Cubans Appreciate Obama

And Take Advantage of His Courage

            Online and in print London's great newspaper The Guardian does the best job of letting the world know what is happening in Cuba. This past weekend it used this Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images photo to illustrate an article written by Tyler Wetherall. He wrote: "Tour operators around the world are reporting such high demand for travel to Cuba that hotel rooms in Havana are selling out months in advance, with some agencies unable to offer availability until April of 2016. With an estimated 10 million Americans a year expected to visit Cuba when the 54-year-old U. S. trade embargo is lifted, other nations are already heading there in droves. But is the country ready for the influx?" The answer is: Not quite. Cuba has upped its hotel prices while the government is spending money upgrading and increasing its hotel rooms. So are individual Cubans who rent out rooms in their homes, a process known as Casa Particulars {Particular homes}. A handful of visceral Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Congress can block the lifting of the embargo but in doing so they will increasingly draw the wrath of everyday Americans, who desire and deserve the freedom to travel to Cuba, and American businesses who are anxious to make money in Cuba.

        Thanks to caring Americans, especially President Barack Obama, and caring leaders around the world, especially Pope Francis, this is now a very common sight throughout the island of Cuba. {Photo above courtesy: Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images}. The caption read: "A few years ago, this would have been regarded as an act of treason in Cuba," meaning a U. S. flag flying beside a Cuban flag at a Cuban home.

         This photo is courtesy of Alamy and was used in the aforementioned article in The Guardian. It shows Nivia Melendez in her home in Santiago de Cuba preparing an excellent Cuban meal for her paying customers, tourists who covet and pay for such home-cooked meals. Restaurants in private Cuban homes are called Paladars. For many years experienced foreign visitors, including me, have frequented Paladars. There are now many more of them thanks to the Cuban government reacting to a thawing of U. S. relations by allowing for more-and-more entrepreneurs...like Nivia Melendez. Visceral Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Congress -- Rubio, Cruz, Ros-Lehtinen, Diaz-Balart, etc. -- want the embargo and other antagonisms against Cuba to continue for another 54 years. They assume the American people are stupid enough or coerced enough to believe that such cruel sanctions hurt the now 89-year-old Fidel Castro. Sane Americans, of course, agree with all the other countries around the world concerning the embargo: It hurts decent, innocent Cubans like Nivia Melendez who are trying to make decent, honest livings for their families. Restrictions from the Cuban government are not Nivia's biggest enemy but the cruel U. S. sanctions are. 

           The Cuban people still deeply appreciate this summer's visit of Pope Francis on the heels of his monumental influence in persuading Presidents Obama and Castro to become friendly neighbors.

 Mr. Obama is doing all he can do to help the Cuban people.

        The entire world, except for Israel, each year at the United Nations voices strong opposition to the continuation of the U. S. embargo against Cuba, a Cold War relic that shames the U. S. and democracy.

        Last week -- on October 27th, 2015 -- this was the final tally of the UN vote that vehemently opposed the U. S. embargo of Cuba -- 191-to-2 with no abstentions. The United States is unable to persuade even its best friends around the world to support its Cuban policy; the U. S. provides vast amounts of economic and military aid to a plethora of nations but only nuclear-powerful Israel, by far the biggest recipient of U. S. money and arms, can be enticed to support the U. S. embargo of Cuba. And...sane democracy-loving Americans should understand that a 191-to-2 majority opinion should be respected in a democracy.

        A handful of Cuban-American anti-Castro zealots in Miami -- such as Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart -- are able to dictate to the U. S. Congress a Cuban policy that most Americans, most Cuban-Americans, and the entire world opposes. The Diaz-Balart brothers have both been elected to the U. S. Congress from Miami as vicious anti-Castro zealots. Their father was a key Minister in the Batista dictatorship that was overthrown by the Cuban Revolution way back in 1959. Miami then became the new center for two generations of Cuban exiles, most of whom are now democracy-loving Americans but they, as well as America's Cuban policy, are dictated to by only a few very rich and very powerful anti-Castro zealots.

        This photo shows Fidel Castro welcoming Pope Francis to his modest home in Havana earlier this year. The photo was taken by Alex Castro, Fidel's son. Fidel is now 89-years-old -- unwell but also unbowed, except physically. Still keen of mind, he remains a voracious reader and avid newshound. But he is now only the eternal symbol of the Cuban Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba that replaced, back in 1959, the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. That event shocked the world. But the longevity of Revolutionary Cuba, against imposing odds, has shocked the world even more. The two monumental events have thrust the island of Cuba onto the international stage far out of proportion to its size, population or wealth. As proven by last week's 191-to-2 vote in the UN, the rest of the world admires major aspects of Revolutionary Cuba, such as its resilience and tenacity. Fidel himself is now merely a spectator of the U.S.-Cuban relations that good people, like the Pope and President Obama, are trying to mend. But the vast and lucrative Fidel Castro Industry in the United States still benefits a handful of rich and powerful people, allowing a few extremists, through two generations now, to dictate a nefarious Cuban policy that {1} shames America's best friends around the world and {2}, as those friends pointed out during their vote in the UN last week, the U. S. Cuban policy is a violation of international laws that they, if not the U. S., respect. In 1976 Americans were successfully told to accept the terrorist bombing of a child-laden civilian Cuban airplane as "the biggest blow yet against Castro." In 2015 Americans are being told to disregard that 191-to-2 vote in the United Nations. Like in 1976, and all the years since 1959, this generation of Americans will passively and timidly accept the propaganda concerning the 2015 UN vote. Earlier this year, on his airplane flight from Cuba to the U. S., Pope Francis was asked what he told Fidel Castro. The Pope's face reportedly exuded emotion as he pondered the question. He cupped his hands together and looked downward as he tapped his knuckles against his chin for about a half minute. When he looked back up he said, "I told him I'm truly sorry, and that history will be much kinder to him than his enemies have been."

 President Obama treats President Raul Castro decently and cordially.

          The 89-year-old Fidel Castro has never met President Obama. Mr. Obama has never been to Cuba. However, he plans to visit the island in 2016, the last year of his 8-year, two-term presidency. If so, he will be warmly welcomed by Cubans who deeply appreciate what he has done on their behalf. In 2016 Fidel will turn 90. If he is still alive when President Obama visits Cuba, Fidel would welcome him into his home.

        As I said, Fidel is still keen of mind and a voracious reader. This photo shows him reading a biography of Barack Obama. Fidel has been told {by Josefina Vidal} that President Obama may not ask to see him in 2016 on his planned presidential visit to the island, but that Obama as a private citizen in 2017 would "most surely, if possible" like to meet Cuba's "greatest legend." Fidel's reply to Vidal was, "Then I'll try to make it a point to still be alive in 2017 because I think Cuba owes him a debt. He is brave and good."

           Back in 1973 Fidel Castro uttered the words quoted above. The U. S., remarkably, now has a black President, Mr. Obama, and Pope Francis, a native of Argentina, is, remarkably, the first Latin American Pope. In 2015 both the U. S., as represented by President Obama, and Pope Francis, the first Latin American Pope, have "come to talk to us." Only one human being on the planet, Fidel Castro, predicted those three things. Of course, many of America's best historians have concluded that, in Cuba's David vs. Goliath struggles against the United States since 1953, "Fidel Castro has out-smarted eleven consecutive U. S. presidents." Only the historians in Miami would disagree with that, and they may be a bit biased.

"The U. S. will come to talk to us...

when they have a black president....

and the world has a Latin American Pope."

{Fidel Castro, 1973}

Wow!!!!!!!!
No wonder the Batistianos are still in Miami, not Havana!!

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Rubio's Double-Cross of Jeb Bush

 Good for Rubio, Bad for America
Sharply updated: Saturday, October 31st

      There was a vote in the U. S. Senate yesterday -- Friday, October 30th -- and Senator Marco Rubio actually showed up and voted!! His hometown newspaper -- The South Florida Sun-Sentinel -- had chastised him for "ripping off" his Miami constituents and suggested he should "resign." Rubio didn't plan to vote Friday because he was too busy campaigning for President and fund-raising. But he changed his mind and actually flew to Washington to vote, which is his highly paid job! Letters-to-the-Editors in the Sun-Sentinel, Miami News, and the Miami Herald have berated Rubio for such things as "favoring Israel over the people who sent you to the Senate!" A Rubio as President, many feel, would "rip off" the United States and not just Miami.

       The fawning U. S. media is claiming that Rubio's canned verbal assault on his mentor, Jeb Bush, in this week's Republican debate in Colorado will catapult the first-term Senator from Miami into the White House. Uhhh, maybe. But...maybe not!

     Jeb Bush has shocked the political establishment by relinquishing his once taken-for-granted dominance of the Republican presidential campaign. He now seems unable to fathom what he, his powerful family, and the top echelon of the Republican party consider Marco Rubio's double-cross. The media might be right; it might propel Rubio to the White House. But it also might be Rubio's biggest mistake. A longtime key Jeb supporter, a Cuban-American in Miami, this weekend stated: "When the media smoke from Colorado clears, Rubio will be back begging for Jeb's help. Marco was a very poor high school student. He wasn't much better in college. At age 26, and you can look it up, he decided to use his Cubanism to get into politics in Miami and Florida. The very first cash donation he got was a $50 dollar check from Jeb Bush. Marco still shows off a copy of that check. What he forgot in Colorado this week was this: the Bush family still dominates the Republican Party and Marco is a Republican. As a Cuban-American, Marco should remember first off that he is an American. He flies off to Israel with his biggest money-backers. Just two Jewish billionaires -- Norman Braman and Sheldon Adelson -- are worth over $40 billion and they alone say they can put Marco in the White House. Marco says the first trip he will take on Air Force One is to Israel. It should be to Miami, where Jeb and others gave him his start and where there are a lot of people who need both help and representation. As Commander-in-Chief it appears Marco's first task would be to recapture Cuba while, maybe, he should admit that most Cuban-Americans in Miami disapprove of his Cuban vitriol, which mostly harms innocent Cubans. Maybe, as the newsmen are saying, Jeb doesn't want the presidency bad enough. But it is for sure that Marco wants it too much. That, even from a Miami perspective, is dangerous for the future of America."

        Meanwhile, Rubio and his staff this weekend are bragging about a fresh tsunami of donated cash and about the suspected boost in the polls. He has the powerful support of Tea Party zealots, a cluster of Jewish billionaires, most of the mainstream media, the influential Fox News operation, and even the support of my favorite sister-in-law who likes "his looks." I asked her if she knew where he was from? She replied, "Uh, Minnesota...I think." I didn't ask her anything else. Rubio, in addition to these aforementioned assets, has a scripted stump speech and scripted, memorized retorts to tough questions, such as his disdain for the Senate and his highly questionable financial background. But he is not nearly as smart at Ted Cruz, the other first-term Cuban-American Republican Senator running for president. Also, Cruz, unlike Rubio, is a brilliant debater and extemporaneous speaker...although Cruz is too far to the right to win the Republican nomination that would be available to a better-directed and better-intentioned, and less vain, Rubio. However, if Rubio can win the Republican nomination for President while going to war with the Bush dynasty, then going to war against ISIS, Russia, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, China, etc. -- once he reaches the White House -- should be a veritable piece of cake!! Yikes!!!     

               On October 22nd, the New York Times had a pertinent article regarding U. S. diplomat Roberta Jacobson that explained how a couple of Cuban-Americans politicians...Senators, actually...from Miami and New Jersey can harm America without any fear of ever being held accountable. {Photo courtesy: Cliff Owen/Associated Press}. The Editorial began with these three paragraphs that Americans should heed:

               "Washington's relationship with Mexico is one of its most important and at the moment one of its thorniest. Yet, the American diplomat who was nominated to serve as ambassador to Mexico in June has yet to be confirmed by the Senate to take up the post.
                 "The reasons for that have nothing to do with the qualifications of the nominee, Roberta Jacobson, a veteran State Department official who runs the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.
                "Ms. Jacobson played a leading role in re-establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba. This has greatly annoyed two influential Cuban-American senators, Marco Rubio of Florida and Robert Menendez of New Jersey, who want to keep America's policy toward Cuba stuck in a Cold War mentality. And under the Senate's opaque confirmation process, all it takes to sink the nomination of a qualified public servant is one or two people with a grievance."

       Senator Marco Rubio from Miami and Senator Robert Menendez from New Jersey have a free reign in the U. S. Congress to stuff their Cuban bias down the throats of Americans without fear of being held accountable by pusillanimous or passive American voters and taxpayers. Each October in a UN vote the nations of the world, as they did yet again on Tuesday of this week, resoundingly denounce such behavior but propagandized Americans have been properly schooled to dismiss it. The aforementioned New York Times editorial on October 22nd dealt with "the pettiness" of Rubio and Menendez in blocking the confirmation of the brilliant U. S. diplomat, Roberta Jacobson, and keeping her from taking up her important assignment as Ambassador to Mexico. WHY? Because Jacobson brilliantly and decently represented the U. S. in the diplomatic sessions that helped ease the punitive U. S. relations with Cuba, so punitive and illegal under international law that all 191 nations, including America's best friends in the world, powerfully voted to support Cuba and denounce the U. S. in the UN this week. {The vote was 191-to-2 with only dependent Israel siding with the U. S.}. So, in addition to stuffing their Cuban vendettas down the throats of Americans, Senators Rubio and Menendez seem to care not a bit that their Cuban bias, in the eyes of the world, makes the U. S. more resemble a cruel Banana Republic than a decent democracy.

      This photo shows Senators Rubio and Menendez flanking Yoani Sanchez, Cuba's most famed dissident. This image points out two things: {1} Cuba is trying real hard to get past the Cold War animosity that has shaped U.S.-Cuban relations since the U. S. teamed with the Mafia to support the brutal Batista dictatorship in Cuba in 1952; after the Cuban Revolution overthrew the Batista dictatorship in 1959, Cuba did not expect the Batistianos to quickly reconstitute their regime on U. S. soil, not even in the two Mafia-havens of Miami and New Jersey. One indication that Cuba is looking to a more peaceful future is the fact that it allows its most famous dissident, Yoani Sanchez, to fly to Miami, Washington, etc., to gain sustenance, or whatever, and then return to Cuba where her anti-Castro literary endeavors become better funded and better promoted for her worldwide anti-Castro market. In Cuba as well as the U.S. the lush Castro Industry thrives. In Miami and Washington especially, Sanchez is treated like a superstar as well as the Queen and First Lady of Cuba. Meanwhile, {2} Cuban-American members of Congress insist on punishing 11 million Cubans on the island with such abominations as the embargo that was begun way back in 1962 for the stated purpose of starving and depriving Cubans to induce them to rise up and overthrow the now 89-year-old and un-thrown Fidel Castro. Additionally, everyday Americans are unconscionably punished by not having the freedom to visit one place on this planet -- Cuba. That, apparently, is so Cuban-Americans like Rubio and Menendez can control the Cuban narrative in the U. S. and, if Americans could freely visit the nearby island, they...heavens forbid!!...might form their own opinions. That, if it became a reality, might cut sharply into the wealth and power of America's very lucrative Castro Industry, which is powered by a handful of Cuban-Americans and enabled/legalized by the malleable, lobbyist-infested United States Congress.

        The New York Times editorial excoriating Senators Marco Rubio and Robert Mendendez for blocking the badly needed Ambassadorship to Mexico of the highly qualified Roberta Jacobson was dated October 22, 2015, in case you missed it. It is one of the endless stream of anti-American ploys perpetrated by Cuban-American members of the U. S. Congress from Miami and New Jersey to shove their Cuban bias down the throats of Americans, democracy, and America's best friends all around the world.

        The South Florida Sun-Sentinel is the best and most respected newspaper in South Florida. On October 23rd -- the day after the NY Times editorial slammed Rubio and Menendez -- the Sun-Sentinel published a long, scathing editorial expressing its frustration about the "criminal" activity of Cuban-American politicians in South Florida, nefarious efforts that adversely affect not only the citizens of South Florida but also sharply impacts all Americans. The Sun-Sentinel editorial seemed mostly intent on castigating South Florida's contemptuous contributions to the U. S. Congress. For example, it deeply excoriated what it called {exact words}: "A revolving-door criminal pipeline enabled by our nation's unique immigration policy for Cubans." Later, in another even more graphic editorial, the Sun-Sentinel -- on Marco Rubio's home soil -- strongly suggested that "Marco Rubio should resign" and "and stop ripping us off."

      Yes, the The South Florida Sun-Sentinel was talking about this Marco Rubio. The powerful paper in his own backyard wants him to "resign" from the U. S. Senate because the paper's Editorial Board believes he is "ripping us off." Rubio reached the hallowed halls of the U. S. Senate four years ago because {1} he is a Cuban-American from Miami; {2} he latched onto the coattails of Jeb Bush and the entire Bush dynasty; and {3} he latched onto the right-wing coattails of the Tea Party. Except for vowing to shutdown the U. S. government if he didn't get his way, and vowing to block or turn back every positive overture President Obama makes regarding Cuba, Rubio has accomplished nothing in the Senate. His main venture was sponsorship of an immigration bill that famously tanked. By his own admission, Rubio finds his highly lucrative and powerful position in the U. S. Senate boring. He hit the Senate running breathlessly for President of the U. S. Of the 100 Senators, he has by far the worst record for even showing up to vote. He's too busy campaigning for President and begging America's Jewish, right-wing, and conservative billionaires for money to fill his campaign coffers and Super-PACs. Meanwhile, even perfunctory research reveals an astonishing history of financial irregularities associated with Rubio -- credit cards, personal use of campaign funds, real estate deals including the purchase of houses with no down payments and the weird purchase of a house in Tallahassee with a controversial politician as his partner, etc. The NY Times devoted a famous article delineating some of Rubio's questionable financial dealings. The next morning one of his acolytes -- MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough on his politically influential "Morning Joe" program -- held up that NY Times and loudly proclaimed, "This will get Rubio elected President!"  Scarborough, a multi-million-dollar anchor and former conservative Republican member of the U. S. Congress from Florida, is typical of the Teflon-coated treatment Rubio gets and will continue to get in the media. He made it all the way to the U. S. Senate with his bio claiming his parents escaped the Castro tyranny in Cuba for the freedom of Miami. That obligatory lie prevailed till...uh...it was pointed out that Rubio's parents escaped the Batista tyranny in Cuba long before Castro took over. Rubio's primary stump speech and campaign retorts stress his "rags to riches story." He never fails to point out that his Cuban father in Miami was a barkeeper and his Cuban mother in Miami was a hotel maid. Of course, what he conveniently fails to mention is the sheer fact that being Cuban or Cuban-American in Miami affords him privileges that non-Cubans or non-Cuban-Americans do not have. That has resulted from startling anti-democratic laws in the U. S. Congress designed to enrich and empower Cubans, and only Cubans, who touch or have touched U. S. soil. When his hometown newspaper, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, suggested that Rubio "resign" from the Senate and "stop ripping off" his constituents in South Florida, the paper's editorial correctly mentioned the "revolving-door criminal pipeline" from Miami-to-Washington and then from Washington-back-to-Miami. Of course, there is now a legion of volatile and highly paid Rubio pundits/propagandists who will successfully make lemonade out of Rubio's lemons, and Americans will be expected to drink every drop of it.

          In 1989 Jeb Bush put a very lucrative halo around the head of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. She was one of Miami's most visceral Cuban-born anti-Castro zealots. Jeb was her Campaign Manager. He and the Bush dynasty put Ros-Lehtinen in the U. S. Congress in 1989...where she remains entrenched to this day. It was Jeb's way of laying down his political roots in Florida, leading to his two terms as Florida's Governor. Since 1989 every Miami Cuban-American who has made it to the U. S. Congress has been attached to the Bush dynasty. That includes Ros-Lehtinen, the Diaz-Balart brothers Lincoln and Mario {whose father was a key Minister in the Batista dictatorship}, and...Marco Rubio, the man who is double-crossing Jeb Bush.

         Marco Rubio was hand-picked for the U. S. Senate by his dear friend and mentor Jeb Bush. Jeb, because of the immense financial clout of the Bush dynasty in a money-crazed political system, was the presumptive easy victor in the Republican presidential sweepstakes. As President, Jeb would have given Rubio whatever position he wanted -- Secretary of Defense or State, etc. And after Jeb's one or two terms as President, the Bush machine would have promoted a still-young Rubio as President. But things have changed drastically. The young, ambitious, and vain Rubio has roundly double-crossed his mentor, Jeb.

           This is now the photo that best depicts the Marco Rubio-Jeb Bush relationship. They are enemies, estranged, etc., regardless of what their high-priced publicists say. Jeb is flummoxed and unforgiving over the betrayal of being double-crossed by Rubio. Having said all this, if you bear with me, I will herewith tell you how the Jeb-Rubio spat will evolve and, moreover, I'll tell you who will end up as the Republican presidential candidate in 2016. And, oh yes, I will even divulge HOW I know IF you keep it a secret.

        Josefina Vidal is Cuba's Minister of North American Affairs. Readers of this Cubaninsider blog may recall that many months ago I published an essay in which I revealed that Vidal had told close friends visiting Cuba from Spain: "I am working hard as I can, with the concurrence of Presidents Castro and Obama, to normalize relations with Cuba. We can and will attain a lot but only because of Obama and even with him Congress can block most of it, and roll back much of what we achieve. We are, as you may know, making a lot of changes in order to keep Cuba as safe as possible and as sovereign as possible. Normalization of relations with the U. S. is best for Cuba and will occupy me forever. But I am also focused on post-Obama...what will follow him as U. S. President and, just as important to us, the U. S. Commander-in-Chief. In that regard, I am preparing for what will be the Marco Rubio presidency in the United States beginning in January of 2017. That's how it will be. If we are not prepared for that eventuality, Rubio, our demise will be our fault."

         When Josefina Vidal had that visit from her Spanish friends, Rubio's poll numbers were at a dismal 4%. If, at the time, any human other than Vidal had predicted a Rubio presidency in 2017 I would have laughed out loud. But not at Vidal. Not when the topic is the United States. So, you may recall, months ago when I got that inside info from a reliable source, I wrote a long essay about it on Cubaninsider explaining my belief in Vidal's prediction. Vidal's knowledge of U.S-Cuban relations is nonpareil. The ubiquitous pundits on cable television in the U. S. are not even close. Since the year 2000 her uncanny assessment of the U. S. government and U. S. politics has been Cuba's greatest asset. Cuba survived the George H. W. Bush one-term Presidency because of sheer luck. Cuba survived the George W. Bush two-term Presidency because of Josefina Vidal. Going forward past President Obama, if Cuba is to survive and sustain its sovereignty, it will be because of Josefina Vidal. If Cuba is allowed to prosper in the next decade, it will be because of her. She is that unique. That special. That talented. And, mostly, she is pure Cuban!

         The United States has a plethora of advantages over Cuba. But it does not have a diplomat or a politician that can either out-smart or out-maneuver Josefina Vidal. So, in the ongoing David vs. Goliath tussle, she makes it sort of even. When she said months ago that she was "preparing for" Rubio to be the next U. S. president, no one really believed her. Some do now. More will later. Speaking in Spanish or English, either on Cuban soil or U. S. soil, Vidal never backs down when it comes to defending Cuba. No one intimidates her. Months ago, her Spanish friends had never heard of Marco Rubio. She explained who he was/is. One of her Spanish friends then marveled, "We over in Spain think about the moneybags, Bush or Clinton. But Rubio? What would that mean?" Quickly and sternly, Vidal retorted, "It would mean that the Batistianos had captured the U. S. government BEFORE they recaptured the Cuban government!"

America and Jeb Bush may not be ready for a Rubio presidency,

But.........

Josefina Vidal is!!

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Cuba Moves Forward Boldly

Relishes International Support

Thursday, October 29th, 2015

        Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is in Cuba this week, pointing out to Cuban President Raul Castro that "the entire world" supports what Cuba "is trying positively to do against imposing odds." Mr. Renzi was referencing Tuesday's UN vote in which the entire world, except for the U. S. and acolyte Israel, emphatically denounced the U. S. embargo of Cuba. Renzi said, "I am strongly urging Italian businesses to invest very heavily in Cuba. The Italian government maintains and will maintain this commitment with renewed confidence." Already 120 Italian companies have signed up to participate in the upcoming Havana Fair, the island's chief trade showcase.

        Rodrigo Malmierca, Cuba's Foreign Trade and Investment Minister, heralded Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's strong support of Cuba's economic future. Then Malmierca made this significant statement, "As the Prime Minister Renzi understands, Cuba has a political will to diversify in our bright new economic scenario." 

"a political will to diversify"

"our bright new economic scenario"

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Another UN Vote Shames America

In Denouncing Cuban Embargo
WThursday, October 29th, 2015

       Tuesday, for the 24th consecutive October, the nations of the world strongly denounced an American Cuban policy that, since the 1950s, has shamed America and democracy as well as America's best friends around the world. In the United Nations this week, the vote was 191-to-2 against the U. S. embargo of Cuba, a cruel anti-Democratic abomination that was installed back in 1962 for the purpose, according to declassified U. S. documents, of starving and depriving Cubans on the island to entice them to rise up and overthrow Fidel Castro. 1962! Starvation and Deprivation imposed on a smaller nation by a much more powerful one, which at the time happened to be the most respected nation in the world. This week's vote in the United Nations is a reminder that newsman Tom Brokaw famously anointed the Americans that led the free world to victory in World War II in 1945 as "The Greatest Generation" of Americans. However, by 1952 when the U. S. teamed with the Mafia to support the brutal-thieving Batista dictatorship in Cuba, and by 1953 when the CIA engineered the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz, the democratically elected President of Guatemala, America's Greatest Generation had begun to dissolve. What has been left is the sheer fact that the last two generations of Americans can be labeled The Worst, The Most Cowardly, The Most Ignorant, and the most Un-patriotic Generations in America's history. If that sounds like too harsh an indictment, then justify the 191-to-2 vote in the United Nations; then justify a policy since 1962 designed to starve and deprive innocent people on a nearby sovereign island; then justify acquiescing to the mantra in the Miami media that the terrorist bombing of a child-laden civilian airplane was "the biggest blow yet against Castro"; and then justify the photo at the top of this essay that depicts the vote at the United Nations. 191-to-2! 191-to-2! 191-to-2!

      Once again this week Israel was the only nation in the entire world that voted in the UN to support the United States embargo of Cuba. Israel, a world nuclear superpower, is also the only nation in the whole wide world that receives billions of dollars in economic and military aid every year from United States taxpayers.

      America's two-term President, Barack Obama, has begged the dysfunctional, bought-and-paid-for, right-wing U. S. Congress to end the embargo of Cuba. Mr. Obama, a decent and democracy-loving man, is ashamed of the image, depicted above, that the embargo casts on the United States and on democracy. Unfortunately, the last two generations of Americans have not had either the guts or the decency to support Mr. Obama's Cuban overtures. Last month the Associated Press reported that Mr. Obama planned to tell his UN ambassador "to abstain" on the embargo vote. Not surprisingly, considering the threats and pressure Presidents Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton {the other three Democratic Presidents since 1962} received, Mr. Obama backed off that abstention plan. In the past year Mr. Obama has bravely done all he can do with his Executive Powers to normalize relations with Cuba. But he has been and will be stymied by a generation in which the U. S. Congress, the U. S. media, and the American people simply do not have the guts or the patriotism to support him.

      Therefore, this week's 191-to-2 vote in the UN reflects this image of America that is now emblazoned around the world. But this pusillanimous generation of Americans doesn't have the courage to react sanely to this image, and neither does the intimidated and/or incompetent U. S. media. But for two generations, the world's most powerful democracy...and once the most respected democracy...has allowed remnants of an overthrown foreign dictatorship that reconstituted itself in nearby Florida in 1959 to shame what had been the greatest form of government ever devised. For what it was worth, that is what the world, including America's best friends, expressed to the American people at the UN this week. That expression will be shamefully ignored.

191-to-2

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UN and Baseball Spotlight Cuba

Plus A Key Visit to Cuba Today

        Today -- October 27th -- Alejandro Mayorkas will visit Cuba for the first time since 1960 when he left the island with his family at the age of six months. {Photo courtesy: Scott Applewhite/Associated Press}. Alejandro is a very important man in the U. S.; he is the second ranking official at America's Department of Homeland Security. On his three-day visit to Cuba this week, Alejandro will meet with top security people on the island to work on issues mutually beneficial for the citizens of both countries. His dad died in Los Angeles three years ago at age 81 and Alejandro told The Los Angeles Times, "It was always my dream to return to Cuba with my father, so this first visit back on the island without him will be quite emotional."

       Democracy lovers in the United States will be embarrassed today when the yearly vote in the United Nations once again registers the world's opinion on the U. S. embargo of Cuba. It was instituted in 1962 after multiple assassination attempts against Fidel Castro in 1959 and 1960 as well as the Bay of Pigs attack in 1961 had failed to recapture Cuba following the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959. The vile U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship had, by 1962, firmly restructured itself on U. S. soil with Miami as its new capital, a fact that fueled the assassination attempts against Castro, the Bay of Pigs attack, the embargo, the terrorist bombings of Cuban hotels and coastal cabins, and the terrorist bomb that downed the child-laden civilian Cuban airplane Cubana Flight 455 in 1976. Then  -- beginning in the 1980s when visceral Cuban-Americans aligned with the Bush dynasty began dictating Cuban policy in the U. S. Congress -- cruel congressional laws such as the Torricelli Bill and the Helms-Burton Act began legally codifying cruelty against Cubans on the island while lushly enriching and empowering Cuban-Americans. The embargo that the UN votes on today was imposed in 1962 for the purpose of starving and depriving Cubans on the island to induce them to rise up and overthrow Fidel Castro, presumably for the purpose of restoring the Batista-Mafia dictatorship on the island. In the last few years the UN vote against the embargo has been 188-to-2 with only Israel joining the U. S. in supporting it, and the Israeli vote is dismissed because it receives billions of dollars in economic and military aid each year from the U. S.

       Today's vote in the UN denouncing the U. S. embargo of Cuba is particularly interesting because this year's Herculean and brave efforts by President Barack Obama have loosened as many aspects of the embargo as he can accomplish via his Executive Power. Yet, only the U. S. Congress, dominated by right-wingers and Batistianos, can eliminate it, and that won't happen. Meanwhile, the two graphics directly above resonate worldwide to shame America, democracy, and democracy-lovers such as President Obama. Mr. Obama has called for an end to the embargo. A few weeks ago his administration even indicated he was going to instruct his UN ambassador to abstain from voting on the issue, which would have been unheard of. But the powers that have dictated America's Cuban policy apparently forced him to change his mind, just as the three other Democractic presidents since 1962 -- Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton -- have been viciously thwarted when they attempted to normalize relations with Cuba. Like many other aspects of U.S.-Cuban relations, that is not a healthy or politically correct deduction, but it is a factually correct one.

         Sarah Stephens is the Founder and Director of the Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americas. She loves democracy and there is no one on this planet that knows more about U.S.-Cuban relations than Ms. Stephens. Unfortunately, that's precisely why Americans will seldom be exposed to her important and sane viewpoints. The mainstream U. S. media has neither the guts nor the integrity to balance the very slanted and propagandized U.S.-Cuban equation with decent, democracy-loving experts such as Sarah Stephens. Thus, especially on the four cable news outfits, anti-Cuban propagandists reign supreme. But to access Ms. Stephens' expertise on the embargo and other aspects of U.S.-Cuban relations, you should frequent her Center for Democracy in the Americas website. Each Friday she posts a Cuba Central update that is the very best and most precise coverage of U.S.-Cuban developments.    

    The 2015 World Series starts tonight in Kansas City, Missouri. In the U. S. and especially in baseball-mad Cuba, fans eagerly await the first pitch. All of America's thirty Major League teams now feature Cuban stars. That's because the island, per capita, produces the world's best baseball players; and it's because, unlike in Cuba, baseball superstars can make hundreds of millions of dollars after defecting to America; and it's because talent pipelines from Cuba to the U. S. are now massively greased to {1} hurt Cuba and {2} to enrich, in addition to the players, a long line of traffickers, agents, etc., etc. Not surprisingly, the two best hitters on the two World Series teams -- the Kansas City Royals and the New York Mets -- are Cubans.

       Kendrys Morales is the best hitter for the American League champion Kansas City Royals. A powerful switch-hitter, Kendrys in the regular season hit .290 with 22 homers and 41 doubles, and he led the Royals with 106 runs-batted-in. He was born in 1983 in Fomento, Cuba. Now he is one of many multi-millionaire U. S. Cubans.

      Yoenis Cespedes is the best hitter for the National League champion New York Mets who wouldn't be in the World Series if they had not made a trade to obtain Yoenis this season. In 2015 he hit .291 with 35 homers and had 105 runs-batted-in. He is also a brilliant defensive outfielder with a powerful and accurate throwing arm. He is a free agent after the World Series, which means the Mets and all 29 of the other Major League teams can bid for him. Some are saying Yoenis will receive offers starting at $25 million a year. Yoenis has been slowed recently with a sore shoulder but he'll be in the Mets' starting line-up for tonight's World Series opener. He was born in 1985 in Granma, Cuba, and defected to the U. S. four years ago.

Viva Cuban Baseball players!!

Including those still on the island.

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Florida's Cuban Crime Is Legal

Embarrassing South Florida

And Shaming America
Updated: Monday, October 26th, 2015

         On October 23, 2015, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel published a long, long Editorial that is entitled "WELFARE ABUSE BY CUBAN IMMIGRANTS DEMANDS ACTION." It excoriated a cancerous problem in the U. S. democracy that has festered since 1959, one that Americans have been expected to be too scared, too ignorant, or too unpatriotic to address. The Editorial is a long-awaited reaction to a fact of life: In 1959 the Cuban Revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship on the island only to have the fleeing Batistianos-Mafiosi quickly reestablish their dictatorship on U. S. soil, namely South Florida. The crime and mayhem that followed in South Florida, along with the numerous paramilitary units and terrorist operations designed to recapture the island, reshaped America. But not as much as America has been reshaped since the 1980s by a Cuban policy dictated in the U. S. Congress and in the Bush presidencies by a handful of the most visceral Cuban exiles aligned with their easily acquired sycophants such as the Bush dynasty and members of Congress such as the infamous Robert Torricelli {Torricelli Bill}, Jesse Helms, and Dan Burton {Helms-Burton Law}. With no opposition from an intimidated, ignorant, and unpatriotic American populace, the crime and mayhem in South Florida became legal beginning in the 1980s with congressional laws dictated by a handful of Miami extremists aligned with a handful of self-serving acolytes. All such laws were supposedly designed to eliminate Castro and return the U.S.-backed Batistianos and Mafiosi as rulers of Cuba. But primarily the plethora of Cuban exile-dictated U. S. laws, as Fidel Castro has aged to 89 in Havana, have merely enriched and empowered a handful of Cuban-Americans,  making them richer and more powerful than the Batista-Mafia dictators in Cuba ever dreamed of being. Now, at least, the best newspaper in South Florida, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, is actively campaigning to encourage the America people to finally challenge the miscreants who have used the vast Castro Industry in the United States to shame the most sacred aspect of the United States -- its democracy.

            Passive, intimidated, or unpatriotic Americans won't bother to read the long Sun-Sentinel Editorial, but those concerned about their democracy, even if they are in the minority, should read its every word. It starts with these paragraphs:

               "In January the Sun-Sentinel reported that American businesses and taxpayers lost more than $2 billion over the past two decades because of a revolving-door criminal pipeline enabled by our nation's unique immigration policy for Cubans.

               "More recently, our investigative team found that Americans are paying $680 million per year in welfare benefits to Cuban immigrants, some of whom use the money to return to the island. Some are living in Cuba on U. S. benefits.

               "Fearing persecution and fearing for their lives? Hardly.

               "Bilking American taxpayers? You bet?" 

            That's only a tiny bit of the long Editorial in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel on October 23rd. It goes on to delineate aspects of Cuban exile-dictated U. S. laws that benefit only Cuban exiles while harming and discriminating against everyone else, legal laws such as the Cuban Adjustment Act, Wet Foot/Dry Foot, etc., which proselytized Americans pay for with their tax dollars and democracy pays for by not being able to correct it. Those of us who have been to Cuba are aware of Cubans on the island who either laugh at the U. S. or merely express amazement that Americans have allowed this to happen in what is still perceived as a democracy. The "revolving-door criminal pipeline" referenced in the above Editorial regularly sends tax dollars from Washington to Miami, and Americans are not supposed to realize that IT IS LEGAL, thanks to laws passed in an easily bought-and-paid-for, dysfunctional Congress that allows a handful of self-serving Cuban-Americans from South Florida and New Jersey dictate a Cuban policy crafted to appease them and hurt everyone else, including those who are paying for the travesty. The hometown South Florida Sun-Sentinel bravely names many of the most infamous and well-known politicians who are responsible for the Cuban Adjustment Act, Wet Foot/Dry Foot, and other affronts to the beloved American democracy.

   

         From its start in 1953 till its triumph on the first day of 1959, the Cuban Revolution was fueled by brave, outraged Cuban women like the mother carrying the poster above about her murdered son.

       These three members of the Batista dictatorship, shown at a Batista rally in 1958, ended up in South Florida in 1959 along with many other Batistianos who formed paramilitary units designed to recapture Cuba with the acquiescence of U. S. taxpayers. Many other anti-Castro zealots -- such as the infamous Miami resident Luis Posada Carriles -- were quickly sent to the then secretive Army of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia, where U. S. taxpayers paid for their training leading up to such things as the Bay of Pigs attack in 1961, a failed attack that enshrined Castro's revolutionary legend. The man in the center of the above photo with the holstered pistol became one of Miami's richest and most powerful men, and two of his sons have been elected to the U. S. Congress as ongoing anti-Castro zealots from Miami. The aforementioned Editorial in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel suggested strongly, I believe, that in the year 2015 it is finally time for the American people, not just a second generation of visceral Cuban-Americans, to at least participate in a Cuban policy that makes the U. S. resemble a Batista-like Banana Republic.

       It was wrong in 1952 for the U. S. democracy, which at the time was the greatest form of government ever devised, to team with America's leading Mafia thugs to support the Batista dictatorship in Cuba. The justification -- so a few rich Americans could also participate in the rape and robbery of the lush island -- was also wrong. Yet, Americans since 1959 have been propagandized to deny those two basic facts.

       The Cuban Revolution from 1952 till 1959 established an island in the Caribbean as a major player on the international stage, far out of proportion to its size, population, or wealth. Yet, Americans to this day are not supposed to comprehend the evolution of the revolution that was spawned by a few right-wingers in the U. S. government in the 1950s and, for all these decades since, has insanely remained just to appease a handful of a second generation of right-wingers.  The primary victims have been: {1} Democracy; {2} most Americans; {3} most Cubans; and {4} most Cuban-Americans.

       Beginning in 1959, at taxpayer's and democracy's expense, the most visceral anti-Castro zealots, such as Luis Posada Carriles, were sent to the secretive Army of the Americas at Fort Benning in Georgia. By April of 1961, after the failure of many assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, U. S. taxpayers unwittingly paid for the extensive training of Army School graduates to attack Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Still unable to recapture Cuba, by the 1970s vicious terrorist acts included such things as assaults on coastal fishing cabins, hotel bombings, and -- on Oct. 6-1976 -- the terrorists bombing of a civilian Cuban airplane.

Cubana Flight 455 crashed into the ocean, killing all 73 on board.

       Through the decades since 1959 every Caribbean and Latin American nation poignantly knew that Posada Carriles remained active as an exile-and-CIA anti-Castro tax-paid operative, needing high-powered U. S. efforts to get him out of prisons in Venezuela and Panama. Posada Carriles was born on February 15, 1928, in Cienfuegos, Cuba. Now at age 87 he is to this day a much-heralded citizen of Miami, Florida.

       Declassified CIA and FBI documents, plus such things as a Posada Carriles interview by Ann Louise Bardach that was published in the New York Times, leave no doubt about Cubana Flight 455 and other vicious projects that Americans to this day are not supposed to factor into ongoing U.S.-Cuban relations.

       But the distraught Cuban girl pictured here on the left in this photo to this day in the year 2015 very palpably factors Cubana Flight 455 into U.S.-Cuban relations. When the above photo was taken on Oct. 6-1976, she was waiting with her mother for her brother, a teenage athlete who had won a Gold Medal, to return on Cubana Flight 455. When this photo was taken, they had just learned that the airplane had crashed into the ocean with no survivors. Since 1962, thanks to Cuban exile-dictated laws, everyday Americans have been prohibited from visiting one place on this planet -- Cuba. But President Obama in 2015 has removed a few of those restrictions, allowing more Americans, at least while he remains in office, to visit the island. If you do so, you might seek out this Cuban girl, now a woman, and ask her if she still remembers...Cubana Flight 455.

         The individual most responsible for chasing the Batistianos and Mafiosi off the island of Cuba, all the way to nearby South Florida, was a doctor's daughter named Celia Sanchez. That's a fact although Americans are not supposed to know it, and they don't. And that's because the Cuban narrative in the U. S. since 1959 has been controlled by the remnants of the Batistianos and Mafiosi who have found it much easier to vilify, say, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, etc., while implying that they were Mother Teresa-types on the island. Yet, as a guerrilla fighter herself, as a top military strategist, as the top recruiter of rebels and supplies, and as the only revolutionary who could and did over-rule Fidel Castro, Celia Sanchez remains to this day the primary reason the Batista-Mafia dictatorship was booted off the island of Cuba...all the way to South Florida as it turned out and as The South Florida Sun-Sentinel referenced in its strong Editorial.

        Celia Sanchez was born on May 9th, 1920, in Media Luna. Her father, Dr. Manuel Sanchez, was head of the Cuban Medical Association. Celia and her dad lamented the wholesale thievery of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship that was supported by the U. S. government on behalf of rich and greedy U. S. businessmen. But that dire situation was not what turned Celia Sanchez into history's all-time greatest female revolutionary. To quell dissent on the island, children were routinely murdered as warnings to the populace not to resist what was happening. And Celia became aware that peasant girls as young as ten were kidnapped to serve as lures for rich pedophiles who were coveted as gamblers in the ubiquitous Mafia-run hotel-casinos. Those were the two prime reasons the child-loving and Cuba-loving Celia Sanchez became the biggest mistake Batista, the Mafia, and the U. S. ever made in Cuba.

           While Americans are not supposed to know about Celia Sanchez, she will always be a legend in Cuba, the Caribbean, and Latin America. She lived very modestly but fought greed very tenaciously.

      Celia died of cancer on January 11, 1980. But because she lived for over 59 years, Cuba, the Caribbean, and Latin America are better places...especially for children.

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