Castro resigns, from AP

HAVANA (AP) - An ailing Fidel Castro resigned as Cuba’s president Tuesday after nearly a half-century in power, saying he was retiring and will not accept a new term when the new parliament meets Sunday.

“I will not aspire to nor accept - I repeat, I will not aspire to nor accept - the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief,” read a letter signed by Castro published early Tuesday in the online edition of the Communist Party daily Granma.

The announcement effectively ends the rule of the 81-year-old Castro after almost 50 years, positioning his 76-year-old brother Raul for permanent succession to the presidency. Fidel Castro temporarily ceded his powers to his brother on July 31, 2006, when he announced that he had undergone intestinal surgery.

good riddance.

from AP…

MANAGUA, Nicaragua: President Daniel Ortega, who led the 1979 revolution in Nicaragua, says Barack Obama’s presidential bid is a “revolutionary” phenomenon in the United States.

“It’s not to say that there is already a revolution under way in the U.S. … but yes, they are laying the foundations for a revolutionary change,” the Sandinista leader said Wednesday night as he accepted an honorary doctorate from an engineering university.

Ortega led a Soviet-backed government that battled U.S.-supported Contra rebels before he lost power in a 1990 election. He returned to office last year via the ballot box.

In statements broadcast on Sandinista Radio La Primerisima, Ortega said he has “faith in God and in the North American people, and above all in the youth, that the moment of great change in the U.S. will come and it will act differently, with justice and equality toward all nations.”

Wonderful. Just wonderful. Is this the “change” that Senator Gravitas wants to bring?

Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, has boasted of providing for universal healthcare in the Commonwealth. In fact, Hillary Clinton’s reincarnation of universal healthcare was unveiled a few months ago, and it looked remarkably similar. Employers are required to provide access to insurance, or face fines from the state.

Enter the law of unintended consequences. Many employers have decided that paying the fines is better for their company than providing insurance.

I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell ya.

Businesses with 11 or more full-time equivalent workers are now required to offer insurance or pay a fine. The law also bars employers from offering higher-wage workers better health benefits than low-wage employees. In addition, workers with access to employer-subsidized insurance are now barred from getting state-supported coverage, and will be excluded from the state’s free care program starting in April.

The provisions were designed to ensure that as many workers as possible get coverage through their employers in a state where about 70 percent of the 200,000 businesses offer insurance benefits.

For years, Doug Barlow and his business partner had paid 100 percent of the insurance cost for 11 full-time salaried workers at their three Burger King restaurants in Boston. The new law’s antidiscrimination provisions led them to offer insurance to 27 hourly employees. But the potential cost - nearly $1,100 per month for family coverage - pushed them to cut the firm’s contribution to 50 percent.

“I was prepared for a lot more people coming into our plan, but it didn’t happen,” said Barlow. Other employers said they are seeing the same pattern - expanded eligibility that does not lead to many more insured individuals.

“For most working-class people, regardless of whether the company pays part of the premium, it’s very expensive,” Barlow said. “Some full-time people said they’d done the math and it is cheaper for them to pay the state penalty than pay their half of health insurance.”

The law requires individuals to obtain insurance by Dec. 31, if the state deems it affordable, or pay a penalty of $219. Next year, the penalty will rise.

As they say, read it all.

What do you think, Club for Growth? Socialized medicine has no place in a capitalist society. Get your heads out of your azzes and quit supporting this moron.

Oops. Mike Moore left out a few, *ahem*, details in his highly publicized propaganda documentary in support of government run healthcare.

Free Thoughts has the photo expose’…….

One of the major accomplishments of 1959 Castroite revolution has been turning once-world class hospitals of Cuba into places where not even pigs would ever enter. This is Cuban healthcare. For ordinary people, of course.

Read it all at Free Thoughts

Updated and Bumped
Momentum is building. Google hits 1,680,000 entries for the phrase “the greatest campaign finance scandal in American history.” Hillary Rodham Clinton is now at the top of the heap. Keep it going folks!
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“the+greatest+campaign+finance+scandal+in+American+history”

“the greatest campaign finance scandal in American history”

Now that this phrase has been published by a respected member of the MSM, and, as such, is now in the LexusNexis search database, it seems appropriate to associate that phrase with the person to whom it refers: Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I received a ping from FReeper “Spirit of Allegiance” this morning which pointed to an article which featured our pal, “Dougfromupland.”

The article was in the San Francisco Chronicle’s on line edition. Here is the introductory paragraph of the article about “the greatest campaign finance scandal in American history.”

In his other life, Douglas Cogan, 59, is a San Bernardino County commercial real estate broker. But for years, the conservative Republican has spent thousands of hours painstakingly researching what he calls “the greatest campaign finance scandal in American history” by a woman he calls one of the most dangerous political figures the country has ever seen - Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Since it appears that Google has enabled “google-bombing” again, I thought it might be interesting to get the phrase, “the greatest campaign finance scandal in American history,” permanently associated with Hillary Rodham Clinton. That is the purpose of this post. And, if any of you bloggers out there want to join in, just copy+paste this post at your blog, or pass it along in the comments section of your favorite blogs. The more the merrier. I’m going to track-post it to Linkfests, and post it at FR and Hannity. I’ll also activate every tag I have ever used to associate it with this post. Heh.
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