Fausta's Blog

Press release from U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen,
Legislation To Award The Congressional Gold Medal To ‘Borinqueneers’ Soldiers From Puerto Rico Who Fought During Korean War Garnering Support In US House Ros-Lehtinen Proud To Support It & Honor Valor Of Patriots Who Helped Save South Korea From Communism

“For most of the Korean War, the legendary 65th Infantry Regiment served as a segregated unit, consisting almost entirely of soldiers from Puerto Rico. Despite facing prejudice, ‘the Borinqueneers’ repeatedly excelled on the fields of combat in Korea. The unit played an essential part in some of the fiercest engagements throughout that war, thereby saving the people of South Korea from the scourge of Communist rule. By war’s end, the 65th was one of the most highly decorated units of the conflicts, having received 10 Distinguished Service Crosses, about 250 Silver Stars, over 600 Bronze Stars, and nearly 3,000 Purple Hearts.

Soldiers from Puerto Rico have demonstrated their valor and loyalty to our nation in the many wars that the United States has fought in the name of freedom and democracy. The ‘Borinqueneers’ stand out for doing so at a time in which they also had to fight the prejudice of racism from within the Armed Forces they so loved.

Their Congressional Gold Medal = Very good news.

No, not them,

Us,

NSA, FBI secretly mining data from Internet firms...
'THEY QUITE LITERALLY CAN WATCH YOUR IDEAS AS YOU TYPE'...
MICROSOFTYAHOOGOOGLEYOUTUBEFACEBOOKSKYPEAPPLE...
Top-secret PRISM program... 
Vast Data Trove...
Billions of Phone Calls...
THE INTERNET FROM HELL 

 

US intelligence chief denounces info ‘leak’…

NYT: Obama has lost all credibility…

Paper ‘quietly changes published editorial to make less damning’…

 Washington Post:

U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program  —  The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs …

+

Discussion: Firedoglake, Politico, Wake up America, Business Insider, The Plum Line,The Next Web, AEIdeas, ThinkProgress, Wired, Shakesville, The Week,americanthinker.com, The Hill, Wall Street Journal, The Fix, Yahoo! News, GigaOM, Hot Air, The Daily Caller, Mediaite, Outside the Beltway, AMERICAblog, CANNONFIRE,Daily Mail, WJLA-TV, Gawker, The Volokh Conspiracy, The PJ Tatler, CBS Denver,ABCNEWS, Right Wing News, Weasel Zippers, CBS News, The Verge, Booman Tribune, The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, ABCNEWS, The Gateway Pundit,Mashable, msnbc.com, TalkLeft, San Francisco Bay Guardian, The Spectacle Blog,Power Line, Daily Kos, Hit & Run, Balloon Juice and ProPublica, more at Mediagazer »

 New York Times:

President Obama’s Dragnet  —  Within hours of the disclosure that the federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every …

Discussion: American Prospect, Yahoo! News, Crooks and Liars, Bloomberg,Colorlines, Weasel Zippers, DownWithTyranny!, Guardian, Slate, Washington Post, National Review, CBS News, Conservative Intelligence …, Via Meadia,CBS Boston, Israel Matzav, Ed Driscoll, Right Turn, Los Angeles Times, Pressing Issues, ParaPundit, Politico, Outside the Beltway, Lawfare, Mediaite, The Next Web, Wired, The Hugh Hewitt Show, Pundit & Pundette, Firedoglake, Business Insider, The PJ Tatler, Hot Air, Hit & Run, The Daily Caller and Law Blog, more atMediagazer »

 Guardian:

NSA taps into internet giants’ systems to mine user data, secret files reveal  —  • Top secret PRISM program claims direct access to servers of firms including Google, Facebook and Apple  —  • Companies deny any knowledge of program in operation since 2007

Discussion: Washington Monthly, BuzzFeed, The Huffington Post, Business Insider, Daniel W. Drezner, New York Times, TechCrunch, The Volokh Conspiracy, The Gateway Pundit, Daily Kos, BuzzFeed, GigaOM, AllThingsD,Balloon Juice, Informed Comment, TIME, msnbc.com, BBC, Boing Boing, The Hill, The Moderate Voice, The Next Web, Taylor Marsh, The Hinterland Gazette,Pressing Issues, Washington Post, The Agonist, Associated Press, The Raw Story, The Atlantic Online, The Week, The Verge, Alan Colmes’ Liberaland,Yahoo! News, Mediaite, The Daily Caller, Samizdata, VodkaPundit, Hit & Run,Mashable and Politico

By the time today’s podcast aired, Tracy was apparently on his was way to the USA:
Venezuela Frees,Then Deports U.S. Filmmaker

A U.S. filmmaker was freed from a Venezuelan prison and expelled from the country, local officials said Wednesday, more than a month after he was arrested on charges of plotting against the new administration of President Nicolás Maduro.

“The gringo, Timothy Tracy, caught spying in our country, has been expelled from national territory,” said a post on Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez’s Twitter account. The message was confirmed by a ministry spokesman, who declined to give further details.

And,

The release of Timothy Tracy, 35, was secured with the help of former U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, who has long worked to improve often strained U.S.-Venezuelan ties and was hired by Tracy’s family as an attorney in the case.
…
The expulsion came just as Secretary of State John Kerry was to meet with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua on the sidelines of a regional gathering in Guatemala to discuss relations between the two countries, which have been without ambassadors since 2010.

That’s the OAS meeting.

Last week Tracy had been transferred notoriously violent Rodeo prison, where hundreds had died in a 2011 riot.

Henrique Capriles to set off the alarms before international bodies
Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles Wednesday condemned the “non-compliance” with the election audit requested by the opposition alliance and endorsed by the Union of South American Nations (Unasur). He lambasted the steps taken by Venezuelan electoral authorities

“An agreement was reached with Unasur to conduct a (comprehensive) election audit. The audit did not take place. What they (Venezuelan electoral authorities are doing is a farce.”

The Maduro regime is furious that Colombia’s president Santos met with Capriles,

The Maduro government has vilified Capriles as a “fascist” trying to stir a coup in Venezuela, and powerful Congress head Diosdado Cabello, who is also the No. 2 in the ruling Socialist Party, was the first to complain about the meeting in Bogota.

“Colombia must clarify if the government is with Capriles’ coup intentions, or with the people of Venezuela and with the legitimate, sovereign and constitutional government of comrade Nicolas Maduro,” Cabello told state media.

“President Santos is putting a bomb in the good relations that President Chavez urged so much … He is receiving a murderer, a fascist right there in his palace.”

Considering Venezuela’s ever-increasing reliance on Colombia for food, Cabello would do well to measure his words.

As a side news, Santos apparently has been comparing Alvaro Uribe to Caligula. An unwise slip of the tongue, considering how Uribe retired from the presidency with a 75%+ approval rating, but I digress.

Jaime Bayly traveled to Colombia on Tuesday to interview Capriles (videos in Spanish), which aired on MeagaTV and Capriles.tv last night.

Here’s the first hour.

Part 1,

Part 2,

Part 3,

Part 4,

Bayly will broadcast the second hour tonight on MegaTV, which posts the Bayly programs on YouTube the following morning. I’ll post the YouTubes tomorrow.

In honor of those who served, St. Louis Boy Scouts place nearly 200,000 flags at Jefferson Barracks

Action:
Anthony Weiner Announces Bid for Mayor

Reaction:
Weiner Makes It Official: Thrusts Himself Into NYC Mayoral Race

Sources say NY Post, Daily News execs signed order early this a.m. allowing headline writers to tap National Strategic Penis Jokes Reserve.

— Nick Confessore (@nickconfessore) May 22, 2013

UPDATE:
For some NSFW fun, check out #WeinerHeadlines on Twitter

at The Salvation Army (h/t Mr. Bingley).

Forty miles southeast of Mexico City, Popocatepetl is acting up:
Mexico’s ‘Popo’ volcano spews ash, molten rock

“Popo,” as the volcano is known, has displayed a “notable increase in activity levels” in the last few days, including tremors and explosive eruptions, according to a statement from the federal government.

Webcams have shown large chunks of molten rock spewing from the crater, and ash has rained down on the nearby city of Puebla. On Sunday, Mexico’s National Center for Disaster Prevention elevated its warning level to “Yellow Phase 3,” the fifth stage of a seven-stage warning scale.

“Don Goyo”, Popo’s other name was throwing red rocks.

Popo’s twin, Iztaccihuatl, remains dormant.

And, no, don’t ask me how to pronounce Iztaccihuatl.

Former dictator José Efraín Ríos Montt is now the first person ever to be convicted of genocide in a court of his own country for the murders of Ixl Mayans:
A historic verdict in Guatemala
Genocidal general

Amid cheers from the gallery and chaos in the courtroom, the judge, Jazmín Barrios, part of a three-person tribunal, immediately ordered General Ríos Montt to be taken to jail. Until then, he had been under house arrest. His conviction came a day after he broke a silence that he had maintained throughout weeks of testimony. He had hotly declared his innocence, showing particular antipathy to the charge of genocide, saying he had never authorised attacks on any ethnic group,

However, in reaching her verdict, the judge pointed to evidence of a pattern of army massacres that she said appeared to follow plans that were ordered from the top. In proving genocide, she said there was evidence that 5.5% of the Ixil ethnic group had been wiped out by the army, even though she said they were civilian farmers. And she said General Ríos Montt, knew what was going on in the villages where the massacres and bombardments were taking place, and didn’t order a halt to them. However, she acquitted his co-defendant, the general’s former intelligence chief, José Rodríguez Sánchez.

In her remarks the judge dwelt on the brutality that led to the killing of 1,771 Ixils, relayed by almost 100 witnesses during the trial that started on March 19th. She spoke of babies being killed in the womb, of gang rapes by soldiers, and of mass graves showing evidence of violent death. She praised the Ixil witnesses for speaking out about their suffering, noting that the psychological scars still persisted, even among generations who were not alive when the atrocities were committed.

A civil war ravaged Guatemala for 36 years, from 1960 to 1996. PBS Newshour has a timeline of events. Violence and intimidation continue to be a major problem in political and civilian life.

The big news this week, Fascist Venezuela: The end of the National Assembly

ARGENTINA
Buenos Aires Lures Foreign Buyers
A hunger for stable U.S. dollars is creating opportunities for buyers to nab steeply discounted properties. As long as the properties are owned by sellers willing to do a foreign-account-to-foreign-account sale, that is.

BOLIVIA
Bolivia throws out USAID

BRAZIL
Dams in the Amazon
The rights and wrongs of Belo Monte
Having spent heavily to make the world’s third-biggest hydroelectric project greener, Brazil risks getting a poor return on its $14 billion investment

Shock over latest Brazil bus rape
Police in Brazil are looking for a man who raped a woman on a moving Rio de Janeiro bus, in a case that has shocked the host nation of the football 2014 World Cup.

CHILE
Statistics in Chile
How many Chileans?

COLOMBIA
Colombian government FARC peace talks, first 6 months

CUBA
Political Change in Cuba so that Everything Remains the Same

FBI Adds Cop Killer Joanne Chesimard To Most Wanted Terrorist List
She Was Convicted Of Gunning Down A New Jersey State Trooper In 1973

In poor health, Cuban prisoner of conscience Marcos Lima released from jail

COSTA RICA
Costa Rica Declares Obama Visit a National Holiday

ECUADOR
Judge dismisses $19B Ecuador judgment against Chevron’s Canadian subsidiary

MEXICO
Obama In Mexico Gives Cartels Short Shrift

Evolving U.S.-Mexico Relations and Obama’s Visit

Mexico’s Drug War and Booming Economy

THE GANG OF EIGHT’S TORRENT OF IMMIGRANTS: IS THE REAL NUMBER 57 MILLION?

NICARAGUA
Nicaragua cloud forest ‘under siege’
Indigenous communities say that illegal logging and land speculators are threatening Central America’s most important tropical forest.

PUERTO RICO
Another top university official in Puerto Rico resigns amid protest

URUGUAY
‘Breaking the wall of impunity’ in Uruguay
Uruguayan judges and prosecutors begin to defy the Supreme Court of Justice’s closure of human rights investigations.

VENEZUELA
For foreign non-illustrated media and chavista supporters: chavismo media lock up

Mario Vargas Llosa: La muerte lenta del chavismo
PIEDRA DE TOQUE. Al mismo tiempo que el Gobierno de Nicolás Maduro convertía el Parlamento en un aquelarre de brutalidad, la represión se amplificaba y se detenía a funcionarios por votar a la oposición

The week’s posts and podcast:
About cinco de mayo, the American holiday

Venezuela: 50 shades of crazy

Obama in Costa Rica

Cuba sheltering Most Wanted Terrorist

Venezuela: The Cuban perp?

Obama heads to Mexico

Fascist Venezuela: The end of the National Assembly

Bolivia: No term limit for Evo

Ecuadorian Ambassador to Peru allegedly kicks a woman in public

Cuba’s message to dissidents: You had your trip, now we’re coming after you

Immigration from south of the Mexican border

Podcast: In Silvio Canto’s podcast.