“What?!  Just look at this article’s title! Here’s typical Cuban- exile, Mc Carthyite, crackpot right-wing, Republican lunacy!  Bourdain’s show is on The Travel Channel, for crying out loud!  On the July 12^th episode of his No Reservations , they ran a show where Bourdain traveled to Cuba highlighting the food, people, sights and sounds, etc. —like he does while traveling all over the world.  What’s wrong with that?  You Cuban-exiles are beyond hopeless! Get a grip—and finally join the 21^st Century.  Geesh! “

Allow me to calmly explain:  neck to neck with Hugo Chavez’ subsidies Castro’s Stalinist regime lives off tourism. And Cuba’s Intelligence and Military sector owns 80 per cent of the Tourist Industry, as documented to Congress by retired Defense Intelligence Agency Cuba analyst, Lieut. Col. Chris Simmons.  Henceforth, yet another Travel Channel infomercial (Zimmern visited in 2009) for Cuba was a godsend to the Stalinist nomenklatura—especially right now with their Venezuelan Sugar- Daddy in perilous health.

Those charming, smiling hosts who escorted Bourdain around Castro’s fiefdom were all regime apparatchiks.  Immediately upon applying for his Cuban visa, well before Bourdain even set foot in Cuba, Castro’s intelligence had Bourdain completely sussed and his future escorts completely briefed. The procedure started the day he applied for Cuban visa, as also explained by Lieut. Col. Christopher Simmons. That your official “guides” while officially visiting a Communist nation were regime apparatchiks was common knowledge even to proto-imbeciles all during the Cold War.  Bourdain was born in 1956. 

“Big deal! So who’s this Simmons guy?! Some Birther- Bircher-Crackpot you rich Republican Cuban exiles pay off!”

(more…)

Che Guevara – an icon for morons

Following in the footsteps of (among many other flower-children) Stephen Stills, Bonnie Raitt, Chrissie Hynde, Jimmy Buffet, and Carole King (who in 2002 serenaded Fidel Castro with a personal “You’ve Got a Friend”) guitar legend Jimmy Page made the pilgrimage to Fidel Castro’s fiefdom this week.

To Led Zeppelin’s former guitarist the visit probably seemed, not only fitting, but long overdue. Cuba was, after all, the first nation ruled by bearded long-hairs. Jean Paul Sartre, after all, hailed Cuba’s Stalinist rulers as “les Enfants au Pouvoir” (the children in power). Fidel Castro, after all, spoke at Harvard in 1959 on the same bill as pioneer beatnik Allen Ginsberg.

Remove the wispy beard and beret from the (late, thanks to Fidel Castro) revolutionary icon on those posters and t-shirts and you’ve got Jim Morrison of The Doors. Remove the cowboy hat from the (late, thanks to Fidel Castro) Revolutionary icon Camilo Cienfuegos and you’ve got Grateful Dead’s Gerry Garcia. Circa 1959, Raul Castro with his blond shoulder-length locks was a ringer for Joe Walsh circa Hotel California. These Cuban Stalinists were on the cutting edge of fashion. They pre-empted the Haight Ashbury look by a decade.

Castro’s captive (literally!) media, reports that Jimmy Page’s visit: “included tours of historic sites, and purchases of souvenirs such as the famous photograph of Che Guevara.” (more…)

Fidel Castro has a favorite new book and he’s quoting favorite passages in his captive media: 

“At Woodstock nearly half a million youth gathered to be drugged and brainwashed on a farm. The victims were isolated, immersed in filth, pumped with psychedelic drugs…all with the full and secret complicity of the FBI and CIA.” 

Alas, when in 1979 Fidel Castro (whose regime murdered more political prisoners than pre-war Hitler’s and jailed political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin’s) invited Stephen Stills to perform in Cuba, the famous Woodstocker could hardly contain his elation. The fervent champion of human-rights, civil rights and free-speech (indeed CSNY’s last tour was titled “The Free-Speech Tour”) not only took up the offer to perform at this “Havana-Jam,” but also composed a song in Castro’s honor, titled “Cuba al Fin!” 

Jazz-master Paquito‘d Rivera, in Cuba at the time, recalls watching Stills on stage at Havana’s Karl Marx theatre lovingly crooning the song to the families of Castro’s Stalinist nomenklatura as if Havana-Jam were a personal performance for the mass-murderer himself. Within blocks of this cheeky “Havana-Jam,” (which also included Human-Rights activist Kris Kristofferson along with Billy Joel) Cuban youths, black and white, languished in dungeons suffering longer prison sentences than Nelson Mandela’s. The Cubans’ crimes were attempting free speech.  (more…)

“My dinner with Fidel Castro was the eight most important hours of my life,” Steven Spielberg is reported to have announced after returning from a visit to Cuba in 2002.

The quote was carried by many papers including the Wall Street Journal  and was included in this writer’s articles and books. Upon their publication, the Hollywood agent who arranged Spielberg’s trip to the Caribbean police-state notified me that Spielberg had uttered nothing of the sort. Therefore I should retract that statement from my writings.

Castro’s own media, explained Mr. Stephen Rivers (formerly with Creative Artists Agency), had concocted the Spielberg quote from thin air. So there was absolutely no truth to it.

Well, that actually makes my point better than the quote genuinely issuing from Spielberg, I replied to the high-rolling Stephen Rivers, who also represented Michael Ovitz.  My writings document that Fidel Castro is a master propagandist and that his KGB/STASI- trained secret services specialize in obtaining many such statements from many such luminaries via a variety of methods.

So the proper — and especially, the logical — course of action (if Mr. Spielberg had indeed been  thusly swindled) was for Mr. Spielberg or his agent, to make Fidel Castro’s treachery known publicly.  After all, Mr. Spielberg (supposedly) was the aggrieved party here and the damage (from what Mr. Rivers was telling me) had been inflicted maliciously by the secret services of a Stalinist regime. (more…)

His heroes are Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. He thinks both have been given a bum rap in the American media. He also thinks Venezuela is a democratic nation whose people enjoy the same freedoms as we do here in America. So when Oliver Stone brags about smuggling coca leaves into the United States should that really be a surprise to anyone?

INTERVIEWER: For that ailment [altitude sickness], you appear onscreen chewing coca leaves. Is that high much different than having caffeine?

STONE: No, it’s a mild, mild stimulus. You’re at 12,000 feet, so you’re nauseous and it’s really hard to breathe. This opens the cells, you get better oxygen and you feel more relaxed. I was nauseous, and then I ended up playing soccer, that was sort of the point. They’ve been doing it for centuries down there. It’s a normal thing to do. By the way, I brought coca leaves back. It’s illegal in this country to have a coca leaf, but put it in a cup of tea and it’s better for your health than coffee. But of course, there’s more money for us in coffee as well as tobacco, so we’d rather do that for stimulation.

As a narco-journalist and documentary filmmaker myself, I too have been given the opportunity to smuggle contraband in and out of the United States. I’ve even been offered large sums of money to do it and can’t think of a single reason as to what would motivate me to agree. Putting coca leaves in your tea is like putting Crystal Meth in your orange juice — not a real smart move. (more…)

This is our sixth month of Obama Nation strips. Huzzah!

Part I of this series can be found here.

Steven Soderbergh made certain his new movie, “Che,” about the life of revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, couldn’t be attacked — at least on a factual level. (CNN Entertainment, January 1, 2009)

“I didn’t mind someone saying, ‘Well, your take on him, I don’t really like,’ or ‘You’ve left these things out and included these things.’ That’s fine,” Soderbergh said. “What I didn’t want was for somebody to be able to look at a scene and say, ‘That never happened.’ “(CNN Entertainment, January 1, 2009)

Well, Mr Soderbergh (and CNN), pull up a chair.

Soderbergh’s movie shows Che Guevara steely-eyed and snarling with defiance during his capture. Why, only seconds before, Che’s very M-2 carbine had been blasted from his hands and rendered useless by a fascist machine gun burst!

Then the bravely grimacing Guevara jerks out his pistol and blasts his very last bullets at the approaching hordes of CIA-lackey soldiers!

The (typical) viewer gapes at the spectacle. His eyes mist and lips tremble at Soderbergh and del Toro’s impeccable depiction of such undaunted pluck and valor.

(more…)

Fidel Castro, 2010. Mixed Media Silkscreen with Lipstick.

(more…)

“I’m very nervous!” twittered super-model Naomi Campbell during a press conference held in Havana’s Hotel Nacional in 1998. “I just spent an hour and a half talking with your president, Fidel Castro!  But he told me there was nothing to be afraid of because he already knew a lot about us (Campbell and her travel-chum, Kate Moss) from reading the press!” 

Castro undoubtedly knew plenty about Mss’ Campbell and Moss–but probably not from reading Vogue, Elle or Cosmo.  

“My job was to bug their hotel rooms,” disclosed high-ranking Cuban intelligence defector Delfin Fernandez, “with both cameras and listening devices.

“When word came down that models Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss were coming to Cuba the order was a routine one: 24-hour-a-day vigilance. Then we got a PRIORITY alert, recalls Fernandez, “because there was a rumor that they would be sharing a room with Leonardo DiCaprio. The rumor set off a flurry of activity and we set up the most sophisticated devices we had.”  (more…)

“Che” film gets thumbs up in Cuba,” ran the headline from CNN’s Havana Bureau last December 8. Benicio Del Toro, who stars as Che, was being feted as the Castro regime’s guest of honor during the Havana Film Festival while presenting the movie he co-produced. “The lengthy biopic of the Argentinean revolutionary won acclaim from among those who know his story best,” continued the CNN story.

I am a graduate of Brandeis University, a respected institution of higher learning that is also a bastion of liberal and left-wing thought.  It’s a sure bet that most, if not all of Brandeis’ professors are registered Democrats. While never overtly political, I was content to go along with the liberal crowd for years — until September 11, 2001.

During my years at Brandeis, dorm rooms were decorated with posters and photos of rock groups, pop stars, famous actors and a man so handsome that the first time I saw him, my teenage heart skipped a beat. There he was, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, so-called  heroic martyr of the Cuban Revolution. While I never displayed any images of Che, for many years I, too, ignorantly regarded him as an admirable rebel who fought bravely for “the people”.  Then I became a Republican and learned some facts about Mr. Guevara, as the New York Times might respectfully refer to him.  Here’s a list of just a few of the humanitarian acts performed or sanctioned by the Left’s favorite pinup: (more…)

(more…)

Today, Scribner sent along this timely excerpt from “Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana and Washington,” a new book by award-winning journalist Ann Louise Bardach. For those of you who don’t know, today, on behalf of Vanity Fair, Sean Penn’s in Cuba hoping to secure an interview with Fidel Castro. As you’ll read below, this is not Penn’s first trip and he’s pretty chummy with the Castro brothers. And don’t miss the short excerpt at the very end — an amusing anecdote revealing how visiting stars like Leo and Jack Nicholson are put under constant surveillance in Uncle Fidel’s Cuba. As long as it’s not Dick Cheney, right?

Without Fidel
by Ann Louise Bardach

Chapter 12 – Raul’s Reign: The Grave Yard Shift

In October 2008, Raul Castro granted his first interview as president of Cuba – and one of the very few he has ever given. The lucky recipient was not one of the dozen accredited reporters based in Havana. Nor was it a journalist who has covered the Miami/Havana beat, nor one of the hundreds of requests from representatives from media organizations and academia who have filed requests with the Foreign Ministry. Rather, Raul Castro’s first interlocutor would be the actor/director, Sean Penn, who periodically weighs in on politics.

Penn had just winged in on a Venezuelan military jet from Isla Margarita, the picturesque island near Caracas, having had spent two days with a convivial Hugo Chavez. With him were the writer Christopher Hitchens and historian Douglas Brinkley, whom Penn had invited to accompany him, presumably to lend gravitas to his efforts. The three had hoped to reprise their luck with Raul Castro and, according to Penn, seemed to have been promised as much. (more…)

If you didn’t know any better, you would almost think that Sean Penn wants to make it extremely easy for conservatives to criticize Hollywood for being overly liberal. He’s flown to Cuba to interview his hero Fidel Castro:

Oscar-winning actor and political activist Sean Penn flew to Cuba hoping to interview its revolutionary icon Fidel Castro, entertainment news website TMZ reported Sunday.

“Sean (Penn) is going to the land of Fidel as a journalist, writing a story for Vanity Fair (magazine) about how the (Barack) Obama administration has affected Cuba,” TMZ reported…

“Barclays sources say Sean and Diana are going to meet (Fidel) Castro — presumably because that’s what Diana told them,” the website reported. Penn’s representative also told TMZ a meeting was possible.

(more…)

How much access can a possible agent of influence for state sponsors of terrorism buy from President Barack Obama? For Jodie Evans, a progressive Hollywood activist, the going rate appears to be $30,400 for dinner and a conversation.

Last week in San Francisco, Obama headlined a three million dollar fundraiser at the Westin St. Francis Hotel. The San Francisco Chronicle reports about 160 people paid $30,400 or more per couple for a private dinner with Obama followed by a reception costing $500 to $1000 that drew over 900 attendees. Among those at the dinner was the leftist, so-called antiwar group Code Pink co-founder, Jodie Evans.

The Chronicle reports Jodie Evans had a several minutes long conversation with Obama at the fundraiser.

Why does Jodie Evans merit such face time with the president even though she acts as an agent of influence for the anti-American governments of Iran, Cuba and Venezuela, as well as Middle Eastern terrorists?

Over the life of the campaign, Jodie Evans became one of Obama’s top donors, giving the maximum $2300 to his respective primary and general election funds and tens of thousands of dollars more to the Obama Victory Fund, a joint Obama-Democratic National Committee fund.

(more…)

(more…)

The question that’s been preying on my mind is who is best suited to study those strange beings known as liberals.  It strikes me that they’d be fit subjects for psychiatrists, who might be in a position to figure out why they revere the people they do — people such as Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Al Gore and Ted Kennedy — men who haven’t a single notable accomplishment to their name, aside from either winning elections or eliminating them altogether.  Or perhaps it would be more appropriate for biologists to delve into the left-wing organism, and determine how it is possible that creatures without brains could have survived so long in an often hostile environment.

If you don’t believe that liberalism is a serious malady, consider that Paul Krugman of the New York Times, when addressing Sonia Sotomayor’s remark about an Hispanic woman being better qualified than a white man to be a judge, said that she was merely being entertaining.  Even if Mr. Krugman is, as his comment suggests, more easily entertained than a backward three-year-old, I have a feeling that he wasn’t nearly as forgiving when Trent Lott, on the occasion of Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday in 2002, said it was a shame that the old Dixiecrat hadn’t been elected president in 1948. (more…)

(Thundering tympanies, swirling spotlights)

Announcer

Live! From the fabulous Turtle Bay Ballroom at United Nations Headquarters, it’s the Rat Pack of Evil All-Star International Celebrity Roast of President Barack Obama!

(orchestra fanfare: ‘Make ‘Em Laugh’)

With Pyongyang funnyman Kim Jong-Il! Borscht Belt headliner Vlady Putin! Queen of Mean Liz Windsor! Saudi Sheik of Schtick King Abdullah! Beijing jokeslinger Hu Jintao! Wacky al Qaeda Caveman Ayman al-Zawahiri! Nick ‘the Knife’ Sarkozy! Sassy Wanda Sykes! South-of-the-border slapstick team Hugo Chavez and the Castro Brothers! Taliban Madman Mullah Omar! Jon Stewart! Lovable Libyan lush Muammar al-Ghadaffi! Grovelin’ Guvner Gordy Brown! Bashar “The Chin” al-Assad! The Hamas Fattah Dancers! And starring your Master of Ceremonies — that suntan man with a plan from Iran — that Persian with a nuclear perversion — Sheckyyyyyy Ahmedinejad!

(applause)

Shecky Ahmedinejad

Okay, okay, pipe down. Let’s get this thing over with, this straitjacket is a rental and my magic carpet is double-parked on East 43rd. Mohamed H. Prophet, will you get a load of the evil on the stage tonight? I haven’t seen this many bombs since Janeane Garofalo played the American Legion convention. (more…)

One day Hugo Chavez calls upon President Obama to join a great, global socialist revolution, the next Obama moves towards normalizing relations with Cuba. It’s good to see the U.S. listening to other world leaders again!

It’s been two years since Fidel Castro retired, and not much has been heard from him. What exactly does an all-powerful, all-knowing, great and glorious communist revolutionary leader do in retirement? Like most things in communist Cuba, Fidel’s retirement has been shrouded in secrecy. Until now. As a Breitbart columnist it is my responsibility to bring you, the reader, the truth as uncovered by my world-wide network of investigative reporters, spies, finks and stoolies. (more…)