There have been a few posts here about the new book penned by Mimi Alford who served as a very young intern for JFK. Ms. Alford recounts the lurid details of how she was sexually used by the late president.

As you can imagine, the MSM (oddly enough, female MSMers) is not taking kindly to this woman's audacity to write a book, burdening society with her side of the story. She appeared on ABC's "The View" Hen House on Friday, and Barbara Walters was just as indignant as you could ever imagine a JFK sycophant to be. She harped on the idea that Alford would undoubtedly make money on the book, scolded her for not being concerned with how Caroline Kennedy would feel, and pretty much lays Monica Lewinsky's plight in Alford's lap. Walters goes so far as to insist Mimi Alford didn't need to have written the book, citing, "You could have let it go!"

As if Ms. Alford had not been victimized enough by Kennedy, the self-appointed Kennedy toady, despicable socialist shrew, and old news hound victimized her again.

Not an ounce of compassion for Mimi Alford, who was no more than an innocent naïve girl during the early 1960s when women and girls were at the mercy of such men in power, and trapped within an era of society that didn't speak of such things. Excuse me, but I believe Walters was all-in for the struggle of the women's lib movement a few years after Alford's encounters inside the White House. She was among those righteous women claiming women were historically victimized by men in general, and powerful men to be sure, as nothing more than degraded sex objects ... treated like meat. All those leading feminists that led the way to the burning garbage barrels with their bras insisted on confessing to all the world the evils done to them by men in their lives ... to women in general since the dawn of humanity. But Mimi Alford is to be snorted at and scolded simply because she dares write about the sins committed against her by one of the liberal feminists' patron saints, JFK ... Walters herself mentions Kennedy's checkered past, yet, insists on protecting him still by trying to verbally bloody one of his victims. Hell, I expected to hear Walters break out into a Louisiana drawl and declare, "Drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park..." James Carville-style. But then, I imagine in her high-toned sanctimonious Manhattan scoff she was doing just that by repeatedly mentioning, "You'll make a lot of money"... as if Mimi Alford was prostituting herself for writing her story in a book.

Makes you wonder how Walters and her ilk would treat a woman that wrote such a book about, say, Ronald Reagan.

Tim Graham of NewsBusters reminds:

Almost four years ago, ABC’s Barbara Walters came out with her memoir Audition, using as its selling point a tale of her tawdry 1970s affair with married black Sen. Edward Brooke (R-Mass.). Seldom has a TV personality been a more shameless public hypocrite than Walters was on Friday with former Kennedy mistress Mimi Alford during an interview on “The View.”

Indeed, and for what it's worth, let's not forget feminist Walters also never met a bloody totalitarian male dictator she didn't fawn over...

As Humberto would say "Unreal"!

It's Groundhog Day, and if Punxsutawney Phil is correct, we are in for six more weeks of winter before we can look forward to spring.  Sadly, the weather's temperature is not the only measure of warmth for humans.  As it is, there is no need for a weather predicting rodent in Cuba, because there is no escaping the chill of the repressive winter of the firmly entrenched Castro dictatorship.  We witness those international masses who cheered the so-called Arab Spring, who proclaim concern for universal human rights, justice, and self-determination, apply a different standard when it comes to rights for the Cuban people.  Apparently, the Castro brothers are just too sexy for condemnation, to lovable to be judged by their actions, as were other lesser tyrants long ago confined to the pages of history.  Businessmen from around the globe froth at the mouth over the delights of the island in anticipation of future profits, while turning a blind eye to the public beatings of peacefully protesting women.  The Castro's author the islands narrative; they say there are no political prisoners in Cuba, and Walla!  In lockstep, the international media ignores the reality of Cuban political prisoners, well documented by international human rights organizations, and gleefully disseminate the propaganda.  Not content with that complicity, their white wash often includes an added insult to the victims they say do not exist.  Clergy of all faiths, those representatives of human kind's morality, travel to the island to pay homage to the world's longest reigning tyrants, never minding the history of executions, the atrocities, or the testimony of survivors. 

 There's a price to be paid for this base inhumanity, as the devil always gets his due.  The forces gathering in the Middle East, their infiltration into the Americas, and the erosion of constitutions by radicals elected to power may be the beginning of payback.  If the lights of liberty darken, will that too be called justice?

The left and democrats always claim to be the party of total inclusion and "a natural home for minorities", while, allegedly, the republicans have a very segregated tent. And when a conservative minority individual points out how it is not so natural, but a process of conditioning and even "brainwashing", they are also attacked. Yet, the liberal/left concept of "race" identity seems to end when an individual does not have the hive mind set. Now conservative Republican Sen. Marco Rubio is being told by a Latino group to choose between his heritage and his political views...

(SF Gate) — Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is at the top of every pundit’s short list to be the Republican vice presidential nominee, in the belief that having a Latino in the second spot on the ticket will attract Latino voters who have been fleeing the GOP in recent years.

But today at the Hispanic Leadership Network conference in Miami, the Berkeley organization Presente Action is launching a national anti-Rubio campaign during his big moment in the national spotlight, days before Tuesday’s critical Florida primary.

Their assertion, backed by recent surveys, is that Rubio’s positions on several key issues, immigration in particular, are far from the mainstream of the Latino electorate.

So Presente, a 3-year-old, 250,000-member online hub that aims to be “the Latino MoveOn.org” is aiming its campaign at the senator who is a Tea Party darling. The campaign’s name: “No somos Rubios.” (“We are not Rubios.”)

“Rubio has to decide,” said Presente Action co-founder and strategist Roberto Lovato, “if he’s a Latino or a Tea Partino.”

Read more...

Bless her blatantly shameless hypocritical forked tongue.

San Fran Nan now claims no democrat 'connection' with the growingly obvious agenda of the Occupy Movement and their very near future plans as she tries to distance herself, her party, and the administration from them ... for some reason.

Let's have a closer look, shall we?

ABC News (Oct. 9, 2011): Pelosi Supports Occupy Wall Street Movement

Nice Deb (November, 21, 2011): The #OWS Hall Of Shame: Democrats Who Support/Supported The Occupy Wall Street Movement

Yeah ... that's what I thought she said. Maybe Nan and her party are a little worried about all those previous Wall Street political donations drying up? After all, it is an election year.

Fact is, the MSM would never call this woman, or any of these democrats, on this. We are on our own, folks. Let's do our very best in November...

HT: Weasel Zippers bunch

Yet, another example of how the #Occupy movement is NOT like the TEA Party. This is what their Democracy looks like.

What the physically challenged are good for...

What children are good for...

To Be Continued... And it promises to NOT be pretty.

HotAir has the full background on these dumb and dangerous protest moves in Washington DC last night in their attempts to shutdown the free speech at the AFP “Defending the American Dream” conference. Remember, Obama and the democrats are supporting this national bowel movement.

Too bad the MSM has their plates full chasing Herman Cain's 15 year old "sexual harassment" stuff, or I know they would be all over this. /sarc

Egyptian activist Mohammed Ezzeldin joined the spoiled and soiled masses. I wonder how long they would have mindlessly repeated his words had he gone into anti-Israel memes, or called for jihad, or insisted on the USA follow the doctrine of Sharia Law? A non-American inspiration for these people? Would they have listened to Lech Walesa or Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet and repeated their words, or heeded their warnings?

While I respect Rep. John Lewis's work during the civil rights movement, I'm not a fan of his politics or ideology for this nation. However, I obviously respect Rep. Lewis more than these people because I would have allowed him to speak. And, agree with him or not, I believe a TEA Party rally would have allowed him to speak his mind also. Take note, if this is how they treat somebody of support, how do you think the opposition will be silenced were they to take control (we do have examples, you know)?

Occupy D.C. protesters try to storm The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. Innocent tourists (families) are inside viewing the priceless historical artifacts of this nation's aeronautic accomplishments. What was their purpose for trying to cram themselves into the museum? Just an ordinary 'flash mob' disruption of noise, or worse?

There are those trying to compare the OWS to the TEA Party. On so many levels this is crap. Neither group have the same goals in mind for this nation and her people. One wants government out of our lives as much as possible so we can thrive on our own. The other is insisting government should control and provide everything, and they are angry that in the last three years it hasn't happened as quickly as they were led to believe it would. Those supporting the OWS try to point out the TEA Party isn't real American's, but is funded by "millionaires and billionaires". Really? George Soros and the powerful unions in this country are funding the OWS circus. It is very apparent these people are quite easily led away from the individual's though process, and are easily incitable. They have been trained and are supported by the same union thugs we saw in Madison, WI. late last winter. The way they have treated the areas where they have squatted for three weeks is an indication they respect nothing or nobody. These 'protesters' are beginning to out-stay their welcome. Is this what Obama had in mind? He sure is throwing his full support behind them.

Cross-posted @ CW

Open Memo to The OWS Crowds:

During these tough economic times we sure could use all the help you've been giving!

Thanks for all the free advertising!

The Evil Corporations

All the green being thrown at "Green" should have us all seeing Red ...That's if the MSM would cover these stories with as much vinegar as they always seem to cover anything Halliburton. But they won't, because it is a democrat administration, and that's different. Not to mention the administration's biggest media support comes from a network whose primary holder is a company that is invested in the whole "green energy" movement. Obama and Nancy Pelosi have been some of the loudest voices touting more transparency ... "the most honest, most open and most ethical government in history" when democrats are in control. I really do not believe they have actually tried to hide all that's been happening. They can safely leave anything and everything out on the table because they know the American media will not grab it and bring it to the attention of the American people. The MSM has become highly trained operatives for that dirty mission.

As the blinding glow of the Solyndra scandal is pretty much blocked by the American media some glimmers of light are still escaping to reveal the failed company that was granted over half a billion dollars was not the only one on the administration's "green" gravy train. Now comes news of an even bigger "green" quid pro quo deal that involves Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law. The price tag on this business venture for the Obama administration is a couple hundred million more than Solyndra.

DOE announced a $737 million loan guarantee to help finance construction of the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, a 110-megawatt solar-power-generating facility in Nye County, Nev. The project is sponsored by Tonopah Solar, a subsidiary of California-based SolarReserve.

The Energy Department said the project will result in 600 construction jobs and 45 permanent jobs.

And check out Ed Morrissey's number crunching (and more) on this:

Forty-five permanent jobs? That puts the cost per permanent job at over $16 million, a figure that could employ perhaps a hundred people had the capital remained in the hands of the private sector that produced it. Whatever else these green-tech loans are, they certainly are not job-creation stimulus.

But that’s not the best part. As both Gateway Pundit and American Glob discover, one of SolarReserve’s “investment partners” is Pacific Corporate Group, through its Clean Energy and Technology Fund. And PCG’s executive director is Ron Pelosi — brother of Nancy Pelosi’s husband. Suddenly, this deal makes a lot more sense than spending $737 million for forty-five jobs.

I believe the recent call by Rep. Cliff Stearns to halt Obama's "stimulus" energy deals should be taken very seriously and investigated, and soon...

I suppose I should ease-off a bit on the MSM on Solyndra. I mean, ABC has fallen into the story, and there are sporadic mentions of it on the WaPo and AP feeds. In general, however, the running media opinion of Solyndra (and this green energy stimulus hydra) is that there's no there there.

In good economic times this movement would be risky at best. But during our current fall into economic abyss to be halting domestic energy drilling and insist on only a conversion into something even Spain discovered was a losing endeavor to "create jobs" and a new economy is suicide. Not to mention throwing TRILLIONS we don't have at this failed energy industry! But according to the guy who doesn't pay his taxes, but expects you to pay yours so the government can spend it, the fact that Obama's waiting "new jobs bill" will cost $200,000 per job! Excuse me, but isn't that figure right around the democrats'/liberals'/left's designation of "the rich"??!?? And that's not even the salaries of these jobs. That's what will be spent to create them. Where's my roll of duct tape ...

But it goes beyond that (as a side note here...). Here we have the renegade EPA issuing job and economy crippling business/industry and power company federal regulations (on CO2 emissions!!!) outside the separation of powers (meaning circumventing Congress). Only Texas seems to have the cowboy-sized `nads to stand up to them. Then you have the tentacles of the EPA's grabbing and dictating private land use on the local level. (You've had such troubles on Florida farms). It all seems so ... Chavez, no?

There are societies that are barely making it on their own for their own meager existence. Follow the money behind all the "global warming/climate change and the "green"/alternative-'renewable' energy push over the last ten or so years. The company mentioned in this New York Times story from earlier in the week is ... Well, I will give you two guesses (and the first one doesn't count) who is an acting Chairman of the New Forests Company emerging multi-billion-dollar carbon credit company involved in the NYTimes story of Ugandan farmers and villagers being beaten, burned alive, and run off their land by armed soldiers.

I opened this post by stating we should be seeing "red" ... Yeah, I meant anger ... But I also mean we had better see this for exactly what it is. This is a money and power grab, world-wide, in order to move this country into a "Red" world governing with the help of the EPA, the Obama administration, the UN, and the companies set up by all those big-mouthed "global warming" champions with big pockets. "Green" really is the new "Red", and I don't believe I need to explain that word to this blog's community.

Rush Limbaugh has called all this "stimulus" money quid pro quo going to these "green" start-up companies and to unions a "slush fund" for Obama (and the democrat party) to be pumped back into their political coffers. He's right ... But since we are talking about a Chicago-way political thug I prefer to use "money laundering" to describe what is going on here.

Follow the money ... Follow the money ... Follow the money.

I'm walking on sunshine, woooah
and don't it feel good!!

The Drudge Report had up a large photo of a smirking Hillary Clinton with this headline under it:

MOST POPULAR POL IN THE WORLD!

It links to this Bloomberg story (pull-quote in this post title from the link) about three years into this "The One" Obama phantasm democrats, on all levels (here too), are having "buyer's remorse" for choosing Obama over the former First Lady and Bill's photo-op beach squeeze.

Let's be clear ... Hillary is Obama in pantsuits and overly sensible pumps. She wouldn't have done anything much differently than Barry has (except used some Loving Care on her 'grays'). As a matter of fact, she, as much as Obama, is responsible for the mess in the Middle East right now. Libya was HER war she (and a couple other females advisors in the administration) pushed Obama into. She botched her maiden voyage as Sec. of State beginning with the 'restart button' joke with Russia. Obama has dissed her continually by tucking her away in third world countries while sending John Kerry (and other 'men') to deal with the front burner areas. Hillary might be a better politician than a thug (although her freaky female behavior on cue during the 2008 democrat primary campaign did much damage to her ice queen image).

However, this democrat buyer's remorse is not all about the actual mess Obama has gotten this nation into, but more the fact he stands to severely damage their grip on power over us by, quite possibly and probably, losing re-election in 2012. Tuesday's wins in NV-2 and NY-9 on the heels of the November 2010 tsunami and continuing aftershocks (and don't forget about the tooth and nail battle successes in Wisconsin under Gov. Walker). This adds to the even bigger news that as many as 50 democrat seats in Congress could be in serious play come the next election. They are in desperate straits right now, mostly aimed at the grassroots TEA Party who are responsible for waking up the politically lazy masses and getting more conservative candidates into elected office. Listen to James Carville (long time Clinton troll)...

What I am seeing is a split in the displeasure with Obama inside his own party (and I mean the voters, not the poli-ops). Lifelong democrats such as my Dad are aghast at the actual 'change' that Obama has made in this country (even though these particular democrat voters were warned in 2008). They are far more conservative than the democrat party gives them credit for. In addition, I am in a democrat/union stronghold and these typically union supporting people are horrified by the increasingly ugly behavior of unions in this country. The other side of the Obama voters, the faaaaaaar left side, are angry he hasn't just said 'chuck it all!' and completely taken over and just 'executive ordered' EVERYTHING they have wanted for decades to convert us into a Marxist/socialist/communist nation.

I'm in no way fooling myself about divisions within the establishment political parties of this country. The GOP has a serious problem of their own, which is what the TEA Party has been addressing in the last couple elections ... and will continue to do in the elections to come.

So while the typical democrat party dogs, hogs and gawkers continue to bark, snort and retort about the false and contrived evils of the republicans and the TEA Party to try to sway people back into the Obama corral they believe are still ignorant to exactly what has been going on these last three years what is going on right now is less a political fight in this nation, and more a fight for ideological survival.

I said on CW this morning:

Yeah, Obama’s in big trouble with the American people. Many that voted for him the first time simply just won’t get fooled again. [...]

Dems won’t get the floundering Barry Obama to step aside for 2012 … They would have to do nothing short of a democrat party excommunication of the guy.

Even his loving Hollywood supporters are fankly tired of Obama’s bullshit … However, I ponder if it’s Obama’s scandals and corruption, or the fact (as they were with Bill Clinton) just pissed he got caught … especially when today, more so than in the 1990s, the internet is all over this crap 24/7 covering the crap the MSM refuses to.

As much made-up credit these dolts tried to portray as Obama’s “experience” and smarts to be POTUS, THEY are now looking like the fools more so than the people they helped fool into getting the guy elected.

Yep, the USSA Obama is in trouble, and the d-rats look to be climbing the railing to jump ship in order to save themselves ...

Hang on. The tsunami ain't over yet ... Oh, it'll be "historic", all right.

Pretty much everyhting I have said since January to this point, including this current "Labor Day" episode, regarding colorful political battle rhetoric post-Tucson shooting is laid-out at HotAir, so I'll just say, "Ditto!"

The background on what is being discussed between ABC's Jake Tapper and Obama's apologist Jay Carney is here.

But you have to give a huge kudos to Jake Tapper for pushing and pressing on this particular issue, because since the 2008 election cycle (including the 2008 democrat primary race) there has been a double standard and hypocrisy with what is and isn't acceptable political rhetoric (and as we have see since 2008 ANYTHING said in opposition to Obama or his agenda and/or policies is "racist") ... with the democrats and liberal MSM and opinionators given carte blanche and a free-ride pass on rhetoric, and no accountability for whatever they say.

It is all Obama and his party have left in the approaching 2012 election. They are still stinging with loss and fear from the November 2010 tsunami of defeat from local to state to the national levels. But it's not just that. It is the fact that his brief moment on an Ohio front lawn with a man known as "Joe the Plumber" has been laid open for nearly three years for more, if not all, to witness. The man is a socialist. Since he said he would change the United States of America more people have awakened to exactly what he meant. And those awakened people want nothing to do with this man's vision for our nation.

Something tells me Barack Hussein Obama was never told, "NO!" when he was a child, or at any other time in his life. And therein results the temper tantrum we are now seeing, mostly directed at the TEA Party right now ... But to be elevated to probably the most filthy campaign in recent history to be carried out by his team, the democrats, and the MSM. What Tapper is rightly doing here as one of the last remaining actual journalists is to get these people in the burning spotlight, call them on the carpet early for the double standard, and attempt to hold their feet to the fire over the course of the next year of campaigning for re-election.

Jane Fonda (warning) likes to fancy herself a righteous activist. We all know Jane from her romantic NVA gun-straddling days during the Vietnam War as those pesky American POWs insisted on being tortured, starved, beaten, and killed. But what you probably don't know is dear Jane is pining for the one she let get away. Who might that be? Well, that heartthrob centerfold for all capitalist-fed and protected leftist/liberal Marxist wannabes ... Che Guevara, of course.

And Bob "I never met a blood-stained Marxist thug I didn't like" Beckel must've wanted to make a Jane Fonda sandwich with old "Don't shoot! I'm Che!" (Or maybe a Che sandwich with dear Jane?)

I want to say, 'They don't know Che' ... but the horrific fact is they do, and it is exactly why they lust after him. He touches their inner vampire. I think what pisses me off about all these Che Guevara necromongers is how they willfully and spitefully look past the death and oppression spawned from the man's bad seed in Cuba. And forget about any support and understanding, let alone outrage, from an alleged "feminist" over the treatment of women activists in Cuba. Sexy, huh?

Seems the only people who pine for and adore Che Guevara are those who never have or never will have to live under the brand of freedom he fathered and bastardized in Cuba.

Right now I would wager there are more families, such as mine, that haven't had a family vacation of any sort in at least two years. But in those two years, those who really oppose Barack Obama decry his and his wife's numerous, lavish and pricey vacations all over the world, especially in the middle of this tough time. While I agree a president and his family deserve a trip here and there, let's keep in perspective that first sentence, and the reason why many not only have not had a family vacation, but have cut back on many other things in life under the current employment and economic troubles. But even though he isn't joining us in his idea of "shared sacrifice" or leading by example, Obama feels our pain ... and will someday get around to dropping us a "thank you" note for funding his endless trips.

So, what are the odds Obama's own White House mouthpiece would defend his coming trip to Martha's Vineyard ... yet, be caught compromised in his argument by something he blasted then Pres. George W. Bush for in August 2001, and completely contradict himself ten years later?

WH Press Sec. Jay Carney August 2011 - "And I don't think Americans out there would begrudge that notion that the President would spend some time with his family. It is also, as I think anyone who has covered in the past, either in this administration or others, there is no such thing as a presidential vacation. The Presidency travels with you. He will be in constant communication and get regular briefings from his national security team as well as his economic team. And he will of course be fully capable, if necessary, of traveling back if that were required. It is not very far."

The August 2001 Jay Carney article FNC's Bret Baier cited is here.

In the 2001 piece Carney bemoans the "photo-ops" Pres. Bush encountered during his August vacation. However, the same Jay Carney just the other day attempted to deflect any wrong-doing in Obama's photo-op at the return to Dover Air Force Base of over 30 fallen U.S. Navy SEALS and troops when no such photos were to be taken or released, by wishes of the heart-broken families and the rules of the Pentagon.

So what is Obama doing tonight? Well, he's attending two more of those $38,500-per-person fund raisers. Right now Obama has beaten and far surpassed incumbent Pres. Bush in August 2003 in fundraisers ... as well as golf games in Bush's entire two terms combined. By the way, $38,500 is actually a yearly wage for some folks ... most of whom are the largest bulk of the suffering right now at the gas pump and the grocery store.

Why yes ... Yes, we do, Mr. Obama.

HT: Weasel Zippers

Here's more on Estela Bravo, currently on a propaganda tour peddling the regimes version of Operation Pedro Pan.  Agustin Blazquez takes a revealing look back at Ms. Bravo's long association with the bloody Castro regime.

The 2005 article is about a pro-Castro documentary shown on PBS by filmmaker Estela Bravo, a known collaborator with the Castro regime.  It's quite long, so most of it is posted below the fold.  Please read the whole truth-loaded article, as every word is a bull's-eye.  Agustin takes on the despicable character assassination of the Cuban exile community, the Cuba lobby's efforts to lift the embargo, PBS hypocrisy, and so-called Cuba "expert" Wayne Smith.  It's a primer on los pandilleros de Castro.

From Misceláneas Culturales, 'Miami - Havana' A Misguided Trip:

Dedicated to Reed Irvine

by Agustin Blazquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton

The New York Times, the creator of Castro’s myth (thanks to the famous Herbert Matthews series of articles that began in February 1957) and according to the tyrant himself, “I owe my job” to that newspaper, is one of the sponsors of this pro-Castro propaganda film festival that showed on April 18, 2005, the documentary “Miami-Havana.”

While talking to a Cuban defector, I mentioned that I had seen on the local PBS station in Washington, DC the 1992 documentary “Miami-Havana” during the 1993 season.  To my surprise she said, “Oh yeah, Estela Bravo.  She is a Castro collaborator.”

Being Cuban also, and knowing the different outlook and perspective firsthand experience inside a totalitarian communist society brings, I thought that this defector – who was involved in the performing arts in Cuba – might have a point.  At the same time, that statement worried me, since our perspective as non-pro-Castro has been so harshly criticized and misunderstood by the U.S. media and so many in the U.S.

So I decided to get some information from the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), the Washington, DC, distributor of Estela Bravo’s documentary.

What I received from Arwen Donahue, the documentary publicist at the IPS was revealing.  It was Estela Bravo’s curriculum and an article by Andres Viglucci published by The Miami Herald on September 24, 1993, about the showing of her documentary on PBS.

Almost everything in this curriculum, and details in the article, fits the profile of what the defector implied when calling her a “collaborator.”

It’s going to be difficult to explain what the defector meant, unless you come from the inside and are acquainted with the mechanisms of a communist society.  According to my experience in the U.S., it’s very difficult for Americans to comprehend or relate to the complex daily survival routine of people trapped inside a regime like the one Castro imposed upon Cuba.  As a friend of mine still in Cuba hinted in a letter, it’s “totally surrealist.”

In my attempt to understand where this documentary came from, I found that Estela Bravo – who is an American born in New York City in 1933, has, since 1963, been dividing her time between Havana and New York.

I must explain: in the early 1960s many so-called “true believers” of the Castro revolution began arriving in a sort of pilgrimage to Cuba.  Castro gave his true believers coveted jobs, expropriated houses and apartments in exclusive areas, access to foreigner-only stores and schools for their children and other privileges not allowed to ordinary Cuban citizens (the beginning of apartheid in Cuba).

Please continue reading below the fold.

That explains Estela Bravo’s privilege of commuting between Havana and New York since 1963 in opposition to Cubans who lost that simple freedom after Castro.

I learned that Estela Bravo briefly had a folk music radio show in Cuba and that she worked for the Cuban government in a cultural institute.  Also, her Argentinean husband, Ernesto Bravo, a biochemistry professor she married in 1956 and who collaborated on all her films, was given a job in 1963 at the University of Havana as professor of medicine.

There is nothing wrong with any of this in any free and democratic society, but Castro’s Cuba is neither.  But if you are a Cuban and you know the mechanism behind all these shenanigans, you understand perfectly what the defector meant.

With the knowledge I have of the Cuban situation after Castro I ask myself, where are the sympathies of this foreign couple?  They joined the heard of true believers and went to work for Castro’s regime.  Therefore he awarded them with privileges and desirable jobs.  Never mind all the freedoms and human rights Castro castrated.

Apparently Castro became the leader of their new cult.  That’s the only way I can explain joining something like that of your own accord.  The defector’s comment seems not so far fetched after all.

Then I remembered that the defector also said that Estela Bravo is very well known in Cuba and that her documentaries are shown regularly on government controlled Cuban TV.  That means a lot, since in that heavily censored propaganda machine (the Cuban media), when something is shown regularly it means that it is beneficial to Castro’s goals.

Sorry that I have to be so blunt, but just that’s the way it is.  It’s a fact of life in Castro’s Cuba and Cubans are very much aware of it.

In Estela Bravo’s list of documentaries I see a lot of familiar far left militant themes.  She has been reviewed and recognized by the official Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma.  Comments from leftie American folk singer Pete Seeger, “Deep down is her wonderful internationalist outlook . . ..”  I must clarify that in the communist jargon “internationalist” means: a person who goes to other countries to work and fight for the advancement of the Communist cause.

She received glowing comments from Castro’s official filmmaker, the late Tomas Gutierrez Alea and official national poet, the late Nicolas Guillen.  You don’t get those kind of official accolades unless you belong to Castro’s fan club and serve his goals.

I also found good comments by leftie American writer and filmmaker Saul Landau, who because of his pro-Castro views has been referred as “an incurable Fidelista” by analyst Don Kowet.

In The Miami Herald article Estela Bravo wouldn’t discuss her specific political views or sympathies for Castro’s regime.  That also fits the profile of the true believer or collaborator.  They invariably duck the question and dive away through a tangent line.  She said, “I believe I was honest in making this documentary.”  If she is really “honest,” why does she duck this most relevant question?

“We didn’t want to be political,” she said.  However, the end result of “Miami-Havana” is a very much pro-Castro, anti-U.S., politically left-leaning documentary.

“We want to show the human cost of this terrible war.”  What war?  Unless she is referring to the war Castro declared against the Cuban people since 1959!  But somehow I doubt very much that is what she meant.  I think she meant – echoing Castro – the war that the Yankees declared on Cuba.  What war?

I must point out that the slogan featured in this documentary “Cuba Si, Yankees No!” was created by Castro for the Communist international parade on May 1, 1960, just 15 months after he took control in Cuba and three months prior to his appropriation of all American properties in Cuba.

Even prior to that, Castro had already declared his own war against the U.S. to “fulfill his destiny,” as he wrote to his secretary, the late Celia Sanchez, on June 1958.  Now we know what war.

Estela Bravo made “Miami-Havana” while, as a privileged foreigner in Cuba, she has the freedom of traveling between Havana, Miami and New York pitching Castro’s survival scheme: to lift the U.S. embargo.  That is the political message and objective of her documentary – and, conveniently, Castro’s current goal.  So it is a political documentary after all.

In this 1992 anti-U.S. embargo and pro-relations with good-old-Castro documentary, Estela Bravo also conveniently ignores the fact that Castro has been circumventing the U.S. embargo for years.  Castro has been buying through Canada, Mexico, France, Spain, Italy, Japan and other capitalist countries.

I’m sure that Estela Bravo and her husband didn’t experience the same scarcity in Cuba as the typical Cuban citizen for 46 years.  Don’t they feel any guilt about this peculiar duality?  This documentary doesn’t explain that before Castro, Cuba produced its own food for consumption and even export.  Can Estela Bravo explain what happened to pre-Castro productivity?

The problem obviously is not the U.S. embargo as Castro’s propaganda has been claiming for decades.  Estela Bravo through her “honest” documentary keeps reinforcing ad nauseam Castro’s repetitive claim to dupe American audiences yet again.

The clear political objective this documentary pursues is to appeal to the uninformed American audience at the grassroots level so they start lobbying the U.S. government for the lifting of the embargo and to allow Americans to visit Cuba as tourists and investors - just what Castro needs to continue his reign of terror.  Never mind the real feelings and desires of the oppressed little Cuban people.

Estela Bravo even asserts, speaking for over a million exiles in the U.S. alone (about 3 million world wide) that “I believe the majority of people want to normalize relations.”  Somehow I don’t think so in Estela-Fidel terms.  We want to see our loved ones living with dignity, human rights, freedom in a democratic society, but that is Castro’s anathema.

Echoing Castro’s claims, Estela Bravo’s documentary portrays the Cubans as being lured from their paradisiacal island by the bad exiles and U.S. propaganda.  That’s got to be a joke!  Estela, in your zeal, I think you went a tad too far.  In the years I have been out of Cuba in Canada, Europe or the U.S., I have never met a Cuban who was lured in the fashion this “honest” documentary implies.

All the Cubans I know have left everything and risked their lives to escape in shark-infested waters are in search of freedom (about 77,824 documented deaths trying to escape in the Florida Straits).  Those escapes and defections are symptomatic of all Communist tyrannies around the globe.  Historically, human beings can’t stand to live under so much oppression.  That is a fact of life.  Sorry Estela, humans are humans.

All throughout this “honest” documentary - selected as one of the 10 Best Documentaries of 1992 by the PBS-POV (Point Of View) series – we are “tricked or treated” with the multiple incursions of “expert” Wayne Smith (the Dean of American apologists of Castro from the IPS), espousing the message of lifting the U.S. embargo.

And we are forced to see and hear Wayne Smith, wearing his promotional t-shirt of the Pan American Games (an event Castro happily used to advance his propaganda) asserting, “If elections were held today he probably still would win.”  (“Still”?  He has never been democratically elected to anything in Cuba!)

“He probably still has the support, it may be resigned support, but the support.  Another thing is that the Cuban people see no alternatives.”  Facing such speculation from “expert” Wayne Smith, I would like to pose the question: If he is so popular, why did he announce on April 9, 1959, that there would be no elections – a time when he supposedly was at the peak of his popularity?

And, why do “the Cuban people see no alternatives”?  I think I can answer that:  Because Castro has made sure there are none.

Another characterization we have to sit through in this documentary, again from Wayne Smith’s World (now referring to pro-Castro Cubans) is, “Cubans morally are very sensible, moderate people.  You don’t have these extremes.”  And referring to Cuban exiles, “But what you have in Miami, I think, is a very extreme ultra right group who want no kind of improvement on relations between the two countries.”

Well, well, well Wayne and Estela, for your information – as if you really care – the only thing Cubans ever wanted since 1959 was a return to a democratic form of government as originally promised by Castro, with respect for law, order, freedom and human rights for all and respect for family, private property and private enterprise.  We also wanted our 1940 Constitution, one of the most modern and progressive in the world that Castro discarded on February 7, 1959, when his regime was just 38 days old!

Just for these simple desires, we have been chastised, vilified, accused of being reactionary and “extreme ultra right.”  I guess the majority of Americans can be classified that way, too.

Why do Estela and her husband live and work in Cuba, a country whose un-elected ruler formed an illegitimate Mafia-like government, discarding the Constitution?

I don’t think I have enough space to continue dissecting all the inaccuracies, misinformation and propaganda contained in this documentary on an issue that it so obviously misrepresents.  I don’t even think that it qualified for the PBS-POV TV series, because according to Marc Weiss, co-executive producer for POV, in the Miami Herald article, the documentaries in that series, “Are supposed to carry ‘a’ strong point of view.”

He explains that it doesn’t have to be “journalistically balanced in the traditional sense.”  However, in the same article Estela was quoted saying, “We represented all views as much as we could.”  So, how can the documentary represent “a” point of view and “all views” at the same time?  I’m lost now.

As a friend of the late Oscar winning cinematographer, filmmaker and writer, Nestor Almendros, I am familiar with his trials and tribulations in his attempt to get financing and airtime on PBS for his documentaries “Improper Conduct” and “Nobody Listened.”

The first one, while shown and praised all over the world, was aired by just a few local U.S. PBS stations but not by PBS nationally.

The second one, which also received international acclaim, was finally aired by PBS in August 1990, after a lot of hassle, in a truncated hour-long edition (contrary to what its creator intended), in tandem with a Saul Landau pro-Castro documentary.

It is very revealing that when PBS has to choose between documentaries ridden with misinformation and propaganda covering up Cuba’s tragedy (the “charismatic” Castro version) rather than those exposing the true nature of the facts, the fantasy always wins.

Even PBS’s FRONTLINE rejected “Nobody Listened” by stating, “FRONTLINE doesn’t produce anti-Communist programs.”  Apparently, PBS’s FRONTLINE is not “journalistically balanced” either.

Nestor Almendros said in 1990, that he believed, when it comes to documentaries, the taxpayer-funded network leans unashamedly toward the political left.  “The only country that resisted [showing his documentaries], the only place where was still strong pro-Castro sentiment, was the U.S.”

When Nestor Almendros tried to get “Nobody Listened” on the PBS-POV series, after a lot of back and forth games, it was rejected for one reason or another.  Marc Weis noted, “I never supposed I’d get such a strong negative response from the committee.”

In reference to the last rejection of PBS to include “Nobody Listened” because or was “to late” for POV’s upcoming season, Almendros said, “There is something very wrong somewhere when PBS, founded by American people who are the world’s greatest enemy of communism, refuses to broadcast by itself a film about Cuba’s Communist dictator.”

PBS appears to be not so finicky when dealing with documentaries of Estela Bravo’s political persuasion – even though she doesn’t want to talk about it and claims her documentary to be apolitical.

And literally finishing off “Miami-Havana,” I must not overlook the incredible ending sequence of the returning Mariel “excludables.”   Estela doesn’t even mention that one of the demands following riots in the U.S. jails where they were in detention, was that they REMAIN IN U.S. JAILS RATHER THAN BE RETURNED TO CUBA.  How conveniently forgotten!  Brava Estela Bravo!

In her myopic version she interviewed some of them on their ominous trip back to Cuba.  Cubans, very much aware of what they have to say in order to save their skins, blamed everything on the U.S. and have to express relief, finally being on the way back to their beloved Castroland.

After landing on the real promised land, they are shown being liberated from the U.S. shackles by friendly Cuban police at the airport while Estela uses on the sound track a known-to-be-Castro-official Cuban singer setting the mood.  Then the happy ex-excludables (whom Castro forced to the U.S. in 1980) are shown leaving the Combinado del Este prison east of Havana while the same happy music plays.

Then incredibly and to my astonishment, Estela showed them going inside police cars and being delivered to their individual families for a happy reunion!

As a Cuban accustomed to these kinds of displays of “humanity” from Castro’s authorities, I started laughing.

But wait a moment.  Should I be cynical or thankful?  Probably thankful; because if it had not been for the opportune presence of friendly Estela’s camera, I could not have witnessed this “realistic” staging of the facts.  Estela strikes again!  Bravo PBS-POV, certainly a transparent and honest documentary about Estela’s belief!

However, Estela has the right to make her documentary and taxpayer funded PBS and the National Endowment for The Arts have the right to sponsor the POV broadcast in 1993, and now this New York Times’ pro-Castro film festival in New York City to show it.  But being free in the U.S. I have the right to criticize this dishonest piece of pro-Castro political propaganda.

There is nothing like freedom.  One day, not far in the future, I hope, in Cuba, Cubans will enjoy freedom in spite of the efforts of collaborators like Estela Bravo.

© 2005 ABIP

Agustin Blazquez, Producer/director of the documentaries

COVERING CUBA, CUBA: The Pearl of the Antilles, COVERING CUBA 2: The Next Generation & COVERING CUBA 3: Elianpresented at the 2003 Miami Latin Film Festival and the 2004 American Film Renaissance Film Festival in Dallas, Texas and released on April 15, 2005, COVERING CUBA 4: The Rats Below and Dan Rather ’60 Minutes’ an inside view, COVERING CUBA 5: ACT OF REPUDIATION, COVERING CUBA 6, CURACAO, COVERING CUBA 7: CHE, THE OTHER SIDE OF AN ICON.

Documentaries available at: http://www.cubacollectibles.com/cuba.mv?p=108-CC4

Author with Carlos Wotzkow of the book COVERING AND DISCOVERING and translator with Jaums Sutton of the book by Luis Grave de Peralta Morell THE MAFIA OF HAVANA: The Cuban Cosa Nostra

For previews of all my productions: www.YouTube.com/JAUMS

Press release:  Holding Iranian Human Rights Abusers Accountable: (My emphasis)

Press Statement 

Washington, DC

July 8, 2011

Today, the United States and the United Kingdom imposed visa restrictions on officials of the Government of Iran and other individuals who have participated in human rights abuses in Iran. And Canada has announced its support for increased measures against these perpetrators. Iranian officials subject to this visa ban include government ministers, military and law enforcement officers, and judiciary and prison officials.

Today’s actions are an important reminder to Iran that the international community will continue to hold accountable those officials who commit human rights abuses and suppress the democratic aspirations of fellow citizens. Until the Iranian government brings human rights abusers to justice and protects its citizens, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and other partners will stand up on behalf of the Iranian people. 

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State 

The Castro dictatorship has brutally repressed any and all dissent for 52 years.  They murder, imprison, beat, terrorize, and exile those individuals brave enough to seek human rights for the Cuban people.  

What is the Obama administration's response to the Castro dictatorship's continuing brutality?  Licensing Corporate Jets to Cuba. 

You know, I distinctly recall hearing, for years, those who support liberal/leftist/democrat politicians, like Obama, griping about how the U.S. has always done business with and/or catered to the world's dictators, and that was/is the core of our problems around the world. But with Obama he's sorta kinda like Cyrus from that 1970s cult movie "The Warriors". He claims to unify, but is picking and choosing which dictators are worthy of remaining under his king-of-the-world watch, and which he will bow to or bump fists with ...

President Obama this month opened the White House and, with it, the stature of a presidential photo-op to one of the worst dictators in Africa: Gabon’s Ali Bongo Ondimba.

The Bongo family (his father ruled the oil-rich nation for over 40 years) has stolen a big chunk of the impoverished nation’s gross domestic product, press reports say. The riches have allowed the Bongos to live a life of ostentatious luxury. They buy million-dollar homes in Hollywood and France and spend gobs of money on around-the-world shopping trips.

Even the mainstream media noted the oddity of an American President on June 9 putting down the red carpet for such an unsavory despot. [...]

One dictator on one day at the White House might be excused as playing diplomacy with the hand you’re dealt.

But there seems to be a pattern with this President of reaching out to the worst, while snubbing the best.

A year before Bongo came to town, the leader of a staunch ally visited the White House. There was no red carpet. No photo-op. No dinner. Obama treated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu like a troublesome kid he had to scare straight.

Netanyahu was shuffled off to an office where the President abruptly left the meeting with the words “let me know if there is anything new,” according to The Times of London, after he failed to get the prime minister to give in to the Palestinians.

When Netanyahu returned this spring, he did get a photo-op. But Obama dissed him once again. He laid the framework for the visit by delivering a speech that said Israel had to shrink its borders, putting Netanyahu in the awkward position of having to publicly reject the suicidal plan.

Obama’s tortured outreach to the Muslim world has found Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referring to Syrian henchmen Bashar Assad as a “reformer.”

When they met, Obama bowed before the Saudi Arabian king. That country’s money and ideology have done more to fuel radical Islam than any other’s.

Obama often criticizes Jerusalem, but rarely mentions Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist organization that vows to destroy Israel.

It was Obama’s outreach to the renegade regime in Iran that started his troublesome tilt away from Israel. Obama believed the magic of his presence would convince Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the one fueling deadly insurgents in Iraq and a nuclear weapons program at home, to sit down and talk.

Read the whole thing...

Two sayings come to mind:

1.) Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

2.) A man is known by the company he keeps.

Now then, given Obama's background that the MSM has toiled to either ignore, cover-up, or lie about, and given what we have witnessed the last two and a half years, which of the above sayings do you think Obama's fondness of dictators falls into?

About the media's mining expedition through the nearly 25,000 emails of Sarah Palin for "Gotcha!" gold ...

Well, a couple days in, and an army of agitated and eagerly duped stooges (readers) of the New York Times, WaPo, and various other MSM mental giant news organizations has offered-up some scathing Weiner-esque revelations against former Gov. Sarah Palin--- WHAT? No smoking guns? And the woman is a gun-toting, animal killin', Bible-thumpin', backwoods troglodyte to dumb to work in Washington DC? As predicted this, for the Palin-hating MSM, is like one of those roadside IEDs the enemy is in the process of setting up, but it goes off prematurely turning them into pink-smoke. But there are those who don't hate Sarah Palin that are doing their own digging to catalogue the leadership and policy skills of the woman. Conservatives4Palin and SarahPAC.com are enlisting readers to go into Palin’s emails and gather such evidence to the complete opposite of the PDS MSM.

So far we see Gov. Palin's email box was barraged by death threats. That she felt the humbling awesomeness just weeks prior to giving birth to her Down Syndrome son Trig. That, scandalously, her staff was excited when Sen. John McCain called on her to be his 2008 VP running mate. That she really isn't the mindless, blood-thirsty, animal hater, but a highly responsible hunter and conservative environmentalist. Anyhow, you get the politically pornographic picture here on the Palin exposure...

So, what's the Palin deranged MSM to do in order to cover their arses? Why, insinuate the Palin we see now is a mere fading shadow of the wonderful Alaska landlocked Palin of three years ago ...

She was hands-on and averse to partisan politics. She championed openness in government and had normal relations with the media. She was a little starstruck by her interactions with national politicians but unafraid to do battle with the chief executives of the world’s largest oil companies.

The emails from her governorship, released Friday, brought back the memory of a long-lost Palin: the popular, charismatic, competent woman of the people.

This was the vice presidential candidate John McCain’s team thought they were getting, before her darker tendencies — defensiveness, thin skin, grudge-keeping — hardened into tics. Together with the newly released, pro-Palin documentary “The Undefeated,” which focuses on her rise to the spotlight, the emails are reminders of a sympathetic figure who was not yet the brittle, divisive caricature Palin has become. [...]

The comments at the Politico link have not been kind to the writer, or the MSM. The writer is lamenting a lost wonderful Palin, and that the woman we see now is a nasty bag of griping, annoyed hotair. This is the PDS universe the MSM has created for itself with the phantom ignorant, dumb, and evil "Sarah Palin". THAT "Sarah Pali" simply doesn't exist. The 2011 Sarah Palin is the same 2007-8 Palin that sat at the Alaska governor's computer writing the emails. Well, perhaps a slight change. She has learned how to handle these idiots, and when to pick her fights with them. And they really are too ignorant, stupid and evil to figure that out. And as an added measure at least one Palin-hater has figured out this is a major can of worms that has been opened for everybody, and very well could be a "Dangerous Precedent" for other politicians, and should be investigated by the FEC. Perhaps he's been reading the comments, on various news sites carrying-on with this Palin witch hunt, that are demanding the emails of Obama during his time in the Illinois Senate, ACORN, the US Senate, and the White House (Hell, his Blackberry obsession alone would make for some interesting "Gotchas!").

Poor MSM ... The Sarah Palin emails aren't turning out to be the massive fig leaf they were hoping for to block the exposure of the face--- er, Weiner of the democrat party.

Cross-posted @ CW

Okay ... Okay, I held off of this kibbles and bits story for the most part, but I'll toss it out there now.

Over the long holiday weekend the very mouthy, rude, and most times anti-social Rep. Anthony Weiner (NY-D) made the blog news (not to be confused with the old media news, who seem to not give a damn because of the "D" after the name) with the story of Weiner's excited wiener being tweeted on Twitter to some lass across the country that he is allegedly having a less than cordial acquaintance with.

The Congressman is claiming his Twitter account was hacked (WARNING: Tweeted thingy photo therein), and the photo is not of his TSA fodder. And Sen. Chuck Schumer appears to be an expert on Weiner's wiener, assuring the Congressional member in question is not Weiner's. Chuckie's "virtually certain" of this, ya know. Damn that Congressional shower ...

Weiner says the Twitter account was 'hacked', but others are beginning to note how the Congressman is in no hurry to have the hacking investigated.

But of all the established media news organizations, only CNN seems marginally interested in what Rep. Weiner says is a non-story:

Well, even IF it is Congressman Weiner's schwartz I can pretty much bet he will not follow the path of another Congressman out of New York who felt the need to use social media to make himself appear "all that" with the ladies. But then, Rep. Anthony Weiner is a democrat ... and as we know THAT'S different.

I guess we have left the era of "Show us your boobs!" and entered the fools golden age of "Here's my junk ... What's your hurry?"

Personally, I could have easily gone through the rest of my life not having to even consider the existence of, let alone the appearance of, Rep. Anthony Weiner's (NY-D) schwartz. I find the guy annoying as hell enough without pondering him locked and loaded on Twitter.

Cross-posted @ CW

Yes. Yes. Yes. But he said the same thing just a year ago. The fear for consumers then was the threat we would be seeing $3/gallon gasoline. Right now you will see more gas station signs with just at or over $4/gallon. The reasons we have seen this increase in just a year are obvious. This administration's domestic and economic policies are intentional to take control of our energy habits by what they deem as some twisted tough love tactic. As if we are the addicts the left/liberals have been claiming for the last couple decades ... addicted to oil/fossil fuel. It's a 'cold turkey' ploy. A backdoor 'cap and trade' agenda. In the last week I have heard Obama-supporting talking heads claiming things are getting better. They say the gas prices are coming down because people are driving less. Well DUH! But everywhere people would be driving to and spending money at is suffering because "people are driving less" and don't have extra money in the household budget to spend. I'm coming out of the grocery store with nearly half the haul for just about twice the price. The U.S. dollar has been so degraded by this administration's bailout/stimulus policies, and the past few years of a spend-like-a-drunkin-sailor democrat Congress. The oil speculators have taken great advantage of the dollar's situation in all of this. But exactly how easy would it have been for them had things been done completely different in response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico just a year ago? If we--- HE had just bucked-up and carried on with oil production, and not nearly wiped it out in the eyes of the rest of the profiteering world and market speculators? Seems this administration is alone in the world in the belief that money and profits are dirty words.

Yet, just a week ago Obama claimed drilling wasn't any sort of solution to the nation's high gas prices.

This man's opposition to U.S. domestic energy production and use was noted just weeks before the 2008 POTUS election, but the MSM was not offering it to the voting public for consumption or consideration. Only the "rightwing" blogs and conservative radio/TV exposed it.

When oil and gas prices began to climb he expressed not a desire to bring them down, but a preference they would have risen gradually. Then the American people would 'adjust'.

So, what did Obama say in this morning's weekly address?

1. He is turning it over to AG Eric Holder for investigation, these pesky high oil/gas prices, to look for any "fraud or manipulation" ... Well, that's pretty much how the open markets in a capitalistic economy rolls. Only, it's not seen as "fraud and manipulation" in the sense he's presenting it. It's dog-eat-dog, Barry. Eric Holder, the AG of the USA's DOJ never saw a case/investigation he simply just couldn't resist politicizing. Yeah, that'll turn out well.

2. Oh! He's calling for expanding "safe and responsible oil production here at home" ... Last spring's BP oil spill was one of the worst ever for the nation, but was also a bit of an anomaly. US oil companies have greatly cleaned up their drilling and production practices.

So now he's presenting increasing domestic oil production here as some incredible new idea that he suddenly came to all on his own. (It's sorta kinda like killing Osama Bin Laden after using all the black-op tactics and CIA intel practices he kept in place from George W. Bush, but slammed and condemned since running for office in 2008.) Never mind just about EVERYONE with two working brain cells to rub together have been screaming for years, especially this last year since BP, to DRILL! BABY, DRILL!!! I can't wait to hear Sarah Palin's reaction to his brilliance this morning. You remember Sarah Palin? That evil ignorant, stupid, clueless broad?

And let's not forget how he and his EPA and KenSalazar of the Department of the Interior not only halted domestic oil production in the wake of the BP oil spill in the Gulf, but did so and held up permits in SPITE of federal judges' rulings against their unconstitutional drilling moratorium ... TWICE!

During this past year other countries such as China, Russia, Cuba and Venezuela have been making plans or are stepping up drilling in the Gulf waters. Arab/Muslim countries have watched their leaders fall or are under threat, jeopardizing oil markets there. And most recently Obama has given Brazil funding to expand their oil production with an additional promise the USA will be Brazil's biggest customer as they store it in the Gulf.

Oil drilling companies have pulled out of the Gulf, at least one going bankrupt, and Shell Oil lost billions of investment dollars in the Arctic when they recently gave up on the administration's and EPA's stall tactics. Both the local/state economies of Alaska and the Gulf states have and will be suffering because of all of this, not to mention the countless possible jobs lost. And then there are those lost jobs and closed businesses in the Gulf region in the last year of 'mouning' over the BP spill.

So, to top it all off Obama is creating, and funding (well, he's creating it while we fund it), yet ANOTHER "team to coordinate work on Alaska drilling permits" ... Alaska's getting a friggin' oil czar, I guess. The ONLY thing this guy nows how to create is more bureaucracy, and its additional accompanying debt.

3. And finally to take away oil subsidies (never mind "green energy" has been getting huge subsidies for years, and hasn't produced so much as a fart's-worth of energy yet ... but we must depend on it ...).

No, the oil companies are the ones who need investigated and grilled by the smug dogs and ponies in Congress that are too damn dumb and lazy to get a job anywhere else but a career spending other people's money in the US government:

FYI: Who makes the most money from oil and gas prices???

The U.S. government does.

The U.S. economy is in the crapper, and all Obama and the democrats can come up with to get our economy back on track is to call for more taxes and no spending cuts, raising the debt ceiling, and strap the oil companies with more taxes (which would be passed onto the consumer) ...

He has the audacity to cite the oil companies making $4 billion a week. I would bet that is far less than what the federal government takes in from taxes in a week ... Yet, the U.S. government cannot exist on that? But the oil companies are wrong for profiting, expanding for more profits, hiring and paying more workers, developing newer and better technologies, procedures and products ... putting money into research, giving education grants and donating money to charities, pumping money into the local economies? What exactly are we getting for all our future trillions of tax dollars the ponzi government is banking on? Failed entitlement and social programs, waste in endless pork projects, money to corrupt entities (see: U.N.) and countries, bailing-out (buying) private companies/industries it has no business buying and owning while it boosts corrupt unions and cronies, and expanding and adding to already bloated government jobs.

Forgive me if I side with the evil oil companies, folks.

I have my doubts about exactly how today's drilling announcement by Obama will effect oil and gas prices. The man is not credible in anything he says. He is not good at gambling or playing the markets because he is wired to oppose such things, and to crush capitalism. Except, of course, if it means several wonderful vacations and parties in a year, great top of the line eats, and endless mornings and afternoons on the nation's/world's best golf courses. (He's never had to pay for anything himself in his life, or take a loss and struggle to get back on his feet, or make a payroll, or seriously balance a budget for fear of losing everything.) The markets and speculators have learned this about him in these last two and a half years. They know how anti-business (small or large), anti-American taxpayer and anti-exceptionalism he is. They know his master plan and motivation for this country and our economy is the dreaded "green energy" ideology that ruined Spain's economy. We are to become Europe at every level, from nanny state programs, to capped wages and life-draining government revenues while stifling individual freedoms and rights through government controls and regulations/restrictions.

Obama's assertion about the American oil/gas consumer "adjusting" was right. As I pointed out it was just a year ago $3/gallon was horrific. As we fork over $4/gallon, with fears we could see $5/gallon by the end of summer, is there any doubt if gas station signs dropped to $3/gallon tomorrow the line of bumper-to-bumper cars would be wrapped around the block to fill`er -up? We have 'adjusted' ... Rather, we have been conditioned to accept what was high and outrageous a year ago as acceptable and even good/cheap now. I dread to think what we will have adjusted to a year from now, and deem acceptable and good/cheap. But not to worry. Political speculators say Obama intends to raise at least a billion dollars to run for re-election in 2012, and he's already started.

Ask yourself this: If everything this man has done and is doing, and planning to do is so great, and the nation is so much better-off than it was before he took office, and the future looks so darned bright for us all with him at the helm of the nation, why ... WHY does he need so much money to get a second term in office? Especially when the 2012 GOP field is uncertain, at best ... Today's drilling announcement was less about helping the struggling American people and the economy, and more about a politically expedient play.

The only addiction here is not the American people's addiction to oil and gas so that we can get to work and school, live clean, healthy, and comfortable lives while being productive and generous with ourselves and others. Oil and gas is the life blood to this nation's growth, progress, and strength that has enabled us to help ourselves, and the rest of the world for generations. No, the addiction here is that of this man and the government to power, control, and the hard earned money off the backs of the American taxpayer.

He thinks we are are ignorant frogs in a boiling pot. He turns up the heat, then lowers it. Turns it up again, and lowers it again ... Until he believes we cannot tell we are being cooked alive by the flame of this insanity.

He is wrong, and will be blowing a billion dollars come 2012 ...

But that's all this guy knows ... How to spend and blow other people's money.

Hopeless changeling ...

Yes, he's eating frog legs above.

UPDATE:

My oil industry pal in La. adds that what may have finally pushed Obama to make Saturday's address about opening drilling and granting permits was yet another recent ruling of a week ago Friday by Federal Judge Feldman (pdf), ruling against the Obama Administration's obstinate, dismissive, and contemptible Department of Interior and Sec. Ken Salazar.

My friend adds:

"Your story is missing the most recent court decision of Friday a week ago, by Judge Feldman. This one was a doozy and swung the door wide open for every Tom Dick and Harry involved in the offshore drilling and exploration to force the Fede...ralies to take action in either issuing or declining permits, regardless of their claims of not having enough staff. It calls Zero's bluff in a huge way. He was caught in the trap laid by his own actions. He took the only way out, a speech ... And there were more than two previous rulings. Several more."

Macondo was a very large anomaly and overhyped by the MSM & dumb bloggers trying to make Obama look worse than he already looked (clueless). They all helped Obama make his case for stopping leases and the moratorium on drilling permits. FYI, fish catches are at an all time high this spring. Marlin, yellow fin tuna, speckled trout, redfish, etc.. are being caught it record numbers.

Which we already know as our resident La. hunter and fisherman Humberto kindly shares photos from his catches here on Babalu.

My friend also reminds me that the GOP-led House in Congress a few days back passed a drilling bill that also helped in forcing Obama to the 'verbal' decision to re-open domestic drilling:

"Zero had to make these statements, especially after Feldman’s most recent ruling AND the GOP led House’s recent bill regarding drilling being passed. They both call his hand to be laid out for the public to see. He cannot withstand this onslaught. He has been caught in a trap."

Added Bonus - Green Fail: Rocky Mountain Power may turn off solar program

Cross-posted @ CW

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) ... Remember her? She's also a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a group of the most liberal Democrats in the House, who have drafted a poison pill called the "People's Budget". (Anything that starts with "The People's ..." usually doesn't end up well for the people.)

These people are not only willingly blind ...

Seven quick thoughts on the Most Important Speech of Obama’s Presidency Since the Last One . . .

1. The prepared text begins, “This debate over budgets and deficits is about more than just numbers on a page, more than just cutting and spending. It’s about the kind of future we want.” I read that and hear, ‘I cannot get the numbers to add up.” Or, perhaps, “It was my understanding there would be no math involved in this debate.”

2. There is a lot of blaming Bush in this speech. Quick perspective: Using numbers from the U.S. Treasury, we see that the debt during Bush’s eight years in office increased from $5.7 trillion to $10.6 trillion, or $4.9 trillion over eight years. That’s bad; that’s basically $610 billion per year. But in the less than three years Obama has been in office, the debt has increased from $10.6 trillion to $14.2 trillion, a $3.6 trillion increase in about 27 months. In other words, Obama is increasing the debt by $1.6 trillion per year, three times as fast as Bush. [...]

... they are criminally insane ...

Called a “debt failsafe trigger,” Obama’s scheme would automatically raise taxes if politicians spend too much. According to the talking points distributed by the White House, the automatic tax increase would take effect “if, by 2014, the projected ratio of debt-to-GDP is not stabilized and declining toward the end of the decade.”

Let’s ponder what this means. If politicians in Washington spend too much and cause more red ink, which happens on a routine basis, Obama wants a provision that automatically would raise taxes on the American people.

Get it? THAT is the "investing" Rep. Johnson and her ilk are referring to. The "vision" is sucking more money from the American worker/taxpayer/consumer in the way of endless taxes, and the "innovation" is the ability to grow government from all that "vision" goin' on `round here. Because without it we would just have our kids eating off dirty floors ... Mind you, with Michelle Obama's plan it would be bland but healthy food served three times a day by unions in the public school system. ("Please, sir, I want some more.") And if the GOP, and republicans in general, won't cotton to this "vision" it's nothing a little encouragement with a baseball bat won't cure ...

Everyone believes we dodged some bullet a week ago when this ever changing budget agreement was settled upon in the witching hour.

WASHINGTON — A new budget estimate released Wednesday shows that the spending bill negotiated between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner would produce less than 1 percent of the $38 billion in promised savings by the end of this budget year.

The Congressional Budget Office estimate shows that compared with current spending rates the spending bill due for a House vote Thursday would cut federal outlays from non-war accounts by just $352 million through Sept. 30. About $8 billion in immediate cuts to domestic programs and foreign aid are offset by nearly equal increases in defense spending.

When war funding is factored in the legislation would actually increase total federal outlays by $3.3 billion relative to current levels.

To a fair degree, the lack of immediate budget-cutting punch is because the budget year is more than half over and that cuts in new spending authority typically are slow to register on deficit tallies. And Republicans promise that when fully implemented and repeated year after year, the cuts in the measure would reduce the deficit by $315 billion over the coming decade...

Sometimes you're better off just biting the damn bullet.

I really believe this country would be better off if these people would just take Joe Biden's lead ...

Shut it down ...

(Cross-posted @ CW)

Right now three of my Marines are deployed ... One in Afghanistan, and the other two had their deployments bumped up by weeks/months to deploy to US Navy ships floating off the coast of Libya. All three left wives and children and bills behind. With all the damn crap about unions' rights and collective bargaining I wouldn't blame the US Military to 'go on strike' (mutiny is the word, actually), no matter where they are in the world. The democrats in the Congress, and apparently the White House, have no problem holding our troops political hostages.

Moran has a history of crapping all over our troops and veterans and their mission. And now it seems Moran has no problem getting snippy with his constituents whom he just doesn't feel the need to tolerate their questions or criticisms.

The democrats had control of both Houses of Congress since 2006, until last November's (2012) election. They had full control of both Houses and the Oval Office from January 2009 until the November election. They failed to pass a budget. And now they want to push this travesty off on the GOP in the House?

I don't think so. The American voter (well, hopefully the majority of them) are NOT as stupid as the democrats believe. All of this is writing itself for their challengers in the 2012 elections.

UPDATES: I don't want to leave anything out. I believe in giving full credit to Rep. Jim Moran where and when it's due (in his own words on video):

Jim Moran says military service is not public service

Jim Moran wants to fight when asked about “stimulus” money