Free Republic

Al Jazeera Enraged by Cuban-American Voters Thursday, March 13, 2008 By: Humberto Fontova Al Jazeera, eager for greater international coverage and cachet, recently launched an International Division. To get things off right they recruited heavily from CNN and The BBC. CNN's former Havana Bureau chief Lucia Newman is noteworthy among these job-jumpers. "In Cuba we will be given total freedom to do what we want and to work without any censorship," she stressed upon accepting the CNN assignment in 1997. Among her "scoops" from Havana: "No dubious campaign spending here. No mud slinging — a system President Castro boasts is...

Che Guevara Connection in Obama Camp Tuesday, March 4, 2008 8:01 AM By: Humberto Fontova Those Che Guevara posters recently spotted in Obama's Houston campaign offices were not hung by a young volunteer who dug the cool looking dude's awesome guitar licks for the Smashing Pumpkins, nor by an older one who thought she remembered the groovy guy with the beret "hangin" with Wavy Gravy at Woodstock. The campaign volunteer who hung the Che poster is named Maria Isabel and according to the Lone Star Times, she hung similar banners from her balcony at home. Apparently she's no "low-level" volunteer...

Obama Workers Sporting Che Guevara Images Thursday, February 14, 2008 8:35 AM By: Humberto Fontova During recent interviews of Obama campaign workers on Houston's Fox TV station, the offices of two Texas Obama campaign volunteers (including a precinct captain and head of the "Houston Obama Leadership Team") were found prominently decorated with Che Guevara images, against the backdrop of Cuban flags. The MSM kept mum, but the conservative blogoshere spread the story. Intrepid blogger Henry Gomez (Babalu Blog), uncovered 15 different pages of Che Guevara well-wishers on the official Obama campaign site. Two days after the Fox TV airing the...

Castro Cows ABC By Humberto Fontova FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, October 24, 2007 Exactly a half century ago both The New York Times and CBS--between hailing him as a 'humanist" "a Christian" a "Robin Hood" and an "anti-communist"--reported that the Cuban rebel chieftain Fidel Castro commanded "hundreds" of guerrillas in a "war" against Cuban dictator Batista. On clandestine trips to the war zone in Cuba's Sierra Maestra mountains reporters for the two most prestigious media outlets in America had seen these hundreds of rebels first hand. Two years later Castro himself cackled while recounting how he'd ordered his eighteen "rebels" to...

Fox News Airs Real Cuban Healthcare Video Friday, October 19, 2007 10:14 AM By: Humberto Fontova Exactly a half century ago both The New York Times and CBS — between hailing him as a 'humanist" "a Christian" a "Robin Hood" and an "anti-communist" — reported that the Cuban rebel chieftain Fidel Castro commanded "hundreds" of guerrillas in a "war" against Cuban dictator Batista. On clandestine trips to the war zone in Cuba's Sierra Maestra mountains, reporters for the two most prestigious media outlets in America had seen these hundreds of rebels first hand. Two years later Castro himself cackled while...

Che Guevara RIP By Humberto Fontova FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, October 15, 2007 October 9, 2007, marked the 40th anniversary of Che Guevara's death. The predictable outlets are gushing forth with the predictable tributes. From Reuters to the AP and from the Los Angeles Times to MSNBC, you will search these "news stories" in vain for any mention of the fully documented details of Che's capture and death. The sources for these "gallant crusaders for the truth" (as Columbia School of Journalism heralds its graduates) were--as usual--the propaganda ministers of a Stalinist regime. "Don't Shoot! I'm Che! I'm worth to you...

History Channel Shills For Che Guevara Monday, September 24, 2007 By: Humberto Fontova The A&E Network recently produced a Biography show on Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Years back they produced one on Sen. "Tail-Gunner Joe" McCarthy. The depictions contrast sharply. The second mentioned of these historical figures was a freely-elected official who campaigned to remove Stalinist agents that had infiltrated the government of a representative republic. Joe McCarthy launched his congressional inquiry into Communist penetration of the U.S. government at a time when Stalin's regime had already murdered more people, conquered more nations, and enslaved more of their citizens than Hitler's...

Cuba: Castro Saved President Reagan Friday, September 14, 2007 By: Humberto Fontova The latest essay from Fidel Castro's ghostwriters (referred to as "Fidel Castro" by news agencies that have earned Havana bureaus) claims the Cuban Maximum leader saved President Ronald Reagan's life in 1984. "Right-wing terrorists" (the same bunch, you may recall, that the same source blames for JFK's assassination) were plotting the murder of President Reagan during a campaign visit to Charlotte North Carolina. Luckily, Cuban security officials working at the U.N. penetrated to the very heart of the plot. "The information was complete," claims the "Fidel Castro" essay,...

Castro's End Draws Near Humberto Fontova Thursday, Aug. 16, 2007 Fidel Castro's 81st birthday passed on Aug. 13 without an appearance by the dictator, not even a snapshot or salutation from him in the official press, and with little fanfare from the regime. A small fireworks show on Havana's waterfront, El Malecon, was the highlight. "The Comandante will never appear again in public," said a Cuban student to Yolanda Martinez, Cuban correspondent for Mexico's newspaper, Reforma. "He has been an imposing figure, but his role at Cuba's head is over." The regime's succession plans seem to be operating smoothly. This...

Sicko Propaganda Humberto Fontova Monday, July 23, 2007 "We cannot, for a second, abandon propaganda" wrote Castro in a letter to a revolutionary colleague in 1954. "Propaganda is vital — propaganda is the heart of all struggles." Michael Moore claims that Cuba's Stalinist regime played it as straight with him during the filming of Sicko as he plays it with its viewers. "I asked them to give us [the 9/11 workers featured in the documentary] the same care they give their own Cuban citizens," he assured us "No more, no less. And that's what they did." You cringe at having...

Hillary Befriended Cuba's First Lady Humberto Fontova June 22, 2007 Cuba's "first lady," Vilma Espin, passed away last week. She was Raul Castro's wife, thus Fidel's sister-in-law. But since Fidel was divorced at the time of his communist coup/swindle in 1959, and later kept his wives, concubines, and groupies sequestered from the public, Vilma Espin, as president of the Federation of Cuban Women, has always served as the Stalinist regime's "first lady." Serving as such, Ms. Espin was Cuba's delegate to the U.N.'s 4th annual Women's Conference held in Beijing in September 1995, where she hob-knobbed with U.S. delegate Hillary...

Johnny Depp 'Digs' Che by Humberto Fontova Posted: 06/04/2007 The cover of the current Rolling Stone magazine features mega movie star Johnny Depp hugging mega rock star Keith Richards. In the world's top-grossing movie of the moment these two "blood brothers," as Rolling Stone calls them, team up as father-son. Throughout the RS article, Depp, who moved to Hollywood as an amateur rock guitarist only to see his fortunes blossom elsewhere in the entertainment industry, gushes about the Rolling Stones, and Keith Richards in particular, as his " models, inspiration," etc. etc. Hanging from Depp's neck during the Rolling Stone...

Federal Judge Releases Cuban 'Terrorist' Humberto Fontova Tuesday, May 15, 2007 Two years ago, a Cuban exile and former CIA operative named Luis Posada Carriles entered the U.S. and was promptly arrested for illegal entry. Mr. Posada had volunteered for the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and later joined the U.S. army emerging as a 2nd Lieutenant. After retiring from the U.S. Army, he worked for the CIA putting out Soviet-started fires throughout Latin America. Among other projects, Posada helped the Reagan team squash communism in Nicaragua by helping arms and train the Nicaraguan Contras. A few years later, in Guatemala,...

The Che Guevara Farce, Humberto Fontova Thursday, May 3, 2007 His writings revealed a severely troubled young man. "My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands! With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl!" The term "hatred" was a constant in his writings: "Hatred as an element of struggle"; "hatred that is intransigent;" "hatred so violent that it propels a human being beyond...

Cuba Loves Hippie Software Humberto Fontova Friday, March 9, 2007 Take in equal parts: lyrics from John Lennon's "Imagine," Steve Miller's "Fly Like An Eagle" and simmer. Then add a pinch from "Age of Aquarius." Now you have the manifesto of The Free SoftWare Foundation, founded by software guru Richard Stallman, famous foe of commercial avarice and stalwart friend of freedom. "Copyright laws violate basic morality," writes the shaggy MIT graduate. "People should be free to use software in ways that are socially useful. When a program has an owner, the users lose freedom to control part of their own...

Castro and Our Wallets Humberto Fontova Thursday, March 1, 2007 A legislative scheme is gaining steam in Washington, greatly aided by lobbyists for Archer Daniels Midland, to "make it easier" for Cuba to "buy" from U.S. vendors. Despite all the scribbling and gabble about the "U.S. embargo of Cuba," or "blockade" as termed by The Congressional Black Caucus and Castro lobbyists (but I repeat myself), the U.S. has done over a billion dollars worth of business with Cuba the last few years and currently ranks as her biggest food supplier and fifth biggest import partner. Much of this business is...

The Cuban Embargo By Humberto Fontova FrontPageMagazine.com | February 23, 2007 Political and academic soothsayers insist that change (for the better) looms in Cuba. With Fidel Castro's incapacitation, and his "pragmatic" brother, Raul, at the helm the process is ratcheting forward inexorably, we're told. But for relentless hen-pecking by those insufferable right-wing Cuban-Americans, unconscionable blackmail by their slick politicians, and cowardly kow-towing to these uppity immigrant ingrates by the Bush team, the U.S. would "open" to Cuba, the process of liberalization would snowball, and Cuba would quickly blossom into Hong Kong in the Caribbean. Common sense, commercial savvy, U.S. self...

Charlize Theron on Cuba Humberto Fontova/ Monday, Feb. 12, 2007 A Hollywood A-lister (Charlize Theron) recently traveled to Cuba and returned without the paeans to its Stalinist regime that habitually issue from her colleagues after such visits. Pigs worldwide started sprouting wings. During her Cuban visit Ms. Theron helped produce a documentary ("East of Havana") on Cuban hip-hop artists that cast the Castro regime in a negative light. Pigs worldwide started flapping and taxiing down the runway. Last week on ABC's "Good Morning America," Charlize Theron said: "I think the (Cuban) younger generation is starting to say, 'You know what?...

Castro, Pinochet , and Human Rights Humberto Fontova Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2006 Two former Latin American heads of state have been much in the news lately. One because he passed away; the other because his death seems imminent. The terms "human rights abuses," along with "murders and tortures" appear consistently in the articles on one while being almost completely absent from the ones on the other, where the terms "gains in health-care and literacy" predominate. One jailed more political prisoners as a percentage of population than Hilter and Stalin — and for three times as long. Modern history's longest-suffering political...

Pinochet, the Untold Story Humberto Fontova Thursday, Dec. 14, 2006 To read the mainstream media lately, you'd think Augusto Pinochet's villainous henchmen, while twirling their pointy black mustaches and snickering maliciously, overthrew a Chilean "president" (Salvador Allende) somewhere on the order of Jimmy Carter. Then they lined up 3000 harmless sociology professors and innocent leftist parliamentarians and shot them, for the sheer heck of it. The real story, as you might imagine, is a tad more complicated — despite the media/academia black legend regarding Chile. Upon Stalin's death in 1953, Chilean communists held a "homage to Stalin" in Santiago's Baquedano...