Lenin had a phrase for people like the Congresswoman, useful idiot

• Castro Misses The Party
• Castro Misses The Party
• Bad News For A Bad Guy
• Bad News For A Bad Guy
• Couldn’t Happen To A Nicer Guy

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) — Russia expressed interest in using Cuban airfields during patrol missions of its strategic bombers, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported

“There are four or five airfields in Cuba with 4,000-meter-long runways, which absolutely suit us,” Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev told Interfax.

Zhikharev, who is the chief of staff of the Russian Air Force’s long-range aviation, said, “If the two chiefs of state display such a political will, we are ready to fly there.”

Zhikharev also told Interfax that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has offered a military airfield on La Orchila island as a temporary base for Russian strategic bombers.

Which, of course, leads to the question — what are Russian strategic bombers doing anywhere near Cuba and Venezuela ?

I’m just askin’.

Update: James Joyner links to an article which provides more perspective on this:

Independent military analyst Alexander Golts said from a strategic point of view there was nothing for Russia to gain from basing long-range craft within relatively short range of U.S. shores.

“It has no military sense. The bombers don’t need any base. This is just a retaliatory gesture,” Golts said, saying Russia wanted to hit back after U.S. ships patrolled Black Sea waters.

So, in the end, this may well be just a way to tweak the new Administration.

• The Return Of The Cold War ?
• The Return Of The Cold War ?
• Oops Wait A Minute……Isn’t He An Illegal Immigrant ?
• Oops Wait A Minute……Isn’t He An Illegal Immigrant ?
• Bad News For A Bad Guy

Fidel Castro has devoted the last 50 years to two causes: first, his own enshrinement as an immortal icon, and second, the unbending allegiance of Cuba to the Moscow line. Now, black-cowled Orthodox “metropolitans” line up to shake his hand, and the Putin-Medvedev regime brandishes its missile threats against the young Obama as Nikita Khrushchev once did against the young Kennedy. The ideology of Moscow doesn’t much matter as long as it is anti-American, and the Russian Orthodox Church has been Putin’s most devoted and reliable ally in his re-creation of an old-style Russian imperialism. If you want to see how far things have gone, take a look at the photograph of President Dmitry Medvedev’s inauguration, as he kisses the holy icon held by the clerical chief. Putin and Medvedev have made it clear that they want to reinstate Cuba’s role in the hemisphere, if only as a bore and nuisance for as long as its military dictatorship can be made to last. Castro’s apparent deathbed conversion to a religion with no Cuban adherents is the seal on this gruesome pact. How very appropriate.

What ? You didn’t believe that Castro was sincere, did you ?

• Healing An Ancient Rift
• Healing An Ancient Rift
• Bad News For A Bad Guy
• Bad News For A Bad Guy
• Couldn’t Happen To A Nicer Guy

At first, Loanni Cartaya Prieto called his grandfather to say hello.

Prieto, a defender for the Cuban under-23 national soccer team, was in Tampa, Fla., competing in the regional Olympic qualifying tournament. His grandfather lives in West Palm Beach.

But after Prieto hung up, he had another thought.

“This could be our opportunity to make our dreams of becoming a professional soccer player come true,” he said Friday by telephone from West Palm Beach.

On Tuesday afternoon, just before playing the United States in a match that ended in a 1-1 tie, Prieto called his grandfather again. This time the conversation was urgent. Pick me up tonight, at my hotel, he said; I want to defect.

Around 10:45 p.m. Tuesday, Prieto and four teammates went out a side door of the Doubletree Hotel, got into his grandfather’s truck and slipped away toward an American future. The young men were no longer members of the Cuban national soccer team; they were refugees.

By Wednesday night, two more players had left the team hotel. As of Friday, an assistant coach was also unaccounted for. Although the defection of Cuban athletes from international competitions is not uncommon, the sudden departure of seven players and an assistant coach at a qualifying tournament for the Olympics represented a stunning rebuke to the Cuban government.

Apparently, Fidel’s socialist paradise isn’t all that great after all.

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• Why Ron Paul Failed, And Where The “r3volution” Goes From Here
• Why Ron Paul Failed, And Where The “r3volution” Goes From Here
• Losing A Good One
• Losing A Good One
• Markets and Morality

MEXICO CITY, Feb. 19 — Fidel Castro announced early Tuesday morning that he is stepping down as Cuba’s president, ending his half-century rule of the island nation.

“I am saying that I will neither aspire to nor accept, I repeat, I will neither aspire to nor accept the positions of President of the State Council and Commander in Chief,” Castro, 81, said in a letter posted on the Web site of the state-run newspaper, Granma.

The announcement ends the formal reign of a man who, after seizing power in a 1959 revolution, not only outlasted nine U.S. presidents but his communist patrons in the former Soviet Union as well. Prior to the Soviet Union’s collapse, support from the Kremlin sustained Cuba as a socialist outpost on the doorstep of the U.S., and placed Castro and his country in the middle of events central to the Cold War, including the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis.

And to finally see him out of power, while it doesn’t yet mean the dismantling to Cuba’s totalitarian state, is gratifying nonetheless.

Here’s hoping his retirement is short-lived and thoroughly unenjoyable.

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MEXICO CITY — Fidel Castro indicated Monday in a statement read on state television that he was willing to hand over the reins of Cuba’s government to a younger generation of leaders. But his statement remained silent on whether he was speaking hypothetically or had a transition plan in mind.

“My basic duty is not to cling to office, nor even more so, to obstruct the rise of people much younger, but to pass on experiences and ideas whose modest value arises from the exceptional era in which I lived,” said the statement attributed to Mr. Castro, who is 81.

The ailing Mr. Castro, acting in a sort of emeritus role, has produced numerous commentaries in the 16 months since he had abdominal surgery and temporarily handed over power to his younger brother, Raúl, who is 76. But none of the statements until now have addressed the important question of Mr. Castro’s future as Cuba’s president, a position he has held for nearly five decades.

Let’s just say, I’ll believe it when I see it.

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The Cuban Government is, of course, denying these rumors.

Since I have other activities planned for Saturday, his immediate death would be inconvenient.

Unless, of course, I could locate a ready supply of champagne and cigars.

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Fidel Castro dead ?

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday Fidel Castro is “writing, and producing,” denying rumors circulating on the Internet that the Cuban leader had died.

Chavez, a close ally of Castro, has frequently provided information about the health of the ailing Communist leader who temporarily stepped aside after undergoing emergency abdominal surgery a year ago.

“On the Internet rumors are circulating that Fidel Castro has died,” Chavez said during his weekly Sunday broadcast. “Fidel is producing, he is writing.”

Chavez said he had spoken to Castro on his 81st birthday on Monday.

Rumors had surfaced on Friday that Castro had died from complications resulting from his surgery.

Yea, I know, we’ll probably be disappointed this time too. But, the impending demise of the Western Hemisphere’s biggest Son of a Bitch is something that can’t come soon enough.

As I’ve said before, when the butcher of Havana finally kicks the bucket:

My suggested theme revolves around Mojitos, cigars, and celebrating the death of a real son of a bitch.

And when it happens, don’t count on any tears for Fidel from me.

H/T: Vodkapundit

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