A Stacked Deck

Against Americans & Cubans

     Thursday's Republican Presidential Debate in Houston, as the eight prior ones, revealed two basic things about the U. S. democracy: {1} It's been bought-and-paid-for by unsavory, undemocratic, and greedy billionaire individuals and corporations; and {2} the mainstream U. S. media, owned by individual and corporate billionaires, is nothing more and nothing less than an assortment of self-serving propaganda machines. The prime purpose of the debates is clearly two-fold, to spread corporate propaganda and to make money with the expectant high viewer ratings. CNN, like all the other hosting networks, again allowed the Republican National Committee to stack the deck, starting with who the RNC allows to be in the live audience. Instead of just allowing the American people to decide who they will vote for, both the RNC and the television networks have stacked the deck in favor of Marco Rubio, the first-term U. S. Senator from Miami who hit the Senate begging every conservative, right-wing, and Jewish billionaire on the planet to back his presidential bid. A total failure, except as an obstructionist anti-Obama zealot, Rubio is last among the 100 Senators when it actually comes to showing up to vote. Yet, from an extremely weak Republican list of presidential wannabees, the Republican party and the broadcast media are both extremely biased against all other candidates in their favoritism for Rubio. Shamelessly, as Donald Trump again pointed out Thursday night, the RNC, with the connivance of CNN and the other networks, always stacks the live debate audience with Rubio supporters, accounting for wild shrieks whenever Rubio says something. Such tactics insult the intelligence of the viewers in a money-crazed, seemingly unending process, which is also related to the networks feasting on advertising dollars. Yet, it seems, the viewers are more intelligent than they are supposed to be, accounting for the fact that millions of democracy-lovers are desperately seeking a non-political candidate because they obviously and correctly have figured out that established politicians are bought-and-paid-for by greedy, unsavory billionaires.

        This photo was taken Thursday night during the last Republican presidential debate on CNN. The image above was the very moment that front-runner Donald Trump had pointed to his right and called Marco Rubio "a choke artist" and then gestured to his left and called Ted Cruz "a liar." Indeed, Rubio and Cruz also dominated the comedy-like session calling Trump both a fraud and a liar. Incredibly, all three of them are correct and, yet, they are THE THREE TOP REPUBLICAN CONTENDERS to be President of the United States beginning in January of 2017, less than a year away!!! Trump, a billionaire businessman, is unqualified to be President but he surely would be a better choice than the two totally bought-and-paid-for right-wing Cuban-Americans who are proof that moderate, non-extremists Cuban-Americans need not apply for national office because presumably they would not sell their political souls to the highest bidders. Yet, there are well over a million moderate Cuban-Americans far more qualified to be in the U. S. Congress or the White House than the likes of Rubio and Cruz. Even the MAJORITY OF REPUBLICANS seem to understand that, accounting for Trump's amazing and totally unanticipated lead in the polls.

     Regardless of what the ubiquitous television pundits say, the Republican presidential sweepstakes is a two-person affair -- Donald Trump vs. Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz is awash with many millions of right-wing and evangelical dollars but the Republican establishment will prop up only Rubio as the alternative to Trump. That is possible because Rubio's shortcomings can easily be sanitized by many millions of right-wing and Jewish dollars as well as the corporate billionaire ownership of the television networks that fully realize that Rubio has by far the biggest "For Sale" sign on his back, and being for sale is surely the prime prerequisite to getting elected. Thus, without doubt, the television anchors and pundits -- and not just Megyn Kelly at Fox -- are obligated to shrill for Rubio. Beyond that, the Republican National Committee can further stack the deck in Rubio's favor with a billion dollars in extra cash and such blatantly non-subtle tactics as stacking debate audiences with Rubio supporters, making it appear to supposedly stupid viewers that he is wildly authentic while Trump or any other opponent is derisively shrilled downward.

        Friday morning after Thursday night's debate in Houston, Marco Rubio went one-on-one with Matt Lauer on NBC's top-rated Today show. Four times in a very short span Rubio called Donald Trump a "con artist." It was clearly obvious that Rubio's band of high-priced publicists and script-writers had just rehearsed and over-rehearsed that new "con artist" tag. The grossly over-scripted memorizer Rubio, unlike the smart and extemporizing but equally dangerous Cruz, will remain a threat to reach the White House because of his money and the sanitizing of his character by political ads and obliging, fawning networks.

      In an earlier Republican debate, Chris Christie -- the abrasive New Jersey governor -- famously defanged and befuddled Marco Rubio as a robotic fraud who merely memorized scripted lines. Christie, a skilled former prosecutor, prompted five almost back-to-back repetitious, scripted lines from Rubio.

         Christie had been one of the original 17 Republican presidential contenders till he and most of the others  were wiped away by the startling, unprecedented Trump support. Yet, as the above photo shows, Christie on Friday threw his support behind Trump. It is well-known that Christie cannot stand Donald Trump. But if the alternative to Trump is Marco Rubio, Christie and many others will be forced to join the Trump bandwagon. Voters either don't vote or choose the lesser of two or three or four or even 17 evils.

        The Republican Party could easily Stop Trump and then defeat the flawed Hillary Clinton, but not with Marco Rubio although the deck is clearly stacked for Rubio by the Republican Party, the television networks, and twenty-or-so multi-billionaire right-wingers. Any of a million moderate and talented Cuban-Americans would qualify as decent and viable presidential contenders, but not Rubio. Ken Silverstein, a veteran and respected investigative journalist, has labeled Rubio the most "corrupt" presidential candidate in recent memory, which includes Nixon. Silverstein, in his major article, listed numerous names and dates depicting Rubio's corruption, all of which is ignored or sanitized by the mainstream media. Even when the mainstream New York Times listed some of Rubio's unsavory real estate, credit card, etc. dealings, MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough that morning held up the article and declared that it "will get Rubio elected President," the typical reaction of other anchors shamelessly shrilling for Rubio. On television and in his stump speeches, Rubio gets stirring applause when he repetitiously recounts his poverty-stricken upbringing in Miami where his Cuban mom was a maid and his Cuban dad was a bartender. It is never pointed out that Rubio as a Cuban-American in Miami had massive advantages non-Cuban Americans were never afforded, especially once he aligned his political career to the obligatory Bush dynasty and the Tea Party. Even when untruths about Rubio are revealed, the mainstream media wouldn't dare mention such revelations. For example, Rubio made it all the way to the U. S. Senate from Miami with the obligatory claim that his parents escaped the Castro tyranny in Cuba although, truth be known, they escaped the Batista tyranny in Cuba long before Castro overthrew it. But you don't get to the U. S. Senate from Miami, or to the White House from Miami, by denouncing Batista or by not vilifying Castro.

      Of course, Fox News is the home-base for Marco Rubio and right-wing Republican politicians, anchors and pundits. But I use the above graphic to remind you that this is 2016, the era of Google. You do not have to depend on right-wing or left-wing propaganda machines. Google, for democracy's sake!! For example, this week -- Friday, Feb. 26 -- the day after the Republican debate in Houston, USA Today had yet another article about how Rubio bilked taxpayers in Miami, does the same in the U. S. Senate, and surely would replicate such things in the White House. That USA Today article written by Paul Singer, in case you want to Google it, is entitled: "Rubio-led Group Seldom Meets." Here are the first two paragraphs:

                                                 "Since March 2013, Sen. Marco Rubio has co-chaired a Senate arms control task force that has met only three times, yet his office has accepted each year a $100,000 reimbursement for the costs of staffing the group."

                                            "A week before he was named co-chairman of the working group, Rubio was one of 11 Republican senators and 42 Democrats to vote down a proposal by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., to shut it down because it has a $700,000-a-year budget. The panel provides no public records of its meetings and offers no disclosure of how its money is spent."

             That article in USA Today Friday is merely one example of how Rubio uses his Senate position to rake another $700,000 from helpless taxpayers. As for the other 11 Republicans and 42 Democrats who backed him up on this little scam, please remember that Miami Cuban-Americans learned long ago that acquiring sycophants in Congress..."You support my bill and I'll support your Bridge to Nowhere bill"...is a lot easier than intentionally falling off a log. That's how the all-time richest and most powerful Cuban-American, Jorge Mas Canosa, easily got Congress to pass whatever anti-Castro, pro-Miami Cubans law he wanted...and this occurred right-after the Reagan-Bush administration advised Canosa {as detailed in Julia E. Sweig's great book} to study and then replicate a lobbying machine similar to AIPAC, which maintains Israel's control of the U. S. Congress. Canosa learned from AIPAC, Rubio and a long line of Cuban-Americans in Miami have learned from Canosa. So, instead of being bamboozled by political ads or by propaganda machines, google, Google, GOOGLE!! One place to start is this week's USA Today article about how the "choir boy" Marco Rubio legally secured another 700,000 of our tax dollars that, perhaps, could have served a more decent purpose, like feeding the one-in-five America children who are hungry. 

        In the last Republican presidential debate in Houston back on Thursday night, there was much discussion about immigration, a prime topic that has helped Donald Trump's amazing candidacy. But the discussion only served to illustrate just how gutless and incompetent the U. S. media is on Cuban-related issues. One of the major news items this past week was President Obama's announced plans to close the gosh-awful U. S. prison on occupied Cuban land at Guantanamo Bay. But the CNN/Telemundo moderators of the debate did not have either the guts or the competence to even ask two extremists Cuban-Americans, Rubio and Cruz, about that very topical and very important issue. Meanwhile, two days prior to the Thursday debate in Houston Rubio had actually slipped back to the Senate to initiate a cowardly bill that would bar President Obama from discussing the return of the stolen Guantanamo Bay to its rightful owner, Cuba. The Rubio-led bill was co-authored by three other easily attained right-wing Senators -- Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Richard Burr of North Carolina, and Tom Cotton of Arkansas -- who are also Tea Party darlings. It was, typically, another stupid right-wing gesture because President Obama has no intention to discuss returning the plush and expensive Guantanamo Naval Base to Cuba but he does plan to close the right-wing prison that Amnesty International calls "the gulag of our time." BUT THE POINT IS THIS: Even with the topicality this week of Guantanamo Bay and Rubio's gutless bill in the Senate, the CNN/Telemundo moderators of the debate typically didn't have the guts or integrity to ask questions related to such things even though two of the top three Republican candidates to be President are Cuban-American extremists. And in the acute discussions about immigration, there was, of course, no brave question about the gross Wet Foot/Dry Foot U. S. law that starkly favors and enriches and entices Cuban immigrants while also starkly discriminating against and deporting NON-CUBAN IMMIGRANTS, also a topical topic because of the thousands of unfettered Cubans currently crossing the Mexican border. In that milieu in which America's two-party political system as well as the U. S. media are bought-and-paid-for, yes, a Marco Rubio or a Tony Montana can be elected President of the proud United States of America!!

      Lindsey Graham -- the veteran, war-mongering, right-wing Senator from South Carolina -- has been a strong supporter of first Jeb Bush and now the two Cuban-American Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. But Friday, the day after the Houston debate, Graham took to the Senate floor, donned a Donald Trump baseball hat, and proclaimed: "My party has gone bat-sh*t crazy!" Indeed it has, Senator Graham, and for once during your incumbency you have fired off a legitimate sound-bite. That unfortunate mental illness has been exacerbated by entrenched right-wing Republicans like you, Mitch McConnell, etc., that Americans cannot vote out of office even as they are punished and ridiculed by such asinine incumbency. But you are correct with your assessment of the endless, money-grubbing Republican presidential sweepstakes. If Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz are the top three Republican presidential candidates, the party is indeed "bat-sh*t crazy" and a handful of right-wing billionaires are welcome to it.

        That leaves even a lifelong conservative Republican like me no choice but to support Hillary Clinton -- even with her far-left liberalism, her controversial e-mails as Secretary of State, and the countless money Wall Street has paid her. But, in a money-crazed, flawed two-party political system, if the Democrat Clinton can save America and the world from a White House occupied by right-wing thugs, more power to her.

Uh:

Did I mention that the deck is stacked against democracy-lovers??

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