Fidel Castro meets with 3 visiting US lawmakers
By WILL WEISSERT
April 7, 2009
HAVANA – Signaling its willingness to discuss improved relations with the Obama administration, Cuba on Tuesday granted three visiting members of the Congressional Black Caucus the first meeting with Fidel Castro by American officials since he fell ill in 2006.
[snip]
"Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., current head of the 42-member caucus, said at a news conference in Washington after the group's return that lawmakers met for nearly two hours with Fidel Castro and found him 'very healthy, very energetic, very clear thinking.'
Rep. Laura Richardson, D-Calif., who also met Fidel with Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., said Castro 'looked directly into our eyes' and asked how Cuba could help Obama in his efforts to change the course of U.S. foreign policy. Richardson said she had the impression that 82-year-old Fidel wants to see changes in U.S.-Cuba relations in his lifetime.
Raul Castro, added Lee, 'said everything was on the table.' ..."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090407/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_cuba_us
________________________________________________________
Roland Burris and Rep. Bobby Rush (speaking)
at a Chicago news conference announcing
Gov. Rod Blagojevich's appointment of
Burris to the U.S. Senate Dec. 30, 2008.
CBS
________________________________________________________
From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
PROFILE: BOBBY RUSH:
* Democratic Member of Congress
* Member of the radical Progressive Caucus
* In 1968, went AWOL from the U.S. Army
* Co-founder of the Illinois branch of the Black Panther Party
* In 1969, served six months in jail for an illegal weapons conviction
* Advocates reparations for African Americans
"Bobby Rush has described his involvement with the Black Panthers as part of his maturation process, as a youthful indiscretion that he abandoned immediately after Hampton's death. He described his role mostly as running the Black Panther Party's Free Breakfast for Children program.
But Bobby Rush served six months in jail for a 1969 illegal weapons conviction and, even after his release, in 1971 his comrades were still describing him as the 'Deputy Minister of Defense' for the Black Panther Party in Illinois. In 1992 the socialist magazine In These Times praised fledgling congressional candidate Rush, writing that he 'has continued to support progressive policies and has never disavowed his Panther past...."
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1198
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From the Maoist Internationist Movement:
[1960s/original] Black Panther Party [BPP] Archives
From the article: REVOLUTIONARY HEROS
"On May 1st, May Day [1969], the day of the gigantic Free Huey rally, two of Alioto's top executioners vamped on the brothers from the Brown Community who were attending to their own affairs. These brothers, who are endowed with the revolutionary spirit of the Black Panther Party defended themselves from the racist pig gestapo.
Pig Joseph Brodnik received his just reward with a big hole in the chest. Pig Paul McGoran got his in the mouth which was not quite enough to off him.
The revolutionary brothers escaped the huge swarm of pigs with dogs, mace, tanks and helicopters, proving once again that "the spirit of the people is greater than the man's technology."
To these brothers the revolutionary people of racist America want to say, by your revolutionary deed you are heroes, and that you are always welcome to our camp."
Source: Maoist Internationist Movement
Article: REVOLUTIONARY HEROS (May 11, 1969):
http://web.archive.org/web/20041230150623/http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/bpp/index.html
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Bobby Rush surrenders. Photo by Larry Graff,
December 6, 1969
Black Panthers spokesman Bobby Rush (second from right) surrenders to Renault Robinson (right), president of Afro-American Patrolman's League, following the Fred Hampton shooting. He was joined by Hampton's brother, William (left), and the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
Images © Chicago Sun-Times
http://www.suntimes.com/realchicago/1960s/57.html
************************************************
Member of the U.S. House of
Representatives from California's
9th district Incumbent
Assumed office April 7, 1998
From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
PROFILE: BARBARA LEE:
* Democratic Member of Congress, co-chair of the radical Progressive Caucus
* Former agent of Black Panther leader and convicted killer Huey Newton
* Collaborated with the Marxist dictatorship of Grenada to deceive the U.S. Congress
* Voted against using military force against terrorists following the 9/11 attacks
* Has consistently voted against U.S.-led military action, regardless of circumstances
"While attending Mills College in Oakland, California during the early 1970s, Lee worked as a volunteer for the local chapter of the Black Panther Party's Community Learning Center. She also worked on the 1973 Oakland mayoral campaign of Panther co-founder Bobby Seale, and she served as a confidential aide to the Panthers' 'Minister of Defense,' Huey Newton."
[snip]
In the 1980s she worked as a staff member for the radical Left Democratic congressman Ron Dellums, who headed the House Sub-Committee on Military Installations. Aided by Lee, Dellums used his authority to impede U.S. foreign policy with regard to the Communist dictatorship of Grenada, where many Soviet bloc advisers, in conjunction with Cuban military personnel, were busy constructing an airport capable of accommodating Soviet military planes. As the ranking Democrat member of the House Armed Services Committee, Dellums traveled to Grenada to conduct an on-site "fact-finding" tour and on his return whitewashed the Grenadian dictatorship:
"Based on my personal observations, discussion and analysis of the new international airport under construction in Grenada, it is my conclusion that this project is specifically now and has always been for the purpose of economic development and is not for military use…. It is my thought that it is absurd, patronizing and totally unwarranted for the United States Government to charge that this airport poses a military threat to the United States' national security."
What legislators did not know at the time was that Dellums, before testifying to Congress, had previously submitted, through his emissary Barabara Lee, his prepared report (about the airport) to Grenada's Communist dictator for the latter's approval and/or revisions. The minutes of a Politburo meeting attended by that dictator and his military command stated:
"Barbara Lee is here presently and has brought with her a report on the international airport that was done by Ron Dellums. They have requested that we look at the document and suggest any changes we deem necessary. They will be willing to make the changes."
When Dellums retired in 1998, Barbara Lee won his vacated congressional seat and has held it ever since.
In June 2002, Lee joined 30 fellow members of Congress (including such notables as John Conyers, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Cynthia McKinney, and Maxine Waters) in filing a federal lawsuit to block President George W. Bush from withdrawing the U.S. from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty which had been signed in 1972 with the old Soviet Union. The lawsuit named Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as defendants.
[snip]
Lee currently chairs the Congressional Black Caucus and formerly co-chaired the Progressive Caucus in the House of Representatives. During the course of her political career, Lee has voted:
* Against the development of a national missile-defense system;
* Against the authorization to bomb Iraq in 1998 in retaliation for Saddam Hussein's persistent refusal to allow weapons inspections by the United Nations;
* Against sending U.S. military forces into Kosovo and Yugoslavia in 1999 (she was the only House member to vote against this measure);
* Against the use of military force against the Taliban in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks (she was the only House member to vote against this measure);
* Against the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001;
* Against the post-9/11 anti-terrorism measure known as the Patriot Act;
* Against allowing the U.S. government to use electronic surveillance to investigate suspected terrorist operatives;
* Against a bill permitting the government to combat potential terrorist threats by monitoring foreign electronic communications which are routed through the United States;
* Against an October 2002 joint resolution authorizing U.S. military action in Iraq;
* Against the establishment of military commissions to try enemy combatants captured in the war on terror;
* In favor of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq immediately and by a preordained date;
* Against President Bush's 2007 decision to deploy some 21,500 additional U.S. soldiers in an effort to quell the violent insurgents in Iraq;
* In favor of a proposal to expedite the transfer of all prisoners in the Guantanamo Bay detention center;
* Against requiring hospitals to report (to the federal government) illegal aliens who receive emergency medical treatment;
* Against the Real ID Act, which proposed to set minimal security requirements for state driver licenses and identification cards;
* Against separate proposals calling for the construction of some 700 miles of fencing to prevent illegal immigration along America's southern border;
* Against a proposal to grant state and local officials the authority to investigate, identify, and arrest illegal immigrants;
* Against major tax cut proposals in September 1998, February 2000, March 2000, July 2000, May 2001, May 2003, October 2004, and May 2006;
* Against a welfare reform bill designed to move people off the welfare rolls and into paying jobs;
* In favor of prohibiting oil and gas exploration in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR);
* Against a proposal to fund offshore oil exploration along the Outer Continental Shelf.
In 2008 Lee endorsed Senator Barack Obama for U.S. President.
Author and political commentator David Horowitz has called Lee "an anti-American communist who supports America's enemies and has actively collaborated with them in their war against America."
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=936