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Insider Report: Bettors Beat Polls, Castro, Blair, U2 Special From NewsMax's Most Informed Sources
Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories): 1. Insider: Castro May Be Dead by Year's End Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro is still "gravely ill" three months after undergoing abdominal surgery for an undisclosed ailment despite Cuban protestations to the contrary. "He is well. He's been resting a bit because of the operation he had," Castro's brother Ramon recently told The Associated Press.
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But in a video released in late October, Fidel appeared slow and awkward, and his speech was shaky. He wore an oversized track suit and bathrobe, leaving open the possibility that he has been fitted with a colostomy bag. "I have been saying it for a while that the recovery would be prolonged and not exempt of risk," Castro, who turned 80 in August, said on the tape. In the video, Castro was shown doing walk-in-place exercises, "slowly swinging his elbows as his slippered feet, set wide, marked time but did not move forward," the Miami Herald reported. That is "exactly what you would have expected for somebody who has been ill for an extended period of time, who has not been active," University of Miami gastroenterologist Dr. Jeffrey Raskin told the Herald. "You have a wide-based gait to steady yourself because you're weak." Dr. Raskin and Dr. Charles Gerson, a gastroenterologist at Mount Sinai in New York, both said Fidel's long "recovery" suggests a serious illness, such as cancer. "Usually for a benign condition, if you have surgery, after a month or six weeks you are back to normal," Dr. Gerson said. "Three months after surgery, he should be better." U.S. intelligence insiders believe Castro is "gravely ill," according to the Herald. One former U.S. government official, who requested anonymity, said Washington has obtained "pretty reliable" information that indicates Castro is not recovering as well as Cuba claims. "The latest I've heard was still pretty grave for Castro," the official told the Herald. "Castro may not make it through the New Year." Editor's Note:
2. Online Bettors Accurate in Election Calls Political pundits might take a cue from online gamblers when predicting the outcome of U.S. elections the bettors were remarkably accurate in picking the winners in the midterm elections. Going into Election Day, most political observers said the Missouri race for the Senate between Democrat Claire McCaskill and Republican Jim Talent was too close to call. Not so for online bettors wagering on the Web site Sportsbook.com 81 percent correctly believed McCaskill would win. Similarly, the race in Montana between Republican Conrad Burns and Democrat Jon Tester was considered dead even, but 63 percent of bettors got it right by picking Tester. Bettors bettered political prognosticators in the Virginia Senate race between Republican George Allen and Democrat Jim Webb, which was considered a toss-up. Online gamblers correctly picked Webb 56.4 percent of the time. The race in Tennessee between Republican Bob Corker and Democrat Harold Ford was thought to be close, but a huge 91 percent of bettors put their money on the winner, Corker. Oddsmakers at another site, Ireland-based TradeSports, were also accurate in predicting the races in Missouri, Montana, Virginia, and Tennessee. But the site wasn't entirely accurate its oddsmakers said the GOP was 70 percent likely to hold on to the Senate. The only U.S. state to offer legalized gambling on elections is Iowa, according to gambling911.com. One of the state's congressmen, Jim Leach, co-sponsored a bill to restrict Internet gambling using banking instruments. He lost his seat on Tuesday. Editor's Note: 3. U.S. Official: Israel Won't Attack Iran Iran's nuclear program is too vast to be taken out with a single air attack and therefore Israel is unlikely to bomb Iran to keep it from developing nuclear weapons, a U.S. official told the Jerusalem Post. "We do not have enough information about the Iranian nuclear program to be confident that you could destroy it in a single attack," the unnamed official said. "The worst thing you could do is try and not succeed." In 1981, Israel destroyed Iraq's nuclear program with a single raid against the Osirak nuclear reactor. But Iran poses "a much more difficult problem militarily than taking on Saddam Hussein's program," the official told the Post. Iran may have as many as 200 sites that are part of its nuclear program. As a result, the official said, "I do not see that Israel is going to do something like that In all our conversations thus far, Israel has stressed that this is an international problem. Israel does not want to make it an Israeli problem." Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has threatened to "wipe Israel off the map." However, "Israel is committed to the political approach that the international community is taking," the official said. Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told the Post that "control of the nuclear game was in the hands of the great powers. I expect that [they] will go for sanctions and severe sanctions, not soft ones for their own sake." Editor's Note:
4. Blackwell Loss Due to GOP's Broken Promises' An e-mail from a senior aide to Ken Blackwell, the GOP candidate for governor of Ohio, blames Blackwell's loss on the failure of the state Republican Party to adhere to conservative principles. In a mass e-mail sent to supporters, the aide said: "Ken Blackwell lost primarily because the Ohio GOP has broken promises with the people and abandoned its principles. "For 16 years the GOP controlled every statewide office; now this is gone. Ken alone stood against the tax increases and increased state spending by the GOP. And oddly enough, he was the only one to campaign for the marriage amendment in 2004 that passed with huge support. "In spite of this setback, Ken will not give up the fight for our party's principles and for Ohio He will work on reuniting the party [with] its principles." Blackwell, who lost to Democratic Rep. Ted Strickland, echoed those thoughts in his concession speech: "I think we were awash in the wave of change that we rolled in on in 1994. We had an opportunity to lead and to stay true to our principles and put our state on a path of economic growth and job creation, and we came up short." Editor's Note:
5. We Heard . . . THAT British Prime Minister Tony Blair has named U2's 1987 hit "Where the Streets Have No Name" as his favorite song of all time. Blair called Virgin Radio to reveal his choice of the song by Bono's group, whose lyrics deal with disillusionment and violence, the ContactMusic.com Web site reported. The lyrics include: "I want to run. I want to hide. I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside." But a spokesman for the prime minister said Blair's choice of the song doesn't indicate that he's feeling depressed, adding: "I think he just liked the song."
THAT Charlie Crist overcame significant dissatisfaction with fellow Republican George Bush's job performance to win the race for governor in Florida. Exit polls showed that 43 percent of voters who said they "somewhat disapprove" of President Bush's job performance voted for Crist, who beat Democrat Jim Davis by a 52 to 46 percent margin.
Crist also drew nearly half of the votes from independents, women, and Hispanics, and surprisingly almost one-fifth of the African-American vote. Significantly, the GOP candidate won 14 percent of the vote from Democrats and 21 percent from those who say they are liberal, while Davis garnered only 8 percent of the vote from Republicans. THAT U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte may follow former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and resign from the Bush administration.
The buzz is that Negroponte has his eye on becoming U.S. ambassador to China.
Editor's Note: Editor's Notes:
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