Obama Needs to Duck!!
And so does Carnival Cruise Lines!!
And so does Carnival Cruise Lines!!
Carnival Cruise Lines this week is reeling after incurring the wrath of the vast Castro Cottage Industry, a powerful and normally unchallenged enterprise that has reserved the right, since the 1959 overthrow of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba, to dictate America's Cuban policy. Abiding by President Obama's brave and mammoth efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, Miami-based Carnival -- the world's leading cruise line -- planned to begin Miami-to-Cuba cruises next month, May 1st. This week, on April 13th, a major article in USA Today began with this paragraph: "The first cruise ship scheduled to sail to Cuba from the United States is under fire and now faces a federal lawsuit {in Miami} because people born on the island are forbidden from the voyage." Carnival very innocently had assumed that was OK because of all the U. S. laws that sharply benefit Cuban-Americans, including allowing them to freely go to Cuba, but sharply discriminate against everyone else, including average Americans who have been denied permission to travel to Cuba since 1962 thanks to all those U. S. laws that favor Cuban-Americans and discriminate against everyone else. But Carnival now realizes it left itself vulnerable to the Castro Cottage Industry, especially one that is fuming about President Obama's mighty efforts to normalize relations with Cuba.
Carnival's motto is "FUN FOR ALL. ALL FOR FUN." It's a good motto, except if the Castro Cottage Industry headquartered in Miami dislikes it. With Carnival's plans for that May 1st cruise to Cuba known for weeks, the wonder is why it took so long for the Cuban hard-liners in Miami to take Carnival to one of those convenient Miami courtrooms. After all, at least till President Obama bravely removed Cuba from the Sponsors of Terrorism list, Miami lawyers had green lights to charge Cuba with whatever they wanted to think up and then easily win mammoth lawsuits in Miami courtrooms in which Cuba was not even represented. And then, by U. S. law {remember how easily such laws have been rammed through the U. S. Congress} the power of the U. S. government backed up those claims, firing off huge checks from Washington to fulfill those lawsuits with what it sometimes called "frozen Cuban assets." And so, for all those decades Cuba was on the Sponsors of Terrorism list, Miami lawyers had an additional Gold Mine.
Robert Rodriguez {above} is the high-profile Cuban-American lawyer in Miami who sued Carnival, the giant cruise line based in Miami. My advice to Carnival is...settle quick, REAL QUICK! Although the majority of Cuban-Americans in Miami support President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, it is still a handful of anti-Castro hardliners in Miami who have set and still maintain the city's Cuban posture just as it is only anti-Castro hardliners -- Ros-Lehtinen, the Diaz-Balart brothers, Rubio, Curbelo, etc. -- that can get elected to the U. S. Congress from Miami although polls show most Cuban-Americans are not hard-liners.
This week's lawsuit in Miami against Carnival Cruise Lines reminds me of Ana Margarita Martinez. Back before President Obama finally removed Cuba from the Sponsors of Terrorism list, Miami lawyers could sue Cuba for whatever their clients wanted them to sue Cuba for. With Cuba never even represented in those Miami courtrooms, the verdicts were...uh, let me say...rather foregone conclusions. Ana was born in Cuba but, tuh, flowered into a beautiful woman in Miami. Ana, like so many others, sued Cuba. Her claim was a bit unusual but...what the hell...it was a claim. She was married to Juan Pablo Roque for seven years, but he got very homesick for Cuba and returned to the island. Ana also claimed he liked Fidel Castro, so her claim was essentially that her marriage was a ruse and it actually constituted being raped via false pretenses. She won her case and was awarded $7.175 million plus $20 million in punitive damages for a total of $27.175 million dollars. It was later reported that, with the government's help in securing the money, Ana was given three Cuban airplanes that had been hijacked from Cuba to Florida. But this true story gets even better.
Juan Pablo Roque, before he left Ana in Miami and returned to Cuba, was well known in Miami's famed Little Havana anti-Castro conclave. In this photo, for example, Juan is shown with Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, perhaps America's most notable and most visceral Cuban-born anti-Castro zealot {not counting Miami's infamous Luis Posada Carriles}. Ros-Lehtinen has represented Miami in the U. S. Congress since 1989.
This is Juan Pablo Roque, Ana's ex-husband and Congresswoman Ileana's ex-friend. He is shown here on the telephone after he left Ana and returned to Cuba. The Miami News covered the story like a blanket and called Juan in Havana. He was asked, "Juan, what do you miss most about Miami?" Now if you like Soap Operas, you probably think Juan replied, "My beautiful former wife Ana, of course." But you would be wrong! He immediately answered, "MY JEEP!!" I kid you NOT!! As a democracy-lover, I wish I were kidding you.
This photo shows the beautiful Ana Margarita Martinez in Miami with Juan's BELOVED JEEP and the fruits of that nice lawsuit. But I have a coda to this story that will knock your socks off. When I first started these Cubaninsider essays, one of my first posts was on November 2, 2011, and it was entitled "The Country That Raped Me." It chronicled Ana's successful Miami lawsuit against Juan. That essay is still posted and you can access it by Googling: "The Country That Raped Me" (A True Story) Cubaninsider." And you might want to do that because -- LO 'N BEHOLD -- last month, March of 2016, Ana herself sent a comment to that post!! If you Google up that post you can read Ana's comment at the end of it and also my reply back to her. Her belated comment makes me almost feel like a part of this courtroom Soap Opera.
And now you know why I advised the Carnival Cruise Lines to make a quick settlement regarding the Miami lawsuit lodged against it relating to its proposed cruises to Cuba. As far as I know, and probably as far as Ana knows, those Cuban-American lawyers haven't lost too many lawsuits in Miami courtrooms.
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