Seeking logic in North Korea’s mass spectacles

The methodology behind these mass spectacles orchestrated by the communist government of North Korea, the most radical in the world, is to dehumanize the individual. In doing so, they have created a land of robots, conditioned from birth to be nothing more than servants of the state.

It is truly remarkable that individuals living in the 21st century are capable of idolizing other human beings, and believing them to have supernatural powers such as being able to control the weather. Such is the ignorance of our species, coupled with the propaganda machine of the North Korean government.

North Korea is a despicable place to live. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

By TIM SULLIVAN | Associated Press

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — From across the city, they are summoned to pay reverence.

So on a chilly April evening, tens of thousands of people come to honor their new ruler, as towering statues of his father and grandfather are unveiled on a Pyongyang hilltop. The crowds bow before the statues in practiced unison and shake bright, fake flowers in choreographed praise. Some weep with joy to be in the presence of the baby-faced Kim Jong Un, who is now their Illustrious General, their Leader, their Supreme Commander.

For years, this is how the world has seen the people of this secretive nation: as Stalinist automatons in meticulously staged mass spectacles that glorify one-family rule. And there’s plenty of truth in that.

But look closer.

Go downtown on that April evening and mingle among the thousands of people walking to their trolley stops after the ceremony, when the streets are closed to traffic and crowds fill the night with laughter. Most have spent the entire day squatting in a hilltop plaza the size of a small cornfield, waiting to stand on cue and wave their flowers for a few minutes in well-practiced devotion. They should be exhausted.

Instead, young women walk arm in arm, young men eyeing them from nearby. Older women laugh as they swish along in the traditional Korean dresses modernized here into polyester hoop skirts. Across the street from Department Store No. 1, hundreds of people crowd sidewalk stalls to buy 1-cent servings of spring water (“Good for your health!” a saleswoman promises), served in metal cups that are rinsed in buckets and quickly used again.

In many ways, it’s a vision of 1950s small-town America. Most men wear hats and ties, few women show even a hint of cleavage. There are no teenagers with mysterious piercings, no fights, no obvious drunks.

This is the complex reality of the spectacles, which exist at a particularly North Korean intersection of dogma, tedium and entertainment. They are blatant propaganda in support of the ruling family, but also a chance to look around for girlfriends. They are a source of widespread pride in a country best known for its isolation, but require dull practice sessions that can stretch on for days.

And in a place with little to offer in the way of nightlife, they even count as fun.

Movie theaters close early here, along with the bars. North Korean television broadcasts little but odes to the ruling family. Few people can afford the city’s restaurants. Private parties are discouraged by the authorities, who frown on gatherings they do not control.

That leaves the rallies.

“On days when rallies are held, people who participate can get together and talk over drinks after the event is over,” says Kim Seong-min, 26, a university student now living in South Korea. “Rallies are chances to get together and feel the warmth of the community.”

The ceremonies, like nearly all life in North Korea, revolve around the three men who have ruled the country since its birth in 1948: The founder Kim Il Sung, his son Kim Jong Il and now his grandson Kim Jong Un.

Toddlers learn songs proclaiming their love of Kim Il Sung. Official accounts say Kim Jong Il’s could control the weather, and that broken machinery would spontaneously function at his touch. The state media proclaims Kim Jong Un, who came to power late last year after his father’s death and is believed to be in his late 20s, a living reflection of his two predecessors.

In the official tales, the Kims are kind and they are brilliant, they are strong and they are all-knowing.

The government, of course, is also deeply feared, with vast interlocking webs of intelligence agencies, informer networks and prison camps. Plenty of North Koreans proclaim their belief out of that fear, according to people who have managed to flee the country. Others pay fealty out of professional ambition.

But many people genuinely believe the propaganda; it is so all-encompassing that in many ways it would be hard not to. That makes the rallies as close to religious services as most North Koreans have ever seen.

“We, all the people, cried together while listening to the speech of the Respected General,” says Paek Kum Hui, a schoolteacher who was part of an immense April 15 military parade where Kim Jong Un gave his first public address.

“The tears we shed were more than those of joy,” says Paek, her voice starting to break. She says they also reflect her pride in the new leader, and in North Korea as “really in the center of the world.”

Even people who have fled North Korea say the spectacles can be transcendent experiences. Many say they believed the propaganda when they lived there, and that others did too.

Cho Bong-il, 60, who left for South Korea in 1998 and detests the regime he left behind, says he would sometimes feel emotional during the rallies: “I even had goose bumps.”

For centuries, rulers have used choreographed spectacles to help them maintain control, mixing the appearance of absolute public unity with an underlying threat of what happens to anyone who goes against the grain.

Mass rallies were a part of life in ancient Rome, in 1930s Berlin and in the former Soviet Union, which helped install Kim Il Sung in power after World War II.

But in Pyongyang, spectacles have become science.

Two decades after the Soviet Union’s fall, rallies that Stalin would recognize occur regularly in the North Korean capital, home to the country’s political, military and bureaucratic elite. Members of that elite know that attendance at the rallies, and the practice sessions ahead of time, are a part of living here.

So they learn the rules early — from how to dress (conservatively) to where to stand (look for the numbers painted on many large plazas).

They participate in mass political rallies, mass military parades and mass outdoor dances, with thousands of synchronized couples swinging their partners in honor of the 100th anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s birth.

“When we as outsiders we look at these productions we only look at the final product: these machine-like events that look very eerie,” says Suk-young Kim, a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara who has studied the spectacles. “But imagine you’re coordinating every breath you take with 100,000 people: it brings people together, it eliminates individual will. It has tremendous efficacy in running society.”

Not that it can’t get tiresome.

“Most people I knew in Pyongyang complained all the time about how there are rallies all the time and they are sick of them,” says Kim, the student in Seoul. “We did it because we had to. If they told us to shout ‘Hurrah!’ we did … If they told us to shout anti-American slogans, we did it no matter how many times they told us to.”

Watching the rallies can be bewildering for outsiders. They are dazzling displays of unity, as thousands of people move in such synchronization that it doesn’t seem possible. They can be breathtaking, and at times even beautiful.

Then there is the astonishing patience of those involved.

No one goes to the bathroom during these gatherings, or fidgets or visibly yawns. When a young woman had to sit down at a recent Friday afternoon political rally, apparently overcome with illness, she knew to do it discreetly. The people around her closed in so she could not be easily spotted by the security men prowling the edges of the crowd.

By the standards of Pyongyang, that rally was fairly mundane, basically a series of speeches to denounce the South Korean government with tens of thousands of people brought in to listen. The crowds knew from years of practice to stand at attention as officials spoke. They knew when to applaud, when to thrust their fists into the air, when to call out insults against South Korea. It was over in less than an hour.

All during the rally, though, no matter the moment, the facial expressions remained unchanged.

That was no surprise to Kim Seong-min, the former Pyongyang resident. He taught himself early how to participate in rallies while barely paying attention. “My mind just went blank,” he said.

Because in North Korea, sometimes it is easier to be a robot.

___

Associated Press writer Sam Kim contributed to this report from Seoul, South Korea

Betty White reveals her presidential preference

Most people in Hollywood vote for Democrats. Betty did not surprise… TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

By BRETT ZONGKER | Associated Press – Sat, May 12, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — Betty White says she usually keeps her political views private but in this presidential election strongly favors one candidate.

As she prepares to visit the Smithsonian Institution and National Zoo next week, White told The Associated Press she “very, very much favors” President Barack Obama in the election.

The 90-year-old actress said Friday she is very bi-partisan and has stayed away from politics all of her life. She usually never says who she is for or against because she doesn’t want to turn off any of her adoring fans.

White says in this year’s election, she likes what Obama has done and “how he represents us.”

Her comments come after Hollywood turned out at George Clooney’s home to raise $15 million for Obama’s re-election, a record for a single fundraiser.

Race, religion collide in presidential campaign

The amount of time and energy spent on religious rhetoric in this country is mind-boggling. One would think that fairy tales and superstitions would play no part in electing the leader of the most powerful nation in the history of mankind, especially since we are now a decade into the twenty-first century. Unfortunately, such is not the case. People continue to have their lives consumed by thoughts, not reality, thoughts of God, Jesus, heaven, hell, and the like…

One presidential candidate claims to believe that the Bible is the word of God (written by ignorant, nomadic desert dwellers several thousand years ago). The other claims to believe that the Book of Mormon is the word of God (written by a con artist named Joseph Smith in the 1800s). Wow! It’s almost like debating which cartoon character is real: Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny?

Then there is the issue of race… One presidential candidate is black while the other is white. White is “good” while black is “evil.” White is the “supreme” race while black is the “inferior” race, etc., etc., etc. Right? Wrong!

I must say, for being the richest, most technologically advanced country on the planet, the United States of America sure has an awful lot of stupid people! TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

By JESSE WASHINGTON and RACHEL ZOLL | Associated Press

How unthinkable it was, not so long ago, that a presidential election would pit a candidate fathered by an African against another condemned as un-Christian.

Yet here it is: Barack Obama versus Mitt Romney, an African-American and a white Mormon, representatives of two groups and that have endured oppression to carve out a place in the United States.

How much progress has America made against bigotry? By November, we should have some idea.

Perhaps mindful of the lingering power of prejudice, both men soft-pedal their status as racial or religious pioneers. But these things “will be factors whether they’re explicitly stated or not, because both Obama and Romney are minorities,” said Nancy Wadsworth, co-editor of the anthology “Faith and Race in American Political Life.”

Mormons are 1.7 percent of the U.S. population, according to the Pew Research Center. African-Americans are 12.6 percent

“Americans like to obsess about ways that people are different,” said Wadsworth, a political science professor at the University of Denver. Voters of all types say that a candidate’s race or religious beliefs should not be cause for bias, “but Americans are really conflicted about this, and they talk out of both sides of their mouth.”

In an October 2011 Associated Press-GfK poll, 21 percent of respondents said they would be less likely to cast a presidential vote for a Mormon. Four percent said they would be less likely to vote for a black person. An AP poll during the 2008 campaign found that nearly 40 percent of white Americans had at least a partly negative view of black people.

The gap between America’s high-minded ideals and narrow-minded practice is not new.

In 1620, the Puritans landed on Plymouth Rock searching for religious freedom. The Constitution forbade a religious test for president. Still, the religion of presidential candidates historically has been a major issue, though nearly all have been Protestant.

Thomas Jefferson, who coined the phrase “separation between church and state,” was decried as godless. Nearly 160 years later, John F. Kennedy was tarred as a Roman Catholic who would answer to the pope instead of the American people.

In 1787, the same colonists who had demanded equal rights in their dealings with England wrote a Constitution that reduced blacks to three-fifths of a person. Nearly 80 years would pass before that changed and another century before blacks would be assured the vote.

Obama remains the sole member of the most exclusive club in the world, racial minorities who were nominated for president by a major party.

In 2012, it’s unlikely that more than a smattering of die-hard bigots will be repelled by both presidential choices. But even well-intentioned people can be influenced by the powerful emotional pull of these issues.

Obama has been assailed by racially charged accusations since he became the first black president: Obama isn’t a citizen; he refused to punish New Black Panthers who intimidated white voters; he’s seeking payback for past white racism by redistributing tax money to poor minorities; he’s using the Trayvon Martin killing for political gain.

Wes Anderson, a Republican consultant and pollster, said many white swing voters who chose Obama in 2008 think he has governed further to the left than they expected, which has fed ideas that Obama is a typical “black liberal politician” who is “pandering to minorities.”

“From their perspective, I think race will be a convenient excuse for why he has not met their expectations,” Anderson said.

Wadsworth said that even after three-plus years of a black president, racial bias remains “super-loaded and super-coded.”

“It’s coded into political ‘otherness’ — he’s a socialist, he’s dangerous, maybe a Muslim,” she said. “I think down underneath there’s a lot of race bias, it’s just that they’ve figured out ways to channel that into seemingly race-neutral codes.”

Then there’s bald racism.

This April, bar owner Patrick Lanzo in Paulding County, Ga., posted a roadside sign outside his establishment that used the n-word to convey his disdain for the president. “I don’t feel bad about (the sign) whatsoever,” Lanzo told Fox 5 News in Atlanta.

Obviously, Obama’s victory in 2008 did not put racial issues to rest. “He is never on stable ground, racially,” Wadsworth observed.

Romney has tried to push past anti-Mormonism, with mixed success. His membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been an issue his entire political career.

In 2007, during his presidential primary battle against Arizona Sen. John McCain, he gave a speech to quiet concerns about his faith. “I do not define my candidacy by my religion. A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith,” Romney said in the address, which used the word “Mormon” only once.

There continue to be blatant expressions of hostility toward Mormons. For example, there is an “I Hate Mormons” page on Facebook.

But J.B. Haws, a historian at Brigham Young University who researches public perception of the Mormon church, said most common suspicions about Mormons were rehashed in the 2008 election and this year’s GOP primary, so moving forward the discussion is likely to be more substantive and informed.

“But that doesn’t change the fact that the questions will still be tough and pointed,” Haws said.

The Mormon church was founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith, who said God directed him to restore the true Christian church by revising parts of the Bible and adding the Book of Mormon as a sacred text. Smith said an angel directed him to a buried holy book in upstate New York, written on golden plates, which he translated from “reformed Egyptian” into the Book of Mormon. Theological differences have led many Christians to conclude that Mormons are not part of historic Christianity.

There’s the issue of polygamy, though the Mormon church renounced the practice in 1890.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat, recently took the opportunity of a Daily Beast interview to say that Romney’s father, George, was “born into (a) polygamy commune in Mexico.” (Mitt Romney’s grandfather, Gaskell, had one wife, but his great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, had four and fled to Mexico in 1885 to escape U.S. anti-polygamy laws.)

One of the toughest questions probably will focus on the Mormons’ former ban on men of African descent in the priesthood. When the church lifted the prohibition in 1978, leaders didn’t explain the theology behind it. That left questions about church doctrine on race, even though Mormon leaders repeatedly denounce racism.

It’s an issue that Mormons discuss among themselves. But when it’s brought up in a campaign setting, many Mormons say it’s just an attempt to embarrass Romney.

Several conservatives have recently predicted that liberals, rankled by Mormon opposition to gay marriage and emphasis on stay-at-home motherhood, would use religion to “smear” Romney. “It’s way out of bounds, but that’s what’s going to happen,” said a prominent Mormon, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

But liberals are not the only ones who are suspicious of the Mormons. Vice President Joe Biden told Esquire magazine that faith shouldn’t be a factor in elections, so “that’s why I’m so angry about the way they’re treating Romney.” By “they,” Biden probably was focusing on evangelicals, who make up a big part of the GOP base.

When Liberty University, the school founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, announced Romney as commencement speaker on May 12, hundreds of angry comments were posted on Liberty’s Facebook page by people who said they were students or alumni, objecting to giving a Mormon a platform. The school responded by affirming its welcome to Romney.

But evangelicals are among the country’s most politically conservative voters, and “they’re going to hold their nose and vote for Romney. They’re certainly not going to join the Obama campaign,” said Patrick Mason, author of “The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South.”

Anderson, the pollster, said his research has found that evangelicals know more than other groups about what Mormons actually believe, and despite their religious differences tend to view Mormon values as positive.

“Is the bigger problem for Romney not evangelical Christians, but more secular voters who are skeptical of what Mormonism is, or just ignorant?” Anderson asked.

Perhaps it is just their growing hostility to religion in general, Mason said. “Mormonism becomes the lens through which they can paint their critique.”

Regardless, the Romney campaign “would be crazy if they didn’t have a plan in place already” to deal with Mormon bias, said Mark Noll, a University of Notre Dame historian who wrote “God and Race in American Politics,” ”just like Obama’s people are just dusting off whatever they had ready in 2008.”

In 2008, racial issues threatened to torpedo Obama after the emergence of militant pro-black sermons by his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Obama defused the issue with a major speech on race, but the Wright connection fed a GOP narrative that Obama was not “one of us.” Democrats labeled such statements coded language that appealed to racial prejudices.

In the final stages of his losing campaign, McCain declined entreaties from some advisers to use Wright’s sermons to attack Obama.

“John McCain, whatever else you want to say about him, did not use all the racial weapons he could have used,” said Randall Kennedy, a Harvard Law School professor and author of “The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency.”

“Well, McCain lost,” Kennedy continued. “I can’t help but think that this time around, if there is anything that could plausibly be used, no matter how ugly, it will be used. So I anticipate a very messy, ugly campaign.”

“I hope I’m wrong,” Kennedy said, “but I expect it to be worse.”

___

Jesse Washington covers race and Rachel Zoll covers religion for The Associated Press. They are reachable at http://www.twitter.com/jessewashington and http://www.twitter.com/rzollAP .

9/11 defendants ignore judge at Guantanamo hearing

I don’t want to sound crude, but really folks, why are we still “dicking” around with these rag-head scum-bags? It’s been over ten years since 9/11, and these a-hole criminals are still jerking us around after admitting responsibility for the Word Trade Center attacks; to the point that the court holds meal and prayer breaks for them!

These are the kinds of things that drive me insane about this country! And what’s worse, we citizens can do nothing about it. We just have to stand idly by as our government continues to kiss the ass of these Muslim degenerates, and Islam in general… TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

By BEN FOX | Associated Press

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — The second attempt to prosecute the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four men accused of helping orchestrate the plot got off to a rough start, with the defendants disrupting their arraignment and forcing the proceedings to drag on late into the night.

The court hearing for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants should have taken a couple of hours at most. Instead it lasted almost 13 hours, including meal and prayer breaks, as the men appeared to make a concerted effort to stall Saturday’s hearing.

They knelt in prayer, ignored the judge, wouldn’t listen to Arabic translations over their head sets and one even insisted on having the more than 20 pages detailing the charges against them read aloud, rather than deferred for later in their case as the judge wanted, which added more than two hours to the proceedings.

“They’re engaging in jihad in a courtroom,” said Debra Burlingame, whose brother, Charles, was the pilot of the plane that flew into the Pentagon. She watched the proceeding from Brooklyn.

Mohammed, the admitted 9/11 architect, and the four men accused of aiding the 9/11 conspiracy put off their pleas until a later date. They face 2,976 counts of murder and terrorism in the 2001 attacks that sent hijacked jetliners into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The charges carry the death penalty.

Earlier Saturday, Mohammed cast off his earphones providing Arabic translations of the proceeding and refused to answer Army Col. James Pohl’s questions or acknowledge he understood them. All five men refused to participate in the hearing; two passed around a copy of The Economist magazine and leafed through the articles.

Walid bin Attash was confined to a restraint chair when he came into court, released only after he promised to behave.

Ramzi Binalshibh began praying alongside his defense table, followed by Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, in the middle of the hearing; Binalshibh then launched into a tirade in which he compared a prison official to the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and declared that he was in danger.

“Maybe they will kill me and say I committed suicide,” he said in a mix of Arabic and broken English.

The detainees’ lawyers spent hours questioning the judge about his qualifications to hear the case and suggested their clients were being mistreated at the hearing, in a strategy that could pave the way for future appeals. Mohammed was subjected to a strip search and “inflammatory and unnecessary” treatment before court, said his attorney, David Nevin.

The defendants’ behavior outraged 9/11 family members watching on closed-circuit video feeds around the United States at East Coast military bases. One viewer shouted, “C’mon, are you kidding me?” at the Fort Hamilton base in Brooklyn.

A handful of people who lost family members in the attacks and were selected by a lottery to attend the proceedings watched in the courtroom.

It was the defendants’ first appearance in more than three years after stalled efforts to try them for the terror attacks, in which hijackers steered four commercial jets into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a western Pennsylvania field.

The Obama administration renewed plans to try the men at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay after a bid to try the men in New York City blocks from the trade center site faced political opposition. It adopted new rules with Congress that forbade testimony obtained through torture or cruel treatment, and officials now say that defendants could be tried as fairly here as in a civilian court.

Human rights groups and defense lawyers say the secrecy of Guantanamo and the military commissions, or tribunals, will make it impossible to defend them. They argued the U.S. kept the case out of civilian court to prevent disclosure of the treatment of prisoners like Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times.

Nevin said he believed Mohammed was not responding because he believes the tribunal is unfair. Jim Harrington, representing Binalshibh, said his client would not respond to questions “without addressing the issues of confinement.”

Cheryl Bormann, a civilian attorney for bin Attash, appeared in a conservative Islamic outfit that left only her face uncovered and she asked the court to order other women present to wear “appropriate” clothing so that defendants do not have to avert their eyes “for fear of committing a sin under their faith.”

Pohl warned he would not permit defendants to block the hearing and would continue without his participation.

“One cannot choose not to participate and frustrate the normal course of business,” Pohl said.

Pohl brought translators into the courtroom to interpret the proceedings live once the men refused to use earpieces attempted to stick to the standard script for tribunals, asking the defendants if they understood their rights to counsel and would accept the attorneys appointed for them.

The men were silent.

In the past, during the failed first effort to prosecute them at the U.S. base in Cuba, Mohammed has mocked the tribunal and said he and his co-defendants would plead guilty and welcome execution. But there were signs that at least some of the defense teams were preparing for a lengthy fight, planning challenges of the military tribunals and the secrecy that shrouds the case.

Defendants typically do not enter a plea during their arraignment but are offered the chance to do so.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced in 2009 that Mohammed and his co-defendants would be tried blocks from the site of the destroyed trade center in downtown Manhattan, but the plan was shelved after New York officials cited huge costs to secure the neighborhood and family opposition to trying the suspects in the U.S.

Congress then blocked the transfer of any prisoners from Guantanamo to the U.S., forcing the Obama administration to refile the charges under a reformed military commission system.

Mohammed, a Pakistani citizen who grew up in Kuwait and attended college in Greensboro, North Carolina, has admitted to military authorities that he was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks “from A to Z,” as well as about 30 other plots, and that he personally killed Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Mohammed was captured in 2003 in Pakistan.

Binalshibh was allegedly chosen to be a hijacker but couldn’t get a U.S. visa and ended up providing assistance such as finding flight schools. Bin Attash, also from Yemen, allegedly ran an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan and researched flight simulators and timetables. Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi is a Saudi accused of helping the hijackers with money, Western clothing, traveler’s checks and credit cards. Al-Aziz Ali, a Pakistani national and nephew of Mohammed, allegedly provided money to the hijackers.

___

Associated Press writer Verena Dobnik in New York contributed to this report.

Secret Service moves to oust three more in prostitution scandal

Once again, in my opinion, much to do about nothing… Barack Obama said it right when he stated: “a couple of knuckleheads” in an otherwise “incredible” agency. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: The Ticket

By Olivier Knox | The Ticket

Image (Pedro Mendoza/AP)

The Secret Service announced Tuesday that two more agents connected to the embarrassing Cartagena, Colombia prostitution scandal had chosen to resign and that the agency was moving to fire a third.

The news came shortly after President Barack Obama, taping an appearance on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” blamed the uproar on “a couple of knuckleheads” in an otherwise “incredible” agency.

Assistant Director Paul Morrissey from the Secret Service Office of Government and Public Affairs announced the latest personnel news in a written statement that also specified that two other agents had been cleared of serious wrongdoing and would face “administrative action.” A U.S. government official familiar with the situation told Yahoo News that could mean anything from a verbal rebuke by a supervisor to a few days of leave.

“The Secret Service’s investigation into allegations of misconduct by its employees in Cartagena, Colombia, continues,” Morrissey said in the statement.Two more employees have chosen to resign in connection to the scandal, in which agents preparing for Obama’s visit to an international summit in Cartagena allegedly brought prostitutes back to their hotel.

The agency is moving to permanently revoke the security clearance of one other individual, a process that allows that person to appeal. If the appeal fails, the employee “must separate” from the agency, Morrissey said.

If that happens, the number of agents who will have resigned, retired or been removed over the controversy will reach nine. Three have been cleared of serious wrongdoing, meaning the agency has addressed the status of all 12 employees under investigation.

“The Secret Service is committed to conducting a full, thorough and fair investigation in this matter, and will not hesitate to take appropriate action should any additional information come to light,” Morrissey said.

Cuba plans massive shift to “non-state” sector

After over 50 years of raping and pillaging Cuba for all it was worth, not to mention stealing the homes, businesses and bank accounts of over one million Cubans now living in the United States, the Castro scum-brothers are trying to change their image by moving to a more open economic system. The hypocrisy of it all is beyond astonishing; it is reprehensible!

Even if this plan is “for real,” which is doubtful given the track record of the communist slime running the country, it is three things if nothing at all:

1) An admission that a communist system of government (economy) is an absolute and total failure!

2) An admission that a capitalistic system is the one and only truly successful system of government devised thus far.

3) Too little too late.

It really is a shame that there isn’t a hell. If there was, surely Fidel and Raul Castro would be there with the likes of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Kim Il-sung, Mao Tse-tung, Adolph Hitler, Kim Jong-il, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi and others… TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Reuters

By Marc Frank | Reuters

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba will move nearly 50 percent of the state’s economic activity to the “non-state” sector, a senior Communist party official said at the weekend, the latest signal the island is headed toward a mixed economy.

Cuban President Raul Castro has hammered away at the need for the state to become more efficient and get out of secondary economic activity such as farming and retail services since taking over for his ailing older brother, Fidel, in 2008.

China and Vietnam adopted similar measures in the last few decades of the 20th century as they began to shift to what is known as market socialism.

“Today, almost 95 percent of gross domestic product is produced by the state. Within four or five years between 40 percent and 45 percent will result from different forms of non-state production,” a long-time Communist party political bureau member, Esteban Lazo Hernandez, said in a speech to the Havana city government.

Lazo, who is considered by many to be the Communist party’s top ideologue, said the increased private business and the tax revenue the move would generate meant local government needed to improve its efficiency in order to cope with the shift, according to clips of his speech broadcast by state-run television on Sunday.

The Cuban Communist party approved a comprehensive plan to revamp its Soviet-style command economy in April of last year.

The 311-point document calls on authorities to support and encourage, “mixed-capital companies, cooperatives, farmers with the right to use idle land, landlords of rental properties, self-employed workers and other forms that contribute to raise the efficiency of social labor.”

The plans envision the reduction of the state workforce by at least 20 percent, or a million workers, the elimination of subsidies in favor of more narrowly targeted welfare programs and granting state-run companies more autonomy.

“The question will be to see how this ‘non-state’ production will be split between real private property and cooperatives, and how independent from the state the cooperatives really are,” a Western diplomat said.

Since Castro took office the number of self-employed, often a euphemism for small businesses, has doubled to more than 300,000, and some 200,000 people have taken advantage of a land grant program to encourage small farming.

Small state retail services – from barber shops and beauty parlors to taxis and tiny cafeterias – have already been leased to employees. But local economists said a major shift to the “non-state” sector, like the one outlined by Lazo over the weekend, meant larger chunks of the state’s economic activity would be peeled off.

“Such a shift means not just tiny mom-and-pop operations and small businesses such as restaurants and hostels, but mid-sized companies operating as cooperatives and individually owned,” said a local economist who asked his name not be used.

Skeptics question how quickly Cuba’s centrally planned economy can manage such a radical transformation. “I think a shift of this magnitude in such a short time period would be highly unlikely for Cuba,” said William Messina, agricultural economist with the Food and Resource Economics Department at the University of Florida.

“Even though Raul is trying to implement a number of changes that could move the country in this direction, the bureaucratic resistance that there appears to be (at least within agriculture) will certainly slow the process,” he added.

(Editing by David Adams and Leslie Adler)

Secret Service ousts three more, White House hits out at Palin

In my opinion what these secret service men did, although not a crime, was really, really dumb. To go out en masse and hire prostitutes, then get into an argument over money with them is ridiculous. These men should have been smart enough to know that it only takes one moron to bring down the entire group.

Having said that, why is it that regular guys, while off-duty, hiring hookers in a country where prostitution is legal is a bigger story than priests raping children? Putting things in perspective, there is no comparison between the two in terms of the severity of the acts involved. One is clearly a disgusting, despicable, criminal act while the other, while no doubt ill-advised, falls under the ‘stupid’ category.

Finally, can the bimbo that is Sarah Palin go away already? That such a mindless individual can have an audience in this country speaks of the idiotic mentality of the masses that support her. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: ABC OTUS News

By Olivier Knox | ABC OTUS News

The Colombia prostitute scandal engulfing the Secret Service widened Friday as the agency announced that three more employees would resign in connection to the alleged misconduct, bringing the overall number of employees to lose their jobs to six. The agency also said that the total number of agents implicated had risen by one to 12.

On the political front, the White House hit back at Republican critics like Sarah Palin, accusing them of improperly trying to use the embarrassing controversy as a political weapon against President Barack Obama.

“In addition to the previously announced personnel actions, three additional employees have chosen to resign,” Assistant Director Paul S. Morrissey of the U.S. Secret Service Office of Government and Public Affairs said in a statement emailed to reporters.

“As a result of the ongoing investigation in Cartagena, a twelfth employee has been implicated. He has been placed on administrative leave and his security clearance has been temporarily suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.

“One of the employees involved has been cleared of serious misconduct, but will face appropriate administrative action. At this point, five employees continue to be on administrative leave and their security clearances remain suspended pending the outcome of this investigation,” Morrissey said.

The scandal has also caught up at least 11 military personnel. The controversy erupted when members of the Secret Service and the military were in Cartagena, Colombia on the sidelines of an international summit attended by Obama — though there has yet to be any suggestion that his security was in any way compromised by agents in compromising situations.

At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney hit back sharply at Palin, a former Republican vice presidential candidate, after she charged that the scandal and the controversy over wanton spending at the General Services Administration (GSA) were brought on by Obama’s “poor management skills.”

“It is preposterous to politicize the Secret Service,” Carney told reporters at his daily briefing.

Palin and Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions have in recent days charged that the scandal, coupled with the outrage over lavish GSA spending on a convention in Las Vegas, reflects poorly on Obama. Those two controversies, as well as the tragic mass slaying of Afghan civilians, allegedly by an American soldier, have overshadowed much of the White House’s agenda in recent weeks.

“What they’re doing is trying to turn these incidents—one that’s still under investigation—to political advantage,” Carney charged when asked about critics who lump the three issues together. “On the face of it, it’s a ridiculous assertion that trivializes both the very serious nature of the endeavor that our military is engaged in in Afghanistan and the very serious nature both of the work that the Secret Service does, the apolitical nature of the institution, and the seriousness of the investigation under way,” the spokesman said.

Palin weighed in on the scandal on Fox News Channel late Thursday after The Washington Post reported that David Chaney, one of two agents removed as a result, reportedly posted a photograph of himself guarding the former Republican vice presidential candidate during the 2008 campaign and captioned it ” I was really checking her out, if you know what i mean?”

“Well, check this out, bodyguard. You’re fired,” Palin quipped.

“You know, the president, for one, he better be wary there of—when Secret Service is accompanying his family on vacation. They may be checking out the first lady instead of guarding her. And I say that not just tongue-in-cheek, but I say that seriously, that the president, the CEO of this operation called our federal government has got to start cracking down on these agencies! He is the head of the administrative branch and all these different departments in the administration that now people are seeing things that are so amiss within these departments.”

“The buck stops with the president. And he’s really got to start cracking down and seeing some heads roll. You know, he’s got to get rid of these people at the head of these agencies where so many things, obviously, are amiss,” she said. “Our president has poor management skills.”

Carney sidestepped questions about potential disclosure of sensitive information as well as whether the scandal was an isolated incident or a symptom of a broader problem in the culture of the Secret Service, which was investigating the incident.

“The President does not want to, and I certainly don’t want to, get ahead of the conclusions of the investigation, make broader judgments while the investigation is still underway,” Carney said.

UPDATE 6:48 p.m. ET: This post has been updated to include details from the Secret Service’s formal announcement regarding the additional agents placed on leave, the agent cleared of serious misconduct, and the additional agent placed on administrative leave.

NKorean military warns of ‘special actions’ soon

It’s beginning to sound as if North Korea is one big bluff. Their government, now led by a nerdy, pudgy twenty-something year old, is a joke; they’re always making threats but never carrying any of them out.

Being that it is a communist country, it is also an absolute failure in every sense of the word. All the government seems to care about is its military, which is supposedly the fourth largest in the world; this from a country with barely 25 million people – malnourished people that is. 

I remember the late Christopher Hitchens, who traveled to North Korea and had been all over the world, say that this country is the closest thing to hell anywhere on Earth. He said that people walking down the street are in such a state of oppression and fear that they won’t even look up and make eye contact with others who walk by.

It is sad that ordinary people are forced to live this kind of life simply because of the sick, demented individuals who govern them. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

Associated Press

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea promised Monday to reduce South Korea’s conservative government “to ashes” in less than four minutes, in an unusually specific escalation of recent threats aimed at its southern rival.

The statement by North Korea’s military, carried by state media, comes amid rising tensions on the Korean peninsula. Both Koreas recently unveiled new missiles, and the North unsuccessfully launched a long-range rocket earlier this month.

The overall animosity has prompted worries that North Korea may conduct a nuclear test — something it did after rocket launches in 2006 and 2009. South Korean intelligence officials say recent satellite images show the North has been digging a new tunnel in what appears to be preparation for a third atomic test.

North Korea’s military vowed in its statement to begin “special actions” soon against the government and conservative media companies that would “reduce all the rat-like groups and the bases for provocations to ashes in three or four minutes, (or) in much shorter time, by unprecedented peculiar means and methods of our own style.”

North Korea regularly criticizes Seoul and just last week renewed its promise to wage a “sacred war,” saying South Korean President Lee Myung-bak had insulted the North’s April 15 celebrations of the birth centennial of national founder Kim Il Sung.

But Monday’s message, distributed by the state-run Korean Central News Agency and attributed to the Korean People’s Army’s Supreme Command, was unusual in promising something soon and in describing a specific period of time.

Seoul expressed worry that the threats were hurting relations between the countries and increasing animosity.

“We urge North Korea to immediately stop this practice,” Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-suk told reporters, according to the ministry. “We express deep concern that the North’s threats and accusations have worsened inter-Korean ties and heightened tensions.”

A Defense Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, citing office rules, said no special military movement had been observed in the North.

Some South Korean analysts speculated the North’s statement was meant to unnerve Seoul, while others said the North could be planning terrorist attacks.

It seemed unlikely that North Korea would launch a large-scale military attack against Seoul, which is backed by nearly 30,000 U.S. troops stationed in the South, said Kim Young-soo, a professor at Sogang University in Seoul.

The threat follows U.N. condemnation of the North Korean launch of a long-range rocket that exploded shortly after liftoff on April 13. Washington, Seoul and others called the launch a cover for testing long-range missile technology. North Korea said the launch was meant to put a satellite into orbit.

Relations between the Koreas have been abysmal since Lee took office in 2008 with a hard-line policy that ended unconditional aid shipments to the North.

In Beijing, North Korea’s biggest ally, China’s top foreign policy official met Sunday with a North Korean delegation and expressed confidence in the country’s new young leader, Kim Jong Un.

___

Associated Press writers Youkyung Lee and Jiyoung Won in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.

MSNBC‘s Bashir Uses Book of Mormon to Warn Romney of ’Eternal Damnation’ for Alleged Lies

This story is a couple of days old, but just too good to pass up…

I’ve read the Bible and parts of the Koran, but have never had the nerve to sit down and read yet another silly book unworthy of my time. I’m referring of course to the Book of Mormon. But if the quotes in this article from that book of fairy tales is any indication, there’s no point in reading it, as it is just more of the same – hell, punishment, eternal damnation, fire, death, brimstone – in other words, more of the old, redundant, overused rhetoric contained in the Bible and Koran.

By the way, there is yet one more book which falls into the utterly stupid category: Dianetics. I’ve only read a few pages of it, and although it is quite different from the aforementioned fictions, it might just be the most absurd of all of them; if this is possible. Suffice it to say that L. Ron Hubbard had quite an imagination, although his imagination pales in comparison to the ignorance of those who believe his whacked-out claims. Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Kirstie Alley and all of the other idiots who belong to Scientology may actually be bigger fools than Mormons, Muslims and Christians; and that is saying a lot!

But hey, who’s keeping  track – they’re all insane? All I know is that there is a very good chance that we will have a moron, I mean Mormon, sitting in the White House next year, and that is a very scary thought. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: The Blaze

By Billy Hallowell | The Blaze – Fri, Apr 20, 2012

MSNBC’s Martin Bashir took the time to slam Mitt Romney for allegedly lying, while using the Book of Mormon to lecture the Republican presidential candidate about the tenets of a moral character. According to Bashir, Romney has told three lies over the past few days (about Ted Nugent’s endorsement, unemployment under President Obama and the media’s leftist tilt) — an offense punishable by “eternal damnation.”

Martin Bashir

“It doesn’t matter how many times he hears the truth, Mitt Romney prefers to tell lies,” Bashir said, going on to call the leading GOP candidate “Mitt the Mendacious.”

But his excoriating rant wasn’t done there, as he turned to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to more fully reprimand Romney for his alleged offenses. The Huffington Post has more:

Then, he [Bashir] wondered how Romney would be punished for lying, and whipped out the religious text of Romney’s faith.

“In Section 63, in verse 17 of the Doctrine and Covenants of the Mormon Church we find this: ‘All liars, and whosoever loveth and and maketh a lie, and the whoremonger, and the sorcerer, shall have their part in that lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death,’” Bashir said. “And from the Book of Mormon to Nephi, Chapter 2, Verse 34 we find this: ‘Woe unto the liar, for he shall be thrust down to hell.’”

“Given what the Book of Mormon is clearly saying, Mr. Romney has but two choices,” Bashir railed on. “He can either keep lying and potentially win the White House, but bring eternal damnation upon himself or he can start telling the truth. The question for him, I guess, is which is more important.”

Watch Bashir’s religious lecture, below:

(H/T: Huffington Post)

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Sarah Palin for Vice President — Again

I stumbled upon this article, posted two days ago, and found it so completely absurd that I’m not certain whether its author is being serious or sarcastic.

Surely no one in their right mind could possibly believe that Sarah Palin could help Mitt Romney win the presidency! TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Yahoo

By Mark Whittington | Yahoo! Contributor Network – Thu, Apr 19, 2012

COMMENTARY | As Mitt Romney basks in his triumph in becoming the presumptive republican nominee for president, his thoughts inevitably turn toward choosing a running mate. He is getting a lot of unsolicited advice in that regard.

Michael Barone, in RealClearPolitics would like him to choose another boring white guy, playing it safe. The Washington Post, quoting Mike Huckabee, suggests the young, conservative Hispanic Sen. Marco Rubio. Gloria Borger, writing in CNN, advises that Romney must not, under any circumstances, choose a female conservative, which is to say Sarah Palin.

Borger’s snippy advice points to a tried and true principle that whatever the lamestream media suggests is not good for a Republican is likely the correct decision. Romney should ignore Borger’s advice and repeat the one sound decision that John McCain made in 2008 and ask Sarah Palin to run with him in 2012. There are sound reasons for him to do this.

Palin does provide an ideological balance for Romney. Conservatives are lining up behind Romney, not out of great affection for him, but because they realize that he is all that stands between the United States and four more years of Obama misrule. Palin will provide much needed enthusiasm for the ticket, just as she did for McCain four years ago,

Is there any politician in America who has been more thoroughly vetted than has Palin these past four years? There is nothing about her life and career that is not already known.

She will be controversial, proving to be an advantage as the left, whose image of Palin is that of the psycho bimbo caricature from “Game Change,” will go after her with the full force of their fury, Bill Maher will curse and smirk. Jon Stewart will roll his eyes. Stephen Colbert will leap the length of his chain. The left will go too far in attacking Palin while Romney marches on, serene and presidential while his surrogates sigh about the liberal war on women.

The expectations will be set so low for Palin by the media that it will be absurdly easy for her to exceed them. Indeed, four years of practice, including campaigning in the 2010 midterms, has pretty much assured that she will take on all attackers and give them a sharp thumping.

Palin’s experience, her ability to drive the left mad, and the right delirious make her the obvious choice for vice president.

Secret Service on meeting with Ted Nugent over Obama comments: ‘The issue has been resolved’

Am I missing something? Since when has this dumb-ass redneck become a spokesperson for morality? Are we talking about the guy who has fathered children out of wedlock? The guy who believes that animals have no rights, even though he himself is an animal (and not a very intelligent one at that I might add)?

Ted, just crawl back under the rock you came from and stop making a bigger fool out of yourself than you already have. I know you have a great fan base in this country, being that half the population of the U.S. are yahoos who can’t point out where they live on a map, but please, you’re about 150 years behind the times; give the rest of us, those with a functional brain, a break already. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: The Ticket

By Dylan Stableford | The Ticket

Ted Nugent met with the U.S. Secret Service in Oklahoma on Thursday to discuss his controversial comments about President Barack Obama–and the agency says the issue has been “resolved.”

“The Secret Service interview of Ted Nugent has been completed,” Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary told Yahoo News. “The issue has been resolved. The Secret Service does not anticipate any further action.”

“I have never made any threats of violence towards anyone,” Nugent said following the meeting, according to CNN. “I met with two fine, professional Secret Service agents,” Nugent said in a statement. “[It was a] good, solid, professional meeting concluding that I have never made any threats of violence towards anyone. The meeting could not have gone better. I thanked them for their service, we shook hands and went about our business. God bless the good federal agents wherever they may be.”

During a National Rifle Association convention last weekend, Nugent said, “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”

The Secret Service said on Tuesday that it was aware of Nugent’s comments and would investigate.

“The bottom line is I’ve never threatened anybody’s life in my life,” Nugent said Wednesday on Glenn Beck’s radio show. “I don’t threaten, I don’t waste breath threatening. I just conduct myself as a dedicated ‘We the people’ activist because I’ve saluted too many flag-draped coffins to not appreciate where the freedom comes from.”

The gun-loving “Cat Scratch Fever” singer did not apologize for the incendiary talk, but added: “I’m not trying to diminish the seriousness of this, because if the Secret Service are doing it they are serious.”

On Tuesday, a defiant Nugent sounded off on the backlash.

“This is the Saul Alinsky ‘Rules for Radicals’ playbook,” Nugent said on CNN radio. “The Nazis and the Klan hate me. I’m a black Jew at a Nazi Klan rally. There are some power-abusing, corrupt monsters in our federal government who despise me because I have the audacity to speak the truth–to identify the violations of our federal government–in particular Eric Holder, the President and Tim Geithner.”

[With Olivier Knox reporting from Washington.]

Marlins’ Ozzie Guillen apologizes over Castro flap

In my opinion, which admittedly counts for nothing, the best thing that could have been done by the Cuban community in Miami was to not send one, not even one reporter to Ozzie Guillen’s press conference. This, to me, would have sent a message to the Marlins organization that some lame apology or five-game suspension for the statements Ozzie Guillen had previously made meant nothing – nothing at all to the Cuban people .

As stated earlier on this Blog, had this been someone saying he admired Adolph Hitler, the ramifications would have been significantly different. The thing is nobody really and truly cares about the plight of Cubans who had everything taken away from them by the maggot that is Fidel Castro. Unless one’s parents didn’t rot in Cuban prisons, in sub-human conditions for 25 years; unless one’s parents didn’t face a firing squad; unless one’s parents didn’t lose their homes, their businesses, their way of life, etc, one is clueless as to the emotions being expressed by Cubans.

In my opinion, again, for whatever it’s worth, is that Ozzie Guillen should have been fired by the Marlins. He carries enough baggage with him from the past that it could have been easily justified. Had they done this they would have won over the very community that they depend on to show up to games, and to make them money.

At the end of the day Ozzie Guillen is just another stupid individual who just happened to be good at sports (baseball) and became a coach and manager. He was then put up on a pedestal for being brash and controversial. He is nothing more, nothing less; as meaningless as tits on a boar (or bull) – it makes no difference; neither one produces milk.

I know this is not the American way; not anymore. We’ve become a nation of political correctness and hypocrisy. Yet if all the “values” we continue preaching were to mean anything at all, Ozzie Guillen would be coaching Little League for the Havana Comunistas instead of the Miami Marlins. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

By STEVEN WINE | Associated Press

MIAMI (AP) — A contrite Ozzie Guillen sat in the heart of Little Havana seeking forgiveness for what the Miami Marlins manager called the biggest mistake of his life — saying he admired Fidel Castro.

This wasn’t some offhanded insult about a sports writer, the type of thing that got the outspoken Guillen in trouble in Chicago. This was personal to the fan base that the Marlins rely on so much that they built their new stadium in the middle of the city’s Cuban-American neighborhood.

Castro is the sworn enemy of those fans.

So after being suspended for five games Tuesday, the Marlins manager tried to quell the tempest.

“I’m here on my knees to apologize,” Guillen said.

“I’m very sorry about the problem, what happened. I will do everything in my power to make it better. … When you make a mistake like this, you can’t sleep.”

A chastened Guillen, who has a history of polarizing comments about gays and immigrants, among others, spoke without a script and made no disclaimers. He said he’ll do whatever he can to repair relations with Cuban-Americans angered by his praise of the Cuban dictator, remarks he said he didn’t mean.

Guillen, who is Venezuelan, told Time magazine he loves Castro and respects the retired Cuban leader for staying in power so long. In response, at least two Miami politicians said Guillen should lose his job. Callers on Spanish-language radio in Miami agreed and 100 demonstrators picketed Marlins Park toting signs like “NO APOLOGIES FIRE HIM NOW.”

“He is full with hypocrisy,” said Luis Martinez, who has lived in Miami since the late 1950s. “I don’t accept any kind of pardon from him. They should get him out.”

The team didn’t consider firing Guillen or asking him to resign five games into his tenure, Marlins president David Samson said.

Guillen was hired to help usher in a new baseball era for the Marlins, saddled in recent years with mediocre teams and worse attendance. The team was to rely on South Florida’s large Cuban-American population to help rebuild its fan base with the $634 million ballpark that opened last week.

At the hourlong news conference Tuesday morning, there was little evidence of Guillen’s roguish charm or quick wit, which have made him a favorite with fans and reporters since he became a major league manager in 2004. Speaking somberly, he took full responsibility for his comments, but said they were misinterpreted by Time’s reporter.

“It was a personal mistake of the thing I had in my mind and what I said,” Guillen said in Spanish. “What I wanted to say in Spanish, I said in English in a wrong way.”

Guillen said he doesn’t love or admire Castro.

“I was saying I cannot believe somebody who hurt so many people over the years is still alive,” he said.

Time said Tuesday it stands by its story.

Guillen said the uproar he created has left him sad, embarrassed and feeling stupid. He said he accepted the team’s punishment.

“When you’re a sportsman, you shouldn’t be involved with politics,” he said.

“I’m going to be a Miami guy for the rest of my life. I want to walk in the street with my head up and feel not this bad, the way I feel now.”

Cuban-born Atlanta Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez, a former manager of the Marlins, said he watched some of the news conference and could tell it was difficult for Guillen.

“He came out and faced the music,” Gonzalez said. “It’s going to take awhile, but hopefully he can win those people back somehow.”

Guillen has gotten in trouble before on issues ranging from sexual orientation to illegal immigration. Just last week, he boasted about getting drunk after games.

Those episodes quickly faded. But on South Florida’s scale of political incorrectness, praise for Castro is a home run, and it was unclear how long it would take for anger toward Guillen to subside.

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig said the remarks “have no place in our game” and were “offensive to an important part of the Miami community and others throughout the world.”

“As I have often said, baseball is a social institution with important social responsibilities,” Selig added in a statement. “All of our 30 clubs play significant roles within their local communities, and I expect those who represent Major League Baseball to act with the kind of respect and sensitivity that the game’s many cultures deserve.”

Marlins officials said Guillen still had the support of the organization.

“We believe in him,” said Samson, the team president. “We believe in his apology. We believe everybody deserves a second chance.” He said he expected no further punishment from MLB.

Guillen apologized over the weekend after his remarks were published in Time, then left his team in Philadelphia, where the Marlins were playing the Phillies, and flew to Miami.

The teams resume their three-game series Wednesday in Philadelphia. Guillen said he’ll be there to apologize to his players, but he won’t be in the dugout. Bench coach Joey Cora will be the interim manager.

“The Marlins acknowledge the seriousness of the comments attributed to Guillen,” read a statement from the team. “The pain and suffering caused by Fidel Castro cannot be minimized, especially in a community filled with victims of the dictatorship.”

The suspension, which takes effect immediately, recalled the punishment given to Marge Schott, the late owner of the Cincinnati Reds. Schott so embarrassed baseball in the 1990s with her inflammatory racial remarks and fond recollections of Adolf Hitler that she was suspended from ownership duties for a season.

“After spending years of my life with Ozzie Guillen, I can honestly say he has never been this apologetic,” tweeted former slugger Frank Thomas, who played for Guillen with the Chicago White Sox. “I know he is really hurting inside for what he said. If you really know him this was not his intentions at all.”

In Cuba, a column posted on multiple state-run and pro-government websites said the backlash against Guillen showed Miami has become “a banana republic” that censors unpopular opinions.

“The sensationalist and cowed Miami press, the politicians, have used these declaration of his to raise a scandal and in passing try to win visibility and votes for the upcoming elections,” wrote Edmundo Garcia. “Some want to prohibit thoughts and opinions that differ from theirs.”

About 100 reporters, photographers and cameramen attended Guillen’s news conference, a turnout to rival some late-season Marlins crowds in years gone by.

Guillen sat alone at the podium and began in Spanish, speaking without notes for several minutes before taking questions. Shortly after he started, his voice wavered mid-sentence. He paused to take a sip of water and clear his throat.

“This is the biggest mistake I’ve made so far in my life,” Guillen said.

Guillen spoke in Spanish for about 80 percent of the news conference. Guillen said he was suspended without pay, but Samson later said the manager will be paid and will donate the money to Miami human-rights causes.

___

Associated Press writers Janie McCauley in San Francisco, Peter Orsi in Havana, Kristie Rieken in Houston and Gisela Salomon in Miami contributed to this report.

Guillen to return to Florida for Castro apology

It didn’t take him long, did it? It didn’t take long at all for this loose-lipped, apparently ultra leftist, maybe even socialist/communist moron to open his mouth and make ill-advised comments. I’ve got to believe that he does this on purpose, I mean, he can’t be THAT stupid can he?

Talk about putting his foot in his mouth! Castro is viewed by Cubans in the same manner that Hitler is viewed by Jews, and whether the comparison is accurate or not is not the issue. The issue is that Castro had innocent people murdered and imprisoned, just as Hitler did; he stole the country from the people and then proceeded to destroy it.

Anyway, now the Marlins organization has a great deal of damage-control to think about. I’ll bet they regret ever hiring this idiot. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

By STEVEN WINE | Associated Press

MIAMI (AP) — Five games into his tenure with the Marlins, motor mouth manager Ozzie Guillen is returning to Miami to explain himself as a backlash builds regarding favorable comments he made about Fidel Castro.

At least two local officials said Guillen should lose his job, and the chairman of the Florida Hispanic Legislative Caucus called Monday for “punitive measures” against him.

Hoping to quell the political tumult, Guillen planned to leave his team briefly in Philadelphia and fly to Miami to apologize Tuesday at Marlins Park. The Marlins and Phillies resume their series Wednesday after a day off Tuesday.

Guillen, a Venezuelan, told Time magazine he loves Castro and respects the Cuban dictator for staying in power so long.

Before Monday’s game, Guillen said he has had sleepless nights because of his comments and wants to make amends.

“I’m going to make everything clear what’s going on,” he said. “People can see me and talk. I’ve already talked to people. But I think it’s the proper thing to see my eyes. They can see me and ask whatever question they want. I think sooner is better. Better for the ballclub, better for me.”

He apologized over the weekend after the story broke, but some Cuban Americans remained upset. One group planned a demonstration Tuesday at the ballpark that was organized before Guillen said he would fly to Miami.

Guillen’s talkative style often makes headlines, but the timing of his comments about Castro couldn’t be worse for the Marlins. They opened a new ballpark last week in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami and are trying to rebuild their fan base with the help of South Florida’s large Cuban American population.

Francis Suarez, chairman of the Miami city commission, said Guillen should be fired.

“Mr. Guillen’s admiration for a dictator who has destroyed the lives of so many and who has violated the basic human rights of millions is shameful,” Suarez said in a statement. “On behalf of many angry residents, I’m calling for real action to be taken and for the removal of Mr. Guillen.”

Joe Martinez, chairman of the Miami-Dade County board of commissioners, issued a statement calling for Guillen to resign.

“This unfortunate comment is an insult to the citizens of Miami-Dade who have been victims of a tyrant in power for over 50 years,” Martinez said.

State Sen. Rene Garcia, chairman of the Florida Hispanic Legislative Caucus, described Guillen’s comments as appalling and insulting. In a letter to Marlins president David Samson, Garcia said he expects the Marlins to punish Guillen.

“If the Miami Marlins are to be respected in this community, your organization must stand with the Cuban-American exiled community and execute expedient punitive measures against Mr. Guillen which will rectify the situation,” Garcia wrote.

Samson and the Marlins organization had no comment Monday. The team released a statement last weekend saying there was nothing to respect about Castro, but Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said the statement didn’t go far enough.

“For too long, the Marlins organization has been the source of controversies in our community,” Gimenez said, “and I now challenge them to take decisive steps to bring this community back together.”

Guillen said his news conference would be open to “anybody that wants to be there.”

“I know I hurt a lot of people,” Guillen said. “I want to get the thing over with.”

It’s not the first time Guillen has stirred a political tempest. He twice appeared on a radio show hosted by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in October 2005, when Guillen led the Chicago White Sox to the World Series title. At the time, Guillen said: “Not too many people like the president. I do.”

Chavez is unpopular with many Venezuelans, especially those living in the United States. Guillen became a U.S. citizen in 2006 and has been more critical of Chavez in recent years.

Santorum: ‘Damn right’ we cling to guns and religion

Yahooooo! God and guns. Yahooooo!

Amazing how just a few choice words can excite a crowd. Of course, it doesn’t take much for people with limited intelligence to get excited. And if you really want the religious mob to go berserk, just throw in Jesus a few times along with several hallelujahs… Do this and these knuckleheads will offer you their first-born child!

Rick, you’re still an idiot. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

AFP

White House hopeful Rick Santorum revived a divisive political firestorm from the 2008 campaign Wednesday, reminding voters “you’re damn right” that blue-collar Pennsylvanians cling to guns and religion.

“Barack Obama four years ago referred to this area of Pennsylvania, right here, as a place that clings to their guns and their bibles,” Santorum told supporters in Hollidaysburg, a town in southwestern Pennsylvania known for its social conservatism.

“You’re damn right we do!” he said, to a loud roar of approval.

Obama found himself at one of the low points of his presidential run when in April 2008 he made his infamous comment about how “bitter” working-class voters cling to their guns and religion.

It was interpreted by many blue-collar voters — and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton — as a condescending swipe at a vast swathe of Americans.

Obama went on to win the general election, thumping Republican John McCain by more than 10 percentage points in Pennsylvania.

But arch-conservative Santorum offered a blunt reminder that many in the state, particularly those in the southwest where the number of guns per household is higher than the national average, are still stung by the remark.

“You’re right we cling; we cling to our faith,” he said, to nods and “Yes sirs” from the crowd.

“We cling to the rights that are God-given, that are guaranteed under our constitution, including the right to protect ourselves and those we love with the second amendment — an individual right to bear arms.”

Santorum, who trails frontrunner Mitt Romney in this year’s Republican nomination race, grew up in western Pennsylvania, and reminded the crowd that he shot his first deer in the area around Hollidaysburg as a young man.

Obama’s comments that some economically bereft Americans sought refuge in God and guns had been made at a California fundraiser, shortly after he visited southwestern Pennsylvania. He was slammed by Clinton and many conservative voters for being out of touch with everyday Americans.