flooded the streets of Tehran protesting a rigged election and were beaten and shot down by pro-regime thugs, the president bided his time before making a series of noncommittal statements. He seemed to hope it would all just go away. However, when a socialist demagogue was ejected unceremoniously from Honduras on Sunday by his own government for trying to establish a presidency for life, Mr. Obama instantly sprang to his defense.

He joins Castro and Chavez in criticizing the overthrow of looming dictatorship in Honduras! Mata covered the Honduras story here. We had another dictator for life, in the mold of Castro and Venezuela's Chavez seeking to turn that small country into another tinpot dictatorship. The Army, the courts and the Congress acted and tossed the bum out. And yet, Obama, who refuses to meddle when people in Iran are dying in the streets is peddle to the meddle to join some of the worst violators of human rights in the Western hemisphere in condemning Honduras. The cartoon above says it...

It took Barack Obama 10 days to speak out clearly against the savage beatings and killings meted out by the Iranian regime on the streets of Tehran. It was just a matter of hours however before the Obama administration was loudly voicing its condemnation of the bloodless removal from power of populist dictator Manuel Zelaya in Honduras. President Obama joined the odious likes of Hugo Chavez, Daniel Orgtega and Fidel Castro in calling for Zelaya to be reinstated. Chavez, it should be noted, immediately threatened to invade Honduras, which was met by silence from the White House. Zelaya is no...

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NPR today announced the removal from office of President Zelaya of The Republic of Honduras. He was ousted by a vote of the congress of that country according to the rules set forth in their constitution for the removal of a President, somewhat similar to the impeachment process in the USA. Zelaya, with the support of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Lula, Morales of Bolivia, and other communist and extreme left-wing leaders, was seeking to hold a referendum to allow him to continue in power beyond constitutionally set term limits for the Presidency of The Republic of Honduras. Of late, President...

ON Sunday, the citizens of Honduras woke up with one president and went to bed with an other. Manuel Zelaya was forced out of the country -- replaced, with full backing from the Congress, the nation's courts, and its military with Interim President Robert Micheletti. Some have denounced this dramatic change as a "coup d'etat" and an assault on democracy. In truth, it was much more of a last-ditch effort to protect Honduras' constitutional order and rule of law from a reckless populist. Honduras and the United States have a long history of friendly relations. We signed a free-trade treaty...

President Obama on Monday called the coup that ousted Manuel Zelaya as president of Honduras "not legal" and joined with the voices of leaders across the Americas in demanding that democracy be respected. Mr. Zelaya was arrested Sunday morning and flown into exile in Costa Rica, but Mr. Obama said he "remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there." "It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition, rather than democratic elections," Mr. Obama said after meeting with Colombian President...

In condemning the removal of Honduran President Mel Zelayaya by the Honduran military, Pesident Obama stands shoulder to shoulder with the Fidel Castro and his thug epigones Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega. Zelaya sought to conduct an illegal referendum to extend his rule. The Honduran military has sought to enforce the rule of law by providing for Zelaya's departure from the scene. Mary Anastasia Grady explains: Yesterday the Central American country was being pressured to restore the authoritarian Mr. Zelaya by the likes of Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Hillary Clinton and, of course, Hugo himself. The Organization of American States,...

Out of all the things Obama denounces during his first 6 months in office is the overthrow of a puppet socialist leader who is attempting to extend his presidency beyond the term limits written in their constitution and claims the rule of law must prevail. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Chavez and Castro it's the new Moe, Larry and Curly show. A women is shot dead in the streets of Tehran and this president claims we dont need to meddle in the sovereignty of another nation and how patience needs to prevail in order to see how things play out....

Hugo Chávez's coalition-building efforts suffered a setback yesterday when the Honduran military sent its president packing for abusing the nation's constitution.

Iran's growing influence in Latin America is a "potential risk" to the region, the newly-appointed head of the US Southern Command, General Douglas Fraser has warned. Fraser, who on Thursday takes charge of US military operations in 31 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean, expressed "real concern" about the Islamic Republic's links with "extremist organizations" in the region. "The real concern is not a nation-to-nation interaction, it is the connection that Iran has with extremist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah and the potential risk that that could bring to this region," Fraser told journalists ahead of taking up the...

Forget the mission of Cuba to the OAS or the moves by the Obama Administration to have a constructive dialogue with Cuba. Let’s face it, change needs to come from the people on the island. To see that change, we need to focus on the grassroots. Like a breath of fresh air, things are shifting within Cuba. Non-violent civic movements are gaining attention and influence both on and off the island. Hope is being restored for the ever so desperate youth. With acclaim both on and off the island most people think of Yoani Sanchez as the guiding light for...

The man who duped Fidel Castro's son Antonio into thinking he was carrying on a six-month online virtual affair with a Colombian beauty told ABC News the young Castro bragged about his life of international travel, easy access to money and hob-nobbing with world leaders and celebrities. Luis Dominguez, a 46-year-old Cuban activist from Miami, said that posing as "Claudia Valencia," a 20-something brunette beauty from Cartagena, Colombia, he engaged in an online flirtation with Antonio "Tony" Castro Soto del Valle. "Claudia" and Castro exchanged e-mails, Internet chats, and at one point even used streaming live Web video to communicate.

One of Fidel Castro's sons carried on an eight-month flirtation over the Internet with a person he believed was a Colombian woman. Surprise! The woman was actually a Miami man. The trickster said the prank, broadcast on a Miami TV station, showed it's possible to get around Cuba's security. ''Guess where I am and I will make love to you without stopping,'' Antonio Castro Soto del Valle, Fidel's son and physician for the Cuban national baseball team, reportedly wrote ''Claudia'' during a January trip to Russia with his uncle Raúl. But ''Claudia'' turned out to be Luis Domínguez, a Cuban-born...

A Cuban exile blogger from Miami says he used a female internet alter ego to gain access to a member of the usually impervious family of Fidel Castro. Luis Dominguez said he used the character to begin an online relationship with 40-year-old Antonio, the son of ex-leader Mr Castro. He refused to apologise for the deception, saying he wanted to show the "opulent lifestyles" of the Castros. Many internet users have engaged in a series of flirtatious chats only to find the person they have met online is not who they say they are.

Kendall Myers, 72, who appeared in federal court in Washington on Wednesday charged with spying for Havana for nearly 30 years, had a fascination with Northern Ireland. The Daily Telegraph has established that as well as seeking the envoy's post, which carried the rank of ambassador, Mr Myers travelled to the British Isles and met British and Irish officials, senior Northern Ireland politicians and intelligence officers. .... "Anything this guy could have found from his European responsibilities he might have funnelled to the Cubans for them to sell off," said John Bolton, a former top State Department official in the...

Note: The following text is a quote: Former State Department Official and Wife Arrested for Serving as Illegal Agents of Cuba for Nearly 30 Years Couple Allegedly Conspired to Provide Classified Information to Cuban Government A former State Department official and his wife have been arrested on charges of serving as illegal agents of the Cuban government for nearly 30 years and conspiring to provide classified U.S. information to the Cuban government. The arrests were announced today by David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Channing D. Phillips, Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; Joseph Persichini, Jr.,...

One of Fidel Castro's sons carried on an eight-month flirtation over the Internet with a person he believed was a Colombian woman. Surprise! The woman was actually a Miami man. The trickster said the prank, broadcast on a Miami TV station, showed it's possible to get around Cuba's security. ''Guess where I am and I will make love to you without stopping,'' Antonio Castro Soto del Valle, Fidel's son and physician for the Cuban national baseball team, reportedly wrote ''Claudia'' during a January trip to Russia with his uncle Raúl. But ''Claudia'' turned out to be Luis Domínguez, a Cuban-born...

National Security: Amid all the neighborly talk about new U.S. efforts to engage Cuba, the arrest of a State Department official as a Cuban spy ought to be a wake-up call about the intentions of the Castro dictatorship.Last Friday, federal agents arrested Walter Kendall Myers, 72, and his wife Gwendolyn, 71, as unregistered Cuban agents. The Feds said the pair had been spying for Cuba since 1979 and, like other agents in service to the Castro regime, didn't do it for money, but out of sympathy for communism and a loathing of the United States. For that, they stole not...

He was a courtly State Department intelligence analyst from a prominent family who loved to sail and peruse the London Review of Books. Occasionally, he would voice frustration with U.S. policies, but to his liberal neighbors in Northwest D.C. it was nothing out of the ordinary. "We were all appalled by the Bush years," one said. What Walter Kendall Myers kept hidden, according to documents unsealed in court Friday, was a deep and long-standing anger toward his country, an anger that allegedly made him willing to spy for Cuba for three decades. "I have become so bitter these past few...

He was a courtly State Department intelligence analyst from a prominent family who loved to sail and peruse the London Review of Books. Occasionally, he would voice frustration with U.S. policies, but to his liberal neighbors in Northwest D.C. it was nothing out of the ordinary. "We were all appalled by the Bush years," one said.

Fidel Castro called the case of two Americans accused of spying for Cuba "strange" Saturday and questioned whether the timing of their arrests was politically motivated. In an essay read by a newscaster on state television, the former Cuban leader noted that the retired Washington couple were taken into custody just 24 hours after the Organization of American States voted to lift a decades-old suspension of Cuba's membership in that group. Though the U.S. ultimately supported the OAS vote Wednesday, the administration of President Barack Obama initially wanted to see more democratic reforms on the communist island before Cuba was...

Hunting spies is difficult, but Cuban spies are notoriously hard to detect, former senior intelligence officials said a day after an American husband and wife were indicted on charges of spying for Cuba. Walter Kendall Myers and his wife Gwendolyn of Washington were arrested Thursday after a three-year investigation that began before Myers' retirement from the State Department in 2007. They had been spying for Havana for 30 years, according to the U.S. government. Investigations like this typically take years to come together because they usually turn on small pieces of information, and Cuban spies often leave few traces. Cuban...

When I heard this on the radio on the drive home the first thing I thought was, I’ll bet they’re democrats (socialist) and huge Obama supporters. Walter Kendall Myers, 72, aided by his wife Gwendolyn Myers, 71, used his Top Secret security clearance to pass on classified information to the Cuban government and at one point met with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, according to court documents. The two were charged with conspiracy to act as illegal agents of the Cuban government and to communicate classified information to Cuba, the Justice Department said. They were also charged with wire fraud and...

Federal officials say a Washington, D.C.-area couple has been arrested and accused of spying for Cuba. Officials say both are former U.S. government employees -- he from the State Department, she as a Congressional aide. One official says the spying went on for more than two decades. We expect to learn more details later today when a federal indictment is unsealed. For now, officials will not disclose the names or any other details....

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday that he and Cuban ally Fidel Castro risk being more conservative than U.S. President Barack Obama as Washington prepares to take control of General Motors Corp. During one of Chavez's customary lectures on the "curse" of capitalism and the bonanzas of socialism, the Venezuelan leader made reference to GM's bankruptcy filing, which is expected to give the U.S. government a 60 percent stake in the 100-year-old former symbol of American might. "Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama! Fidel, careful or we...

The U.S. government is fighting an effort to allow Cuba to return to the Organization of American States after a 47-year suspension. But the resistance is putting it at odds with much of Latin America as the Obama administration is trying to improve relations in the hemisphere. Eliminating the Cold War-era ban would be largely symbolic, because Cuba has shown no sign of wanting to return to the OAS, the main forum for political cooperation in the hemisphere. But the debate shows how central the topic has become in U.S. relations with an increasingly assertive Latin America. The wrangling over...

MOSCOW, May 27 (RIA Novosti) - Russia and Cuba have agreed to renew their cooperation in nuclear research with Cuba's Nuclear Energy Agency, head of Rosatom Sergei Kiriyenko said on Wednesday. The announcement came during an awards ceremony in Moscow where Cuban scientific aide Fidel Angel Castro Diaz-Balart, Fidel Castro's son, received the Russian Kurchatov Award for his work in the nuclear sphere. "On behalf of the entire nuclear division, I present the highest award...the Kurchatov Award, to Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart. Today, we will renew our cooperation at [Cuba's] nuclear research center that will allow us to develop a number...

Former Cuban president Fidel Castro is criticizing ex-U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney for defending American interrogation methods against terror suspects. Castro says torture should never be used to extract information. Castro says that the U.S. itself engaged in acts of terrorism against Cuba after the 1959 revolution he led.

“Fidel Castro is a genius!” gushed Jack Nicholson after a visit with the Cuban Fuhrer in 1998. “We spoke about everything,” the actor rhapsodized further. “Castro is a humanist like President Clinton. Cuba is simply a paradise!”Jack Nicholson has been saying such things for years now. Many of his Hollywood cohorts follow suit. Francis Ford Coppola, Kevin Costner, Steven Spielberg, Woody Harrelson, Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Leo DiCaprio, Chevy Chase and Robert Redford, among many others, have all waxed euphoric on Castro and his island prison. While holding up the book “Fidel: Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant” on his TV show, Bill...

In April, seven members of the Congressional Black Caucus returned from a Cuban junket giddy over the private audience they had with ailing Communist dictator, Fidel Castro. A mesmerized Congressman Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) said “I think what really surprised me, but also endeared me to [Castro] was his keen sense of humor, his sense of history, his basic human qualities.” Picture it – Castro cracking humane jokes and charming the visitors – the same Castro who over fifty years sent many Catholics, Protestants, and non-believers who did not agree with him to political prisons, quite a few of whom never...

President Raul Castro's daughter led hundreds of Cuban gays in a street dance Saturday to draw attention to gay rights on the island. Participants formed a carnival-style conga line around two city blocks to beat the of drums, accompanied by costumed stilt-walkers. Events also included educational panels and presentations for books, magazines and CDs about gay rights and sexual diversity.

Under Castro, Fernandez said, “we became a militarized country.” Stores closed down, private property was confiscated, farms were taken over by the state, and people were jailed and killed for being accused of being political opponents. Travel restrictions were tightened, churches closed, and the press was censored heavily. “Fear embraced the population and the country and took hold there,” she said. Fernandez said she remembers many people fleeing Cuba during Castro’s regime. Many families were split up because of Operation Peter Pan, an effort led by the United States that sent thousands of children from Cuba to the United States....

This article examines the continuing assault on human liberty that occurs in the Cuban Communist regime. Little has changed since the Communists came to power 50 years ago, and the latest example is a blogger who was denied Internet access by the government.

How horrible, fantastic it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing." - British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, 1938 What on Earth is going on over in Pakistan? And what does it have to do with life in America ... The Munich Crisis of 1938 provides that case in point where the problems of a quarrel in a far away place can come home to every one of us. Ask any veteran of World War II if they thought they had...

HAVANA (AFP) — Fidel Castro blasted US President Barack Obama Friday in provocative May Day remarks, saying the United States only wanted Cuba to return "to the fold, like slaves." Castro, 82, who led Cuba for almost 50 years and remains head of the Cuban Communist Party, was not in outreach mode, though Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro, 77, have willingness to ease Cold War-era tensions. "Today, they stand ready to forgive us -- as if we would resign ourselves to returning to the fold like slaves, who after tasting freedom, go back to the yoke and whip," Fidel...

Photos of Fidel Castro meeting with a United States congressional delegation last month show the former Cuban president wearing lapel flag pins from both Cuba and the United States. That surprising image signals a thaw in U.S.-Cuban relations after limits on family visits imposed by the Bush administration were dropped by President Obama April 13 .

At LAST! Castro's commie linux variant "Nova" has been removed from the computers at "Geeks On Caffeine!" But at what cost? NOTE: The author of this comic requests that you visit his web site and please refrain from copying the cartoon within this thread. Thanks!

A senior US diplomat on Monday held talks with Cuba's representative in Washington, quickening the pace of dialogue as President Barack Obama moves to repair ties with the communist island. Tom Shannon, the assistant secretary of state for the Western hemisphere, met Jorge Bolanos, the head of the Cuban interest section, in Washington. It is the second time they have met since Mr Obama began softening Washington's tone towards Cuba, in a reversal of George Bush's policy. The president recently announced that he would allow Cuban Americans to travel to Cuba more often and lift restrictions on how much money...

"This is the beginning of a new day! In my household [Fidel] is known as the ultimate survivor." Fidel himself, in a letter in the state-run Granma newspaper, saluted "this legislative group. The aura of Martin Luther King is accompanying them." To others of us who honor King, there is a barely surviving black Cuban disciple of King (and Mohandas Gandhi) whom the caucus visitors did not meet because he has been in a Castro brothers' cage for many years and was off-limits to them. He is Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, and he is among those designated by Amnesty International...

U.S. Plans Informal Meetings With Cuba By GINGER THOMPSON WASHINGTON — Seizing the momentum from recent meetings with Latin American leaders, the Obama administration is quietly pushing forward with efforts to reopen channels of communication with Cuba, according to White House and State Department officials. The officials said informal meetings were being planned between the State Department and Cuban diplomats in the United States to determine whether the two governments could open formal talks on a variety of issues, including migration, drug trafficking and other regional security matters. And the administration is also looking for ways to open channels for...

So what did President Obama get in return for the most sweeping shift in US policy toward Cuba in nearly half a century? A public kick in the pants from Fidel Castro. The ailing despot left no doubt about who runs things in Havana -- and it isn't his brother, Raul, Cuba's president. After Raul declared he was "willing" to discuss issues like human rights and political prisoners with Obama, Fidel responded with an essay on a state-controlled Web site that said, essentially, not so fast. And, he predicted, Obama will wind up on the "path [to] sure failure, like...

We, the Heads of State and Government of Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela, member countries of ALBA, consider that the Draft Declaration of the 5th Summit of the Americas is insufficient and unacceptable for the following reasons: - The Declaration does not provide answers to the Global Economic Crisis, even though this crisis constitutes the greatest challenge faced by humanity in the last decades and is the most serious threat of the current times to the welfare of our peoples. - The Declaration unfairly excludes Cuba, without mentioning the consensus in the region condemning the blockade and isolation...

... At the same time, anti-American leaders in Latin America have come to power and are aligning themselves with countries like China, Russia and Iran in a bid to counter U.S. power. As President Obama shakes hands with the rabidly anti-American president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, he must be careful that his moves are not interpreted as appeasement, and therefore an encouragement of those constructing this powerful bloc to counter U.S. power. Venezuela, the fourth biggest exporter of oil to the U.S., is becoming more and more of an important supplier for China. In January 2008, the Chinese chose Venezuela...

As a precondition for any discussions with Cuba, Obama must demand the extradition to America of fugitives receiving safe haven in Cuba, including Armed Forces for National Liberation bombmaker William Morales, Wells Fargo armored-car robber Victor Manuel Gerena and the killer of a New Jersey state trooper, Joanne Chesimard. These violent fugitives have all been provided safe haven in Cuba since the 1980s Americans must be aware of what is at stake here. We can't allow Obama to repeat his recent European tour, when he weakened our country's prestige and received nothing in return. Although I strongly disagree with fostering...

Havana--- Fidel Castro said Tuesday that pres. obama " misinterpreted " his brother Raul's sentiments towards the United States and bristled at any suggestion Cuba shouls free poltical prisoners or reduce fees on money sent to the island fron the United States

By reaching out to Cuban dictator Raul Castro (verbally) and Venezuelan firebrand Hugo Chavez (literally, as he sought him sought across the room to shake hands), Barack Obama has made clear that he intends to pursue a less confrontational approach with America's traditional foes. Hillary Clinton has just welcomed Mutassim Billah Gaddafi, Libyan national security advisor and son of long-time leader Moammar Gaddafi, to the State Department - in an encouter most notable for the visitor's shiny brown chocolate-coloured suit, as the gossip website jezebel records. Even among supporters of a more conciliatory foreign policy, such as Eugene Robinson in...

Fidel Castro says President Barack Obama "misinterpreted" his brother Raul's remarks regarding the United States and bristled at the suggestion that Cuba should free political prisoners or cut taxes on remittances from abroad as a goodwill gesture to the U.S. Raul Castro touched off a whirlwind of speculation last week that the U.S. and Cuba could be headed toward a thaw in nearly a half-century of chilly relations. The speculation began when the Cuban president said leaders would be willing to sit down with their U.S. counterparts and discuss "everything," including human rights, freedom of the press and expression, and...