Cuba

At the Daily Beast, Michael Moynihan attempted to overcome the tendency of journalists and celebrities to make Nelson Mandela a secular saint. Moynihan recalled that when Margaret Thatcher died, these same people denounced her for here "indulgence" of right-wing dictators like Agosto Pinochet in Chile, who allowed his country to become a democracy. ABC called her reign an “elective…

Rapper Armando Pérez, better known by his stage name Pitbull, used the recent dust-up over liberal celebrities Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter and Beyoncé Knowles traveling to Cuba to call attention to the awful conditions faced by people in his homeland. Responding to an earlier “open letter” by Carter in which he defended his trip to the communist dictatorship, Pérez did not condemn the musical couple…

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) had some harsh words Sunday for Jay-Z and Beyoncé's recent trip to Cuba. Appearing on CNN's State of the Union, Rubio said, "I think it’s hypocritical of the people who took that trip because they didn't go down there and meet with some of the people that are actually in trouble today" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

When music superstars Jay-Z -- whose real name is Shawn Carter -- and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter celebrated their fifth anniversary with a vacation to Cuba, the couple was criticized on Twitter by Stacey Dash, who asked: “Do you care that The Jay Z"s have taken the capital you have given them and funded a communist oppressive regime?” The African-American actress's question drew many angry…

Okay, Cuban dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez, who is now on a three month world tour, no more called for the release of  five spies for the Castro government than Rush Limbaugh actually purchased a can opener for his mother so she could eat dog food. Let me explain: The Miami Herald reported that ironic comments by Sanchez, currently in Brazil, were misunderstood to mean she supported the…

Reuters somehow can't recognize a 100% tax rate even when it is right under their noses in their own article. Reporter Marc Frank apparently thinks that going to a 35% tax rate would somehow be more of a burden for Cubans than their current tax rate which is 100%. Frank even wrote about the 100% tax rate but absurdly didn't recognize the fact that total confiscation of revenue is the same thing…

At the end of Thursday's NBC Rock Center, host Brian Williams touted an "unexpected moment" with the widow of Robert F. Kennedy when he asked "what she remembered about Fidel Castro, who, it turns out, she's met several times." Kennedy fondly remembered: "He was very warm, very emotional. He clearly would have liked to have been friends with President Kennedy and with Bobby." Williams…

NewsBusters continues to showcase the most egregious bias the Media Research Center has uncovered over the years — four quotes for each of the 25 years of the MRC, 100 quotes total — all leading up to our big 25th Anniversary Gala one week from tonight. Click here for blog posts recounting the worst of 1988 through 2005. Today, the worst bias of 2006: ABC’s Terry Moran gets a thrill for…

For the past two weeks, NewsBusters has been showcasing the most egregious bias the Media Research Center has uncovered over the years — four quotes for each of the 25 years of the MRC, 100 quotes total — all leading up to our big 25th Anniversary Gala September 27. If you’ve missed a previous blog, recounting the worst of 1988 through 2001, they are here. Today, the worst bias of 2002: Bill…

Each morning, NewsBusters has been showcasing the most egregious bias the Media Research Center has uncovered over the years — four quotes for each of the 25 years of the MRC, 100 quotes total — all leading up to our big 25th Anniversary Gala September 27. If you’ve missed a previous blog, recounting the worst of 1988 through 1999, you can find them here. Today, the worst bias of 2000: Amid…

On Saturday's Melissa Harris-Perry show on MSNBC, after recounting some of the human rights abuses perpetrated by the Cuban government against its citizens, host Harris-Perry praised the efforts of Fidel Castro's niece, Mariela Castro, in securing sex change surgery as one of the medical services covered by the government-run health care system of the communist country as a promising…

New York Times "global health correspondent" Donald McNeil Jr. made a rare trip to Cuba and filed a report praising the Communist island's handling of the AIDS epidemic for Tuesday's "A Regime's Tight Grip on AIDS – In Cuba, rigorous testing, education, and free condoms help keep the epidemic in check." Conspiciously absent from that headline, especially for a newspaper that prides itself on…

Forget the fact that Cuba is a one-party totalitarian state where leadership is entirely dependent on how closely related one is to a certain Fidel Castro rather than any electoral process. The good news is that "Cuba may be the most feminist country in Latin America." That laughable premise has been published by New York Times blogger Luisita Lopez Torregrosa. Of course, that revelation would…

Catching up with Bryant Gumbel from a couple of weeks ago, on the April edition of his Real Sports show on HBO, the NBC News and CBS News veteran came to the defense of Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen, who caused outrage amongst Cuban-Americans when he declared “I love Fidel Castro.” In an end of the program commentary, Gumbel couldn’t resist taking a jab at conservatives, charging:…