I was going to write a last day of the year special post, but, in all honesty, I just want this crummy, piece of shit year to end RIGHT NOW.

2010 cant get here soon enough. Faster, please.

They both shill for the castro brothers.  Read my latest column at Pajamas Media by clicking here.

Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was taken to a hospital with chest pains on Wednesday, a Honolulu television station reported.

Paramedics responded to a call at 2:41 p.m. from the Kahala Hotel and Resort where Limbaugh is vacationing, KITV reported. The station, citing unnamed sources, said the 58-year-old Limbaugh was taken to The Queens Medical Center in serious condition.

Obama to Castro

From Ike's record-setting diplomatic recognition of the Castro regime (quicker than the U.S. recognized Batista in '52) promptly followed by the sacking of U.S. amb. to Cuba, Earl T. Smith in Jan. 1959 (for the grotesquerie of suggesting that the U.S. State Dept. stop kow-towing to Julio 26 people since Castro was a closet Communist).....

.....promptly followed by showering the Castro regime with $200 in subsidies from U.S. taxpayers through 1959-60.......

... through Gerald Ford's relaxation of the "embargo," and signing the "hijacking agreement" with Castro (perpetrator of the Western hemisphere's first political plane hijackings).....

..... to Jimmy Carter's opening of unfettered travel....

.....to Vernon Walters' (Pres. Reagan approved) meeting with Castro in 1982......

......through Clinton's kow-towing by sending Elian back, and his signing of the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act, quickly making the U.S. Cuba's biggest food supplier,....

etc. etc. etc.....

Failure, failure, failure! Yet the failed and blockheaded notion of "engaging" with Castro's Cuba persists among all enlightened parties.

Now the Ivy league wizards who staff the Obama team are learning something every intransigent domino-player and cafecito imbiber on Calle Ocho warned about for two years.

From the New York Times (no less!):
HAVANA — The Obama honeymoon here is over.

Unreal.

...you're in trouble.

It's December 30th, 2009 and not only are there still human rights violations in Cuba and a complete lack of basic civil liberties, but there sre still routine round-ups of those with dissenting voices, beatings, harassments, tourism apartheid, government imposed poverty, indoctrination of children, government imposed separation of families, and worst of all, people who ignore, overlook and justify these for their own personal agendas, the humanity of the Cuban people be damned.

Especially those favored by the MSM???

Well, here's a specimen from the MSM's darling pollster on matters Cuban-American, Sergio Bendixen, writing in the painstakingly impartial (and Yoani Sanchez' outlet) Huffington Post.

"But what is most significant about the Diaz-Balarts' decision (to back Rubio) is that it's emblematic of the pettiness of old-school politics."...This is precisely the kind of back-room dealing the American people are tired of."

Entire impartiality here.

Unreal.

Nelson Mandela

Why it's us!!! Cuban Americans!

The same group who voted in biggest margins AGAINST Saint Obama!

"Long live the Cuban Revolution! Long live Comrade Fidel Castro!....There's one place where Fidel Castro stands out head and shoulders above the rest-- that is in his love for human rights and liberty!" (Nelson Mandela, 1991.) '

So from us INTRANSIGENTS, here's to you, "enlightened" parties:

...que bola?

"The Stalinist regime that co-produced this film and now feted its director and star — employing the midnight knock and the dawn raid among other devices by its KGB-mentored secret police- rounded up and jailed more political prisoners as a percentage of population than Stalin’s and executed more people (out of a population of 6.4 million) in its first three years in power than Hitler’s executed (out of a population of 68 million) in it’s first six. Ernesto “Che” Guevara initiated this bloodbath and mass-jailing under the direction of Soviet GRU agent Angel Ciutah, who was Che’s chief mentor and houseguest (in the most luxurious mansion in Cuba, by the way) only weeks after Che entered Havana and stole it from it’s owner, threatening him with a firing squad."

Just trying to open some eyes out there in Hollywood, amigos.

Unreal.

RedState has a great letter sent by one of its writers sent to Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) regarding the Senate's health crae bill that is superb.

The Constitutional purpose of a Senator is to represent their state, but your yes vote will burden your own state with unfunded Medicaid liabilities.  If that were not enough, you have voted for Missourians to pay the Medicaid liabilities for Nebraska.  If you are not in Congress to represent Missouri, what are you there for?

Despite the anger at your town hall meetings in August, e-mails and phone calls to your office, and numerous polls, you have voted for something the majority of Americans do not want.  You have flashed the bird to your own constituents.  If you are not in Congress to represent the people, what are you there for?

Despite the clear and obscene violation of the Constitution and the rights of the people, you have voted for this 2000+ page manure pile.  You seem to have no reservations about the use of force against your fellow Americans.  I suggest while you are on Christmas break, you read the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and other writings of the Founders, because you don’t seem to have a clue what the Constitution is about.  If you are not in Congress to uphold the Constitution, what are you there for?

If you just change the name and state you can reuse it -- unless, of course, your Senator happened to sell out for thirty pieces of silver like CT, NE, or LA. You can find your own words for those "representatives of the people" better than I can...

Here's a video from last night's 60 Minutes about our fight in Afghanistan, past and present. It features interviews with our main CIA guy during the pre- and post 9/11 days and an interview with the Afghan security chief that is compelling for its message.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Note how Crumpton says we missed an opportunity to kill Bin Laden ten years ago. Who was President then? And what party did he belong to?

(H/T Julio C)

There isnt a week that goes by when someone doesnt ask me when I think things will change in Cuba. "Until Cubans take to the streets," I always say. "Nothing will change."

Ninety percet of the time people get mad at me for saying that. They give me the laundry list of why Cubans cant take to the streets in protest. They're too oppressed, theyre too weak, they're hungry, they have no weapons, they will be beaten, arrested, killed, etc...

Sounds a lot like the situation in Iran, except, of course, that in Iran, Iranians take to the streets in protest.

So it's finally the final Monday of the year 2009 and for some - like me - it couldnt get here soon enough. Feel free to let us all know just how much - and why - this year sucked in the comments.

Via Capitol Hill Cubans, U.S Rep. Kendrick Meek on US-Cuba relations:

Hope and change a year late.

I want to wish each and every one of you a belated but very Merry Christmas! I would have posted this yesterday but being as I was in lechon cooking mode and this year's Noche Buena celebration was at my Mom and Dad's by their request, I either had my hands covered in charcoal dust and pig fat or had no net access.

We had a humble Christmas this year - there werent the usual bevy of colorfully wrapped boxes of gifts this year - but it certainly was a Christmas to remember. And, really, what better gift can anyone ask for than four generations of your family together on such a special day.

I guess the only thing missing from my Christmas was not being able to share it with all of you. And, I guess the only thing I can add right now for this wonderful Babalu family of mine is a simple wish, from the very bottom of my heart:

Next year, let's hope and pray that we can all share a very special Noche Buena with even more family and friends, together on that island shped like a crocodile in the Caribbean.

Babalu friends from California "Gathering for their Feast."

To the left of the steely knife: Bay of Pigs pilot hero Salvador Miralles, who lost almost half his pilot compadres in the freedom-fight, and narrowly escaped himself--but who sank a Castro warship in the freedom-fighting!!!

A rollicking Noche Buena was had. Courtesy of our friend, Jose 'El Tiburon' Cadenas.

From Capital Hill Cubans:

at 12:26 AM Friday, December 25, 2009
Christmas is a time of giving. It's a time of selflessness.

As such, let's not forget all of the courageous pro-democracy leaders and human rights advocates separated from their loved ones, in distant political prisons, due to their selfless pursuit for freedom and justice.

Advocates such as Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who is on the 22nd day of a hunger strike in the Kilo 8 prison in Camaguey, due to the beatings and inhumane treatment he has been subjected to by the Cuban authorities.

Zapata, an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, is serving a 36-year prison sentence. On December 20th, in solidarity with Zapata, 16 other inmates of the Kilo 8 prison joined in the hunger strike.

Our thoughts and prayers are with them.

Fittingly, the following Christmas postcard was designed in 1997 by a group of Cuban political prisoners in Kilo 8. Some remain in prison to this very day.

May their hopes and dreams (of freedom and justice) become a reality in 2010.