Cuba, USA, and Democracy

And the Big Loser Is...Democracy
{Updated: Saturday, April 12th, 2014}

     DeWayne Wickham -- the top columnist at America's top newspaper, USA Today -- is one of the very few journalists in the United States that has both the courage and the integrity to tell the truth about U.S.-Cuban relations. Sadly, it has been that way since at least 1976, the year Cuban-American broadcaster Emilio Milian criticized Cuban-exile terrorism in Miami and then, not unexpectedly, got car-bombed. Mr. Wickham's insightful columns appear each Tuesday in USA Today. When he writes about contentious U.S.-Cuban issues, Wickham always fairly presents the U. S. side. But, unlike most American journalists, he also presents both sides, even flying to Havana to speak with an important person he trusts, Cuba's Minister of North American Affairs Josefina Vidal. Since the 1950s, a mostly cowardly and inept U. S. media has hurt the American democracy by invariably presenting just the U. S. side of the two-sided Cuban story.

     DeWayne Wickham's last USA Today column -- on Tuesday, April 8th, 2014 -- was entitled "Obama's Cuban Twitter Shows Cuckoo Side of Policy." It referenced the new revelations that bundles of U. S. tax dollars have been funding a Twitter campaign in Cuba designed to entice the Cuban people to rise up and overthrow their government -- similar to the manner in which Twitter campaigns "toppled governments in Egypt and Libya," to quote Wickham. He pointed out that Cuba is neither Egypt nor Libya and that Cubans on the island doggedly prefer sovereignty as opposed to foreign domination or interference. And Wickham stressed that the expensive and supposedly secretive Twitter effort in Cuba was "an instrument of anti-Castro politicians in this country who clamor for the overthrow of the Castro regime." Wickham again points out that the "clamor" to kill or overthrow "Castro" has been going on since 1959 but, somehow, the now 87-year-old Fidel Castro is still alive and so is the Cuban Revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship on the island way back on January 1, 1959. DeWaynee Wickham and other brave, unbiased journalists are quite aware that all that "clamor" to re-capture Cuba has cost American taxpayers billions of dollars and has been conducted for all these decades to appease the economic and revenge motives of a handful of Cuban-exile extremists. Through it all, Fidel Castro and his soon-to-be legacy has and will continue to be empowered by such things as the Bay of Pigs Attack, the bombing of Cubana Flight 455, AND what DeWayne Wickham calls "Obama's cuckoo Twitter campaign" designed to get Cubans on the island to re-capture Cuba for the Cuban-exile extremists after the U. S. government couldn't do it for them. This anti-democratic insanity has been going on since 1959!

     

     
      Alan Lauzan Falcon was born in Havana and lives in Chile but, if you hold up your hand and let the U. S. government know you are anti-Castro, there is a good chance both of your hands will soon be full of U. S. tax dollars. When USAID used bundles of tax dollars to start the Cuban Twitter campaign on the island, the very expensive Mr. Lauzan was hired to design the project to fit the Cuban culture.

    Patrick Leahy is the most distinguished member of the United States Congress. He has been the President pro tempore of the U. S. Senate since 2012 and he is third in line for the U. S. presidency. The 74-year-old Mr. Leahy has represented Vermont in the Senate since 1975 and he took office at a younger age than any current member did. He is Chairman of the Senate's Appropriations Committee, which oversees how tax dollars are spent. He was caught off guard...shocked really...when the Associated Press revealed the Cuban Twitter program. Outraged, he said the perpetrators "are out of your mind!" Moreover, Senator Leahy called it "a cockamamie idea," the kind of wasteful, idiotic scheme that makes the Cubans on the island look more sane and responsible than Americans. Well, not unexpectedly, that reaction got Senator Leahy embarrassingly rebuked by the Cuban-American extremists in the United States Congress.

      The assault on Senator Leahy, not unexpectedly, was led by {left to right} Senator Marco Rubio from Miami, Senator Robert Menendez from Union City, and Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen from Havana and Miami. Rubio raved about what he called the "insinuation" that SunZuneo was "illegal and covert." He also ridiculed Senator Leahy for using the word "cockamamie." Of course, he didn't explain how or why Senator Leahy -- the top man in Congress, 3rd in line for the Presidency, and Chairman of the Appropriations Committee -- had no idea about the scheme. Senator Leahy had also cogently said, "And I don't know anyone else who did know about it." As usual, Senator Menendez and Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen were even more scathing in denouncing the great Senator who went public to assail what he thought was yet another secretive, wasteful, "cockamamie" Cuban regime-change program paid for by bundles of U. S. tax dollars. You can go to YouTube to see and hear Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen's almost six-minute diatribe in Congress defending SunZuneo and excoriating anyone who dares to disagree with America's Cuban-exile mandated Cuban policy.  Or read the major Miami Herald article written Thursday, April 10th by Juan Tamayo entitled "Marco Rubio, Bob Menendez Defend USAID's 'Cuban Twitter' Program." Wow! A great read. It shows how transparency annoys covert perpetrators.

It also shows the Batista exodus from Cuba ended up in Miami, Union City and Washington.

   The Cuban Twitter program was dubbed "ZunZuneo," which is Cuban slang for the tweets of a hummingbird. Except for the Cuban-exile extremists who champion these things, most everyone else cringes at such expensive hair-brain schemes by the U. S. government to disrupt or dismantle the Cuban government. Yet, whether it's an exploding cigar designed to kill Fidel Castro, putting poison in Fidel's toothpaste and in a diving suit he used one time in his life, or hiring young starlets to bed and then do away with him, the tax dollars spent on getting rid of one man and his revolution long ago reached astronomical proportions. And now, let's hear it for ZUNZUNEO -- something else for anti-Americans to cheer. The hummingbird tweet is another bird-brain joke that insults U. S. tax-payers as well as hummingbirds?

    This family photo shows Alan Gross {center} in his Cuban prison flanked by his wife Judy and his lawyer Scott Gilbert. All three this week blasted the United States government for not doing more to get Mr. Gross released and for conducting the ZunZuneo program in Cuba that he feels further jeopardizes his imprisonment on the island. Since learning of ZunZuneo's USAID-funded Cuban boondoggle, the 64-year-old Mr. Gross went on a hunger strike, which he ended Friday {April 11th} after being told to do so by his 92-year-old mother in Maryland. An insightful article written by Daniel Trotta of Reuters on April 8th was uniquely fair in telling both sides of the U.S.-Cuban maelstrom. Mr. Gross has written a letter to President Obama complaining about the lack of U. S. efforts to free him in light of the fact that Cuba appears anxious to get shed of the headache although, as Trotta pointed out, Mr. Gross was a highly paid USAID operative sent to Cuba at least five times on secretive missions using spy equipment to undermine the Cuban government, not unlike the newly revealed ZunZuneo project. Cuban Minister Josefina Vidal believes the visceral Cuban exiles who control America's Cuban policy desire for Mr. Gross to remain in a Cuban prison so it can be used to malign Cuba. Alan Gross, Judy Gross and their lawyer Scott Gilbert seem to agree with Ms. Vidal. Gilbert this week told Daniel Trotter of Reuters, "Once Allen was arrested, it is shocking that USAID would imperil his safety even further by running a covert operation in Cuba. USAID has made one absurdly bad decision after another. Running this program is contrary to everything we have been told by high-level representatives of the Obama administration about USAID's activities in Cuba." Mr. Gross was unwell and overweight when he was arrested in Cuba in 2009 and sentenced to 15 years in prison as an American spy. Since then, he has lost 110 pounds and that's prior to the hunger strike he started after he learned about SunZuneo, which is yet another expensive and failed covert USAID operation that ends up hurting Americans a lot more than it hurts the Cuban government...a stunning process that, SINCE 1959, has been lushly funded by U. S. taxpayers to appease the economic, political, and revengeful appetites of a handful of Cuban exiles. Alan Gross, his wife and his lawyer all now seem to agree with many others that the sheer stupidity and ineptness of such schemes has done a lot more to sustain Revolutionary Cuba, against overwhelming odds, than it has to bring about the REGIME CHANGE so massively desired by the U. S. government on behalf of TWO GENERATIONS of the transplanted Batistianos and Mafiosi booted off the island to Miami and Union City by the Cuban Revolution WAY BACK IN 1959! If you think that's not so, ask David Trotter of Reuters or ask Allen Gross, Judy Gross, or Scott Gilbert.  Or do what DeWayne Wickham of USA Today often does: fly to Havana and ask the astute Josefina Vidal!!

       Josefina Vidal is the Cuban Minister in charge of monitoring U.S.-based schemes to bring about a regime change on the island. She only learned about the Twitter/ZunZuneo program by reading about it in the Associated Press. Her first reaction: "I really think the U. S. government, when it plays such games with the Cuban people, should at least let them know what they are doing and also let them know if a return of the Batistianos and the Mafiosi to the island will be as nice for them as it was back in the 1950s."

     

    In the past two years USA Today has had a plethora of front-page articles revealing South Florida as the "epicenter" of Mafia-like activity involving illegal drugs, pill factories, and a vast assortment of other crimes, such as government rip-offs. That, of course, was no surprise to anyone aware that the ousted Batista-Mafia dictatorship fled mostly to South Florida and Union City {NJ} in January of 1959. And no one should have been surprised this week -- Wednesday, April 9, 2014 -- when a front-page article in USA Today was entitled "Doctors Medicare Pay Revealed." Such things are usually hidden but this was "revealed" by a court order. Dr. Salomon Melgen {right}, an incredibly rich 59-year-old ophthalmologist in South Florida, billed Medicare nearly $21 million in 2012. Dr. Melgen has been in bold headlines before for two things -- his extremely close ties to U. S. Senator Robert Menendez and his earlier ties to alleged fraudulent activity in South Florida.

      Oh, yes, the FBI {left} had raided Dr. Melgen's "Eye Center" in South Florida before it was "revealed" in April of 2014 that he had billed Medicare almost $21 million in 2012.

      

     But in recent months Dr. Melgen's extraordinary ties to U. S. Senator Robert Menendez have gained the two men more headlines than the newly revealed huge bills to taxpayers via Medicare. The extremely wealthy Dr. Melgen is a huge contributor to Senator Menendez's bulging political war-chest. And more: After multiple Senator Menendez flights to the Dominican Republic in private planes owned by Dr. Melgen were "revealed," Senator Menendez "reimbursed" the kindly doctor in an effort to ameliorate at least some of the furor.

  Revelations about the cozy relationship between Dr. Melgen and Senator Menendez served one worthwhile purpose -- revealing some of the usually hidden ties between Cuban-exile politicians from Miami and Union City with shady big-money characters in those two Cuban-exile dominated U. S. cities as well as foreign enclaves such as the Dominican Republic. Such a nexus is probably too wealthy and too politically connected to ever face true transparency but whether it is Medicare fraud or political elections in Miami or Union City, American democracy lovers should realize that Miami and Union City, and even the Dominican Republic, affect the entire United States and not just Miami, Union City, and the Dominican Republic. For example, Democratic Senator Menendez from Union City has been entrenched in the U. S. Senate long enough to dictate many anti-Cuban bills and become Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In the House of Representatives, Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen from Miami has been entrenched long enough to dictate many anti-Cuban bills and become Chairperson of the House Foreign Relations Committee. Unfortunately, the U. S. democracy has only two political parties -- Democrat and Republican -- and just two legislative branches, the Senate and the House. And unfortunately, Cuba is listed as a "foreign" country. But fortunately, only two American cities -- Miami and Union City -- were completely taken over by the Cuban exiles who fled the overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba in January of 1959. So we actually dodged a bullet because it could have been worse.

     For its own extraordinary political and economic gains, the Bush political dynasty anointed anti-Castro Cuban-exile zealot Jorge Mas Canosa (standing, center} as leader of the cuban government-in-exile during the Reagan-Bush administration in the 1980s and then Bush-anointed Miami anti-Castro Cuban-exile zealots like Ileana-Ros Lehtinen {standing, left} began being elected to the U. S. Congress beginning in 1989. Then during George H. W. Bush's two terms as Vice President and one term as President, George W. Bush's two terms as President, and Jeb Bush's two terms as Florida governor, the Bush-imposed Cuban government-in-exile took full control of America's Cuban policy, using enormous amounts of tax dollars and U.S. power to sate their insatiable revenge and economic motives relating to Cuba and the vast anti-Castro cottage industry that has mauled the U. S. democracy since the 1950s. In the above photo that is President George H. W. Bush handing souvenir pens to Ros Lehtinen and Canosa to celebrate anti-Castro U. S. legislation that harms everyone on the planet, including America's best foreign friends, while, of course, vastly benefiting the political motives and bank accounts of a handful of Bush-anointed Cuban-exile extremists from Miami and Union City as well as the Bush political dynasty...at the expense of everyone else.

    With his brother George W. Bush the U. S. President, Jeb Bush re-located to Florida where in 1989 he became Campaign Manager for Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's controversial but successful election to the U. S. Congress from Miami. And that's where, as an entrenched incumbent, she has remained as an anti-Castro zealot from 1989 till the present time. Jeb Bush, having established his Batistiano credentials, went on to two terms as Florida's governor and in 2014 he is currently raising tons of right-wing dollars to fund his Republican bid for the Presidency in 2016. If Jeb is successful in 2016 against what figures to be a weak Democratic opponent, it will signify an amazing revelation: THE BATISTIANOS WILL HAVE CAPTURED THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BEFORE THEY RE-CAPTURE CUBA! Wow! It's scary even to contemplate.

      
     Of course, Bush-disciple Marco Rubio -- the young U. S. Senator from Miami -- is also campaigning hard to be the Republican Presidential candidate in 2016. Rubio's political credentials are: Being Cuban-American in Miami; being supported by the Bush dynasty, the Tea Party, and Fox News; and being an anti-Castro zealot. He reached the U. S. Senate still claiming his parents fled Castro's Cuba for the "freedom of Miami." Later, of course, it was pointed out that his parents actually escaped Batista's Cuba long before Batista atrocities created Castro's victorious Cuban Revolution. But, hey! The Bush dynasty and the Batistianos don't have to worry about facts, do they? No, not in propagandized America!

    

    Since 1993 the United States Congress has had a Diaz-Balart elected from Miami. Havana-born Lincoln Diaz-Balart {left} was in the U. S. Congress from 1993 till he resigned in 2011 to, as he explained at a boisterous news conference, use other presumably more effective platforms to further his Cuban agenda. His brother Mario {right} has represented Miami in the U. S. Congress since 2003. The Diaz-Balarts, Ros-Lehtinen, Menendez, Rubio, Garcia, and Cruz never, of course, recuse themselves when it comes to laws and bills related to Cuba but, instead, insist on dictating such bills and laws to suit their personal ambitions and zealotry. 

    The late Rafael Diaz-Balart -- the father of Lincoln and Mario -- was a rich and powerful minister in Cuba's Batista dictatorship in the 1950s. After the Cuban Revolution in 1959 overthrew the Batista dictatorship, Rafael Diaz-Balart became much richer and much more powerful as an anti-Castro zealot in South Florida. Of course, the second generation of Diaz-Balarts are also rich, powerful and totally unchecked in carrying out their self-serving Cuban agendas on U. S. soil. This has been going on for two generations now. And, of course, a third generation looms ominously on the horizon. 

Beyond doubt, the U. S. democracy was crafted as the greatest government in history.

      From 1776 till 1947 the U. S. democracy was the most loved and admired government in the world. But things changed after World War II. The "Greatest Generation" of Americans that helped save the free world had expended their energy and some of their patriotism. Thus in post-World War II America, the Greatest Generation began to bask in perks such as the free GI Education Bill and wallow in America's position as the world's all-time richest and most powerful nation. And the two generations of Americans since World War II have been the least patriotic, the least intelligent, the least informed, the least courageous, and certainly the most gluttonous in American history. Democracy has been the biggest casualty. That is reflected in the United States support of the Batista dictatorship in Cuba and then the Batistianos on United States soil, not only in Miami and Union City but in the halls of the United States Congress.

In 1952 the U. S. teamed with the Mafia to support the Batista dictatorship in Cuba.

That started democracy on a downward spiral.

In 1959 the Cuban Revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship.

The Batista-Mafia dictatorship fled Cuba for the safe confines of Miami, Florida.

That fact, from 1959 till today, has been the biggest blow to democracy.

Since 1959, new definitions of Democracy have emerged.

Since the 1960s, the rich have gotten richer on the backs of the working poor.

The Cubans and Mafiosi who fled Fidel Castro were awash in money. 

This overwhelmed first Miami and Union City and then Washington.

Since the 1960s, U. S. bombs in places like Vietnam have been ineffective regime changers.

But not ineffective in devastating nations and enriching the military-industrial complex.

The U. S. Constitution was a brilliant "We the people" document.

 It has now essentially been changed to "We the corporations."

Corporate and other special-interest money now permeates the U. S. government.

And two generations of unpatriotic Americans have allowed it to happen.

Mr. Brandeis understood democracy.

Today the John Roberts-led Supreme Court wants power in the "hands of a few."

Two recent 5-4 decisions allow the very rich to purchase U. S. elections.

Thomas Jefferson would not like today's John Roberts-led Supreme Court.

Jefferson didn't envision one percent taking "away the rights" of ninety-nine percent.

The present generation is the least educated in America's history.

Is it also the least patriotic???

    As America's only 4-term President, FDR shepherded the brittle U. S. democracy through such things as the Great Depression and World War II. But he died at the end of World War II and the demise of democracy began shortly after his death. He would never have allowed the U. S. to team with the Mafia to support the Batista dictatorship in Cuba beginning in 1952. And he would never have allowed the remnants of the overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship, beginning in 1959, to reconstitute itself on U. S. soil and, from 1959 till today, dictate a U. S. Cuban-and-Latin American policy that the whole world detests and the vast majority of Americans, including Cuban-Americans, strongly disapprove of. If you study the above FDR quote, you can detect that he warned Americans not to "tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself." FDR defined "fascism" as "ownership of government by an individual, by a group." Obviously, FDR, a democracy lover, would surely cringe over a United States government dictated to by a handful of the wealthiest Americans or by a handful of revengeful Cuban exiles.

    But FDR died in 1945 just after guiding the U. S. through World War II. Today's two-term President is Barack Obama, a Democrat that many democracy lovers hoped would try to steer the U. S. away from the anti-democracy sins imposed by the two-term George W. Bush presidency that preceded him. Yet Obama, as indicated by the above caricature, has followed the dictates of the Bush-aligned Cuban-exile extremists on such matters as the embargo against Cuba although everyone except Cuban-exile extremists consider it to be a cruel disaster that shoots democracy in the foot, decade after decade after decade.

Unchallenged, a handful of Cuban-exile extremists dictate America's Cuban policy.

     
  Even Democratic American Presidents {Like Obama depicted here} are powerless to change America's Cuban policy, such as the embargo imposed way back in 1962 that the world, including the majority of Cuban-Americans in Miami, strongly opposes. That's because America's Cuban policy sates the revenge, political, and economic appetites of only a few Cuban-exiles.

     The Office of Cuban Broadcasting {Better known as OCB or Radio-TV Marti} operates 24-hours-a-day out of expensive state-of-the-art facilities lushly funded since the 1980s by tons of tax dollars. It broadcasts anti-Castro propaganda beamed directly at the island for the purpose of enticing Cubans on the island to rebel against their revolutionary government. Repeatedly for decades unbiased reports, such as a famous one from ABC News, has called Radio-TV Marti "The Broadcasts to Nowhere" because {1} Cuba blocks the signals and {2} even if the signals could reach the island the Cubans are fully capable of distinguishing between U. S.-based propaanda and their personal views on the island. Yet, tons of tax dollars continue to flow to Miami for Radio-TV Marti and its high-priced executives. It was founded way back in the 1980s by the late Jorge Mas Canosa soon after the Bush dynasty anointed Canosa as Miami and Washington's most powerful Cuban exile. Now it is one of the massive operations in Miami run out of a building named for Canosa. And to this day the Cuban-exile extremists do not even have to explain to the tax-burdened U. S. citizens why Radio-TV Marti, as many believe, is merely a piggy-bank receptacle to collect vast pipelines of tax dollars that have flowed seamlessly from Washington to Miami for decades.

     Today, of course, any Cuban who wants to hurl diatribes at Cuba -- or at least at the anti-Castro bastion in Miami -- is welcome to the Radio-TV Marti studios. Cuba's most-famed anti-Castro blogger Yoani Sanchez {above} now takes full advantage of new Cuban rules that permit the most virulent dissidents such as her to travel around the world, including Miami, to spread anti-Cuban venom...and then return to Cuba. In the U. S. again this week, Yoani Sanchez announced that, back in Cuba, she is starting a "digital newspaper," which probably will be lushly funded, perhaps by U. S. tax dollars just like Radio-TV Marti!

       Now the first stop for the steady parade of Cuban dissidents leaving the island is the U. S. Congress or the Casa Blanca {the White House}. The photo above shows Yoani Sanchez, the most famed Cuban dissident, being roasted and toasted in Washington by two of the U. S. Senate's most anti-Castro zealots, Marco Rubio and Robert Menendez. Since 1959 the massive anti-Castro cottage industry in the United States has enriched and empowered Cuban exiles in Miami {like Rubio} and Union City {like Menendez} and Cubans {like Yoani Sanchez}. Now that Cuba has allowed dissidents like Yoani Sanchez to travel back-and-forth between the island and the rest of the world, anti-Castro zealots as well as anti-Castro financial benefactors are taking full advantage. But Fidel Castro is 87, his brother Raul is 82, and a non-revolutionary not named Castro {Miguel Diaz-Canel} has already been named the next leader of Cuba to continue a vast array of market-oriented economic policies now underway. So, how will that affect the vast and deeply embedded anti-Castro economic and political industry in the United States of America?

    Josefina Vidal, Cuba's Minister of North American Affairs and the island's expert on all things American, has an opinion and prediction regarding post-Castro Cuba. She says, "The Cubans on the island will handle the transition from the Castro and Revolutionary rule to non-Castro, non-revolutionary rule. However, a small number of Cuban dissidents who benefit from Cuban exiles in America trying to regain dominance of the island will not disappear. We will continue to allow them to demonstrate here and even fly to the United States to find sustenance. And how will the second and future generations of Cuban exiles and their American colleagues react to a non-Castro, non-revolutionary Cuba? I believe they will invent and mandate issues and laws in the U. S. designed to continue the economic and political advantages they have enjoyed from America's Cuban policy since 1959. Money and power attained from their Cuban policy has been contagious...generation to generation. So, as long as they control the Cuban policy in the U. S., nothing that happens in Cuba will alter their profitable belligerence. That's why they opposed Cuba's flirtation with democracy in 1959, that's why they won't let the U. S. negotiate with us on the status of the imprisoned Alan Gross, and that's...well, you get the picture. The thirst for money and power coupled with revenge has fueled a powerful Cuba-exile industry in the United States. It desires the status quo or the recapture of Cuba. Therefore, we know they are studying hard how to deal with post-Castro, market-oriented Cuba. Yoani Sanchez and the small community of dissidents on the island tied to the Cuban exiles and benefiting from them are also busy. Did I read in the Denver Post newspaper that Yoani Sanchez, when she returns to Cuba, will start a...what did she call it...a digital newspaper? Well, we expect it to be well funded and promoted...sort of like Miami's Marti broadcasts...in both the U.S. and by spy operatives on the island. So, what else is new?"

Well, Ms. Vidal...............

    

    .......Miguel Diaz-Canel will soon be the non-Castro, non-revolutionary President of Cuba. That will be new. He is shown here being hugged by a non-dissident Cuban admirer.

  

  

   And from 2016 till 2024 Marco Rubio might well be Vice President of the United States with Jeb Bush President. That would be new, Ms. Vidal, for both Cuba and the United States.

    And then from 2024 till 2032 Marco Rubio could be President, Robert Menendez Vice President, and Ted Cruz Secretary of State. After that their children could succeed them. That, Ms. Vidal, would essentially create a Batistiano America, which also would be totally new for Cuba, the U. S., and the world.

   But, of course, the liberal Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 could postpone the Republican/Batistiano march of Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio to the White House, which would then be called "Casa Blanca." That, Ms. Vidal, would be new. However, it would not be much better because Bill and Hillary Clinton are famous for selling out to the highest bidder when it comes to Cuba, as the current Democrat in the White House, Mr. Obama, has done. So your question "what else is new?" has a two-word answer in the U. S.: "Not much." You see, Ms. Vidal, the White House is already "Casa Blanca" when it comes to Cuba. When Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and/or Ted Cruz take it over, the White House will become "Casa Blanca" for the whole country. Sadly, this generation of Americans appears poised to sit back and allow it to happen. 

So, Casa Blanca and 

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